And speaking of David Cronenberg...the Canadian wasn’t the first director to take a stab at J.G. Ballard’s novel.  The San Diego-born (but London educated) Harley Cokeliss directed a version of his own in ‘71.

Since Crash, the novel, was still two years down the road, Cokeliss based the film on some fragments found in Ballard’s Atrocity Exhibition.  And, perhaps even more suited to the role than James Spader, Ballard himself starred as the film’s lead.  From the Ballardian:

With his brooding, hypermasculine presence, Ballard plays a version of Atrocity’s ‘T’ character alongside the actor Gabrielle Drake, her own role a composite of the book’s archetypal ’sex-kit’ women.  The film was a product of the most experimental, the darkest phase of Ballard’s career.  It was an era of psychological blowback from the sudden, shocking death of his wife in 1964, an era that had produced the cut-up ‘condensed novels’ of Atrocity, plus a series of strange collages and ‘advertisers’ announcements.’

The Ballardian link includes a scene-by-scene description of the hard-to-see short, but, since it’s a recent addition to YouTube, you can start watching it right now below:

 
Crash! Part II

 
Wonderful short essay from Christopher Hitchens, writing about British novelist J.G. Ballard on the occasion of the publication of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard.

From The Atlantic:

For all that, Ballard is arguably best-known to a wide audience because of his relatively ?

 
Spotted at the Ballardian, Rick McGrath‘s great, first-person account of what went down at the recent memorial for J.G. Ballard on what would have been the “Bard of Shepperton’s?

 
Let’s hope Congress throws a bone to that Cash For Clunkers program, fast!  In what feels like a further sign-of-our-Ballardian-times, My Interesting Files has posted these photos of unsold cars from around the world.  The sheer acreage of unclaimed autos is staggering.  As are the numbers behind them: Sales of new cars in the UK have slumped to a 12-year low, and the number of cars rolling off production lines fell, at the tail of last year, 47.5% to just 53,823.

 
Unsold Cars From Around The World