This from Nick Culpeper…
This month’s Sight & Sound has a five page illustrated article on Kenneth Anger by Tony Rayns, to mark the release of the BFI’s two-disc DVD of Anger’s ‘Magick Lantern Cycle’.
I was living in Cambridge in 1967 & joined the University Film Society which was then being run by Rayns & in 1968 for the first time saw some of Anger’s films.
In Feb of 1970 Rayns put on the ‘Magick Lantern Cycle’ & in his programme announced that he was hoping Anger would make an appearance to show rushes of ‘Lucifer Rising’. At the time I had never seen a copy of the Pauvert ‘Hollywood Babylone’ but as Heffer’s bookshop searched for out-of-print books I asked them to try & find me a copy hoping I would have it before February & could get Anger to sign it. The book never turned up at Heffers & Anger never turned up at the Society.
I did find the book at last at a London book fair in 1986, a steal at £12.50. I took this together with the Straight Arrow & Dutton ‘Babylons’ 1 & 2 to the Private View of the Crowley paintings exhibition at the October Gallery in 1998, knowing Anger would be there & got him to inscribe all three. Some hours later I returned home sitting on the train clutching the three books, I was as happy as a pig in shit. Nick.