Okay, here’s another kinda convoluted one.
At some point in the spring or summer of about 1997, I snapped a picture of the storefront at 35 West 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, which was a shop called Magickal Childe. I’ve spoken about it before, here, quite a few times, but Magickal Childe was essentially an occult emporium, selling esoteric books and black magic knickknacks for spells, rituals, ceremonies, conjurings and the like. It was the perfect gift shop for all the Aleister Crowley acolytes in your family. A lot of folks spoke about Magickal Childe in hushed, ominous tones, but I never felt any sense of dread or unease in the place. The one item I remember actively buying there was an inverted pentagram pendant because,….well… METAL!
Personally speaking, Magickal Childe, to me, always embodied that now-rarefied essence of New York City. It was this wildly niche sorta concern that catered to a very specific demographic, but was still a thriving venture, very much an “only in New York” sorta place. It was there for several years, as I remember, until it closed in 1999, in the wake of the death of its proprietor, a guy named Herman. The vacated space at 35 West 19th Street became a tapas restaurant, as reported here, named Sala in 2004 and lasted until the pandemic forced its closure in 2020. Today, the space is in transition, but there are signs in the window that say “VINYL STEAKHOUSE,” suggesting a strange amalgam of record store and steak joint. Not quite sure how that works, but I being that I like both records and red meat, I wish them all success.
In any case, back in 1997, I was genuinely fascinated with Magickal Childe, so I snapped that picture. Those with a sharp eye for detail might notice that I even appear in the photograph, reflected in a mirror in the center of the shop’s window (just underneath and slightly to the left of the gold pentagram). I had no agenda in capturing the image beyond thinking it just looked cool.
Some years went by, and I ended up posting the photograph, along with several others, on an entry on this stupid blog under the title “Things That Are Not There.” As it turns out, photographs of Magickal Childe must be few and far between, as people started to reach out to me about it. I fielded a request from one reader to sell a print of it to him. I think I just ended up sending him a copy of it free of charge. I didn’t think much of it.
Years after that, some readers might remember my laborious search for the location of a certain photograph of the Lunachicks. When I finally got in touch with the photographer, a guy named Joe Dilworth, he graciously emailed me the contact sheet with the mystery photo in it. Along with the answer to my quest, that contact sheet also boasted a shot of the Lunachicks chatting with this guy who looked strangely familiar. I swiftly deduced that the guy in question was the same kid depicted in some age-old hardcore matinee photos by Drew Carolan. I realize this is all very confusing, but bear with me. As if on cue, that kid — named Anderson Slade — bizarrely got in touch with me out of the blue on Facebook. By this point, he was no longer a little punk rock kid from Staten Island, but now an aspiring actor and filmmaker who was putting together a documentary about Magickal Childe and wanted to use my photograph. I said “sure,” and then let him know about the photo of him and the Lunachicks, which blew his mind. You can read a more detailed about that whole chapter here.
Slade’s documentary, entitled “Horrible Herman’s Warlock Shop,” was in development for quite a while, and even had some trailers posted on YouTube, but those have since been taken down and there’s no news of any release dates. Anderson Slade is also no longer on Facebook. The plot thickened.
Cut to 2022. With the wife in London for the London Book Fair, I am suddenly free to watch stuff on television that I wouldn’t normally be able to. As such, I start watching “Sons of Sam: Descent into Darkness,” a four-part documentary series on Netflix that explores one investigative reporter’s feverish quest to break the story that David “Son of Sam" Berkowitz did not act alone. Even as a sniveling ten year old during the summer of 1977, I still vividly remember the atmosphere of paranoia that gripped New York City, so have always been fascinated with the story. Here’s the trailer…
In any case, halfway through the first episode, they start discussing the uptick in fascination with the occult in the `70s, stemming from disillusionment with the hippy ideal of the late `60s. In doing so, they start showing images of Wiccan ceremonies, illustrations from the Rosicrucian secret histories of the world, Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, Aleister Crowley and …. fleetingly … MY PHOTOGRAPH OF MAGICKAL CHILDE.
I instantly sat up from my bowl of General Tso’s chicken and hit pause. What the fuck, Netflix? I don’t remember being asked about use in any Son of Sam doc. Laughably, I suddenly felt sort of violated, but then…. given the already-established paucity of images of the exterior of Magickal Childe, outside of screenshots from the Nicholas Cage film “Vampire’s Kiss” in which the shop makes a cameo, mine seems to be the first thing that comes up in a Google image search. Being no stranger to liberally appropriating images for this blog, I shouldn’t be surprised. But still, having a rinkydink blog post a pic without due credit is one thing — use in a major feature film on Netflix is another.
I started combing through my emails, with friends' voices in my head shouting “you can SUE them!” I wasn’t really interested in any financial gain from this, I was just kind of curious how they found it and a little hurt that they didn’t see fit to ask me if they could use it.
Then I figured it out.
Chalk it up to the fog of the pandemic or the steady erosion of my short-term memory, but in July of 2020, a company called “Radical Media” apparently reached out to me to say they were putting together “a documentary series for Netflix that features a storyline about the occult presence in NYC back in the 1970s and 80s, and we wanted to feature a photograph of the occult book shop Magickal Childe. It turns our there are very few photographs easily accessible, but a photo that you took of the storefront is one that comes up and is of good quality."
Evidently, I said “sure, no problem,” and even signed a release. I did not charge them anything for the use. They asked how I’d like to be credited, and apparently I wrote “Alex S./Flaming Pablum” in the email.
I watched the first episode to the end credits. Under the “photos courtesy of…” section, neither my name nor my blog’s dumb name came up. I watched the second, third and final episodes. A credit was never mentioned. I guess my signed release absolved them of that necessity, but that still kind of bummed me out.
That petty affront notwithstanding, I still recommend “Sons of Sam.” If you’re a bona fide New Yorker and a true crime buff, it’s a fascinating series, however grim (what? you were expecting frivolity??)
I was running errands earlier this week, and found myself not far from 35 West 19th Street, so took a short detour to revisit it.
Here’s how it looks today.
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