Blog - jahsonic.com

May 2004 Blog

WWW jahsonic.com

Part online encyclopedia, part music criticism, part blog, JahSonic.com is a fabulous example of hybrid academic/popular discussion of music, culture, subculture, cultural studies, art...you name it. I particularly like the page on subculture. --Jean Burgess via http://mstu2000.blogspot.com, MSTU2000 Music Subcultures and the Media, The University of Queensland, Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Blogs I Read

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/conversations/ Philosophical conversations between two Australians Trevor and Gary, covering a wide range of philosophical topics.
http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~aabb/plus9.html A daily, art-related, weblog from Osaka, Japan.
http://www.geocities.com/headlobe/Blog.html My dear friend Dominique's blog
http://www.mixoftheweek.com Pre-recorded, weekly mixes of soul, house, techno, dub and other groovy sounds. Consistent high quality.
http://www.novaplanet.com/radiolive/novalive.asp Not a blog, but the best radio-station in the world, broadcasting from Paris, Europe
http://www.woebot.com Very good music blog.
2004, May 30; 16:32 :::: art

The Prix Ars Electronica is a yearly prize in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), one of the world's major centers for art and technology. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Ars_Electronica [May 2004]
In 2004, the Golden Nica, the highest prize, was awarded in six categories: "Computer Animation/Visual Effects," "Digital Musics," "Interactive Art," "Net Vision," "Digital Communities" and the "u19" award for "freestyle computing." Each Golden Nica came with a prize of 10,000 Euros, apart from the u19 category, where the prize was 5,600 Euros. In each category, there are also Awards of Distinction and Honorary Mentions. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Ars_Electronica [May 2004]
I was on the Digital Communities jury this year for Ars Electronica. Thanks to the two jury pre-selection and final jury process, we were able to spend a lot of time on the 60 or so entries that were selected from hundreds of submissions by the first jury. We had an awesome jury. The final jury was me, Andreas Hirsch, Shanthi Kalathil (co-author of Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule), Jane Metcalfe (co-founder of Wired), Dorothy Okello (Coordinator of the Women of Uganda Network), Howard Rheingold (the Smart Mobs guy ;-) ) and Oliviero Toscani (The guy who made the controversial Benetton ads). We gave our two Golden Nica cash prizes to Wikipedia and The World Starts With Me. I'm sure everyone knows Wikipedia. The World Starts With Me is a project from Uganda. --Joi Ito http://joi.ito.com/archives/2004/05/05/prix_ars_electronica_prizes_announced.html [May 2004]
2004, May 28; 23:28 :::: Industrial

Thesis: Industrial music, in its original late-'70s incarnation, was the second flowering of an authentic psychedelia. ("Authentic" meaning non-revivalist, untainted by nostalgia). There was the same impulse to blow minds through multimedia sensory overload (the inevitable back-projected, cut-up movies behind every industrial performance—attempts at "total art" only too redolent of 1960s happenings and acid-tests). And industrial, like psychedelia, believed "no sound shalt go untreated"; both adulterated rock's "naturalistic" recording conventions with FX, tape splices, and dirty electronic noise. -- by Simon Reynolds, July 25th, 2003 6:00 PM, www.villagevoice.com/issues/0331/reynolds.php
2004, May 28; 20:02 :::: Judith

Artemisia (1997) - Agnčs Merlet [Amazon.com] [FR] [UK]

I love Artemisia Gentileschi's work. I've painted her self-portrait in my art class. She and Frida Kahlo are among my favorite painters. So when I learned there was a movie about her life, I rented it. Yes, the cinematography is lush. But no, the story is not true. To treat the rape of a young lady with a cavalier attitude does this great woman and artist a terrible injustice. Artemisia painted the horrific and powerful "Judith Slaying Holofernes" as an angry reaction to her rape. We don't see this anger in the movie as she paints this vicious canvas. And that, at least in this sense, deprives Artemisia of her power. No, sadly this could have been a fine film. While I liked some parts of it, I found it too focused on her sexual daillances with Agostino. Lovely cinematography and music do not a movie make. Where was the depth of characterization? And, most importantly, where was the whole truth? But until another and better Artemisia movie is filmed, I suggest the book "Artemisia Gentileschi" by Mary Garrard. It contains the complete transcript of the rape trial. And it is far more detailed than what the movie showed. --A viewer from Louisville, KY USA via amazon.com
2004, May 28; 00:54 :::: Judith

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 - 1652/1653), daughter of well-known Roman artist, Orazio Gentileschi (1563 - 1639), was one of the first women artists to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art. In an era when female artists were limited to portrait painting and imitative poses, she was the first woman to paint major historical and religious scenarios.
Born in Rome in 1593, she received her early training from her father, but after art academies rejected her, she continued study under a friend of her father, Agostino Tassi.
In 1612, her father brought suit against Tassi for raping Artemisia. There followed a highly publicised seven-month trial. This event makes up the central theme of a controversial French film, Artemisia (1998), directed by Agnes Merlet.
The trauma of the rape and trial impacted Artemisia's painting. Her graphic depictions were cathartic and symbolic attempts to deal with the physical and psychic pain. --http://members.ozemail.com.au/%7Edrbrash/artemisia/index.html [May 2004]

Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1598) - Caravaggio (1573-1610)

Judith (1540) - Jan Sanders van Hemessen
2004, May 28; 00:28 :::: Georges Bataille

Encyclopaedia Acephalica: Comprising the Critical Dictionary & Related Texts (Atlas Archive, 3) - Georges Bataille (Editor), Isabelle Waldberg (Contributor), Iain White (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Designed from cover to back with many diagrams, photos, etc. this is a nice piece of book. It contains writings by Bataille that were published separately in a surrealist type group's periodical which is fantastic when put together here. From A to Z Bataille defines in a dictionary/encyclopedic type style various terms, objects, actions, and in this format really grabs a reader by his perspective and YANKS, turns ya around to see things differently than you could've ever imagined. There's much more than that though, other writing, including an introduction that mentions Bataille's attempt at creating a secret society. A great book to not just read, BUT TO OWN, whether a frequent reader of Bataille or as just a curious soul. "Acephale", by the way, means without head, and as you might know: Decapitation is really in these days so buying this Book will make you cool. --The International Rubber Chicken Society via amazon.co.uk
For those who have acquired the taste for surrealist intellectual feasts, this encyclopedia is right on target: it is no less than a cornucopia of thoughts, images, and illustrations reflecting the avant-garde "anti-tradition." Three sets of texts are translated and assembled here: the first two, Critical Dictionary and Related Texts, first appeared in issues of Documents from 1929 and 1930 and primarily were edited by George Bataille; the third, Encyclopaedia Da Costa, appeared anonymously in 1947, though Alastair Brotchie's well-documented historical introduction reveals the identity of its editors (Robert Lebel and Isabelle Waldberg). Contributors to these texts were members of the London and Paris surrealist groups as well as those of the secret society Acephale: artists, writers, sociologists, and ethnologists providing their own interpretation of the meaning of daily life, art, and philosophy. This title is a very useful compendium of surrealist thinking and provides a good introduction to the many-faceted aspects of Surrealism as a movement. Danielle Mihram, Univ. of Southern California, University Park --Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc, via amazon.com
2004, May 27; 10:26 :::: Acephale

Encyclopćdia Acephalica - Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Carl Einstein, Robert Desnos and writers associated with the Acéphale and Surrealist groups
Comprising the Critical Dictionary and Related Texts edited by Georges Bataille and the Encyclopædia Da Costa edited by Robert Lebel & Isabelle Waldberg
The ideas of Georges Bataille (1897-1962) are being increasingly recognised as offering vital insights into the whole areas of human existence, and over the last few years most of his important theoretical and fictional texts have appeared in English. Yet Bataille’s thought is complex, and his books make few concessions to the reader. The first series of texts here, however, were written for a wider audience by Bataille and his friends, in the form of a dictionary, and they provide a witty, poetic and concise introduction to his ideas.
The Critical Dictionary appeared in the magazine edited by Bataille, Documents, the second series of texts, the Da Costa Encyclopédique was published anonymously after the liberation of Paris in 1947 by members of the Acéphale group and writers associated with the Surrealists. Both cover the essential concepts of Bataille and his associates: sacred sociology; scatology, death and the erotic; base materialism; the aesthetics of the formless; sacrifice, the festival and the politics of the tumult etc: a new description of the limits of being human. Humour, albeit, sardonic, is not absent from these remarkable redefinitions of the most heterogeneous objects or ideas: Camel, Church, Dust, Museum, Spittle, Skyscraper, Threshold, Work - to name but a few.
The Documents group was celebrated for joining together artists, authors, sociologists and ethnologists (among the most important of their time) in a literary and philosophical project. The Acéphale group was more mysterious, even its membership is only vaguely known, and its activities remain secret. The origins of the Da Costa only became known in 1993, the present volume reveals for the first time its principal compilers: Robert Lebel, Isabelle Waldberg and Marcel Duchamp, even so, the identity of the authors of a large part of it remain unknown. --http://www.atlaspress.co.uk/index.cgi?action=view_arkhive&number=3 [May 2004]
2004, May 27; 09:26 :::: censorship and the net

The Georges Pichard pay tribute site for some of his more obscure artwork [http://www.georgespichardtribute.com/comic_strips.htm], just had its paypal yanked - censorship still exists. --via Bill Landis
2004, May 26; 22:27 :::: art

Komar and Melamid
The Most Wanted Paintings on the Web, the Dia Center for the Arts second artists' project for the Web, begun in 1995, was created by the Russian emigrant artist team Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid.

In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our "democratic/consumer" society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid's project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or convers
ely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?

(excerpted from Dia Director Michael Govan's introduction) --via Dirk Hine http://www.hine-digital-art.com/weblog/weblog.html

2004, May 26; 17:56 :::: Ivan Smagghe

Bugged Out! Presents: Suck My Deck (2004) - Ivan Smagghe [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Track Listings 1. Sweet Light – Méchaniques Remontées 2. Chelonis R. Jones – The Rush (Sex with The Machines) 3. Jamie Bissmire – Splitting Atoms 4. Slacker – Looky Thing 5. Panash – Jack 2 Jack (Jesper Dahlback Remix) 6. DK8 – Murder Was the Bass 7. Severed Heads – Dead Eyes Opened (Joakim Edit) 8. Zombie Nation – Souls At Zero 9. The Hacker, Millimetric, David Carretta – Moskow Reise (Black Strobe Remix) 10. Scratch Massive – Make It High (Sex Schön Remix) 11. Random Factor – After The Tone (DJ T’s Tweakin’ Disco Remix) 12. Phonique – The Red Dress (Tiefschwarz Remix) 13. Henry Goes Dirty – Sink 14. Cosmo Vitelli - Icons (Roman Flügel Remix) Editorial Reviews Album Description
Following the successes of numerous mix CDs last year, React brings you Suck My Deck, a brand new series highlighting some of the more cutting-edge, up and coming artists who play regularly at Bugged Out! events throughout the UK.
We kick off the series with Parisian DJ extraordinaire Ivan Smagghe. As the resident DJ at Paris’ hippest night Kill the DJ, Ivan has gained respect behind the decks and in the studio as one half of the legendary production duo Black Strobe with Arnaud Rebotini. Over the last few years, Ivan has established himself through his trademark electro/acid/ bleep house sets that are ripping up the dance floors everywhere – so much so that UK’s Jockey Slut Magazine has declared him "The Hottest DJ on the Planet."
This CD includes highlights such as the Black Strobe remix of "Moskow Reise" by The Hacker, Millimetric, and David Carretta, and the exclusive DJ T remix of "After the Tone" by Random Factor taken from his recently released album Convergence, plus the excellent Joakim edit of "Dead Eyes Opened" by Severed Heads. As the electro-house phenomenon takes hold around the world, Ivan manages to keep one step ahead of the game with his very unique and distinctive sound that’s been encapsulated perfectly on this CD. --editorial at amazon.com
France's most wanted radio-host and Selector Ivan Smagghe stands at the crossroad between glamourous Parisian hype and musical integrity. His Test radio show and compilations imposed a new vision of leftfield electronica on Radio Nova and his programming for the two past years has been a faultless example of quality ecclecticness. Though Smagghe hails from the early days of the Parisian underground -both through his connection with the defunct Rough Trade record shop and remixing contributions on various formats- he just recently came back to music production by launching his own Set imprint in early-2001. --via tigersushi.com
2004, May 26; 17:53 :::: music

Galactic Ass Creatures From Uranus (2004) - Detroit Grand Pubahs [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Track Listings 1. Landing in Detroit 2. God Impostors 3. Surrender (The Bedroom Edit) 4. Big Onion 5. P. Sully (Skit) 6. Definition of Sick 7. Dead Presidents 8. Tig O’Bake Fitties 9. Bite The Pillow Talk 10. Training with Dick Cannon 11. Freak 12. The Clapper 13. Weed in the Kitchen 14. Nurse Hurse Jack Move 15. Novacane 16. Butt Dream
Poker Flat Recordings proudly presents the Detroit Grand Pubahs! Founded in 1998, the Pubahs grouped around producer and vocalist Paris The Black Fu. Their first single "Sandwiches" became a huge worldwide club hit overnight and made it into the Billboard dance charts as well as in the UK Top 20 sales charts.
The seminal electro-funk outfit from Detroit returns with their second album. Galactic Ass Creatures From Uranus spans a full variety of dirty Detroit-inspired minimal techno, raw P-funk, smart booty beats and freaky downbeat electronic grooves marked by the vocals of Paris The Black Fu and the Pubahs other odd characters.
Already the first single from the album ("The Clapper" featuring a remix from Swedish star producer Jesper Dahlbäck) has created quite a buzz and made it into many club charts including the official German Dance charts. --amazon.com
2004, May 25; 22:07 :::: Alex Van Warmerdam

Grimm (2003) - Alex Van Warmerdam
Written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam, Grimm is an absurdist, decidedly black take on the Hansel and Gretel story. Set in modern day Holland, Grimm centers around siblings Marie (Halina Reijn) and Jacob (Jacob Derwig), who were sent to the forest under the pretext of gathering firewood while, unbeknownst to them, their impoverished family left for parts unknown. Before long, Marie and Jacob learn of their abandonment; all that is left from their parents is a brief note advising them to go to Spain and take up residence with their uncle. The first setback comes in the form of a smarmy farmer (Frank Lammers) who forces Jacob to have sex with his obese wife (Annet Malherbe). Shortly afterwards, Marie turns to prostitution, but Jacob intervenes before she goes too far. Eventually, the siblings find a moped and take off for Spain -- only to find out that their uncle has died. When a wealthy surgeon (Carmelo Gomez) falls for Marie, the broke siblings' prospects seem to be looking up once gain. Unfortunately for them, the ultimate consequence of Marie's quickie marriage is nothing either of them would have imagined. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
Alex van Warmerdam is the only Dutch director I truly like. --jahsonic.com
2004, May 25; 22:07 :::: Roger Corman

Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers (2004) - Beverly Gray (Author) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

The original King of the Exploitation Film, Roger Corman has filled his movies with images of blood-sucking vampires, rampaging biker gangs, vigilante strippers, and abducting aliens. During a career that spans fifty years, he has produced more than five hundred films on shoestring budgets, making a profit on nearly every one.
In the process, Corman has become the role model for today’s independent filmmaker, laying the groundwork for the success of directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. This guru with a vision has also demonstrated an uncanny eye for talent, being among the first to recognize and employ the abilities of Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese,, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, John Sayles, and James Cameron, to name but a few.
In this updated paperback version of 2000’s critically-acclaimed Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, Beverly Gray takes you behind the cameras and into the heart of Cormanville for a first-hand, insider’s look at the man and the mogul. Interviewing over one hundred of Corman’s friends and associates, Gray provides a compelling look at the private and public lives of this soft-spoken giant of the cinema. --Book Description, amazon.com
"Kudos to Gray for her exhaustive work on the pop-culture icon who's given us all years of guilty cinematic pleasure" --Editorial Reviews, Total Movie
2004, May 23; 20:29 :::: gun

C'est ArrivĂ© Pres de Chez Vous/Man Bites Dog - Criterion Collection (1992) [Amazon.com]
This Belgian satire (in French with English subtitles) is dark, dark, dark--but also right on the money in its sly sendup of the media's fascination with violence and its complicity therein. This mock documentary has a trio of filmmakers shooting a cinĂ©ma vĂ©ritĂ© feature about a garrulous serial killer who lets the film crew follow him around as he selects victims and then dispatches them. But at what point does filmmaking become participation? These hapless documentarians soon find out as their subject eventually pulls them into his world, including a gun battle with a rival film crew and their own criminal star. Gruesomely hilarious, with a deadpan wit that's hard to resist. --Marshall Fine, amazon.com
2004, May 24; 19:30 :::: politics of sex

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) - Camille Paglia [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Politics and the Sex Wars
The contextual problems of lesbian erotica mean that it seldom attains the unselfconscious raunchiness of gay men's Pornography. Much sexually lesbian art is intellectual, ironic, or overtly political in a way that is not the case for other pornographic traditions.
Lesbian erotica must also be seen in the context of the "sex wars," which split feminists into two groups: those who believe sexually imagery to be irrevocably contaminated by sexism and others who insist that sexual exploration is central to women's liberation. This conflict led to the development of a unique phenomenon that might best be described as "agit-porn," whereby lesbians used painting, photography, and performance to push the boundaries of representation of lesbian sexuality and challenge pro-censorship feminists. --Erotic and Pornographic Art: Lesbian , Â© 2002, glbtq, Inc.http://www.glbtq.com/arts/erotic_art_lesbian,2.html [May 2004]
Ancient Greek literature openly celebrated same-sex love in its poetry and prose. For the most part, Roman writing on homosexual themes followed the Greek models, though the two cultures held sharply differing attitudes toward love between males. --http://www.glbtq.com [May 2004]
2004, May 23; 19:21 :::: film theory

Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies) (1999) - Robert Stam (Editor), Toby Miller (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Description: This anthology offers a collection of some of the most provocative and influential writings of film theory from the 1960s and 1970s, along with new directions from the last two decades. An introductory essay to the volume sums up developments in film theory from the beginning up through the 1980s, while introductions to specific groupings of essays summarize debates on those issues. Rather than look at film theory in terms of schools and allegiances, the editors investigate questions and problematics: What is the cinema? What is the cinematic apparatus? How do spectators differ in their desires? What is realism? Is realism desirable? Thus psychoanalysis, reception theory, cognitive theory, race theory, and feminism all provide partially valid answers to the question: What does the spectator want? This anthology's goal is to facilitate a polylogue among the theorists who have ignored or maligned one another and to deprovincialize film theory. Film Theory multiplies the perspectives and positions, the situations and locations, from which film theory is spoken.
Author Description: Toby Miller is a Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. He is the author of a wide range of work in cultural studies, including two recent books, Technologies of Truth (1998) and (with Alec McHoul) Popular Culture and Everyday Life (1998). He is also co-editor of the journal Social Text and with Robert Stam co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Film Studies. Robert Stam is a Professor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His many books include Film Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell Publishers, 1999); Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997); Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, with Ella Shohat (1994), which won the Katherine Singer Kovocs "Best Film Book Award"; and Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1992).
Contents: Introduction. Part I: The Author: Introduction: Robert Stam. 1. Dennis Potter and the Question of the Television Author: Rosalind Coward. 2. To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French Cinema (extract): Sandy Flitterman-Lewis. 3. The Unauthorized Auteur Today: Dudley Andrew. Part II: Film Language: Introduction: Robert Stam. 4. The Specificity of Media in the Arts: Noel Carroll. 5. For a Semio-Pragmatics of Film: Roger Odin. 6. The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Cinematic and Electronic 'Presence': Vivian Sobchack. Part III: The Image and Technology: Introduction: Toby Miller. 7. Necessities and Constraints: A Pattern of Technological Change: Brian Winston. 8. Projections of Sound on Image: Michel Chion. 9. Modes of Production: The TV Apparatus: John T. Caldwell. Part IV: Text and Intertext: Introduction: Robert Stam. 10. Questions of Genre: Steve Neale. 11. A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre: Rick Altman. 12. The 'Force-Field' of Melodrama: Stuart Cunningham. 13. Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess: Linda Williams. Part V: The Question of Realism: Introduction: Robert Stam. 14. The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde: Tom Gunning. 15. Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures: David Bordwell. 16. Black American Cinema: The New Realism: Manthia Diawara. Part VI: Alternative Aesthetics: Introduction: Robert Stam. 17. Towards a Third Cinema: Notes and Experiences for the Development of Cinema of Liberation in the Third World: Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. 18. For an Imperfect Cinema: Julio Garcia Espinosa. 19. Towards a Critical Theory of Third World Films: Teshome H. Gabriel. 20. Rethinking Women's Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory: Teresa de Lauretis. Part VII: The Historical Spectator/Audience: Introduction: Toby Miller. 21. Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of Western Films Among American Indians and Anglos: JoEllen Shively. 22. Television News and its Spectator: Robert Stam. 23. Addressing the Spectator of a 'Third World' National Cinema: The Bombay 'Social' Film of the 1940's and 1950's: Ravi S. Vasudevan. Part VIII: Apparatus Theory: Introduction: Toby Miller. 24. The Imaginary Signifier: Christian Metz. 25. The Orthopsychic Subject: Film Theory and the Reception of Lacan: Joan Copjec. 26. Feminism, Film Theory, and the Bachelor Machines: Constance Penley. Part IX: The Nature of the Gaze: Introduction: Toby Miller. 27. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Laura Mulvey. 28. Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator: Mary Ann Doane. 29. The Oppositional Gaze: bell hooks. 30. Looking Awry: Slavoj Zizek. Part X: Class and the Culture Industries: Introduction: Toby Miller. 31. Constituents of a Theory of the Media: Hans Magnus Enzenburger. 32. Ideology, Economy and the British Cinema: John Hill. 33. Mass Culture and the Feminine: The 'Place' of Television in Film Studies: Patrice Petro. Part XI: Stars and Performance: Introduction: Toby Miller. 34. Introduction to Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society: Richard Dyer. 35. Marlon Brando in 'On the Waterfront': James Naremore. 36. Roseanne: Unruly Woman as Domestic Goddess: Kathleen K. Rowe. 37. The She-Man: Postmodern Bi-Sexed Performance in Film and Video: Chris Straayer. Part XII: Permutations of Difference: Introduction: Robert Stam. 38. Gender and Culture of Empire: Towards a Feminist Ethnography of the Cinema: Ella Shohat. 39. Categories of Stereotyping of American Indians in Film: Ward Churchill. 40. Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation: Stuart Hall. 41. White Privilege and Looking Relations: Jane Gaines. 42. White: Richard Dyer. Part XIII: The Postmodern and the Global: Introduction: Robert Stam. 43. Television and Postmodernism: Jim Collins. 44 Critical and Textual Hypermasculinity: Lynne Joyrich. 45. Conclusion: Henry Jenkins. Bibliography. Index. --D Williams via amazon.com
2004, May 23; 19:21 :::: Kenny Larkin

Narcissist (2004) - Kenny Larkin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1. Fake French (Epic Mix) 2. My Reflection 3. Mono e Mono 4. One Moment Please 5. Fake French (Merci Detroit Mix) 6. Fortune Teller 7. A Part Of Me 8. Jazz To The Future 9. Breathe 10. Nightfall 11. In The Meantime
Former U.S. Air Force serviceman & stand up comedian Kenny Larkin is one of the chief innovators of Detroitďż˝s so called "second wave" of techno producers. He began his music career in 1990 after hanging out at local Detroit clubs like The Music Institute and The Shelter, he soon hooked up with Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva, and started to record for their Plus 8 label, releasing the early classic "We Shall Overcome."
The Narcissist is Kennyďż˝s debut for Peacefrog, and his first album in well over 6 years. It contains 11 tracks of some of the most soulful, melodic, & emotive music youďż˝ll ever hear, with every track a future classic; from the breathtakingly warm & romantic "My Reflection", and the heart stopping Carl Craigesque Detroit sounds cape "Mono e Mono", to the eloquent freestyle jazz meanderings of "A Part Of Me" and "Nitefall". This is some of the finest electronic soul music, packed full of human feeling and warmth.--amazon.com
2004, May 23; 18:32 :::: Theo Parrish

Sound Signature Sounds - Theo Parrish [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Parallel Dimensions (2000) - Theo Parrish [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1. So Now What 2. Ananasies Dances 3. Serengeti Echoes 4. Reaction to Plastic 5. Space Ghosts 6. Summertime Is Here 7. Brain Collaboration 8. Violet Green 9. Nefarious Stranger
Theo Parrish released "Parallel Dimensions" in 2000 on his Sound Signature label. Frustratingly for many dance music lovers only 1000 copies were ever pressed on CD and no full-length album was ever pressed. Through a unique deal with Mr Parrish Ubiquity has the opportunity to release a new pressing of this milestone release on CD and LP. On "Parallel Dimensions" the Detroit based producer makes house music that is haunted, mournful, elegant, and cavernous. Organic horns and voices beautify super deep drum rhythms, signature hypnotic Parrish beats and Detroit schooled bass lines. -- Album Description
2004, May 23; 17:59 :::: KDJ aka Moodymann

Black Mahogani (2004) - Moodymann [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1. Holiday 2. Roberta Jean Machine 3. I Need You So Much 4. Runaway 5. Iďż˝m Doing Fine 6. Shades Of Jae 7. Rileyďż˝s Song 8. Back At Bakers (On Livernois) 9. Mahogani 9000 10. Black Mahogani
The enigmatic Kenny Dixon Junior, aka Moodymann, is one of the Detroit soundďż˝s leading architects. Black Mahogani is the definitive Moodymann album, featuring the rarest & most sought after tracks from his early KDJ outings as well as some incredible new future classics.
The album features Amp Fiddler on vocals for "Iďż˝m Doing Fine", which is arguably Ampďż˝s finest moment. Also featured are two Detroit jazz & soul legends; Norma Jean Bell and Roberta Sweed.
The pure soulful genius of this album will give it a more universal appeal than just Moodymannďż˝s usual fans and should bring in an audience from a wide variety of genres including jazz, soul and R&B.
2004, May 23; 17:59 :::: Louie Vega

Choice: Collection of Classics - Louie Vega [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - I'll Play The Fool Melba Moore - Standing Right Here Keytronics Ensemble - You X Me * Touch - Without You * Joubert Singers - Stand On The Word Lamont Dozier - Going Back To My Roots * D'Angelo - Spanish Joint (Ritual Session) Cloud One - Atmosphere Strut * Alfredo De La Fe - Hot To Trot * Affinity - Don't Go Away * Booker T & The MGs - Melting Pot (Ritual Session) * Cymande - Bra (Ritual Session / Danny Krivit Edit) Mos Def - Umi Says (Ritual Session) NuYorican Soul feat. George Benson - You Can Do It (Baby) The Hollies - Draggin' My Heels Idris Muhammad - Could Heaven Ever Be Like This Yello - Bostich Pleasure - Take a Chance * ESG - Standing In Line * Munich Machine - Get On The Funk Train Salsoul Orchestra - It's Good For The Soul * Gino Soccio - Dancer Giorgio Moroder - I Wanna Rock You Chocolette - It's That East Street Beat * Eddy Grant - Time Warp / Nobody's Got Time * Adonis - No Way Back * George Kranz - Din Daa Daa (Trommeltanz) * ESP - It's You * FPI Project - Rich In Paradise * Barricentro - Tittle Tattle The Clash - Magnificent Seven
see also Azuli records
2004, May 23; 12:43 :::: rock music

Peace Love Death Metal (2004) - Eagles of Death Metal [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Peace Love Death Metal is the much-anticipated debut release from Eagles of Death Metal. The band is fronted by Jesse "The Devil" Hughes and also features Josh Homme (QOTSA, Desert Sessions) on drums and Timmy [Tim Vanhamel] Millionaire on guitar. Be the first on your street to embrace the moustache!
2004, May 22; 14:16 :::: Jean Genet

Criminal Desires: Jean Genet and Cinema (Persistance of Vision Series) - Jane Giles [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Jean Genet, the author notorious for his overt celebration of criminality and homosexuality in such novels as Miracle of the Rose, Funeral Rites and Querelle of Brest, was also fascinated with the possibilities of cinema.
Genet made his only film, Un Chant dďż˝Amour, in 1950. The result was a poetic and sexually explicit visual paean to homosexual desire, the criminal impulse, and the power of imagination to transcend physical captivity. Banned and prosecuted for obscenity, Un Chant dďż˝Amour, has since become a cause celebre of gay rights and freedom of expression, as well as being recognised as a masterpiece of underground cinema in its own right.
CRIMINAL DESIRES contains complete documentation of the making of Chant dďż˝Amour, including an illustrated shot-by-shot description, thematic analysis, and exhibition history. The book also documents Genetďż˝s many other unfilmed screenplays, film appearances by Genet himself, and finally the screen adaptations of Genetďż˝s work made by other film directors, including The Balcony, Deathwatch, The Maids, Todd Hayneďż˝s Poison, and Rainer Werner Fassbinderďż˝s extraordinary and apocalyptic vision of Querelle. --via amazon.com
2004, May 22; 11:50 :::: streamline

Airliner no. 4, Norman Bel Geddes with Otto Koller, 1929
Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958) was a theatrical set designer who turned his hand to applying Streamline Style to vehicles, such as fantastic (and non-airworthy) aeroplanes, Space-Age cars and super-stylised trains. He designed the famous General Motors Pavilion for the 1939 New York Worldďż˝s Fair, which included the Highway and Horizons exhibit, more commonly known as "Futurama". Few of his vehicle designs were ever actually made, but his imagination and sheer style captured the public's attention. --http://www.retrokat.com/rescue/class/designwk12.htm [May 2004]
2004, May 21; 11:37 :::: surrealism and cinema

The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema - Paul Hammond (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

The Shadow and Its Shadow is a classic collection of writings by the Surrealists on their mad love of moviegoing. The Shadow and Its Shadow is once again available, now from City Lights in a revised and expanded third edition.
The forty-odd theoretical, polemical, and poetical re-visions of the seventh art in this anthology document Surrealism's scandalous and nonreductive take on film. Writing between 1918 and 1977, the essayists include such names as Breton, Aragon, Desnos, Dalí, Buñuel, and Man Ray, as well as many of the less famous, though equally fascinating figures of the movement.

The introduction by editor and translator Paul Hammond limns the history of Surrealist cinemania, highlighting how these revolutionary poets, artists, and philosophers sifted the silt of commercial--often Hollywood--cinema for the odd fleck of gold, the windfall movie that, somehow slipping past the censor, questioned the dominant order.

Such prospecting pivoted around the notion of lyrical behavior--as depicted on the screen and as lived in the movie house. The representation of such behavior led the Surrealists to valorize the manifest content of such denigrated genres as silent and sound comedy, romantic melodrama, film noir, and horror movies.

As to lived experience, moviegoing Surrealists looked to the spectacle's latent meaning, reading films as the unwitting providers of redemptive sequences that could be mentally clipped out of their narrative context and inserted into daily life--there, to provoke new adventures.

"Hammond's book is a reminder of the wealth and range of surrealist writings on the cinema. . . . [T]he work represented here is still challenging and genuinely eccentric, locating itself in an 'ethic' of love, reverie and revolt." - Sight & Sound

Contents of The Shadow and Its Shadow:

Available light / Paul Hammond
Some surrealist advice / The Surrealist Group
War letter / Jacques Vaché
On décor / Louis Aragon
Cinema U.S.A. / Philippe Soupault
Battlegrounds and commonplaces / René Crevel
Against commercial cinema / Benjamin Péret
Buster Keaton's College / Luis Buñuel
Abstract of a critical history of the cinema / Salvador Dalí
The marvelous is popular / Ado Kyrou
As in a wood / André Breton
Picture palaces / Robert Desnos
Plan for a cinema at the bottom of a lake / Bernard Roger
The lights go up / Jacques Brunius
Surrealism and cinema / Jean Goudal
Introduction to black-and-white magic / Albert Valentin
Crossing the bridge / Jacques Brunius
Sorcery and cinema / Antonin Artaud
The screen's prestige / Jacques Brunius
Remarks on cinematic oneirism / Robert Benayoun
The cinema, instrument of poetry / Luis Buñuel
Malombra, aura of absolute love / The Romanian Surrealist Group
Data toward the irrational enlargement of a film: The Shanghai Gesture / The Surrealist Group
The film and I / Ado Kyrou
Cinemage / Man Ray
Another kind of cinema / Marcel Mariën
Intention and surprise / Nora Mitrani
The ideal summa / Petr Král
Turkey broth and unlabeled love potions / Gérard Legrand
The fantastic - the marvelous / Ado Kyrou
Concerning King Kong / Jean Ferry
Larry Semon's message / Petr Král
Hands off love / The Surrealist Group
Chaplin, the copper's nark / Jean-Louis Bédouin
Manifesto of the Surrealists concerning L'Âge d'or / The Surrealist Group
Zaroff; or, The prosperities of vice / Robert Benayoun
Eroticism / Robert Desnos
Eroticism = love / Ado Kyrou
Au repas des guerrières / Nelly Kaplan
Female x film = fetish / Gérard Legrand
Mae Murray / Jacques Rigaut
"Enchanted wanderer": excerpt from a journey album for Hedy Lamarr / Joseph Cornell
Iron in the wound / Alain Joubert
Pornographers & Co. / Robert Lebel
Selected films made by Surrealists
A parting shot

Paul Hammond is the author of Constellations of Miró, Breton (City Lights), a monograph on Luis Buñuel's L'Age d'or, Marvellous Méliès, French Undressing, and Upon the Pun: Dual Meaning in Words and Pictures (with Patrick Hughes). Hammond is the coeditor, with Ian Breakwell, of Seeing in the Dark: A Compendium of Cinemagoing and Brought to Book: The Balance of Books and Life. His translations include Whatever by Michel Houellebecq and The Virgin of the Hitmen by Fernando Vallejo.
2004, May 21; 11:30 :::: surrealism in cinema

AOS (1964) - Yoji Kuri
The ugly voyeurs (ourselves) at work. Their busy lasciviousness is obvious; but we are not permitted to see what they see. The device of a closed box with peepholes is eminently cinematic; the blackness of the surrounding space removes the event from reality and makes it mythological.
This extraordinary animation -- already a classic -- projects a universe of bizarre and frustrated lusts, in which monsters, voyeurs, and misshapen objects engage in nightmarish and often sado-masochistic outrages amongst Freudian symbols of anxiety. Max Ernst and Bosch come to mind, but the rage against repression is entirely Japanese and ideological: sexual anti-puritanism as a liberating device.
A universe of secret, illicit lusts, powered by mechanical contrivance, the intent is sado-masochist, the woman, incongruously, very hairy. The sexual anti-puritanism is viewed as a surrealist, hence liberating device. --http://www.subcin.com/surrealism.html [May 2004]
2004, May 20; 23:41 :::: speech

Women are not only portrayed in decorative senses in advertising (Wiles 1991), but too often they are portrayed as less-than-human objectsďż˝humiliated and subjects of violence. These ads establish the problematic dimensions of gender and sexuality in western society. Quite simply, for those who deny the problem, have a look at these ads. None of these are harmless! -- Dr. Scott A. Lukas,http://www.genderads.com/gender.htm [May 2004]
2004, May 20; 16:00 :::: Luis Bunuel

Le Fantďż˝me de la libertďż˝ - (1974) Luis Buďż˝uel
One of Luis Bunuel's most free-form and purely Surrealist films, consisting of a series of only vaguely related episodes - most famously, the dinner party scene where people sit on lavatories round a dinner table on, occasionally retiring to a little room to eat. - Michael Brooke
2004, May 20; 15:30 :::: modern

Modern Times (1936) - Charlie Chaplin
Chaplinďż˝s last silent film, produced in the middle of the sound period, (with his own music including "Smile"),takes on the inequities of the Great Depression and the modern experience. The final shot is among Chaplinďż˝s most famous and poignant. Ultimately encompassing the tyranny of machine over man, this cinematic masterpiece has as much relevance today as when it was made. The film ends as Chaplinďż˝s Charlie the Tramp, unable to find a place in the industrial metropolis, walks away from society towards an uncertain future. Modern Times is the last in the series of films that featured Chaplinďż˝s endearing everyman Charlie, who became internationally renowned with the directorďż˝s earlier successes, The Circus, The Gold Rush and City Lights. Modern Times is The Trampďż˝s final departure from the Chaplin world.
2004, May 20; 15:11 :::: surrealism in cinema

"Creation, to me, is to try to orchestrate the universe to understand what surrounds us. Even if, to accomplish that, we use all sorts of stratagems which in the end prove completely incapable of staving off chaos." - Peter Greenaway
"Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether." - Luis Buďż˝uel
"A specter is haunting the cinema: the specter of narrative. If that apparition is an angel, we must embrace it; and if it is a devil, we must cast it out. But we cannot know what it is until we have met it face to face." - Hollis Frampton
"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos." - David Cronenberg
"I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable." - David Lynch

Top 10 Films
The Falls (Peter Greenaway, 1980) Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway, 1988) A Zed & Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway, 1985) Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1976) Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978) La Cabina (Antonio Mercero, 1972) The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1974) The Holy Mountain (Alexandro Jodorowsky, 1973) Week-End (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1962)
Other Films
26 Bathrooms (Peter Greenaway, 1985) 8 1/2 Women (Peter Greenaway, 1999) A TV Dante: The Inferno Cantos I-VIII (Peter Greenaway, 1989) Act of God (Peter Greenaway, 1980) After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985) L'Age D'Or (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1930) The Alphabet (David Lynch, 1968) The Amputee (David Lynch, 1973) The Baby of Mďż˝con (Peter Greenaway, 1993) The Bed Sitting Room (Richard Lester, 1969) Begotten (E. Elias Merhige, 1991) The Belly of an Architect (Peter Greenaway, 1987) The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau, 1930) Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) Buffet Froid (Bertrand Blier, 1979) Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974) A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989) Darwin (Peter Greenaway, 1992) Dear Phone (Peter Greenaway, 1977) Death in the Seine (Peter Greenaway, 1988) The Death of a Composer (Peter Greenaway, 1999) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1972) The Draughtsman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982) Dune (David Lynch, 1984) El Topo (Alexandro Jodorowsky, 1971) The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) Fallthuis' Progress (Paul Melia, 2003) Fando & Lis (Alexandro Jodorowsky, 1967) Fear of Drowning (Peter Greenaway, 1988) Four Films With Music (Paul Melia, 2003) Funny Man (Simon Sprackling, 1994) The Game (David Fincher, 1997) The Grandmother (David Lynch, 1970) Greaser's Palace (Robert Downey Sr., 1972) H is for House (Peter Greenaway, 1973) L'Humanitďż˝ (Bruno Dumont, 1999) I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (Fernando Arrabal, 1973) The Idiots (Lars von Trier, 1998) Institute Benjamenta (The Brothers Quay, 1995) Intervals (Peter Greenaway, 1969) It Couldn't Happen Here (Jack Bond, 1987) The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972) Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961) Les Convoyeurs Attendant (Benoďż˝t Mariage, 1999) Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1996) M is for Man, Music and Mozart (Peter Greenaway, 1991) Making a Splash (Peter Greenaway, 1984) Mix-up ou Meli-Melo (Franďż˝oise Romand, 1985) Motorama (Barry Shils, 1991) Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) No Arawak 1-24 (Geoffrey Fallthuis, 2003) O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973) The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway, 1996) Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981) Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (David Lynch, 1995) Prospero's Books (Peter Greenaway, 1991) Salo, or The 120 days of Sodom (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975) Santa Sangre (Alexandro Jodorowsky, 1989) The Sea in their Blood (Peter Greenaway, 1983) The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978) Simon of the Desert (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1965) Six Men Getting Sick (David Lynch, 1967) Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000) The Straight Story (David Lynch, 1999) Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin, 1988) The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976) That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1977) Themroc (Claude Faraldo, 1972) Three Businessmen (Alex Cox, 1998) Tough Guys Don't Dance (Norman Mailer, 1987) Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992) The Tulse Luper Suitcases (Peter Greenaway, 2003) Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buďż˝uel, 1928) Vertical Features Remake (Peter Greenaway, 1978) Viva la Muerte (Fernando Arrabal, 1970) A Walk Through H (Peter Greenaway, 1978) Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990) Windows (Peter Greenaway, 1975) Zorns Lemma (Hollis Frampton, 1970)
Some films that ought to be on here
The American Astronaut (Cory McAbee, 2001) Bliss (Ray Lawrence, 1985) Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman, 1970) City of Pirates (Raul Ruiz, 1984) Conspirators of Pleasure (Jan Svankmajer, 1996) Cremaster 3 (Matthew Barney, 2002) The Days I Don't Exist (Jean-Charles Fitoussi, 2003) Death Bed (George Barry, 1977) Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Even Dwarfs Started Small (Werner Herzog, 1971) Faust (Jan Svankmajer, 1994) Genealogies of a Crime (Raul Ruiz, 1997) The Golden Boat (Raul Ruiz, 1990) Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968) The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Raul Ruiz, 1979) London (Patrick Keiller, 1994) The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (Ben Hopkins, 2000) The Ninth Configuration (William Peter Blatty, 1980) No Rest For The Brave (Alain Guiraudie, 2003) Of Great Events and Ordinary People (Raul Ruiz, 1979) Pig (Nico B., 1998) Robinson in Space (Patrick Keiller, 1997) Schizopolis (Steven Soderbergh, 1996) The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968) Treasure Island (Scott King, 1999) Visitor Q (Takeshi Miike, 2001) --
Chaotic Cinema: Reviews of surreal, horror and cult movies, including the films of Buďż˝uel, Greenaway, Jodorowsky and Lynch. http://www.wayney.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.htm [May 2004]
2004, May 20; 14:23 :::: advertising

Women are not only portrayed in decorative senses in advertising (Wiles 1991), but too often they are portrayed as less-than-human objectsďż˝humiliated and subjects of violence. These ads establish the problematic dimensions of gender and sexuality in western society. Quite simply, for those who deny the problem, have a look at these ads. None of these are harmless! -- Dr. Scott A. Lukas, http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/pages/dehumanize.htm http://www.genderads.com/gender.htm [May 2004]
2004, May 18; 21:00 :::: Television

Medium Cool (1969) - Haskell Wexler [Amazon.com]

Medium Cool is an almost impossible oddity: director Haskel Wexler wanted to shoot a fictional, narrative film wherein actors mingled with real people in an uncontrolled social environment. With that in mind, he began filming a movie about racial tensions in Chicago during the weeks prior to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, on the assumption that there would be a riot there. Then he brought his cast, crew, and camera to the scene of the proposed mayhem, and waited. . . and lo and behold, civil disorder broke out. It's intensely strange to see actors, playing characters, interacting in a real-life situation with real cops and real hippies fighting and running about. This is made stranger still by the story, about a reporter covering the growing unrest in the black ghettos of the city who discovers that the FBI may be in cahoots with his network. In preparing his script, Wexler assumed that the riot would be racial, but in fact it turned out that most of the rioters were white, so the final scenes seem to interrupt the narrative and make the film an odd pastiche and a commentary on the lack of connection between politics and life. Perhaps more of a curiosity than a wholly successful film, Medium Cool is still worth seeing for its striking footage and unprecedented combination of the real and the imaginary. --James DiGiovanna, Amazon.com
In Medium Cool, a gas grenade goes off very close to the camera, and a shout is heard: "Look out, Haskell, it's real!". This is a reference to the film's director/camerman, Haskell Wexler. In the film's last shot, the camera pans and zooms in - on Wexler, pointing his camera at the camera. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall [May 2004]
see also fourth wall
2004, May 18; 20:37 :::: Aesthetics

Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers - Leonard Koren [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

This extended essay in words and pictures universalizes the Japanese traditional rustic aesthetic of wabi-sabi that was developed over hundreds of years by Zen priests and teamasters. Wabi-sabi functions today as a prototypical "complete" aesthetic, nature-based and "soft" in contrast to the "hard" digital aesthetics of modern computer-age design. As such, it offers designers and other creative people a wealth of insight into materials and process. --Book Description
2004, May 18; 19:58 :::: New Wave

Issue 13 (July/August 1978)
The Dawn of L.A. New Wave (Style) - 2 Full Issues of Wet Magazine, 1978. "...Wet Magazine was started in 1976 by a Los Angeles architecture school graduate, Leonard Koren, whose publication revolved around the idea of 'gourmet bathing.' I have some of the first issues, and they are filled with articles about anything water -- water bottling plants, waterbeds, life guards, people taking showers, people writhing in mud, communal bathtubs." Another brilliant Sharpeworld featurelette. --via http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~aabb/plus9.html

2004, May 18; 16:34 :::: Electrifying Mojo
[...] When I got older I discovered there was a method to his madness. Mojo was practicing a philosophy he called "counter-clockwiseology".
" When I first got to Detroit, it was like apartheid on the dial ," Mojo recalls, " separatist radio ." So Mojo decided he would desegregate radio.
It was brilliant and obviously way before his time.
In 1982 "counter-clockwiseology" had inner city black kids in the streets all around the city dancing to David Bowie , Thomas Dolby , Devo and Visage.
Never happened before and hasn't happened since.
The J. Geils Band actually came into WGPR one night and thanked him on air for playing "Flamethrower." Everyone else in the country was playing "Centerfold" and "Freeze Frame".
Mojo had the B-52's on the air for an interview once and they did an impromptu, off-tempo rendition of "Mesopotamia".
It seems like every time Prince would play Detroit , Mojo would play Prince all night long, this time without any breaks to make sure that the party didn't end with the concert.
A very appreciative Prince after he would get off stage would call into the show and talk with Mojo and give his shout out to the Midnight Funk Association.
Another thing that made Mojo cool was that he would play music that I could guarantee you that you wouldn't hear played anywhere else which only added to the mystique that he was from another planet.
Ever heard of a B-side? Apparently whoever comes up with local radio programming hadn't because they never played B-sides to singles.
Mojo did.
At the time Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force's "Planet Rock" was the biggest thing going on in the summer of 1982, and everyone played the vocal version all day.
However, at midnight when the Midnight Funk Association was called to order and you were asked to stand up and pledge allegiance to the funk Mojo would play the 12" instrumental version.
"Erotic City" and "17 days" during the Purple Rain mania in 1984 got more play on Mojo than did "When Doves Cry" or "Let's Go Crazy". -- "Riot Fuel" by Eightheadzhttp://www.eightballmagazine.com/diatribes/volume02/diatribes012/diatribes231-251/diatribes235.htm [May 2004]

2004, May 17; 12:53 :::: Film theory

A Postmodern Cinema (2002) - Mary Alemany-Galway [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

An insight into the art developed by postmodern Canadian filmmakers. The first chapter of the work deals with the differences between structuralism and post-structuralism and their relation to modern and postmodern art forms. This is followed by three chapters that explore how formalist, phenomenological and structuralist film theories can be used in the construction of a postmodern post-structuralist film theory. Chapter five deals with the turning point from modernism to postmodernism in literature and film. The next chapter focuses on the relationship of Canadian film history to the formation of a Canadian identity. This is followed by an analysis of four Canadian films that use postmodern forms and post-structuralist ideas to speak from a place of "otherness". These films are the work of recognized auteurs within Canadian cinema. The conclusion shows how current film criticism that deals with postmodern/post-structuralist films unconsciously uses a three-pronged approach that includes formalist, phenomenological and structuralist concerns. --Synopsis, amazon.co.uk
Alemany-Galway points out that formalism (Eisenstein), phenomenology (Bazin) and structuralism (Metz) have dictated the history of film theory. After interrogating each of these areas in turn she posits that it is through their interaction that the basis for a postmodern film theory can be developed. According to Alemany-Galway, the New French Novel is the turning point of postmodernism and Alain Resnais' Last Year in Marienbad is the first important poststructuralist/postmodern film. Alemany-Galway, in her final chapter, reiterates the importance of these three prongs by highlighting their influence on the ruminations of others about the postmodern film. --Dirk de Bruyn, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/27/postmodern_cinema_canada.html [May 2004]
2004, May 17; 14:46 :::: art

Unknown (to me) - Lucian Freud

Queen Elizabeth II (2001) - Lucian Freud
First, the facts. It seems that the 75 year old Queen Elizabeth II (1926-20??) commissioned Lucian Freud to paint an official royal portrait and she began sitting for it in May 2000. Freud finished it in early December 2001, and unveiled it over the holidays. It will hang in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace beginning May 2002 for the exhibition "Royal Treasures: A Golden Jubilee Celebration". It will then be placed in the Royal Collection. It may be the last portrait of Queen Elizabeth, joining dozens of others painted over her lifetime. --In Defense of The Grotesque Old Woman: Lucian Freud's Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by D. Marty Lasley, http://www.americanwasteland.com/grotesqueoldwoman.html [May 2004]
2004, May 17; 12:53 :::: Ambrose Bierce

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary (1911) - Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) was one of nineteenth-century America's most renowned satirists. The author of short stories, essays, fables, poems, and sketches, he was a popular columnist and wrote for several San Francisco and London newspapers during his forty-year journalism career. David E. Schultz is a technical editor. He is coeditor, with S. T. Joshi, of both A Sole Survivor, a collection of Bierce's autobiographical writings, and Lord of a Visible World, an autobiography-in-letters of H. P. Lovecraft. S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He is the editor of The Collected Fables of Ambrose Bierce and author of H. P. Lovecraft: A Life. --About the Author via amazon.com
A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Ambrose Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.
This is the most extensively annotated edition of a work by Bierce ever published, and the first edition of The Devil's Dictionary to provide detailed bibliographical information on every entry. It will be celebrated by wits and word lovers everywhere. --Book Description via amazon.com
2004, May 16; 17:23 :::: women

Lucrezia Borgia (1505-1508) - Bartolomeo Veneziano
Bartolomeo Veneziano created this picture when he worked at the D'este Court (1505-1508)
2004, May 16; 17:10 :::: vagina dentata

Femina Ridens - The Frightened Woman (1969) - Piero Schivazappa [Amazon US]
[Niki de Saint Phalle "Hon" (1969)]
The myth of the vagina dentata (Latin for toothed vagina) in the Western world was popularized chiefly by Sigmund Freud, who found that it neatly meshed with his theories concerning castration anxiety. --wikipedia
2004, May 16; 16:04 :::: Salome

Salome's Last Dance (1988) - Ken Russell [Amazon.com]

A cult favorite from director Ken Russell. In a candle-lit Victorian brothel, playwright Oscar Wilde sips champage as pretty prositutes enact his latest play, "Salome," about the temptress responsible for the death of John the Baptist. As Salome performs her Dance of the Seven Veils, life begins to imitate art and the story becomes a mirror of the life of its author. --description via amazon.com
Russell exploits the Salome mythos inasmuch as it is a metaphor for Man's fear of being swallowed by woman's sex. Taking his cue from Wilde's wording, here we have Salome putting something in her mouth in nearly every scene. From an apple to a large heart shaped lollypop (in homage to Nabokov's LOLITA, a descendant of Salome, to be sure). And in the final scene, of course, Salome mouths what she's been drooling after all along: the lips of the John the Baptist. Of course by this time his head has been removed from his body, which does not seem to deter the ever eager Salome from giving him a thorough tonguing. As the grand finale, Salome lifts her robes and lowers herself over the Baptist's head, engulfing him in one great dark moist metaphor. Vagina dentata, indeed. --http://www.sepulchritude.com/chapelperilous/decollete/salome-russell.html[May 2004]
2004, May 16; 15:35 :::: art

Rafal Olbinski
Rafal Olbinski's posters are an excellent synthesis of surrealistic mood and from the other side symbolism, characteristic to the Polish school of poster design. He has received more than 100 awards for his work, including Gold and Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators and Art Directors Club of New York. In 1994 he was awarded the International Oscar for the World's Most Memorable Poster, "Prix Savignac 1994" in Paris. In 1995 his poster was chosen as the official New York City Capital of the World Poster in an invitational competition, by a jury led by Mayor Rudolph Guliani. Following year he won the award for the best painting in the annual exhibition of the Society of Illustrators.
Rafal Olbinski was born in city of Kielce in Poland. He graduated from Architectural Department of Warsaw Politechnical School. In 1981 he emigrated to the US, where he soon established himself as a prominent painter, illustrator and designer. Since 1985 he's been a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2002 Olbinski designed stage settings for Philadelphia Opera Company's production of ''Don Giovanni''. --http://www.poster.com.pl/olbinski.htm [May 2004]
2004, May 16; 15:27 :::: art

Salome, c. 1530 - Cranach [Wood, 87 x 58 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest]
2004, May 16; 14:14 :::: art

Judith I, 1901 - Gustav Klimt [Oil on canvas with gold plating. 84 x 42 cm. Vienna, ďż˝sterreichische Galerie Belvedere.]
At the time of its creation, Klimt's painting Judith I, 1901 , was considered the incarnation of the femme fatale.

The three ages of woman, 1905 - Gustav Klimt [Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna]
2004, May 15; 11:52 :::: books

Arcadia (1993) - Tom Stoppard [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Arcadia is a play by Tom Stoppard which first opened at the Royal National Theatre in London on 13 April 1993 and has played at many theatres since. It impressed the critics: the London Daily Telegraph's critic wrote "I have never left a new play more convinced that I'd just witnessed a masterpiece."
The play's title is a reference to the Latin phrase Et in Arcadia ego, and underscores the seriousness of its comedy.
Arcadia is set in an English country house, at two periods, 1809 and 1989, and switches back and forth between them. It takes an acid look at academic research, by juxtaposing the interpretations of modern historians with the clues they interpret, which we see being left by the inhabitants of the earlier time. Arcadia explores the nature of evidence and truth in the context of modern ideas of mathematics and physics. The play questions the power of modernity and mocks the motives behind postmodernity, climaxing in one character's spirited soliloquy defending the beauty and wholeness of Aristotle's universe.
The play showcases Stoppard's trademark bravura allusiveness, essaying confidently into each of its myriad scattered foci ďż˝ Mathematics, Physics, Thermodynamics, Computer Algorithms, Chaos Theory, Fractals, Classics, Landscape Design, Romanticism vs. Classicism, English Literature (particularly poetry), Byron, 18th Century Periodicals, modern Academia, and even South Pacific Botany ďż˝ which pile up for the audience like the books, coffee mugs, portfolios, laptop computers, and turtle which accrue, as the play progresses, on the great table which forms the centrepiece of the set. These are the concrete topics of conversation; the more abstract philosophical resonances start from there and keep going ďż˝ apart from those suggested in the previous paragraph we might begin by mentioning epistemology, nihilism, the origins of lust, madness. The jokes pile upon each other too, ranging from the subtlest literary innuendos to the broadest sexual ones. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(play) [May 2004]
2004, May 15; 10:33 :::: erotic movies

Jag ďż˝r nyfiken - en film i gult / I Am Curious ... (I Am Curious Yellow/I Am Curious Blue Set) (1967) - Vilgot Sjďż˝man [Amazon.com]
A cluttered room, a hastily made floor bed, an eager young couple: a scene from the legendary work that opened commercial cinema to eroticism and pornography. Sex is demystified, desentimentalized, shown as a part of life. Coital activity is frequently and directly shown; but there are no erections not penetrations, as there are in today's hardcore films. SC http://www.subcin.com/erotic2.html
One of the most significant films of the past ten years is I Am Curious - Yellow, which was made by the Swedish director, Vilgot Sjďż˝man, whose earlier films included My Sister, My Love and 491. Wherever the film has been shown in Europe - in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, and now in the United States - it has been acclaimed by critics as an important work of art in its honest and forthright portrayal of the social, political, and sexual problems of today's youth. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jimthing/oyellow.htm
When the crowds actually saw the picture, however, they felt cheated; pubic hair was in short supply, the sex was unerotic, and the running time mostly given over to a droll, Brechtian-Pirandellian, mock-vďż˝ritďż˝ exploration of the chasm between the political and the personal. Not that it wasnďż˝t shocking in its day. I was twenty-one when I saw it with my father, who took it in stride until that notorious moment when Lena kisses her loverďż˝s flaccid penis, at which point he observed with dismayed awe, ďż˝They used to arrest you if you had something like that in your home.ďż˝ -- Gary Giddins, http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=180&eid=283§ion=essay
In 1966-67, with 100,000 meters of black-and-white film and freedom to shoot without a script, director Vilgot Sjöman created a motion picture so rangy and multilayered that it became two separate, overlapping movies released a year apart: I Am Curious Yellow and I Am Curious Blue. Those are the colors of the Swedish flag, and Sjöman's film tapped into the political, social, and psychosexual condition of his nation on the eve of worldwide cultural revolution.
It also became a envelope-pushing event in the history of sex in the cinema. A feisty, rather zaftig actress-activist named Lena Nyman played a radical activist named Lena Nyman who, in between interviewing her fellow Swedes about everything from gender inequities to the morality of vacationing in Franco's Spain, spent lots of raunchy time in bed (and elsewhere). The copious frontal nudity and a glimpse of oral-genital contact ensured an epic court battle in America, and I Am Curious Yellow became a must-see conversation piece.
Decades later, it all seems not only fresher than it did then but oddly tender, even sweet. Sjöman, 42 years old to Nyman's 22, cast himself as her lover (which he was) as well as her director, and the film is occasionally "interrupted" by its own filming. Sjöman/"Sjöman" has to watch Lena/"Lena" doing some very intimate things with costar Börje Ahlstedt. Börje is playing a car salesman, but also playing "himself" as an actor sometimes intriguing against his director with "Lena"--not "Lena the activist" but "Lena the actress," both of whom Lena the actress-for-real is playing. The Pirandellianism is witty, raw, and lingeringly ambiguous. And now DVD adds another layer if you happen to watch with the commentary track engaged and listen to the seventysomething Sjöman, still musing wryly on the radical fusion of film and life at whose creation he was present. --Richard T. Jameson, amazon.com
2004, May 15; 10:22 :::: erotic movies

http://www.subcin.com/erotic.html
http://www.subcin.com/erotic2.html

Prior to 1958, when nudist magazines were still considered obscene in America, a District Court offered its own spectacular definition of obscenity. Declaring (after necessarily close inspection) a photograph in the Sunshine and Health magazine to be "obscene", it stated:
The woman has large elephantine breasts that hang from her shoulders to her waist. They are exceedingly large. The thighs are very obese. She is standing in the snow in galoshes. But the part which is offensive, obscene, filthy and indecent is the pubic areas shown. The hair extends outwardly virtually to the hip bone. (6)

While the reasoning seems obscure -- is it the pubic hair that makes the photograph obscene or its extension to the hip bone? -- one cannot escape the impression that elephantine breasts, obese thighs, and last but not least, galoshes were additional factors in this judicial condemnation. While in America, at one time or another, even partial nudity and mildly suggestive, posed couples were declared obscene, the recent past has witnessed the shrinkage of the term to "hardcore" sex (actual intercourse, the camera emphasizing, rather than avoiding genitals and their interaction.)
One of the basic textbooks on American film censorship flatly states that "the legal regulation of stag films, of course, falls beyond the purview of this investigation. Such materials are clearly pornographic and are never shown publicly. Naturally, these films cannot be censored." (7) This was in 1966. Four years later, stag films were publicly shown all over America.
[...]
References
(1) Ira H. Carmen, Movies, Censorship and the Law, 1966
(2) The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, 1970
(3) Richard S. Randall, Censorship of the Movies, 1970 (4) Randall
(5) Drs Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen, Pornography and the Law, 1964
(6) Randall
(7) Carmen
(8) Rene Guyon, The Ethics of Sexual Acts, 1934
(9) Report
(10) Report
(11) Report
(12) Peter Gorsen, Sexual-aesthetic, 1972
(13) Jeff Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 1968
(14) Alex Comfort, Darwin and the Naked Lady, 1961
(15) Kronhausen

2004, May 13; 22:43 :::: Together Forever

Together Forever (1982) - Exodus [listen]
Simply one of the all-time great classics from the Loft and Garage days, check out the accapella on this monster track!! --wavemusic.com
Another one of my all time favorite boogie choons has to be Exodus "Together forever" from 1982 on a small label out of Jamaica NY. I can remember Phil Allen being one of the few people to play this back in the summer of 1982 on Capitol Radio in London although it wasn't until the late 80s that it became sought after when Dave Lee reworked it and put it out under the disguise of Raven Maze. This record also gained a release sometime around 2001 via Wave Records.
As I pointed out above anyone who use to listen to Phill Allen's excellent soul show on Capitol Radio that ran from the early part of 1981 until sometime in 1984 may well remember this record. Each week he would have all the latest US 12"s and albums that had been released that week and I think he used to take a copy of everthing that came into the country. --http://www.soulmusiccollector.com/exodus_together_forever.html [May 2004]
2004, May 13; 22:10 :::: dub

Dub: The mixing desk [studio] as an instrument and the DJ/remixer/[producer] as an artist. -- John McCready
2004, May 13; 11:08 :::: camp

We need a precise definition of camp. This statement probably sounds paradoxical, impossible, and totally futile because campďż˝s very power is its indefinability, its coy, catch-all polymorphousness, its reconstitution of seemingly all extroverted extremes into a marker of oppositional style — regardless of whether those extremes result from intentional artistry or unintentional buffoonery. Susan Sontagďż˝s playful list of artifacts in Notes on Camp spellbinds mainly because her artifactsďż˝ many mutual exclusions gloriously prove and broaden campďż˝s indefinability, ecstatically releasing us from the academic burden of an objective definition. The casual, interchangeable vocabularies we lazily rely upon have always implied that camp, though probably definable, shouldnďż˝t be defined, lest we regain our innocence only to lose it. It isnďż˝t clear if many humorously descriptive, onomatopoeic words we use — hokum, kitsch, schmaltz, cheese, corn — are subsets of camp or alternatives to it, and even if they are subsets, our subjective, amorphous definitions sabotage any attempt at a taxonomy. For me, hokum is Powell and Pressburger, kitsch is Offenbach, schmaltz is (of course) Rachmaninoff, cheese is Lehar, and corn ranges from the nourishing Shadow of a Doubt to the dyspeptically flag-waving The Sands of Iwo Jima. But whoďż˝s to say hokum isnďż˝t The Merry Widow, cheese isnďż˝t Rachmaninoffďż˝s Second Symphony, and constipating corn isnďż˝t The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp? Even if we accept Sontagďż˝s claim that florid, puffed-up Richard Strauss is camp (is she thinking of his queer Josephslegende?) and grumpy, grandiloquent Wagner isnďż˝t, canďż˝t ring-thieving dwarves, pointy helms, and magic rainbows still be described as hokum or kitsch, as ably demonstrated by an effeminized Bugs Bunny and infantile Elmer Fudd? --Andrew Grossman, Blood Feast Revisited, or H. G. Lewis as the Keeper of the Key to All Erotic Mystery, http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/44/feast.htm
2004, May 13; 01:16 :::: coprophilia

merda d'artista (1961) - Piero Manzoni
The Tate values excrement more highly than gold By Catherine Milner, Arts Correspondent (Filed: 30/06/2002)
Critics of modern art will at least applaud the irony. The Tate Gallery has paid ďż˝22,300 of public money for a work that is, quite literally, a load of excrement.
The canned faeces of Piero Manzoni, one of Italy's most controversial artists, have been bought by the gallery from a sale at Sotheby's.
Can 004 is one of an "edition" of 90 tins of merda d'artista created by Manzoni in 1961 as an ironic statement on the art market. Each can contained 30 grams of his faeces and Manzoni sold it for the same price as if it were gold. --http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/30/nart30.xml [May 2004]
2004, May 12; 23:37 :::: jazz

Universal Sounds of America (1995) - Various artists [Amazon UK] [US] [FR] [DE]
1. Space 2 - Durrah, David 2. Theme de yoyo - Art Ensemble Of Chicago 3. Lions of judah - Reid, Steve 4. Astral travelling - Sanders, Pharoah 5. Space odyssey - Belgrave, Marcus 6. Empty street - Reid, Steve 7. Kitty bey - Morris, Byron 8. Space 1 - Durrah, David 9. Space is the place - Sun Ra
Currently in very heavy rotation on my machine. Get this! Warning: link is to Amazon UK.
Universal Sounds of America features music from radical Afro-American Jazz musicians in the USA in the 1970's. At a time when commercial jazz music was revolving around whether it would sound good in an Elevator at low volume, a number of Jazz musicians were seeking different musical paths. Self Determination, Creative Development, Community and Education were more important to these musicians than economic wealth, fame and stardom.
Artists such as The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra developed around communal groups. The Art Ensemble, for instance , came out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) founded in 1965 by Muhal Richard Abrams in Chicago.
Many musicians followed the lead of Sun Ra in starting their own labels to release their own material. Artists such as Byron Morris in Washington and Steve Reid in New York
The Tribe label in Detroit formed around a group of musicians (Wendell Harrison, Phil Ranelin, Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and others) also produced a regular magazine focussed on the Detroit community. The Strata- East label in New York independantly released many self-financed records by the cream of creative Jazz musicians in the 70's.
Many of these musicians were the spiritual descendants of John Coltrane. None more so than Pharoah Sanders , who had been a member of John Coltrane's group in the sixties. Sun Ra whose 20 minute "Space is the Place" is featured on this CD is also a major influence on many of these artists and indeed many of them at one time or another were involved with the Sun Ra group.
Universal Sounds of America describes this period in time and features all the artists mentioned.
2004, May 12; 13:36 :::: Perversion in art

Olympia , 1863 - Edouard Manet (Oil on canvas, 130.5 x 190 cm, Musee d'Orsay, Paris)
...the number of perverts involved in the field of art is probably much greater than the average for the population in general.... It can be supposed ... that the pervert inclines in some particular manner to the world of art.
Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, Creativity and Perversion, 1985

It is usual for most normal people to linger to some extent over the intermediate aim of looking that has a sexual tinge to it; indeed, this offers them a possibility of directing some proportion of their libido on to higher artistic aims. On the other hand, this pleasure in looking [scopophilia] becomes a perversion (a) if it is restricted exclusively to the genitals, or (b) if it is connected with the overriding of disgust (as in the case of voyeurs or people who look at excretory functions), or (c) if, instead of being preparatory to the normal sexual aim, it supplants it.
Sigmund Freud, "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," 1905

The most common and the most significant of all the perversions -- the desire to inflict pain upon the sexual object, and its reverse -- received from Krafft-Ebbing the names of "Sadism" and "Masochism" for its active and passive forms respectively.
Sigmund Freud, "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," 1905

First, perversion is the result of an essential interplay between hostility and sexual desire.... Second, people with perversions feel (are made to feel) an unending sense of being dirty, sinful, secretive, abnormal and a threat to those finer, unperverse citizens who are supposed to make up the majority of society. Third, the word itself reflects the need of individuals in society to keep from recognizing their own perverse tendencies by providing scapegoats who liberate the rest of us in that they serve as the objects of our own unacceptable and projected perverse tendencies.
Robert Stoller, Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred, 1975

We also find many versions of anal defiance, the urge to exhibit excrement and to flaunt it before the eyes of the world. In some exhibitions in London there was a great show of "dirty knickers," underpants with faeces, piles of excrement on the floor made to look very life-like. We can take this to be a defiant gesture of the self which has been made to feel dirty and bad by parents and by the "clean and ordered" world at large.
The narcissistic self that wants to be admired and loved but encountered rejection or disgust is hitting back at its tormentors, gaining revenge by outraging them with obscenities and by breaking their rules.... Indeed, what is the meaning of old bits of iron, broken chimney pots, old bicycles, fragments of machinery, unwanted sewing-machines and such like exhibited as sculptures? They obviously serve to disturb and outrage the onlooker by claiming artistic significance for what most people regard as discards. We see here a declaration of war against the cultural Superego, a demand for a right to express any impulse previously considered taboo. Sublimation itself, the very foundation of culture, is declared a barrier to freedom, an instrument of repression.
This new kind of libertarianism is not at all what the founders of modern art had intended.
George Frankl, Civilisation: Utopia and Tragedy, 1990

[Kitsch] is perhaps most clearly visible where love poetry changes into pornography ... perverting the infinite goal of love ... into a series of finite sex acts..... Whoever produces kitsch ... is not to be evaluated by esthetic measures but is ethically depraved; he is a criminal who wills radical evil.
Hermann Broch, Evil in the Value System of Art, 1933

Who has no Kitsch in his unconscious, can throw the first stone.
Wilhelm Worringer, "Thoughts On Kitsch," 1951

Perversion was implicit in modern art from the beginning, and remains a vital factor in it today. In fact, one can regard modern art as by and large the history of the representation of Perversion . What makes it innovative -- "modern" -- is its perverseness, both in attitude and form. Curiosity about perversion, supposedly the most novel, adventurous sexuality, motivates many modern artists. Certainly some of the most famous, innovative works deal with perversion, more or less openly. They also tend to be structurally perverse, at least by traditional standards. And perverse in method, if automatism is any indication.
Beginning with Manet's Olympia, 1863 (for many the seminal modern picture) and jumping to Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907 (another "breakthough"), and then to the dolls that Hans Bellmer made in the 1930s and the somewhat different looking but equally perverse dolls that appear in Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, 1979 -- her later grotesquely dismembered dolls are explicitly Bellmeresque, especially when they are composites of fragments that don't add up to a complete body -- and throwing in Egon Schiele's nudes, Balthus's adolescent girls, Piero Manzoni's canned shit, and Gilbert and George's shit cookies (many other works can be mentioned), one realizes that many of the masterpieces of modern art depend on perversion to make their dramatic point. --Donald Kuspit http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspit6-10-02.asp [May 2004]
This is an excellent article with lots of yummy links for jahsonic.com. Although I am not a regular customer at artnet.com, I do come across them quite often while trying 'combinations' in Google. --Jahsonic, [May 2004]
2004, May 12; 13:36 :::: movies

Obviously, I haven't seen all these films in the past few months, or even years : indeed, I saw many (if not most) when I was a very different person, and second viewing may reveal a very different movie. This is especially true of late 80s and early 90s films, most of which I haven't seen since I was at high school and college (when my taste was considerably more mainstream than it is now) ; I've resisted the temptation to second-guess my younger self, but I still wonder whether I'd be equally impressed with (say) CANDYMAN or THE USUAL SUSPECTS if I saw them now - and suspect I wouldn't be. Pinch of salt recommended, in other words.
Theo Panayides' favourite films, 1930-2003
2004, May 12; 09:31 :::: horror

Viy (1967) - Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov [Amazon.com]
An eerie, foreboding, rarely-seen classic horror film from Russia, "Viy" is based on 19th century writer Nikolai Gogol's original story of Thomas Brutus, a theology student who is forced to read scripture for a young woman who has died. What he doesn't know is, she is the devil's emissary on earth. Over the three nights of his mission, Thomas is tempted and tormented by all the minions of hell as the young man's faith and courage are tested in a trial by fire. --amazon.com

Seconds (1966) - John Frankenheimer [Amazon.com]
This film plays into all our fantasies about new lives and second chances. A discontented middle aged man stumbles onto a mysterious agency that fakes his death and literally turns him into Rock Hudson...but, needless to say, the new, supposedly better life the agency constructs isn't all it's cracked up to be. James Wong Howe's mind-boggling black and white photography makes excellent use of distorted lenses, creating a horrifically off-kilter universe of apprehension and foreboding. It often looks more like a European art film rather than the Hollywood production it is, but its subject matter is strictly all-American. In other words, you should watch SECONDS in place of AMERICAN BEAUTY. --Adam Groves in Adam Groves' fifty best horror movies of all time
2004, May 11; 20:35 :::: art

An installation by artist Marco Evaristti of 10 working blenders containing live fish was on display at the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding Denmark in February. The display invited visitors to blend the fish. Museum Chief Peter Meyer, was charged with animal cruelty after complaints by activists. His trial verdict was announced on May 19, 2003.
Museum Chief Peter Meyer was acquitted after a court ruled that the two fish killed has died "instantly" and humanely"
2004, May 11; 19:29 :::: nazi exploitation

Kamp Kulture : A History of Nazi Exploitation (2003) - Simon Whitechapel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Following World War II, there has been a subtle but constant drip-feed of Nazi-related material coming onto the market. Ranging from the first published concentration camp memoirs to appear in the aftermath of war, and banned 1990s computer games in which players become the Kommandants of their own death-camps, to sexploitation films of the '60s and '70s, records and comics. Kamp Kulture brings a wide range of material together for the first time to formulate a study of this unique and repulsive phenomenon: Nazi and Holocaust exploitation.
Simon Whitechapel was born in Madagascar, where he had an agnostic upbringing. Previous publications include Crossing to Kill (Virgin, 2000), and Flesh Inferno (Creation, April 2003).
2004, May 11; 19:29 :::: gay

Paragraph 175 (2000) - Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Rupert Everett narrates this sensitive documentary about the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during World War II. "Paragraph 175" refers to the old German penal code concerning homosexuality, which was used to justify the prosecution of gay men during the war (the code ignored lesbians, still considered viable baby-making vessels). As mere rumor became enough to justify imprisonment, over 100,000 were arrested and between 10,000 and 15,000 were sent to concentration camps. In Paragraph 175, Klaus Mďż˝ller, a historian from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, sets out to interview the fewer than 10 who are known to remain alive. The film covers the astonishingly quick rise of Hitler (one interviewee points out how ridiculous a figure he seemed at first) and the shock that more liberal Germans felt as it became clear that he was a force to be reckoned with. Some of the film's most touching moments come when the participants reminisce about their first loves and the "homosexual Eden" that was Berlin in the 1930s. This is a beautifully well made documentary that poignantly captures a piece of nearly forgotten history. --Ali Davis, amazon.com
2004, May 10; 15:49 :::: books

Three Men in a Boat (1899) - Jerome K. Jerome [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Jerome K. Jerome, to his consternation, was known exclusively as "the author of Three Men In A Boat", his comic novel published in 1899 about a trip down the Thames taken by three friends and their dog.
Jerome had not expected to be branded a master of whimsy. "like most men who have the reputation of being funny," he was to write in his autobiography My Life And Times, "I am a somewhat gloomy personage." --Jerome K. Jerome From Idler 5, July 1994
2004, May 10; 15:06 :::: cinema

The Nasty Girl (1990) - Michael Verhoeven [Amazon.com]
Filmmaker Michael Verhoeven (not to be confused with Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven) made one of the best films of the '80s with this bold, 1989 German production about an adolescent girl, Sonja (Lena Stolze of Verhoeven's The White Rose), who researches the history of her hometown's involvement in the Holocaust. The "nasty" of the title doesn't refer to provocative behavior on the heroine's part but rather Sonja's sudden reputation as a busybody, stirring up dirt about her neighbors' sundry crimes against humanity and being rebuffed or punished at every turn. Verhoeven makes a number of inspired, artistic leaps in portraying Sonja's story (she grows up and is a married woman before her quest is complete) as an epic myth for post-war Germany. The director draws on thrilling performance ideas from Bertolt Brecht and pursues heavy visual stylization to bring an exciting immediacy to this tale of dangerous secrets. Topping it all off is Stolze's sharp, likable, smart acting. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
2004, May 10; 14:20 :::: music

Musical Genre
The idea of genres comes basically from the question "What does it sound like?" In describing the indescribable, the music fan uses a number of mechanisms to help identify traits that further elucidate connections between what is known and what is being explored. Whether these traits can be considered valid or otherwise, it is clear they exist, and exist as a trait of the consumer, rather than the artist who often feels such labels to be limiting and corrosive. The intent of this writing is not to create labels, but rather to document them and explore their connections both legitimate and tenuous. --The Guide to the Progressive Rock Genres Version 2.0. Last updated 10/22/03 , Mike McLatchey, http://www.gepr.net/genre2.html [May 2004]
Post Rock
Unlike many of the terms here, the moniker post-rock can be traced to its genesis, which was an article by Simon Reynolds in The Wire, Issue 123, May 94. Reynolds states, "Post-rock means using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and powerchords." Music under this moniker varies stylistically from Cul De Sac and Do Make Say Think to Tortoise and Mogwai to Labradford and Godspeed You Black Emperor. --The Guide to the Progressive Rock Genres Version 2.0. Last updated 10/22/03 , Mike McLatchey, http://www.gepr.net/genre2.html [May 2004]
2004, May 10; 13:20 :::: music

Extra Yard (Big Dada, 2002) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1. A ďż˝La Fu Gives It To You (skit) - Aďż˝la Fu & ESC 2. Killer Apps - Gamma feat. Shadowless 3. Dreamy Days Lotek Bonanza Relick - Roots Manuva feat. Ricky Rankin 4. We Donďż˝t Care - Ty 5. Born Again - Roots Manuva feat. Wildflower 6. Izwha - Gamma 7. Life Without You - Part 2 & LSK 8. Barry Says... (skit) - Infinite Livez 9. No More Bananas - Infinite Livez 10. Fire - Lotek HiFi 11. Shake It Up - Ty 12. Lie Low - New Flesh 13. East More Fruit (More Fire Revisited) - Defisis v. New Flesh 14. Zero Gravity Lotek Relick - New Flesh 15. Witness The Swords - Roots Manuva feat. Fallacy, Rodney P, Blackitude, Big P & Skeme 16. Niceness - Infinite Livez feat. Gamma & Jack Tarr 17. Bashment Boogie Tomo Remix - Roots Manuva
If you seek homegrown music that refuses to play by the rules, this, unquestionably, is where it's at. --The Sunday Times
If you come across anyone accusing British hip hop of being a poor imitation of its American counterpart, play them 'Extra Yard' and wait for their jaw to drop. --NME
A decade ago, British hip-hop was mired in a funk. American funk, to be precise. Avid scholars of the stateside form, British MCs had yet to establish a viable, engaging, indigenous identity that wasn't emulative. Fast forward a few years, and UK rappers had finally found their own voice in the form of artists like Blak Twang and Skinnyman. Now they needed the beats to match. Extra Yard, then, is the sound of the scene finding its unified aesthetic, with a style they dub "bouncement." Most of the sonics, by producers such as Tomz and Part 2, border on anarchy ďż˝ pop-locking electro, irregular synth dribbles, skittish two-step percussion, neck-snapping tempos ďż˝ and are matched with bombastic, dancehall-influenced vocals. As a result, songs like New Flesh's "Zero Gravity Lotek Relick," Infinite Livez's "No More Bananas" and "Born Again" by scene patriarch Roots Manuva prove more challenging than anything coming out of the States, underground or otherwise. If the hunger shown on the outstanding posse cut "Witness the Swords" is any indication, now that they've found a voice, they'll soon find an audience. As Ty says on the chorus of "Don't Care," "We don't intend to be broke, so keep your eyes on me." Jon Caramanica --URB Magazine
2004, May 10; 13:03 :::: erotica

The Naughty Bits : The Steamiest and Most Scandalous Sex Scenes from the World's Great Books (2001) - Jack Murnighan [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Jack Murnighan, former editor-in-chief of sex-friendly Web site Nerve.com, gathers short erotic excerpts from works by more than 70 authors from the Marquis de Sade to Thomas Pynchon, Sappho to Jeanette Winterson, Ovid to J.G. Ballard. Culled from his popular weekly online column, The Naughty Bits (also Brit slang for genitalia) is billed as "the book that literary perverts have been waiting for." One of several recent Nerve.com tie-ins, it's a great idea and one needn't be especially literary or perverted to enjoy it. Murnighan's thoroughly good-natured, erudite introductions add to the bawdy fun. --Publishers Weekly, via amazon.com
Most people don't read a good book or have great sex nearly as often as they should; then again, most people don't know that the Great Works e.g., Joyce's Ulysses, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Plato's The Symposium are as rife with "naughty bits" as a frat house is with hormones. The general public has Murnighan, former editor-in-chief of the popular sex web-zine Nerve.com, to thank for gleaning the gamut of world literature for amorous interludes, from the painfully romantic to the to the puke-inducing. Murnighan first excerpted these findings in the web site's "Naughty Bits" column, of which the crďż˝me de la crďż˝me is collected here. Besides giants like Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Dante, and Herman Melville, lesser-knowns, such as 1960s French teen novelist Catherine Breillant, medieval English autobiographer Margery Kempe, and lesbian playwright Holly Hughes, make appearances alongside contemporary cads Larry Flynt and Kenneth Starr. Almost more savory than the wildly varied extracts are Murnighan's learned prefaces. The fan of erotica, the student of literature, and the aspiring sex worker will all relate to his language, a strangely seamless mix of lit crit and potty talk. Highly recommended for erotica collections and larger world literature collections. Heather McCormack, "Library Journal" --From Library Journal via amazon.com
Fresh from the virtual pages of Nerve.com comes this collection of "naughty bits," an irreverent look into the steamy, scandalous side of literature past and present. With bite-sized salacious excerpts from the classics -- new and old -- each with a fresh, insightful introduction, The Naughty Bits presents the world's great books as you never thought you'd see them. --Book Description via amazon.com
Includes naughty bits by:
Dante D. H. Lawrence Philip Roth Goethe Toni Morrison Julio Cortďż˝zar John Cheever William Shakespeare Thaddeus Rutkowski John Donne Thomas Malory Gďż˝nter Grass Herman Melville John Barth Ernest Hemingway Erica Jong Thomas Carew M. F. K. Fisher William Kennedy Jeanette Winterson Paul West Harry Mathews Catullus Clarice Lispector Giovanni Boccaccio James Baldwin Nicholson Baker Tom Wolfe John Wilmot Kevin Canty Plato James Joyce Lydia Davis Franďż˝ois Rabelais Kenneth Starr Henry Miller John Updike Geoffrey Chaucer Marquis de Sade Sir Philip Sidney Holly Hughes Martin Amis Andrew Marvell The Pearl Poet Thomas Pynchon Sappho William Gibson Mark Leyner Margery Kempe Jean Genet Edmund Spenser John Cleland Kurt Vonnegut Anaďż˝s Nin Petronius Keith Banner Umberto Eco J.G. Ballard Mario Vargas Llosa Ovid Jean de Meun Catherine Breillant George Eliot Kenzaburo Oe Cormac McCarthy Larry Flynt Rupert Brooke The Old Testament
2004, May 10; 12:55 :::: music

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology woebot.com is able to offer up the last Woebot/Kosmische/Resonance FM show to the denizens on the intranet who missed it first time round. Again a RealAudio stream, to my mind a fantastic alternative to the mp3 download:

1) You can scrub along the timeline from track to track.
2) At an hour and three quarters long an mp3 would be ginormous!
3) Relax in the knowledge that you're not contributing to the rot of mp3 filesharing...

Proving Woebot isn't you're average gig, you'll be tickled to know that I approached the record companies of the two commercially unreleased tracks I played. I wasn't about to offer them up here without permission you see, cos I'm not a twat, simple innit. I was fully expecting a rebuttal from both parties concerned so imagine my sheer delight when Big Dada gave me clearance to host the Infinite Livez tune!!! I was stunned not least cos it's certainly going to be one of the biggest, most insane, notorious tracks of the year. In fact I'd go as far as saying..........it's sick! Special thanks to Etienne at Big Dada for this. Really you HAVE to hear it!

-----

0.00.00 Kosmische Show Intro
0.00.51 Infinite Livez: Adventures of the Lactating Man (Bush Meat CD)
0.05.14 David Banner: Cadillacs on 22s (Mississippi The Album CD)
0.10.47 Meat Puppets: Seal Whales (Up on the Sun LP)
0.13.05 Francois Rabbath: Les Gorgones (Basse en Fugue LP)
0.17.20 Michael Rother: Silberstreif (Fernwarme LP)
0.22.00 Ryuichi Sakamoto: Das Neue Japanische Elektronishe Volkslied* (Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto LP)
0.25.39 Terrah Danjah: Juggling* (After Shock EP)
0.27.32 Casino-vs-Japan: Summer Clip (Whole Numbers Play The Basics CD)
0.35.32 Francois de Roubaix: La Fete de deux Avions (Les Plus Belles Musiques de Francois Roubaix Vol.3 LP)
0.41.03 The Tornadoes: Do Your Thing Part Two (Pantomime 7")
0.45.04 Punjabi MC: Challa (Punjabi MC The Album LP)
0.51.40 RZA: Ghost Dog Interlude (Ghost Dog Soundtrack Jap Import CD)
0.53.09 Lizard: Sa Ka Na (Tokyo Mobile Music LP)
0.58.22 Roberto De Simone: Canto di Camorra (Library 7")
1.03.29 Nini Raviolette: Suis-je Normale? (Eponymous EP)
1.08.49 Outputmessage: Bernard's Song (Idol Tryouts LP)
1.14.11 Mathew Johnson: Typerope (Eponymous 12")
1.18.41 Revolution: Cina (Unreleased Import Reissue CD)
1.22.55 Ethiopian 7" Damaged Label
1.27.32 Dr. Zeus: Ah Ni Kuria (Unda Da Influence CD)
1.31.39 Lil' Flip: Da Roof (Eponymous 12")
1.34.28 The Black Dog: Shadehead (Peel Sessions EP)
1.40.45 Francois de Roubiaux: Pat-Benj (Les Plus Belles Musiques de Francois Roubaix Vol.3 LP)
1.43.55 Kosmische Show Outro

-----

*replace excised track.

Thanks to Sacha for coming down and chipping in with some tunes, thanks to Dwayne our engineer (and man behind the Eggzup label) and natch to all the heads at Kosmische. Big it up. Enjoy. --via woebot.com http://www.woebot.com/, accessed and copied May 2004

2004, May 09; 10:52 :::: time

Two aspects of narration in novels and films are time and memory. These abstract notions are in fact very close to human experience as our perception of time is shaped by natural processes - we measure it in days, months and years with their division into seasons. As Slomith Rimmon-Kenan puts it in his book Narrative Fiction
Our civilization tends to think of time as a uni-directional and irreversible flow, a sort of one-way street. Such a conception was given metaphoric shape by Heraclitus early in western history: you cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet other waters go ever flowing on. --Slomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 40. via http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/forum/kosior.htm

2004, May 08; 19:39 :::: Death

Dance of Death (1538) - Hans Holbein
Death, personified is an anthropomorphic figure or a fictional character who has existed in mythology and popular culture since the earliest days of storytelling. Because the reality of death has had a substantial influence on the human psyche and the development of civilization as a whole, the personification of Death as a living, sentient entity is a concept that has existed in all known societies since the beginnings of recorded history.
In modern-day, European-based folklore, Death is also known as the Grim Reaper. In the Septuagint version of the Bible, Death is portrayed in the apocryphal book of Tobit as Azrael, the angel of death. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(personification)
2004, May 08; 13:59 :::: music

Anti Ny (2004) - Various Artists [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

1. Launderette - Goldman, Vivien 2. If I gave you a party - Sexual Harassment 3. Drum mode - Gray 4. Love attack - Konk 5. Girl's imagination - Del & Byzanteens 6. NCR - Ike Yard 7. Exterior Street - Death Comet Crew & Rammellzee 8. Drum mode (Paul Mogg version) - Gray 9. Launderette (Munk version) - Goldman, Vivien 10. If I gave you a party (Syrup version) - Sexual Harassment 11. Exterior Street (Protein version) - Death Comet Crew & Rammellzee 12. NCR (Funkstorung version) - Ike Yard
A definitive compilation of NY post-punk centred round the infamous Mudd Club, incorporating the dance ethic of disco and reggae, the newly-emerging voice of hiphop, and the experimentalism of rudimentary synths: the first real melting pot world music. The seven original tracks from 1978-82 sound like they could easily have been made yesterday, and the five remixes don't mess around too much with the originals. Can't recommend this too highly if you love raw, vital dance music. grantc via amazon.com
Itďż˝s easy to forget that despite todayďż˝s re-imagining of that era, disco and punk were sworn enemies, with the Mudd Club and itďż˝s progeny structuring themselves as a response to the 9-5 Weekender attitude of the disco crowd. Weďż˝re soon to be treated to the first bonafide history of the era at the hands of New York-based Academic Simon Reynolds' eagerly anticipated Post-Punk book. ďż˝None of the disco people went to The Mudd Club. You got the Bianca Jaggers thrown in once in a while, but if we saw those people we'd trip 'em up, kick 'em, and if they came dressed all disco James Chance might just mug them on the dancefloor. The strata of people was pretty pronounced. When you say Disco people I think Studio 54 people, that was a whole tribe of people. More power to them, but it jusn't wasn't our scene.ďż˝ With Dominatrix he was trying to engineer transgression, not homogeneity: ďż˝Its good to have boundaries because then you can say ďż˝thisďż˝ and ďż˝thisďż˝ get together, and it's not just a pool of musicians.ďż˝ This boundary breaking was echoed in the tracks' subject matter. ďż˝I'd been hanging out with Dominatrixes, they were my good friends. I wanted to do a thing which showed what they were aboutďż˝these women in power who were beating and peeing on the top music business lawyers in New York.ďż˝ Stuart [Argabright] clearly in awe of these girls and the down-up inversion of power they practised. --Woebot, March 22, 2004 http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/000452.html [May 2004]
Stuart Argabright is a Producer and Director who has been working in music and multimedia in NYC since 1978. Stuart has created The Futants, Ike Yard, Dominatrix, DCC aka Death Comet Crew, The Voodooists, black rain and now Dystopians usually doing a record /CD release or 2 with each group before moving on. In 2003 into 2004, he is able to experience a bit of the past, present and future simultaneously with his 1980's groups getting their Rerelease and new life while he continues working on new music with Dystopians and Dominatrix (now a major Rerelease on Gigolo Records) and Producing Artists like The Rammellzee's "Bi Conicals Of The Rammellzee" Album for the Munich indie Gomma and remixing up and comers like Tussle (SF) for Tmu.In addition, Stuart has been working in Music Video, and with Artists such as Gretchen Bender, Robert Longo, Bill T Jones, and author William Gibson, including the 1994 "Neuromancer" Audio Book and "Hip Tech High Lit" in 1987 with Judy Nylon and Sean Young. Stuart and Co.'s music appear as soundtracks on movies by directors Nicolas Roeg, Johnathan Demme and others. The music video for Dominatrix (directed by Beth B) resides in MOMA's permanent Collection, the "Digital Shiatsu" CDROM Stuart Directed and CoProduced won Silver Award @ New Media Awards in '95 and Stuart's team recieved Emmy nomination in 2001 for their Sdtk work for NY Times TV's popular Cable TV series "Trauma: Life In The ER" on TLC. --Tigersushi.com [May 2004]
2004, May 08; 13:59 :::: music

The Story of Konk (2004) - Konk [Amazon US] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Liner Notes
KONK were first featured on Soul Jazz Recordsďż˝ earlier New York Noise alongside Arthur Russell, ESG and Liquid Liquid.
KONK were formed in New York in 1980. They played an important part in the link between New Yorkďż˝s Disco scene (Paradise Garage/Loft/Gallery etc) and the New York No Wave/Post-Punk scene (Liquid Liquid, ESG, James White etc).
KONKďż˝s pioneering interest in electronic and musical technology also put them at the forefront of the burgeoning worlds of Electro/Hip-Hop and House. Their use of DJ mixers (breaking down a track to itďż˝s individual elements) predated the arrival of samplers and enabled DJs such as Larry Levan to extend their mixes to up to 25 minutes! At the same time KONK would just as likely find themselves on a Bronx mix-tape alongside Bambaataďż˝s "Planet Rock" and Mantronix "Put the Needle to the Groove" with Break-dancing and Body-popping being a regular feature at their live gigs (check out the live version of "Baby Dee").
This compilation brings together the classic KONK recordings in the 1980s from their releases on labels as diverse as Rough Trade, Sleeping Bag, 99 Records, Les Disques Du Crepuscle and Celluloid. As well as being a key group in New Yorkďż˝s Post-Punk dance scene where they regularly played alongside groups such as Liquid Liquid, Bush Tetras, ESG, The Peech Boys and The Lounge Lizards, KONK found favour with DJs such as David Mancuso and the legendary Larry Levan and were one of a select few bands to play at both the Paradise Garage and the Loft.
KONK featured in itďż˝s line up members of Jean Michel Basquiatďż˝s band Gray, Sonic Youth and members of Glenn Brancaďż˝s ensemble. Founding member Dana Vlcek later went on to work with Francois Kervorkian. The wide range of itďż˝s members is reflected in the music which fuses Disco/Post-Punk/Electro/Latin and proto-House together.
This new compilation makes available KONKďż˝s left-field Disco classics (many for the first time in twenty years!). The album also comes with extensive sleeve notes, interviews and photographs.
2004, May 08; 12:23 :::: censorship

Ken Park (2002) - Larry Clark, Edward Lachman
Ken Park . . . explicit sex, suicide and auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Ken Park is Larry Clark's best film since Kids, whatever that means. This time, Clark and cinematographer/director Lachman (in a severe gear shift from the Technicolor fantasy of "Far from Heaven") ignore the censors completely, and include a number of hard-core sequences in which the characters (if not the actual actors) are well below legal age. For that reason, "Ken Park" is kind of the ultimate Larry Clark movie, in that it takes as its subject the director's career-long obsession -- poor, unhappy, uneducated white kids and their loveless sex by -- then isolates and magnifies it to a unsettlingly explicit degree. Clark is an acute social critic and he's a pornographer, and "Ken Park" is the clearest example to date of how that duality shows up in his work. --Matthew Ross, Indiewire.com
Ken Park is a 2002 film adapted by Harmony Korine from stories by Larry Clark. It was directed by Larry Clark and Edward Lachman. It stars James Ransone, Tiffany Limos, Stephen Jasso and James Bullard.
The movie revolves around the abusive home lives of several teenage skateboarders. Even though these kids hang out together at the skateboard park, they never interact in their outside lives. It's a story of violence and alienation.
Teenagers played by young adults: Peaches (Tiffany Limos), Tate (James Ransone), Claude (Stephen Jasso) and Shawn (James Bullard). It contains some explicit sexual behavior (Clark:"I decided that I wasnďż˝t going to turn the camera away, or shut the door, or shoot from the waist up."). It takes place in the rural town of Visalia, California; it portrays suicide, murder, parental violence, alcoholism, smoking cannabis, skateboarding, weight-lifting, incestuous sexual assault by a homophobic father of his sleeping son, BDSM, solo strangling sex, religious fanaticism, a fake marriage of a father with his daughter, a boy having sex with his girlfriend's mother, with at the end an idyllic sex scene with two of the boys and the girl.
The movie has never been issued in wide release in the United States, it has not found a distributor since its initial showing at the Telluride Film Festival in 2002. It has been banned in Australia for its violence and sexual content; the ban has been controversial: there has been an illegal showing of the film as a protest, after which police arrived at the scene to stop the filming. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Park [May 2004]
2004, May 08; 11:57 :::: sex

Tokyo Decadence (1992) - Ryu Murakami [Amazon US]
Released as a piece of exotic arty porn, Tokyo Decadence became quite a hit at festivals and art houses around the world. There's something about artistically justified porn which always seems to draw in the punters. The threshold of shame is lowered considerably once a film containing explicitly sexual scenes is qualified as art.
In the case of Tokyo Decadence, the English title was half the publicity. For those wishing to see scenes of decadence in Tokyo, the film certainly delivers. However, the intention of the film is entirely different. It might show explicit sexuality, but this is far from a portrait of the decadence of the Japanese. Rather, it's a portrait of loneliness and the more metaphoric original Japanese title is in fact a much more appropriate one.
Young Ai ("love" - a bitterly ironic choice of name) makes a living as a call girl specialising in SM. A thoroughly lonely soul, she fulfills the wishes of her clients and lets herself be degraded and hurt, undergoing everything with a look of sadness on her face and a distant thought on her mind. She yearns for happiness as she wanders through cold, impersonal city streets. Her desperation is such that when a fortune teller says that she will find happiness if she places a telephone directory under her television and buys a ring of natural stone, she complies. The topaze ring she buys at great expense becomes symbolic for her fruitless search for happiness.
Director Murakami stays admirably true to his own intentions. The loneliness of his lead character is mirrored in many elements of the production. Lit in a harsh manner that gives everything an unearthly paleness, the world Ai inhabits comes across as empty, cold and depressing. Aside from the people she interacts with, few others are seen, and those she meets are almost without exception out to satisfy their own selfish desires.
As a result, Tokyo Decadence can hardly be called erotic. Exotic maybe (or at least, the wishes of Ai's clients certainly are), but above all, this film presents us with a world that's cold and devoid of humanity, compassion and feeling. It's a selectively dramatic portrait perhaps (it simply refuses to let any kind of light shine into its darkness) and as such it's certainly no Taxi Driver, but thanks to Murakami's devotion to his own intentions, Tokyo Decadence surfaces as an effective study of one human being's loneliness. --Tom Mes, via http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/tokyodec.shtml, [May 2004]
2004, May 07; 18:27 :::: love

The Beautiful Boy (2003) - Germaine Greer [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Greer has made a career of the controversial polemic, most explosively in the 1970s with The Female Eunuch, brazenly arguing for women's sexual liberation. Decades later, the Australian-born sensualist seeks to redress another wrong: heterosexual women's insensitivity to the boy as sexual object. Considering the utter fetishization of contemporary youth culture, it's difficult to sustain the argument that nubile lads are being neglected. But the present day isn't the volume's strength; the most modern icons include Elvis, Boy George, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Robert Plant-nary a boy band member. The more compelling passages investigate shifting representations in classical art-Cupid first depicted as sly aggressor, seducing his own mother, only to be desexualized in the more restrictive 19th century, conveniently cloaked by a drape or angel wing. Except for a final chapter that glosses over the works of female artists, Greer hardly plunges into her initial aim "to advance women's reclamation of their capacity for and right to visual pleasure." What does it mean for women to sexualize dewy, girlish boys created by male artists? To swoon over Caravaggio's provocative urchins, Michelangelo's languorous Dying Slave or Eakins's supple-skinned bathers? It's not clear, but then nuance has never really interested Greer. Short on argument but long on lush reproductions of languid young men, the collection is better viewed than read. 200 color and b/w photographs and illustrations. --Copyright ďż˝ Reed Business Information, via amazon.com
Like Ken Park's director, Larry Clark, Germaine Greer deliberately provokes controversy with the cheapest trick. If there's a taboo left, she'll break it, and since one of the few remaining taboos in Western liberal democracies is pedophilia, that's the arena she's most recently entered. --Miranda Devine, Generation of taboo breakers are a selfish lot, July 10 2003 [May 2004]
2004, May 06; 15:25 :::: art

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa - Hokusai, Katsushika, From "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji"; 1823-29 (140 Kb); Color woodcut, 10 x 15 in; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Hokusai is generally more appreciated in the West than in Japan. His prints, as well as those by other Japanese printmakers, were imported to Paris in the mid-19th century. They were enthusiastically collected, especially by such impressionist artists as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, whose work was profoundly influenced by them. via http://www.navigo.com/wm/paint/auth/hokusai/ [May 2004]
2004, May 06; 12:26 :::: Coxsone Dodd

Just a few weeks after the queen of rocksteady, Phyllis Dillon, died, the great Jamaican producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, founder of Studio One Records died yesterday at the age of 72 at his home in Jamaica. In less than a month, Jamaican music has lost two of its most important pioneers. Damn. via http://actionpotential.blogspot.com/, Wednesday, May 05, 2004
2004, May 02; 16:47 :::: grotesque

(Nicolas-Francois Regnault, Descriptions des principales monstruosites, 1808)
2004, May 02; 15:40 :::: religion

I found this image on http://www.orangeguru.net/weblog/archives/cat_art_musings.html while googling for kitsch + Tamara de Lempicka. Orangeguru is a visual weblog with pictures which all have a kitschy allure (highly, often subtly attractive). Be sure to check out his sleaze section (http://www.orangeguru.net/weblog/archives/cat_sleaze.html). My ~~main~~ only gripe (complaint) with this blog is that Dieter Mueller aka orangeguru does not credit the authors of the images featured, so there is no way of finding out who authored what.
2004, May 02; 14:22 :::: erotic books

Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes (1994) Laurie Toby Edison, Debbie Notkin [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Tracy Young, Allure Magazine
The nude women in Women En Large have a certain majest, the unabashedness of Henry Moore sculptures. They have escaped.

From the Publisher
Women En Large has sold over 9,000 copies around the world. It is used as a textbook in gender studies and health classes; it is a coffee table book in thousands of households; and it has contributed to helping tens of thousands of women and men feel better about themselves, their bodies, and their lives. Don't miss your chance to share these stunning photographs and thoughtful text with someone you love, or check it out for yourself!

From the Author
Fat women are big; they are not hard to notice. Nonetheless, there is a particular way in which we don't see fat women. I never used to think much a out the artistic possibilities of fat women's bodies. When I began working with Debbie Notkin on issues of fat oppression and size acceptance, I began really paying attention to fat bodies (something most people never do), I was thrilled as an artist to discover that fat women have marvelous curves and masses distributed very differently from thin women, in aesthetically fascinating ways. Thin women are also beautifyl, but I was familiar wtih the limited variety of our thinner bodies' shapes. Fat women's shapes are wonderfully different from each other.
When I review the final photographs, I see my images and I see the success of my efforts ... because I dont' see generic "fat women." I see women who are comfortable, confident, and beautiful. I see the twenty-five different, real, unique women who posed for this book.

About the Author
LAURIE TOBY EDISON is an internationally renowned and exhibited photographer. In 2002, one hundred of her photographs were exhibited in a retrospective solo show at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan. Her work has been shown in the U.S., Canada, England, Holland, and Japan. Her other collaboration with Debbie Notkin is Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes, published in 2003.
DEBBIE NOTKIN is a writer and editor. She collaborated with Laurie Toby Edison on Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes and has done a great deal of writing and speaking both separately and with Laurie on the subjects of body image and gender. She is the chair of the Motherboard for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for works of speculative fiction that explore and expand gender roles, and is on the board of Broad Universe, an organization to promote science fiction and fantasy by women. She edited Flying Cups and Saucers, the first anthology of short fiction honored by Tiptree Award judges.

2004, May 02; 19:02 :::: Passion

The Passion of the Christ (2004) - Mel Gibson [Amazon.com]
Of all the "Passion" critics, no one has nailed its artistic vision more precisely than Christopher Hitchens, who on "Hardball" called it a homoerotic "exercise in lurid sadomasochism" for those who "like seeing handsome young men stripped and flayed alive over a long period of time."
Now he has made a film that principally appeals to the gay Christian sado-masochistic community: a niche market that hasn't been sufficiently exploited. --http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=13993739&method=full&siteid=50143, accessed May 2004
CRITICS SEE PORN AND S&M IN ďż˝THE PASSIONďż˝
The following quotes are from the critics of ďż˝The Passion of the Christďż˝:
ďż˝Rev. Andrew Greeley calls it ďż˝sadomasochistic and pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝Christopher Hitchens dubs it ďż˝an exercise in lurid sadomasochism.ďż˝
ďż˝Ex-priest John Dominic Crossan labels it ďż˝pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝David Edelstein of Slate finds it an ďż˝exercise in sadomasochism.ďż˝
ďż˝Rabbi James Rudin brands it ďż˝a sadomasochistic film.ďż˝
ďż˝David Denby of The New Yorker opines ďż˝Itďż˝s extremely sadistic.ďż˝
ďż˝Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post says itďż˝s ďż˝pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝A.O. Scott of the New York Times sees it as ďż˝high-minded sadomasochism.ďż˝
ďż˝Andrew Sullivan was shocked to find it ďż˝pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝Rev. Michael Coffey, a Lutheran minister, says itďż˝s ďż˝pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝David Ansen of Newsweek screams ďż˝Itďż˝s the sadismďż˝ thatďż˝s troubling.
ďż˝Jamie Bernard of the Daily News notes it ďż˝would horrify the regulars at an S&M club.ďż˝
ďż˝Ex-priest James Carroll sees the film as nothing but ďż˝pornographic.ďż˝
ďż˝Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic dubs it ďż˝a repulsive masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film.ďż˝
ďż˝Harvard professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen was aghast at the ďż˝sadomasochistic, orgiastic displayďż˝ and its ďż˝unremitting sadism.ďż˝
ďż˝Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post calls it ďż˝the most unremitting sadism in the history of film.ďż˝
ďż˝Bill Safire in the New York Times complains of its ďż˝sustained sadism.ďż˝
ďż˝Al Neuharth of USA TODAY calls it a ďż˝wasted exercise in sadomasochism.ďż˝

Catholic League president William Donohue responds as follows:
ďż˝Christians need to take note of this mental goose-stepping, but they should also note that none of these savants found ďż˝Schindlerďż˝s Listďż˝ to be pornographic. What they find pornographic is the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. No doubt for some of them, the New Testament classifies as pornography as well. Indeed that is exactly what a Brooklyn rabbi told me to my face. At least now itďż˝s out in the open.ďż˝
--http://www.catholicleague.org/04press_releases/quarter1/040305_passion.htm, accessed and copied May 2004
2004, May 02; 17:34 :::: art

The Sleeping Gypsy (1897) - Henri Rousseau (le Douanier) (4 ft 3 in x 6 ft 7 in, Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Henri Rousseau (May 21, 1844 - September 2, 1910) was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner. He is also known as Le Douanier ("the customs officer") after his place of employment. Ridiculed during his life, he is now seen as an untaught genius whose works are of the highest artistic quality.
After half a lifetime spent in menial employment, Rousseau took up painting as a hobby and attempted to assume the academic manner of establishment artists such as Bouguereau, but instead created works of charming, stylized fantasy. His ingenuousness was extreme, and he was not aware that establishment artists considered him untutored. In 1908 Picasso gave a banquet, half serious half burlesque, in his honor.
Rousseau is now best known for his jungle scenes, which he claimed were inspired by his non-existent travel in Mexico, but in fact his sources were illustrated books and visits to the zoo and botanical gardens in Paris. His work "The Sleeping Gypsy" (1897), which shows a lion musing over a sleeping man in eerie moonlight, is one of the best-known works of the modern era. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Rousseau, May 2004
2004, May 02; 14:55 :::: subculture
In this paper I situate online media sharing networks as a new forum for the development of subculture, style, and identity. I give attention to the ways in which the dialogue accompanying exchanges of music (in the form of peer recommendations, playlistďż˝sharing, and other practices) highlights the role that music sharing practices play in the definition of subculture and style among audience groups. Turning to look at the maturing field of cyberethnography, and many of its findings about online network dynamics, I come to some conclusions about online environments as locations for music sharing, and for the negotiation of subculture and style. The resonances between online network dynamics and subculture dynamics are many; here, I describe a framework for analyzing these resonances. I further suggest how this analysis can be of service in the construction of a successful online music sharing community ďż˝ one of beneficial value to both consumers and producers of music. --Sean Ebare, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue9_2/ebare/, accessed May 2004
2004, May 02; 12:55 :::: Japanese cinema

Blind Beast (1969) - Yasuzo Masumura [Amazon.com]
A blind sculptor kidnaps an artists' model and imprisons her in his warehouse studio--a shadowland of perverse monuments to the female form. Here a deranged passion play of sensual and sexual obsession is acted out in a world where sight is replaced by touch. Japanese New Wave master Yasuzo Masumura's beautiful and terrifying tale of erotic horror, from a short story by Edogawa Rampo, is one of the most dazzlingly stylistic tour de forces in the history of cinema. Fantoma is very proud to present "Blind Beast" uncut and in its original DaieiScope aspect ratio for the first time in the U.S. --Description via amazon.com
as an artist who has experienced the artist model dynamic first hand, i have to say this is an amazingly imagined film. the old cliched bondage premise -- if you chain and abuse a pretty woman long enough, she will thank you for it -- is given a startling and provocative twist. a diligent and lovely female model encounters a blind man groping a nude statue she posed for, and sneaks away in fear. days later she calls in a massage after a long day's work, only to realize the provider is the same blind groper! too late: she's drugged and hauled off to an old warehouse where she is held captive. the blind man is a sculptor, who wants to create an art of touch, and she is his perfect model. the hook? well, she has to consent to a lot of groping. the rest is an astonishing blend of Hitchcock and Radley Metzger, with a completely audacious conclusion. the acting is passionate throughout -- the artist's speech to the girl disclosing his true intentions is rousing and creepy at the same time -- with many physical and psychological struggles punctuating the characters' gradual union of purpose. one of a kind. --drollere via amazon.com
One of the most fascinatingly freakish of all the big screen adaptations of the works of Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo is Moju, a.ka.The Blind Beast. This outrageous film from 1969 was directed by the criminally underrated Yasuzo Masumura, director of such powerful melodramas as Kisses (Kuchizuke, 1957), Giants and Toys (Kyojin To Gangu, 1958), the lesbian love-triangle Manji (1964), and Red Angel (Akai Tenshi, 1966). Masumura's early work and essays on film in the late 50s spurred a young Nagisa Oshima and his peers at Shochiku Studios to radically reconfigure the nation's traditional cinema, giving birth to the Japanese New Wave of the 60s in the process.
Though the plot bears some similarity to John Fowles' powerful novel The Collector, published in 1963 and rather listlessly adapted for the big screen by William Wyler in 1965 with Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar as captor and captured, Moju is based on a rather grotesque tale by Rampo first serialised in the Asahi national newspaper between 1931 and 1932. --Jasper Sharp, http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/moju.shtml, accessed May 2004
2004, May 01; 16:07 :::: torture

Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs : The Classic Martyrology - Reverend Antonio Gallonio (Author), William D. Edwards (Author) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Repellent and fascinating at the same time, the terrible tortures of Christian martyrs evidence a sort of evil creativity and gleeful bloodlust on the part of their tormentors. This book, originally published in 1989 in a limited edition, captures the gruesomeness of torture and provides an intellectual examination of it - with an awareness of the visceral thrill that such images provide. It includes a reproduction of the 1591 book of the same title, with engravings and descriptions of Christian tortures; segments from The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (1824), by an Augustinian nun (which helped inspire Mel Gibson's film Passion); the article "On the Physical Death of Jesus," by William D. Edwards, describing the forensic realities of the crucifixion (which also impacted the film); and 24 illustrations by a variety of well-known artists, performers, and infamous criminals including Daniel Clowes, Joe Coleman, Raymond Pettibon, and Kaz. --Book Description via amazon.com
2004, May 01; 15:36 :::: nun

Giulio Berruti's The Killer Nun (Suor Omicidi, 1978) [Amazon UK]
The hidden, outrageous masterpiece of the [nunsploitaion] genre is Giulio Berruti's The Killer Nun (Suor Omicidi, 1979). Berruti's contemporary-set film is just as sleazy as the classical nun movies of D'Amato, but in a much purer way: It's more perverse, more entertaining, more ingenious, less boringly salacious. In The Killer Nun, the Italian cinema catches up to the American and British horror films of the '60s that used aging female Hollywood stars. Even though she's Swedish and first became a star in America, Anita Ekberg is valid as Italy's answer to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford since she was in Italian movies during her prime (Sign of the Gladiator, La dolce vitďż˝, The Mongols, Boccaccio '70). The movie even has a secondary aging star, Alida Valli (The Paradine Case,The Third Man), in the small role of the Mother Superior.

The film begins with a title that places it in the line of previous nun movies by claiming the alibi of fact: "This film is based on actual events that took place in a Central European country not many years ago." Sister Gertrude (Ekberg), a nurse in the psychiatric ward of a Catholic hospital, has recently undergone surgery to remove a brain tumor. Now she suffers from headaches, has no control over her actions, can't focus, thinks everyone's against her, and needs morphine. Everyone tries to tell her that she's fine. When the doctor says that her tumor was benign, she snaps: "How do you know? You're not a specialist." The Mother Superior also refuses to believe in Gertrude's symptoms: Popping a chocolate into her mouth, she reminds Gertrude, "It is a nun's vocation to suffer," before hanging up the phone on her request to be put under observation.

Clearly Gertrude is suffering from an illness that can't be named. In the dining hall, she reads aloud from Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs, relishing her ability to command the patients' stunned, cowlike silence. This scene, which belongs in a John Waters movie, devastatingly highlights the fact that the most gruesome, nauseating descriptions can become acceptable if related to religion and tagged with some edifying purpose. In the same scene, Gertrude, annoyed by the sight of an old woman's dentures in a glass on the dinner table, drops them on the floor and stomps on them repeatedly: "Disgusting! Disgusting! Disgusting!"
In an excellent sequence, scored with a pop song, Gertrude changes into civilian clothes and goes into town to score morphine. The change of clothes is liberating. Perusing the menu in a restaurant, oblivious to the waiter at her elbow, she says out loud: "Ah, yes, it's so nice to be treated like a lady. I think I'll start with a man." She spots a good-looking one alone at the bar and gives him the eye; he follows her out into the street and into the hallway of a building, where they fuck standing up against a wall.

The rest of the film concerns a series of murders of patients at the hospital. Each murder coinciding with one of Gertrude's morphine-induced blackouts, she appears (to herself, the other characters, and the audience) to be the killer nun. Gertrude eventually gets what she wanted all along: an acknowledgment from her Mother Superior that "she is very sick and requires special treatment." The real killer, meanwhile, confesses her homicidal compulsions to an empty confession booth.

The men in the film are strategically cast. Gertrude's anonymous pick-up is a silent, cool, obliging stud who doesn't care about her except as a piece of meat. He could be a figure in her fantasy and drops out of the film as soon as he's fulfilled his function. His disappearance leaves the hero role to be split between two amazingly inadequate and ambiguous men. Joe Dallesandro, best remembered as the narcissistic lump at the center of Paul Morrissey's Flesh and Trash, plays the new head of the psychiatric ward and from our first sight of him in this role he inspires zero confidence. Not only does Dallesandro's character fail to improve the situation at the hospital, he lets himself be seduced without offering even token resistance by the saucy young nun who turns out to be the villainess. The other main male character is played by Lou Castel, puzzling icon of baby-faced passivity in numerous European westerns and sex films of the '60s. Here Castel, as a lame patient, drags himself through the whole film on crutches and with his air of glumness seems to be asking to be kicked to death and put out of his misery, which eventually happens.

The total debility of the men in the film allows Berruti to short-circuit the predictable sexual politics of most nun films. Actually, The Killer Nun isn't about sex at all; it's about gratification. Sister Gertrude must have whatever she wants now, she must express whatever she wants to express now. Whether she's alone, with one other person, or surrounded by a group, she always acts like she's alone-a quality that makes Gertrude one of the great characters in cinema. Past caring what other people think about her, she can't help making a spectacle of herself as she cracks up. In other words, she is in a cinematic state of grace.

The film's other main theme is disgust. The body and fluids torment Gertrude: the dentures in the glass, the pink fluid immersing scalpels in a surgery room, the IV bag she feels compelled to disconnect from a still-living patient. Gertrude despises her patients' bodies and wants to wear them out. At one point she leads the patients in an exercise session, chanting "one-two": at one, they clap their hands over their heads, at two, they clap hands below the waist. Because of the emphatic cutting, the ones and twos somehow always seem to be in the wrong place, coming too fast, out of control: exercise as convulsion.
What Gertrude wants most of all is to be a patient. This ambition so characteristic of our time (announced prophetically in another film set in a mental hospital, Vincente Minnelli's 1955 The Cobweb, in which the wish is expressed by a young boy) both gives Gertrude universality and prevents her from being a tragic figure. Sick people may be tragic in some circumstances, but people who desperately want to be sick so that they can be taken care of are more likely absurd. Which Gertrude is, but not without also being heroic. -- Chris Fujiwara, http://www.hermenaut.com/a48.shtml
2004, May 01; 00:11 :::: trash

Trash (1970) - Paul Morrissey [Amazon US]
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