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"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)
2005, Jul 17; 02:17 ::: Ellen von Unwerth (1954 - )
Revenge (2003) - Ellen Von Unwerth [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Ellen von Unwerth (born ~1954 in Germany) is a photographer and director, specializing in erotic femininity. She worked as a fashion model for ten years herself before moving behind the camera, and now takes fashion, editorial, and advertising photographs.
She has been published in top magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, The Face, Arena, L'Uomo Vogue and ID, and has published several books of photography. She won first prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography in 1991.
Unwerth has also directed short films for fashion designers, and music videos for Duran Duran, Salt-N-Pepa, and more.
Books
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_von_Unwerth [Jul 2005]
- Snaps 1994 (ISBN 0944092292)
- Wicked 1999 (ISBN 3888148995)
- Couples 1998 (ISBN 3823803670)
- Revenge 2003 (ISBN 1931885141)
see also: revenge - Ellen von Unwerth - fashion photography
2005, Jul 17; 01:27 ::: Dovima with Elephants (1955) - Richard Avedon
Dovima with Elephants (1955) - Richard Avedon
image sourced here.The 1960's were years of major change in fashion and fashion photography. As Bob Richardson observed “Sex…happened to fashion photography in the 1960's”. Women's roles in society were being questioned and the youth quake was having an enormous cultural influence. Fashion trends were not just flowing down from Paris but were coming up from street culture. In Britain the terrible three David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Bob Richardson were instrumental in introducing spontaneity and sex into fashion photography. The development of the S.L.R. camera aided a more relaxed and realistic approach to portraying fashion and models. These young photographers saw themselves as superstars; the media humoured them and gave them license to create as they wanted. David Bailey's images of Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy epitomised the fashions of the emerging ready to wear boutiques and captured the vitality of the decade. The 1960's saw the profession becoming extremely lucrative and photographers attaining celebrity status. Nova magazine, first published in 1965 reflected the zeitgeist and photographic vitality. The emphasis was more on art and atmosphere than the clothes themselves. --http://www.garfnet.org.uk/new_mill/spring98/ah_photo.htm [Jul 2005]
see also: Richard Avedon - fashion photography - 1955
2005, Jul 17; 01:27 ::: The Scarlet Empress (1934) - Josef von Sternberg
The Scarlet Empress (1934) - Josef von Sternberg x[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"It is a relentless excursion into style," Josef von Sternberg said of his "The Scarlet Empress" (1934). That's putting it mildly. Here is a film so crammed with style, so surrounded by it and weighted down with it, that the actors peer out from the display like children in a toy store.
The film tells the story of Catherine the Great as a bizarre visual extravaganza, combining twisted sexuality and bold bawdy humor as if Mel Brooks had collaborated with the Marquis de Sade. --Roger Ebert via http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050116/REVIEWS08/50113001/1023 [Jul 2005]
see also: Marlene Dietrich - Josef von Sternberg - Catherine the Great
2005, Jul 17; 01:27 ::: Lady's MagazineThe Lady's Magazine or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, was a fashion magazine produced every month from 1770 until 1837 and cost six pence per copy. It was started in August 1770 by bookseller John Coote and publisher John Wheble. (This was by no means the first women's magazine, as Lady's Mercury had been published in 1693.) From 1827 until 1836, its editor was Sarah Hale. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady%27s_Magazine [Jul 2005]
2005, Jul 16; 23:32 ::: Famous women in historyEspecially many proponents of feminism have argued that the achievements of women have been insufficiently represented in works of history up through the 20th century. Therefore, many historians and especially those who concentrate on women's studies have drawn attention to women who can be considered historically significant. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_women_in_history [Jul 2005]
see also: women - fame - history - Catherine the Great
2005, Jul 16; 23:32 ::: Better Days club, New York, early 1990s--John Hall http://www.discogs.com/user/downtown.musicBetter Days did not close with finality in 1988.
The Gotti organized crime family tried to re-open it as a yuppie club called Bedrock, but they were quickly crushed by the Hanna-Barbera corporation for trademark infringement.
So Better Days re-opened for about a year or less and I got to spin there for awhile intil it closed with finality one week after New Year's (in 1990 or 1991)
Downtown club promoter Joey Sheridan was the one who brought me in, along with Robert Owens and a few other guests.
It was a bizarre time..I actually closed the club and played the very last night there, and the owner and I took the place apart for a few hours, then he paid me and I was on my way.
Interesting thread at soul-source.co.uk
2005, Jul 16; 23:11 ::: Disco, Motown and Northern Soul--via http://www.soul-source.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=11218 [Jul 2005]Excerpt from an article in the New York Blade
"Shapiro ties in two disparate strains of music that together became the prototype of the disco sound: Motown and Northern Soul, which originated in the hardscrabble coal counties of Northern England (and influenced the Beatles). "
I totally agree that disco influenced the Beatles but at odds to see the connection between disco, motown and northern. Throwing it over to the forum - can someone assist...
2005, Jul 08; 13:03 ::: Dionysus and Apollo
Bacchus (c. 1596) - Caravaggio
The Birth of Tragedy (1872) - Nietzsche [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
In this book, Nietzsche, originally educated as a classicist, discusses the history of the Greek tragedy, and introduces an intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian (very loosely: wild emotion or sensation vs. calm reason or ideation). Nietzsche claims life has always involved a struggle between these two elements, each battling for control over the existence of man. In Nietzsche's words, "Wherever the Dionysian prevailed, the Apollonian was checked and destroyed...wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god [Apollo] exhibited itself as more rigid and menacing than ever." Yet neither side ever prevails due to each containing the other in an eternal, natural check, or balance. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Geburt_der_Trag%C3%B6die [Jul 2005]
Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia would later appropriate the terms Dionysus and Apollo in her Sexual Personae.Throwing in her lot with Hobbes and Dionysus, she follows in the tradition of a work like Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, where engaging assertion and overstatement are more important than rigorously proving a case. She argues passionately, with poetic flair: for her, human sexuality is dark, cruel, sadistic, powerful, daemonic, perverse, murky, decadent, pagan...--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Personae
Apollo
Apollo popularly (e.g., in literary criticism) represents harmony, order, and reason - characteristics contrasted by those of Dionysus, god of wine, who popularly represents emotion and chaos. The contrast between the roles of these gods is reflected in the adjectives Apollonian and Dionysian. However, Greeks thought of the two qualities as complementary: the two gods are brothers, and when Apollo at winter left for Hyperborea he would leave the Delphi Oracle to Dionysus. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo#Worship [Jul 2005]see also: Nietzsche - Apollo - Dionysus - tragedy - birth - Camille Paglia
2005, Jul 08; 12:18 ::: Ultimate Breaks and Beats
Ultimate Breaks & Beats Vol 13 () - Various
Another series is Ultimate Breaks and Beats of which there are 25 volumes, also bootleg. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_%28music%29 [Jun 2005]
Tracklisting:
1) Babe Ruth "The Mexican" (1973)
2) Babe Ruth "Keep Your Distance"* (1976)
3) Coke Escovedo "(Runaway) I Wouldn't Change A Thing" (1976)
4) Eastside Connection "Frisco Disco" (1978)
5) In Search Of Orchestra "Phenomena Theme" (1977)
6) The Meters "Handclapping Song" (1970)Great compilations for the purposes of hearing the original source of well-known breaks, and maybe for praticing your turntablist skills. Beware though, that a lot of these are edited versions that repeat the break. From the SONIC point of view though, this entire series of releases is HORRIBLE. These are are basically counterfeit copies of unlicensed compilations that have been around for more than 25 years now. In other words, these are bootlegs of bootlegs of bootlegs. You can hear that by comparing the original boots with these more modern knock-offs. These hapless, greedy PIRATES can't even be bothered to use clean originals to re-cut the compilations...Each new round of these is made from an earlier pirate vinyl bootleg, and the sound gets murkier and murkier and they just change the artwork. Don't pay a lot for these...they're easily available in most big cities, flea-markets and used disco/hip-hop bins. Don't waste any stamps trying their Bronx, NY mailing address. Do you honestly think pirates would make it THAT easy for the R.I.A.A. to bust them??? --downtown.music via http://www.discogs.com/label/Street+Beat+Records [Jul 2005]
see also: bootleg - breaks - hip hop - Ultimate Breaks and Beats series
2005, Jul 08; 09:59 ::: Hell (1908) - Henri Barbusse
Hell (1908) - Henri Barbusse [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Henri Barbusse (May 17, 1873 - August 30, 1935) was a French novelist and journalist. He came to fame with the publication of his novel Le Feu (translated as Under Fire) in 1916, which was based on his experiences during World War I. It shows his growing hatred of militarism. His book won the Prix Goncourt.
His later works, Manifeste aux Intellectuels, Elevations (1930) and others, show a more definitively revolutionary standpoint.
He is buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Barbusse [Jul 2005]
see also: hell - 1908 - literature - fiction
2005, Jul 08; 09:39 ::: Les Chants de Maldoror (1868) - Comte de Lautréamont
Les Chants de Maldoror (1868) - Comte de Lautréamont [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror) is a poetic novel published in 1868 by the Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Ducasse).
Summary
The story revolves around the misanthropic character of Maldoror, a figure of absolute evil who is opposed to God and humanity, and has renounced all ties to conventional morality and decency. There is no specific plot in the traditional sense, and the narrative style is non-linear and surrealistic. The iconoclastic imagery and tone is often violent and macabre, and ostensibly nihilistic.Les Chants de Maldoror is considered to have been a major influence upon French symbolism and Dadaism. Several editions of the book have included lithographs by the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Chants_de_Maldoror [Jul 2005]
see also: Comte de Lautreamont - 1868
2005, Jul 08; 09:30 ::: MisanthropyMisanthropy is a general dislike of the human race. It is not dislike of individual human beings, but rather dislike of the features shared by all humanity throughout place and time, including oneself. A misanthrope is thus a person who exhibits a general dislike of humankind.
Misanthropy has been ascribed to a number of writers of satire, such as William S. Gilbert ("I hate my fellow-man"), but such identifications must be closely scrutinized because a critical or darkly humorous outlook toward mankind may be mistaken for genuine misanthropy. Jonathan Swift is widely accused of misanthropy (see A Tale of a Tub and, most especially, Book IV of Gulliver's Travels).
Another example of mistaken misanthropy is Jean-Paul Sartre's quote "Hell is other people." On the face of it, this looks deeply misanthropic, but actually Sartre was making an observation about the tendency of human beings to lack self-knowledge. We tend to project our worst fears, and our most deeply disliked personal characteristics, onto other people, rather than look inside and face them within ourselves. Thus, when we look at other people, we often see the worst of what is in our own personality.
It is important to distinguish between philosophical pessimism and misanthropy. Immanuel Kant said that "Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made," and yet this was not an expression of the uselessness of mankind itself. Similarly, Samuel Beckett once remarked that "Hell must be like... reminiscing about the good old days when we wished we were dead." — a statement that may, perhaps, be seen as utterly bleak and hopeless, but not as anti-human or expressive of any hatred of mankind.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, on the other hand, was almost certainly as famously misanthropic as his reputation. He wrote that "human existence must be a kind of error." It should be added, however, that misanthropy does not necessarily equate with an inhumane attitude towards humanity. Schopenhauer concluded, in fact, that ethical treatment of others was the best attitude, for we are all fellow sufferers and all part of the same will-to-live; he also discussed suicide with a sympathetic understanding which was rare in his own time, when it was largely a taboo subject.
More specifically, Schopenhauer has also been accused of misogyny. Martin Heidegger also showed misanthropy in his concern of the "they" — the tendency of people to conform to one view, which no-one has really thought through, but is just followed because, "they say so". Unlike Schopenhauer, Heidegger was opposed to any ethics or reason to treat others with respect. In recent times, Anton LaVey and his brand of Satanism have voiced militant misanthropy — going so far as to advocate sterilisation of parts of the population and ghettoising "lower forms of human life".
Though rare, misanthropy has appeared in forms of popular entertainment. The American standup comedian Bill Hicks expressed misanthropy in his work, calling the human race "a virus with fuckin' shoes" and often referred to himself as a "misanthropic humanist." Similarly, themes of misanthropy appeared on The Holy Bible, the third album by Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It included lines such as "All I preach is extinction" and a speech sample of author J.G. Ballard expressing what appear to be deeply misanthropic sentiments.
In extreme cases, misanthropy has led to serial killings. Murderer of at least 21 people, Carl Panzram said "I hate all the fucking human race. I get a kick out of murdering people" while in a Washington DC jail in 1922.
Regardless of the validity of a misanthropic worldview, those with strongly-held misanthropy often suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and even suicidal tendencies.
Some have proposed elevating misanthropy to a protoscience of misanthropology. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy [Jul 2005]
2005, Jul 08; 09:15 ::: Laura Gemser
German poster for Eva nera (1976) Joe D'Amato
Laura Gemser ( born October 5, 1950, Java, Indonesia) is an erotic actress and is generally accepted as one of the 1970s most famous erotic icons. She is sometimes credited as Moira Chen , Laura M. Gemser or Laurette Marcia Gemser.
After modelling in various magazines in the Netherlands, Gemser began to take part in some soft erotic films. She subsequently became internationally recognized after playing in several "Black Emanuelle" films. Although she appeared in numerous hardcore titles, she always had simulated sex. The "notorious" scenes in Black Emanuelle are hardcore inserts.
Most of her films were directed by Joe d'Amato and they are now regarded as samples of the Italian erotic/horror cult films. Some of her films are Emmanuelle 2 (1975), Black Emanuelle (1975), Eva nera (1976), Emanuelle in America (1976) and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977), and Caligola: la Storia mai raccontata (1981). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Gemser [Jul 2005]
see also: Laura Gemser - Emmanuelle
2005, Jul 08; 08:51 ::: Google, MSN search, Yahoo! searchNearly a year after Google's IPO marked the start of a new phase in Web search competition, the upstart is making industry giants Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo! look like also-rans. Google's share of U.S. searches hit 52% in June, up from 45% a year ago, according to Web analytics firm WebSideStory Inc. By contrast, Yahoo's and MSN's share slipped to 25% and 10% respectively. Says Mark S. Mahaney, an analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup (C ): "People haven't been given a good reason to switch from Google." --http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_29/b3943050_mz011.htm [Jul 2005]
2005, Jul 07; 23:53 ::: Director's cut
Blade Runner (1982|1993) - Ridley Scott [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A Director's cut is a specially edited version of a movie that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit of the movie. It is often released some time after the original release of the film, where the original release was released in a version different from the director's approved edit. 'Cut' is synonymous with 'edit' in this context.
With most studio films the director does not have final cut, rather the studio can insist on changes to make the film more likely to succeed at the box office. This sometimes means happier endings or less ambiguity. Most common, however, is that studios ask that the film be shortened. The most common form of director's cut is thus to have extra scenes added making films often considerably longer.
The director's cut was first introduced in the early 1980s alongside the rise of the video tape industry. They were originally created for the small but dedicated cinephiles market. One of the first films to have a director's cut was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The director's cut removed the happy ending and the narration, and many feel that the "director's cut" version is the better film.
When it was discovered that the market for alternate versions of films was substantial, director's cuts for a wide array of films were introduced, even some where the director had final cut. These mostly contained deleted scenes, often adding a full half-hour to the length of the film. Rarely are these director's cuts considered superior to the original film. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director's_cut [Jul 2005]
see also: director - cut - auteur - film - montage - film edit - version
2005, Jul 07; 22:03 ::: Love and Death (1975) - Woody Allen
Love and Death (1975) - Woody Allen [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Writer-director Woody Allen's 1975 comedy finds the familiar Allen persona transposed to 19th-century Russia, as a cowardly serf drafted into the war against Napoleon, when all he'd rather do is write poetry and obsess over his beautiful but pretentious cousin (Diane Keaton). A total disaster as a soldier, Allen's cowardice serves him well when he hides in a cannon and is shot into a tent of French soldiers, suddenly making him a national hero. After his cousin agrees to marry him, thinking he'll be killed in a duel he miraculously survives, the couple must hatch a ludicrous plot to assassinate Napoleon in order to keep the coward Allen out of yet another war. Allen and Keaton show what a perfect comic team they make in this film, even predating their most celebrated pairing in Annie Hall. Working so well as the most unlikely of comedies, of all things a hilarious parody of Russian literature, Love and Death is a must-see for fans of Woody Allen films. --Robert Lane for Amazon.com
see also: love - death - 1975 - film - Woody Allen
2005, Jul 07; 21:55 ::: Shoot (1971) - Chris Burden
Shoot (1971) - Chris Burden
image sourced here.Chris Burden (born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946) is an American artist.
He studied visual arts, physics and architecture at Pomona College and the University of California, Irvine from 1969 to 1971. In 1978 he became a Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, a position from which he resigned in 2005 due to a controversy over the university's alleged mishandling of a graduate student's classroom performance piece featuring a possibly loaded gun.
Burden's own reputation as a performance artist started to grow in the early 1970s after he made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His most well-known act from that time is perhaps the performance piece Shoot that was made in gallery F Space in Santa Ana, California in 1971, in which he was shot in his right arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Burden [Jul 2005]
Danger
--AHD
- Exposure or vulnerability to harm or risk.
- A source or an instance of risk or peril.
see also: 1971 - contemporary art - danger - performance art
2005, Jul 07; 17:59 ::: Masculinity, art, Pollock vs DuchampThis essay focuses on the relationship in art between gender and power, and on the past decade's increased interest in man and male identity as subjects of study. A relatively obscure theme previously, the contention that man is in the throes of crisis has become a major topic within gender research. The amount of literature on man has skyrocketed since the contours of this fresh academic field were first defined around 1990.
The relationship between art and gender drew attention and critical analysis in the wake of the feminist reform movements of the 1960s. It is during this time that we also find a dawning interest and desire among male artists to use their own masculinity as a theme in their works. This theme is particular apparent in works by several artists using self-staging in some sense, as in Yves Klein and Chris Burden's hyper-masculine actions of the 1960s, and Vito Acconci and Paul McCarthy's self-compromising or abject outpourings at the beginning of the 1970s. Instead of taking their own gender identity for granted, as something natural and unequivocal, these artists dealt with issues related to maleness as a role; as something constructed.
Masculinity is emphasized as behavior that is exhibited, acted out and demonstrated. Prominent artists of the 1990s have also addressed this topic in different ways, using self-staging and meta-masculine themes. Matthew Barney, John Coplans and Peter Land are three such artists: Barney has produced films and videos revolving around body-building aesthetics, sports and male hero figures; Coplans reveals his own, naked body in photographic works and Land has staged scenes of himself as a falling figure in implicit dialogue with artists such as Klein, Burden, Acconci and McCarthy. Their works play on time-honored traditions in Western visual culture in general, and the relationship between art and gender in particular. However, before considering their production in depth it may be useful to consider the background for the interplay and relationships in their works. --Øystein Ustvedt via http://www.forart.no/ustvedt/ustvedt.html [Jul 2005]
Jackson Pollock
As art historian Amelia Jones has shown, there is good reason to begin with the phenomenon Jackson Pollock in discussions of recent art's masculine self-staging themes. Pollock's images and the way that they are perceived do not only render his work a paragon of late modernism's aesthetics in general. His production is also uniquely qualified to demonstrate modernism's masculine aesthetics, resonating with the self-revelation and bravura that is essential to this aesthetic. The enormous attention and significance accorded Pollock's paintings during the 1950s enables them to represent what was typical of the attitudes and thinking that dominated the epoch's — and in a larger sense, modernism's — trend-setting art scene. His works demonstrate contemporaneous notions of artistic creativity, subjective expression and how the artist's role was to be performed. --Øystein Ustvedt via http://www.forart.no/ustvedt/ustvedt.html [Jul 2005]Macel Duchamp
A common characteristic of leading tendencies in art from around 1960 was a turn away from or a rebellion against the heroic gesture and the transcendental aspirations of Pollock's generation. It was at this time that a renewed interest in Marcel Duchamp is seen among younger artists and art historians. This 'father figure' shift is interesting in this context, as Duchamp is one of the few male artists who worked with a kind of meta-masculine subject matter prior to 1960.With his sense of irony and wordplay, his play on gender and his dandy persona, Duchamp was basically working with a de-essentializing of sexual identity. His de-naturalizing of the concept of a whole and stable artistic subject as the fundamental, authoritative reference in art obviously challenges the Pollock-generation painters.
Duchamp's own relationship to Abstract Expressionist painting is also telling, revealed in the small painting Paysage fautif (Wayward Landscape) 1946. The amorphous splash-form against a black background seems in keeping with avant-garde abstract painting of the times (the 1940s were the formative period for Abstract Expressionism), but deviates from what characterized Duchamp's work. However, subsequent analysis has shown that sperm, not paint was used, the image thus testifying to his critical and ironic stance toward gender, sexuality and creativity. As ironic commentary on the relationship between male sex drives and artistic creativity, he mocks contemporaneous avant-garde painting and its mustering of large, emphatically masculine gestures as in Pollock's "drip" paintings. Masculinity is shown to be a self-construction, a form of masquerade. The swipe at 'Abstract Expressionism' grand rhetoric is typical for Duchamp's anti-aesthetic attitude, which anticipates both the essence of the 1960s rebellion against expressionist painting and body-related performance art. --Øystein Ustvedt via http://www.forart.no/ustvedt/ustvedt.html [Jul 2005]
2005, Jul 07; 17:23 ::: X-Rated: Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s (2004)
The Pleasure Machines (1967) - Ronald Víctor García
image sourced here.
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X-Rated: Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s (2004) - Tony Nourmand (Editor), Graham Marsh (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This site is dedicated to the art of X-rated movie posters from the 1960s and 1970s. Considered by most to be the Golden Age of the pornographic movie, the period's rising production budgets generated a dramatic improvement in film quality and plot. Several all-time classics emerged. Deep Throat (1972), Behind The Green Door (1972), The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) and Debbie Does Dallas (1978) were among the many box-office hits – films even the critics admired. The success of two French-produced movies, Emmanuelle (1974) and The Story Of O (1975), also helped introduce the porno movie to the mass market.
Tony Nourmand and Bruce Marchant of The Reel Poster Gallery in London have compiled a collection of original X-rated movie posters. With their amusing images and taglines, they all have a kitsch appeal. However, a large number of the posters are actually very sleek and stylish. Even today, these designs provide a rich source of inspiration and reference for creatives and social scientists.
Over 150 poster images have been taken from this collection to form the basis of a new book, X-rated Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s (Volume One). This title is available from September 2003 and is edited by Tony Nourmand and Graham Marsh. It is the first time that a book on X-rated movie posters has been published and only a couple of the images have ever been reproduced before.
For the experts, these posters provide a new and enlightening insight, not only into the sex industry, but also into the more liberal society of the 1960s and 1970s. For the rest of us, they simply serve to amuse and excite. --http://www.xratedcollection.com/index.html [Jul 2005]
see also: 1960s - 1970s - X-rated - poster - pornography - porn film
2005, Jul 07; 16:54 ::: Technology and pornographyPornography has been a driving force behind the adoption of many technologies. Mass-distributed pornography is as old as the printing press. Almost as soon as photography was invented, it was being used to produce pornographic photographs.
The movie camera has also been used for pornography throughout its history, and with the arrival of the home video cassette recorder the pornographic movie industry grew massively, people being able not only to view pornography in the privacy of their own home without having to go out to a theater, but also to make their own pornography.
The fact that the adult industry has such a large consumer base has been used to suggest that it can affect even the development of technology. An oft-cited example is the suggestion that Sony Betamax lost the format war to VHS (in becoming the general home video recording/viewing system) because the adult video industry chose VHS instead of the technically superior Sony system. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography#Technology_and_pornography [Jul 2005]
see also: technology - pornography
2005, Jul 07; 14:20 ::: Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1966) - The Kinks
Dedicated Follower of Fashion (1966) - The Kinks
They seek him here, they seek him there,
His clothes are loud, but never square.
It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best,
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
And when he does his little rounds,
'Round the boutiques of London Town,
Eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends,
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
Oh yes he is (oh yes he is), oh yes he is (oh yes he is).
He thinks he is a flower to be looked at,
And when he pulls his frilly nylon panties right up tight,
He feels a dedicated follower of fashion.
Oh yes he is (oh yes he is), oh yes he is (oh yes he is).
There's one thing that he loves and that is flattery.
One week he's in polka-dots, the next week he is in stripes.
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
They seek him here, they seek him there,
In Regent Street and Leicester Square.
Everywhere the Carnabetian army marches on,
Each one an dedicated follower of fashion.
Oh yes he is (oh yes he is), oh yes he is (oh yes he is).
His world is built 'round discoteques and parties.
This pleasure-seeking individual always looks his best
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
Oh yes he is (oh yes he is), oh yes he is (oh yes he is).
He flits from shop to shop just like a butterfly.
In matters of the cloth he is as fickle as can be,
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
He's a dedicated follower of fashion.see also: cult - fashion - 1966
2005, Jul 07; 13:29 ::: Cult followingA cult following is a group of fans devoted to a specific thing, usually a film, television or radio program, though some comic books, musicians, writers and others also gain cult followings.
These dedicated followings are usually relatively small and pertain to items that don't have broad mainstream appeal, though there are exceptions, mostly in science fiction. Cult followings are often dedicated enough that many of the people in them have at least heard of each other due to their meeting at conventions, concerts, internet chat rooms or shops featuring the item in question.
An example of a usual cult following would be the followers of the Ogre Battle series of video games. An exception to the usual cult following rules is Star Trek, whose followers call themselves Trekkies. Star Trek has an extremely large following but can still be considered 'cult'. Science-fiction oriented cult followings include that of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"Cult Following" is also used to describe the more obsessive fans of established mainstream performers. For example, many persons have been interested in Michael Jackson's music or in Disney films, but some fans take their interest to what are generally considered extreme levels, such hoarding vast amounts of collectables. Some such "cult fans" occasionally veer into obsessive-compulsive disorders or stalking. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_following [Jul 2005]
see also: cult
by medium: cult fiction - cult directors - cult films - cult movie stars - cult objects - cult television
Related: audience - fan - god - idol - love - minority - obsession - personality - religion
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