Chazzbot II

"The fact that a gay guy painted the Sistine ceiling is not nearly as dumbfounding as the..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:12:14 -0600

“The fact that a gay guy painted the Sistine ceiling is not nearly as dumbfounding as the papacy’s protection of pederasts in spite of their official attitude toward such “objectionable” practices—one of which ought to be the ceiling itself, for if anything is unnatural, for them, genius is.”

- William H. Gass, “The Literary Miracle,” acceptance speech for the 2007 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

cometsmeteoroids: Rising Ring of Fire by Nicole Hollenbeck

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:11:40 -0600

cometsmeteoroids:

Rising Ring of Fire by Nicole Hollenbeck

Supper at Emmaus (After Caravaggio) • Joe Forkan 2006-2009 oil...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:09:39 -0600

Supper at Emmaus (After Caravaggio) • Joe Forkan 2006-2009 oil on linen 96″x 38″

"At night I feel her panting in her sleep. Her paws twitter as she runs toward or away from an image..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:33:33 -0600

“At night I feel her panting in her sleep. Her paws twitter as she runs toward or away from an image in her dream. Sometimes she wakes me up with her quiet dream-yelp and I watch her ride out the nightmare and break free of it on her own. She is always confused when she first wakes up. As she reenters the world, the light in her eyes is dull and demented. She sniffs the bed, gets a drink of water, and shakes it off. When she returns to the bed, she brings her nose close to my mouth and sniffs the particular fragrance of my breath. Okay, she decides, it’s *you*. Satisfied, she turns around and curls up in my arms, pushing herself against my body so that every inch of her spine is touching me. She licks my hands and returns to the even breath of sleep. I don’t need to know what she dreams of. It is what everyone dreams of: being helpless, being chased, losing a loved one, getting lost. Relics of her traumatic past mingle with common details of the present day—squirrels and broomsticks, her mother and me.”

- Domenica Ruta, With or Without You.

Things I Didn’t Believe in Iron Man 3 (spoilers) No...

Sun, 05 May 2013 17:53:23 -0600

Things I Didn’t Believe in Iron Man 3 (spoilers)

No one who falls out of the cruising altitude plane seen above goes unconscious, freezes, or is otherwise traumatized by falling out of a plane.

No one who is yanked out of the air by Iron Man or the other falling passengers has their arms pulled out of their sockets.

Snow in Tennessee.

Almost no one in Tennessee has any detectable accent.

Pepper falls into an explosion without having her hair or clothing marred in any way.

Everyone survives the missile attack on Tony Stark’s house without any serious injury, even though the house is completely destroyed and collapses into the sea.

I recognize the inherent impossibility of most superhero movies, but there’s a difference between suspension of disbelief and assuming the audience is brain dead.

“But a moment’s consideration will teach, that...

Sat, 04 May 2013 14:18:09 -0600

“But a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make.”

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Tracy finished the [final] monologue on May 19, 1967, just five...

Sat, 04 May 2013 14:00:09 -0600

Tracy finished the [final] monologue on May 19, 1967, just five days before the end of production on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. He had one more scene to shoot, but his relief was palpable. “I’ve been looking over the script,” he told his director [Stanley Kramer]. “You really don’t need me after tomorrow. If I die on the way home, you and Kate [Hepburn] are in the clear. You’ll get your money.” The next day, he returned, visibly haggard, for his final scene… When his work was complete, assistant director Ray Gosnell turned to the crew and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this was Spencer Tracy’s last shot.” “When he said that,” says Karen Kramer, “Stanley cried. It was the first and last time I ever saw him cry.” As the crew burst into applause, Tracy didn’t say anything. He just stepped out of the prop car, smiled broadly, waved, and walked slowly off the soundstage. Kramer watched him go and then said softly, “That is the last time you will see Spencer Tracy on camera.”

—Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood.

(Tracy died on June 10, 1967.)

“After twelve hours, it was over. Hoffman shook hands with...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:56:09 -0600

“After twelve hours, it was over. Hoffman shook hands with the director, ‘and [Mike] Nichols’s hand was so damp that I really got nervous because I realized how nervous he was.’ Hoffman shoved his hands back into his pockets; when he pulled them out again, several subway tokens flew out. ‘Here, kid,’ said an exhausted and annoyed crew member, picking them up. ‘You’re gonna need these.’”

—Dustin Hoffman’s disastrous screen test for The Graduate, as related in Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood.

"I don’t remember many of the details now. But that can happen to any memory, toxic or not. If..."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:08:01 -0600

“I don’t remember many of the details now. But that can happen to any memory, toxic or not. If you can remember anything, it’s already wrong. The image or event has changed, just as you have—minutely, chemically, through the passage of time between then and now. Something happens to you, and then it’s gone. It becomes a memory that becomes shrapnel. Shards of experience still hot with life singe the brain wherever they happen to get embedded. Sometimes I swear I can feel the precise location of my memories like warm, tingling splinters under my scalp. Pictures with no sound, feelings with no pictures, the lost and found, mostly lost.”

- Domenica Ruta, With or Without You.

Couple at Monument Valley, UT 1980Roger Minick

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:17:15 -0600

Couple at Monument Valley, UT 1980
Roger Minick

"[Elvis] was the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it wasn’t..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:34:16 -0600

“[Elvis] was the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it wasn’t real arousal, rather an erection of the heart. When I looked at him I went mad with desire and envy and worship and self-projection. I mean, Mick Jagger, whom I saw as far back as 1964 and twice in ‘65, never even came close.”

- Lester Bangs, “Where Were You When Elvis Died?”, The Village Voice, 29 August 1977.

"The history professor looked at his watch. Another minute had passed into his domain."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:02:19 -0600

“The history professor looked at his watch. Another minute had passed into his domain.”

- John Sladek, Roderick, or The Education of a Young Machine

Highlights from the December 1990 issue of Spin...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 19:28:36 -0700

Highlights from the December 1990 issue of Spin Magazine

“A five-hour drive north of San Francisco, among the California redwoods, is the coastal town of Eureka, the David Lynch-ville that Mike Patton calls home… ‘In Eureka,’ says Patton, ‘we drink a lot of coffee if we think there’s anything worth staying up for.’ Reading pornography is a major pastime, as is playing at the local water-treatment plant, jumping freight trains, and riding around town waving baseball bats at hippies.”

—Frank Owen, “Artists of the Year: Faith No More”

“Because I sit watching MTV practically every day, and I can see things like that Warrant video for ‘Cherry Pie.’ What an offensive video that is—a woman being hosed down, you know? And when the guy looks through the binoculars you can see her tits and her ass, you know? That’s quite offensive. Billy Idol, that ‘Rock the Cradle’ song, is really offensive. That Heart song [‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You’] is potentially a dangerous song, in that it could encourage young girls to go out hitchhiking and picking up strange men.”

—Sinead O’Connor

Ten Things That Made Lauren Spencer Happy in 1990, in No Particular Order

#5 Mother Love Bone. Sadly, much attention has been given to the band only since the death of lead singer Andrew Woods, but this Seattle band really were a motherlode of sound and fury. Here’s hoping the remaining members will carry on the tradition in form.

#6 Learning how to program a CD player. What can I say? I took my time on this one.

“The ephemeral nature of celebrity dictates a probable short shelf life for New Kids on the Block. Which is a shame, because it means we’ll have to deal soon with the inevitable splinter group/solo act phenomenon, whereby the aging Kids try to cash in on and remove the stigma of having been teen idols. I’m not sure the world is ready for Messrs. Knight, Wahlberg & Co. to try to prove they’ve been around the block.”

—Jim Greer, “Artists of the Year: New Kids on the Block”

(Also cited as Artists of the Year: Aerosmith, Digital Underground, M.C. Hammer)

“Holding a printed catalogue, Luba Luft, wearing shiny...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:18:39 -0700

“Holding a printed catalogue, Luba Luft, wearing shiny tapered pants and an illuminated gold vestlike top, stood absorbed in the picture before her: a drawing of a young girl, hands clasped together, seated on the edge of a bed, an expression of bewildered wonder and new, groping awe imprinted on her face.

“‘Want me to buy it for you?’ Rick said to Luba Luft.”

—Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Movies I Will Watch Anytime

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:48:48 -0700

A student asked me to list my favorite movies of all time. I ended up making a list of movies I will watch anytime and a list of movies I think everyone should see in their lifetime. Here is the first list, in no particular order (an asterisk indicates a movie that invariably evokes tears):

Close Encounters of the Third Kind*
The Empire Strikes Back
The Darjeeling Limited*
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh version)*
Chinatown
Apollo 13*
The Right Stuff*
2001: A Space Odyssey*

There are probably others, but these are the first that came to mind.

"American history reveals that periods of fundamental reform are typically triggered by one or more..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:43:14 -0700

“American history reveals that periods of fundamental reform are typically triggered by one or more of the following: a major war; a large-scale shift from one industrial era to another; extreme levels of economic inequality; a dramatic change in the composition of the political parties. On the rare occasions when these forces coincide, they fundamentally transform society. That is what happened when Reconstruction coincided with the dawn of the first industrial revolution; it is also what happened when the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression coincided with the beginning of the second industrial revolution. All the requisite ingredients for change are now coming together again, at the onset of the post-industrial age. If patterns hold, our nation’s next major reinvention cannot be far away.”

- Ted Halstead, “The American Paradox,” The Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2003.

“With all she showed of herself, naked but for a...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 15:14:04 -0700

“With all she showed of herself, naked but for a cigarette, a black pocketbook, and high-heeled shoes as she was photographed hitchhiking on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, or displaying herself in all her black-leather predilections — which the home folks in Detroit, Brooklyn, Oakland, South Boston, South Philly, Pittsburgh, Omaha, and Butte were going to call dirty — still, with all we are offered of her fantasies, one basic fantasy is never expressed: There has not been a single photograph ever published of Madonna with her legs spread.

“Ah! She draws the line. We may have to redefine our media universe. Is this the last barricade left in our leached-out TV society? Can celebrities get away with everything except giving the public a look at their genitals? Yes, is the answer: Gods always keep one last refuge.”

Norman Mailer, “Like a Lady,” Esquire, August 1994.

Edith, Hellrider, and Dadmonster pose for a photograph. In...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:19:00 -0700

Edith, Hellrider, and Dadmonster pose for a photograph. In Botswana, heavy metal music has landed. Metal groups are now performing in nightclubs, concerts, festivals. The ranks of their fans have expanded dramatically. These fans wear black leather pants and jackets, studded belts, boots and cowboy hats. On their t-shirts stand out skulls, obscenities, historical covers of hard-rock groups popular in the seventies and eighties, such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, and AC/DC. They have created their own style, inspired by classic metal symbolism, but also borrowing heavily from the iconography of western films and the traditional rural world of Botswana. Their nicknames, Gunsmoke, Rockfather, Carrott Warmachine, Hellrider, Hardcore, Dignified Queen, may appear subversive and disturbing as their clothing, but they are peaceful and gentle. “We like to get dressed„ drink meet friends and feel free , this music is so powerful . We are lucky to live in a country tolerant and open” argues one of the leaders. A precious rarity for Africa. (© Daniele Tamagni, Italy, 2013 Sony World Photography Awards)

“In five years, we’ll all either be working for him...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:32:12 -0700

“In five years, we’ll all either be working for him … or be dead by his hand.”

So long, 30 Rock.

"I don’t have any problem with altering the human form. We do it all the time. It is only our..."

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 15:26:05 -0700

““I don’t have any problem with altering the human form. We do it all the time. It is only our Judeo-Christian conservatism that makes us think this is wrong. Who here doesn’t try to send their children to the best schools, in the hopes of altering them? Who here objects to a Palm Pilot, a thing we clasp to our bodies, with which we receive rapid electronic signals? Who here doesn’t surround themselves with a metal shell and travel at death-defying speeds? We have always altered ourselves, for beauty or for power, and so long as we are not causing harm what makes us think we should stop?””

- Dr. Joe Rosen, plastic surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, qtd. in Lauren Slater, “Dr. Daedalus: A Radical Plastic Surgeon Wants to Give You Wings,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2001.