Tuesday, January 31, 2023

THE BLUE DAHLIA
_____________________

George Marshall
USA, 1946


It's that thing where you've had a crush for 28 years on someone you've never met, you've never seen anywhere but in ten seconds of video, and you've found never anyone in the world who knows their name.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?


Scatman John
"Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop)" (1995)
"The biggest danger of taking your child to a drag show is that a christian could show up with a gun."

Truer words have never been  spoken.

[Photographer unknown to me.]
Johannes Brahms
CHORAL WORKS
____________________

John Eliot Gardiner
Monteverdi Choir

-

Gesänge, Op. 17, 42, and 104
Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 52
Quartette, Op. 92

THE CREATIVE MARTYRS
"The List"
____________________

Let us take your details
Voluntary and confidential
Our database never fails
Name, number, and residential
We won't pass anything on
We want you all to ourselves
Please trust that nothing goes wrong
Into your files we shall delve

Good evening, Madame,
May I have your number?
Do not tell - I think you are number one
May I say you have fine shoes?
They suit you down to the ground

Let us take your details
You can share them with anyone
It's the World Wide information stage
It's everywhere, it's only just begun
Our list is ever growing
So much to find out
To be ever knowing
Some rules we might flout
But we won't tell you
You're on the list

Yes, you – You're on the list
You're on the list
And you are on the list
You're on the list
Especially you – You're on the list
You're on the list
Even you are on the list
And you are on the list

Madame, you look like the kind of lady
Who wishes to give me their vital statistics
No?
And you, sir, do you have a job?
And if so do you pay your taxes?

Let us take your details
You really have no choice
To us your insignificance pales
You really have no voice
We will take your details
All the places that you go
Everything day-to-day
And you won't even know

Because you matter to us
Your statistics are vital
And you, sir, 
I hope you have an occupation
And proof that you pay your taxes

Did you notice a subtle difference
The moment when things turned?
It's amazing with all that warning
That none of you have learned
This is how it will be from now on
There is no going back
Can you account for all that you've done?
Those sensibilities you lack

Yes, you – You're on the list
You're on the list
And you are on the list
You're on the list
Especially you - You're on the list

How about some of that dirty mouth trumpet?
[Dirty mouth trumpet bridge]

That one looks rather red
This one's a funny hue
That one – definitely pink
And you, we know all about you
This one seems intellectual - Ha!
That one's got a funny look
We're really not sure about those ones
Why don't you put them in the book
Have you heard what these ones are saying?
Have you seen what they have done?

Don't you know what they've been a-thinking?
It's not the way that we do
Their heads need some shrinking 
And their ideals do too, do too

Put them on the list
Oh, there's no one we have missed
Put them on the list
It proves that you exist
Put them on the list
This information we can twist

They'll stay on the list
Traitors in our midst
You're on the list
Yes, you – You're on the list
You're on the list

And you – 
You could assist


Daily Painting
____________________

Szőnyi István
At the Peak (1925)

Monday, January 30, 2023

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
____________________

Preston Sturges
USA, 1941




I MARRIED A WITCH
____________________

René Clair
USA, 1942


-


The taglines:

"She was a beautiful witch ... But she done him wrong!"


"No man can resist her!"


"I married a witch and I'm not complaining, would you?"


"She's a witch (and we do mean witch) who gets what she wants with Hex Appeal!"


"Not suitable for General Exhibition"


Art Porn
____________________

Joseph Häxan

"Vapours"

From his series Nativity
AmeriKKKA.


On Nov. 5, 2021, a married couple calling themselves “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon” appeared on the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung Amerikaner” to plug a new project: a social media channel dedicated to helping American parents home-school their children. 

“We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” Mrs. Saxon told the podcast’s host. “And by home-schooling, we’re going to get that done.”

As extreme as the Dissident Homeschool channel is, the propaganda it shares targeting the American education system is just a more explicit and crass articulation of talking points made by Fox News hosts or by major figures in the Republican Party.

“Without homeschooling our children,” Mrs. Saxon said, “our children are left defenseless to the schools and the Gay Afro Zionist scum that run them.” 

The Dissident Homeschool channel — which now has nearly 2,500 subscribers — is replete with material, including ready-made lesson plans authored by the Saxons on various subjects, like Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee (a “grand role model for young, white men”) and Martin Luther King Jr. (“the antithesis of our civilization and our people”).

There are even copywork assignments available for parents to print out, so that their children can learn cursive by writing out quotes from Adolf Hitler.

We call all say "unfuckingbelievabale" but this IS America in 2023.

If you can stomach it, here's the link to the full story again.
LET THE DOG DRIVE HOME
____________________

Teitur

TED DANSON
____________________

My drug of choice is marijuana, of course. I’ve never understood the desire to speed up. All I really want is to be a smidge stupider than I actually am. But who has the time? Weed is like golf — you need a good four hours. I’ll be a pothead in my late seventies. By then, I’ll have earned it.


Daily Painting
____________________

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
Dance of Many Hands (2017)

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Guillermo Del Toro's
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
____________________
The Short FIlms of
AKOSUA ADOMA OWUSU
on The Criterion Channel
____________________

AJUBE KETE (2005)

TEA 4 TWO (2006)

INTERMITTENT DELIGHT (2007)

BOYANT (2008)

ME BRONI BA (2009)

DREXCIYA (2010)

SPLIT ENDS, I FEEL WONDERFUL (2012)

KWAKU ANANSE (2013)

BUSNUT (2015)

RELUCTANTLY QUEER (2016)

MAHOGANY TOO (2018)

ON MONDAY OF LAST WEEK (2018)

PELOURINHO: THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT US (2019)
Two years ago today.

January 29, 2021.

Lemmy at 12 weeks and Rory at four years.


Today.

January 29, 2023.

Totally different and totally the same.
The only thing wrong with this article is that it's not more forcefully condemning of those screaming "queerbaiting" in 20-fucking-23.

Full story here

Please support The Guardian.

-

In November, following weeks of comments on social media targeting Kit Connor over his playing a queer character in Netflix’s LGBTQ+ coming-of-age drama Heartstopper, the actor tweeted a short, exasperated response: “I’m bi,” he wrote. “Congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. I think some of you missed the point of the show.”

-

Cardi, after being accused of queerbaiting based on a sensual music video made with the singer Normani, responded on Twitter: “I don’t like this new ‘queer baiting’ word. I’m married to a man but I have [expressed] sooo much about my bisexuality and my experiences [with] girls.” When accused again recently, Cardi B was more direct: “I ate bitches out before you was born … Sorry I don’t have razr phone pics to prove it to you.”
Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin at Chaplin's film, City Lights, premiere on January 20, 1931 at the Los Angeles Theatre in Downtown LA.
WET LEG [Self-Titled]
____________________

Wet Leg

QUENTIN R. BUFOGLE
____________________

This whole "good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun" fantasy is pure, steamin' bullshit served up for a bunch of gun-humpin' imbeciles. As we ALL should've learned by now, before that bad guy gets snuffed, a whole lot of innocents are gonna die. What other life-threatening situation would we approach in such an ass-backwards manner? 

If people were being poisoned en masse, would we simply remove the lethal substance -- or just hand out some vials of antidote hoping that they might find their way down the right gullet in just the nick of time? 

Why this idiotic notion that it's somehow easier to stop a shooter in mid-rampage than using every available precaution to ensure that gun never finds its way into his hands in the first place??!


Daily Painting
____________________

Richard Lindner
Portrait of Marcel Proust ()

Saturday, January 28, 2023

THIS GUN FOR HIRE
____________________

Frank Tuttle
USA, 1942
THE GLASS KEY
____________________

Stuart Heisler
USA, 1942
CLUB MOD
allclassical.org 


The Tasmanian Tiger, or thylacine, was hunted to extinction
in 1930 - the last in captivity died in 1936 - but a group of
Australian scientists say it will be roaming again within years.

Claude Debussy
THE FORGOTTEN SONGS
____________________

Dawn Upshaw
James Levine

MALCOLM X
____________________

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong
to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies
and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us and make us
violent abroad in defense of her. 

And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent
in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is
necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.


Daily Painting
____________________

Mario Sironi 
Solitudine [Loneliness] (1924)

Friday, January 27, 2023

Guillermo Del Toro's
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
____________________
Democrats blocked three anti-abortion proposals largely as a result of winning a special election which solidified their majority in the State Senate by a two-vote margin. Aaron Rouse narrowly defeated Republican Kevin Adams in part by campaigning on abortion rights in the state following last year’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v Wade. Democrats recognized that victories on Thursday were aided by this win and others like it during the 2022 midterms.



i don't know who needs to hear this
____________________

Tomberlin
SONGS FROM A ROOM
____________________

Leonard Cohen

OZZY OSBOURNE
____________________

If guns don’t kill people, why do we give people guns when they go to war? 

Why not just send the people?


Daily Painting
____________________

Nicolas de Staël
Ciel à Honfleur (1952)

Thursday, January 26, 2023

ATLANTIS
[Атлантида]
____________________

Valentyn Vasyanovych
Ukraine, 2019

THURSDAY SHORT:

NEW BOY
Steph Green
Ireland, 2009

THEATRE OF THE ACCORDION
____________________

William Schimmel

JOHN FUGELSANG
____________________

Only in America can one be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself "pro-life."


Daily Painting
____________________

Susan Macdowell Eakins
Portrait of Thomas Eakins (1920)

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

GANDAHAR
[US Title: Light Years]
____________________

René Laloux
France, 1987
Currently Reading
____________________

THE TWIN
Boven is het stil

[Literal translation:
Upstairs, all is quiet]
____________________

Gerbrand Bakker

Translated by
David Colmer
America in a nutshell. 

Emphasis on nut.
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD
____________________

Mumford & Sons

CLINT SMITH
"No Parent Should Have to Live Like This"
____________________

I want to live in a country where my presence is not seen by some as an existential threat. But this feels like a fantasy. I want to walk past the school where my son will attend kindergarten next year and see a place that will keep him safe. But this is impossible. 

We live in a country that has failed us. Where legislation is written — and erased — by the gun lobby. Where manipulations and distortions of Second Amendment rights prevent politicians from enacting any semblance of sensible laws that would at least attempt to prevent this. Where claims about what our Founders wanted supersede the slaughter we see right in front of us. Where the cocktail of easily accessible guns and the normalizing of extremist views makes nowhere feel safe. There is no other country in the world where this happens. 

The fact that it does happen, and happens with such frequency, is reflective of a choice that has been made. But just because a choice has been made doesn’t mean that different choices aren’t possible. Different choices are possible.


Daily Painting
____________________

Vera Nilsson
Gamla Slussen

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

TO LOVE SOMEBODY
____________________

Nina Simone

SHERRILYN IFILL
____________________

I don’t have a lot of words today, except to say that there is a concerted effort right now to convince you that “nothing can be done.” 

It is designed to make you give in to the exhaustion of this moment. 

Don’t believe it. 

It’s a lie. 

We have power if we mobilize it.


Daily Painting
____________________

Olivier Rensonnet
Refus (1994)

Monday, January 23, 2023

RESURRECTION
____________________

Andrew Semans
USA, 2022
"In God We Trust"
A jury deliberated for [only] two hours before unanimously convicting Richard “Bigo” Barnett on all eight counts in his indictment.

Prosecutors asked the judge to jail Barnett while he awaits sentencing. Justice Department prosecutor Alison Prout said the jury concluded that Barnett took a weapon into Pelosi’s office. “We can only imagine what would have happened if (Pelosi) had been there at the time,” Prout said.

Barnett, 62, testified last Thursday that he was looking for a bathroom inside the Capitol when he unwittingly entered Pelosi’s office and encountered two news photographers. He said one of the photographers told him to “act natural,” so he leaned back in a chair and flung his legs onto the desk. [He left Nancy Pelosi a handwritten message: "Nancy, Bigo was here, bitch."]

“I was just in the moment,” Barnett said. “I’m just kind of going with the flow at this point.”
It's okay to say the terrorists' names:

Joseph Hackett of Sarasota, FL

Roberto Minuta of Prosper, TX

David Moerschel of Punta Gorda, FL

Edward Vallejo of Phoenix, AZ