Glamburger: Adele, Rolling in the deep edition

Went to a Dixieland Jazz festival yesterday, which is great because I’m always getting my Dixieland on, can’t hardly stop me, and there was so much rad bad-for-you food.

Adele.

Luckily once you stepped through the food area’s gates you discovered that a simple grilled fair-fare meal with accompanying potato product was as expensive as a down payment on a car. Why is stuff like that always a racket, at every single booth? It feels like it was less of one even as recently as a decade ago. Am I crazy? Anyway, I stuck with a chicken kebab and a lemonade. Healthy choices: This Guy!

… Plus like I said, so expensive that I suspected Rumpelstiltskin was behind the Sun Chips prices. Folklore. Don’t need that. Full disclosure: I ended up dropping most of my allotted money on records later, but I remain confident in my budgeting. Food — in your stomach for a couple hours, tops. Records — years in your ears. Keep sharp and make good decisions.

Daily Batman: Lois, this IS my Batman glass

Lois, this is my Batman glass.

Taken by me, like, a minute ago.

Special thanks to pandaeraser for making my Batman bloody beer possible. Muah!

(The title is a reference to a previous Daily Batman.)

Glamburger: Inaugural edition with explanation

Empty caloric cravings as social equalizer. Enjoyed by pigs and Pigs alike.

via.

So I’m ’bout to get real here with saying a big “fuck you” to my need for Western Bacon cheeseburgers and their ilk. I’m going to try to just cut out fast food and bad shit altogether because this crazy-great frame of mind I’m in has me thinking I can scale mountains and crush ice and drop ‘stones’ of weight in time for the July-August bikini zenith like I’m the impossible space-time-blip lovechild of Braveheart and that bitch from Biggest Loser, and I have invented the new category I call Glamburger as both a biting commentary on the image of “burger” in the visual parole of post-modern pop culture, and as a way to make me sit and cry at the keyboard while gnawing my own fist.

Also retconned in an old entry.

Now, don’t panic. This is not turning in to a food journal. I hate that crap. I don’t need any ass-crazy “I’m so fat” “No you’re not” ED thinspiration folklore to get my internet rocks off: I just like cheesey shuck-and-jive pictures that encourage obesity in the name of capitalism. And … I like bacon and cheeseburgers. (hangs head.)

Sushi über alles and catch you on the flip

One thing about the hiatus is that I’ve had a guilt-free great time being extra-close to all my face-time dear friendohs recently. They’re amazing, insightful, fantastic, and get me through everything with grace and good humor. Big ups to all my wonderful friends; I don’t know how you guys put up with me. Really.

Have you hugged your friends today?

via pandaeraser on the tumblr. Check her out!!!

But, that said, internet homies, it’s been a super-tremendously rewarding day back in the journal’s saddle. Though they’ve all been ghost posts which I’ve written the night before, I’ve really liked it. Let’s never part ways again. Butterfly kisses.

Got to set off some soosh bombasticos with panda tonight, so I’ll catch you on the flip!

Take-two Tuesday and Yesterday’s News — Movie Moment: Une femme est une femme, Zodiac quackery and cock-gobbling Virgos edition

edit: Since this post’s original appearance, I’ve been reclassified as a Leo by … the sometimes-I-tune-in Zodiac powers that be? Not actually sure whom. Fellow fabulously-damaged Virgin Panda tried to explain it to me over soosh bombasticos last week but she is much, much better at understanding this stuff than I am.

This post originally appeared on February 7, 2010 at 9:14 a.m., so practically one year ago. Synchronicity in Yesterday’s News!

Romance, science, and zodiac quackery in Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is A Woman (Godard, 1961).

Virgo is a hard worker, a neglected mother, a quotidian task master, and a selfless martyr. Virgo is also a reality TV train wreck, a drunken psychopath, and a self-abusing anorexic. Virgo is analytical on a good day. Virgo is self-critical, self-loathing, self-deprecating, self-flagellating, and self-defeating on a bad day.

The Virgin, contrary to what her title may suggest, is the resident cock gobbler of the zodiac — never a topper, always a bottom. If you’re looking for a woman who will abuse herself, party like it’s Greek harvest time and she’s drunk on mead, please you sexually without so much as a nod to her own hungry genitalia, and perform all the humiliating duties you’ve assigned to her as wife and mother, look no further than the drunken Virgin of the zodiac.

And yes, more often than not, this naughty little maiden is getting crunked at the club or downing daiquiris at the Mommy and Me block party, an attempt to drown to death the echoes of self-loathing that usually prevent her from embodying the female charm and charisma she labors to possess.

The Virgo vibratory pattern is restrictive, effective, judgmental, exact, helpful, and neurotic. Virgos are a lot of things, socially charismatic not being one of them.

Usually, when I meet a Virgo, my natural reaction is, ‘this person must have Aspergers.’ They fixate on minutiae like Rainman [and] have more clicks and ticks than a malfunctioning android attempting to process human emotion.

Virgos rule the house of diet, perfectionism, and nourishment. Just glance at a list of famous Virgos and you’ll find more self-flagellating, adulthood suppressing skeletors than you can shake a stick at: Amy Winehouse, Rachel Zoe, Nicole Ritchie, Karl Lagerfeld, Twiggy, Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Peggy Guggenheim, etc.

[personally adding Anne Bancroft, Evan Rachel Wood, Lauren Bacall, Ricki Lake, Greta Garbo, and Rose McGowan to that list].

Yes, that is pretty much the way of it.

Virgo is the embodiment of human turmoil.

Insightful and amusing zodiac sign analysis by Carly, whose blog “Do you think I’m smart? Astrology and other Ass Munchery” is right here on the wordpress. Usually I say that I don’t believe in all that large astrological nonsense, but I have to admit that’s the first one I’ve ever read that was right on. Maybe I just needed to read all the horrible things I already know about myself confirmed, instead of the butt-licking backhanded compliments in most horoscopes, in order to start giving it some credence.

Final thought.

How to Spot a Virgo Woman:

They have an eating disorder.

They give rigorous handies.

They have acid reflux.

They’ll do “anything for my man.”

They want your love, but don’t deserve it.

(more, if you’re into that — she is very clever and scathingly funny)

Flashback Friday — Advice: NSFW Sophia Loren schooling on true sexy glamour edition

This entry originally appeared on Nov 20, 2009 at 10:55 a.m.

I think the quality of sexiness comes from within. It is something that is in you or it isn’t and it really doesn’t have much to do with breasts or thighs or the pout of your lips.

A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.

Hey, models and movie starlets of today! Want to be a timeless, beautiful, glamorous international sex symbol like the world-famously gorgeous Sophia? Ms. Loren sez: eat something. If you are confused about how to eat and need help getting started, she even has cookbooks to help you along.

Final thoughts on eating and sexiness from Sophia:

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.

and …

Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.

Do it for the curves, ladies. Feel free to keep us posted on your progress!

Microwaves and I do not understand each other

“Field-side Microwave” by say.today on the flickr.

Okay, right out of the gate I need to say that I’m one of those ignorant paranoiac luddites who’s still not totally convinced that microwaves are safe. So I am biased against them to begin with. (Please do not explain the science of their safety to me because I am unreasonable and stubborn and it would waste both our time for you to patiently demonstrate how they will not make us sterile or slowly irradiate our children.) I also prefer to make food in the oven because it comes out better. Anyone who has microwaved fries instead of sticking them under the broiler knows where I’m coming from.

I use the microwave for two things: popping corn and heating tea. The popcorn because it is a light snack that I do not have to slave over a pot and nervously try to capture it before it is flung all over the stovetop, and the tea because my beautiful teapot is in Portland.The microwave in the kitchen here has a “popcorn” button with which I’ve been experimenting with fairly good results. It also has a bunch of other preset buttons which I can never see myself using, such as for thawing meat, which the microwave is the last place I would be willing to do that.

“Late Night Snack” by Danielle de Leon on the flickr.

As I was heating tea around five minutes ago, I observed that, of course, there was no make-a-beverage-hot-but-not-scalding-setting. I made a “pfft!” noise as I watched the cup slowly spin from a safe distance, and I thought with disdain that any microwave which has automatic settings for all this other happy crap but no button for tea clearly knows nothing about me.

Then I thought, Why do I want the microwave to know things about me?

“Granddad’s Microwave” via funkjunkie on the tumblr.

The situation could be worse. When we moved Paolo and Miss D in to their present C-town domicile, the kitchen came complete with a vintage microwave that had a stunning array of preset suggestions. They started reasonably enough — settings for thawing meat and defrosting vegetables, then moving in to common entrees — but quickly progressed to some really obscure menu suggestions. The most shocking and thought-provoking one for me was, I shit you not, swordfish l’orange.

The saddest cookbook you’ll ever see.

Swordfish l’orange: wow. Like, first of all, I would have never thought to prepare swordfish in that fashion — I’ve never prepared swordfish at all, actually, but I feel that l’orange would not be my “go-to” style — but more importantly, if someone, somewhere, actually took a notion to cook the dish in the first place, why would you do it in the microwave? On what planet is swordfish l’orange so in demand as a dish that you whip it up in the microwave like it is a freaking Lean Pocket? It truly boggled my mind.

My Aunt Harriet had a microwave in the eighties which talked and her magnificent neighbor’s no-good son who is dead now totally stole it one morning, but all of that’s a story for a different day. I got quite a few microwave stories, and they’re all pretty good. One involves both toplessness and fire (I live dangerously). I’m not sure if I have enough anecdotes to make it a regular feature, but I’ll think about it.

Movie Millisecond: Agnes of God and all apologies

Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985).

Sorry for today’s post scarcity; despite the Cappy being gone, I was feeling under the weather this morning and then had to visit the laboratory vampires in preparation for an appointment I’ve got later this week*, but I’ve bounced back and will knock your socks off with the shower of posts I plan for tomorrow.

The film stars Meg Tilly, Anne Bancroft, and Jane Fonda and received many award nominations, with Miss Tilly winning the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. cap via xmission.

Teevee Time, Liberated Space, Daily Batman, the inaugural edition of a new Wonder Woman project, a Girl of Summer, and October’s new object of focus (shrouded in mystery for now) are all included. Time to reboot and pump up the jam — can you dig it!

*After the labwork, I admit I went to India Bistro with Miss D. (hangs head) I’m a failure as a blogging couch potato.

Dinner at Eight! —

Mmm!

— Except actually at four or so. Getting things pulled together to pick up kidlet and then together the two of us have scheduled a much-needed munch, movies, and catch-up session with my Sarah-fina and favorite Baby Ginger. Especially look forward to discussing impressions of the school at which I wish to teach, which she has just left.

Mainline it?

My job is assembling materials for bruschetta and dessert while S-f prepares the main course. Thinking chocolate-hazelnut ravioli a la Giada but not so hyper-prepared and a bit healthier (not deep fried.) We can never go wrong with Nutella as our co-pilot, yes? Salute! Have an awesome Friday night and I will catch you on the flip!

Mean Girls Monday: Don’t judge

Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy.

Julia Chantrey as Amber D’Alessio.

Never made out with a hot dog, but Gorgeous George whipped up some guacamole yesterday at Paolo and Miss D’s that I could seriously see myself in a relationship with. I’ve been thinking about it all day.

You Can Go Home Again — Journeyer’s advice: The things left behind; hole in your sole

Hole in your sole or whole in your soul?

William S. Burroughs’ shoes. Photographed by Peter Ross.

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

William S. Burroughs

And his shoe polish. Photographed by Peter Ross. Both via bigfun on the tumblr.

What a great quote but, zuppa toscana!,* what a challenging endeavor. True change, the inside kind that counts, not the slimming down of the outside or revamps to hair and style, but the alteration and bettering of stuff beneath, is such a difficult process of discernment and goal-setting. There are things in which I believe that I would not wish to leave behind, but, come to think of it, I likely believe in them now because of having already left behind some old things. So I think I’m on my way and perhaps in the clear …

… Maybe.

Kerouac and Burroughs in a chat. I love the supercilious expression on Burroughs’ face. He is literally looking down his nose. I bet they were high as little beatnik kites, too. via “If Charlie Parker…”

*as an example, I’m still eager to eat at Olive Garden, as that food euphemism proves. I can rail against consumerism and branding and obesity and the devaluing of the individual artisan, but when push comes to shove I want me some chain-restaurant high fructose corn syrup facsimiles of truly nourishing food. Really, though — don’t some Olive Garden breadsticks sound goooood? Oh, me. I am such a fruity work in progress.

Goethe Month: Shadow and light and lick my ass

“Shadow and light” by slagophoto on the da.

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen, Act I)

Götz von Berlichingen had an iron prosthetic arm and was quite the dude. In 1773, Goethe wrote a popular play based on von Berlichingen’s life story. And it was not all highblown beautiful truths about light and dark, either — he coined a famous German vulgarity.

Two acts after the poetic quote above, when asked to surrender to Bamberg, Götz says, “Er aber, sags ihm, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!” According to the wiki,

This is the first recorded instance of a phrase now in common use as “Leck mich am Arsch” (literally “lick me on my arse”, i. e. “kiss my ass”).

Bonus “Dudes Named Wolfgang” connection:*

Mozart wrote two canons in 1782, Leck mich im Arsch and Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber.

Ah, haha. Of course he did. He was Mozart for crissake. No one ever says of a budding and arrogant young prodigy, “He’s quite the young Bach, isn’t he,” or “My, what a Handel you have!” It’s always Mozart. The dude is sick as hell.



*Chef Wolfgang Puck, do you have the balls to step up and add to the “lick my ass” legacy?

Giving the people what they want, 3rd edition — and a special shout-out to a lonely heart

Giving the people what they want: in which I glance over my blog stats, spot the trends in what brings you party people of the internet sliding on down to my place, and accordingly and with mutual thanks throw you some bone(r?)s.

Farewell and adieu to you fair Irish ladies.

First, a shocker. With mixed emotions I must report that the rack of Miss Megan Mullally is no longer the sheriff of Googlesearchy Town.* The first two editions (1, 2) of “Giving the people what they want” were dominated by amused-but-puzzled nods to the bafflingly large number of searches for the diminuitive Will and Grace star’s cleavage which lead droves of folks to my door. Megan held her own, beating out for many months running distant contenders such as “Drew Barrymore naked,” and “lesbian kiss,” which I would have thought any such phrases would easily eclipse “Megan Mullally’s breasts,” her “boobs,” her “topless” and variations therein and they never did. Until now.

*(By Googlesearchy Town I mean the searches that people enter in google to land on this journal — wordpress keeps track and ranks the most popular for me)

Top searching honors now rest in the tiny but mighty vintage hands of busty, bespectacled aspiring astrologer, the lovely and talented Fran Gerard — Playboy’s Miss March 1967, the self-help loving little looker whose cups runneth over.

The lovely and etc Ms. Gerard. For Science.

With 5,909 searches since her relatively recent appearance on the journal in March, Ms. Gerard beats out Megan at 2,503 since her inaugural boob-airing last September. Well-played, Ms. Gerard!

Sweet, lovely and talented heiress to generations of hot Italian culinary genius, Amber Campisi.

Rising Star Awards must go to three special up and comers. First, the talented family gal Amber Campisi (Miss February 2005); next, beautiful and tragic playmate and poet Marlene Morrow, aka Persephone (Miss April 1974) — whose gripping story has justly been getting attention from a number of outside sites linking in, enough so that her sister Landi was able to find this blog and send us an optimistic update on Marlene’s present condition about which I’m thrilled, check that post’s comments to get the latest — annnnnnnnd Yvonne Craig, BATGIRL!; all of whom are beginning to trend up the stats list with great and deserved speed. I look forward to what the next edition of “Giving the people what they want” will bring!

The very special Marlene Morrow/Marlene Pinckard/Persephone. Please, please read the account of how Paul Zollo found her with notebooks of poetry and an envelope holding her centerfold photo, living on the streets in L.A., and consider following the non-profit links which follow the write-up?

Finally: Quick note to the person who has found this blog by searching google three times in the space of the last two weeks — with “only assholes” in quotes so’s as to make maximal use of boolean exceptors — for the exact phrase “‘only assholes’ fall for me“: In case you ever come back a third time, I’d like to hope you hit this entry.

Vintage hottie Yvonne Craig has suited up!

First, you probably keep landing here because I frequently tag what I consider to be interesting graffiti with the words “only assholes write on walls” a la cult classic Rocky Horror. So I am sorry for the “only assholes” mix-up. But, more importantly, I am genuinely really sorry that you feel like only assholes fall for you and I wish I could make it better. I’m sorry that you’ve felt that way strongly enough to search the phrase three different times recently. I hope the next person you date is not an asshole. I hope that he or she is really nice to you — no, not just nice, because that is mealy-mouthed and hollow. That is a bullshit expression of my actual sentiment and is weak tea compared to the depth of my empathy, here. Okay:

I hope that that next person you date is genuinely amazing to you, like I pray that their very existence makes you believe in a loving God and you see the echo of your love for them in all the shapes of nature, and you don’t just love him or her but admire and value them, and that you curl your toes when you think of him or her even while driving and that they fill you with so much passion and love that you would kill tigers for them without a blink and you stay together until you die in each other’s arms after fantastic geriatric sex.

Scroll to bottom for caption.*

I hope that the grace of his or her presence in your life is like a lightning strike that inspires you forever after always to strive to be a better person, to laugh with surprise at an unexpected joke they make when you are having an argument, to give new ideas a thorough-think-through and peek behind closed doors; I hope in short that he or she deserves every drop of the deep well of love you were created to share and renews your faith in all the anonymous fellow upper primates all over our world with whom we must trek in our stewardship of this nutty mudhole in order to improve our karma and with every go ’round perfect our souls.

ByTim Weber and Sue Noble via environmental graffiti.

Good luck to you.

*Long caption to second to last shot: The dish ran away with the spoon but what can you do? They have opened a comic book store in the City and on rare nights off they like to order dim sum and watch TVLand; the comic shop is honestly not doing so well, their apartment is super-tiny, the bride’s mom won’t take their calls, their used car’s a/c is on the fritz, and they have never been happier.

Flashback Friday: Antisocial flutterby

This entry was posted in its original form October 4, 2009 at 3:30 pm. This was less than a week before Paolo and Miss D’s wedding. They have a wonderful relationship and a good marriage, and I want to point that out because I feel I’ve come off as down on the marriage thing lately. It is my own shit and observations and nothing to do with the good people who make a beautiful thing work.

Ah, then, I must have it all backward; do I, Anna Karina?

This is how antisocial I am, and this is the price I pay: just a bit ago, I called Thai House on Tully (best. I am sorry, best. — no, stop talking. best.) to see if they were open, and when someone picked up the phone, I simply hung up, because I felt my question had been adequately answered by the mere fact of a voice on the other end. Are there people at Thai House working? Yes, I deduced. And did not bother to speak, just hit “end.” That’s right, I wordlessly disconnected a call with the business I was planning to patronize purely for the purpose of limiting my level of interaction with other people.

I enjoy this restaurant and bear its employees nothing but good will, but did my actions remotely reflect this? No. I admit they did not.

So then. THEN. I go to Thai House, my mind teeming with satay and moo yang daydreams, and, as I likely deserved, it wound up they are closed until 4:30. Whoever answered the phone would probably happily have told me that, had I not hung up to avoid talking to a fellow human being.

I deserve the wait. To make up for what I’d done, when Gorgeous George hopped on to the yahoo chat and asked me to look over a recent draft of his toast for Paolo and Miss D’s wedding, I suggested that he join me at Thai House later. It is good to have a reason to comb your hair and act human. It’s important to do these things and not hole up in my cave. I’m sure of it. Otherwise I will fall out of practice at being talked to and I will lose whatever magic I might still have, and then how will I ever interact again, as I am striving to do because I have good reasons?

The Girls of Summer: Carrie Enwright, Miss July 1963

Photographed by Ron Vogel.

I’d like to juxtapose the original text that accompanied Ms. Enwright’s Playboy gatefold appearance with some excerpts from a review of The Playmate Book (Taschen, 2006) by Joan Acocella, a writer whose work I like and find thought-provoking.

Hugh Hefner, the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy, always said that his ideal for the magazine’s famous Playmate of the Month, the woman in the centerfold photo, was “the girl next door with her clothes off.”

(Acocella, Joan. “The Girls Next Door: Life in the centerfold.” Review of Gretchen Edgren’s The Playmate Book. The New Yorker. March 20, 2006.)

Okay: agree.

In other words, he was trying to take his readers back to a time before their first sexual experience, a time when they still liked their stuffed bear and thought that a naked woman might be something like that.

(Ibid.)

Mm. Mainly disagree.

It’s my opinion that the prose and pictures, especially in the early years, treated the reader as a fellow experienced swinging single dude, talking man-to-man. We have talked before about how the pictures are composed to have an implicit male presence, like the reader is the model’s partner and has only just stepped out of frame, maybe to take the picture he’s looking at. Take the following as an example:

Picnic laid out with thermos and two cups. Hello.

Like the best of mid-July days, Carrie seems to be destined expressly for the informal, easygoing pleasures of life, and is, as a consequence, a refreshingly unaffected companion.

“I am,” says [Ms. Enwright] in thoughtful self-summation, “a very healthy, well-adjusted, fun-loving kind of girl.”

(“Summer Idyl.” Playboy, July 1963.)

A non-threatening introduction, yes, but pretty come-hither. Not exactly teddy bear fare — and neither is the pose particularly “cuddly.”

There is one basic model. On top is the face of Shirley Temple; below is the body of Jayne Mansfield.

(Acocella.)

Somewhat disagree. I believe there was slightly more variety in the Sixties and Seventies than Ms. Acocella sugests, but I admit I am omitting the portion where she talks about some of the noteworthy veers from the norm (Joni Mattis, yay!) and I don’t want you to think she didn’t acknowledge that in her review. Please be aware that she did. Don’t want to look all biased.

[Playboy draws] simultaneously, on two opposing trends that have … come to dominate American mass culture: on the one hand, our country’s idea of its Huck Finn innocence; on the other, the enthusiastic lewdness of our advertising and entertainment.

(Acocella.)

Agree. Yes. 100%. That is its appeal, that the magazine attracts that dichotomy in American consumerism and in our own idea of beauty, sex, and ourselves.

Hence the surprise and the popularity of Playboy. The magazine proposed that … sex for sex’s sake, was wholesome, good for you: a novel idea in the nineteen-fifties.

(Acocella.)

Agree. This also undermines the beginning sentence with its teddy-bear going-for-innocent-investigative-interest suggestion, but I’m okay with undoing that assertion because I disagreed with it.

“I don’t much care whether I eventually live in a mansion or in a tree house, so long as the man I’m married to is fun to be with.”

(“Summer Idyl.”)

[As the pin-ups progressed] We get the great outdoors: Playmates taking sunbaths, unpacking picnics, hoisting their innocent bottoms into hammocks. Above all, we get youth.

(Acocella.)

Most of them have chubby cheeks, and flash us sweet smiles. At the same time, many of these nice little girls are fantastically large-breasted. Strange to say, this top-loading often makes them appear more childlike. The breasts are smooth and round and pink; they look like balloons or beach balls. The girl seems delighted to have them, as if they had just been delivered by Santa Claus.

(Acocella.)

Ha! Somewhat agree. That Santa. He always knows. But this shoot and Cheryl Kubert are both good examples, just as recent citation on this journal, of gatefolds that featured a model mainly not smiling. Ms. Enwright even keeps her mouth closed.

What is so bewildering about [modern vs. old-school] Playboy centerfolds is their [the modern ones’] utter texturelessness: their lack of any question, any traction, any grain of sand from which the sexual imagination could make a pearl.

(Acocella)

Very Strongly AGREE.

[Hef’s] father was an accountant, his mother a Methodist disciplinarian. He has said that there was never any show of affection in his house. One suspects that there was likewise little evidence of jazz or hors d’oeuvres -— pleasure for its own sake. This is what he set out to sell: an upscale hedonism, promoted by the magazine’s articles and ads as well as by its nudes.

(Acocella.)

Agree, but not sure that it matters.

“For a while I was cashier at the Hollywood Paramount, which was my closest fling with the movie business. Then I worked as a salesgirl in a candy store. Trouble was, I have this terrible sweet tooth and pretty soon I was eating more candy than I sold.”

(“Summer Idyl.”)

“Right now I’m living with my mother and studying like mad to take my state boards in cosmetology. My most active hobby involves artwork, from making seed mosaics of Siamese cats to painting wild, wild oils. I get excited over my finished products — but then, I’m not critically minded.”

(Ibid.)

“I’m crazy about progressive jazz, lasagna, and playing practical jokes on people I like.”

Hell, yeah, lasagna and jazz! This girl is all kinds of easygoing and wonderful. Practical jokes, eh? such as what?

“I have been known to secretly put in cold mashed potatoes as the bottom scoop of someone’s root-beer float, which is a terrible thing to do, but fun!”

(Ibid.)

I have never done that nor even thought of it. Holy god, I can’t wait to do this. She is a comic genius and I am trying this, stickety-stat!

Bookworms are hottttt … even when they are only pretending for a photoshoot.

“I am not the type who always has a book going. I rarely read novels, but occasionally I get on a self-improvement kick, the most recent of which was plowing through Hayakawa’s Language in Thought and Action.”

(Ibid.)

I don’t know why, but I feel like the editors forced her to say she read it all when maybe the truth was that she only started it. Just a feeling. I’m about to talk about why they might’ve done that in a second.

“I love Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra … — oh, so many more. I’m very congenial toward most performers, and I enjoy nearly all.”

(Ibid.)

Again — wonderful taste. You find that so often in the Sixties write-ups, though, that the girls are prompted to talk about foodie foolery, jazz, politics, photography, and art. I’m not sure when that fizzled out, but it has. And I can totally admit that probably 30% of it was bullshit and only 7 out of 10 of these girls knew what they were talking about (if they even said it to begin with) or collected Bird and bebop on vinyl and the like, but I still feel good about the fact that it was important to the editorial staff for their vision of the ideal Playmate that these intriguing, intelligent statements seem true. Ms. Acocella addresses this:

That, in the end, is the most striking thing about Playboy’s centerfolds: how old-fashioned they seem. This whole “bachelor” world, with the brandy snifters and the attractive guest arriving for the night: did it ever exist? Yes, as a fantasy. Now, however, it is the property of homosexuals.

Today, if you try to present yourself as a suave middle-aged bachelor, people will assume you’re gay.

(Acocella.)

Ha! and again, I have to say agree, not in that groovy archaic pursuits are strictly the male provenance of neato gay guys (I like any man that goes for records and cares about dorky esoterica) but, yeah, society-wide, that would be the humorous judgment in the sense of stereotyping.

You know. Like when Bart and Millhouse tried to be Playdudes. That was hilarious. All pimped out in smoking jackets up in the treehouse.

“Too much of the time I use my heart and not my head. I’m really a very gullible girl. I wish on first stars and believe in miracles.”

(“Summer Idyl.”)

That is very sweet and touching. It is not full of trying-to-be-sexy artifice, nor is it overly cloying or disingenuous.

“Of course it’s a trite observation, but what I want most in life is happiness. What else is there?”

(Ibid.)

And who can improve on that desire? Well-wished, Ms. Enwright, and I hope she found her happiness. That’s not trite: it’s natural.

What Ms. Acocella observes in the unnaturally smooth, airbrushed featurelessness of the current crop of sexless-and-vaginally-shaved-for-maximum-Barbie-resemblance centerfolds mostly found on the newsstands today is resonantly true.

I guess what I’m saying is this: Yeah, there may have never really been a sophisticated scotch-sampling bachelor like the ones to whom Hef designed the magazine to appeal, and there may never have really been a girl next door with her clothes off that just happened to discourse freely on jazz LP’s and modern art while whipping up beef bourguignon in her skivvies, but isn’t the fantasy of that time period, quaint as it may seem now, so much more touching and oddly innocent than the weird highly-structured and false fantasy being sold today?

It is to me.

The Girls of Summer: Cathy Larmouth, Miss June 1981

This post took forever to put together because there are so many pictures and Cathy Larmouth is so funny and genuine in the interview. Hope you find her as absorbing as I did.

Photographed by Ken Marcus.

The lovely and talented Cathy Larmouth was Playboy’s Miss June, 1981. She is a really fun-loving gal, and she is unbelievably quick-witted, as I hope you’ll see.

I mainly would like her hilarious write-up (the hilarity comes from her quotes and jokes) to do the majority of the talking in this post.

Even if you normally skip the text, give some of what Ms. Larmouth has to say a whirl, because she is a hoot and a holler, a self-deprecating and talented young genius with a sweet heart and a good head on her shoulders.

“I don’t want to be famous, don’t particularly want to be an actress or a model. I just want a good man and a family. I hardly think showin’ your bazongas to 6,000,000 people qualifies anybody as a celebrity. On the other hand, it’s a great way to meet people!”

(“Lady of the Lake.” Playboy, June 1981.)

Cathy’s heritage is English, French and Mohawk Indian. She was the youngest of four children (she has three older brothers), and admits that she was spoiled, especially by her father, who died when she was 22.

(Ibid.)

“I loved my father more than anyone,” she says, “and maybe I still do. He was a warm, funny, very smart man. I always carry a poem I wrote to him after he died, so in case I ever get hit by a truck or something, whoever finds my identification will know that I was a person who had a heart.”

(Ibid.)

Oh, lord, all that dust again.

My favorite shot. This should have been the centerfold.

Cathy admits she’s a hopeless romantic, who “should have been born 40 or 50 years ago. … My favorite songs are from the Thirties, Forties and Fifties; my favorite bands are Glenn Miller’s and Nat ‘King’ Cole’s and my all-time favorite piece is Clair de Lune, by Debussy.”

(Ibid.)

Without too much persuasion, Cathy can be induced to sing one of her favorite oldies, such as “Cry Me a River” or “More Than You Know”. She has a good voice and loves to imitate various female pop stars, ranging from Dolly Parton to Helen Reddy.
“I’ve never done this stuff on a stage,” she says, “and I probably never will.”

(Ibid.)

Hooray for Dolly Parton! And if you are having trouble placing Helen Reddy, she was Nora in the Disney flick Pete’s Dragon (Don Chaffey, 1977). You know Lampie — played by Mickey Rooney — the lighthouse-keeper’s adult daughter who was waiting for her long-thought-dead fiance Paul to sail back to Passimoquoddy? — “I’ll be your candle on the water/my love for you will always burn…” Don’t front like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about.

(… cont’d) “It’s mostly for the shower.”

Still, it’s a better-than-average voice. Why not try for a singing career?

“I hate to say this,” she answers, “but the truth is, I’m not motivated. I’m basically lazy! I’d like to write a great satirical novel, for instance, but I’d never get around to it.”

(Ibid.)

Get ready for the most hilarious part, where she spontaneously makes up a shitty poem on purpose:

“I write poetry that isn’t half bad, and I realize that all girls write poetry, but I think mine’s a cut above that awful stuff you see in the women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan, stuff like —

(Ibid.)

‘I looked out the window at where your Rolls once sat
The sight of your tooth marks on the Gouda cheese
Nostalgia and pain
I dropped two ‘Ludes
and turned on the dishwasher.’

— You know? that kind of stuff.”

(Ibid.)

We suggest that maybe Cathy has a future as a poetic humorist. She demurs. “Oh, come on. That’s the hang-up most everybody in Los Angeles has. Everybody thinks she can sing, write and act, and that she’s beautiful.”

(Ibid.)

“The fact is that very few people get to be really good at any one of those things. And only a few people are really all that attractive, and they tend to float through life without ever developing themselves.”

(Ibid.)

Truth bombs comin’at’cha live. Adulthood blows, but please remember that no matter how downtrodden you feel you are still NOT YOUR JOB! Quit and go on tour.

I’m sure I would have developed my potential a lot more if I looked more like, say, Lily Tomlin than Little Annie Fanny. Unfortunately, until I was about 20, that’s what I looked like: a comic character.”

(Ibid.)

“I was 5’8″ when I was 15 and I weighed about 96 pounds, at least ten of which were breasts. I had a low-cut dress with a push-up bra that I wore to school sometimes. Once, in my math class (which I wasn’t doing so well at), my teacher, who was a man, stopped beside my desk and whispered, ‘If you wear that dress to my class twice a week, I’ll give you an A.'”

(Ibid.)

“Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I did and he did! Isn’t that awful?” She giggles mischievously.

(Ibid.)

Someday we’ll find it, a Muppet connection …

Cathy wants to give special thanks to [photographer Ken] Marcus. “He is one of the smartest, nicest, funniest men I have ever met. When he found out that I have a pretty big appetite, he nicknamed me Miss Piggy!”

(Ibid.)

“Soon, everyone at Playboy Studio West was calling me Miss Piggy. Ken and the other Playboy staffers helped me live up to my nickname by taking me to all my favorite restaurants and letting me eat all I could. I once ate an $80 lunch! You might say I can put it away!”

(Ibid.)

“So, after the shooting, they had a party for me at Studio West, and someone had a cake made with a picture of Miss Piggy on it. Ken shoved my face into the cake! I didn’t mind — I love slapstick.”

(Ibid.)

What a great and good-natured woman, am I right?

“I’m not against E.R.A., but the fact is that men are very different from women. For instance, a lot of women may hate my guts for saying this, but I think women are more emotional than men. I don’t think blurring the sex roles makes any sense. Pretty soon, you’ll be calling your grandmother your grandperson. That’s not my style.”

(Ibid.)

“One can’t just go through life being led by one’s chest! At the end of my life, I’d much rather look back and see that I’d been a good wife and a good mother than that I’d been a model.”

(Ibid.)

A very beautiful personal epitaph.

Cover model is the Playmate of the Year, photographed by Phillip Dixon. In 1981, the PMOY, the lovely and talented Terri Welles (Miss May 1980), was given a cash prize and a brand-spank-banking new Porsche 924 Turbo. I said goddamn. Eventually, Playboy Enterprises sued her, like in 1996 or 1998. Look it up. Interesting shit.

What’s really freaky for me is that while sussing out what was what in Ms. Larmouth’s Playboy issue, I stumbled over the May issue of this same year and it has a featured interview with philosopher and psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, which I’d mentioned in the bookworm post I had promised my dear aunt I’d start boning up on her death and grief writings. Wild coincidence, but a great jumping-off point for something on which I’ve been dragging my feet for nearly a decade. So I’m’a hit that now after I post up a Daily Batman and plan to be outie for the night. Feels like fate. Mysterious ways, am I right??

Cathy’s daughter Hayley confirms that Ms. Larmouth passed away in Utah following a heart attack January 4, 2007, at the age of 53. Ms. Larmouth had numerous complications in her declining health, including a hole in her heart. I hope that because her health problems were an early warning, she was able to at least partially prepare herself and her family for the loss. R.I.P. to a very special gal.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day and Hot Man Bein’ Hot of the Day: R. Crumb

The awesome underground comic genius and supafly beanpole hottie R. Crumb poses in the ’70’s with a wall liberated by some of his creations. You might understand the artistic admiration yet still be asking “Realistically, you picked R. Crumb as a ‘Hot’ Man Bein’ Hot of the Day? Up against former category-entrants like Viggo Mortensen, James Dean, and Sean Bean, doesn’t that seem like a stretch?” Okay — NO.

For one thing, I mainly do not discriminate against body type in either direction (except for manorexics in girls’ skinny jeans: you may go take sepia pictures of yourself with knives at your wrists and then write in your livejournal about how mean ol’ E made fun of you). Because for the second and more important thing, hotness does come from within. It is a complex mix of partly physical characteristics that ring your bell but more resonantly it is a response to personality, charisma, mental agility, and weird energy, and yes it can be partially deduced from a photograph, interview, quote, or film clip. (Hence celebrity crushes are sane — ish.)

With wife Aline Kominsky, who actually postdates his character Honeybunch Kominski and is an awesome comix artist in her own right.

That mix: does it mesh with your unique mix? Are you drawn to it? Do you fall in to genre-based-romance and like the class clown, the bad boy, or the quiet type? Do you not care about any of that if the guy smells like a certain brand of shampoo or has a particular timbre to his speaking voice?

It’s not physical so much as something in the eyes, the face, the click, the smell, the deeds and words that make up what a person really is on a plane beneath the physical. That’s why judging hotness results in different outcomes for everyone. And for me personally, R. Crumb’s type of crazy is blazing hot.

Almost bought Crumb’s Book of Genesis in Arcata with Katohs this April, but I changed my mind at the last minute, instead opting to blow all my liquid assets on plates of cheese, to which I am basically allergic, and overpriced vintage records even though both my record players are in Portland — please excuse me while I blow ya mind with my mad rad cash-management skills.

It is 100% a possibly true fact that I am a genius with money, and I encourage you all to attend my smash-hit traveling financial and motivational seminar, “Just Kidding, I’m Broke — Will You Buy Me Potato Skins? No? Split A Cheese Plate, then?” when I come soon to a town near you!

Girls like a boy who reads … his own comics.

Final Thought: Eat spaghetti. Don’t you want to be like Sophia Loren and R. Crumb? What are you waiting for? A sweet rack and emotional relaxation are just a pot of boiling water and a jar of tomato sauce away. Through away that ass-nasty rice cake or low-carb yogurt and welcome back to loving life! You’re welcome.

Art of Design: Varna Restaurant

Varna Restaurant in 1971.

The Varna Restaurant, also called the Varna Palace or Varna Palæet, in Århus, Denmark. The original restaurant is a reknowned, eye-popping marvel of color theory and artistic design.

The restaurant was situated in a renovated palatial building, itself built in 1909, in the Marselisborg forest of Denmark. It was designed by modernist architect and artist Verner Panton, who is also known for designing the Spiegel publishing house in Hamburg, another famous piece of breathtaking psychedelic eye candy. Maybe I will spotlight that one soon, too.

The architectural commission at the Varna restaurant in Arhus was for the interior design. … Fabrics from Mira-X were used by Panton to focus on proportions and connections, and using colour and shapes gave each room its unique dynamics. (Vernor Panton’s official website)

In contrast to the primarily violet colour of the restaurant, Panton formed the Rotonde red. A central element in the so-called Red Hall were red foamed plastic balls which hung from the ceiling. (“Room design from Verner Panton” official blog.)

By their arrangement they seemed to move on to the column standing in the middle of the space. The Flowerpot lights placed in between were arranged also perfectly circular. Below rectangular plastic tables, equipped with the Panton Chair, in red as well, formed groups. (Ibid.)

Tuned on psychedelic effects of his creation Panton put unquestionably the crown of the ambience of the restaurant. Coloured foamed plastic balls, in between Spiral SP1 pendulum lights, violet-coloured columns, carpets and curtains with the Decor I in the variation of Circles, in addition chrome-coloured Pantonova Chairs from Fritz Hansen – the use of colours and forms was virtually inflationary.* (Ibid.)

The city of Århus eventually sold the restaurant to the men’s social club the Order of Odd Fellows. Today, it has been renovated and is available for rent as several banquet halls. If you visit the offical site of the present Varna Palace, you can see that, though they have made renovations to make the spaces more open and airy, and they went a little nuts with yellow (guess they were really sick of the red and purple and wanted to go the other way?) a strong influence of Panton’s original design remains.

*The English-langauge version’s translation from the Danish is a little rocky, but it’s a really informative and beautiful site.

“Don’t say words you’re gonna regret”, or, More on the Alan Parsons Project

Okay, so I’m still having way too much fun with that idea from the last entry and I’ve been sitting here letting my imagination go wild which is always a dangerous thing but I can’t help myself — here is a sample of “The Alan Parsons Project If That Were Not A Band but Instead the Worst Woodworking Show Ever“:

image via dummbidumbwit right here on the wordpress!

(come in the house) (look at the clock) (shit, The Alan Parsons Project is on right now — you like that show and you pretty much forgot!) (sit down on the sofa and get your knife out) (oh and also a notebook in case you have to scribble down stuff you want to wiki later) (turn on television to public access)

(Alan is talking) (a segment is ending)

“…And once you round off that corner, sand it down — and that’s how you carve a wah-wah pedal from single-source old-growth ash. Later in the show, I’m going to show you how to whittle a wire for that pedal, using a technique similar to the one I pioneered during down time in the production of Dark Side of the Moon. That was neat, wasn’t it, Eric?”

“It was. It really was neat.”

(the theme music) (be right back bump card) (now sad music) (pledge drive commercial. oh, the sick uneducated little children. why won’t you help them? why?) (more sad music) (this is hella terrible) (but you really can’t afford to sponsor a kid for a whole—) (commercial is ending) (thank god)

(information about obtaining a videotaped copy of this episode of the Alan Parsons Project) (should you write that down? maybe you should try and get a copy since you missed the beginn—) (oh shit the theme music) (the show is almost back) (put down the bong and get your knife back out) (wait — bong?) (yes it appears so) (why are you high with a knife?) (yeah that’s probably bad) (maybe put the knife away for now and Just Watch until you come down a little) (that’s better. doritos?) (yes — where?) (on the table) (okay cool) (introductory theme music is ending) (wow that lasted forever) (probably only felt that way) (the show is back now)

via the hepcats on the forum over at the International Cannagraphic magazine. that is some kind of terrific kids’ bubble-blower, amirite!

“Hi. I’m Alan Parsons, and if you’re just joining us, welcome to ‘the Alan Parsons Project’ — where we bring you all the best in prog-woodwork. Again, we’re really excited for you to tune in tonight, and we also look forward to tomorrow’s program, when our guest Robert Fripp will show us how you can carve a looper from rowan bark for your very own Pure Frippertonic pleasure. Won’t that be neat?”

“That sure will be neat.”

“It will. Now, Eric, I understand that tonight you’re going to demonstrate a unique Scottish method of adding decorative scrollwork to a vocoder?”

“Mm, that’s right, Alan. Hello, everyone. Eric Woolfson here. What I’m about to show you is a popular technique in Dundee, but some say it comes from even farther into up-country Scotland. Now, just personally, I like to incorporate human phalluses into all of my decorative scrollwork.”

“You know, I’ve noticed that, Eric!”

“You have? Great! That means a lot to me, Alan, because it’s kind of my private stamp. It’s mainly due to my detrimental obsession with Sigmund Freud which has caused my solo music to suffer significant criticism and has honestly been a setback to the overall arc of my career, but, ha-ha, you know, Alan, every woodworker develops his own unique signature. Why, I know a whittler from Northumberland who likes to cane doll-sized chairs, but to personalize and add an individual touch to each one he does, he …”

And so on. (Nickel in the mail to whoever finishes the Northumberland miniature chair-caner story the best.)

Actually, that spiraled in to a show I might watch. Especially with Doritos. Sober as the grave, OF COURSE.

Daily Batman: The refuge of identity

“Batmasks” by Wirrow on the flickr.

Expect to read so much more about this. I can think of like 8 different ways of illustrating some of the amazing points Mr. Schöpflin makes throughout this fascinating essay on assimilation of cultural identities in order to face a morally uncertain future and the ambiguities of morality in a closed system where we pretend it is not bounded and treat as sacrosanct the presupposed morality that sits at its taboo-ridden core, too, like I’d go first obviously with stills from The Dark Knight to illustrate boundaries of security and the agents of anarchy and how new identities must be constructed to counteract them and maintain the safety of the bounded identity, then some Star Wars classic trilogy (Han vs. Boba Fett as two sides of the outsider coin, Luke vs. Vader as defending assimilated symbolic identities), then A Fistful of Dollars, then Sanjuro … like … dag.

“Nanananana” by annbemoish on the deviantart.

But instead I will be in Arcata, kicking these ideas around in my brain while Katohs and I listen to likely pointless drivel about how motivated and enriched the lives of the students at CSU Humboldt are thanks to their four years on the campus. It is like, dudes, she already wants to go here and you have agreed that she should: just tell the girl where the bathrooms and the coffee are, let her find some hookups for less savory entertainments, put in some face time with her department folks, and send us on our way. We do not need the I’m-okay-you’re-okay, hugs-across-the-student-body, banana splits and chicanery. It is well-understood that she is the most supafly and okay-est cat in town. Duh.

But on the plus side — road trip with Special K! Off to google sushi restaurants in Santa Rosa (our lunchtime stopping goal).