Dr. King’s Day: Keep moving from this mountain

“Keep Moving From This Mountain.” Sermon at Temple Israel, Hollywood, California. February 25, 1965.

Each of us lives in two realms, the within and the without. The within of our lives is somehow found in the realm of ends, the without in the realm of means. The within of our lives, the bottom — that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion for which at best we live. The without of our lives is that realm of instrumentalities, techniques, mechanisms by which we live.

Now the great temptation of life and the great tragedy of life is that so often we allow the without of our lives to absorb the within of our lives. The great tragedy of life is that too often we allow the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.

We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, “What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights — and lose the end: the soul?”

You are not your job. You are not your possessions.

Sharon Tate’s Actual Life Awareness Month: Day 30

At Joshua Tree, probably via geminichilde on the tumblr.

Sharon Tate’s Actual Life Awareness Month is drawing to a close and I have so many beautiful pictures left still to share. I thought I’d use a few today to illustrate an aticle that sheds a lot of light on Sharon’s personality and some of her unique struggles with that unusual program for stardom we’ve touched on this month: how Sharon Tate continued to gratefully and sweetly obey her managers but unrelentingly champion her own intelligence despite being dominated by Marty Ransohoff and his “money men,” which is an admirable thing that many startlets of her day did not bother doing.

Like a lot of quiet, competent people-watchers, Ms. Tate followed the letter of instructions from “superiors” while retaining an independent spirit focused on the maintainenance of goals without compromising her sense of self. She did not want quite the type of spotlight for which they were grooming her, but she wasn’t going to turn down the chance to use their grooming to launch a career which followed more closely her own vision.

So here it is: More on Marty’s master plan and how Sharon integrated that with her own personal identity and gentle, inquisitive intellect. All quotes come from “Venus On A Treadmill,” by Johnny Columbus for Photo Screen, June 1968.

There was a top-level conference in [Marty Ransohoff’s Filmways] office. Sharon Tate, the little girl from Dallas via Rome, was going into hiding. Sharon Tate, Movie Star, was going to be manufactured.

“They said they had a plan for me. They would train me and prepare me,” she remembers. “I was immediately put into training — like a racehorse.”

Three years went by. Sharon was completely under wraps. “I had a job to stay the way I was,” says Sharon. “They told me ‘Cream your face, Sharon. Put on more eyeliner, Sharon. Stick out your boobs, Sharon.’”

Sharon had many things in common with [her Valley of the Dolls character] Jennifer [North]. Both were acutely conscious of the value their bodies held in the flesh commerce of Hollywood; both were innocents; both were involved with European “art” filmmakers.

“I am like Jennifer,” says Sharon, “because she is relatively simple, a victim of circumstances beyond her control. But I have more confidence in myself…”

“I’m so afraid of hurting other people’s feelings I don’t speak out when I should. I get into big messes that way,” she once said.

via welcometothepast.

Both Marilyn [Monroe] and Jennifer [North] were the “Beautiful Blondes” of their day. Both had astonishing figures. Both were treated very badly by those producers who exploited their sex appeal for the moviegoers. Both posed nude before they gained stardom. Both rejected their “dumb blonde” images to marry intellectuals.

“I will never be another Marilyn Monroe,” Sharon says now. “But I had to do what they wanted, at first.”

Valley of the Dolls still via lovely and officially sanctioned sharontate.info.

And they, meaning the money men, wanted her to be a well-trained sex symbol with a vacuum for a head. Sharon was tortured by their demeaning attitude towards her.

via weheartit.

“They see me as a dolly in a bikini, jumping up and down on a trampoline,” she said of her producers. … “I love it on the beach — it gives me a kind of freedom. I don’t have to be a sex symbol or a movie star.”

“Beauty is only a look. It has nothing to do with what I’m like inside … I won’t play any more dumb blondes,” she insisted.

“Sometimes,” she says ruefully, “I think it would be better to be a sex symbol, because at least I would know where I was. But I’d lose my mind!”

Maybe that’s the happy medium. If Sharon can get off the Hollywood treadmill … if she can prove to others what she has proved to herself — that there is a head above her body — then she will have achieved true happiness and satisfaction — without escaping from her responsibilities.

Sharon puts it very beautifully: “I still have this teddy bear I’ve had since I was three … and all my old boxes — valentine boxes, cigar boxes, all kinds of boxes — I just won’t give them up. It’s like if I give them up, I’ve given in to being a movie star.”

Special thanks to the SensationalSharonTate blog for the full transcript of this interview.

William Blake Month: Art of the Nude (Naked Beauty and no view of Money)

Artist being attacked by editors and creditors, photographed by Andre de Dienes.

Where any view of Money exists Art cannot be carried on
but War only.

Art can never exist without
Naked Beauty displayed.

(William Blake, excerpt from notes on “Laocoön.”)

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.

Dr. King’s Day: Keep Moving From This Mountain

“Keep Moving From This Mountain.” Sermon at Temple Israel, Hollywood, California. February 25, 1965.

Each of us lives in two realms, the within and the without. The within of our lives is somehow found in the realm of ends, the without in the realm of means. The within of our lives, the bottom — that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion for which at best we live. The without of our lives is that realm of instrumentalities, techniques, mechanisms by which we live.

Now the great temptation of life and the great tragedy of life is that so often we allow the without of our lives to absorb the within of our lives. The great tragedy of life is that too often we allow the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.

We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, “What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights — and lose the end: the soul?”

You are not your job. You are not your possessions.