Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962).
We lived like that “Happy Family“ you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb.
It is a startling exhibit, but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.
(Robert A. Heinlein, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958.)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962).
The lamb has to be replaced frequently.
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980).
via.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964).
Some thoughts from Mr. Blake on free love, fidelity, procreative pressure, and the institution of marriage as it functioned (and did not) for ladies during his lifetime:
Jane Birikin and the dread Serge G.
… She who burns with youth and knows no fixed lot;
is bound
In spells of law to one she loathes:
and must she drag the chain
Of life, in weary lust!
Must chilling murderous thoughts obscure
The clear heaven of her eternal spring?
to bear the wintry rage
Of a harsh terror driv’n to madness, bound to hold a rod
Over her shrinking shoulders all the day;
Marilyn and Arthur on their wedding day. Marilyn’s dress was ivory but her veil arrived white, so rather than freak out or buy a new one she soaked it in tea overnight. She was an orphan and imminently practical.
& All the night
To turn the wheel of false desire: and longings
that wake her womb
To the abhorred birth of cherubs in the human form
That live a pestilence & die a meteor & are no more.
(William Blake, excerpt from Visions of the Daughters of Albion. 1793. Shockingly self-published.)
The Graduate (Kubrick, 1967).EDIT: It was directed by Mike Nichols, not Stanley Kubrick. Jesus-christ-bananas. How that got past me is a mystery. Mucho mas mucho thanks to Peteski for the heads-up!
Happy bride month, am I right? Goin’ to the chapel…
In all seriousness, William Blake was a sort of pre-feminist and a great admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft but for all his forward-thinking, he could behave curiously backwardly and contemporarily to the times in his personal life, almost as if his own wife, Catherine, did not count in his reckoning of the equalities of the opposite sex.
Audrey and Mel. She looks terribly unhappy and trapped. I do not believe this was their wedding day but rather shortly before their breakup in an ad for Givenchy’s L’Interdit, the first celebrity fragrance. I wear Givenchy Amarige when I am Really Me. But that is very rare. So often it is best to be Other Me-s, so I roll with Michael by Michael Kors.
As an example, when they had trouble conceiving, Blake openly advocated bringing another, younger woman into their marriage and relegating Catherine to second-class status in a different bedroom. My guess is he backed up his proposal by citing the timeless, good ol’ Rachel/Leah biblical argument, which reminds me that I get to hit Handmaid’s Tale next month.
Humbert and Lo’s toes. Lolita (Kubrick, 1962).
Okay, I went in to more insomnia-fueled bookfoolery and this entry is now uncomfortably longer than I’d prefer a Blake one to be. I’m going to split it up. Meet me in the next post. More Kubrick, even (I didn’t intend for that to happen but now that it has I’m on board). (edit: again, The Graduate is directed by Mike Nichols. Not Stanley Kubrick.)
All due respect, little dude, but your dad is in kind of a “mood” and I’m pretty sure now is hella not the time to start writing on the walls.
Danny isn’t here, Mrs. Torrance. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980).
Female Psychiatrist: I’m going to show you a picture, and you tell me what that person might say.
[Changes slides to a man climbing into a naked woman’s bedroom]
Female Psychiatrist: “What do you want?”
Alex: No time for the ol’ in-and-out, luv — I’ve just come to read the meter!
Female Psychiatrist: All right!
Dark but delicious.
Clare Quilty – Snow White
Shalom Harlow by David LaChapelle
Now-defunct Charlottesville, VA rockers Clare Quilty have a cool, industrial-cum-punk, girl-fronted sound like Garbage or Snake River Conspiracy. They took their name from the character in the Nabokov novel and subsequent film adapations (in which his part was considerably beefed up) of Lolita. It seems that they parted ways after just a couple albums. I’ll come back to them another day because they had a cool sound and I’m not totally clear on what happened with their breakup (it was news to me when I went to grab their official site link and it was down … then when I cruised the wiki, it said they’d split).
This track, “Snow White,” comes from their second LP, Strong, and at first seems to be about getting murdered during rape, but I think if you listen carefully there’s a case to be made that it’s actually about a twisted relationship, or just some good old-fashioned masochistic consensual sex.
How can I get away from you?
Why must I watch the things you do?
What does it mean that you want a piece,
to my shattered skull and my broken knees?
“Snow White” by Maagda Lenka on deviantart.comOh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Snow White
Snow White
How can you say that you want the truth
when the words in which I’ve spoken are far from you?
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Let’s beat Jack with a candlestick
“Snow White” by Jozy Chen on deviantartOh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Snow White
Snow White
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Snow White
Snow White
“Snow White: The Poison Apple” by Cyril Helnwein.
How can I be all the things you want me to
with my twisted neck and my fingers blue
Your voice in my throat, your rage in my pants
my movements suggest an obedient dance
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Snow White
Snow White
by Courtney Brims
Either way. Love: sometimes it is a poisoned apple.
The Thought Experiment 