Daily Batman: Yucky love stuff feat. advice from Bob Marley

The ideal.

“How We Roll” by bubbabae on the deviantart.

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement.

“Geeks in Love II” by Blood On the Moon on the deviantart.

They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.

Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.

“Friends for a reason” by Pookaburra on the deviantart.

You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

(Bob Marley.)

Advice: Eff the ineffable and See you on the flip!

Still phoning it in. This post is originally from last year, but I took out the stuff about the Wonder Woman project (later aborted because when it comes to her I’ve got the attention span of a baby gnat). This year I’m needing to let go of my anxiety about a job with an amazing non-profit for which I interviewed last Friday and I Really, Really, Really want. So the advice still stands!

via.

“Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

(Douglas Adams.)

Let go and get in that “jump!” frame of mind. Eff the ineffable, indeed, and don’t let all the shit that doesn’t matter get in the way of the shit that does.

Happy Fourth of July — ‘scuse me while I slap on my Wonder Woman wunderoos and conquer the world! Scheduling a Daily Batman, maybe a Girl of Summer and then I will catch you on the flip.

Daily Batman: the crippling human inability to be alone

via.

“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.”

(Jean de la Bruyere)

The headwaters of the river of pain.

69 Days of Wonder Woman, Day 47: Wunderoos and declaration

Over it. I’m done. I’ve reached the end of caring about this 69 Days of Wonder Woman thing. I started out not liking Wonder Woman, I like her okay now, I understand the things I don’t like about a woman being the strong-rescuer-type, and the attributes, conscious and subconscious, in myself which I dislike by disliking Wonder Woman. I know what to work on and what to try and stop being afraid of.

Now I just have all these pictures and links that I no longer consider relevant, but I also have, like, twenty-two days left in this project. We’ll see if I do any more. I’m calling this one, at least from the audit perspective. Stick a fork in it. It’s done.

Daily Batman: Sk8 or die edition

Normally I hate it when people do stuff for attention but I support this guy completely. It takes some stones to do that. I like it. Something about his face is less self-aware than I’d expect. Maybe in the backstory he is doing this for charity because he has a huge heart in addition to nice thighs. (Just come with me, okay?)

Daily Batman: Hate and a re-tread, by way of introducing 69 Days of Wonder Woman

HATE.

Despite proudly embodying the female geek who doesn’t do it for the attention nor as an excuse to wear body paint to Comic-Con, and resists getting pigeonholed into gender-based stereotypes of any kind, I have always disliked Wonder Woman with a strength bordering on disgust, when by rights you’d think I’d be a loyal fan. Thing is, when it comes to neuroses and the inside scars that cover us all, I’m quite the nutritious and delicious bowl of grape nuts: my shit is complicated (a complete part of your imbalanced breakfast!). Let me re-run a former post as an explanation.

This post originally appeared on July 4, 2010 at 9:54am.

Never liked Wonder Woman, tried to explore it and gave up, but that article from yesterday’s Daily Batman got me questioning why once more I have this antipathy toward her. I think it’s because she is flat-out frankly powerful and balls-out aggressive, and for some reason that leaves me cold. Because I’m not like that? Or because I want to be? Going to work it out. Got to get back in to that “Jump” frame of mind!

via lookatthisfrakkinggeekster on the tumblr.

“Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

(Douglas Adams.)

Happy Fourth of July! Scheduling a Daily Batman, maybe a Girl of Summer and then I will catch you on the flip.

/end former post

Again: HATE.

So — I’m done with my thinking, have assembled research materials, and am ready to start a project wherein I explore the character and my response to her and try to extrapolate some meaning from those explorations.

Final note: it turned out funny but please let’s not go mentally gutter-trolling in re: the “sixty-nine” days. That’s not representative of the sex act but rather a day for every year the character has been around. I know it is titillating, but, hey, I didn’t tell her to first appear in December of 1941, in which month we will conveniently end the project. Synchronicity: it’s What’s For Dinner! It is also an album by The Police!

PSA: Feat. very special guest star NSFW Asia Argento

PSA: Talked to Big Ben and we made an executive decision —

— It is now retro to have Commando Fridays. Tell a friend!

Advice: Eff the ineffable and See you on the flip!

I never liked Wonder Woman, tried to explore it and gave up, but that article from yesterday’s Daily Batman got me questioning why once more I have this antipathy toward her. I think it’s because she is flat-out frankly powerful and balls-out aggressive, and for some reason that leaves me cold. Because I’m not like that? Or because I want to be? Going to work it out. Got to get back in to that “Jump” frame of mind!

“Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

(Douglas Adams.)

Happy Fourth of July! Scheduling a Daily Batman, maybe a Girl of Summer and then I will catch you on the flip.

William Blake Month: “The Smile”

There is a smile of love,
And there is a smile of deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which these two smiles meet;

And there is a frown of hate,
And there is a frown of disdain,
And there is a frown of frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart’s deep core,
And it sticks in the deep back bone,
And no smile that ever was smil’d,
But only one smile alone.

That betwixt the cradle and grave
It only once smil’d can be,
But when it once is smil’d,
There’s an end to all misery.

(William Blake, “The Smile.”)

It happens.



Screencap comes from Masculin féminin (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966), and the actress speaking is yé-yé singer Chantal Goya.

Daily Batman: Be a refuge to yourself

Words from the Buddha.

“Turn your back on it” by photographamy on the deviantart. please do check out her beautiful portfolio.

Daily Batman: Poisonville’s Dinah Brand, of Red Harvest, edition

Excellent photographs are titled “Batwoman” and come from maanuuu on the deviantart. Words, by pulp king and detective fiction master Dashiell Hammett, come from Red Harvest, the only published, novel-length account of one of the Continental Op’s cases.

Hammett, Dashiell. Red Harvest. New York: Knopf, 1929. Print. (30).

The widely-imitated plot of the book — in which an initially disinterested outsider is called in to help settle accounts in a small town beset with the strife of several disparate groups in a power-struggle for control of the town’s assets, then manipulatively turns the groups upon one another while attempting to remain detached himself — has inspired, among other works, the films Blood Simple, Yojimbo, Last Man Standing, and A Fistful of Dollars.

via Mark Sutcliffe books.

My life will only be complete when the Coen brothers just plain make this movie, with a screenplay adapted directly from the book by, say, James Ellroy. Please. You guys, I will gladly help you with whatever — ad copywriting, finances, and even craft table shit. Make my dreams come true, Coen brothers.

I think every geek has a secret list of ultimate-collaborative-fantasy movies that have never been but ought be made. This one is mine.

Daily Batman: Who I am underneath, or, what defines us

via iheartbatman on the tumblr.

“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” B. Wayne, Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005).

Agree? Disagree?

Deeds speak volumes for the definition of ourselves, but I think “who we are underneath” is equally important to defining us. In a perfect world, sure, “what you do” is the outer reflection of an ideally ordered inner self. But who the unholy effing heck is that organized and in accord?

The roads not taken, the thoughts kept to ourselves that make up this rich and sometimes treacherous interior landscape of our minds — these are as much an important part of knowing the true core and definition of ourselves as the demonstrative, observable acts any joker on the outside sees, acts that could follow either in accordance with or defiance of that secret inner roadmap. What we are underneath almost arguably eclipses deeds, which can be true or can just as easily be lies that we tell the outside world to keep our inside self a secret. Underneath is where the real and unhideable truth sits.

We are all just knocking around leaving impressions and confiding secrets but sometimes lying and sometimes acting what we would term “out of character,” so really the two things — “what we do” and “what we are underneath” — must be taken together to even approach defining someone.

Not clear why that is set up to be mutually exclusive in this quote. I’m suddenly not sure this is as mind-blowingly brilliant a quote as I thought at first blush lo five years ago.

Spring Fever!: Gloria Windsor, Miss April 1957

The lovely and talented Gloria Windsor was Playboy’s Miss April 1957. I’ve had this picture saved on the ol’ compy for a couple years now, actually, because I am delighted by the expression of demented glee in the centerfold. Cracks me up. She is a tiny blonde rocking some powerful Crazy Eyes, and I’m down with that. Seriously, look at her smile. She looks one bump away from straight-up maniacal. I love it!

Photographed by Hal Adams.

The article which accompanied this spread was so, so full of obvious lies that I’m afraid I actually vacillated about even partially reproducing it here. It’s that cheesey. Not only that, it shrouds “Ms. Windsor” in total mystery. Who the heck knows what her name, occupation, age, and temperament really were? The answers are certainly not to be found in a bunch of chili sauce and curly fries riddled with cringe-inducing lines like:

‘ When in the course of human events (which sometimes includes buying a fancy chemise for a dear friend’s birthday) we discovered blonde, brown-eyed Gloria Windsor behind the counter of a lingerie shop, we said to her, “Let us take you away from all this.” ‘ (“Winsome Windsor,” Playboy, April 1957.)

… We explained that we meant to take her away only long enough to shoot a Playmate photograph, something that could be done on her lunch hour. After a brief exchange of coy dialogue which we won’t bore you with here, she consented.

If you’re going to spew … find Garth’s hat. Please don’t do it in my Yankees cap.

The idea of the spread is that they’ve got her trying on the items for sale in her shop — that’s pretty cute and actually fair enough. But why then do they talk in the copy specifically about taking her away from the shop to do the shoot? Chicanery.

Anyway. That article is absolutely ridiculous, and that was just a small sample of it. Dudes, first of all, I loathe it for giving credence to the groundless and terrible assumption that lingerie salesgirls are secretly all a bunch of highly suggestible sluts who can’t wait to shed their suits and model their wares for you. I was a proud Bra Specialist for Victoria’s Secret for two years and have always taken issue with this sterotype, which, believe me, even lonely trophy-wife-type women seem to believe, judging from how they’d constantly call us in to the fitting rooms to “adjust” and “help” them while flashing scary boob jobs and spray tans at us and trying to drop slang and hints about meeting for lunch and cocktails. I like to call them “afternoon bisexuals” — it’s all fine and good to go out to lunch and make out with a like-minded girlfriend while sipping Cosmos and discussing highlights, but when it comes time for the real meal, dinner? You bet your ass they’re going straight back to the man who buys the steak.

Click to enlarge a scan of the original article. If you can stomach it.

New patrons also liked to slyly approach and ask where the “good” stuff was — edible panties, furry handcuffs, etc — at which point I had no choice but to commiserate with them that we sold merely “foundations” garments and did not have “good” stuff. Then I’d tacitly endorse a few places around town which did.

But that does not mean that all lingerie salesgirls have any knowledge of even the most basic workings of sex: assume that what you see is what you get and the girl in that Victoria’s Secret or Frederick’s of Hollywood nametag is just a young woman surrounded by silk underwear which comprises her entire world and nothing peripheral to the use of said underwear is included in her purview. Yes?

Those sparkly gold pants are amazing. My favorite photo from the shoot.

Those who know me might be tempted to point to my lingerie collection and the continued expansion of said wardrobe as evidence of the Victoria’s Secret merchandise/salesgirl’s character relationship — to you I say, corollation does not imply causation. You can’t argue with that, suckas, because it is math.

But what really grinds me about this puffy little article stuffed with fluff is the advancement of the idea that you could do the whole of a Playboy photoshoot on one’s lunch hour. That is the apex of a shysty and misleading shenanigan.

Come on — we have already learned that the b&w shots are usually done separately from the color and on totally different days from Swingin’ Miss February 1968, the lovely and talented and openminded Ms. Nancy Harwood, remember? It took absolutely days to shoot a centerfold spread; hell, it takes up to and sometimes over a week even now and that is with the advent of digital photography, even. Shot on the lunch hour, indeed. That is all total folklore. Fairy Tales and Oral Tradition 101, required course reading, right there. Depend on it. Calling bullshit on that one from a mile off.

That last shot did not actually make it in to the original April 1957 spread, but rather comes from The First 15 Years book. The compilation of 178 centerfolds from the magazine’s earliest history was a Playboy Newsstand Special which came out in 1983. Today it goes for $75. Its success lead to the printing of The Second 15 Years in 1984. Many of those who disapproved of then-modern porn and decried the so-called corruption of morals during the 70’s and 80’s were accustomed to hounding Larry Flynt and Deep Throat and were quite surprised by the success of the The First 15 Years, but I just think it goes to show an old adage that I have always lived by. Ready for it?

PSA: Dudes like boobs.

Doesn’t matter if they’re on a gal whose photograph was taken yesterday or on a woman in a picture who is probably now dead or a grandma, if they are boobs, they are worth a second look. It makes no difference to the gentleman looking at the picture if the hair and wardrobe above and below the boobs are out-of-date — he is not wishing the woman with boobs was wearing more stylish clothing, he is wishing there were no clothing on the woman with boobs at all.

Smart porn purveyors know this and, if they are savvy gents like Hef, have held on to their old photos featuring those wonderful cash cows we call boobs and will play that card from time to time, right about the time they are sure the woman in the picture with boobs in question is too old or living a life too removed from the time of the picture’s taking to raise a protest. So, ladies, when you pose for naughty pictures and they assure you that the negatives will be destroyed, they are probably lying. Did You Know?

On a quick review, this entry is really full of revelations, from afternoon bisexuals to nudie photoshoots taking time to Victoria’s Secret’s lack of “good” stuff and all ending with the earth-shattering truism that dudes like boobs. Y’all please excuse me while I blow ya minds.

Advice from a patron saint: Jane Birkin edition

A personal patron saint, Jane has come up several times on this journal but on review I see it has so far been only in regard to her daughter (yay), the lovely and talented Lou Doillon, and her second husband (boo), Serge Gainsbourg, a personal devil. That is a scandal. Here is an entry in her own right.

Daily Batman: The Cat and the Bat…girl (nsfw)

The Cat and the Bat girl do get up to some games, too. These cats and bats: it is kind of a Thing.

“Who Wants Saving?”

Pictures are part of the set “Cat Woman” by Sharon K Cooper, aka sosij on flickr.

“After A Night on the Tiles.”

Please note the Catwoman mask in Gidget’s hands. Hilarity. Also, where the where did those wonderful panties come from because I don’t have them yet and that is an Inexcusable Crime that I want to remedy as fast as possible.

“Holy Smokes.”

My wardrobe of Batclothes is ever-growing thanks to the combined efforts of Hot Topic and the Target little boys’ department, but without Nancy Droop* panties it is clearly still gross in lackage (I will never be done building my collection, and I hate it very much for the vain, materialistic, juvenile freak that it makes me, but I can’t fight it … it’s too deeply ingrained).

*(one of these days I will have to comb back through the journal and see how many insult-nicknames I have called Batgirl/Barbara Gordon by this year alone.)

Sam Haskins Month, Day 4: The straight Kate

NSFW November: Raquel Gibson, Miss November 2005

I actually really like Raquel Gibson, Miss November 2005. She seems to be a fun, family-oriented girl, but also a serious multitasker with plans for taking on even more, so it resulted in a surprisingly entertaining Playboy interview.

Photographs by Stephen Wayda and Arny Freytag

Plus she has a stunning pair of eyebrows. Seriously, those things are wicked-great.

Raquel–who already has a culinary school degree [from Chef Jean Pierre Cooking School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida] and a real estate license–plans to go back to school to become a pediatrician someday, with a practice someplace warm. “I can’t stand the cold,” she says. “I can’t see myself dressed like an Eskimo walking down the streets of New York, and I’d miss going to the beach and playing football.” (“Raquel’s World Party,” Playboy, November 2005.)

Just don’t ask Miss November to go into the water–there are too many sharks. “The news will show a helicopter flying over with 200 sharks in the water and people just swimming and playing around them. I think, Are you guys dumb?”

Yes! Finally! Someone agrees with me. What the hell is the matter with you people who are all in to sharks? I believe I have the most logical phobia on the planet in my fear of sharks. I acknowledge it’s a little nuts to open my eyes in the shower every 30 seconds to check and make sure none have swum up the drain and are preparing to sink their zillion rows of teeth in to my foot, but still!

If you cannot at least muster enough care for your life not to place it in peril by descending in to the depths of the ocean (which is another planet to begin with; you cannot even breathe through your mouth under there and live), then show some fear and respect of God and his creations, both yourself and the shark. Just ugh all around and a heartfelt shudder to boot.

Raquel did not end up pursuing her degree in pediatrics, remaining busy in the spokesmodel and entertainment worlds instead. She often models these days with her older sister C.J. (one of her five siblings, of which she is the baby). They bill themselves as the Gibson Sisters.

CJ Gibson. Yes, I found and used the one picture of her in a Yankees jersey probably in existence. It’s my blog!

If you are interested in some lengthy flash presentations and embedded music that you have to scour the creatively font-faced page to turn off, give Raquel’s official site a spin. She asks that you please not contact her to attempt to book anything pornograhpic or TFP.

Oh my god, how dare you imply she would do pornographic modeling with her sister, what is the matter with you?!

TFP = Trade for Prints, a handy piece of largely-chicanerous-publicity practice in which neither party — photographer nor model — gets any money out of the transaction; it’s purely to boost notoriety for both and is generally a very bum deal for the model, as the photog pads his portfolio and can use the pics forever in gallery shows, etc, while the model just has one more nudie photoshoot out of probably a dozen jammed in her little notebook. It’s a move that a lot of amateurs fall for; glad to see she is too wise to go for it!

Speaking of The Girls Next Door, there they are.

Ellen V strikes again

I am beginning to feel like a day without Ellen Von Unwerth’s photography is like a day without sunshine.

And by “sunshine,” I mean, “scantily clad pretty people playing with and possibly hurting each other.”

In this case, you got Rosie Huntington-Whitely and Melissa Rose Haro, photographed by EVU in 2005 for the book “Plumes et Dentelles” by beautiful lingerie designer Chantal Thomass. If you wanted to swing by her completely awesome, sexy, incredibly fun, cramazing official site and get me something from there, that’d be a-okay!

Movie Moment: Hollywood news I’d rather not use feat. NSFW Angelina Jolie

Ugh. So it appears that Angelina Jolie finally got the people at Lionsgate to pony up the cash to make Atlas Shrugged in to a movie. Angelina Jolie, a question: why do you do these things that make me dislike you? I want to be on your side.

I had almost totally managed to recover from my dislike of her, especially being out of the orbit of my husband who insists she’s a witch (he is more supersitious than me, even), but when she does shit like bring Ayn Rand to the big screen when I’m already being buffeted by her nonsense on all sides as people repeatedly apply her views ludicrously to a “fresh take” on the current economy, I feel like my hands are tied. I’m back to disliking Angelina Jolie. It’s official.

“If being sane is thinking there’s something wrong with being different, I’d rather be completely fucking mental.” — Angelina Jolie.

See, that is a fabulous quote; we should get along wonderfully, but, no, she has to go and be all jerky and Ayn Randy. Gar. I say fuck the world and its rules, too, but I don’t believe that makes me better or more entitled than anyone else. I hate that Atlas Shrugged is going to be a movie, or even a mini-series. HATE IT. Ugh. This day blows now.

“Think about it: the world’s great minds and great contributors to society—which really are the entrepreneurs—are being taken advantage of—and they are; if you make money, you’re giving up pretty close to half of your income, though the United States is still the greatest country in the world, and Ayn Rand would have said that as well.” — Lionsgate Vice Chairman Burns, blurting out what Ayn Rand followers really believe, then swiftly backpedaling so that the studio appears to remain general-populace-friendly (source).

And you have cast Charlize Theron as Dagny Taggart? What goes through your pretty, long-ago-drug-and-Billy-Bob-Thornton’s-blood addled head? Angelina Jolie, try to understand this. I still love you. I just don’t love your choices.

I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

Mall Madness

Got my harr did, but beforehand I had some fun at that there ol’ mall. I bought a wedding shower present for my friend who is planning my party today; it felt really good to turn my attention to her, she has been doing a ton for me and it improved my mood to return the love.

I also popped in and paid a little liberating visiting to the door of a stall in the Macy’s bathroom:


Yes, do it. With “fancy catsup.” EAT THEM. They have it coming.


Then in the women’s lingerie department at Macy’s there was this:



Why don’t you go tattoo that on yourself, hipster? Looking at that ironic perfection, it was like all my thoughts were magically coalesced into an unintentional concrete example of my every rant! That is just exactly what. That is just exactly what. You are plastic poseurs, hipsters, and you number in the thousands and are cast from a totally un-unique mold. Love it. I don’t have to feel bad and awkward and like I am the uncool big sister at the family gathering as I walk the mall, because I can remember I am just looking at narrow-eyed unhappy mannequins and hope for their sakes that sooner or later they wake up and break out of their plaster shells. Then we can all be happy together.

And finally, the Mouse Who Sold The World.

Again: that is just exactly what. Dreams for sale! I believe we should tell children the real fairy tales and not this watered-down materialistic nonsense, because children are incredible and they can stomach them much better than you suspect.

I am feeling better. I am ready to have a great time with people who love me. I am thankful again for my sheltered little nook of the world where people suffer my folklore and give me the space an E kitty needs to keep from going mad and clawing out her own throat.