Celebrity Warfare

Celebrity Warfare

I had realized that I my usual ambivalence to the oscar race gave way to inertia this year. I have no vested interest in it - even though there were actually some decent, independant films that made it into the running. It probably comes down to the fact that it's very spectacle has become more and more bland, most of the appalling attention turned toward the red carpet.

"Celebrities are becoming the sex of the 21st century," according to Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni...

God - I really hope not, but I suspect we've already arrived. Celebrities are already the public currency... Eyes roll toward heaven and a monologue comes on which I'll say something I'll regret.

You want to know what makes me happy?

Tiny Christo!!

Oracles and Spectacles

Oracles and Spectacles

You know - something like this Tiger Killing near the dead Gipper's palace would have been a bad omen of great foreboding during Roman times. It would have foretold something ominous, had a Greek tragic arc welling up with drama, intrigue and some unfortunate events happening to some clueless Ceasar. Hmm - well, it is March.

In other news - I hear that Mikel Rouse is coming to OTB. I've not seen his prior work - but I've been intrigued to see the first "Talk Show Opera" they did called Dennis Cleaveland (Predating the Jerry Springer Opera by a few years). I've long thought that a performance staged like a prize fight would inevitably come back to eat it's own cultural tale like serpeant (signifying yet another omen of something - I can't remember if it's fortune or famine, but knowing the way things are, probably the latter).

In my news - I'm not going to the Gym. Story at 11:00. No, not really. No story I mean. The prices were too high, the location close, but not close enough. I already began to see what the gym entailed in terms of trying to remain enthused about it and knew immediately the grime, bad decor and even worse feng shui (it was over 3 different floors in a dilapitaded victorian office building) would end up discouraging me after 3 weeks. So I decided to take matters into my own hands - get some free weights, a bike and try to do this myself...

Papal Pablum

Papal Pablum

He did not just say that -- Oh -, he most certainly did.... and well, now them's fighting words. "Human rights against the family and against man" is a contradiction. Human vs Family? Human vs Man? Oh - the rhetoric just spirals like a DNA breakdown (which he probably doesn't believe in) and will hopefully face extinction (like the Dinosaurs he doesn't believe in)... Besides, he's living in the end of ideologies since the fall of communism. Oh - wait - there we go. One more enemy and "other" to take the heat off the problems their facing in their own divine agency. Ain't so divine is it? And the comment about "abortion" as a "holocaust"? Don't get me started...
Well - at least someone came out (on the Simpsons no less) and made a bold statement for gay Marriage.

Unwatchable Bodies of Work

Unwatchable Bodies of Work

I am trying to make it through Anatomy of Hell and surprisingly not finding it as outrageous as most people make it out to be (i just had to go to bed early so I could toss and turn for 4 hours). Although I am struck by some of the images - there's just somethings that if you require editing and a body double (which they point out prior to the credits they do) - it becomes fiction and thus intent is always suspect (thus taking away some of the intended shock - making it more unreal). Still - she's the only one who is taking these bold chances in film, and challenging the viewer to (like the character) watch her body which would normally be unwatchable.
Speaking of bodies - I'm starting to go to the gym again - or rather - I'm looking at my backpack full of gym gear and wondering if I should go fork over $40 to join. I am not necessarily hating my body at the moment - but I am doing that thing of catching myself in mirrors and seeing that I could lose a few pounds. I feel that I am unwatchable, but only in bad lighting. I certainly have no aspirations of getting the bulk I once envied in former years (that was truly a waste of time and esteem). I've been walking alot -- trying to get something out of my time spent rambling up and down King street going to and from work. I'm hoping that at least does something...
This brings me to a quote by Kenneth Tynan (whom I recently bought his diaries):
The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional. Although they conceal an essential orifice, these pointless globes are as near as the human form can ever come to abstract art.

Speaking of - guess I should comment on the passing of "Duke" (i mean, I still own the same ductaped version of "fear and loathing" that I read as a teen - which for obvious reasons was the manual of bad behavior set for peers in Grades K-College), but I won't... Perhaps to say that he was probably the last to have some bit of smoking outrage at politics and power and carry it through his life (his comments on Nixon's death were unsympathetic and blunt). Btw - this is Kenneth Tynan smoking. Not Duke.

I don't know why I chose to run with this photo -other than the fact he's well lit (from a lighting perspective).