It ties in nicely with my post on why we love anything, I think.
A John Lennon song, video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Thanks to TheGlassTorch for uploading this!
4:27 minutes.
Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Gatochy's Blog
Women can't find Prince Charming because he's married to me.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Fiona Apple - Across The Universe, 1998
The Dance, art deco vintage magazine covers
Only the two first covers are from my flickr photostream; the rest come from mica12244art's smashing flickr, who has an amazing collection of first rate vintage illustrations.
H. Carter, The Dance, 1929. Click image for 526 x 800 size.
H. Carter, The Dance, June (?). Found in Trouble in Paradise blog. Click image for 546 x 700 size.
Franz Felix, The Dance, March 1931. Click image for 520 x 673 size.
Four more covers under the cut.
Carl Link, The Dance, July (?) Click image for 520 x 654 size.
Carl Link, The Dance, March 1929
Acosta, The Dance, October (?)
Why does anyone love anything?
I don't know if it's harder to explain why you love something, or if it just feels that way, because you become more demanding; you want to be persuasive, make a case. It's easier when you hate something, and you just allow yourself to be flippant and dismissive.
I think it was Freud who said that the secret to a harmonious relationship is for the two people's neuroses to be mutually compatible -- which seems to me like he's saying it's the worst in people that brings them together, when you'd rather believe it's the positive stuff.
But I think I can see the point. It's probably very true that a lot of what drives us to like something (or someone) is motivated by a personal flaw, because that's usually what we must repress within ourselves. It goes unexpressed and is dying to come out. Let's say, for instance, that you're one of those people who likes to talk a lot, to the point where you become a nuisance and a bother. You may learn self-restraint, but that doesn't mean who you are inside has changed. If you're lucky to find someone who could literally hear you speak for hours on end, what used to be a flaw is suddenly a quality. You have this incredible feeling of exhilaration and freedom, like your chains have been broken and you can finally be yourself.
When you think about it, when people fall in love it's common for them to say "With this person I can be myself, I feel appreciated for who I am. I don't have to put on a mask, or to change, or to adapt to his rules, or pretend to be different -- our minds are as one, we want the same things. What my exes hated about me, he valorizes; when I'm with him my limitations are not important. It's like finding myself in this wonderful, magical land where I get to be a super-hero and everything is possible."
A perhaps more accurate explanation for what makes us like someone or something (better than saying it's whatever brings out the worst in us) is to say that we like whatever sets us free -- even if it's just within ourselves, for the duration of a fantasy.
In real life we're not just rejected for our objective flaws -- one can have great qualities that go unnoticed or unappreciated by other people. You could say that one man's poison is another man's honey; that, for sentimental purposes, what really matters is not whether we're objectively good or bad, but we all just have to find our "audience", so to speak. There's an audience for both Mozart and rap music, if they can only find it. But a lot of people spend their lives stuck in an atmosphere where there is no "audience" for the kind of person that they are. To some extent, we all feel a little misunderstood and underappreciated. That's why we feel the need to submerge ourselves in make-belief worlds where we can exist, universes where we imagine that someone with our specific characteristics and limitations could shine brightly and be appreciated. If we happen to find a work of art (a movie, or a book, or a song...) that takes us imaginatively to such a world, we feel the need to revisit it again and again, just to breathe more easily, finding in it a place that feels more like home to us than the real world sometimes.
A useful way to figure why you love something or someone is to ask yourself in what way it sets you free.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Image Association 544 - Celebrity Look Alikes
Favorite movie scenes 95 - The Grouchy Edition 6
Death Becomes Her (1992) is a perfect little movie. You can see Meryl's real gift lies in comedy. I love everybody here: Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis... They've never been better, including Isabella Rossellini, who is terrific and iconic in her role as a villain.
Meryl (Madeleine) and Goldie (Helen) are two old friends and rivals. Madeleine is the big, trashy Broadway star (now in her declining years) who always steals the boyfriends of meek and humble Helen. When Helen starts dating plastic surgeon Bruce Willis she puts him to the Madeleine test, which he promptly fails, marrying her instead. At first Helen is so devastated that she becomes obsessed, morbidly obese, and must be committed to an institution. She only pulls herself by her bootstraps when she decides to take revenge.
The next time we meet the characters Madeleine and Bruce's marriage is at an all-time low, and they're barely speaking to each other. She can't stand getting older, and he's become a drunk, who's gone from being a respected surgeon to a make-up artist for the deceased. There are a million scenes that I love in this movie, but for grouchy purposes one I remember fondly is when Helen, now looking more gorgeous and thinner than ever, publishes a book and invites the unhappy couple to the party.
Seeing Helen so sexy and glamorous puts Madeleine in a state of shock, and she tries to make a quick escape, but too late: Helen has seen her. It's hysterical the way the two pretend to be overjoyed at the reunion, when they hate each other's guts so much.
Helen: Oh, gosh, I'm glad you came. I didn't know if you would. I spoke to my PR woman and she said (in a hushed voice) Madeleine Ashton goes to the opening of an envelope. (Helen pretends she's just trying to laugh it off instead of laughing at her, whereas Madeleine is obviously furious; then, feigning sadness, Helen says) Oh, those people can be so cruel!
Madeleine: Mmmm (still in doubt whether she means it).
Helen: I fired her.
Madeleine: (Pleasantly surprised, and now fully convinced Helen is on her side) Oh!
Helen: (Like it's no big deal) Well, I almost fired her.
Pwned!
An Ode to Mushrooms 2

Calocybe gambosa (St George's Mushroom) 9430, originally uploaded by wentloog.
My buddy Trey has graciously agreed to share with us an old family recipe for Cream of Mushroom Soup. It's originally from a 1948 cookbook, that was offered to his mom as a wedding gift. Trey recommends using beef broth instead of chicken. Bon apétit!
Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/4 lb. fresh mushrooms or 1/8 cups minces, mushroom stems
1 tablesp. butter or margerine
1 tablesp. minced onion
1/4 teasp. celery seed
2 chicken bouillon water
1 tablesp. butter
3 tablesp. flour
2 cups milk
1 teasp. salt
1/8 teasp. pepper
Wash mushrooms. Chop fine; simmer, covered, 5 min. with 1 tablesp. butter, onion and celery seed. Dissolve cubes in boiling water; add to mushrooms; simmer, uncovered, 10 min. Meanwhile, melt 1 tablesp. butter in top of double boiler over direct heat. Add flour; stir smooth; add milk, salt, pepper. Cook over boiling water, stirring, until thickened. Add mushrooms; heat. Makes 6 servings.
6 + photos under the cut.

Velvet Shank Cascade (Flammulina velutipes) - Fungi, originally uploaded by Girl Interrupted Eating.
Tyrell: "More human than human" is our motto.
Dear fellow Blade Runner fan: one day the Dictatorship of the Gatochy will spread throughout the world, bringing joy and enlightenment to all nations. But until that day comes you will continue on occasion to bump into jerks who do not like Blade Runner; people who might snicker -- mock you, if you will -- for liking Blade Runner. They will hold your hand as if they fear a slight breeze might blow your fragile nerd frame away, and say "There, there, you identify with Replicants more than with the 'normal' humans in this movie, am I right? Just like Replicants, you have all these amazing abilities and untapped potential, but people are so insensitive to that. Like them, you too are forced to live in a world that has monstrously wronged you -- and yet you didn't ask to be born! Bo-hoo! But here you/the Replicants are, doomed to a tragically limited life-span, glorious creatures too beautiful to live. That sure is you to a T, you misunderstood, maladjusted emo kid." Then they'll slap you upside the head, tell you to quit living in your mamma's basement and get a job. And perhaps you should, but that is not the point. The point is they're jerks, and working is hard.
Just because Gatochy's Blog is not a f*cking democracy that doesn't mean we're not capable of conceding a point -- before offing with their heads. Yes, at its core Blade Runner is indeed a cheap melodrama -- worse, it's a feel good movie that's very flattering to the viewer. You can not not feel righteous watching it, because it presents us a world where slavery is simply accepted, and in our society no one is for slavery. Even people who support cloning would be horrified at the thought of creating human beings for the sole purpose of enslaving them, and giving them a life expectancy of merely four years. It's easy for anyone to feel morally superior while watching this film; it's easy for this movie to suck up to us.
Just being an average Joe, with a minimum amount of decency, would make you exceptional in that universe. Through your imagination you join the Replicants' tribe and feel (like them) as if you're inherently superior to the rest of mankind; you're a rebel, more beautiful, more sublimely deserving to be alive than anyone who dares to judge you, or boss you around, or to think of you as their private property -- ringing loud bells for anyone who had authoritarian parents, oh the teenage melodrama. I guess it's true that can appeal to any inner streak of self-pity that one may possess, to one's morbidity, to one's narcissistic-slash-infantile rebelliousness without a cause syndrome, so typical of adolescence and of those who never out-grew it. None of this has any correlation to our glorious project for a Gatochy Dictatorship, that as we know will happen very soon.












