sequin: my groovy new book

yeah, i really wanted to christen a new book tonight, but i didn't really know if i was gonna have the energy to actually conjure it in any kind of groovy way. but, the mood took me, and i have to admit, i'm pleased with the dreamy pinkish result. i don't know if i've ever had the sultry french temptress sylvie vartan on the cover yet. but if not, then she's wayyyy overdue. like, she's a confirmed High Priestess of the Eternal Bisexual Slumber Party. (mmm, i'm so tired and physically wiped out right now, i'm probably gonna read this in the morning and be all like, '...jeez, i hope nobody read that.' but anyway, where was i?) oh yeah, so i decided to depart somewhat from my 'dots across the bottom' formula. i'm pleased with the shapes and splashings of color i ended up with. it seems jussst 'femme' enough for my 'slinky-but-tough' beret-and-cigar miss vartan. i think the picture was taken from one of her several early 70's french tv specials... (which i would KILL to get my hands on a copy of... as long as it would be compatible with my machine... those specials were the 'costume change' most!! ) okay, so who else do we have down there? that pink 'sunset strip' is a scrap i've been holding onto for literally years. then, from left to right, we have a very cool rainbow-glitter steely dan logo, peter tork dressed like a hippy-dippy indian chief, my sweet george harrison, and finally, my darling ian holm, from 'alien,' as the evercool science officer ash.

overall, i'm pleased with it. i don't have any of the inside pages done yet... and nothing stuck on the back... but that'll probably come to me in the morning. until then, dig it! (click to enlarge)

oui, it is my new book, no?

oui, it is my new book YES! so yeah, thanks to my beloved jean-lucien sending me a sweet tasty bundle of new picksh, i was able to get my new dazzling volume of fantasy and laughs off the ground tonight. well, i just got the cover on. and i like it. let's see, as the Stars we have the gorgeous and ethereal miss georgina hale, as the sinning-and-seeking-absolution phillipe on the right, and mr. oliver reed as the trying-to-be-holy-yet-tormented-by-temptations father grandier on the left. the image is of course, from the ken russell masterpiece 'the devils.' (and wow, wow, wow.... if you can get your hands on an uncut copy of the film, then man, strap yourself in and get ready for the searing carnal ride. truly, not only is it one of the finest films ken russell has ever made, i daresay it is amongst the finest films of all the 1970's. it is as gorgeous as it is hellish and shocking.) and um, the title word, 'oui,' seems to speak for itself. it is an exotic and positive word. although i must admit i chose it for the look of the word as much as i did for the meaning. i have great hopes for this book, which was hatched on the first day of june. so okay, now for the medallions below the main picture... let's see, what do we have? from left to right, we have the late, great, tough and sexy mr. joe strummer, smoking a tough 'don't care' cig; then we have some random retro aqua lighting; then hey! let's hear it for the disco scene, because we've got a shot of the curvy and tough annette from 'saturday night fever,' lighting tony's disco cig. ('...but you'd ask me to lay down...') then we've got the lovely and legendary orchid-colored couple of lucy and dougie from 'sgt. pepper's lonely heart's club band,' doing 'you never give me your money,' ; and after them? well it's the marvelous karl malden as mitch from kazan's 'a streetcar named desire,' peeking through the drapes. then next up, in the blue circle, there's the loving sparring couple of 'empire's' princess leia and han solo, bickering in the south passage of Hoth. and last, but certainly never, ever least... we have the silver-haired and handsome, painfully sexy mr. ian holm, as tom frost in cronenberg's buggy epic 'naked lunch,' of course based (somewhat) on william s. burroughs great book. so here it is lovers, dig it... the clutch of blank pages that will soon be filled with literally thousands of separate inkstrokes. its always an odd feeling when i start a new book. like, i always find it hard to believe i'll ever get the whole thing filled up... but hey, i've got about nine year's worth of books like this, all full... so i guess it's all a matter of uncapping that pen, and starting with the first date, the first quote, and that first bit of wit that makes my darling laugh. thank you God. Seriously. (click to enlarge) (oh, and i've since realized that annette's not in fact lighting tony's cig. just wanted to correct that.)

hazy lunch

i found this groovy picture tonight on my pearldive. as you can see, there's the hot 'silver fox' himself, mr. ian holm dressed for his role as tom frost in david cronenberg's 1991 film 'adaptation' of the william s. burroughs novel 'naked lunch.' in the film, ian and the 'always kinda frail' miss judy davis are married. i think her name is joan, right? anyway, apart from this shot being straight-up groovy, i also think its kinda funny. as you can see, this photo wins the 'hazy award' from 'maximum diffusing gauze' usage. and this might sound mean, but i think they broke out the 'kind filter,' to make judy look better and younger, and NOT the then 61 year old ian holm. i mean, i hate to 'bag on' judy, i do think she's beautiful and all that, but... well, you've seen judy davis. its been a long time since i rolled that flick. like, there's a lot of 'buggy' action going on, i mean of the 'six-legged' variety. i mean, yeah, i know they're only like, fake bugs and fake clackety insectizoid typewriters, but they still kind of scheeve me, you know?

my pash for ash

yes, my 'pash' for ian holm as science officer ash is still going strong. i was digging through some old files, and i found this excellent shot, and couldn't believe i hadn't posted it yet. i can't take credit for it, though. jean-lucien screen captured it, and tricked it to his exacting specifications before he sent it my way. i've been sitting on it, it seems, for over a year. cinematically speaking, its taken from the part near the end, where he goes all 'robot'-crazy and tries to kick the hell out of ripley. (sigourney weaver) yet, he remains cool the whole time he kicks ass and tries to choke her with a rolled-up magazine. like the great peter tork once said, '...yeah, cool, machine.' (?) this shot, when 'clicked-to-enlarge,' reveals the sublime quality of jean-lucien's equipment. the grain is lush and the shot is vibrant and clean. (its like he's got a bmw, and i've got a honda. hey, don't get me wrong, hondas are great... they're dependable, quick, and virtually indestructable, but i drove a bmw once, and there was a very creamy difference.) but back to the shot... great stuff, right? ahhh, ian... why don't you give me a call?

unknown play

here is a lovely shot i've had for a long time. its ian holm, quite young. i think the picture was taken mid-to-late 1960's. i've had the picture for so long i don't clearly remember what part he was playing. but judging by the costume, i'd bet it was 'henry v.' i know he did play that part. wow. i'll bet that was something to see. i think there should be some kind of law that mandates all performances of all shakespeare plays be filmed and stored in some tiny, unobtrusive digital format... to be viewed later, just in case anyone playing happens to actually be brilliant. i mean, i've seen it happen all the time... at a local level... some poor soul tearing themselves to bits night after night with no final record to attest to their work. the way it stands now, that is the nature of the game. but i believe history would be the richer for it.

ash takes a peek

yeah, i spent some more time tonight rescuing some of the files i 'lost' when my computer crashed a while back. so, ummm, i don't really have any groundbreaking ideas, but just to mark my place i thought i'd post a shot of science officer ash. (ian holm from 'alien') i haven't posted a shot of him for a long time. here, you see him taking a sneakity-peek at the 'organism.' actually the 'peek' is not so sneaky... its his job. this might be the only thing i post tonight. i was literally awake until the sun came up last night, so i'm hoping to hit the pillow a little sooner tonight. i haven't rolled 'alien' in quite a while. i rolled it enough to memorize it, and the seasons changed and... well, that's the way it happens sometimes.

nine five seventy-two

i made this collage in class one day... in my lap, when i was supposed to be paying attention; back when i was in class. i just had a black cardboard background, and started gluing things down. i didn't plan on anything, i just let the colors and the shapes lay where they wanted to. its pretty enough, isn't it? of course, this is the final image, after jean-lucien lent it that 'fish-eye' distortion treatment. let's see, clockwise, we've got... georgina hale as alma mahler at about 11:57... then, at 12:01 and :02, we've got the wild glam rock duo of ewan mcgregor as curt wilde and john-rhys myers as brian slade in 'velvet goldmine.' then, at 4:45, we've got georgina as alma mahler again, then a big, important number five (taken from the richard lester film, 'help!') , and then finally, at 9:45, a somber shot of my darling ian holm as tom frost in david cronenberg's 'naked lunch.' i think its groovy. amazing what an idle mind and a bit of technology can come up with. (click to enlarge)

l is for 'the lotus eaters'

here's a cool slice of notebook art i constructed and scanned a long time ago. don't get me wrong, there are elements of jean-lucien's work in it, too. i mean, we're almost completely symbiotic, so it might go without saying that both our hands are (were) in it. it was laid down as a notebook illustration, back when i still had to carry a notebook around. lets see, from left to right, we've got ian holm as science officer ash from 'alien,' and on the right, surprise-surprise, its georgina hale from 'mahler.' i typed the 'lotus' text mostly after the michael stipe lyric, which was mostly based on the chapter in 'the odyssey' about the lotus eaters. i did my fair share of hand-inking the little black squares, but as i said, jean-lucien deserves (at least) equal credit. (click to enlarge)

k is for kurtzmann

yeah, ian holm as mr. kurtzmann in terry gilliam's semi-futuristic semi-moralistic semi-cautionary tale semi-orwellian rip-off semi-masterpeice 'brazil.' yeah, the amazing sets, the wild inventive costumes, the haunting thinly-veiled warnings of invasive public policies... (cranking gesture) hey, don't get me wrong, i really don't mean to 'bag on' 'brazil,' its clearly an excellently-staged and well-crafted piece of cinema, but i seem to always be struck by little things in the movie that tend to slip by most reviewers. for instance, i think ian holm's role is largely overlooked. its widely cited that sam lowry (jonathan pryce) is the 'everyman' in the movie, the character that's supposed to stand for 'us,' but i think most of us are far more like ian holm's 'kurtzmann.' he's a good company man, who does his tedious little cog-wheel job day in and day out, one eye on the Clock, without it even occurring to him to dream or complain, a man who takes home just enough of a paycheck to keep him cowed, and with not enough imagination to suspect conspiracies. if it weren't for dozens of kurtzmanns, the Ministry couldn't operate nearly as efficiently as it appears to. i think the film is, at times, genuinely terrifying. but the ending...yeesh! the ending feels like terry gilliam had been fucking me gloriously for almost two solid hours, and just before the climax, he lost his erection. such a let-down.

i is for ian holm

...oh, that's a big f***ing surprise. hey, you know i had to do it. so, i think i've already posted every shot i have of him from 'alien,' so i chose a shot from the 1981 terry gilliam film 'time bandits.' it was only two years after 'alien,' but it looks like ian used a lot of that time getting a tan. as you can see, he plays napoleon. its been like, 25 years since i saw the whole movie, so i can't really weigh in on it with much authority. the last time i borrowed the dvd, i just watched ian's parts over and over about nineteen times and then took the disc out. he looks pretty great in that costume. and he does a lot of laughing and smiling which is nice to see after his relatively cool performance in 'alien.' you'll have to forgive me for not getting too poetic and flowery about him... i'm feeling a little off my game tonight. (oh, and the guy with the moustache over his shoulder is terrence bayler, who often showed up on neil innes' and eric idle's post-python tv series 'rutland weekend television.')

c is for cornelius...

...more specifically, father vito cornelius from luc besson's imaginative space adventure 'the fifth element.'

i really should screen this movie more often... i mean like, until i know most of it by heart. i realize it's loud and gaudy and visually over the top, but the story and 'message' is sound, the action is fast, and the cast is virtually flawless. and my darling ian holm looks gorgeous with his 'just right' facial hair. i'm glad they just let him grow a 'normal' goatee. i'm glad like, the wardrobe department didn't make him carve a diamond shape on his chin or something. he looks great. and even though he's in a gaudy sci-fi romp, ian treats the part as if it were no less than shakespeare. every scene he's in, he steals. i love this shot, too. great expression. ian can pack 101 subtle expressions into 30 seconds of film... and that's only a slight exaggeration.

b is for bookcover

i made this one a long time ago, and i never got around to completely filling it up... and there's no mystery as to why; it was right around then that i got this computer. still, the collagework on the front is pretty nice. i dig the patriotic colors. and it was clear i had already fallen head over heels with ian holm-as-officer-ash. he's on there twice. morrissey's on there, too. i was still in the upstairs bedroom. i remember working on it... i mean i remember cutting and gluing everything down. sometimes i miss making the books, but i love to type so much its hard to go back. i think i only filled in about a fifth of the pages before i 'hit it,' and went on to something else. still, i like the 'stars and stripes' feeling it has. but i always felt all the angles were just a little bit crooked, and that bugged me. still, it beats the hell out of all the people out there that are walking around with plain, boring, naked, 100% un-decorated notebook covers. (click to really enlarge.)

a is for science officer ash

yes, ohhh yes... i haven't posted a shot of my darling ian holm lately. i searched my archives, and i don't think i've posted this exact shot yet. i mean, i think i have one a few frames off of this one, but his face does so many tiny and lovely things, it think it's like every frame is completely different. i can't decide which costume i like better on ash... his sky-blue white thermal-sleeve outfit, or the emerald green zip-up snug flightsuit? (shown) he looks so hot in both of them. i love this shot... he looks a little worried. perhaps he's wondering if his scheme will be a success? who knows. anyway, i realize some of you out there may not 'get' what's so damned hot and handsome about him, but what the hell... this is MY little station after all. hey ian... call me! (cut to quick shot of me like, winking saucily as i make a 'phone-up-to-my-ear' gesture with my hand.) CUT.

stasis

i haven't felt like posting anything lately. hopefully i'll be inspired soon. maybe its my summertime seasonal depression, its hard to know for sure. but here's ian holm as science officer ash to hold my place for me. wish me luck. all my love...

o father

yes, its father's day. a perfect opportunity to gush over a lovely shot of my darling ian holm as the holy-and- hot father vito cornelius from the wild sci-fi flick 'the fifth element.' yes, father vito has the 'fire' element all taken care of. so hot. and his performance in this film is, in my opinion, underrated. he injects shakespearean caliber acting into this multicolored, broad cinematic venture. he steals every scene he is. hey, don't get me wrong, i actually think bruce willis in underrated in this movie, too. i don't think bruce gets enough 'legit' credit. he never sucks. anyway, where was i? oh yes, dreamy father vito cornelius. happy father's day. amen.

handsome

i've had this picture of my darling ian holm for so long i've completely forgotten where it came from. but he looks so sweet and sexy i wanted to post it, even though its small. sometimes i get the feeling someone is sitting on a vast vault of dreamy shots of ian holm, but they're not willing to make them public right away. i mean, the man has acted all of his adult life, there must be countless photographs of him. oh well, until i find all them, i'll content myself with what i have. kisses, ian.

sigh

i'm feeling a little blue and introspective tonight... more detached than lonely, more impatient than bored, still... my inspiration seems at rest. but i wanted to mark the day somehow. i like this shot of ian holm as science officer ash, looking out at space, by himself. good night everyone. i love you.

honeybook

here's an example of one of our handwritten notebooks i wrote and decorated myself. and i freely admit, this shows all the signs of not knowing when to stop. i really didn't need the overhead collage banner or the faceted pink square georgina cabochon. all the rest alone would have been plenty. and the title was-is splendid enough. the main image is the lovely darling miss georgina hale as alma mahler from the ken russell film 'mahler.' but i just got carried away with the sugar-shaker, so to speak. still, i wanted to show it to you. it still beats the hell out of all those handwritten journals with plain 'no frills' covers. which i don't understand. i mean, even if its just for your physics notes or sketchy poems, why not slap a groovy picture on it? i mean, you're going to have to look at it. and a groovy notebook is also a great conversation starter, whether you're in the market for that sort of thing or not. in any case, dig it, this notebook of mine, which is at least a year or more old. click to enlarge, it gets really big... maybe too big... ( if there is such a thing. )

the heart of a bonaparte

...that line is loosely borrowed from joni mitchell's marvelous song 'lead balloon.' and the image is from terry gilliam's film 'time bandits.' the handsome gent with the wicked smile is my darling ian holm. its getting late, and my tooth is bothering me, so i'll just say that he's gorgeous and looks fantastic in the costume and leave it at that. its not as if my mad crush on ian is any kind of a surprise at this point. and just for the sake of general information, the moustache-guy in the back is none other than close 'python' associate, mr. terrence baylor.

ian as napoleon

its amazing i haven't (yet) run out of pictures of my darling ian holm. here he is in a screen capture from terry gilliam's 'time bandits,' playing napoleon. i took the shot and tricked it, and let me tell you... that was some pretty damned difficult film grain to work with. not to mention the fact that ian apparently had a deep brown suntan. suntanned skin is notoriously difficult to trick. still, it came out rather nicely. i still managed to retain his facial expression. he is truly a magnificent actor. like, 85-90% of his communication is through the eyes. he would've been every bit as effective in silent parts. honestly, you can watch any scene he's in with the sound turned all the way down and still be able to tell what's going on. i love that in an acting job. he is the best there is. (click to enlarge.)