there's one for the blog...

...is what i said to myself when jean-lucien sent me this today. its a screen shot from a video by the um... ahem, multi-talented 'marilyn.' he was 'not-famous' for only one reason: being sorta friends with boy george. now, i don't know which 'hit' video of his this shot is from... but hey, he's kinda lovely, no? if looking like a drunk girl in ft. lauderdale with weirdo hair extensions is 'lovely.' now, at first, i just dug this because its a pretty groovy-looking still shot from a music video, but upon closer inspection, i realized the most hilarious thing about it is this: you can see from the superimposed blurbs that its no. 80 (eighty!!) in a countdown of the 100 Worst Videos Ever. (crickets) ...what? are you waiting for me to contradict that?

lady daydream

as i've mentioned in the post below this one, i've been having fun with my dvd copy of 'barry lyndon' lately. i was getting easily frustrated with the lack of sweet picksh of marisa berenson out there, so i decided to make my own. this one is a shot of marisa, as lady lyndon, in the last 3rd of the very long movie, taking a rich soak in a tub, attended by her maids. kubrick makes a point of closing in on her vacant and almost insane expression as the narrator relates the stagnant affairs of her ill-advised marriage to ryan o'neal's character, redmond barry. the film stock used on this project is exceptional. the grain is fine enough to tickle my brain. legened reports it was only filmed with natural light... in other words, 'available light,' ...therefore certain lenses had to be invented to accomodate kubrick's dedication to the conjuring of a world before electricity. (click to enlarge)

marc almond, soft

i don't have a lot of time tonight. i have to get up early, so i'm leaving the planet in the capable, legendary hands 0f the great marc almond. you all know he was the lead singer of soft cell, and an accomplished solo artist. there is noone like him. i wish i was in the proper state of mind to give him the poetic tribute he deserves. i hope to do something more for him in the future. in the meantime, i'm giving you all this gleaming, tasty screen capture i took from their video dvd. i think the song is 'say hello, wave goodbye.' not my favorite soft cell song, but it is still a classic bit of pop mastery. so dig it, and i hope to be in a better frame of mind for the weekend. i love you all. (click to enlarge)

planetary scream

hey, its hard for me to imagine a time when duran duran's videos were desperately hard to come by. fortunately, i was able to own a copy of their first video album on VHS almost as soon as we got a vcr... which i think was like, sometime around mid-85. so, i was able to watch, over and over again, gems like 'planet earth,' 'my own way,' and 'waiting for the nightboat,' ...videos which i don't believe i ever saw on MTV at that time. (back when MTV was 'the only game in town,' remember kids...??) so, fast forward to the bizarro year of 2009. all i had to do was reach for my shimmery, space-age dvd of duran duran's collected videos. all of them. all i had to do was hit a certain button when i wanted to freeze the picture. and keep it. thus, this groovy shot of simon in the band's first video 'planet earth.' sure, after i froze it and stored it, i cropped it a bit... fine-tuned the color and contrast, and here you have it. wow... sometimes it 'freaks me serious' when i think about how far we've come, as a society, technologically. so dig it, the space-age pop-rock artistically-altered freeze frame. (click to enlarge)

last tango

i think i first saw 'last tango in paris' about 20 years ago. and i willingly admit the fact that i think i missed the point. the sex itself was not a shocker to me. i'd seen triple x films long before then. and i don't think i yet had the maturity required to really appreciate the meaning of 'last tango.' so i watched it again a couple of nights ago, and it brought me to tears by the end. like, heaving sobs. i was devastated by it. it might possibly be one of the saddest films i've ever seen... as well as one of the most brilliant. i think it goes without saying that when in was released in 1972 (the year i was born) it caused a scandalous sensation... both in the states, and overseas. directed by bernardo bertolucci, and starring marlon brando and the incredible maria schneider, it is a haunting tale of curiosity, introspection, regression, loss, personal discovery... and perhaps most importantly, control. notice i didn't mention sexuality? that is because i do not think the movie is about sex. sex is brilliantly implicated merely as a vehicle... it is the paint in which the deeper lessons are rendered and presented. so i popped the movie in, just planning to snatch some pretty shots, but it took hold of me and didn't let go. at several different points in the film, i identified with both schneider (jeanne), and brando. (paul.) they are, at different times, either cats or goldfish... entranced with one another in their respective personal habitats... gazing in amazement at one another... wanting lustfully for what the other one has and is... it is a crushing blow for each of them when they realize the truth. a cat and a goldfish can fall in love with eachother... but where are they going to live? if they decide to get close enough to really know eachother, one of them cannot survive. (click to enlarge)

experimental georgina

as you'll read on the post below, i've been screwing around with some photographic techniques; like, that's because i'm an artist, and that's the kind of wild stuff i do to amuse myself. so, i've been taking pictures of my computer screen with all sorts of stuff on it. and although the images aren't like, 'razor-sharp,' resolution-wise, i still am digging on the egg-drop wispyness of the stuff i'm managing to get. and some unexpected colors have been popping up, just from the random behavior of strange added filters and accidental elements. here's a shot i took of my blonde darling georgina hale. it was a black and white clip, but somehow, the end result had an aquamarine hint to it. i liked it, so i tried to bring it out a little. its weird, the grain is still quite fine, but the detail is hazy. below, you'll see another try with a different model. cool stuff.