ian on stage

i'm not sure where i found this shot of ian holm performing on stage some time in the late 60's- early 70's. but i think i've gathered from other information; and considering what he's wearing, that he's probably performing in harold pinter's 'the homecoming.' wow. he was so young and dark and handsome. (and just for those of you who don't already know, ian holm is the one standing up.) i've seen clips of this play when it was filmed for a british movie, and he's dazzling in it. his voice is slightly less refined than in 'alien,' but he's not that much younger. but god, what a face. devastatingly handsome, and wildly talented. ian, drop me a line, i'd love to hear from you. you are the best there is.

let's play

hey, if you ask me, anytime is a good time to look at a vintage issue of 'playboy,' which i consider any issue through mmm, maybe 1984. after that, i think it just lost something. the whole concept of american female sexiness just took a nosedive. i've always liked this cover. i don't know who the model is, but i've always thought it was playful and positive. i mean, ever since there were 'mens' shirts,' we realized half-naked women looked sexy in one. the only thing hotter than a 'playboy' from this era, was a 'penthouse' from this era. i love 'penthouse,' but its a hell of a lot harder to find those magazine covers. so in the meantime, dig on this playful bunny. she's not bad, for a blonde.

lusty

i was playing around with a smiths dvd a long time ago. i was sharp-

shooting images from the 'girl-

friend in a coma' video. i liked his face in this one, so i drained out most of the color, added the sapphire blue tint, messed around a little with the contrast and sharpness, cropped it to my taste, and added the text. what a face. for a man who was, at the time, claiming celibacy, he certainly had lust in his eyes. personally, having experimented with voluntary celibacy, i think its a very rewarding path at times. keep in mind, celibacy does not prohibit climaxes. you can have as many of those as you can handle. well, before i divulge too much personal information, let me post steven and move on.

soft focus slash

yes, slashfic. you can almost imagine the clandestine whisperings and possibly even entire plotlines that could spring from a shot like this one. the handsome eye contact beneath those beatle bangs... the liverpudlian accents, muttering loaded phrases such as, '...paul can't find out,' or '...it was like, you were singing to me in the studio yesterday,' or even, that slashfic staple, '...you don't have to say it, mate.' hey, if you're into 'slash,' you'll get it, and if you're not, you won't. personally, i like the john-george pairing. did you know 'slashfic' has been around like, forever? like i'm sure there were teenage girls in medieval times imagining the local blacksmith and the dreamy sheepherder, who knows? i'll bet even the bronte sisters had some stories than never got officially recognized.

movie poster

ahhh, where do i start tonight? i feel a little sleepy, but i want to at least the mark the day with a quick... visual... you know. so how about a mod movie poster for one of my all-time favorite films, 'alien.' hey, i even have it rolling right now! dallas is crawling through the heating ducts... or the cooling ducts, the air shafts, whatever. i this might be a Polish poster, but i don't remember and i don't feel like looking it up right now. i like the stark design and colors. very cool.

friday

good luck.

something : the beatles - video

here's a lovely lush video on gorgeous film for the later track, 'something.'

get up

here's a fast shot of ian holm as mr. kurtzmann in the 1984 classic terry gilliam film 'brazil.' honestly, i think mr. kurtzmann is a blameless cog in the ministry's machinery. i don't think for one moment he has any higher knowledge of the company's agenda beyond just the daily running his office. even before i fell in love with ian, i saw this film, and envied mr. kurtzmann. he knew nothing, and therefore, was afforded the bliss only sweeping ignorance could afford. sometimes i wish i didn't know and-or understand so much. even when i was 13 or so years old, i remember liking the seemingly timid and somewhat inept mr. kurtzmann. even then, i felt great affection for the small fretting businessman, just trying to do his best and play by the rules. is there honor in that? god, i hope so.

drum

i hope this is cool with jean-lucien. this is a notebook cover design he came up with sometime around december of 06. the groovy image of the drumskin was sharpshot by jean-lucien from a dvd copy of the monkees' movie 'head.' it works so beautifully. it looks great. he's the best. and yes, the entire notebook is filled with original (double-spaced...!!) longhand.

sheer genius.

textbook cool

i love to 'mock up' books. in my school career, i was always thrilled when i was lucky enough to have cool-looking textbooks with interesting titles and plenty of photographs and illustrations. i miss some of those books, and i've realized they're almost impossible to track down years later. we turned them in and never saw them again. what happened to all those cool books? did they get (yikes!) burned up? or churned up and recycled into inferior volumes? if i had it to do over again, i would've saved several of them and just paid the replacement fee. here's a high school science book cover i conjured out of gathered images and imagination. i even titled it and gave it a fictituous publishing company. dig it.

a pink panther

here's a great picture of morrissey, looking oddly furious, like a wildcat, braced to pounce, against a wall of bubblegum pink. i can tell from the haircut that it was very close to the time he produced his genius record 'maladjusted; ' which i think contains some of his finest solo stuff. songs like 'roy's keen,' and 'satan has rejected my soul,' are monumental. i loved the closely-cropped hair he wore around this time. its interesting to listen to that record, keeping in mind it was a transformative period for him. 'maladjusted' is one of my favorites. i think every track is a stand-out.

le grande smoque

i don't know why i spelled it that way. perhaps because the photo is so dreamy and melodramatic. yes, tonight's featured smoker is the flash and brash and genuinely talented mr. johnathan rhys-meyers. i first noticed him in the very cool 'velvet goldmine.' hey, if you wanna see a couple of man-on-man kisses between meyers and ewan mcgregor, then 'velvet goldmine' is the flick for you. i think he's great in 'goldmine.' i don't think i've ever seen him suck in anything. but here on 'planetcool,' he sucks on a cig for our wild, reckless, self-indulgent purposes. very cool.

ash darkly

its been several nights since i posted a shot of my darling ian holm as science officer ash. so here goes one more. i love him in these close-ups. apparently robots from weyland-yutani corporation can sweat, because ash is visibly sweating it out, waiting for kane, lambert, and dallas to come back with the 'life form.' is he programmed to sweat so like, humans won't get suspicious and blow his cover? who knows. i think he sweats because he's hot... despite the '...deep cold, well below the line.' so hot.

clued in

yes, its the cast of 'clue,' ladies and gentlemen. hey, i love this movie. sure its imperfect, sure its illogical, sure its thoroughly unbelievable... but i love it. i love the cast, i love the dumb jokes, i love the running gags, and i love tim curry as 'wadsworth, the butler,' whose charm and timing and perfect tone holds the whole mess together. hey, you know what? i think i'm in the mood to roll it now! its the weird best!

twins

such a queer relationship. all i can say is that i trust nobody more than i trust my twin brother. i love nobody more, i need nobody more, i would miss nobody more. at his command i would hold on tight and swing accross any deep and dangerous crevasse. i would rely on his mettle; i would swear on his honor. i would do anything for him. anything. and that means anything. god bless you, jean-lucien.

amen.

henry v : the speech before the battle - kenneth branagh - video

in honor of william shakespeare's birthday i post this stirring speech from the kenneth branagh's film version of the play, 'henry v.' i almost know it by heart. (if you look closely near the end of the speech, you can see ian holm cheering.)

baby blue

here is a shot at least two years old. its a screen shot taken from the cinematic masterpiece 'babydoll' directed by elia kazan. this shot features the marvelous karl malden in his role as the desperate archie lee meighan. i love this shot. and as for the reference to 'tiger tail,' i think i have to willingly give mr. tenessee williams credit for that. apparently the movie 'babydoll' was based on a one-act play about some wagons full of cotton. (forgive me if i don't research the specifics right now... its waaaay past my bedtime.) still, i love this shot. even in the tiniest glimpse you have of the whites of his eye, you can almost see the jealousy and vengeance stirring in there.

rock candy

here's a stunning... positively stunning collage jean-lucien sent me well over two years ago. i think i'd sent him about three-quarters of the original material, but his was his eye for melody and his way with the scissors that made it all come to life. the dreamy girls at the center are from the movie 'picnic at hanging rock,' and the military man in john rhys-myers... but the rest is all jean-lucien, and his talent for light and mood and movement. i remember thinking at the time, that jean-lucien was working ahead of himself. since then, i've realized, that he is always working ahead of himself. indeed, ahead of anyone else. he is without argument, my favorite visual artist. he is the best artist working in the collage medium in the last 50 years... very possibly, ever. click to enlarge.

damn hippies

i say that affectionately, of course. here's a screen capture i took from one of the monkees dvd's. actually, i can't remember if i snagged it, or jean-lucien. but i'm pretty sure it was me. i think they're doing one of my least favorite monkee hits, 'daydream believer.' i fully believe their more brilliant stuff was the stuff that never charted. in any case, i think this artfully cropped shot of david jones and peter tork makes a hell of a nice graphic design. it would make a great t-shirt, and almost made it on to one of my journal covers. the way the haircuts fall within the square just works with my natural sense of composition. i can't say enough good things about the monkees. to me, they were every bit as much a comedy team as they were a band. and they were good at both. the more control they had, the better they were. unfortunately, the 'tv machine' back then wasn't too cool with them having a lot of control. listen to some of their older records. from 'headquarters' up until and excluding 'changes,'... those were some seriously cool records.

seven thirty-five

often the coolest examples of notebook art are made of very few, sometimes even two, cunningly juxtaposed cuttings. i think this one contains only three. i think the clock and the hazy image of the girl are both from the de palma film 'dressed to kill,' and the sneering handsome face in the middle is morrissey. to give you an idea of the original scale, i traced the morrissey circle from the cap to an elmer's glue stick. then i cut it out using bandage scissors. i love it. its got a real cool, late-night, FM, pillowish feeling to it. i added the pink word after i scanned it and cleaned it up a little. very groovy. the green scheme oddly prods certain lobes of my brain to recall the taste of nyquil and the scent of vicks. which is actually pretty comforting.