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.

edit

eddie and the it girl. here's a rare example of some black and white notebook art. i think i sliced this from an actual page of one on my handwritten books. the girl on the right with the newsprint is theda bara, (who's name was reportedly an anagram for the haunting phrase 'arab death.' i remember reading that somewhere. i don't know what her real name was.) on the right side, we've got a half-in-drag mr. eddie 'american tv show' izzard. i met him and got to shake his hand once. very cool. anyway, i think this might be the only completely black and white notebook banner i have in my current records. pretty cool.

willing

yes, its william shakespeare's birthday, but really its tim curry that seems to be benefitting from that here on planetcool. since there are no photographs of 'the real' great william shakespeare, i went with the obvious next choice; tim curry playing will shakespeare! he made a british tv thing in the late 70's? early 80's? where he starred as the man himself. and i'm a little tired tonight, otherwise i'm sure i'd give william a more worthy verbal tribute or whatever, but man, i dost feel drained from sleeping in the middle of the day. so tim curry lucked out here... he had a birthday several days ago, so he got double the wild exposure here. hey, take away the little beard, and he's basically got frank's makeup on. well, more or less. happy birthday william. there are several guys i would never have gone to bed with had it not been for what you wrote. and come to think of it, thanks for nothing when it comes to a couple of those guys.

ha ha ha, its ian after all

yes, somehow it doesn't matter how much the others arm-wrestle and compete, it is, in the end, ian holm that has me. fanciful? yes. delusional? by certain definitions, possibly. all i know is that i feel an emotional waltz of arousal and serious peace whenever i see him or hear his lush welsh voice.

(click to enlarge.)

the mikado - (movie - topsy turvy) : three little maids

this is the best, loudest version i could find of this track. sorry it couldn't be longer and louder, but i did the best i could with what was available to me at the moment. so dig it. and see the whole damn film.

dylanesque

here's a magnificent slide jean-lucien made from some of his own images, and some i sent him. i love the overall result. let's see, we've got a cool harmonious blend of bob dylan, romeo and juliet, and bryan ferry. i think i took the screen shot of ferry, and may have sent him the picture of the star-crossed lovers, but all the magic credit goes to jean-lucien; for he's the one who stitched it all together so beautifully. so dig it.

nineteen seventy-two

its only a number. in the grandest scheme of things, not that significant. but it means a hell of a lot to me. orange and elegant. moody and mod. so celebrate the very good year, 1972.

o carroll

the marvelous miss carroll baker, ladies and gentlemen. this still frame was taken, of course, from the genius, highly contro-versial 1957 elia kazan film 'babydoll.' its required viewing. i read her autobiography. what a woman. smart, tough, beautiful, and admirably dedicated to her craft. some parties attempted to ban the film with no luck. carroll stars as a child bride who finds herself in the center of a firey vengeful uproar. the role raised many prudish eyebrows and won carroll an oscar nomination. in the early 70's, she parted ways with hollywood to explore the looser restrictions of movies abroad. there were several mainly italian productions in which she was able to take some chances, and take off some clothes. she even worked with andy warhol. i can't praise carroll enough. she's my favorite hollywood blonde; even above harlow and monroe. oh, carroll... it was love at first sight. sigh.

eyes closed

here's a still frame from 'alien' of ian holm as science officer ash with his eyes closed. i'm posting it for no other reason than this : he's so hot. so sexy. i love the emerald jumpsuit on him, and i was admittedly looking for an excuse to post another image of him. especially in that costume. so ian, if you're out there somewhere, then please, realize how wild i am about you. and drop me a line sometime. i think you're the best there is.

like a shiny toy

here's a screen shot i got from one of my all-time favorite films, 'victor-victoria.' it is, of course, the great miss lesley-ann warren in her matchless portrayal of blonde trohpy girlfriend 'norma cassidy.' man, when i think about the character of norma, i'm almost at a loss for words. her entrance as a character is perfectly timed. her perfomance perfectly tuned to be jusst over-the-top enough without becoming unbelievable or even overly-annoying. you may hate norma, but you still can't help but love her. hey, she's horny! the spiteful tirade she spews as alex karras puts her on the train is brilliant. every scene she's in, she shamelessly steals. i also love her in 'clue,' but its the 'chicago, illinois' number that really gives her the spotlight. she's the best.

morrissey at rest

yes, you'll see in the post below that i prefer him a little bit older and a little bit grayer, but this shot of a much younger man is one of my favorites of him from his earlier days. he's dreamy. so pretty, yet still sufficiently butch. i'm afraid i can't credit the photographer or the year, but judging by the hair i'm saying it had to be either end-of-the-smiths or 'suedehead' era. as i've said before, steven patrick morrissey is a wonderful model. his face just has something distant and thoughtful. yeah, i really like this one.

morrissey live

now this is how i like him. older, slightly graying, those handsome lines on his face in all the right places. he's just too damn hot. this was taken some time in the summerish months of his 2007 tour. i don't have too much information on this shot other than that. like, don't know which song he was doing. but i love his face. i love the open shirt, i just love him. so much sexier than he was in his Smiths days. just about perfect.

the calico wave

its late, ladies and gentlemen. so sweet dreams, only allow light thoughts, and i'll see you later. in the meantime, allow yourself to enjoy the simple prettiness of davy jones. i love you all. good-night.

hey mr. eurovision song contest man : neil innes - video

its weird. its queer. its strange. its even almost somewhat scary. but its also catchy as hell. here is neil innes and his polka-flavored stab at slightly-satirical pop. like his stateside counterpart michael nesmith, neil innes took full advantage of the video medium in the early 1980's and used it to explore the cinematic and lucrative possibilities that emerge when music and video are married. the 'innes book of records' made an unmistakeable mark and shook up the stage of pop marketing. i've chosen to showcase one of the more avant-garde slices. neil's theatrical makeup and his parade of pretty prepubescent girls traipsing amongst daisies and daffodils coupled with a richard-lester-esque brass band is nothing short of haunting. and the song is a killer, too. hey neil, drop me a line. i'd love to hear from you. (it comes on instantly, real loud, so be ready with the workplace volume control.)

david battley

you know him, you just don't know it. anyone who's ever seen 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory' no doubt remembers charlie's charismatic working-class teacher who made not only percentages but chemical reactions fun and easy to understand. i've known his face almost all of my life, but only recently did i realize how cool he was. he was one of the co-stars of neil innes's 70's BBC venture 'rutland weekend televsion.' in fact this still was taken from one of innes's musical numbers 'slaves of freedom,' which i think i've already posted. so here's to the late david battley. he was handsome, versatile, and very, very funny.

frankly i forgot

yes, i forgot another very important birthday. on april 19th, the imcomparable mr. tim curry turned 62, if my math is correct. one might expect me to say that i first noticed tim curry in his role of dr. frank-n-furter from the 1977 cult classic 'the rocky horror picture show,' but its hard for me to remember for sure. i remember hearing his name in association with 'annie' when it was released in '82. i think i must've seen him host SNL in the 70's, because my parents watched that all the time. but yes, in 1987, i fell in love with rocky horror, and the hot, trashy, lush, rough, strutting tim curry as dr. frank was the gorgeous centerpiece of it all. if it hadn't been for this man in that role, i might've lost my virginity much later. and most certainly with someone else. but thanks to tim curry, and the rocky horror midnight scene, my first lay was with my first love. and he knows who he is. (actually, everyone who reads this will probably know who it is. but i suppose now that's no surprise.) here's a shot i found of tim on the set, getting his hair done by ramon gow. i don't think i've ever seen it before. so dig it, and don't dream it, be it.

take a bow

here's a bookmark i made a long time ago. i think i was at jean-lucien's place when i put it together... and i remember it was before they'd moved their furniture around. the shot of morrissey on the top is taken from a dreamy still shot from the somewhat-official video for the infectuous smiths song 'sheila take a bow.' for those of you who've never heard it, do yourself a favor and dig up that song. its a pristine example of perfect english pop. the hazy female face in the center is none other than my own darling georgina hale from the ken russell masterpiece 'mahler.' i think it makes a groovy bookmark. so print it out, laminate it, and read something hot or scary. or maybe a MAD digest, they're always great.

o captain

it turns out i missed a birthday on april 16th, so i'd like to pause here and recognize the birthday of one of my first great loves; mr... (no, wait... is it sir? yes, i think so...) sir peter ustinov. of course, he died four years ago, but on the 16th he would've been...89? if my math is right. i think i first heard his voice on a disney recording of the 'cartoon fox' version of 'Robin Hood,' where he played the part of Prince John. i know i first saw him as hercule poirot in 'death on the nile.' i don't think there was ever a question of me being in love with him. i can never remember a time when i wasn't. this shot is from the 1962 film version of the melville classic 'billy budd,' where he starred as the pivotal captain vere. if you've never seen 'billy budd,' i can't oversell it. its thoroughly brilliant... a perfect film. i believe ustinov directed it. yes, he did. its one of those movies that's so riveting you forget you had water heating in the microwave for your coffee. i could go on and on about peter... he's so big and gorgeous and talented and sexy and...well, happy birthday, peter. sorry i'm a little late. i love you. god bless you. (...and just for the record : no, i don't think he's too big...at all. )

wifey

one of my main reasons for launching

'planetcool' was to celebrate all sorts of artists and talents that rarely, if ever, get celebrated. so tonight, i'm taking my jazzy bob fosse-styled derby off to miss leland palmer. this is a still i managed to shoot of her in fosse's 'all that jazz,' where she played joe gideon's (roy schieder's) wife. she's so fantastic in this part that i've always wondered why i never saw her in anything else. her dancing is first-rate, her beauty strange and striking, and her acting skills solid. every time she's on the screen in 'all that jazz,' she's the only one i'm watching. maybe she did a lot of stage work, i don't know. there's really not much information on her that i've been able to find. but i think she's incredible. every bit as hot as anne reinking. i captured this shot, then cropped it and tricked it. dig it.

these charming lads

so um, let me see if i can slide into the mood tonight with a cool bright notebook decoration jean-lucien made at least a year ago. i dig the vivid colors and naturally, the composition. from left to right, we've got adam ant, from the 'prince charming' video, then boz boorer and morrissey from a performance on jools holland's show from the early 90's, and in the orange square, mr. simon le bon. mmm, hot boys. nice.

bogart

what can i say? humphrey bogart, ladies and gentlemen. i've always loved him. he's so, sooo pretty. and i even like his voice. so here's to lovely humphrey. god bless him.

how the west was won and where it got us : r.e.m. - video

i love this song.

feathers

here's a lush and lovely cover to a playboy magazine. june 1974. we were not yet 2 years old. so dig the fine soft purple feathers and pretty face, and remember the days when girls could still be sexy without shaving and injecting plastic. we were real. some of us still are. amen.

mr. pascal

i don't remember exactly how long ago it was when i first saw the film 'big night.' i know i was working at the public library at the time, and i remember the impact it had on me. even to this day, i'm not sure why i have such a fondness for it.
here is a still frame of ian holm in his devious, genius portrayal of the rival business manager known only throughout the film as 'mr. pascal.' (i don't believe the script ever reveals his first name.) his character in this lesser-known independent film is complex, cold, cunning, and operates on an altogether separate playing field. ian makes 'pascal' nothing less than shakespearean. i've learned a lot from him.

handsome devil

i don't think i've posted this one yet, but if i have, please forgive me. sometimes one day blends into the next. it doesn't really mean anything. i was just playing with some pictures and this groovy slide is the result. my partner jean-lucien liked it so much he made a t-shirt out of it. the stars of this one are (clockwise) : georgina hale on top, then two morrisseys, then the very talented and slinky miss imogen claire at close to nine o' clock. if you 'click to enlarge,' i think you'll see the tiny but archaic words; '...the devil will find work for idle hands to do.' and just in case anyone is keeping score, my hands are hardly ever idle. amen.

gentleman jones

here's a lovely shot i found one night whilst pearldiving in the vast waters of the web. i have no idea who should be credited for it... i do know that the young man is terry jones. isn't he just gorgeous? i think he's the best-looking member of monty python, hands down. i've known 'python' all my life; and when i was younger and sillier, i think eric idle was my fave... but as i grew up, i realized terry jones was truly 'the fairest of them all.' they were all like big brothers or cousins to me. us. even now, if i'm feeling anxious or blue, just hearing some 'python' sets my central nervous system at an almost instantaneous peace. jean-lucien and i used to borrow 12" vynil comedy recordings from the public library when we were children, and we'd listen, hand in hand, in the humid summer carolina air, to those five familiar english voices, and fall into a cheerful sleep.

unite and take over

here's a artistic still frame i managed to nail with one shot. its taken from the highly recommended dvd 'the smiths : the complete picture.' needless to say, its morrissey doing one of my favorites; 'shoplifters of the world unite.' i was lucky enough to see him live in boston around halloween and he played this one... it felt like it was just for me. of course, my wild shoplifting days are over, but morrissey's beauty lives on. (?) after i froze this shot, i cropped it and tricked it to my personal taste. not only is the man a brilliant songwriter and singer, he's also one hell of a model. and although he's a little young for me in these early videos, he's still incredibly beautiful. so dig it... he is, after all, deservedly legendary.

adored

here's a collage i hope my partner jean-lucien doesn't mind if i post. it depicts morrissey being eveloped by an adoring fan sometime in the late 90's, set against a dazzling dreamy backdrop of scarlet and glitter. i'm consistently amazed at jean-lucien's ability to coax brilliant strange colors out of existing grain. his 'tricking' skills are out of this world. in this slide, he managed to maintain such a queer shade of blue alongside a supernatural red. the light he infused within the paper just pops off the page. and the cutting, the scissor skills are surgical. i've always said, if i ever find myself in a position to have someone besides a surgeon stitch my wounds, then i want jean-lucien, and ONLY him, to do the work. he is the best.

sultry sigourney

mmm, yes! i was never really attracted to miss weaver until i got heavily into the original

'alien.' something about her smart, brave, capable, no-makeup portrayal of ripley struck me as being very sexy indeed. maybe it was because sex appeal seemed to be the last thing on her mind. she reminded me a lot of myself on certain jobs i've held. cool, analytical, logical, and capable... all the while in tune with her sixth sense of danger. she can come to the slumber party anytime. (just for the record, i have no idea what movie this still is from.)

donald fagen : new frontier - video

wow. we've reached the snow-capped summit of 'cool.' this song calls up images of solitary dj's in lonely towers; scattered along the cool green and dark blue level playing fields of the glorious american southeast. it is an elixer to the ears. a 'cure-all' for any skittish stress accumulated 'on the road.' so settle in with your sweetheart and lock the doors, a common prayer should be enough to keep at bay any threat, however veiled, meant to fracture your duly earned tranquility.

here's to elsie marina

hey, i just realized this.... i believe miss marilyn monroe's finest per- formance was in the mostly underrated 1957 film (directed by none other than laurence olivier himself... ! ) 'the prince and the showgirl.' i could be mistaken, but i think it may have been my mother's favorite role of her's, too. marilyn played the working-class miss elsie marina. olivier played the pressured and palatial prince regent. i think i like it because it shows a virtually arranged marriage. he feels pressure to wed... he sees her, by chance, at the theater. she wants some security... but as luck would have it, ultimately, the currency doesn't matter. the odd pair comes to fall in love. and i'm going to challenge common opinion on this fact: the girl can act. the sequence about half way through of elsie going to the service at the church is, in my opinion, norma's finest drop of acting. dig it up if you can. she kills.

how does it feel?

...i like it, that's how it feels. this picture accurately captures the sense of liberty and tranquility i feel after having been granted my own place. all the interior walls are bare wood, allowing me the solid, (if not fanciful) fantasy of being in some kind of all-american frontier cabin. for most of my hours, my feet are (symbolically) up... i do as i please and i smoke under the stars. i know, i know i should be wary of romantasizing. after all, as a wise script once warned me, '...all glory is fleeting.'

amen.

forgiven

well, its officially sunday morning. and that being so, my thoughts turn to church. here is a still i snapped of morrissey in priest's garments. he dressed in the solemn collar and black vestments for the filming of his video for the lovely song 'i have forgiven jesus,' (which i might post if i can find a decent version.) i cropped the shot according to my own taste, and added the word. i have never had any difficulty admitting i'm a sinner. i only seem to run into resistance when i attempt to admit my trespasses to others. for some wild reason most people i know seem to think i'm some kind of goody-two-shoes. go figure.

shark ride

i hope my partner jean-lucien won't mind that i'm posting this. its one of the hand-made covers of one of his recent, brilliant books. he and i both write constantly... and jean-lucien does all... and i mean all of his stuff longhand. the sheer amount of inkstrokes he gets off in one day is truly remarkable. i think this book was a few months back. i love the wild scary juxtaposition of pink gabriel-era genesis on one side, and wide-mouthed squallus on the other. he never fails to entertain and inspire me. i mean, who would've thought to marry these two images for sheer artistic impact? my partner jean-lucien, that's who. (click to enlarge; it gets really big.)

fab smoke

tonight's featured smoker is paul mccartney, seen here with the gorgeous george harrison. i have to admit, i probably wouldn't have even tricked and saved this photograph if george hadn't been in it. i mean, don't get me wrong, i love 'beatle-era' paul, but george is way ahead of him on the 'fan' scale as far as i'm concerned. i mean, if someone asks me, 'hey, who's your favorite beatle?' ...like, before they can even finish the question, i'm naming my sweet george. i was born in 1972, and i have reason to believe the 'all things must pass' album was playing within earshot of my crib... so my ears knew george before they even heard the other three. so, dig this rare shot of the two of them... it looks like they're at a press conference, but i don't know for sure.

edgar

here is a gorgeous illustration of the writer edgar allen poe. i don't remember where i found it, so unfortunately, i cannot credit the artist. but my heart goes out to edgar. like myself, edgar struggled most of his life with mental illness. his demons found their way into all the tight and hidden corners of his dark life. he should've had a twin brother... i daresay it would've alleviated much of his anguish. still, his mark on american literature cannot be overstated. would we have ever had a stephen king if it hadn't been for poe? well, probably, but the world would've been much the worse had edgar not put down on paper what was rattling around in his head. i think out of all his works i've yet read, i was most taken with, (and indeed most shaken with) 'the cask of amontillado.' so here's to the cowering, towering dark genius of edgar allen poe. ...yes, for the love of god.