stardust memories : 1980

here's a still frame taken from

'stardust

memories,' which is one of woody allen's somewhat lesser-known films. i can't really say too much about the movie, because i've never seen the whole thing. well, if i have seen it, i don't remember too much about it. except this shot. if i remember correctly, its close to the end. woody's charcter is rapt in some kind of reverie, and he looks over and sees this breathtaking blonde girl on a train. she turns, looks right into the camera, then smiles a smile that shoots through you like an arrow. her eyes are dazzled with joy, optimism, light, and hearbreaking spontaneity. pulsing with life, she blows a single kiss. i don't think anyone who has ever seen these few seconds of film has forgotten it. in those few seconds, she symbolizes irretretrievable innocence, and the platinum 'something' in life that always seems an inch beyond our grasp. in those few seconds, this brilliant actress manages to personify nothing less than immortality. the girl is sharon stone.

gone fishing

after recognizing tom ewell's birthday (below) i'm going to take the rest of the night off. i'm going fishing. yeah, i've noticed my nets and traps have been a little slight lately, so i need to dive deep and replenish the stock if i can. so in honor of fishing, please dig this practically perfect reproduction of the movie poster for the classic film 'jaws.' i know it by heart. that proves i'm not a 'chick flick' kind of girl. hey, i also dig 'scarface' and 'the shining.' anyway, so wish me luck. i don't know if the waters have anything to offer, but there's no other way to tell except to put my knife between my teeth, jump off the cliff and dive. see you tommorrow, lovers.

happy birthday tom

you say the name 'tom ewell' to most people, and most of them will probably say they've never heard of him, they've never seen him, they don't know who he is. they don't realize they most likely have seen him, they just didn't know it. he was the man standing beside the woman who was the subject of one of the most famous photo shoots on the planet. ever. yes, tom ewell, who was born on april 29th, 1909 just happens to be the man in the tan summer suit standing beside marilyn monroe on that subway grate as her white pleated skirt blew up around her legs. admittedly, the vast majority of onlookers weren't too focused on tom at that moment, and with good reason. but the movie that shot was taken for, (billy wilder's 'the seven year itch' ) is at times more ewell's movie than marilyn's. his character richard sherman is possibly in every shot, and carries about 89 % of the script. he slays me in that role. he's as deft as fred astaire in portraying the boredom, lust, anxiety, wisdom, paranoia, and chivalrous grace of one married man over the course of one stifling summer weekend. and he manages to make it all funny. very, very funny. the tagline for 'seven year itch' could read something like, '...you came to see the girl, but you'll stay for tom ewell.' honestly, at several times in that movie, he seems to do the impossible : he upstages marilyn monroe.

sleep well, tom. and god bless you.

ash is taking me home

well, that's all for the night. i'm ready to leave the party, but it seems my gay date marc almond won't relinquish the microphone, so i've asked this handsome and quiet and (presumably) straight acquaintance to escort me home. i don't even know his whole name. like, all i know is 'ash,' so its probably not the smartest thing in the world for me to be getting into some vehicle with this guy. but somehow, he seems capable and mysterious, so tonight i'm going to take my chances on this older, quiet stranger. (mmm, my 'cyber-fantasy-life' sounds like a lesser-known duran duran song.) hey, hopefully, he's not a psociopathic robot. (...hey, god knows i've dated guys with more unattractive traits than that.)

kiss and make-up

here's a groovy shot i took from the todd hayne's film 'velvet goldmine' a long time ago. i just dug it up, did a little color adjusting, softened it, and even stretched a little, horizontally. its glassier, classier, and just plain seems to work better. i wanted to post the corresponding bit from the movie, but i couldn't find it anywhere. still, i love make-up, so here's to make-up.

bluetiful

i needed something blue for this slot, so i dug around in my files and found this very cool vintage album cover. there's no story behind it... like i can't tell you i once found one just like it in my step-grandfather's shed or anything like that. but it kinda-sorta reminds me of my step-grandfather's place on account of he had a lot of old square records and square sheet music hanging around. i can still remember that house in carolina. every frigging inch of it. since my grandparents are dead, the last time i drove past that house, some other family was obviously living there. like i saw big junky useless plastic tryke-wheels and preschool swingsets out in the yard i used to play in. how dare they. like, part of me still lives there. almost literally.

miss baker

yes, the lovely miss carroll baker was lucky enough to show up on planetcool on a night when i officially don't care! don't get me wrong, i do care about carroll baker. she's my all-time favorite hollywood blonde! i just don't care about being all stunning and-or groundbreaking with my literary tributes tonight. what can i say about carroll that i haven't said in the past or won't say in the future? she's the greatest. and her portrayal of the precocious child bride in elia kazan's 'babydoll' is black and white sizzling excellence captured on celluloid, and won her an oscar nomination. so lets all blow a kiss at sweet carroll, and go rent 'babydoll.' you'll love it. well, if you don't love it, then you obviously have different tastes in like, movies or whatever. (can you tell how much my heart's in this tonight?)

mmmmanchester

yes, morrissey. everybody knows i love morrissey. eveybody who knows anything about morrissey knows how cool guitarist alain whyte is. so here's a picture of the both of them. jean-lucien captured this from the 'who put the m in manchester?' dvd a long time ago. there was a time when i would've been able to tell you what song they were on just from looking at the frame, but sadly now i don't think i could do better than to tell you its after the first song, but before the last few. his shirt alone gives up that much information. its a very pretty shot. its a great dvd. you need to go out and buy it, watch it at that all-important 'maximum volume.'

ronan in profile

yeah, its 'can you tell i don't care?' night. sadly, this gorgeous shot of ronan vibert in roman costume deserves a somewhat higher honor. its from some movie i couldn't name if you let cousin kevin torture me for a couple of hours. but what a profile, am i right students? what a stern expression, what a gorgeous nose. he's one of those actors i saw after i'd already seen him. i mean i'd seen him in one role, but it took another to really strike me. he's been in things such as 'jeeves and wooster,' 'mrs. bradley mysteries,' the first 'tomb raider,' 'shadow of the vampire,' 'the cat's meow,' and the bbc version of 'the scarlet pimpernel.' he truly is gorgeous, and if you ask me, he shines in character parts.

yeah, here's how much i care tonight

yes kids, prehistoric monsters did do the strangest things. some of them were often spotted at the midnight movies, going to 'the rocky horror picture show.' studies have deduced several of them went in drag for amateur nightclub prizes... most often impersonating ann-margret and nancy sinatra. certain dinosaurs were known to drive run-down inexepensive vehicles commonly referred to as 'shitboxes.' and these prehistoric monsters were no strangers to popular music. devotees of the cassette tape almost exclusively, favorite bands of these creatures apparently included 'the tubes,' 'the sundays,' 'roxy music,' 'the clash,' and perhaps most surprisingly, 'eurythmics.' prehistoric monsters rarely abused credit, but had a serious problem with online porn. and last but not least, although they were often 'kind,' they almost always forgot to 'rewind.'

the wolf

this is simon le bon, sometime around 1982. he's absolutely drenched in the 'rio' album. his silver tiger baby necklace charm can clearly be seen. what a face. you can't talk me out of simon le bon. he's a hell of a performer who earnestly wants to give the people a good show. i was about 11 years old when i saw pictures of simon and the rest of duran duran looking like this. i suppose it was no wonder the local boys just failed to leave much of an impression on me.

alchemy: AD 1972

how's this for lush and gorgeous? here's a shimmering and lovely screen capture jean-lucien sent me at least two years ago. but wow... look at the colors, dig that light! i realize it came from a film, but trust me, images like these don't just happen. the cropping and tricking and dozens of miniscule adjustments make the science of screen capturing an art. like, anyone can press the pause button, but it takes an artist to make the final shot come alive like this. its like cooking. like, you can give a dozen people one egg, but how you handle and cook the egg makes all the difference when it comes time to eat it. so... eat it. (by the way, the film is the hilarious vampire film, 'dracula, 1972 AD.' it stars christoper lee, of course... and that chick who was in adam ant's 'goody two shoes' video. and yes, i know her name. she's caroline munroe.)

the science division

... should be able to help them, but science officer ash is less than fully cooperative at this stage in the game. ash seems mystified with the entire horrific ordeal playing out before his cold aquamarine eyes. he even dares some gallow's humor by wistfully referring to the newly-hatched bloody alien spawn as '...kane's son.' this diabolical remark goes almost unnoticed by the remaining members of the crew. i suppose that's because they've got more pressing matters on their minds; namely saving their human skins from a heart-puncturing bloody space grave. he's as hot as he is cold.

jones in france

here's a still frame i managed to snag of davy jones from the grainy and gorgeous 'monkees in paris' episode. anyone who's familiar with this episode will know that there's a lot of quick cuts and fast running around, so to get this shot in one try was pretty crafty. i love davy's costume in this one. i love the top hat and soldier jacket. and the green shirt is just like, 'normal.' (?) i love the rich film grain. he really was a pretty boy. i can't deny that. after i got the shot, i cropped it, and played around with the color and contrast, so it would look the way it 'really looks,' if that makes any sense. it makes a groovy shot.

rare tim curry

i don't remember where or when i found this shot of a younger tim curry, but i've been rolling 'clue' a lot lately, so i figured why not post it. i think its pretty close to the late 70's. it looks like he's in a recording studio, so i'm guessing he was laying down the vocals for the 'rocky horror picture show' soundtrack, or one of his cool solo albums. i had all three of them on vynil at one point. i realize i'm kind of biased when it comes to tim curry, but i also have a low tolerance for crappy music, and i remember playing 'read my lips,' and 'fearless' into the ground, so i think i can safely say those two lp's are surprisingly strong. his third, 'simplicity,' is almost as good, too. seek them out if you can. some of the best tracks never made it onto the hard-to-get 'greatest hits' CD.

georgina squared

when i type i always make a 'tile' which i use to mark each page by numbers. each note gets its own icon, a maximum of ten pages to a note. those ten-page batches mark chapters. some are less, but usually no less than seven pages, single-spaced. the next chapter will bear this cool cut of miss georgina hale in 'mahler.' there was a bit of hand-tinting involved in the colors. just beautiful.

super-licious

i've recently seen 'superman II' again... i mean, yeah i've seen it hundreds of times since i was a kid, but last night i screened it for the first time in like, i dunno... at least 5 years? its just a mess. but i had a great time watching it. it was directed by richard lester, if you can believe it. like, richard 'hard days' night' lester. i'm not going to get into all the film flubs and inconsistencies here. i don't plan on posting too much tonight, but i wanted to mark the day somehow, so here's margot kidder and the pink bearskin rug. superpink. (...pink...?)

blue eyes

i think i'll end the night with a shot of hugh laurie playing bertie wooster. look at the magnificent blue of his eyes. sigh... i'm totally in love with him. honestly, i didn't retouch the shade of blue in his eyes. that incredible color is all hugh laurie. needless to say, this picture is at least ten years old, but that indescribable shade of blue remains. its eyes like these that cause a girl to drop her defenses and make impulsive desicions. he's just got something, facially, that i find competely irresistible. so good-night, my darling mr. laurie, and good night, friends and lovers. below, the dazzling miss sylvie vartan is ready to take you to church.

sylvie vartan : jubilation - video

here's the smashing, english-singing miss sylvie vartan and her american boys, ready to rock our sunday morning with some heartfelt gospel. i love the song, and i love sylvie's act... i love the suit on her, the long hair, i love all of it. she's so adorable singing english. and i like her willingness to try different styles of music. so lets all raise our hearts in prayer, gratitude, and jubilation.

vampires on film

i needed a black and white shot, and i came accross this shot i took from the film 'the shadow of the vampire.' it was made several years ago, and its really worth a look. it's loosely-based on the filming of the classic horror movie 'nosferatu.' it stars john malkovich, cary elwes, udo kier, aden gillet, the great ronan vibert, willem dafoe, and mr. eddie izzard, shown here in his role as 'gustav.' hey, any movie where eddie can wear makeup is a big plus for him. i love this movie. its darkly hilarious, and very much worth a look. it was kind of my 'rocky horror' for a while; meaning i couldn't stop watching it, and eventually knew all the dialogue. go get it and watch it. its great.

get dirty

here's a wild little notebook illustration jean-lucien made about years ago... maybe longer ago, i can't remember. keep in mind, the original little collage was barely three inches square, if not smaller... so you can just imagine the intricacy of scissorwork that went into a piece like this. that's lesley-ann warren, (of course) in the hot pink outfit, and most of the background bled in from 'clockwork orange.' i love it. its hot and dirty and fun.

symphony in orange

i know i'm not alone in mourning the obsele- scence of 12" lp album covers. something about that size, that shape, that perfect square, that feels so ...dare i say... groovy? so jean-lucien and i like to 'pearldive' for interesting album covers. oddly, genre is rarely a factor. cool covers come on classic, jazz, rock, you name it. here's one jean-luc sent me a few days ago. i love it. it gets a little bigger if you click on it. i like the fact that you almost have to look at it twice to get the image: a serviceman kissing a chick in the back of a car. and i love the little peace sign. there must be literally thousands of groovy album covers out there. its like, 'if i was a rich man,' i'd collect as many as i could get my hands on.

ustinov, thirty-something

yes girls, that's a young and gorgeous peter ustinov in the suit. i think he's about 32 in this shot, and just gorgeous. when i think about how tremendously witty and clever he must have been, i know i would've been madly in love with him. i wonder what he smelled like the day this picture was taken. i know he smoked cigarettes, so its a pretty safe bet he smelled from an undercurrent of cigarette smoke. but the cologne and shaving preparations? i will never know. its no wonder i modern guys leave me cold. i never see anyone that looks like this. and i'm pretty sure he was straight, i mean, i've never heard any evidence to the contrary. maybe i'm deviant or psychologically odd, because i can't help but wonder what he was like in bed. his voice alone for me is adequate foreplay. oh well, before i sound too stalky, i guess i should move on.

who's little boy are you?

here's a small bit cropped from one of my larger works. i just had a blank, black marbled mead notebook, and just started cutting and gluing things down, and it sort of all grew out of itself like a glam tree. i think if you click to enlarge, you'll see morrissey, (at least once), the 'depp' wonka, and lots of patchwork. cropping from larger pieces often produces interesting results. thanks to the digital age, almost no detail is lost. this might be the only thing i post tonight, so dig it.

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.