Chefs should taste their own food, you should taste your own cum.

I dreamt last night that Starburst had come out with a new line of flavors, (coloured white grading into off-white and black into dark-purple) including Port, Endive, Yoghurt, Lemongrass, Blackccurant-thyme and something called “Perfect Bath.”

This is probably because yesterday I was reminded of the deliciousness of Starburst’s “Baja California” flavors.

And also because yesterday I took a bath with a Lush Cosmetics bath ball scented with lemongrass.

The dream is not entirely false. There exists a very delicious Japanese candy called Hi-Chew that is quite similar to Starburst and comes in a yoghurt flavor.

This just in from wikipedia:
“Pattie Boyd later married both George Harrison and Eric Clapton (though at different times).”

Also, from David Lynch’s new little blue book, which was a sequel Christmas present to me from my brother Stefan. Last year he gave me the Wu-Tang Manual by the RZA, which is one of my favorite books.

“Stanley Kubrick is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, and he did me a great honor early in my career that really encouraged me. I was working on The Elephant Man, and I was at Lee International Studios, in England, standing in a hallway. One of the producers of The Elephant Man, Jonathan Sanger, brought over some guys who were working with George Lucas and said, “They’ve got a story for you.” And I said, “Okay.”
They said, “Yesterday, David, we were out at Elstree Studios, and we met Kubrick. And as we were talking to him, he said to us, “How would you fellas like to come up to my house tonight and see my favorite film?” They said, “That would be fantastic.” They went up, and Stanley Kubrick showed them Eraserhead. So, right then, I could have passed away peacful and happy.
I like all of Kubrick’s films, but my favorite may be Lolita. I just like the world. I like the characters. I love the performances. James Mason is phenomenal beyond the beyond in this film.”

“Legend had much to say about Empedocles. He was supposed to have worked miracles, or what seemed such, sometimes by magic, sometimes by means of his scientific knowledge. He could control the winds, we are told; he restored to life a woman who had seemed dead for thirty days; finally, it is said, he died by leaping into the crater of Etna to prove that he was a god. In the words of the poet:

Great Empedocles, that ardent soul
Leapt into Etna, and was roasted whole

Matthew Arnold wrote a poem on the subject, but, although one of his worst, it does not contain the above couplet.”

The Beginning of the End

As you will recall: I had only earlier that day lent an unseemly amount of money to a helpless-seeming female student from South-Africa, in Lisbon to study psychology, and temporarily stranded without money after her bags were lost in transit. And as you will recall: though I willingly lent away my money, I was kicking myself immediately after. How could I be such a sucker!? But we had made an appointment to meet, at a restaurant, at 8pm that night. And though I was skeptical that she would show up, I must admit that, in my heart of hearts, I thought she’d show up. She seemed so earnest, so trust worthy– I couldn’t imagine that it was all a ruse.
(more…)

I was watching a beautiful movie last night and at one particularly breathtaking shot of a Colorado vista I said to Sam, ‘this movie is so beautiful; that looks just like a painting.’ but what I meant was, ‘that looks just like a painting I wouldn’t like.’ In fact as a painting it would have been quite boring. The fact that the same image when captured by different media can take on a wholly different appeal seems like a double standard. Movies can be picturesque, idyllic without necessarily being kitsch or cheesy and blend seamlessly with bizarre or Indy filmmaking. Whereas realistic vistas or sunsets in painting is totally out of vogue and only finds a place in yuppie suburban galleries as decoration not thought provoking art. So there is one simple answer in a movie cinematography is only a piece of the whole, perhaps the rule is that beauty isn’t enough, there has to be more going on. But I think there is something more. The emotional experience of the beautiful landscape in that moment of the movie was not about the characters, the plot (of which there wasn’t much anyway) or the historical role of the film itself. Rather, it was simply arrestingly beautiful. So, am I just trained in the fads of modern art, have I curbed a secret love for Frederic Remington because it isn’t cool? I did hang pictures of the Boyz 2 Men in my locker in the fifth grade without having heard their music. Maybe modern art’s distaste for the picturesque simply hasn’t extended to cinema, and of course in a western car chase movie it would be difficult to avoid such beauty. Still I think there is more than an awareness of “cool” there is some role for a cultural skepticism at play here as well. The value of craft and technical skill, unless essential to a conceptual work, left visual art a long while back now. While we want our clothes to be well made and our hair to look good we don’t want to appear to be trying too hard. If too much effort is expended and one is too invested there is no out if the product is not well received. Similarly, we are hesitant to like something so much that it would justify the meticulous labor of Renaissance art. This isn’t to say that we can’t appreciate it or that we are so insecure we can’t form our own opinions but rather that, as a culture, we seem to value looseness, sketches that capture gestures well but didn’t take long, and style that doesn’t look too worked at, in short, gift rather than trained skill. Thus, if you are going to meticulously paint a sunset it had better be a satirical replica of a Thomas Kinkade or the under painting for a mixed media work about growing up in the Fifties. Cinematography, while being just as meticulous and craft-oriented has the advantage of seeming to simply be an ability to capture what happens to be there. As pervasive as our distrust of people ‘trying too hard’ is it does not seem to extend to film or maybe it simply isn’t able to.

When you’re Brangelina, and you’re having trouble deciding where to send your children to school, what do you do?

a)Call Kofi Annan, and see what he thinks about Montessori vs. French immersion vs. magnet

b)Rent out a large conference room and summon a representative from every single school in New Orleans, and ask them each to stand before you to present their arguments

c)Base your decision on which school has the cruddiest school yard, as this will make good photo ops

d)The children shall be schooled in the home
Winner gets an autographed jar of marmalade.

i was relieved to see today that “an inconvenient truth” did, in fact, pick up an oscar nomination in the category of best song. yeah. watch out, dreamgirls! shit be on.

[youtube]AFxDpRXLmB8[/youtube]