Excerpted: “RIP,” Spin (1985)

April 9, 2010 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

Rip Torn: And then the blood streamed down Norman Mailer's face. Good times, good times.(Photo by Alan Light.)

Norman Mailer starred as a porn director running for President in Maidstone, the largely improvised 1970 clusterfuck of a film he directed over four days in the Hamptons. The movie itself is something of a time warp, but in any era the conclusion would be unsettling; Mailer and his actor Rip Torn managed to turn it into a very real bloodbath.

Rip Torn recalls for writer Harold Conrad the film’s insane ending in the December 1985 issue of Spin. An excerpt from the article entitled “RIP,” in which the writer and his volatile subject recall those magical moments:

“‘Okay, so now you’re doing Mailer’s film, Maidstone, which leads us into another one of your dilemmas when you hit Mailer on the noggin with a hammer in the final scene of the picture.

‘You make it sound like an assault. You have to know the facts.’

‘Remember me, Rip,’ I say. ‘I was there and it was an assault. That’s what it was supposed to be!’

‘That’s right! I remember now. You were there, but we never had much of a chance to talk.’

Norman Mailer: So I bit Rip Torn's ear and he bled like a stuck pig. (Image from MDCarchives.)

It seemed to me that everybody was there. There must have been a hundred people in that picture–actors, writers, society dames, politicians. The whole project, on and off the screen, was the wildest scene I’d ever been around.

‘Now if you recall,’ says Rip, ‘there was no screenplay for Maidstone. It was all improvisation. It was always agreed that at some point someone would have to kill this porny director. Norman had the role. I had gone over this with him. He knew that. And here we were, shooting the final scene of the picture, and he was still alive!”

‘Didn’t you think you’d hurt him, hitting him on the head with a hammer?’

‘I knew it would just bruise him a little bit, but we were shooting for realism. That’s what the picture was all about. I had to make it look like I hit him hard enough to kill him, but I had control of the hammer. It was really just a tap.’

‘Some tap. the blood was streaming down his face. Then you two started to grapple. Norman sunk his teeth into your ear, and you started to bleed like a stuck pig. There was blood all over the place, real blood.'”

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Old Print Article: “Succi Breaks His Fast,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1890)

April 8, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” has always been one of my favorite short stories, but I never really looked into the history of professional fasters. These were entertainers, not political protestors, who went on long hunger strikes to amaze ticket buyers at dime museums with the art of self-abnegation. The popularity of the “sport” pretty much ended in the early twentieth century. Giovanni Succi, who was often referred to as “the little Italian” in newsprint, was one of the most celebrated practitioners.

In “Succi’s Long Fast,” a New York Times article dated November 6, 1890, the 38-year-old Succi announced his intention to starve himself for a personal record of 45 days at Koster & Bial’s music hall/beer garden in Manhattan. Succi would be on display 24 hours a day as his body wasted; student volunteers from Bellevue Medical College would be on hand to minister to his needs.

A Brooklyn Daily Eagle article from the following month picks up the story more than 40 lost pounds later. An excerpt from “Succi Breaks His Fast”:

“It was a remarkable scene, that of the last act in the long fast of Succi, which was successfully concluded at 8:10 o’clock last night. The 45 days were up at 8:10 o’clock but a photographer wanted to get a picture of Succi about to take his first meal and there was a delay of eight minutes, during which time Succi stood with a cup of cocoa in his hand and patiently submitted to the artist’s arrangements. The delay almost resulted fatally, for Succi had wanted his first meal. He was voracious. But after the aroma of the draught had floated in his face for several minutes he seemed to sicken and to suffer from nausea. He was twelve minutes drinking the single cup of cocoa, and he took it as though it was a dose of bitter medicine.”

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Decoder: Rudy Giuliani’s Recent Comments About President Obama In National Review

April 8, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Tough on crime and on the eyes.

Rudy Giuliani: President Obama thinks we can all hold hands, sing songs and have a peace symbol.

Decoder: I know Obama has been forceful militarily in the Middle East, but this tired old argument is the best I can do. Anyone who followed my jackass Presidential campaign knows how out of touch I am.

Rudy Giuliani: North Korea and Iran are not singing along with the President. Knowing that, it just doesn’t make sense why we would reduce our nuclear arms when we face these threats.

Decoder: Our nuclear and non-nuclear arsenal could destroy these countries many times over. And Obama has made those outlier nations exceptions to his nuclear rules.

Rudy Giuliani: The President doesn’t understand the concept of leverage.

Decoder: Like how I leveraged the horrible tragedy of 9/11 into great personal wealth for myself and my friends.

Rudy Giuliani: Leverage means the other guy has to be afraid of you.

Decoder: I manage through fear and intimidation because I know what an unlikable prick I am. Even my prostate despises me.

Rudy Giuliani: This President has taken so many steps backward in dealing with national security.

Decoder: For instance, he hasn’t accepted my recommendation that Bernie Kerik be Director of Homeland Security.

Rudy Giuliani: Beyond this nuclear policy, this is still an administration in a state of confusion about how to deal with terrorism.

Decoder: I know how to deal with terrorists. Business deals, I mean.

Rudy Giuliani: The [Obama administration has] shown an inability to make tough decisions. It’s not inconsequential how the President dithers over so many issues.

Decoder: I don’t dither. I make poor decisions quickly and I stick to them, no matter how stupid they are. That’s how I got to be President of parts of Broward County.

Rudy Giuliani: With Israel, [Obama] has been extremely hostile. His treatment of the Israeli Prime Minister [during his recent Washington visit] was shocking.

Decoder: Unless you read the newspapers. Then it’s not so shocking. Netanyahu embarrassed America during Biden‘s visit there in March. The tall man will ice you if you do that to him.

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Science/Tech: Frank Schirrmacher And “The Age Of The Informavore”

April 7, 2010 in Science/Tech | Permalink

If you had half a brain you’d be dangerous.

The prevailing theory among professional worriers in the tech field is that we’re leaning too much on artificial intelligence to provide us with basic facts and figures as our memories collapse under a surfeit of information. It seems to make sense that such a shift would occur. Then again, my memory has always sucked.

German newspaper publisher Frank Shirrmacher addresses the issue in “The Age of the Informavore” on Edge. His meditation on the subject attempts to answer George Dyson‘s question, “What if the price of machines that think is people who don’t?” An excerpt from the piece:

“We are apparently now in a situation where modern technology is changing the way people behave, people talk, people react, people think, and people remember. And you encounter this not only in a theoretical way, but when you meet people, when suddenly people start forgetting things, when suddenly people depend on their gadgets, and other stuff, to remember certain things. This is the beginning, its just an experience. But if you think about it and you think about your own behavior, you suddenly realize that something fundamental is going on. There is one comment on Edge which I love, which is in Daniel Dennett‘s response to the 2007 annual question, in which he said that we have a population explosion of ideas, but not enough brains to cover them.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

April 7, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Himme up!

Tasty SOUR candy (Uptown)

The greatest sour candy in the world.420 different types.. himme up.. name /number thats it.. no iffy suspect ppl.. hundred buks or better//Pick up your phone /dont waste my time or yours.

“They All Fling Themselves Down Onto A Huddle On The Floor, Making A Confused Tangle Of Bodies”

April 7, 2010 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

This story in the July 14, 1952 issue of Life magazine was very weird and quite racy for its time. The magazine got so many letters of complaint about it that the editors offered an apology in a subsequent issue. Entitled “Life Goes to a Fumble Party,” the story concerns a lascivious party game called “Fumble,” in which people removed and exchanged clothes, got into a pile on the carpet in the dark and the person who was “It” would grope them until correctly identifying someone. Then that person would become “It” and the feel-copping and cross-dressing would again commence. So much for the buttoned-down 1950s. Not even Eisenhower could apparently stop it.

It seemed the game was pretty much confined to upper-middle-class white people. Photographer Carl Iwasaki used special camera equipment to capture the lewd action in the dark. An excerpt from this insane story:

“In Denver, Colorado, where residents go in for vigorous outdoor entertainment like mountain climbing, people are now taking up a lively indoor entertainment called ‘fumble.’ Like blindman’s bluff, fumble is a game of identification. A person is chosen ‘it’ by drawing the high card from a deck. ‘It’ goes to another room while the other players add and subtract clothes, put on masks or disguise themselves in other ways.

When everyone is disguised, they all fling themselves down onto a huddle on the floor, making a confused tangle of bodies, arms and legs. Then the lights are turned off. ‘It’ reenters the room and, by fumbling among the tangled bodies, tries to identify the a person. If someone is identified, then he or she becomes ‘it.’ But if the fumbler makes an error, he must pay a penalty decided on by the group.

Two of Denver’s greatest fumble enthusiasts are Jack Campbell, owner of a piano company, and his wife Betty. To a recent party they invited Life photographer Carl Iwasaki. The guests, all seasoned fumblers, included a surgeon, a state senator, the granddaughter of a former U.S. senator and the daughter of an oil company president. After the lights went out and the fumbling began, Iwasaki photographed with infra-red film and infra-red flashbulbs, which make it possible to take pictures in the dark. The guests had such a good time they all agreed to play the following week. ‘Nothing melts the social ice like a game or two of fumble,’ said Mrs. Campbell.”

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Miscellaneous Media: New York Nets 1976-77 Official Yearbook

April 7, 2010 in Misc., Sports | Permalink

Despite Coach Kevin Loughery's awesome leisure suit, the Nets had the NBA's worst record that season.

I got my chapped, cracked, crusty hands on a copy of the Nets 1976-77 yearbook, which cost a cool two bucks back in the day. The Nets were then a New York franchise that played on Long Island. The ’76-’77 season was their first in the NBA, after winning the final ABA championship. Unfortunately, finances forced them to sell off their best player, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, instantly turning them into the worst team in the NBA.

I can’t tell you that the level of pro basketball play was better back in those days, but clothes and hairstyles were certainly superior. From Coach Kevin Loughery rocking the leisure suits to “Super” John Williamson’s ‘fro to Jan van Breda Kollf’s long locks and short mustache, it was a disco-fabulous scene.

The Nets are playing out the string of a terrible season, but they’ve actually come a long way from the team’s astoundingly modest beginnings. The yearbook recalls the early days of the franchise. An excerpt:

“Maybe you could appreciate how far the franchise of the New York Nets has come in 10 years if you had seen them play–as the New Jersey Americans–at Teaneck Armory. Or, going back even further, when they played their first NBA exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pipers in Paterson, N.J.

Jan van Breda Kollf summons the mighty power of his shaggy hair and mustache as he takes a jumper.

Walt Simon was there. Simon, one of the most popular players in those early days, recalls that some players helped to put a strip of black tape on the court to indicate the three-point zone. Then, the Pipers used white chalk to draw numbers on the back of their uniforms.

Maybe you had to see them play when they shifted their home base to Long Island and changed their name to the New York Nets and played their games at Commack Arena. Freddie Lewis remembers.

‘The basketball floor was put down directly over the ice, without any insulation,’ recalls Lewis, one of the few pros still active who can remember that scene, or better yet, who survived that scene. ‘It was so cold in there that you could actually see your breath. I swear that it was colder inside the building than it was outside. We used to wear our coats when we sat on the bench.'”

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Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Hester Street (1975)

April 6, 2010 in Film | Permalink

Carol Kane was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Louise Fletcher won that year for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Can't argue with that one.

Not strange or necessarily forgotten, Joan Micklin Silver‘s sweet 1975 melodrama, Hester Street, is a decidedly small film, but one that is pretty much perfect. A black-and-white melodrama set in the Jewish immigrant quarters of Manhattan in the 1890s, the film tells the tale of immigrant Jake (Steven Keats), who has been in America for five years and is not looking forward to the arrival of his wife, Gitl (Carol Kane), who is finally joining him. Jake has worked hard to rapidly assimilate himself, eschewing Old World behavior and becoming a “Yankee” with a taste for American woman. Wide-eyed Gitl brings with her the conservative, ethnic ways that her husband now disdains.

The unhappy domestic situation unfolds like a Shakespearean comedy, with everyone heading for the ending they deserve. The fable-like film sparkles as it journeys to its conclusion, and 35 years later the film is still the career high point for all involved. (Available for rent via Netflix and other outlets.)

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Old Print Ad: Dr. Hopkins’ Electric Hair Restorer (1868)

April 6, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

My head diseases appear to be cured.

The person pictured in this 1868 ad for some sort of electric hairbrush contraption is either a chick or an irrepressible fop. My word, would you look at the well-coiffured dandy! The product from Hopkins & Co. purported to restore gray hair and prevent baldness. I’m not a medical doctor, but I believe this is what is known as “quackery.” An excerpt from the ad copy:

“Will restore gray hair to its original color, keep the hair from falling out, promote its growth, cure diseases of the head, cleanse the scalp, and make hair soft, lustrous and silken. It is a splendid hair dressing, no persons young or old should fail to use it, who wish to preserve and restore their hair.”

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Decoder: GOP Chairman Michael Steele’s Comments On Good Morning America About The Bondage Club Controversy

April 5, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Michael Steele: Fit to be tied.

Michael Steele: We have begun to put controls in place on some of our spending.

Decoder: We’ve rounded up the Republicans who spent excessively on bondage clubs and placed them in handcuffs. They will duly be spanked.

Michael Steele: A lot of our major donors are used to a particular type of event; we’ve been scaling those back.

Decoder: No fur on the handcuffs anymore. That’ll save some change. And we’ve downsized to a cat o’ eight tails. It’s slightly cheaper that way.

Michael Steele: Those 71% of Republicans who don’t like me, well, I understand that.

Decoder: I told you I would unite the party.

Michael Steele: Barack Obama has a slimmer margin for error [because he’s black]. A lot of us do. That’s just the reality of it.

Decoder: You know all those times I accused Obama of playing the race card? I was playing the bullshit card.

Michael Steele: I’m a little bit more streetwise and I’ve rubbed some feathers the wrong way.

Decoder: And some of those feathers were supposed to be used to tickle the handcuffed people. I apologize for rubbing them.

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The Sporting Life: Nicholas Davidoff’s The Catcher Was A Spy

April 5, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Moe Berg: Rocking the unibrow.

Morris “Moe” Berg wasn’t a particularly distinguished major league catcher, but he was one thing that Yogi Berra, Elston Howard and Josh Gibson never were–a spy for the U.S. government. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law School who spoke numerous languages and had a profound intellectual curiosity, Berg was a spy for the Offices of Strategic Services during WWII. He was also the player that the king of the oddballs Casey Stengel once labeled as “the strangest man in baseball.”

Nicholas Davidoff wrote a really good book about the brainy athlete’s shadowy work called The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg in 1994. Davidoff notes on the back cover of the book that Berg is the only former major leaguer to have his baseball card on display at CIA headquarters. An excerpt from the chapter entitled “You Never Knew He Was Around”:

“Moe Berg had always been a loner, and as he receded to the fringes of professional baseball, his eccentricities became more pronounced. Nobody had really ever known much about him. Now he became obviously unusual, and it began to occur to some people to wonder….

An eager conversationalist, even garrulous at times, Berg could be very funny. Yet for the flow of talk, he kept himself to himself. He was as gray as the front page, and he behaved like a newspaper, too; all the latest facts, but no reflections. ‘We knew a lot about [ballplayers’] private lives,’ says Shirley Povich, ‘but he was mysterious. You never saw him hanging around the hotel lobby like other ballplayers. They just accepted Moe for what he was–a man apart.’ The game ended and Berg showered, dressed and disappeared. ”

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Miscellaneous Media: “Tom Dooley” Sheet Music

April 5, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

The Weavers formed their quartet in 1947. They were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era.

I got my cracked, clammy, crummy hands on a copy of 1943 sheet music of the folk classic “Tom Dooley.” The Kingston Trio would have a huge popular hit with the song in 1958, but it was recorded many times before then, including this offering from the legendary folk group the Weavers.

The Weavers are pictured on the front of the sheet music, and you can tell this is a very old publication because Pete Seeger only looks like he’s about 70 years old. The sheet music was issued by Ludlow Music, Inc., which also first published Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” Ludlow is now a part of the Richmond Organization music publishers.

The song concerns the eponymous man waiting to be hanged for the murder of a North Carolina woman. It’s based on the actual 1866 case of former Confederate soldier Tom Dula, who ended the love triangle he was involved in with two women by murdering his fiancee, Laura Foster. Dula subsequently hanged and his other girlfriend went insane. So, it was happiness all around and an enduring ballad of lament was born.

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

April 5, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

It makes a hell of a frosting. And there's no added poison! (image by Renee Comet.)

Free Tasty Frosting (Greenwich Village)

I know this is weird, but I baked a big cake for Easter and ended up with about 3-4 extra cups of homemade cream cheese icing and I would hate for it to go to waste. Maybe you have a bake sale coming up and don’t want to pay grocery store items. Maybe you’re just having terrible PMS. Take my frosting, no questions asked.

The recipe was:

16 oz cream cheese
2 sticks butter
2 lbs powdered sugar

It’s awesome, and doesn’t have poison or roach eggs or rat hair or anything in it. Serious inquiries only.

Other Recent Craigslist Postings:

Featured Video: “Stratosphere Balloon Falls” (1933)

April 5, 2010 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Although the pictured balloon looks dubious, this image is from Settle's successful follow-up voyage in November.

It was in 1933 at the “Century of Progress International Exposition” in Chicago that Naval Commander and aviation expert Thomas T. W. “Tex” Settle (briefly) met one of his great waterloos. It was that summer on August 5 in Soldier Field when the Stratosphere Ascension balloon, flown solo by Settle, was to be one of the highest-altitude balloon flights ever.

Anticipation of the launch was international news. The solo flight was greeted by a cheering throng of 40,000. One of the Swiss designers who worked on the balloon, Jean Piccard, gave autographs to worshipful fans. The pre-flight ceremonies were reported to have lasted more than seven hours. And because of an open gas valve, the balloon stopped its ascent and began to plummet a mere ten minutes into the flight. It crashed in a nearby railroad yards. Luckily, only Tex’s pride was injured.

He successfully completed the flight (with the aid of an additional crewman) in November of that year in Akron, Ohio; there was only a small fraction of the original audience to see the balloon off, but the flight did garner some national attention.

Watch the one-minute-and-forty-second raw film footage of his less-successful flight.

Other recent videos:

  • The hippie craft of “marbling.” (1970s)
  • Fifteen-year-old guru tries to levitate the Astrodome. (1974)
  • Edward Kienholz’s controversial L.A. art show. (1969)
  • Timothy Leary interviewed at Folsom Prison. (1970s)

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Old Print Article: “Girl Lured To Opium Den Now A Raving Maniac,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900)

April 5, 2010 in Misc., Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

This photo of an 1880s opium den was taken in San Francisco, not New York. So the Zip girl is not in the picture. (Image by Louis Philippe Lessard.)

I worry about young Miss Ottilie Zip, a Brooklynite who went insane after twice visiting a Manhattan opium den with a shadowy lawyer. I’d be worried more if this story about her hadn’t been published in the November 5, 1900 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. I think everyone involved is probably long gone to the big opium den in the sky. An excerpt: “Miss Ottilie Zip, 19 years old, of 245 Forty-sixth street, was taken by her mother, Mrs. Emma Zip, on Saturday to the Kings County Hospital, where she is now confined in the insane ward. Her mental condition will be examined to-day in order to decide whether she should be sent to an insane asylum. The girl talks almost constantly about a lawyer, but never mentions any name. It is reported that this man enticed her into an opium den. Miss Zip went twice last week to the Fourth avenue police station and asked the police to protect her. It is said she called on one occasion, between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning and raved about a lawyer and the Supreme Court. The sergeant at the desk was finally obliged to send an officer home with her. Mrs. Zip, the girl’s mother, made the following statement: ‘My daughter Ottilie has been acting very strangely for the past week. She is constantly raving over a lawyer whom she  met at Franklin and Centre streets, Manhattan. She does not mention his name. My daughter was formerly employed at the Parker House and went over to New York from Brooklyn to visit her aunt. She was in the habit of staying with her aunt when she was out of employment. She stopped in a drug store to telephone me and I have been informed that she tendered the clerk a dollar bill and he refused to give her change. Then she went to Centre street court to make a complaint against him. While in the court, she met a young lawyer, who took her to a Chinese opium den. She told her aunt about the matter and then became insane. The statement that I took her to dance halls in untrue.'”

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Some “Highlights” From Another Stellar Week Of Afflictor Idiocy

April 3, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

Even to us, this site is unbearable.

Decoder: Dan Quayle’s Op-Ed About The Tea Party In The Washington Post

April 3, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Dan Quayle: Dumb before being dumb was an asset.

Dan Quayle: Many remember the Reform Party of the 1990s, which formed around the candidacy of Ross Perot. I sure do, because it eliminated any chance that President George H.W. Bush and I would prevail over Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992.

Decoder: Of course, the reality that a genius like me would continue to be a heartbeat from the Presidency didn’t help the ticket, either. I was like Palin with a penis.

Dan Quayle: Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize [the Tea Party] for what it is–a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda.

Decoder: Obama’s agenda, especially his fiscal policies, favor these largely low-to-moderate income people, so maybe they don’t like him for other reasons.

Dan Quayle: Republican leaders still aren’t sure what to make of it, as tea partiers have risen on their own and stirred up trouble in GOP primaries.

Decoders: Republican leaders are sure of what to make of it. They’d like to use the Tea Party in an opportunistic way, but it’s too combustible.

Dan Quayle: Sometimes in politics it’s easier to recognize foes than friends, and this may be why Democrats have been quicker to figure out the movement’s potential.

Decoder: Spitting, racial slurs, Hitler posters and death threats are potential for something alright.

Dan Quayle: Democrats assumed they had redrawn the political map forever, and they took this as a mandate to remake the federal government forever. To the surprise of millions of their supporters, they plowed ahead with federal control over health care.

Decoder: It really was pretty surprising that a Presidential candidate actually followed through on a campaign promise after taking office.

Dan Quayle: There’s a well-worn path of third-party movements in American history, and it leads straight to a dead end.

Decoder: Speaking of dead ends, that’s where your political career heads if you pick arguments with sitcom characters.

Dan Quayle: The tea partiers are concerned, above all, with fiscal matters and national security.

Decoders: But not so much with spelling.

Dan Quayle briefly mentions that he is opposed to lawlessness by Tea Party protestors, but he mostly sees a golden opportunity. (Image by Sage Ross.)

Dan Quayle: Republican leaders between now and 2012 should reach out, as Sarah Palin has done, to an independent grass-roots movement whose energy and conviction the party badly needs.

Decoder: It will require a great deal of energy to drive a major political party completely into the ground.

Dan Quayle: Potential presidential contenders such as Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, John Thune and Bobby Jindal have records of serious reform that square with the tea party agenda, and in a general election they could draw tea party votes as part of a broad and victorious coalition.

Decoder: None of these people will ever be President, especially if they align themselves with scary fringe groups.

Dan Quayle: The movement has enlisted Americans of every background in political activism.

Decoder: Well, not every background. Pretty much just middle-aged and older white people. It’s like the audience at a Hank Williams, Jr. concert.

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Recently Posted On New York City’s Craigslist

April 2, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

Like yours doesn't stink?

two great Ferrits to your family (Woodstock)


HAVE HAD RESPONSE BUT THE RIGHT MATCH HAS NOT HAPPENED. IS IT YOU?

We have to find a new home, the perfect home for our great ferrits. We have a new Alaskan Malamute Puppy who is too curious, bordering o over”, that leads us to the sad conclusion that our two ferrits, complete with huge cage, litter box, toys, exercise wheel, some food, and more (basically–the whole set-up for the right person(s)) is available after the necessary initial interview is complete. These guys (both male) are completely socialized, potty trained, and amazingly entertaining. Yes, their feces stinks if you don’t clean the cage about every other day. Simple practice to do in exchange for the prize of their company.

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Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: 3 Women (1977)

April 1, 2010 in Film | Permalink

Spacek and Duvall are drawn together in the desert.

This incredibly odd 1977 film is a surreal masterpiece that Luis Buñuel would have been proud to call his own. Torn from Robert Altman’s dreams and set in the California desert, 3 Women is the discombobulating story of a girl named Pinky (Sissy Spacek) who goes to work in a nursing home and becomes very attached to fellow nurse Millie (Shelley Duvall). The story of the relationship is a tortured one, filled with paranoia, accusation and obsession, which slowly melts into a brilliant reveal.

It’s impossible to stress the degree of difficulty that Altman assumed in creating a feature-length film that operates with the eccentricities of the dream stage. He was capable of aiming high and falling into the abyss; Quintet may be the worst movie ever made by a genius-level director. But 3 Women is a masterwork unlike anything else Altman ever directed. (Available for rent on Netfilx and other outlets.)

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Urban Studies: “California Extreme”–The Greatest Cultural Event Of This Or Any Other Generation

April 1, 2010 in Urban Studies | Permalink

Donkey Kong: Them fireballs sure is hot! (Image by Joshua Driggs.)

The excellent kottke.org pointed me in the direction of California Extreme, an annual convention of old-school gamers descending upon hundreds of classic coin-operated arcade games. The event, occurring in Santa Clara on July 17-18, will feature all of the well-known favorites–Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, etc.–but a lot of smaller and rarer machines will also be available. Anyone recall Berzerk or Zoo Keeper or Gorf? An excerpt from the promotional copy:

“Arcades were once a fixture on the American urban landscape, and games were plentiful in rural cities too. The closest heir of today is the so-called ‘Family Entertainment Center,’ which is populated with a myriad of devices designed only to take your coins quickly and leave you with a pile of tickets, which you exchange for cheap, trashy toys. This is entertainment? California Extreme was born with a desire to share fun coin op games that are in the hands of private collectors, and to hopefully spread the word that pinball machines were once plentiful, and that videogames were not synonymous with martial arts and violence.”

Listeria: Top 10 Disturbing Comments Tea Party Leader Pamela Stout Made On Letterman And Other Outlets

March 31, 2010 in Politics | Permalink

Why was I was tougher on vapid but harmless Paris Hilton than on a nutjob leader of the Tea Party? (Image by Rubenstein.)

  • “Glenn Beck has made me very introspective.”
  • “My hero is Jim DeMint.”
  • “What I’ve seen of Sarah Palin I’ve been impressed with.”
  • “Obama has spent a lot of money to cover up his documentation.”
  • “[America] demonizes business.”
  • “The [Iraqi] leader was a weapon of mass destruction.”
  • “Aren’t most of Obama’s actions unconstitutional?”
  • “I don’t see us being the ones to start [a Civil War], but I would give up my life for my country.”
  • “Peaceful means are the best way of going about it. But sometimes you are not given a choice.”
  • “I’m a pacifist.”

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Old Print Ad: Kirk’s American Family Soap (1893)

March 31, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

Get a load of those stinky Martians!

It was in 1893 that the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin–the birthplace of modern astrophysics–introduced the then-largest refracting telescope in the world, which cost a half a million bucks

Playing off that great step forward in science was Kirk’s Soap, which is still in business today after 160 years. The ad joked about Mars having intelligent life. These Martians apparently smelled like crap and we needed to be honest with them for their own good, so we offered them Earth soap.

The tag line on the soap: “Kirk’s Dusky Diamond Soap, best for Ladies Toilet.” Even for lady Martians, apparently.

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Recently Posted On New York City’s Craigslist

March 31, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Craig Newmark: Can your clay ginger beer bottles withstand my mighty hammer? (Photo by Dave Sifry.)

Antique bottles and jars!!(1800s)Very raree! (Stanten Island)

I Dug up alot of antique bottles underground on a job in the city. I have 10 ginger beer bottles for sale they are from the 1800s some have the date on them and some dont. They are the bottle that beer first originated in . They are made of clay. The condition of them are dirty because they were found underground but no chips. I can email more pictures if intrested. These bottles are great antiques to have. I am selling them for 30$ each or 10 for 160$ I also have antique jars , medicine bottles, ginger ale bottles, gin bottles and other stuff. IF INTRESTED I WILL SEND PICTURESS.. These are great collectors items and a great part of history.

Excerpted: Cavett (1974)

March 31, 2010 in Books, Excerpts | Permalink

The episode where Groucho Marx annoyed the hell out of Truman Capote was very special.

The Dick Cavett Show that ran evenings on ABC from 1969-1975 is my favorite TV program ever, even though I didn’t see a single episode until decades after it went off the air.

Cavett was an unusually honest and curious interlocutor who always had a fascinating mix of people on his panel (Lillian Gish, Satchel Paige and Salvador Dali shared the stage one night). And this was an era when notable personalities were willing to talk about a lot more than the latest product they were pushing. You owe it to yourself to watch or re-watch the shows that are on DVD. (Just don’t start with the Jimi Hendrix disc–it’s a butchered group of interviews that doesn’t contain the full programs.)

In Cavett’s self-titled 1974 memoirs (a book-long interview with his friend Christopher Porterfield), the host recalls the 1970 show when Georgia Governor Lester Maddox stormed off the stage. An excerpt about the incident:

“People ask me about the time Lester Maddox, the former governor of Georgia walked off my show because I refused to apologize for what he saw as an insult to his constituency.

Was he right to walk off? Yes. But not because I failed to apologize. He was right because it was theatrical and well timed, and got him more attention than he had since the old pick-handle-brandishing days of the Pickrick Restaurant. I heard that he papered the wall of his office with the congratulatory wires he got. Maddox is as smart as a whip–or should I say knout?–and knows how to exploit the media as well as or better than Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman ever did. As I said on the next night’s show, he also knows the value of television time, walking off as he did a scanty eighty-eight minutes into the show.

Truman Capote, who was also on the panel that night, says that, of all the TV he has done, to this day people refer to that night wherever he goes.”

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Decoder: Rep. Michele Bachmann At The “Win Back Washington” Rally In Duluth, Minnesota

March 31, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

I won 47% of the vote in a congressional district in Minnesota, so I speak for all of America.

Michele Bachmann: On Sunday, on the Sabbath, that was when Speaker Pelosi decided we had to have the [health care] vote.

Decoder: Jesus is probably very pissed off that the day of the Sabbath was used to ensure health care for poor people. He would have stepped on their throats.

Michele Bachmann: Democrats said that they were called the N-word, which of course would be wrong and inappropriate, but no one has any record of it, no witness saw it and it’s not on camera. They said they were spat upon; I walked right through the gauntlet of where they were walking.

Decoder: People who support me didn’t spit at me or insult me, so they couldn’t have done those things to anyone else.

Michele Bachmann: Are you taxed enough already?

Decoder: I don’t mean by my shrill delivery and poor facility with the English language. I was talking about tariffs, silly.

Michele Bachmann: Obama is like a kid in a candy store.

Decoder: He’s like the tall kid in the candy store, trying to buy cigarettes with a fake ID.

Michele Bachmann: If we had a 9% corporate tax, a 0% death tax and a 0% capital gains tax, do you know what we would have?

Decoder: Remarkable inequity. A historical separation between haves and have-nots. No money for basic services.

Michele Bachmann: Federal employees make twice what those of you in the private sector are making.

Decoder: And that’s why I want to eliminate those jobs. They pay well.

Michele Bachmann: One out of five federal employees makes over $100,000 a year.

Decoder: I know because I’m one of them

Michele Bachmann: The Democrats made ridiculous promises about the health care bill.

Decoder: Of course, we made some whoppers, too. Remember death panels and how America would be destroyed if health care passed? That might have been hyperbole.

Michele Bachmann: We now own the entire student-loan industry. It used to be private. Today it’s been nationalized.

Decoder: Big banks will no longer be able take $68 billion of tax money for being middlemen who risk nothing.

Michele Bachmann: If you want a student loan, you now have to go crawling to the government.

Decoder: Or you could file a loan request online. That would eliminate the crawling part. Unless your netbook isn’t near your futon.

Michele Bachmann: When you feel your pulse racing and you’re thinking something’s not right in America, that’s because spending is out of control.

Decoder: Or it could be the meth. Meth is a really bad drug. Do not use it.

Michele Bachmann: America has always been a country of renewal, of innovation, of finding the new mouse trap.

Decoder: Which, by the way, is in the foyer, behind the bookcase. It’s the kind with the glue. If people properly disposed of their food wrappers, we wouldn’t need one.

Michele Bachmann: Barack Obama’s promises aren’t working really well. I think he’s batting about zero.

Decoder: Except for that little promise he made about health-care reform. He kind of came through on that one.

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