Headlines from the front page of the Saturday, November 8, 2003 National Edition of the New York Times (l-r):
Prosecution in One Sniper Trial Heartens the Defense in Another
6 Americans Die in Copter Crash in Hussein’s City 3rd Craft Lost in 2 Weeks Hostile Fire Suspected, but Officials Say Cause Is Under Investigation
3 Months of Job Growth Best in 3 Years A Modest Gain, but It’s Seen as a Good Sign
Bloom Is on the Economy
Fine Print Grows Bold in Political Commericals
A Libyan Brings a High Profile But Low Skills to Italian Soccer
Warnings of Trouble at New Jersey Adoption Unit
Notice the error? Yep, in the “Libyan Soccer” story—about Qaddafi’s son—the “but” is capitalized, whilst in the “Copter Crash” and “Job Growth” stories the “but” is not capitalized.
I smell like Irish Spring, which my friend O’Steen says is “declasse.” I listened to the Misfits sing “Where Eagles Dare” on repeat in the shower; I bought a used compilation of a bunch of their early stuff for seven bucks last week.
The third Matrix movie is an abysmal, ridiculous piece of fluff. Think Aliens 5 meets Terminator 4, and you’ll get it. Every single piece of dialogue is lifted from a World War II war drama. Actual lines from the movie, as memory serves:
“I can do it, Sarge!”
“Nobody can make it through that pass—nobody!”
“Don’t die on me!”
The last is the most egregious, of course. I kept waiting on [the dying character] to fucking kick it, because I hated their stilted acting so much. Perhaps the vocal cords suffer rigor mortis before the rest of the body.
The ending—alas, what can I say. Confusing, inept, a deus ex machina I wouldn’t have bought from a Avengers comic when I was eight years old. Uninventive, muddled, and—worst of all—boring. At least the anti-climatic and surreal bits at the end were as confusing and as pathetically acted as the rest of the movie—lest you be disappointed in shelling out thirteen-fifty for you and your date!
Still hating: Jonathan Lethem’s poseur Fortress of Solitude
Still loving (despite the Agent, who’s been drinkin’ the Haterade): Mates of State, Team Boo
Still listening: to Laid by James. Will its reign of awexxomeness over my life ever end?
Still amazed by: The Duran Duran story Mame’s friend told.
Lengthy review time: my byrd-brother has already shouted out Vindauga, but I want to talk a little bit about some of the photos featured there—especially the portraits.
They are, quite simply, amazing—and if I can fault the site as all, it’s because their mass and depth are not adequately represented by a tiny jpeg a few inches total. They are easily a foot-and-a-half-wide, two feet long, light burned onto thick paper, curling at the edges.
The rich tones are not out of an Adobe box, or even vintage materials—they’re hand-colored. Special care was taken, against your standard Vogue beauty, to accentuate flaws and age—instead of obliterating age, to dwell on it. The results—as seen best in the third and fourth portraits, female and male, respectively—create a sort of debauched and fading glory, an indulgence that has paid off in exhaustion and, perhaps, regret.
The female in the third portrait strikes me as an aging Teutonic beauty, a hedonist from pre-War Berlin, now in exhile in some pathetic Continental backwater, living off what jewels she has left—notably, the large ring on her left hand remains, either as a bittersweet reminder of the past or a talisman from a trophy-wife existence.
The male in the fourth photograph reminds me of the most glamorous criminal of the nineteenth century, Lewis Powell. It is the face of a man who had every desire and whim met from the moment of their conception—ultimately to his detriment. I also suspect it is what a young prince looked like, wasted in an opium den, in the early days of the last century.
Again, the sizes of these portraits are huge—perhaps almost double the size of the models’ faces. Like any great art, they also do not rest upon the laurels of their subjects—if you were to meet the models, you would certainly recognize them from the portraits. Yet I do not believe you would see the carelessness or weariness the lens and the pencil have impressed upon their faces: that is where art steps in, and leaves mechanics behind.
an old poem for absent friends: my heart is all tore up with jack daniel’s.
oh goddamn, that duran duran story was incredible.
I’ve got a Duran Duran story for you (told in the form of a play):
Simon: I’d like to write the worst song ever.
John T.: Me, too. Let’s call it “Wild Boys!”
Simon: Agreed!
The end.
i like “wild boys.” the video was rad.
i hear wild boys never close their eyes.
The Matrix is a lonely child who’s waiting by the park
The Matrix is the door to finding treasure in the dark
Ms Comrade-Taylor (as in John Taylor)
i’m way too lazy and uninterested to go read the duran duran story, but i hope it had something to do with them sucking on a level comparable to oasis.