And so. . . good night.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Never trust a clown with a social disease
His Satanic Majesty, the Milkster, is back. All it took is one mis-reference in my last post (i. e. the title of a Harold Lloyd movie, The Milky Way) to trip off the awful synapses, releasing the nightmare miasma of my Milky memories.
Though Milky never actually inspired a suicide cult, he could have. You could just as easily put cyanide in Twin Pines milk, couldn't you? Actually, it might even be more pleasant to take. And there's something else about Twin Pines. . .
IT'S MAGIC.
No one has figured out yet just HOW secretions from a cow's udder could have this sort of paranormal power. No one has figured out yet, either, why anyone would have kept a festering old milk carton from 1962 which obviously has mold growing on the top.
I have no idea what this is or how it got here. It just appeared like boils from a plague. It could be a very, very stained old tshirt, but why leave us hanging with such a motto? "Milky" Says - WHAT?? Maybe you turned the shirt over and it said "blow me".
I always suspected Milky had superior mathematical skills, and now I know it. Just look at this fraction here, it's unbelievable, isn't it? Never mind that it looks like his mother made that suit out of an old bedsheet. He was on a different system from all the rest of us.The system of clowns whose brains had been eaten away by social diseases contracted during their low-budget Shrine Circus days. The system of hot dirty canvas and heaving sawdust and straining ropes. The stench of animal dung and the screams of little children.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Harold on my mind (again!)
Girls. . .
Girls-girls. . .
GIRLS - GIRLS - GIRLS!!
Harold always liked to up the ante. For him, more was always better. I think these shots are from one of his early talkies, The Milky Way, in which he plays a milkman who is accidentally catapulted to fame as a prizefighter. How he ends up with all these dames we'll never know, but he sure looks happy.
Harold loved women - he made no secret of it, and liked to photograph them - nude - in 3D. If I had the guts I'd post some of his nude shots of pinup girls like Bettie Page. The family isn't trying to hide any of this, as they put out a coffee-table-type book of his 3D Nudes a decade or so ago. The poses are spectacularly hokey, early Playboy with a touch of surrealism. The book comes with hokey 3D spectacles that don't work very well. Actually, MY copy, which I bought used from Amazon, didn't have the spectacles and I had to use the ones that came with the DVD boxed set, The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection.
I think I've posted this before, but I have a feeling no one reads this stuff every single day of their lives and thus MIGHT have missed it. I couldn't help but see a certain eerie similarity between these two photos.
Very early Woody Allen does bear a kind of resemblance to Lloyd, without the physical feats (though apparently Woody Allen was a talented ball player who played down his athletic prowess because it didn't fit his nerdy image). He's hapless and misunderstood, but somehow or other by the end of the picture, he always gets the girl.
By the way, Woody Allen was for some reason not interested in getting involved in the biopic which will be adapted from The Glass Character. I'll just have to go to Marty or Clint (or Ronnie or Steve).
These are Lloyd candid shots. This is what he did between takes or while waiting for his girl friend. He was a sly devil and to me, always looked a bit seductive.
Making up for The Kid Brother, a tender, lyrical movie that is in my top six Lloyd favorites. The reissued movie has a score by Carl Davis that makes me cry.
Harold was a non-drinker who ran to ice cream floats. There was something of the earnest Midwestern boy in him that was endearing, though it did include a petulant temper. Last night I watched Kevin Brownlow's documentary The Third Genius (again!) and was charmed by the way his Nebraskan accent popped out in certain places. "Forehead" came out something like "foah-hayyd". In Movie Crazy, I remember him exclaiming, "The stock market crayyshed!"
OK, so I lied - I'm going to post some of the nude shots! These are almost decorous by today's standards, and the frontal shots never show much below the waist. The women look to me like skin sculptures, or maybe a 12-year-old boy's vision of what a nude woman might look like. He liked some meat on his women, which is commendable. Today's 6-foot-tall, stick-thin models probably wouldn't interest him.
Yes, yes, I told you they were weird! Maybe all those buckles did it for him, who knows.
Uhhhhh. . .
It must have taken him quite a lot of effort to get that spider on the wall.
(POST-POST: I just had the most evil thought about The Milky Way. It sounds like the title for Milky the Clown's memoirs, or perhaps a religion where thousands of devotees in clown suits drink poisoned Twin Pines milk and die in a heap.)
Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Five deadly words you never want to hear
“I love you."
"Thank you!”
I heard this deadly
five-word conversation on The Big Bang Theory not long ago, as part of
Leonard and Penny’s six-year-long dance around each other. They sleep together;
they don’t sleep together. They date; they don’t date. They see other people
for a while, sometimes quite a while, and then. . .
And then poor, vulnerable Leonard drops the
l-bomb.
Penny, completely disconcerted, reacts with a stunned silence, almost as if she's been slapped. Then blurts out the response that makes Leonard's heart sink into the floor.
"Thank you."
To lay oneself open in what may be the most vulnerable statement that exists, only to have it politely dismissed, indicates that the person you had all those tender, passionate feelings for dwells on a separate planet, and probably always will.
Penny, completely disconcerted, reacts with a stunned silence, almost as if she's been slapped. Then blurts out the response that makes Leonard's heart sink into the floor.
"Thank you."
To lay oneself open in what may be the most vulnerable statement that exists, only to have it politely dismissed, indicates that the person you had all those tender, passionate feelings for dwells on a separate planet, and probably always will.
People assume this disastrous emotional misfire only happens in "relationships", which has somehow come to mean "boy-girl with sex". But it used to apply more broadly. I know about the l-bomb
because it happened to me a few years ago, and though it wasn't BGWS, the script was almost exactly the same.
The other person, someone I knew as a close friend through a 12-step program, probably believed
they were responding appropriately and even kindly. Fairly. Isn’t that
the right thing to say when you receive a compliment?
Of course. "Thank you" is a perfectly good
response.
Is "love" always seen as "romantic love" now and nothing else? I am beginning to wonder. Or do those three little words just cause certain people to turn tail and run?
Is "love" always seen as "romantic love" now and nothing else? I am beginning to wonder. Or do those three little words just cause certain people to turn tail and run?
In my case, it seems to
me I’ve lived my life on the dark side of the moon, meaning I give much more
than I receive. Oddly enough, I am often seen as selfish because what I give
isn’t understood, or else isn’t the “right” thing and does not exactly fit
the slot of what is required. What I have to give is suspect or too different,
even if it represents an avalanche of love.
In fact, I think that’s
the whole problem.
When love is doled out
with an eyedropper, it does not exactly match an avalanche of love. When do
things match in life? Never. But being on another planet, a very lonely one, is
a whole different thing.
When, after years and
years of dissatisfaction and pain, you finally break and begin to explain to
the other person what you think is really going on, they are completely
confused. Not only do they expect you to stick to the script (i. e. accept them
exactly the way they are, even if they have had multiple drug slips and are going
down for the third time), they are shocked and baffled and even offended when
you deviate from it and don’t seem to care if you are finally expressing what
you really feel.
But that’s not the
purpose of the relationship. Not any more. It has become a chess game: your
move; my move. If anyone deviates, it’s wrong and spoils the rhythm, requiring
an immediate correction.
This has happened to me
too many times, and not just in the perilous waters of 12-step groups where, in
spite of a lot of smoke-blowing, emotional dishonesty and manipulation is practically the norm. I don’t know why I am always at the bottom end of the seesaw. I
suppose the self-help gurus would say that I engineer it that way, that I make
it happen myself (neatly letting all those abusive jerks off the hook: how they must love this theory!) in order to shortchange myself. And when you have grown up with alcoholism and
sexual abuse as daily fare (completely denied by the family as nasty lies), perhaps it’s not
hard to see why.
Any love I have seems to
hang by a spider’s thread. I’m an
emotional sharecropper: “yes, massuh!” What’s the matter with me? I should
be more grateful. Or so it seems. When your best intentions to help are
met with an offended silence, when you risk being gutted by opening your soul ONE
MORE TIME, when you make the ultimate statement and receive a handshake in
return, it devastates in a way I cannot really describe.
I love you. Thanks!
I’m dying inside. That's too bad! I’m
going to commit suicide now. Here, I’ll show you to the bridge!
It’s not quite like that,
but when the other person is completely puzzled and thinks you’re being
unreasonable and even mean when you somehow hope for more, you get that ice
floe feeling. A nice pan of ice; a good hard shove.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
You say it's your birthday
Lauren, in her Jailhouse Rock dance costume, blows out her half of the candles at the girls' joint Birthday Extravaganza last month. Lauren had six candles, Erica had eight, and both ended up with at least two boy friends.
An erotic illusion
This is a painting I stumbled on, End of the Ball by Rogelio de Egusquiza, as usual when I was looking for something else. I thought it was supremely gorgeous, quite erotic, and seemed to embody that old term "swept off her feet". She looks like she is swooning in his arms, resting her full weight on him. If he let go of her, she would fall. He holds her delicately, almost gingerly, as she collapses into him in an attitude of erotic surrender.
But then, hey hey, what is this?
It's some sort of odd old photograph, obviously meant as a model of sorts for the gorgeous erotic painting. But it is hardly erotic. She leans awkwardly towards his shoulder while he holds her stiffly (the two don't know each other, after all), and their hands are literally held up by a pole, reminding me of the braces used in Victorian post-mortem photography where the corpse was propped up in a "lifelike" pose. Most ludicrous of all is the wooden stool holding up the train of her exquisite gown, presumably so the artist can get the racy, shocking exposed foot just right. (I can't see the foot in the photo. Perhaps it was just too unthinkable to expose oneself in such a manner.)
It's kind of like seeing the undergirding of an exquisite building or sculpture, the mundane bones of the thing. I wonder here however if this photo was taken merely as a reference. Any artist worth his salt would need to work from "life", not a two-dimensional black-and-white photo. He would need to see skin pigment and folds of silk and individual petals. These models, if they did pose for him, probably had to hold the pose for hours. No wonder they used that prop. (And what if they had to go to the bathroom? It's hard for me to believe that people DID go to the bathroom in those days.) But the stool under the skirt just ruins the whole thing.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Sunday, July 14, 2013
MUST READ! SEVEN KEYS to Prosperity, Wealth, and Happiness!
MUST READ: Seven Keys to Lifelong Properity (Read
right now this minute or your nose will fall off)
Hey! Do you like to read those catchy lists you’re seeing everywhere these days, listing ten or seven or nineteen Best Ofs or Worst Ofs or Craziest or Sanest or Most Gross and Disgusting? YOU DO? Then, hey - this is your lucky day! So let's read it right now this minute: WHY WE SHOULD READ LISTS!
1. Lists are the hot thing now! They really are! That means they're good! Lists catch everybody’s attention! That means they want to read them, RIGHT NOW! That means they SHOULD read them, right now! That means they DO read them, RIGHT NOW!
2. It doesn’t matter if the lists have any content or not because that’s not the point! In fact, the less content the lists have, the better!
3. Lists make us think the person who made the list KNOWS SOMETHING! It means he looks SMART and isn't just somebody with the intelligence of an orangutan!
4. Not only that! Because the items are NUMBERED, the list makes us think that this person knew how to PUT THESE THINGS IN ORDER! Really! They’re not just slammed up here randomly to fill space (even if they are).
5. These lists are almost always accompanied by pop-up ads that pop up (maybe that’s why they’re called pop-up ads!), like popcorn or gophers or some other thing that pops up (maybe Pop Tarts?). Nobody knows why that is! But nobody cares, either!
6. Lists kind of boil everything down to a few words of one syllable so you don’t have to do any actual reading or thinking, which is a real time-saver in today’s stress-filled world!
7. Seven things is too many things to come up with right now so we’ll just say seven things even though it’s really six, because “six things” just sounds totally lame, you know? (And who's counting anyway?) But SEVEN things just seems magical, special, and something you JUST HAVE TO READ. And DON'T say I made a mistake in the title cuz I speled it in Tweetspeak where shorter is always better!
What your mother never told you about writing
If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.
Poppy Z. Brite
Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer - and if so, why?
Bennett Cerf
The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
William Faulkner
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert A. Heinlein
It's tougher than Himalayan yak jerky in January.
Richard Krzemien
Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.
Rosemary Mahoney
A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the populace with his pants down.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
Paul Valery
Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.
Jessamyn West
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde
If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.William Zinsser
Easy reading is damned hard writing.
Anonymous
William Faulkner
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert A. Heinlein
It's tougher than Himalayan yak jerky in January.
Richard Krzemien
Writing is not a genteel profession. It's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.
Rosemary Mahoney
A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the populace with his pants down.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
Paul Valery
Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.
Jessamyn West
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde
If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.William Zinsser
Easy reading is damned hard writing.
Anonymous
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