Uncouth Reflections

Soft Spots

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

I have a soft spot for secret passageways, bookshelves that open into silence, staircases that go down into a void, and hidden safes. I even have one myself, but I won’t tell you where. At the other end of the spectrum are statistics which I hate with all my heart.

— Luis Buñuel

Posted in Art, Movies | Tagged Film, Luis Buñuel, movies, Surrealism | 1 Comment

Movie Du Jour: “The Naked Kiss” (1964)

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

Cheap, lurid, corny, sensational, sentimental, blunt, and perverse, Sam Fuller’s THE NAKED KISS opens with a bald hooker beating her pimp. After winding up in Squaresville, USA she decides to go straight, lands a job as a well-respected nurse, and snares the town’s rich and sophisticated scion. But can she escape her past? And is the man of her dreams too good to be true? One of Scorsese’s favorites, it also clearly influenced David Lynch, who swiped its placid-suburbia-with-corrupt-underbelly for BLUE VELVET and brothel across the river for TWIN PEAKS. The screenplay is a bit creaky — the movie loses most of its momentum with the second act climax — but it’s hard to beat the authentic early 60s B-movie noir seediness. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

Related

The film reminded me of Donald Westlake’s Memory which I recently read and Fenster reviewed here.
Back here I took a look at some process footage of late 40s L.A. shot for the movie Shockproof, co-written by Fuller.

Posted in Books Publishing and Writing, Movies | Tagged donald westlake, Film Noir, Sam Fuller | 1 Comment

Poem Du Jour: “Poem” by Frank O’Hara

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Posted in Books Publishing and Writing | Tagged Frank O'Hara, Lana Turner, poetry | 1 Comment

Linkage

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

“In the decades ahead, should we be as white as we are today, we will be relentlessly driven toward mediocrity; or, become a sad shadow of our current self.”
Michael Bloomberg, a member of the quasi-atheist elite, feels sure his busybodying on nicotine, guns, and transfats is going to get him into Heaven.
ESR wants to know: When is it morally not okay to eat an animal?
“Permission to take DNA samples requires the double consent of pupils and their parents, however refusal to agree to provide samples would be viewed as suspect and could be held for questioning, police said.”
I know shit about shit when it comes to diet, but it just doesn’t sound right to me that consuming “animal protein” will lead to diabetes. If that were true, wouldn’t diabetes rates be going down rather than up? Seems to me we’re eating less animal protein nowadays, and yet diabetes rates keep rising. Don’t they?
World War I photos overlaying present-day ones of the same locations.
Remember the ’80s hysteria concerning Dungeons & Dragons? How weird . . .
He’s his own voting bloc. Polygamy pro-tip: Always situate your youngest wives closest to the bedroom.
The what-Steve-Jobs-was-really-like essay has developed into its own literary micro-genre.
Join the Voluntary Auxiliary Thought Police.
A major retrospective of Kenji Mizoguchi’s films is hitting U.S. shores in the coming months. One of my favorite filmmakers. As far as I’m concerned, “Sansho the Bailiff” is among the major artworks of the 20th century.

Posted in Linkathons | Tagged diabetes, diet, Dungeons & Dragons, Kenji Mizoguchi, Michael Bloomberg, Steve Jobs, World War I | 11 Comments

How “Liberal” Is the Climate on College Campuses?

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

Some interesting comments on the PC university from civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate.

I’m fond of pointing out how completely the “sticks and stones” rhyme has been replaced by . . . whatever rhyme is employed by anti-bullying hysterics. People just look at me like I’m crazy.

H/T Handle’s Haus, and thanks to Popehat for the original post.

Posted in Education, Politics and Economics | Tagged civil liberties, colleges, free speech, Harvey Silverglate, PC, political correctness | 4 Comments

Linkage

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

Performance artist Maria Abramovic’s next piece will be a non-performance. Or maybe her non-performance is itself a performance? Contemporary art, bro.
Vagina art.
Like the Elgin Marbles returning to Greece.
A long, throbbing list of penis euphemisms.
What Would Orwell Think?
Disorder Du Jour: sluggish cognitive tempo. Remember, drugs are bad unless Merck and your doctor can get rich off them.
Pepper Spray Cop will get almost $40,000 to “ease his emotional suffering.” Maybe we should double or triple that just to make sure he’s OK?
Tumblr Du Jour: Composers doing normal shit.
Audiobook producer extraordinaire Charlton Griffin has just completed his unabridged recording of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. 127 hours!
Ancient Egyptians drinking beer, circa 1350 BC.