Quoth the Kaoru: it’s almost Halloween, which is basically Goth Christmas. Well, in that case, we’d better start dishing out the holiday goodies. First up, a heaping, tentacular helping of The Dunwich Horror:

Ganked from the excellent Nightchillers site, thanks.

If you’ve never seen this campy Corman-produced adaptation of Lovecraft’s famous tale, you might want to Netflix it in time for your pumpkin-carving party.* Produced and shot in 1969 in the immediate wake of Manson Family shenanigans, it’s often pooh-poohed by Lovecraft purists for being too cornball. But in my opinion, Dunwich Horror is actually one of the better adaptations of old Howard P’s oeuvre** with its sumptuous matte paintings, capable-if-hokey performances from the cast, a beautiful score by Les Baxter, and a couple of genuinely creepy moments. Lovecraft stories lend themselves really well to the pyschedelic era.

Yes, he really did just say “horrendipity.”

Starring Dean “Uh Oh, Sam” Stockwell in his most brooding role short of Yueh in Dune, a rather weary-faced-but-supposedly-virginal Sandra Dee, and the even wearier-faced Ed Begley (his final role, R.I.P.), Dunwich Horror is worth renting for the gorgeous animated title sequence alone. Other highlights: the sight of young, yog-sothothelytizing Stockwell’s torso covered in pseudo-runic sharpie scribbles, Sam Jaffe’s “GET OFF MY LAWN” geezerdom, and Gidget clenching her butt in the throes of orgasm on the altar at Devil’s Hopyard.

Other Coilhouse posts of possible interest:

• Tentacle Love: Why?
• The Abominable Dr. Phibes
• Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
• Kenneth Anger: Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome

*Or if you’re really cheap, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.
**Not that that’s saying much, really. Other than ReAnimator, what’ve we got that’s not just crotch-punchingly horrid? Hmmm, let’s see… actually, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at any of these: The Resurrected, Die Monster Die, The Unnameable, that Night Gallery episode Pickman’s Model, and the amazing Call of Cthulhu indie movie that came out recently. Can you guys think of any others? A great suggestion from commenter Jack: Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness.

The WEAM. Does the name ring a bell? No? No, probably not. But it’s one of the more captivating gems I found on a recent visit to Miami, Florida. Buried within that pastel deco tourist wasteland is an unassuming glass entryway with a small sign and a nude statue in the window, a table with some brochures, and an elevator. I happened to see the statue and sign as I was walking by on my way to somewhere else, and was just intrigued enough to drag my companions into that elevator for a peek.

What we found was an unattractively-lit foyer and a high entry fee. Too curious to back down now, I insisted on checking it out so pay we did and in we went. The place was enormous and filled with art and artifacts. “Curated” would not be the right word to describe this haphazard cacophony of objects, arranged on shelves, in glass cases, on pedestals and hanging on every inch of wall space. There were some two dozen rooms and nooks, sort of arranged by place and theme but not really. There are French caricatures, offensive “African primitive” cartoons, horrible paint-by-number nude portraits, serious carvings and phallic sculptures, paintings by many amateurs that seem to be included only because they feature boobies, fetish posters from the ’80s, glass dildos, naughty mechanical sex-themed snuff boxes, a giant four poster bed whose four posts are GIANT PHALLI OVER A FOOT IN DIAMETER… I could go on.

The real treasure, totally unexpected and unadvertised, is located toward the end of the museum. We’d plodded through each of the 20 or so rooms, examining the motley collection of objects erotic, repulsive, curious and hilarious… we were starting to feel fatigued and pressed for time… and then there it was.

The fibreglass rock-a-penis. The very same gleaming white sculpture,
called “The Rocking Machine” featured in A Clockwork Orange. I was
standing face to balls with it. Literally six inches away from it in
all its smooth, shiny glory.

Total. Wholesale. Nerdgasm. Meltdown.

…It’s not for sale. I asked.

(Dejected by this, I turned to the internet, which had happier news for me: Herman Makkink’s famous kinetic sculpture has been recast in a “limited edition” (of a reproduction?) and can be had via his website. I know you’ll sleep better knowing this.)

How does one raise their flag in the flickr ocean and have it be seen in the midst of all those images? There is just so much to sift through in this ever-growing collection of work! Nature photography, self portraiture, explicit sexual imagery, thousands of kitten photos [403,430 at the moment, to be exact] and more, always more. There are a few streams I’ve been following since joining the site two years ago, and I believe they deserve your attention, starting with Vorfas.

This young photographer’s experiments in digital are endlessly entertaining to watch. On parade are mermaids, noir vixens, a circus you’ll want to run away with and a vast collection of self portraits. The  platinum-haired beauty captures herself as silent starlet, dominatrix, bubbly pinup and disgruntled nymphette among a long cast of characters. It has been fascinating to see Vorfas’ work progress from portraiture to the surreal and narrative. Perhaps an overactive imagination can be blamed for some of my reaction, but nothing looks like just a pretty picture anymore. There’s a little universe behind each of these frames that beckons to keep watching.

More Vorfas awaits, after the jump!

Don’t Hate by Ingrid

I often gush about Doctor Sketchy’s Anti Art School, but today the news is not so sunny. Last weekend in Portland, Maine a Sketchy’s model fell victim to a violent hate crime. Found unconscious on a sidewalk by a passing stranger, the 31 year old recalls little of the incident after sustaining a blow to the head. He was walking home after midnight on Friday, when two men approached him, spitting homophobic slurs and eventually resorting to violence, all because the young man “looked gay”. The victim, who suffered a concussion and bleeding to the brain, was released from Maine Medical Center to recover at home. The police are searching for the alleged perpetrators.

From Maine Today:

The suspects in this case are described as being in their early 20’s. One is a black male, between 5-feet-6-inches and 5-feet-10-inches tall, with a muscular build and shaved head or very short hair. The other suspect was described as a white male, thin build with long brown hair. The car they fled in was a late model white four-door sedan with “fancy” chrome wheels, police Captain Vernon Malloch said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Portland police at 874-8604 or visit the department’s Web site, www.police.portlandmaine.gov, and click on “citizen input”.

• Full article on Maine Today
• Website dedicated to this case

“I paid for a lap dance, not a desk dance.” Caption/image via Pop Sensation.

Faux lesbianism – yet another value that this great country has lost. Just look at Katie Perry’s disgrace of a music video, “I Kissed a Girl.” As heyguysitsthebible points out, “Katy Perry is no fake lesbian. She’s fake questioning. She’s fake experimenting. And that’s not good enough.” Indeed. The author proceeds to dolefully recount the good old days, back when this country still had some backbone, in which bands like t.A.T.u had to actually make out with each other to prove that they were indeed true fake lesbians. The depths to which this nation has sunk! Not only does Katy Perry fail to lock lips with a single female in her music video, but to add insult to injury, in the end she actually wakes up next to her boyfriend, realizing that her super-safe, bowdlerized lesbian fantasy (or was it a fantasy about being in an ad for Claire’s Accessories?) was just a dream. Damn it, we are better than these last eight years.

Jill Sobule, whose catchier, wittier “I Kissed a Girl” video became a controversial hit in the pre-Ellen mid-90s (to be fair, her video doesn’t have a kiss in it either, though it does have Fabio in uniform, which somehow makes it extra-gay), isn’t bothered: “I don’t feel precious about the title, but I’ve gotten tons of e-mails from annoyed fans,” she recently told EW.com. “Maybe I’ll write a third ‘I Kissed a Girl’ for fun… it will be about how I kissed her, left the dull boyfriend, got gay-married in California, and really no one gave a shit.”

Meanwhile, real lesbians continue to make music! Uh Huh Her just released a new music video. The luscious Leisha Hailey looks oddly like Cylon Six in it, but the real star is still the hipster unicorn.

“taken”, Oil & graphite on wood 19×26, ‘Mayoi Michi’ @ Copro Nason

The work of 26-year-old painter Audrey Kawasaki, LA darling of the pop surrealist movement, always forces me into the persistent place between discomfort, cynicism and arousal.

On the one hand, her wood-panel paintings of languid, smooth and pale-skinned androgynous beauties are meticulously rendered with a sure hand and extreme eye for detail and aesthetic flow. The flawless pink and white skin of her sexy imaginary youngsters always seems to glow from within the image, the subjects look longing out with their impossibly big cartoon eyes as though they’re just aching to be touched, stroked, set free from their 2-D prison. The Art Nouveau-inspired flower, branch and seaweed forms that often surround the figures seems to undulate suggestively, giving the fantasy portraits a honey-slow-motion feel and matching soundtrack (in my head, anyway). I sort of want to go dunk my head in a bucket of icewater just thinking about the glistening parted lips and come-hither stares of her paintings. Ahem.

On the other hand, my intellectual mind can’t help leaping in to question the reactions of my lizard brain. Her style is incredibly consistent, almost to an obsessive degree; the figures she paints could all be related, and they all appear to exist in the same world, the same erotic melancholy state of waiting to be touched and taken. I am here in stasis, they say, I am waiting for you.

“Kakure Zakura”, Oil & graphite on wood 20×15, ‘Innocents’ @ Lineage

• Kakurenbu Info
• Audrey Kawaski’s Website
• Audrey Kawasaki’s Blog
• Interview at Mactribe

[Please welcome our newest guest blogger, Irene Kaoru. Irene is a designer, photographer, model, artist, and sculptor. Irene’s blog can be found here, and prints of her work can be found here.]

I must hear the fireworks. This is vital to the whole experience.

Found by Storm – a  m4w Craig’s List ad titled “Want it from behind while you play Super Mario Brothers?” The entire scene is too long and raunchy to repost here, but here’s the gist:

When you arrive the door will be open. Please come in close and lock the door and close the shades if they are still open. I will be in the bathroom and the door will be closed. Turn on the TV and the Nintendo. Remove all of your clothing. Turn off all lights in the room and kneel down on the bed so you are directly in the light of the TV.

After a bit of Goomba-stomping, platform-jumping, brick-smashing foreplay, Serious Business ensues:

When you reach the end of level one, make sure to trigger the fireworks. This is vital to the entire experience. I must hear the fireworks. When level 2 begins and Mario walks into the pipe, I will penetrate you.

But it’s not all fun and games! “I will continue having sex until the level ends. DO NOT take the secret level skip. If you die I will pull out and spank you until the level restarts.”

Creepy? Hilarious? Awesome? Fake? Whatever – I’ve found his soul mate!

Don’t know what to get Granny for Christmas now that her collection of Hummel figurines is complete? How about this winsome “Bunny Sees Boobs” sculpture by Colin Christian? Think about it.

“Pardon! Bonjour! Fromage!” (photo by Rafe Baron.)

One balmy summer’s eve a couple years ago, Herr Titler came into my life. I was standing in the wings of an ancient Brooklyn theater, reeling in the chaos of Amanda Palmer’s boisterous Fuck The Back Row film/music/theater revue night, when I beheld a broad-shouldered figure in a slinky cocktail gown and perilous high heels. With his sultry voice, his sharply parted/pomaded hair and villainous moustache, Titler was simultaneously demure yet forceful, domineering yet somehow… dainty. I tell ya, he KILLED it that night.

Having basked in his commanding presence, I have trouble understanding what zealots on either side of the ongoing Dr. Steel vs Dr. Horrible debate are getting their jodhpurs in such a twist over! For my money, Titler is all anyone could ever want in a singing musical madman, with the unexpected (but welcome) bonus of a truly fetching décolletage.

Comrades! For your consideration:

Like every other sentimental mooncalf who watched too many Merchant Ivory flicks as a young girl, I continue to allow the actor Julian Sands to occupy a very special place in my heart, despite everything. Never mind Warlock. Or Harem. Forget Boxing Helena and Biker Mice From Mars. Put these sundries from your minds, my dears. Recall only A Room With A View, and Sands’ convincingly heterosexual ravishing of Helena Bonham Carter in a field of poppies.* It remains, to this day, one of my top picks for Most Romantic Moment in Cinema (seconded only by this tender scene from Myra Breckenridge).

I also happen to be a HYOOOGE fan of the Italian horror director, Dario Argento, so when I heard that he and Sands worked together ten years ago on an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, I was quite curious! Why had I never heard about this movie before? Why?! I promptly Netflixed it.

“I gotta be MEEEEEEE.” Julian Sands in Il Fantasma.

Why, oh, why, indeed. Yes, Sands and Argento work seamlessly together… in a So-Bad-it’s-a-Festering-Masterpiece kind of way, their combined efforts cradling the budding psychosexual genius of Asia Argento like two slices of moldy sourdough bread wrapped around a generous dollop of indeterminate ooze in a rat salad sandwich.

The movie is quite long, and something tells me few of you will appreciate the full length version as much as I did. Luckily, Genevieve, a brilliant columnist over at Defenestration Magazine, has provided us with this MST3K-worthy “abridged version”. I laughed, I cried, it was better than… that other Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Enjoy:

Parts II and III under the cut.