We are going to get right into it because you and I both know that there are copies to be made and collated A.S.A.P. As in As Soon As Possible. As in by 10 minutes ago.

The Naked Lunch is a mess of a novel which, I suppose, was the point. William S. Burroughs’s most famous work, made possible by the cut-up technique he championed* was decried as pornographic when it was published in Paris in 1959. It wasn’t published in the U.S. until 1962 where an obscenity trial was held for it and it was banned by courts in Boston, though the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned that ban in 1966. What The Naked Lunch is about is hard to say. There is a man named William Lee. He is an Agent. There are strange, far off places with names like Interzone and Freeland. There is a lot of sex of many varieties, centipedes, drugs, pedophilia, and Mugwumps. Somewhere in all this is satire. Mostly, it is nonsense.

And yet, it is interesting nonsense which is the key to its enduring legacy and the reason that David Cronenberg decided to make a movie out of it in 1991 starring Peter Weller, pulling an excellent Burroughs imitation. Also mixed in there are Ian Holm, Judy Davis and a crazed cameo by Roy Scheider. Naked Lunch does its best to make some kind of narrative out of Uncle Bill’s series of vignettes by filling in many of the gaps with snippets taken from Burroughs’s life, meaning we get to meet fellow Beat writers Alan Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac in the forms of Bill’s friends Martin and Hank. It also features the infamous “William Tell routine” which resulted in Burroughs shooting and killing his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer Burroughs née Adams, in 1951 for which he would spend 13 days in jail and eventually receive a suspended 2 year sentence, in absentia.

Luckily, the novel contains a plethora of just the kind of body horror material that so appealed to Cronenberg before 2002’s Spider. Fluids, orifices, and gruesome transformations are in gleeful abundance and the end result is a film that keeps the hallucinatory vision of the novel while adding a narrative anchor to keep it from completely floating away. Also, it helped to insure that, should one ever have to name a foreign rent-boy for their novel, short story, movie, whatever, it will always be Kiki. Always.

*This is not true, as pointed out by Ben Morris in the comments. While it is considered part of Burroughs’s cut-up period it was not produced using this method, a method Burroughs became acquainted with only after the publication of “The Naked Lunch”, meaning that Burroughs required no special technique to write a confusing mess of a book.

Well hello there!

Do you lack healthy boundaries? Are you guilty of the compulsive overshare? All-too-eager to share gory, palpating details with complete strangers that no one besides your own mother and/or proctologist would ever want to know?

Non-consensual boner anecdote-telling. Tactical uterus hurling in lieu of real intimate contact. The “I wasn’t breast fed enough so now I need to publicly air my personal anguish to feel properly nurtured and validated” power point presentation. “Cry For Help” cutting (across the street, not down the road). Cloaking references to life-shattering trauma in Obfuscating Yet Ominous Faerie Singsong™ (a Tori Amos patent).  “Fuck You Daddy, I’m a Suicide Girl Now!” blog posts. Spontaneous primal scream therapy in the supermarket. If you have ever attempted one or more of these maneuvers, chance are, you’re a TMI Avenger.

Relax. You’re among friends. And you’re gonna loooove Body Memories. A squirm-inducing, low budget film directed by the same fella who brought us one of the most fabulous independent documentaries of the decade, Body Memories is…

…one man’s journey inward to find meaning in his life. He becomes an archeologist of the soul, digging through the layers of his past. Evocative images blend with a riveting performance that uncovers family secrets and buried traumas.

Enjoy.

(More clips under the cut.)

fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapOH GOOD MORNING COMRADES I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE.

What’s that? Oh, um. I was just, uh, playing with my tribble.

Ariana showed me the following picture last night…

…which spurred me to revisit that notorious “Closer” slashup, the gravitational pull of which sent me spiraling down a long, twisted YouTube wormhole of Trekkie aberration and depravity. Woooo!

To help you get your sluggish blood pumping, I’d like to share a bit of what I found with you. Just the tip…

…of the proverbial iceberg, I mean.

See also:

• Shatner of the Mount
• Nixa: The Kirk/Spock of Our Generation
• Belgian Trekkie Weirdness, Parts One & Two
• Infinite Khan (also, unsurprisingly, Ariana’s fault)

I was torn over this post. You see, I’ve been suffering a bit of a blogging identity crisis. More and more I feel like I’m becoming “That guy who finds stuff on YouTube” which is fine, I suppose, if you’re looking to make a career as a human search engine, but maybe not so much if you’re trying to become a well rounded writer. On the other hand, human search engine could be an unfilled niche; something I could get into on the ground floor. Something less disastrous than my forays into hardcore mollusc pornography and fish whispering.

But enough about my self-doubts. It would behoove you all to watch Patrick Duffy and the Crab starting with the episode above in which Patrick and the crab discuss their first forays into the sexual arena. It’s full of insights into the worlds of fame, sex and the cultural fascination with the sexually predatory older woman. There’s a good reason for it, and it has nothing to do with sex.

via The Daily What

The Compagnie Philippe Genty is widely regarded to be one of the most accomplished and gutsy performing arts troupes currently working on the world stage. Their elaborate productions defy easy categorization, using a mixture of puppetry, mime and dance in conjunction with elaborate costuming and props. The narratives and meanings behind their productions are even more difficult to nail down; usually there’s no coherent, linear plot. Surreal, sometimes nightmarish vignettes play out like Freudian wet dreams:

(Via Whittles, thanks!)

Translating roughly from the French on their website, Philippe Gentry calls their story-building process one of free association.”The company is intent on exploring a visual language that reveals and plays upon conflicting aspects of human nature. When a scene takes place in the subconscious, following neither linear narrative nor the psychology of traditional characters, there are no hard and fast laws of causality. Instead, the performances resonate with our inner landscapes, provoking the emergence of these unspoken and insane hopes, these fears, these shames and desires… these shared, unlimited spaces.”

All that deep and somber explication aside, sometimes the troupe’s output is just downright hilarious:

Several more clips after the jump.

Every once in a while, you’ll find a sparkling diamond of truth in the most unexpected of places, like an ’80s dating video montage, for instance:

Via Gala Darling, xox.

Check out the silver fox with a poetic streak at 1:28: “Who so binds to himself a joy, doth its winged life destroy.” Poignant and all-too-often true, no? Love will die if held too tightly, love will fly if held to lightly, and pal, love will most definitely elude you if you insist on bringing up that sponge ball incident EVER AGAIN.

Been savin’ this one for a rainy day:

https://vimeo.com/129275251

Director Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 arthouse horror film, Possession, is a fail-safe litmus test. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you’ll drop this movie’s name in casual conversation only to be met with a sunny, uncomprehending stare, or “oh, you mean that Gwyneth Paltrow movie?” Far fewer and further between will be those times when you watch a slow-dawning, complex expression of kinship and mental anguish creep over a person’s face: “oh my god, the subway scene,” they’ll murmur, or “that poor ballerina…” or “remember the squid baby?”

While Zulawski’s vision of hysterical woman-as-monster isn’t quite on par with [edit: or rather, I should clarify, isn’t quite as coherent as] those put forward by Cronenberg, Polanski, or Lynch, some of the scenes are absolutely mind-blowing. This is an experimental film where a young woman’s intense anxiety and hormonal imbalance causes her –literally– to give birth to a Lovecraftian lover (designed by the dude who crafted E.T. ), with dire consequences. Demonizing like that just doesn’t happen every day! (Apparently, the film was inspired by Zulawski’s recent divorce. Go fig.)

Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill

In particular, spooky boho art school chicks really seem to bond over Possession. It’s like our Thelma & Louise. I’m pretty sure our fascination has to something to do with all of the unrestrained freakouts, blood, and tentacle sex. There’s just something strangely comforting about watching a cool, porcelain beauty break through the fourth wall and then break down, howling, in a puddle of bodily excretions. It’s like, no matter how “psycho” I get when I’m “ragging out”, I know I haven’t hit rock bottom.

Rock bottom is Isabelle Adjani in that subway tunnel in Possession.

Goddamn, your manager is a douche. I mean, it’s not just me, right? Like, he’s a total douche with his douchey paisley tie and his douchey, meticulously pressed pants, and his douchey attitude all sauntering over to your desk to “see how that proposal is going” and then launch into another retelling of his Labor Day weekend away from the “bitch and the brats” to go golfing with his buddies who are also, no doubt, just as douchey or perhaps more douchey than he is. Nah, that can’t be possible. This guy is too much of a douche; there can’t possibly be another person who could eclipse the blinding glare of his douchiness. This man is like the Platonic Ideal of a douche. Just…argh, such a douche.

Well, at least he’s reminded you that, at least in America, it was only a four day work week. This is good. Your boss, standing by your desk, reeking as though he bathes in Drakkar Noir, is not. Time to drive him away. Tell him you need to get back to work; have to finish that proposal. Is he gone? Yes he is. Don’t worry the Drakkar will dissipate soon enough, just power through it for now; for now is the time for the FAM.

This afternoon: David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. Many of you may have seen it. If not, I’m only going to drop a few, key phrases on you. They are, as follows: whipping, televisions, pulsating, hand gun, stomach vagina, Debbie Harry. That is all. Press play and enjoy.

Does anybody else who wore a flannel tied around their waist in the mid 90s remember the band Whale? Anyone? Kinda? Barely? Yeah… I know most of the hissing, static backwash of post-grunge era MTV Alternative Nation had all but evaporated from my palate. But to this day, there’s a place in my heart (and pants) for that frizzy-haired “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” and her mouth full of braces. In the Venn Diagram where silly and sexy intersect, stands Cia Berg.

Years after Whale had receded into distant memory, I stumbled across the above video of a super young, extra svelte Cia goofing off with her first band, Ubangi. I’d never heard of ’em before, but it was love at first listen. The guys in the group are hilarious; they reminds me of a low-rent, less dignified DEVO (if they’re derivative it’s in the best possible way!) and baby Berg looks quite fetching without the punk rock perm.

A few more adorable Ubangi clips (including a ditty called “Where Have All the Good Sperms Gone”??!) after the jump.

If one were to attend law school one could do a lot worse than New York University. The prestigious institution has a long and storied history. It also has an excellent program which invites well educated law professors from around the world to teach at NYU for a semester. This fall, Thio Li-ann will be teaching a class on human rights. Dr. Li-ann has an impressive résumé with degrees from Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford. She has served on various law and advisory boards and taught at universities in New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan. She has written papers on international law and human rights. She has also served in parliament in her home of Singapore where she worked tirelessly to protect the public from sodomy by supporting the continuation of legislation that criminalizes homosexual acts.

That last point seems to have angered some gay and lesbian students, many of whom are members of NYU OUTLaw. The group sent out an email to fellow students drawing attention to statements made by Dr. Li-ann in a speech she gave to Singapore’s Parliament on October 22, 2007 (transcript here; video above) concerning the fate of 377A of Singapore’s penal code which states the following:

Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.

Over the course of her argument Li-ann provides a laundry list of reasons for why this statute must stand and just how its repeal would cause society to collapse into a sweaty pile of diseased, unmarried, sex-crazed perverts who would, presumably, roam the streets raping children and feasting on the flesh of heterosexuals. The scope of her speech is, at times, breathtaking. She argues that homosexuality is a choice and homosexuals can change. She supposes that terms like “sexual orientation” can not only apply to homosexuality but to incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. She is also concerned about health, arguing that sodomy breeds disease with this, astonishing simile: “Anal-penetrative sex is inherently damaging to the body and a misuse of organs, like shoving a straw up your nose to drink.”

She then goes on to provide a handy list of five key steps that supporters of the gay agenda subscribe to in order to push their views and undermine society, one of which looks to lower the age of consent and another which looks to prohibit discrimination based and sexual orientation. These quickly bring her back to, you guessed it, pedophilia; going as far as to quote the “motto” of NAMBLA. She wraps up this particular section with a warning for the ladies:

To slouch back to Sodom is to return to the Bad Old Days in ancient Greece or even China where sex was utterly wild and unrestrained, and homosexuality was considered superior to man-women relations. Women’s groups should note that where homosexuality was celebrated, women were relegated to low social roles; when homosexuality was idealized in Greece, women were objects not partners, who ran homes and bore babies. Back then, whether a man had sex with another man, woman or child was a matter of indifference, like one’s eating preferences. The only relevant category was penetrator and penetrated; sex was not seen as interactive intimacy, but a doing of something to someone. How degrading.

She then goes on to blame the invention of marriage on the Torah, which I find not only ridiculous but highly offensive. One would like to think we’ve progressed far enough to where such antisemitism from an elected official would not be tolerated. It seems that people are still more than willing to blame the world’s ills on the Jews.

NYU has, thus far, not elected to rescind Dr. Li-ann’s invitation to teach, but there are questions that must be asked; the first and foremost of those being whether or not she is qualified to teach a class on human rights, something Cary Nelson, national president of the American Association of University Professors — which has advised NYU on this matter — has doubts: “Academic freedom protects you from retaliation for your extramural remarks, but it does not protect you from being prohibited from teaching in an area where you are not professionally competent […]”

via Inside Higher Ed