Hans Baldung Grien- A Fan of Naked Witches

Aside from having an unfortunate middle name, Hans Baldung Grien was a 15th century German painter, printmaker, designer and draftsmen who liked to paint religious scenes (of course), eventually graduating to his real passion- naked witches. He was probably a pretty messed up guy. He seemed obsessed with carnal lust and believed it contributed to the fall of man- but also couldn't stop painting naked chicks.

Obviously conflicted by his own desires, his pieces are jarring scenes of often lurid eroticism, spiked with highly disturbed, horrifying religious imagery. Skeletons sexually assaulting women, Adam feeling up Eve, suggestive serpents- these are just some of the wondrous scenes to behold. A student of famous painter Albrecht Durer, he is most famous for his thrilling and painstakingly detailed woodcuts and prints. Two Witches (the featured painting) is one of his best painted works- the flesh of the women is lush and rich.

He also liked to draw horses fighting each other.

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Welcome to my Nightmare

Probably not Fellini's best work, but still intriguing,
Juliet of the Spirits chronicles the spiritual awakening and emotionally turbulent journey undergone by an unhappy house wife, played with sensitivity by Fellini's wife in real life- Giulietta Masina. Steeped in mysticism with a wonderfully odd cast, the film is visually stunning, but sometimes feels more stylish than substantive. However, the performances of Masina and Sandra Milo (as Giulietta's perpetually horny, mischievous guide) make the experience more than worthwhile. The film pops with color and nightmarish surrealism, and Masina's enormous brown eyes are deep wells of perpetual sadness and curiosity.

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs- what the fuck is going on here?

This beautifully painted French work from 1594 is spiked with rich color and sensual symbolism.

And I'm sure you've noticed that one chick is squeezing the other chick's nipple. I mean, I
figured you had. It's pretty distracting. Seriously, though, what is up with that?

More strange things about this painting:

They're sisters.
The one on the right is King Henry IV's mistress.
She's holding his coronation ring.
She's pregnant.
Everyone is left-handed.
The painting in the background is of a naked dude.
The artist is unknown.

Mi Frida Loca

Known primarily for her self portraits, her infamous (and exaggerated) uni-brow, and for her tumultuous relationship with fellow artist, Diego Rivera- Frida Kahlo isn't often recognized for the alluring surreal pieces and patiently executed still lifes she also created. That, and the fact that she probably had sex with Georgia O'Keefe.

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Welcome to my Nightmare

Bizarre nightmare/animation sequence from another Hitchcock classic- Vertigo

First Submissions.

Fellow Man - Keith Ransom

in the smell of the underground way of transporting
while riding the rails from stop to stop,
we meet eyes.
a man and a man.

I can feel the pain off him like fingers to Braille
and watching him breathe was disheartening
such deep breaths.
the kind you suck in
but suck everything out of you and hurt your chest.

So I give him a look of 'brother i feel you'
and 'tell me what to do to deliver your from whatever ails you'
no spoken words.
just the look.

He shakes his head slow in the way of a 'no'
and for then shakes it off.

The he shows me his teeth for showing concern.
And I show him mine back and give him a nod.
dear god.
please help fellow man live and breathe easier.

Hot Item

I'm no Elle Macpherson, but I do get hit on, and in what seem to be increasingly humorous and revolting ways- attracting an unsavory crowd sometimes. Where I live I could step out in a hospital gown with no make-up on and I end up looking pretty damn good in comparison to some of the perplexing beasts roaming around. That sounds mean, and it is.

I've inspired impromptu rap songs from 18 year-old thugs ("Fresh from the shower, shorty got power!"), offers of free motel-room-tattoos from ex cons, and tender promises like "If I wasn't 65 and basically impotent, I'd do you so good." I once had a Jamaican guy buy the six pack of Red Stripe I was holding in line at the liquor store, follow me to my car, and ask me "to party". In retrospect, it's possible he thought I was a prostitute. Developmentally disabled men leave cupcakes on my desk. The recently sober, recently divorced, recently released- they shuffle over if I unintentionally make eye contact and state their crazy business. The elderly. People who don't speak English. Alcoholic bosses. Potential stalkers. Subscribers to porn channels.

Once, years ago, a well dressed man resembling LL Cool J (and who really seemed very nice) asked for my phone number. I was so shocked, I gave it to him. About an hour later he started sending me dirty text messages. I asked him politely to stop, then told him to fuck off when they continued. Although I didn't hear from him again, all week I thought of the Forensic Files episode on which I would appear- after he inevitably murdered me in some grocery store parking lot. I prayed they could find at least one flattering picture of me to feature.

SUBMIT!

Now accepting submissions of art, poetry, music, reviews, angry rants and hate mail.

Cross Bones Style- The Work of Charles-Frederic Soehnee

Charles-Frederic Soehnee was a French artist who painted a series of bewitching and grotesque water colors between 1818 and 1819. The titles of his works read like a Black Sabbath track listing- Cradle of Death, Journey to Hell, Cover the Earth with Tombs (my favorite..)

Pictured in this odd collection are skeletonized creatures, tattered rodents and humans with smudged features of desperation and anguish. The narratives are eerie, macabre tales of giant lobsters, hanging corpses and monsters with their bones showing. The participants always appear to be on some awful journey. It's unknown if he completed other works not included in the three notebooks he left behind. That's basically all I have to say about him. Oh, and he also created a type of varnish.

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May

May is an oddly bent, gentle horror film soaked in blood and spotted with dark humor, despair, a killer soundtrack and occasional sewing. Written and directed by Lucky Mckee, it's naughty, vicious, and sweet- even romantic- and you want to follow it wherever it goes.

Alternating between fragility and detachment, Angela Bettis sinks fish hooks in your heart with her lazy-eyed, skittish handling of the disturbed May Dove Kennedy.

When May continually experiences rejection and isolation as a child and then again as an adult, we mourn the loss of her warm, quick smile. We cringe as May's only friend turns out to be the chalk-faced doll given to her during childhood by her emotionally vacant mother.

Jeremy Sisto and Anna Faris play Adam and Polly- two people intrigued by May at first, but who soon grow suspicious as her feelings escalate- her clumsy attempts at companionship causing unease. Sisto and Faris are compelling here as well, bringing impressive depth and humor to their roles. Angela Bettis is sublime, though- her twitchy performance of May makes the film leap from horror to character study.

Bettis shifts seamlessly from sweet to unhinged as her character's anguish ignites from the repeated failures to connect with Adam and Polly. Her world burns and collapses. When the unimaginable occurs, the blood comes and beats in your throat like a hummingbird. The ending is chilling and sick.

Best ending ever.

Full Moon and You're Not Here

Useless moon,
too beautiful to waste
But you, my Cinderella,
have the midnight curfew,
a son waiting to be picked up from his den meeting,
and the fractured marriage weighing on your head
like a crown of thorns.

Oh my beauty,
it's not polite
to keep me waiting,
To send me reeling into a spiral
and then to say good night.

I smoke a cigar,
play a tango,
gulp my gin and tonic.

Goddamn you.

Full moon and you're not here.
I take off the silk slip,
the silver bangles.

You're in love with my mind.

But sometimes, sweetheart,
a woman needs a man
who loves her ass.

- Sandra Cisneros (from: Loose Woman)

3 Strange Paintings

Joan Miro

The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers. The title seems inexplicable at first, but upon inspection of this surreal, child-like painting, you can almost see this unfold. This is a magical work from Spanish painter, Joan Miro, from his Constellation Collection. In it we see an example of "automatic drawing"- a thing surrealists did, where they just allowed themselves to draw random, meandering shit from their subconscious.

Manet was cooler than Monet

Painted by outlaw Impressionist/Realist Eduard Manet around 1863, Dejeuner sur l'herbe ("The Lunch on the Grass") was a very controversial piece back in the day. In it, a woman sits with two other guys (note- the one facing us is Manet's brother), enjoying what appears to be a nice picnic on a sunny afternoon. The problem? She's naked. Not only is she naked, but she's staring the viewer down- deliberately, boldly. As if to say- "Yeah, I'm naked with a couple of dudes, eating sandwiches, you have a fucking problem with that?"

It stirred a lot of shit up for various reasons. People weren't thrilled about the model. The nude woman, Victorine Meurant, was a guitarist in seedy clubs and had a suspicious background. Manet was drawn to her odd beauty and free spirit, though, and ended up using her for most of his works.

People were also bent out of shape because it was taken from the present- they were more comfortable with nudity if it was clearly from the past. Not having some historical separation from the scene made the audience extremely uneasy. The painting was, of course, received with total outrage, which did nothing to deter Manet. He followed it up with this ..

This is Olympia and people are pretty sure it's a painting of a naked hooker.

Cosimo Tura

This is Spring by Cosimo Tura, an Italian painter born in 1430, who probably painted this as part of a larger group of paintings depicting The Muses. It's believed this is Calliope, Greek Muse of poetry. I don't know a lot about Cosimo Tura, except he never married, knocked up his housekeeper, and liked to be called Cosme.

Most of his works consist of unsettling, lushly painted religious imagery, as was pretty standard for the time. However in Spring we meet a captivating and formidable woman seated on a throne- flanked by vicious copper dolphins with ruby eyes? Or something. Painted in oils with opulent color that has a pulse, this piece is beautiful and complex.

Bosch Spice

Hieronymus Bosch was a Dutch artist who painted men with birds shooting from their asses, poultry tied to trees, and a lot of naked people cavorting with (and being tortured by) demons.

He left no letters or diaries, and some believe he may never have even traveled from the city he was presumably born, good old.. 's-Hertogenbosch- which, in the 15th century, was probably filled with monasteries and not much else. It's guessed he was trained in the arts by either his father or uncle- but none of their paintings exist. His birth date is unknown.

His paintings are a mixture of horrifying and whimsical images; sinners being forced to repent, joyous, ripe scenery brimming with nude women and fruit, monsters slithering at every corner. And the occasional pig dressed as a nun. Some have interpreted his works as early surrealism meant to amuse or bewilder. Others point out references to alchemy, astrology and witchcraft- while most seem to think they're probably just depictions of standard religious practices, executed in lurid and unusual ways.

One controversial and largely unfounded theory is from a guy named Wilhelm Fraenger, who thinks Bosch may have been a member of some weird heretical sect called "The Brethren of the Free Spirit". Ironically, little is known about this group either, but rumor has it they were pretty naughty and probably had orgies and stuff. Bosch's most popular painting- The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych of fantastical images where the creation of the world unfolds (and then sort of goes to hell), according to Fraenger's theory, may have instead been an account of Bosch's questionable (and highly speculative) practices in the crazy group. If that's true, those were some wicked parties.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (the middle panel of the triptych- pictured above) has been reproduced almost as many times as The Mona Lisa and is just as mysterious. It's believed that a creature commonly referred to as "the tree man", featured prominently in the third panel, is actually a self portrait of the artist.

If this is true, it's easily the most insane self portrait in the history of the universe. In it, a man sort of sheepishly, humorously (?.. it's hard to tell..) glances at the viewer from over his shoulder (if he had one). The form consists of what appear to be trees for legs, and an egg shell body with demons taking a smoke break in the ass. Is it a version of Satan? Is he portraying himself as a fellow sinner? Or is he just fucking with us?

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The first time ever I blogged this place.

Look. This blog will probably strive for revolutionary but get irreverent, at best. More than likely it will contain glaring discrepancies, bizarre (possibly unfounded) observations, grammatical errors, and a whole lot of movie and music clips. It will alternate between confessional and obtuse, between self deprecation and passive aggressive snobbishness. It's continuity will struggle. One day it may be a site for widows to share recipes, the next a place for foot fetishists to mingle.

My hope is to provide incendiary language that provokes people, inspires them- but more than likely there will just be a lot of swearing. This blog does promise raunch, art, humor, discomfort, annoyance, beauty, horror, and cautious optimism.

Don't be surprised if one moment you're watching a clip of Patsy Cline and the next you're horrified by my defending of Howard Stern as a feminist. Or something. In any case, I'll try to achieve a nice balance between the gory and the beautiful, although they're both so fucking close.

Oh, and as an addendum- I owe much of this to my childhood friend, Ransom, who is credited with not only telling me my first dirty joke, but also with having a much better blog than mine will ever be.

Spellbound

Romaine Brooks- Italians do it better

Romaine Brooks was an Italian-American artist/hottie/bisexual/pants-wearing bad-ass. She had a shitty childhood, married a gay guy, chopped her hair and then took up with many "special lady friends", including the writer Natalie Barney and some princess. She lived for a long time and went crazy. She was known mostly for some self portraits and paintings of androgynous women.

Her surreal works somehow managed to be both sublimely drab and vivid. Working in gray tones with an occasional slash of red, she created pieces full of shadows and haunted expressions lined with soot. Her more colorful pieces are dazzling, but equally weighty.



She had the nerve to include nude pieces (of chicks) in an exhibition, much to the dismay of judgmental pricks everywhere. This was in like, friggin' 1910. Can you imagine the clucks of disapproval, hairy eyeballs and nervous laughter incited back then? Christ.

I'm giving her a mere sliver of the props she deserves with my spotty/abysmal effort.. she doesn't seem to get adequate recognition for her work, which is a shame. You know the names of Picasso and Matisse, but why the hell not Brooks? Her work was totally killer.

Karen's O face

Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs is like the love child of Siouxsie Sioux and Zeus. She has a voice that goes from soft and syrupy to sounding like a skinned ferret is trying to scratch it's way out of her throat. Her performances are weird, awkward, often times bordering on silly and incomprehensible with her strange yoga-like poses and costumes that would make Elton John look like a high school principal. Sometimes she drops the microphone and smiles crookedly, sweetly. Sometimes it's hard to tell if she's having an orgasm or a seizure. When she performs she's like a fire breathing goddess with restless leg syndrome in a pair of fishnets.

She also has fantastic legs and the weirdest hair cuts I've ever seen.

When I first heard Fever to Tell I couldn't decide if it made me want to dance or have an orgy with robots in outer space. The songs are little bursts of sexually charged, anarchistic musings with guitar and drums that at first seem pretty indie-standard, but coupled with Karen O's strange vocals and omnipotent stage presence, they become almost extraordinary. I'm no musical genius, but Brian Chase (on drums) and Nick Zinner (on guitar) sound pretty great to me, but that being said, it's sort of all about Karen O. They don't seem to mind..

Choosing a video to post was tough- there is a lot out there, and truthfully, some of the live stuff is either thrilling or .. meh.. Karen O does, however, seem to only be getting better as a performer, and it's exciting to watch her become more comfortable and further transform into the bizarre creature you see before you.

This first selection is a cool video for the song Gold Lion off their second studio album Show your Bones.

Fire good.

This next video is a live performance of Down Boy from Letterman, who has had them on several times, which just adds to his coolness. When he greets Karen O at the end of the song it becomes apparent he may have a tiny crush.

It's tame in comparison to much of the live stuff that's out there, but I love this performance for some reason. There is something vulnerable about her, despite the power she exudes. I don't know what the fuck she's wearing (vinyl and horse hair?), but I defy anyone not to be at least a little turned on.

The twisted truth

Dr. John Kellogg (yes- the inventor of cornflakes) devoted much of his life to campaigning against female masturbation. Believe it or not, it actually gets worse from there..