Godammit, I’m Mad!

I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know anything about The Rake’s Progress until I read an article about the fascinating Robert Lepage. I googled around to learn more about the opera, composed by Stravinsky in 1947.

It’s a three act opera featuring several elements that I count among my many obsessions.

A man is tempted by The Devil to leave his country-bred sweetheart to seek fortune in the big city. There, he is seduced into marrying a Bearded Lady and invests all his money in an invention that proves to be a sham. He wins a final bet with the Devil, who then curses him with Insanity. The hero dies in Bedlam.

What more could one ask for in an opera? I need to get Lepage’s production of it, recorded in Brussels.

If you’re interested in mental asylums, I wrote about Cane Hill here. If you’re interested in Bearded Ladies, you can go here.

If you’re not interested in any of that, how about this Pvc Bustle Skirt? It’s only $150 and with the matching top, it looks like something Vivienne Westwood might have designed, doesn’t it?

I usually hate jewelry with affirmative words on it, like “peace” or “soul” but when I saw this bracelet I stopped in my tracks. Why didn’t I think of this before! My purpose on earth is to provoke. It is probably the one word that most describes my personality.

This bracelet by Aurora Lopez-Mejia is hand-stamped 22k gold, and it looks nice and chunky. I would love to see it on my wrist!  However, I would like my credit card balance to go down, not up.

As you see in the photo of Sister Wolf age sweet sixteen, provoking has always been a priority. At present, I am provoking some misogynist losers on another blog, where some angry man told me to “Go do the dishes!”

Hahaha! What an idiot. Everyone knows that my husband does the dishes, because he’s the one who likes them clean.

In the old days, I provoked some guy on mySpace  into wanting to shoot me. It was much funnier than it sounds, I can assure you.  What is more fun that provoking (besides sex, eating and shopping?)

I’m sorry, I can’t seem to avoid penises.  This time, I was browsing some gossip site and saw a picture of director/douchebag Brett Ratner at a party celebrating the launch of a new book. Sure enough, it turned out to be a new title by Taschen called ‘The Big Penis Book.’

“This hefty book is profusely illustrated with over 400 historic photos of spectacular male endowments, including rare photos of the legendary John Holmes.”

Okay! What’s not to love about this book? You can look at some of its contents at the Taschen website, but I personally am afraid to do so.  Maybe I will once the kids are asleep.  Let me know what you think.

I haven’t bought any Play-Doh in years, but I’m very excited about this 50th Anniversary pack, with 50 different colors. Remember how hard it could be to get just the right color?

Actually, I used to be pretty good with Play-doh.  I have told this story before but it’s worth telling again because of the Miracle:

When my son was around two years old, I had to watch the O.J. Simpson trial every day, just like everyone else who had a TV.  While it was on, my son and I worked with Play-Doh on the tray of his high-chair. I remember making a little Marcia Clark figure and a little O.J. too. One day I was just absent-mindedly squishing some Play-Doh when I looked down and to my surprise, this is what I had made:

As you can see, it’s a familiar image! I had to think for a moment to place it, but I know that you will recognize it at once as a portion of The Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh.

This is known as The Play-Doh Miracle, and it will be on file at the Vatican when I am formally declared a Saint.

I don’t think one can underestimate the importance of hair. As I often say aloud while watching TV, “Hair is everything.” When accused of having an unhealthy preoccupation with hair, I’ve been able to fire off myths and folk tales and biblical stories to support my belief in the enduring significance of hair. Rapunzel, Samson, Medusa, Lady Godiva etc. Then there is the fundamentalist covering-up of hair, as in nuns, orthodox Jews, and Muslim women.

Hair matters! Great hair can raise one’s attractiveness quotient just like bad hair can obliterate it. I once had a friend who insisted that I pose for a $15 video tape on sale at a mall, where different hairstyles were superimposed on my head. (Before we all went digital.) In 12 different styles and hair-colors, I am transformed into a secretary, headbanger, elderly lesbian, and so on.

Today, I came across a story about Liz Jones, a women who described her momentous haircut. Liz Jones is thrilled with her new look, while I find the old look a milion times better.

What do you think? Then there is the writer at Jezebel who shows us her haircut a la Liz Jones.

The photo above is followed by a bunch of compliments, because no one had the heart (or nerve) to say, “Oh no, you cut off your beautiful hair!” In my opinion, this is another tragic haircut, turning a lovely vibrant looking woman into a shorn, innocuous Nobody.

One of my favorite scientists, Steven Pinker, is a member of The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™ where you can admire his hair and the hair of many colleagues.

Finally, there is the poignant, beautiful and immortal line from Brian Wilson: “Where did your long hair go, where is the girl I used to know?” Caroline, No is #211 on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest songs of all time, but we all know that it’s really in the top ten.

Everything I read about Grayson Perry just makes me love him more and more. When he accepted the Turner prize in 2003, wearing a fantastic lilac frock of his own creation, he said “It’s about time a transvestite potter won the Turner Prize!”

His views on art and society are refreshingly unpretentious. He is happily married to a psychotherapist with whom he has a 14 year old daughter. His wife Philippa has joked that his obsession with dressing in women’s clothes could be worse…”It could be football!”

Here is what he says in one interview:

“To have men in frocks is disturbing for people, but in fact most of them are straight, hetero people with marriages and kids,” says Perry.

He says he is horrified by the “spiritual bankruptcy” of modern society, and its focus on appearance. “There is more to attractiveness than who is looking in the mirror. Sexiness is a terrible tyranny.”

Grayson Perry seems like a funny, gifted, endearing, original thinker who I’d like to add to my list of People To Look Up To.

UPDATE:  Grayson Perry has curated a touring exhibit called Unpopular Culture.  Check it out!

All day I’ve been thinking about Liz Lou. Maybe it’s because her art involves such a passionate, superhuman commitment in time and labor. My own fits of art are so half-assed and meager.

“Liza Lou has often been trivialised as the “bead lady”. Her art is distinguished by the thousands of tiny threaded and glued beads that cover every millimetre of her life-sized sculptures and environments. There are those who would see Lou’s work as a kind of extreme and cranky craftwork, an obsessional but minor art. Her most famous piece is a full-scale kitchen, whose counters, cupboards, sink, dishes, tap and even the gushing water are all picked out in chains and whorls of beads. There has been a beaded trailer home and a backyard, every blade of grass a spike of beads. Beaded blankets, beaded portraits of all the US presidents, a beaded toilet bowl with beaded stains, beaded saints, a beaded suicide. When can it ever end? It started when she was in college. If Lou could she’d bead the world.”

I would probably spray the world gold, because it takes less effort. Read more about Liza Lou here.

When Clint Eastwood heard Spike Lee’s complaint about the racial make-up of Clint’s war movie “Flags of Our Fathers,” Clint was exasperated. After explaining to a interviewer that his film was true to history, he remarked about Spike Lee, “A guy like him should shut his face.”

I’ve said that line in my head, over and over, and I love it. It is poetry.

When Abel Ferrara heard that Werner Herzog had cast Nick Cage in his remake of Ferrara’s film The Bad Lieutenant, Ferrara told an L.A. Times reporter, “I wish these people would all die in hell. I hope they’re all in the same street car and it blows up.”

Herzog came back with, “I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. Is he Italian?”

Why can’t everyone follow the lead of these guys and say what they mean? In the arts, in politics, wouldn’t that be refreshing? Anywhere but in the home, of course.

On another note, I can’t wait to see “Mongol“, an epic film about Ghenghis Kahn. It was filmed in China, Mongolia and Kasakhstan. It looks like a visually stunning drama, filled with spectacular violence, and beautiful rugged Aisan men with long flowing hair.

Just when I was considering the possibility of throwing some shit out, I come across a group of compulsive collectors, thanks to Men.Style.com. I was looking for Philip Grangi, a jewelry designer, and discovered that he is a self-described “Avid Materialist” who can’t resist collecting things, even from dumpsters.

I personally have too many ‘collections’ but not as many as Philip Crangi. He is seized with a sudden urge to collect something and then scours the city for it. I like how unabashed he is about his compulsions. He admits that he’d rather put stuff in storage, where he can’t even see it, than sell any of it. Naturally, he loves and collects taxidermy. Who doesn’t, at this point? I’m ready to approach someone at the next cocktail party with the conversation-opener “So how much taxidermy do you own?”

On this same site, you can meet artist Hunt Slonem, who is also an Avid Materialist, but on a much grander scale. He makes Andy Warhol look like a slacker, collection-wise. You need to see the video clip to grasp Hunt Slonem’s delightful mania for color and collecting.

And then I came across these two guys who have a clothing company called Barking Irons. They are the ultimate New York Hipsters. Silly caps, long scarves, fingerless gloves, facial hair, the whole shebang. They collect old Victorian shit and they’re “obsessed with Authenticity.” One of them holds an old whiskey bottle and starts rhapsodizing about it. Why do I hate them? Oh, right, I’m a cunt!

I am exhausted from all the obsession. Anyone out there collect anything that isn’t taxidermy?

My new tattoo was inspired by this product from an online botanica. My Adopted Son (long story) got the same tattoo, and then we ate dinner at a bowling alley. My husband was displeased that he hadn’t been notified about the tattoo, but I can’t remember every little thing, can I?

It’s not really big, I’m just too stupid to size my pix properly, and I took this one with my cell phone. However, I can lead you to The Voodoo Professor, who is fun to listen to. For more serious Voodoo needs, I suggest going here.