“Brevity is the soul of lingerie”

One of my favorite writers is the wonderfully sardonic and wise-cracking Dorothy Parker. I was eighteen when I first encountered her work as she was one of many female characters in a play that I was doing in high school (I portrayed Janis Joplin) and the story ends there.

Dorothy Rothchild was born in 1893 in New Jersey. Parker (the name is one of the few things she got from her first husband) became famous due to her many contributions to renowned magazines as Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker and Esquire. She played an important part in the development of the 1920ies literary scene in New York as one of the founders of the the Algonquin Round Table. Despite her rambunctious life and suicidal tendencies she died a natural death at the age of 73.

She has only written disenchanted short stories, some poems, reviews and a few screenplays overflowing with underlying pessimism but I was truly captivated by her malicious wit and self-deprecation. Her stories and her poems always deal with genuine feelings or facts in a funny yet heart wrenchingly sad way. Parker doesn’t believe in sugarcoating and can often be very blunt but it is her honesty that sucks you in to a world of truth, twists and tragedy. She even made me like poetry, well hers anyway seeing as I still loath poetry in general. Her style is simple yet classic and no one has even come close to knocking the cynically sad dominatrix with a sharp eye for 20th century urban flaws of her pedestal.

Here are a few distinctive examples:

Résumé

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

Coda

There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle ---
Would you kindly direct me to hell?

Observation

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

A Telephone Call: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/teleycal.html

Consider this a brief introduction seeing as the deliciously decadent Dorothy will probably be the foundation of my master thesis next year, you’ll be hearing a lot more about her soon.

Fuzzy Freaks

Once again, I am probably part of a handful of people who has actually seen this film in the theatre but it was one I couldn’t resist. The film that wetted my appetite this time was Steven Shainberg’s follow up to Secretary namely, Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.

Diane Arbus was an American photographer known best for her portraits
depicting outsiders such as transvestites, dwarves, giants, prostitutes and ordinary citizens in poses and settings conveying a disturbing uncanniness. Her choice of black and white only enhanced their documentary feel. She committed suicide at the height of her career.

Set in 1950ies New York, Diane (Nicole Kidman) is living in her husband’s shadow as his assistant while he embarks on a career as fashion photographer. She is being suffocated not only by her job but also by her strict upbringing. From the window of her lonely Uptown apartment, she locks eyes with a masked figure on the street, a mysterious new neighbour (Robert Downey Jr.). Drawn to the man who intrigues her and determined to take his photograph, Diane ventures to his apartment and embarks on a journey that will unlock her deepest secrets and awaken her remarkable artistic genius, launching Diane on her path to becoming the artist she is meant to be.

Fur is an exceptionally beautiful film paying a well deserved tribute to one of the mysterious, enigmatic, and frighteningly bold artists of the 20th century. The film is rather slow moving and would normally irritate me but compensates this by painting an incredibly accurate and atmospheric portrait of the fifties which was so mesmerizing that it was able to finally convince me that setting actually matters. Shainberg has an eye for detail as he once again audaciously walks a fine line between ridicule and reality in creating a balance between the wonderfully surreal and the blatant absurd.

Nicole Kidman, who has at least one annual dabble in the art house scene gives a brave and touching performance as woman who is torn between her life and her passions. Robert Downey Jr on the other hand is delightfully playful (as always) as he weaves a web of mystery around his beastly being while driving the tension to the limit.

The surroundings and vibe were a true work of art combined with incredibly bold performances and an unusual story that contained a few strangely endearing scenes (shaving has never been so erotic!) which once again have convinced me of the genius of Shainberg.

Fur explores an unlikely romance that leads Arbus into a strange new world, sparking her evolution into one of the most provocative and visionary photographers of all time.

Public Announcement, the sequel

Dear readers,

Seeing as I am planning to resign tomorrow, my time in hell is coming to an end (Saturday at the latest) and I am already looking forward to once again bringing you your daily dose of tit bits while at the same time anticipating a trip to London, exams and a more (hopefully) exciting job in August.

Yours truly,

Ginny Jones

"Still later Gerald did a terrible thing to Elsie with a saucepan"

Ranging from gothic to bombastic, Tim Burton’s visual flair is undeniably unique as seen in his films but also in the superb The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, a book of tales that he published in 1996. It is filled with tragically funny yarns about children with various defects and accompanied by his own drawings which in their own right are characteristic examples of his infamous macabre style that was also the basis for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

However, he wasn’t the first to start a range stories intertwining death, comedy and the macabre using beautiful yet simple visuals that enhanced the subtleties of the tales. Burton’s biggest influence was none other than the wicked and whimsical Edward Gorey, whose arch nonsense verse and mock-Victorian prose accompany pen and ink drawings of beady-eyed, blank-faced individuals in Edwardian costume whose dignified demeanour is undercut by silly events leading to their untimely demise.

In the 1950s, when the American Gorey was establishing himself as a young artist, the New York school and abstract expressionism dominated the art world and illustration was a tiny art, a mere hobby in fact. In this world, Gorey's closest contemporaries were cartoonists, for example Charles Addams (creator of the legendary Addams Family) who combined the macabre with high-brow ennui. This influenced Gorey to mix simple verse with his dramatic drawings.

Gorey has produced more than 100 small volumes of gothic fables, meticulously hand-lettered and intricately illustrated, most of them in verse. His works are remarkable combinations of the eccentric, the witty, and the macabre and are illustrated lavishly and with superb technique in dark and abundant Edwardian detail. Although picture books, his works emphasize the adult nature of the content of fairy tales and satirize the conventions of didactic books, especially his many alphabet books. Odd, mysterious, cool, oblique, and very funny, Gorey's works have a completely unique appeal. Gorey's work is reminiscent of a baroque storyboard for a silent film where the juxtaposition of image and text allows us time to consider both, as separate but inseparable parts of the same work.

Gorey's sinister little tales about haunted, pale-featured characters living in a world filled with bleak, clouded landscapes and gloomy, shadow-filled interiors earned him a reputation as the modern master of American Gothic. While his dark view of the world owed something to the imagination of Edgar Allen Poe, Gorey's work was also evocative of the brooding nightmares of Goya or the decadence of Beardsley. His use of language had the inventiveness of Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll, the extravagance of James Joyce and repetitiousness of Samuel Beckett. What was uniquely his own was the way in which he hinted at, rather than showed, the nastiness that so often lurks beneath the respectable appearance of the tightly buttoned characters who secretly indulge their infidelities and indiscretions as well as their frequently murderous thoughts and deeds.

The Loathsome Couple for example is hysterically funny even though it deals with a couple of child murderers. The humor in this story comes from the sheer blandness of it all. The Curious Sofa (where the title of this post is extracted from) on the other hand was sexually explicit and thus self-published. In his work, pornography, like horror, is made all the more shocking by its taking place in the wings or The Gashlycrumb Tinies in which 26 children are alphabetically disposed of one by one. Although these stories frequently and wittily show children or other hapless victims coming to undeserved death, Gorey insisted there was no morbid relish involved. "I see no disparity between my books and everyday life... I write about everyday life."

He has also illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.

One can also see his influence in the ascendancy of the graphic novel, especially with artists such as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

Gorey's masterful pen and ink illustrations and his ironic, offbeat humor in which grief, despair, loneliness and unexpected (often unnatural) deaths were the common ingredients, have brought him critical acclaim and an avid following throughout the world.

Assume the Position

My favorite movie (well, it’s in the top 5 at least) has got to be the 2002 electrifyingly sexy and oddly enough sweet Secretary. Together with the previously mentioned Fight Club and the dazzling Jeux d’Enfants, it is one of the few movies that I saw twice in the cinema. Bare in mind, they only played it for two weeks. The reason I was dying to see this still relatively unknown movie was none other than a, in my opinion, yummy guy (who gets naked in almost three quarters of his movies and still is one of the few actors who does, bless him) namely James Spader. The second time I saw it, James Spader (who had me hooked with Steven Soderbergh’s equally daring Sex, Lies and Videotape) had to share the top spot with an uncanny tale that just happens to be one of the most romantic films I have ever seen. Before you start thinking I have a hidden kinky side filled with BDSM, I’ll immediately say that being far from sentimental, cliched or corny, Secretary redefined the genre (romantic whatever) and also added some contemporary elements to the plot while ultimately displaying the universal yet simple enigma of two people just “getting each other” no matter who flawed they seem.

Anyway, Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young woman whose turbulent home life has gotten the best of her emotional state. This resulted in her admittance into a psychiatric facility. When she gets out, she is immediately pursued by Peter (Jeremy Davies) although she isn’t attracted to him, he provides a certain stability in her otherwise rocky life due to the abuse and alcoholic problems presented by her parents. Lee develops a need to inflict pain on herself. The pain seems to release the built up hurt of the troubled existence surrounding her.
In order to gain independence, she decides to look for a job and seeing as her only skill is typing, her options are limited. Her first interview is with Mr. Grey (James Spader), an eerie and odd lawyer. The job interview is practically killed by Mr. Grey saying how boring it would be to work for him. However, Lee is so taken and thrilled with the whole possibility of working that it shocks Mr. Grey into hiring her. An unorthodox, highly erotic, sado-masochistic relationship develops where Mr. Grey is able to give Lee, for the first time, an opportunity to gain control over her own actions and decision making without anybody else's help. Lee, in time, will also reach a place in Mr. Grey's demon hideaway, deep inside his own untouchable psyche, and perhaps alleviate his pain that is unable to surface.

Secretary is filled with desire and dark, unusual fetishes which make for great fiction, but few filmmakers have enough courage to tackle ideas that private. However, Steven Shainberg has more than enough audacity and he doesn’t hesitate to push the envelope way beyond the norm and this landed him a Special Jury Prize for originality at Sundance.

Against all odds, director Steven Shainberg has managed to craft an oddly compassionate and often very funny tale of an emotionally symbiotic affair with his directorial debut. This is a completely original and highly unusual story of two people who find love and gratification with one another in a kinky and twisted way. They let their emotional needs awake each other, both wanting what the other is giving them.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was exceptional in a daring and tricky role. She demonstrated the great ability of controlling her character's moods and making it believable. Spader’s ability to maintain a character with such a freakiness, smoothness, and a sexual tension, so heated with desire that it was excruciatingly good to watch.

The movie enters a realm where few non-porn films venture and comes across as surprisingly gentle while telling a different kind of love story namely one that is dark, disturbing, sensuous and yet very compelling.

It does what good films do best: it provoke us, pushes our buttons, makes us think and even entertains us in the process.

Chucky

I have a very unlady-like guilty pleasure and his name is Chuck Palahniuk. To celebrate the release of his new book Rant (which I’m dying to read but haven’t bought yet), I’ll tell you a bit more about the guy and why I like, make that love him.

The first book of his I ever read was Lullaby. My girly side was immediately drawn to the intriguingly flashy cover. On the back it read: “Carl Streator is a reporter investigating Sudden Infant Death Syndrome for a soft-news feature. After responding to several calls with paramedics, he notices that all the dead children were read the same poem from the same library book the night before they died. It's a 'culling song' - an ancient African spell for euthanizing sick or old people. Researching it, he meets a woman who killed her own child with it accidentally. He himself accidentally killed his own wife and child with the same poem twenty years earlier. Together, the man and the woman must find and destroy all copies of this book, and try not to kill every rude sonofabitch that gets in their way.” Needless to say, I immediately bought it and finished it the same weekend. I’ve been hooked ever since.

All his novel are so absurd and so out there that not a lot of people can get away with it. His stories are cynical, action packed and incredibly original adrenaline rushes filled with ironic black humor. Probably not everyone’s cup of tea seeing as psychology and setting take the backdrop to dialogue and plot. He has a very minimalist approach to writing using a limited vocabulary and short sentences to mimic the way that an average person telling a story would talk.

The characters are usually people who have been marginalized in one form or another by society, and who react with often self-destructive aggressiveness. He also attempts to comment on current problems in society, such as materialism and this is one of the reasons that his novels have been called satirical horror stories.

This mix of humor and the bizarre events around which these stories revolve resulted in Palahniuk being sometimes labeled as a "shock writer" by the media. But he has attained a well deserved top spot alongside contemporaries like Brett Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland, who I both also love.

This is pure entertainment all the way and also the reason why half of his novels are optioned to become movies with already one incredible predecessor, one of my all time favorites: Fight Club. Fight Club is a classic example of his novels wacky, funny, often violent, sometimes sexist but so mind-boggling original nature. Ranging from the hilariously camp Invisible Monsters to the horrifying, mind-blowing and stomach-churning Haunted (the list goes on), they will have you on the edge of your seat gasping for air and loving every minute of it.

It may not be literature with a capital L, but does it always need to be?

Oh bother

Since I was a young girl, I’ve been mad about Pooh. He’s adorable, funny, a bit silly but ever so lovable. What I wanna do now is tell you a bit more about the original Winnie-the-Pooh and not the red-vested Disney version we’ve all become accustomed to.

Pooh’s creator was A.A. Milne, a noted English writer (primarily a playwright) before the huge success of “the bear with very little brain” overshadowed all his previous work. Milne named the character Winnie-the-Pooh after a toy bear owned by his son, Christopher Robin Milne, who was the basis for the character Christopher Robin. Christopher had received a bear for his first birthday (August 21, 1921 and thus Pooh’s official birthday). He named him Edward Bear and following Edward came the rest of the stuffed animals which Christopher loved and played with throughout his childhood and would eventually become Pooh’s equally infamous sidekicks.

The journey however, began in 1924 when the young Christopher Robin was introduced to an American black bear (Winnipeg or Winnie for short) at the London Zoological Gardens. Winnipeg, named after the hometown of Lieutenant Harry Colebourn who found her after her mother was killed, originally came from Ontario where she became the mascot of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade. In December 1914, the 2nd Brigade was preparing to move to France and decided it was unsafe to take her into battle so they left her at the London Zoo. It was not until 1918 that Colebourn returned to London. Realising that the bear, now known affectionately by her keepers and visitors as Winnie, was happy in her new home, he decided to leave her there.

Winnie was known as a gentle bear who never attacked anyone, and she was much loved for her playfulness. Christopher had met and fallen in love with her and decided to name his toy bear after the adorable Winnipeg. This had also inspired Milne to write a poem or two to celebrate the occasion and perhaps even eventually a story honouring the visit. The name Pooh originated from a swan they had met while on holiday who also appears as a character in its own right in When We Were Very Young.

A.A. Milne and an artist named E. H. Shepard (known for his human-like animals and who modelled Pooh not on the toy owned by Christopher Robin but on a stuffed bear named "Growler", owned by his own son) decided that Christopher’s toy animals would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many wonderful adventures. These stories have been embraced by millions of children and adult readers for more than 80 years and certainly hold a special place in my heart.

Boys don't cry but girls do

As you might have noticed, most movies featured here aren't exactly what you'd call recent releases. It's my aim to shed some light on a few personal favorites and some forgotten treasures in the hope that they'll find the audience they deserve. Next in line is Boy’s Don’t Cry, based on the true story of a remarkable double life, intricate love triangle and gruesome murder that shocked the US. Kimberley Peirce’s astonishing directorial debut also landed Hilery Swank her first Academy Award for her stunning portrayal of the tormented Brandon Teena. The film is a brutally honest and suspenseful piece of work, no light viewing but well worth the Prozac.

Brandon Teena moves to Falls City, Nebraska and manges to not only enchant the town but also the beautiful Lana Tisdale (Chloë Sevigny). His charming naiveté turns him into a real ladies man and man’s man but he has a secret. Born Teena Brandon, he has been going through a lifelong identity crisis which he has finally come to terms with but alas not everyone is as understanding as his girlLana, who received this shocking blow while Brandon is in prison for forging checks. She loves him, “no matter what he is”. Eventually his secret is revealed to the disgust of his friends who set out to rape and ultimately murder him.

This emotional tour de force will leave you truly speechless, I guarantee. The acting was superb and the subject was handled with such delicacy and genuine apprehension that it literally dragged you with it on an unforgettable journey into the core of our being. It could have easily become your average “based on a true story tearjerker” but Peirce’s restrained direction avoided sentiment and focused purely on the story and psychology of it’s confused characters. Even while filming the unforgettable and touching love scene between Brandon and Lana realism prevails as true feelings arise.

Boy’s Don’t Cry is a gripping, haunting and beautiful film that will not even leave the weariest of hearts unharmed.

Hitting rock Botton

Recently I read another book by the balding wunderkind Alain de Botton which once again confirmed my initial sentiment, namely that I don’t like the guy. Foolishly enough, it has taken me 4 infuriating books to finally realise this seeing as I got blindsided by a fifth one that was actually not that bad and encouraged me to give him another chance. How wrong I was.

His work is best described on his website: He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'

I have to admit that when Botton is writing about philosophy, he is at his best. He has a way of turning this trying subject matter into a light and breezy topic filled with fun little anecdotes and that’s also why I was pleasantly deceived by How Proust can change your Life. Not having read anything by Proust and having only elementary knowledge of his life, I was fascinated by this book as it contained a delightful and potent mix of an ironic ‘self-help’ book and biographical facts of one of the melancholy greats of the Western canon. This novel was a turning point that made me give Botton an ill-advised second chance and lead me to Status Anxiety about our fear of what others think of us. I have to say, now I’m scared. The first novel of his that I read was Kiss and Tell about a man who writes his girlfriend’s biography, it was OK. The story was a bit bland but once again contained fun tit bits. Next were two novels that instigated the root of my dislike: Essays in Love and The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel. The story in both novels was bad, poorly written and reminiscent of chick lit for the mentally disabled. Botton is great at telling fun intellectual facts but when it comes down to actually writing or creating something on his own, he sucks and sucks big time.

Good concept, interesting anecdotes and that’s about it. And that basically sums up his whole oeuvre as far as I’m concerned.