Ariel Levy has written the most terrifying reproduction story since "Rosemary's Baby" for the New Yorker. As a journalist, she travels the globe, and she finds herself far from home when her pregnancy goes off the rails. The result is an eviscerating tale: "Thanksgiving in Mongolia."
I got pregnant quickly, to my surprise and delight, shortly before my
thirty-eighth birthday. It felt like making it onto a plane the moment
before the gate closes—you can’t help but thrill. After only two months,
I could hear the heartbeat of the creature inside me at the doctor’s
office. It seemed like magic: a little eye of newt in my cauldron and
suddenly I was a witch with the power to brew life into being. Even if
you are not Robinson Crusoe in a solitary fort, as a human being you
walk this world by yourself. But when you are pregnant you are never
alone.
The coverage of Lars von Trier's "Nymphomaniac" journey from can to screen is a boggler. Take, for example, the latest reports that the controversial director has surrendered his final cut. It's a matter of hardcore and softcore.
Jensen says the cuts were purely for commercial reasons and not to
eliminate any of the films' many explicit sex scenes. There were
initially plans to release both a hard-core and soft-core version of Nymphomaniac
but those plans have now been abandoned. Instead there will be just the
hard-core version but distributors in individual countries can decide
to blur whichever elements they find unacceptable. The Danish version
will go out with all the explicit sex intact and in focus.
Meet Roja Dove, the man who makes bespoke fragrances for women who can afford to spend $40,350 to smell like no one else. His nose is so sensitive that international flights are nearly unbearable, and he compares creating his personalized perfumes to having sex.
For example, Mr. Dove had three clients smell tuberose. One gave a
horrified shudder, while the other two described the scent as,
respectively, “quiche with cabbage” and “young girls in tank tops
running around a mall.”
Jenna Jameson was on Oprah Winfrey's "Where Are They Now?" last night. She discussed her DUI arrest, her custody battle with her ex, MMA fighter Tito Ortiz, over her kids, and her current problems. It was very sad.
The first time I met Jenna was in 1997. I believe it was August. I visited the set of her movie, "Flashpoint." She showed up at some point and disappeared quickly into a trailer. The girl who went in the door was young, messy-haired, fresh-faced. The person who emerged after dark was wearing towering thigh-high boots, kabuki makeup, and a spiked collar. We paraded into a building behind her like some sort of demented wedding procession. In the cavernous room of an industrial building, she had sex with T.T. Boy while flames shot up all around them.
At the end of last night's episode, she indicated that she has no idea who Jenna Massoli (her real name) is.
A writer for Vice took a class in how to financially dominate a man. "After years of getting screwed over by the Man, I was ready to screw the Man myself," she asserts. Fun facts: financial dominatrixes are called "fin-dommes," the men they dominate are called "fin-slaves," and there's a thing called a "pay-pig."
This is Seva.
She gave him the floor, and we got to pick his brain a little. Right
away, the guy opened up with a Nietzsche quote. “The true man wants two
things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most
dangerous plaything.” I instantly knew I was not going to like anything
else he had to say. He gave his perspective on being a slave, and spoke
of the rush he gets when a woman tells him to do something. He said that
his number one fantasy is to run errands for a woman, and even sign
over the lease of his condo to a woman. He then went on a small rant
telling us that women are great at manipulation, and humiliation. Being a
woman's slave, “appeals to her vanity,” he said.
"G.I. Jane (Fill Me Up)," Jackson and His Computerband
Behold, a totally insane video from Mrzyk & Moriceau for Jackson and His Computerband's "G.I. Jane (Fill Me Up)." If you like phallic armies, penis sharks, and female face-eaters, you will love this music video.
“We love Jackson’s song, so the ideas came very fast. We wanted
something sex-gore-bizarre, so created this faceless girl fighting
against penises that appear from everywhere.” The explosively charged
narrative takes in Manga influences and the duo’s trademark pop
eroticism, while also providing, as Moriceau opines, a comment on
misogyny and female empowerment. “Of course you can see the power of
feminism in the film,” he says. “But firstly, we want to entertain.”
In
this canon, the real subject is not human sexuality but humanity itself.
The products that Jim produces are videotaped vivisections, studies
in which homo sapiens lie upon the operating table, the director is
the doctor, the camera is the scalpel, and the only question worth asking
is, How far will we go if we are pushed to our limits?
The Daily Beast has an interesting piece on the nonsensical rules governing hashtag censorship on Instagram. The issues involve sex, race, and bodily functions. From "Instagram's Sex Censorship Is Inconsistent and Hilarious":
Many of the single word tags like #fuck, #bitches, #porn remain on the
blocked list, but many longer variations, like #fuckfriday and
#mybitches are now searchable. #Dildo and #chink were once banned but
can now be searched, though #wet, #shower, and #popular remain blocked.
Users can search #faketits, #underboob and #boobz, but not #sideboob,
#boob or #boobies.
This season, Supreme is selling a zip-up hoodie with a quotation,
attributed to the skateboarder Mark Gonzales, that reads, in bright
letters across the back, “I’ve never wanted to piss on someones face
more than I want to piss on yours.” Many of Supreme’s items sell out
online within seconds of going on sale, but the “Piss Face Zip-Up” has
not sold out in any color after weeks on the Web site. “I didn’t stock
any,” Peter explained. (Perhaps Peter miscalculated—mysteriously, the
Piss Face Zip-Up, which costs a hundred and thirty-eight dollars, is
sold out in blue in Japan, where it costs two hundred and fifty-eight
dollars and thirty cents.)
"I’d practically earned my doctorate in strip-club-going. I knew more
porn acronyms than him. I watched smut on my own and never thought to
review his Web history. I even enjoyed the rare strip club outing with
him. But here was a line: no lap dances. I was getting married, I had
found my person, I didn’t need to be OK with all things that a man, any
man, could ever want. Men were no longer a generalized other, there was
only this man that mattered."
Porn convention, Rosemont, IL / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
If you know my photography, you know I'm a fan of mannequins. Today's New York Times has a story on how mannequins in Venezuela are extra curvy. The ideal Venezuelan body shape is Jessica Rabbit-esque and influenced by a culture that is deeply into plastic surgery.
Each day, Yaritza Molina arranges several mannequins at the entrance to
the small clothing shop she manages in Coro, a city in western
Venezuela, always careful to place two ahead of the others. “These are
the princesses,” she said, “because they have the best bust.”
“I have lots of clients that come here and say, ‘I want to look like
that mannequin,’ ” Ms. Molina said. “I tell them, ‘O.K., then get an
operation.’”
This trend is mirrored in America in the African-American community, where you see MediaTakeOut stars like Nicki Minaj and Blac Chyna sporting the same crazy shape.
Steven Klein has an extremely cool and totally NSFW fashion spread in the November issue of Interview magazine. The model is Malgosia Bela, a Polish model and actress. In an interview with Into the Gloss, Bela says she is 36. She got married in Azzedine Alaïa and doesn't go the gym. The editorial is Helmut Newton-ish. I like the shots of her peeing like a man, just having strangled a man to death in the subway with a chain, after a terrible car wreck, fondling some meat, and doubling herself at the peep show. That's Steven Klein for you.
Jim Romenesko reports that some journalists are up in arms because the Sep./Oct. issue of the Columbia Journalism Review features the word "fuck" on the cover. Actually, it's "fucking." As in "NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE." The phrase is from a quote by NPR's Ira Glass.
“How dare CJR include the F-bomb on its cover!” writes RAR president and former WGN-TV anchor Rick Rosenthal. “The F-bomb has no place anywhere in CJR! Putting it on the magazine cover was outrageously offensive!”
The other day, someone asked
about a post I wrote several years ago on another blog of mine. The post
is about Max Hardcore. The title is "To the Max." It was originally
published on October 6, 2008. Since people ask about it on occasion, I'm
reposting it here. It features a guest appearance by Glenn Greenwald of
Edward Snowden fame.
Last Friday, adult director Paul Little, aka Max Hardcore, was sentenced
to 46 months in prison. Back in June, Little had been found guilty on
20 federal counts of distributing obscene material over the internet and
through the US mail. At his sentencing in Tampa, Florida, where federal
agents had bought the materials in question, Little asked Judge Susan C. Bucklew
for what appeared to be mercy. "I didn't realize I'd made a mistake,"
he told the court. "My entire life I've been trying to do the right
thing by people and by the law." A sentiment to which Judge Bucklew
replied: "Mr. Little, I find this almost incredible."
Actor Chris Pratt tells BuzzFeed that he used to be a male stripper. Part-time. And he danced for someone's grandma.
“I was always a very much naked person. I loved to always get naked. I was very free, so I thought, I may as well get paid,” Pratt, who stars in DreamWorks’ new comedy Delivery Man,
admitted to BuzzFeed in a recent interview. He worked several gigs when
he was 18, including a bachelorette party, but by far the most
memorable job was taking it all off for his friend’s grandmother’s
birthday party.
“It was a surprise,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know how it got around to them, but they paid me $40. I was never like Magic Mike,
you know. I did go one time and audition on a stage for a club, but I
don’t think I got the job. I don’t think I’m a very good dancer.”
