Straight to Video
"MDL: 'Boogie Nights' scored horribly. They recruit for these [test screenings] off a paragraph [synopsis] in the mall, and the paragraph for 'Boogie Nights' made it look like a sitcom, and then they come for this three-hour exegesis on existential crises in porn. It got to a point where Bob Shaye, my old boss, chased good scores on that movie, and that movie was never going to score high.
MW: I remember he did his own cut and made Paul watch it.
MDL: Yeah, it was horrible. It was tough. That movie was going straight to video, and then the reviews started to come in at the New York Film Festival. If it wasn't for early reviews…"
Smells Like Tesla
Let's Go Long
Long-form is a type of journalism. If you are stupid and young and you wrote something that was several thousands words long, you probably think you are writing long-form journalist. You are not. Probably, you've read a few of these pieces. Maybe you left a tl;dr in the comments.
"What, then, is the function — the purpose — of 'long-form'? To allow a writer to delve into the true complexities of a story, and also to bring readers closer to the experience of other people. Whether a long-form story is published in a magazine or on the web, its goal should be to understand and illuminate its subject, and maybe even use that subject to (subtly) explore some larger, more universal truths. Above all, that requires empathy, the real hallmark of great immersive journalism." [NYT]
Going long is about more than word count. A monkey could type 10,000 words in a row. Well, perhaps not words, but characters, surely, given the right tools. IMO, LFJ is about: immersion, empathy, and depth. Unsure you have met these requirements? You have not.
"I have had it with long-form journalism. By which I mean—don’t get me wrong—I’m fed up with the term long-form itself, a label that the people who create and sell magazines now invariably, and rather solemnly, apply to their most ambitious work. Reader, do you feel enticed to plunge into a story by the distinction that it is long? Or does your heart sink just a little? Would you feel drawn to a movie or a book simply because it is long? ('Oooh—you should really read Moby-Dick—it’s super long.')" [Atlantic]
No one ever said long-form journalism that goes beyond word count is fun. It is hard. One could argue it took me 10 years to write "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?" because that's the period of time over which it ranges -- longer, really. And who wants to work that hard for that long? It's so much easier to upload another blog post, watch another TV show, fill up endless empty spaces with words considering subjects about which you fundamentally know nothing.
"Over the next ten minutes, he threatens to beat her, threatens to torture her, pulls up her shirt, pulls up her skirt, hits her breasts, hits her thighs, throttles her by the neck with both hands, humiliates her, degrades her, makes her cry, chokes her until she is gasping for air. He gets her to tell the camera she is 27 years old and the only reason she’s here doing this particular job on this particularly day in this particular hotel room in the Valley is for the money, and the fact of the matter is she has two young children to support, of whom the man asks rhetorically, and seemingly for the sole purpose of screwing with her head, 'They’re going to grow up to be proud of her, right?'" [TSPSDT]
Show Time
Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
V-Day in the Club
"Valentine’s Day is one of the those special 'off' days that happen every-so-often in the strip club. Working the night of one these off days is never business-as-usual—it’s usually, business-as-oh-my-God-did-that-just-happen. The day of Cupid falls on a Friday this year, and there’s going to be a full moon."
You're Shit
Girl Gangs
Photo credit: Hassan Hajjaj
"His confident, upbeat portraits of young women wearing veils and djellabah while posing on motorcycles subvert preconceived notions of Arab women; his subjects are traditionally clad but defiantly modern, bearing bright smiles and the markers of youth, independence, celebration, and fun."
[Taymour Grahne via Kottke]
Say, What?
"To do so, we're going to need to become a lot less squeamish when it comes to talking about the penis; here again, Amazons is extremely instructive. Others have described the book as 'penis-obsessed,' but to me it feels more 'penis-honest.' As a culture, we continue to possess a serious and seriously idiotic reluctance to spend much time considering male genitalia with much detail; it's always lurking but never shown. 'Full-frontal' is still fairly rare in any context outside of pornography, and it's basically non-existent when the male in question is aroused. Most books and movies seem to operate on the (very false) assumption that the penis is either soft or erect, as if it were manufactured and distributed in a one-size-fits-all commodity."
[The Awl]
Interview Secrets
Photo credit: Kim Weston-Arnold
"'When I was little, I would play this game where I would talk to people in order to see how much I could get from them without having to reveal anything about myself.'"
Make It Rain
Brand Whores
Photo credit: Steven Klein
"I found the tech conference I went to really depressing. Everyone there was a brand whore. Is this what we are: brand whores?"
[Forbes]
What Girls Are Made Of
Your Sunday Zen
Weedy McSmoke c/o djdickhennessy via Kat Snacks
All The News That's Unfit to Print: 2.8.14
What's your password. [This Isn't Happiness]
Give us money, we are pretty. [Clayton Cubitt]
Dick fetish. [Roxie Vizcarra]
It's almost Valentine's Day. [Nerve]
"'It's really nerve-racking,' she said, clutching her see-through lace dress." [LAT]
Tattoo you. [Maxime Ballesteros]
A day in the life of a porn star. [iHeartRadio]
The secret history of Las Vegas. [NYT]
She's larger than life. [My Modern Metropolis]
He's a very bad man. [EW]
"It was the beginning of the end of the monster sex ride." [Salon]
She makes music when she walks. [Style]
Thomas Jefferson goes to a porno. [Swierczy]
Porn stars are real. [Slixa]
She's not like other girls. [Kotaku]
Knee pads are in. [Style]
Beware illegal ass enhancements. [Vice]
Let's go for a swim. [Tumblr via Clayton Cubitt]
Do what the fembot says. [The Cut]
Meeting in the ladies room. [Fashion Copious]
Olympics Time
Art, Nailed
"A video taken using a handheld camera and posted online moments later shows tourists gawping as he sits on the ground. A police car arrives, and an officer orders the man to get up. But the man cannot get up – because he is attached to the icy cobbles with a single, long nail that is driven through his scrotum and into the stones below."
[Guardian]
Got Pink?
Pink gun, Las Vegas, NV / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
I Get Email
Photo credit: Steven Meisel
"Dear Ms. Breslin, I'm incredibly upset about the info in these articles, and the fact that I was unaware of it, for well over a year! But, my reaction is so much stronger now, than it would have been when you wrote it, because of the other extreme limits on personal privacy that have been enacted since then, ... NSA 'data gathering' , new laws requiring American's entire medical histories (including meds taken, now or ever!) to be ENTERED INTO A NATIONWIDE GOV'T DATABASE! (to be hacked/ leaked easily and often,with potentially horrible consequences! ) .. and laws making 'the gov't , not your doctor, the ultimate decision maker regarding which meds you can take....Basically, a ' Minority Report' scenario...
And, yet even minimal restrictions on ACTUAL deadly weapons have been impossible to enact ! Why!? Because doing so COULD POTENTIALLY CREATE A DATABASE OF INFO ON GUNOWNERS!!! ?? (according to the NRA Dancers.) Do they hear themselves??? Do they not know that these new laws are gathering more personal data on them than their WORST nightmare of what a potential gun owner background check would have been??....
They are throwing adult film producers and ' entrepeneurs' (many of whom can't get any other work than maybe minimum wage job that no one can live on? ).. IN JAIL!.? and Republicans want to put 'porn monitors' on all computers??! BUT not monitor any of the out-of control compulsive -gambling Wall St. 'adrenaline junkies' who destroyed the economy, the savings and lives of millions of of hard working Americans!? ...And who outsourced most of the previously decent jobs!?... Rather, we REWARDED their destructive greed and malfeasance and gave them billions to HELP THEM up after they blew all the money they were entrusted with!!.....But those who work in the Adult film business are the one's 'corrupting ' our' moral fiber!! WoW!
I'm not a porn consumer or 'enthusiast' ..nor am I oblivious to abuses of THAT industry.....or the problems that some/many men are reportedly having with 'sex' and /or relationships as a result of 'overindulgence' due to easy access'...or unaware that those issues are effecting some women... I know that the media should look into reports of such things....But, it seems that we are having things legislated that shouldn't be...just so they look like they can do SOMETHING ..... when they are unable to legislate about anything important I...It's a political 'hot button'....for which there appears to be little 'downside' ...except for those actually involved in it....and has tremendous 'political currency' for the conservatives! But if you were reporting on this almost 2 yrs ago...this was the canary in the coal mine of a much bigger issue! Thanks for the insight!"