I Can't Breathe Is the New Black

Klaus Biesenbach, cooler than you'll ever be, is interested in this new Artforum cover.

He 'grams:

"this picture of the current @artforum i carry around for nearly a week, wanting to instagram it on a special day where there is not much before and after, as i feel this is such an important, groundbreaking piece that there needs to be a bit of distance even on instagram to allow for it to be. william pope. l, foraging (asphyxia version) (detail), 1993-1995/2008, digital c-print, 19 1/8 x 18 1/2" from the series 'black domestic project,' 1993-95"

[Klaus Biesenbach]

Kim Kardashian. Naked. Again

Kim Kardashian, more ass than brains, is here to remind us yet again of what she looks like naked. This time it's in Love Magazine. Shot by Steven Klein.
 

[via Fashion Copious]

Lucky Star

According to RubMaps, Lucky Star is closed. But the day I was there, the flashing sign was spelling out O-P-E-N.

Like Dong Fang Spa, it's located in southwest Florida. Naples, to be exact.

According to Sarasota Magazine, "Naples is winning the battle for billionaires." In 2011, it had the second "highest concentration of millionaires in the country."

It also has a not insignificant number of massage parlors.

Per RubMaps, the "Masseuse Style" at Lucky Star is "Korean." Payment is cash only. There is no parking for semis. And an hour will cost you $70.

If you have never read them before, RubMaps reviews are a genre in their own right. They're, for the most part, friendly, guy-next-door accounts of visits to massage parlors, littered with double entendres ("my rod"), acronyms (HE = happy ending), and human insights ("She had a bit of a bouncy personality"). Frequently, they comment on house technique ("shew as [sic] trying to churn out some butter") so others can decide if they'd like to patronize the place.

$$$

I ended up in this $8M house today, for reasons that are neither here nor there. It had a lovely pool, and a massive master bedroom that led to a deck that looked over the pool, and the guy made some comment like your 60-foot boat in the dock would be the same size as your pool, or what have you. Across the street, homes were going for five and six times as much. It was the middle of the day. Mostly, the people driving and walking around the area were workers: lawn care specialists, housekeepers and children-minders, huge teams of men building castles bigger than I've ever seen facing the ocean.

Yes, I Watch Porn

"I’m a 40 year old married white male.  Yes, I watch porn. 

I watch online pretty much every morning in my home office before my shower through free streaming sites, but I do own about seventy DVD’s.

As for the content I prefer, I tend to enjoy a bit of everything.  My biggest personal requirement is that the performers appear to be enjoying themselves.

As for why I watch it…I’m in a loveless marriage.  When we got married, we had sex nearly every day.  Now, thanks in part to some of her medications, we’ll go six to seven months without her even touching me or allowing me to touch her.  For our 20th wedding anniversary, she decided to stay up and watch a TV movie that she’d seen two weeks prior rather than come to bed.  As long as I’m watching porn, I’m not out there cheating on her."

Do you watch porn? I'm interested in learning more about how consumers watch porn in 2015.

NOTE: Your anonymous email may be published on this blog.

Email me here.

Up in Smoke

A while back, I wrote about weed, real weed, being used in manicures (see: "For Marijuana Smokers, A Weed Manicure Is High Fashion"). I came across this interesting image recently. Found on That Darn Rachel.

What I Think of Cocked

Image credit: Amazon.com

"Cocked" is one of the pilots Amazon coughed up among those shows it may or not make. It's about a family, and the family business is guns! Kudos to Amazon for picking up that firearm. I was interested in seeing this show. After all, I have been known to shoot a gun. The opening scene takes place at something that is supposed to look like SHOT Show, and I have been. In any case, prior to viewing, I thought gun owners and 2nd Amendment fans would be excited to see this, but when Jason Lee, who plays the patriarch's bad boy son, does a bunch of coke and bangs the Shannon twins, I thought probably the NRA will not be sponsoring this program. "Beauty, bullets, and blow, what more could you wish for?" Lee's character considers after going down on either Kristina or Karissa. The other brother is Sam Trammell of "True Blood" fame, who's the good son, and who gets called home, sort of, to save the floundering business. Brian Dennehy is the dad. Some blonde is some illegitimate daughter who wants to take the whole thing over. A rival firearms manufacturer is trying to put them out of business. And so it goes. All great ideas. All wonderful fodder. And yet. Woefully miscast. And instead of going for drama, it goes for wild-eyed slapstick. What was missed: A "Sopranos"-type show in which real people with real lives and real problems just so happen to manufacture and sell America's most controversial product. That didn't happen.

Do You Watch Porn?

I'm curious:

Do you watch porn? If so, how do you watch it (online, mobile, VCR)? Do you pay for it? Do you watch movies, look at stills, download clips? What content do you prefer? How often do you watch it? Where do you watch it (home, work, car)? Why do you watch it?

I'm working on some writing about the future of porn, and I'm curious to know how you look at porn today.

NB: Your anonymous email may be posted to this blog.

Email me: susannahbreslin@gmail.com.

Guns & Porn

The image above is by Roger Kisby and from BuzzFeed's "49 Insane Photos from the World's Largest Porn Convention." Last year, I went to AVN and SHOT Show. As I recall it, the gun show was first, and the porn show overlapped near the end, so I spent several days shuttling between back and forth between guns and porn. It wasn't the hardest job I ever had. I suppose I felt a bit of nostalgia looking at Kisby's pics, and I pined a little remembering my SHOT conversation with a guy about animal urine. Maybe I'll go again next year. We'll see.

What Lucy Did

"Lucy." Starring ScarJo. Written/directed by Luc Besson. It's no "Under the Skin," but it'll do. Lucy is an accidental drug mule in Taiwan. She ends up getting hyper-dosed with blue crystals that make you smarter than Bradley Cooper in "Limitless." Now, she's, like, superhuman, a superhero, some kind of superwoman. She gets chased my Asian mobsters, flirts with a French cop, and kills people because, why not? For some reason, the smarter she gets, the more she acts like a robot (???). Her boobs never change. Just her IQ. Best line: "I'm colonizing my own brain." YOU GO, GIRL. It's all very feminist, but in a way that doesn't make you want to vomit. Sadly, it lacks "The Fifth Element"'s happy happy joy joy. This is more grim. More French. More remorse. The special effects are questionable. The ending is absurd. Still, there are those ... lips.

Notes

Notes. pic.twitter.com/KWdNFXpwQr

— Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) January 25, 2015

The Couture Dangle

In a way, it's not that surprising that Rick Owens was the designer to send men with exposed genitalia sauntering (bouncing? promenading? wagging?) down the runway in Paris this week. After all, his moody, drapey, muted-toned clothing has an almost penis-like quality to it. Leave it too long, and it drags. For some reason, I missed it -- or I didn't really get it -- when I first perused the shots on Style.com. After all, it only looked like a glimpse of low-hanging ball. Much ado about a peek of testes didn't get much of a response from me. Then Amelia pointed out "The Hottest New Trend in Menswear Is Visible Dick," and that got my attention. Gawker exposed full-on-dong, and I understood we were looking at something different here. But what, um, was it? "The penises weren't the point of the show," The Cut chided. Then what was? According to Owens, "Boys with their dicks out is such a simple, primal, childish gesture." Agreed, but what does it mean? In hopes of phallus analysis, I turned to the New York Times, where the always annoying Guy Trebay coughed up: "By deliberately exposing a few pendant bits of flesh, Mr. Owens seemed to be suggesting how tenuous and vulnerable are the basis for what we think of as masculinity." Ah-ha. So man is only as strong as the thread of skin that attaches his balls. Personally, I thought that between the overwhelmingly dull feminist sloganisms at Acne Studios and the horrendous guys-in-granny-getups at Gucci, Owens felt like someone must remind everyone: We Are Men, and These Are Our Penises. We got it, Rick. We got the dicks.

Image via Style.com

Dong Fang Spa

Asian massage parlors, or AMPs, dot the southwest portion of Florida. They can be found in the area's many strip malls, tucked between home improvement stores and quickie grocery marts. It seems as if they are always open, yet it is hard to spot customers entering or leaving.

Dong Fang Spa is located in Fort Myers, Florida, on a busy thoroughfare called South Tamiami Trail. Other than its name, it is unremarkable.

According to local news outlets, the establishment was busted for prostitution several years ago:

"At one point, the detective grabbed his penis and asked, 'What about this?'

Yu again asked if he was the police, to which the detective replied, 'No.'

Yu stated she would take care of his penis for an additional $80.

At that time, the takedown signal was given and Yu was placed under arrest and charged with prostitution."

Some Amazon Pilots Reviewed

Since we the people get to decide which TV series get made on Amazon and which don't, here are my thoughts thus far.

"Mad Dogs": Just stupid and gross. Bad and wrong. Buncha guys acting like dicks. Pass.

"Salem Rogers": Not bad. Overly-rehabbed actress gets out and tries to make a comeback. Her catch phrase: "Right on, tampon." Pretty funny. Mildly embarrassing. Make it filthier.

"Down Dog": So stupid I can't even remember what it's about except yoga.

"The New Yorker Presents": Interesting! Fun for intellectual types. Marina Abramovic talks art, and Tyrone Hayes talks frogs. Recommend.

"Cocked": Haven't watched this one yet but am very interested. Guns! No network bullshit so whatever on politics. Well timed, what with SHOT Show and all.

"The Man in the High Castle": Terrible name! Best show. SO INTRIGUING. We lost the war and half the country belongs to Hitler and half the country belongs to the Japanese. Stupid white Americans are everybody's bitch. Really beautiful and fascinating and love.

"Point of Honor": Hate old timey shit so no comment at press time. 

Also: moar "Transparent," please.

[Amazon]

Creative Advertising for Perverts

Previously, I wrote about "litvertising." In other words, using fiction to sell things.

Speaking of which, I wrote a few pieces for NYC, 1981, a site created to discreetly promote "A Most Violent Year," which was written and directed by J. C. Chandor and for which Jessica Chastain was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. The movie takes place in 1981, that most violent year, and the content of the site is all about that year or that time.

I did one piece that was non-fiction, "The Rise and Fall of the King of Swing," and one piece that was fiction, "Sex and the City, 1981." I did some research before writing the latter piece and came up with the idea of portraying a man wandering the streets of the city at night and ending up at a peep show. I ended up watching this video of Show World. It is amazing.

In any case, literary prose can sell products. Several years ago, I ran some racy American Apparel ads that caused some controversy. It would be interesting if AA ads had micro-fictions paired with them that illuminated what the girl was thinking, revealing what's under her surface.

From my piece:

"I end up at Show World, and I hand the guy my cash, and I get in the booth, and the curtain slides up, and there’s a girl dancing on a pedestal in the middle of the round room, and she’s totally naked. This is why I love this city. There isn’t anything you can want that you can’t find in it."

[Sex and the City, 1981]

Her

"Her." An interesting movie. A guy falls in love with his operating system. Strange colors. Lots of shots in Shanghai, which you will recognize if you've been there, although here it is pretending to be Los Angeles of the Future. Scarlett Johansson as the throaty computrix. First half: a bit twee (see: Spike Jonze). Second half: more interesting, metaphysical. An intriguing scene in which the OS hires a sex surrogate for a ... kind of ... three-way? It's all very [something]. The best part is when the computer evolves beyond human capability, leaving love and language in its wake.

In Case You Were Wondering

"(2) 'Adult film performer' shall mean any individual whose penis penetrates a vagina or anus while being filmed, or whose vagina or anus is penetrated by a penis while being filmed."

via Mike South