Female Vampire (AKA Bare Breasted Countess, La Comtesse aux seins nus, La Comtesse noire, Les Avaleuses, Erotikill, Insatiable Lust, The Last Thrill)

the household pets of Leonard and Virginia Woolf

dogs:

Shag (part collie)
Charles (fox terrier)
Gurth (sheepdog)
Hans
Grizzle (mixed)
Pinka (spaniel)
Sally (spaniel)
Merle (sheepdog)
Nigg
Queenie

cats:
Peat
Troy
Bang

marmoset:
Mitz

Dashiell Hammett being sworn in by Joseph McCarthy

via LIFE photo archive

Are you sure it wasn't "Smooth Operator"?

The proceeding was scheduled for 10 A.M., and anyone could attend. It was in many ways a normal day, albeit with a little more electricity in the air and more guards in the lobby. They were on high alert, but were also chatty; when a woman set off the metal detector, a guard told her to take off her shoes. "Shoe violation," he said. "Shoe violation?" she said back. The guard then sang the words "shoe violation" to the melody of "She Works Hard for the Money."

The New Yorker

"Talk of the Town" piece on the Madoff hearing

Nancy Franklin

The Parts of the Body

Henry Green in the Paris Review (part one)

INTERVIEWER
I’ve heard it remarked that your work is “too sophisticated” for American readers, in that it offers no scenes of violence—and “too subtle,” in that its message is somewhat veiled. What do you say?

GREEN
Unlike the wilds of Texas, there is very little violence over here. A bit of child killing, of course, but no straight shootin’. After fifty, one ceases to digest; as someone once said: “I just ferment my food now.” Most of us walk crabwise to meals and everything else. The oblique approach in middle age is the safest thing. The unusual at this period is to get anywhere at all—Goddamn!

INTERVIEWER
And how about “subtle”?

GREEN
I don’t follow. Suttee, as I understand it, is the suicide—now forbidden—of a Hindu wife on her husband’s flaming pyre. I don’t want my wife to do that when my time comes—and with great respect, as I know her, she won’t . . .

INTERVIEWER
I’m sorry, you misheard me; I said, “subtle”—that the message was too subtle.

GREEN
Oh, subtle. How dull!

Summer Reading (#2)

via things

casual encounter #25

FUCK ME IN A SKI MASK - w4m - 35 (East Village)

Reply to: pers-352747679@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-06-15, 11:56AM EDT

I really get off on being humiliated by hung, dominant men.

I am 35, 5'3", with shoulder-length blonde hair and brown eyes, and about 130 pounds.

My friend's younger brother got me into this scene. He is only 19, and very verbal. He comes over to my place, gets undressed in the hallway, and when he walks into my room, he has a huge erection and is wearing a mask.

He fucks me and calls me a whore, and then he leaves.

Are there any other guys who might be into this? He said he'd like to try a group of 4-5 guys with him.

this scene is kind of a metaphor for my blog

INTERIOR — MAGAZINE SHOP

WOODY ALLEN is trying to browse the adult magazines without the other customers noticing.

WOODY 

(to himself)

Get a copy of Time magazine... and I think I'll take Commentary... and the Saturday Review.

(glances around cautiously)

And, uh... let's see, Newsweek.

(nonchalantly)

I'll just... grab one of these. 

WOODY brings his magazines to the counter and hands them to the CASHIER.

WOODY

(trying to act casual)

I'll take 'em all.

CASHIER

Fifty, a dollar, dollar and a quarter... 

(shouting across store to fellow clerk) 

Hey, Ralph, how much is a copy of Orgasm?

WOODY

Just put 'em in a bag, will you?

OTHER CLERK

(across store to CASHIER)

What?

CASHIER

(even louder) 

Orgasm! This man wants to buy a copy. How much is it?

Rrose Selavy

SAMPLE VOICE, B.

Hey son. Hey boy. Let's you and me go out and throw the ball around. Throw the ball around. You don't want to go out and throw the ball around? How come you don't want to go out and throw the ball around? I know why you don't want to go out and throw the ball around. It's cause you—Let's don't discuss it. It don't bear thinkin' about. Well let's see, you don't want to go out and throw the ball around, you can hep me work on the patio. You want to hep me work on the patio? Sure you do. Sure you do. We gonna have us a fine-lookin' patio there, boy, when we get it finished. Them folks across the street are just about gonna fall out when they see it. C'mon kid, I'll let you hold the level. And this time I want you to hold the fucking thing straight. I want you to hold it straight. It ain't difficult, any idiot can do it. A nigger can do it. We're gonna stick it to them mothers across the street, they think they're so fine. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, that's what I always say. Seen it on a sign one time, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME. Crazy guy goin' down the street holdin' this sign, see, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME, it tickled me. Went round for days sayin' it out loud to myself, flee from the wrath to come, flee from the wrath to come. Couldn't get it outa my head. See they're talkin' 'bout God there, that's what that's all about, God, see boy, God. It's this God shit they try and hand you, see, they got a whole routine, see, let's don't talk about it, gets me all pissed off. It fries my ass. Your mother goes for all that shit, see, and of course your mother is a fine woman and a sensible woman but she's just a little bit ape on this church thing we don't discuss it. She has her way and I got mine, we don't discuss it. She's a little bit ape on this subject, see, I don't blame her it was the way she was raised. Her mother was ape on this subject. That's how the churches make their money, see, they get the women. All these dumb-ass women. Hold it straight kid. That's better. Now run me a line down that form with the pencil. I gave you the pencil. What'd you do with the fuckin' pencil? Jesus Christ kid find the pencil. OK go in the house and get me another pencil. Hurry up I can't stand here holdin' this all day. Wait a minute here's the pencil. OK. I got it. Now hold it straight and run me a line down that form. Not that way dummy, on the horizontal. You think we're buildin' a barn? That's right. Good. Now run the line. Good. OK now go over there and fetch me the square. Square's the flat one, looks like a L. Like this, look. Good. Thank you. OK now hold that mother up against the form where you made the line. That's so we get this side of it square, see? OK now hold the board and lemme just put in the stakes. HOLD IT STILL DAMN IT. How you think I can put in the stakes with you wavin' the damn thing around like that? Hold it still. Check it with the square again. OK, is it square? Now hold it still. Still. OK. That's got it. How come you're tremblin'? Nothin' to it, all you got to do is hold one little bitty piece of one-by-six straight for two minutes and you go into a fit? Now stop that. Stop it. I said stop it. Now just take it easy. You like heppin' me with the patio, don'tcha? Just think 'bout when its finished and we be sittin' out here with our drinks drinkin' our drinks and them jackasses 'cross the street will be shittin'. From green envy. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, flee from the wrath to come. He he.

from "A Manual for Sons"

Donald Barthelme

guro lolita

The Eating Habits of Marlon Brando, Part Six

Living on his island of Tetioroa, Brando created what he called "real-life Mounds Bars" by cracking open a coconut, melting some chocolate in the sun, then stirring it into the coconut for a tasty treat.

via IMDB

this is exactly what I eat for breakfast and it's so good

via patrickmoberg

like, are you not familiar with my work?

Even on a sunny day in London, as he strolled through a park in evident pleasure, when a friend remarked that it was a day that made one glad to be alive, Beckett turned and said, "I wouldn’t go that far."

Time Magazine

January 8, 1990

For the tactics of Robert F. Williams!

ethnographic

The Yazidis are a tiny Gnostic-Sufi-Zoroastrian sect of ethnic Kurds based in Iraq who avoid wearing the color blue, pronouncing words beginning with sh, and eating lettuce.

Reports of the Yazidis' beliefs vary. This may be because those reports vary in accuracy, or because there are actually variations in what they believe (there is no written tradition to refer to). Or it may be that the Yazidis at times dissemble their beliefs to avoid persecution. Yazidis are known as devil-worshippers and consequently are often persecuted.

In any case, according to some the Yazidis believe that the fallen archangel Satan will one day repent and be restored to his place at God's right hand, at which time he’ll remember the one sect in the world who honored him while he was under disgrace.

Others say the Yazidis believe Satan has already repented—his tears of repentance having extinguished the fires of hell—and is even now back in his old place as the lord of this world.

Summer Reading

via ...By Its Cover

favorite quote

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Parts of the Body

INTO THE DUSK-CHARGED AIR

Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained within steep banks. The Isar
Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water
Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats
Were dark blue. The Moskowa is
Gray boats. The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes
Underneath. The Liffey is full of sewage,
Like the Seine, but unlike
The brownish-yellow Dordogne.
Mountains hem in the Colorado
And the Oder is very deep, almost
As deep as the Congo is wide.
The plain banks of the Neva are
Gray. The dark Saône flows silently.
And the Volga is long and wide
As it flows across the brownish land. The Ebro
Is blue, and slow. The Shannon flows
Swiftly between its banks. The Mississippi
Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon.
It has the Missouri for a tributary.
The Harlem flows amid factories
And buildings. The Nelson is in Canada,
Flowing. Through hard banks the Dubawnt
Forces its way. People walk near the Trent.
The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away;
The Rubicon is merely a brook.
In winter the Main
Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.
The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks
And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.
The Loir bursts its frozen shackles
But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it.
The East catches the light.
Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes
And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.
The Po too flows, and the many-colored
Thames. Into the Atlantic Ocean
Pours the Garonne. Few ships navigate
On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen
On the Elbe. For centuries
The Afton has flowed.
                                         If the Rio Negro
Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks. The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world. The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along. The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance
Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud
Like tan chalk-marks. Near where
The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes
And the Pechora? The São Francisco
Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles. The Liard's
Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes
Anthracite hummocks. The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green
Among grays. Better that the Indus fade
In steaming sands! Let the Brazos
Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden
Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must
Find a way to freeze it hard. The Ural
Is freezing slowly in the blasts. The black Yonne
Congeals nicely. And the Petit-Morin
Curls up on the solid earth. The Inn
Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's
Galvanized. The Ganges is liquid snow by now;
The Vyatka's ice-gray. The once-molten Tennessee's
Curdled. The Japurá is a pack of ice. Gelid
The Columbia's gray loam banks. The Don's merely
A giant icicle. The Niger freezes, slowly.
The interminable Lena plods on
But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim
With cold. The Loing is choked with fragments of ice.
The Weser is frozen, like liquid air.
And so is the Kama. And the beige, thickly flowing
Tocantins. The rivers bask in the cold.
The stern Uruguay chafes its banks,
A mass of ice. The Hooghly is solid
Ice. The Adour is silent, motionless.
The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice
Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.
The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little
And the Donets gurgles beneath the
Huge blocks of ice. The Manzanares gushes free.
The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.
But the Dnieper is still ice-bound. Somewhere
The Salado propels irs floes, but the Roosevelt's
Frozen. The Oka is frozen solider
Than the Somme. The Minho slumbers
In winter, nor does the Snake
Remember August. Hilarious, the Canadian
Is solid ice. The Madeira slavers
Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow. The Sava's
Temperature is above freezing. The Avon
Carols noiselessly. The Drôme presses
Grass banks; the Adige's frozen
Surface is like gray pebbles.

Birds circle the Ticino. In winter
The Var was dark blue, unfrozen. The
Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice;
The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.

John Ashbery