Ceci n'est pas un blog.

Au Revoir, Mon Chien Part II

Ouija board
Would you work for me ?
I have got to say Hello
To an old friend

Ouija board, ouija board, ouija board
Would you work for me ?
I have got to get through
To a good friend
Well, she has now gone
From this Unhappy Planet
With all the carnivores
And the destructors of it

Ouija board, ouija board, ouija board
Would you help me ?
Because I still do feel
So horribly lonely

Would you, ouija board
Would you, ouija board
Would you help me ?
And I just can't find
My place in this world

She has now gone
From this Unhappy Planet
With all the carnivores
And the destructors of it

Oh hear my voice
Oh hear my voice
Hear my voice Hear my voice...

Busy Day...

...but I give you the following, from the same timeperiod as yesterday's photo:

Controversey Works

I remember, as joltingly clear as the double espresso I just had, seeing this photo in a 1992 Details magazine (remember when the magazine was still a reflection of a dying NY creative scene?). The man, who bears a striking resemblance to images of Jesus Christ, is David Kirby, who died of complications brought on by AIDS soon before this photo was published in the global print media.

The photo was banned in the Netherlands and Germany, was seen as 'too sensational' in France,  and caused quite a ruckus-generating conversation concerning what constitutes advertising and branding. These people aren't wearing Benetton's clothes, but was the company declaring what they stand for by financially backing the publication of this photo? Was Benetton profiting from polemic? And if so, was that profit ethical in this case?

I was 15 years old when I saw this photo, a budding queer watching teachers of mine be covered in Kaposi's Sarcoma lesions, friends of friends cry for hours after learning of their infections, and numerous acquaintances in my all-too-early gay bar years waste away four years before the lifesaving combination therapies came to the fore. Kirby's approximation to depictions of Christ, paired with the undeniable emotion in the faces of his family, in my opinion humanised a disease in which those who suffered, and those who continue to suffer, were and are seen as inhuman – because they were and are gay, because they were and are black, because they were and are poor, because they were and are IV drug users.  In my opinion, these  are just the kind of people that Christ, as depicted in the gospels (which may or may not be the historic reality), would have been hanging around – but the mainstream, who now uses the teachings of Christ as a means of social stratification more than a means of realisation spiritual and humanistic potential, seemed to have forgotten who Jesus really was in the past 2000 years.

This image, a mere advertisement, has affected me more than most and has driven much of my professional and personal identity. Controversey works.

Edie Sedgwick et moi dirons bon week-end!

Here I Am In Paris, FRAHHHHNCE

"Glitter and Be Gay" de Candide, une comédie-musicale par Leonard Bernstein

Version Nathalie Dessay avec sous-titres pour lecteurs Francophones (Mais version Kristin Chenowith au-dessus est mieux!):

Panacée pour mal du pays/ Homesickness Cure

Nota Bene pour lecteurs francophones: Moron, un mot d'argot Américan pour "imbecile", est epelé M-O-R-O-N.

Je cherche mon compte de Flickr...

   

...et j'ai trouvé mon portrait de South Park. Ouais, je suis shooté.

Mon Chien Exilé

 

The Thérnardiers have put our poor little Cosette to work.

Tous Les Jours...

 

...un une petite mort.

And the way you

  And the way you catch the light... 
  Originally uploaded by mizezslocombe.

Look at what you've done

Something in the light,

Then at what you want

Something in the sky,

Not at where you are

In the grass,

What you'll be.

Up behind the tree.

Look at all the things

Things I hadn't looked at

You gave to me.

Till now:

Let me give to you

Flower in your hat.

Something in return.

And your smile.

I would be so pleased...