BODIES...The Exhibition Part Two

(BODIES...The Exhibition Part One found here. All photos with a white border were graciously loaned to this blog by Steven J. Messina. Caution: photos following may not be for the squeamish.)

In the exhibit, bodies posed to look like they were playing sports were placed at intervals to break up the drier educational tone of the other displays, as well as to counter the gruesomeness of it all. It had the opposite effect, at least for me-- by posing the corpses to make them seem more "alive", they seemed all the more gory and strange. I wondered why I felt that way, and I decided it was because the display of "movement" made me aware there were flayed bodies all around but there was no blood. This, and the captive aspect of "people" frozen in place were unnerving. (Of course this was something I read into it and completely subjective.)

The photo below, taken of a large poster for the exhibition, is one of a cadaver used in a lot of advertising for BODIES.


Here's a closeup I took of this figure when I saw it:

The details are what make bring on some of the moments of squeamishness. The photo below (from the Flickr account of Manuel Lino), shows the fingernails; they look even more "lifelike" than the plasticized flesh of the hand they are part of.



Hands are expressive. Perhaps that's why so many people who took pictures of the BODIES displays took photos of arms and hands, if the photos I've seen on the internet are typical. One photo I found at Marleen's Flickr account reminded me of the 1931 film Frankenstein, which features a closeup of a hand to reveal that life has entered the dead flesh of Frankenstein's creation.

Of course, seeing various organs and parts of people on display is a Frankensteinian experience.

I hope this wasn't a criminal brain! (Or, for that matter, from a prisoner from overseas.)



Colored resin was injected into the veins, arteries and capillaries of different systems and organs in the body to create perfect replicas. These were detailed down to the tiniest detail and were amazing in their intricacy.



I was reminded of another movie, the 2007 Sweeney Todd (which Jane and I saw in January) when I saw the display below, comprised of cross-sections of an individual. The flesh resembles the cuts of meat you might see in a supermarket display case, and made me pause for a long while in sad and horrified fascination:


Still, I knew that making people more aware of their bodies as objects of flesh had possible benefits. Making people think of themselves as animated, thinking objects, like a car or computer, might also make people more likely to maintain their own bodies, as they would their cars.
The display above was certainly designed to do that. Above is a pair of diseased smoker's lungs. Next to this disgusting display was a clear plastic receptacle for throwing away packs of cigarettes that visitors might have on them; many people had done so, and I hope people really were motivated to quit. (As a kid my father had done something similar-- he showed me cross-sections of preserved human lung he had in sheets inside a large binder; the lung samples were progressively more diseased from smoking. I never did take up the habit.)

Perhaps the displays would help people lose weight, too-- I know I didn't feel like eating for a good while afterwards. (Not even peanuts and crackerjack, despite all the bodies in sporting poses.)


From the Flickr account of one lailafrant comes this closeup of the soccer-playing dead man:



This was a display chosen to be used in the promotional materials-- see below-- and website; I assume the athletic corpses are supposed to draw in the average Joe.



Also at the official website (but thankfully not at the science center where I saw the exhibition), Premier Exhibitions (the company behind BODIES) are selling trinkets for the customer willing to buy BODIES merchandise! If there is an afterlife, I'd be okay with people learning anatomy from my shell on display, but I wouldn't want to be on this:
I'd expected the exhibit to be controversial, but there were no protests while it was here in Pittsburgh. I've heard of very little anywhere, (one of the exceptions being a small protest in Durham, NC.) I'm surprised, given that the cadavers are unclaimed bodies from China, not a favorite country of Amesty International. (Premier Exhibitions has an anatomist who examines the donated dead -- China, it's claimed, is not selling the bodies -- and he states that none of the bodies show any sign of wounds, trauma, torture or gunshots; all appear to have died naturally.) Various clergy have signed off on the ethical standards used by the company in obtaining the bodies from Dalian Medical University in China. I hope they're right.

A guide at the exhibit told me that no one had been upset enough to make a scene and be asked to leave, but that people of all ages --including children-- had fainted. On the positive side, medical students had raved about the displays; and doctors who visited often expressed a wish that these "plastinates" had been available for viewing when they were in medical school. (My own doctor -- mad, of course-- tells me there are not enough donated bodies in this country for all medical school classes nowadays, some medical students have to work with plastic replica cadavers with removable parts.)

At the end of the exhibit there was a wall where people could post comments on Post-It notes. Children were apparently asked to comment and give their ages; a few messages from kids were memorable enough to copy. One five year old wrote, "I thought I liked it." Another child named Samantha wrote "It was an very neat exhibit it made my stomach turn you should get more bodies". She drew a heart over her name. An eleven-year-old named Jared wrote, "I threw up in my mouth the whole time from when I started until up to now", and one older kid just left a drawing that made for a humorous end of the exhibit :


I hope this post didn't make you hurl.

Guest Blogger: Arbogast on Film

Members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers will be posting guest blog entries by other members of the League. This week's comes from the illustrious blog Arbogast on Film, and follows below.

There Will Be Blood Libel

My first reaction upon seeing photos of the cast of the 2008 remake of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was "Funny, they don't look Jewish."


I consider Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) to be one of the great unintentional blood libels of the latter half of the 20th Century. I don't think for a minute that Craven is anti-Semitic but rather that he, like all of us, carries with him learned associations that exist apart from his conscious mind. Just as David Lynch has in the past identified a sense of evil in effeminacy (BLUE VELVET) and ethnicity (WILD AT HEART), Wes Craven particularizes in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT his perception of pure evil with a distinctly Hebraic flavor.
Though none of the characters identify themselves explicitly as being Jewish, David Hess' Krug is depicted as an obnoxious cigar-smoking "Jew Yorker" whose perpetual stubble, curly hair, olive-colored skin and outer borough accent code him as an obvious Heeb. Add to that, Krug has been convicted for the killing of a Catholic priest and two nuns.

Cast in the role of Krug's accomplice, Weasel Podowski, Fred J. Lincoln wears the slate-colored hair and slack suit of a Lower East Side alter cocker while both Jeramie Rain (as Sadie, a common Jewish name that also brings to mind Manson killer Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz) and Marc Sheffler (as Krug's schlemiel of a son, Junior) have "difficult" ethnic hair. Weasel's rap sheet identifies him as a child molester, which fits the historical blood libel that slandered Jews as sacrificers of children. The quartet is shown to be "animal-like," to inhabit a dirty tenement (a dwelling associated with foreigners) and, while transporting their kidnap victims from the city to the country, Krug and Sadie engage in rear-entry sex (coitus more ferarum, or "sex by way of the beasts"), a form of copulation frequently associated (however unfairly) with non-Christians.

The transition of the kidnappers/killers from the city to the country is a key element of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, illustrating an old white Anglo-Saxon fear of the contamination of suburbia's assumed purity by ethnic types (as Fairfield County, the film's location and setting, became a destination for upwardly mobile urban Jews post-World War II). The waspy surname of one of the victims and her parents, Collingwood, is eerily similar to Sadie's imaged alias (Agatha Greenwood), suggesting that Krug & Company aspire in some part to assimilate even while they shred the very fabric of Christian society.

In the film's most disturbing sequence, Krug, Weasel and Sadie kill their captives after stripping them and humiliating them sexually. When Phyllis tries to escape, she is run to ground, stabbed and then butchered in a scene that can't help but evoke shechita, or Jewish ritual slaughter. Phyllis' intestines are pulled out of her oozing abdominal cavity and examined, as a shochet would do to determine if a slaughtered animal were fit to be declared kosher. Obviously, Phyllis' disemboweling is not genuinely kosher but does suggest that Krug & Co. are operating on autopilot, as if by collective cultural memory, in the same way that their earlier torment of Phyllis and Mari echoed the treatment of Jews bound for concentration camps. The kidnappers seem to be maltreating their captives as a form of confused racial self-hatred, channeling ritualistic acts that both glorify and slander their ancestors.

Having killed Phylllis, Krug rapes Mari... but not before he uses a switchblade to carve his name into her sternum. This gesture reminded me of Rabbi Lowe scratching the word "EMET" into the forehead of The Golem. (With his helmet hair, Krug even resembles Paul Wegener's iconic 1920 interpretation of THE GOLEM.) As EMET is the Hebrew word for "truth," Krug's mutilation of Mari might be said to be his way of sending a wake-up call to WASP society, announcing both his arrival and his intention to destroy their four-square, missionary position world. (In this regard, Krug also bears a resemblance to the character of Berger from the musical HAIR, who comes to his position of iconoclastic hippie king from a distinctly urban Jewish environment.) And can it be mere coincidence that Krug comes to his decision to shoot Mari after having overheard her reciting the Lord's Prayer, as she wades into a woodland pond in a cleansing act of self baptism?

At this point it's worth remembering that LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is a remake of sorts of Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), a Medieval morality tale set at a time when Christianity was waging war against Paganism for world and spiritual dominance. LAST HOUSE hews closely to the VIRGIN SPRING template by having its spree killers (who pose as salesmen, and in so doing aligning themselves with Jews via the merchant class) taken in by Mari's parents, who feed them in a scene that mimics da Vinci's The Last Supper (while leaving an empty chair in the foreground - for Elijah?). Over the course of the evening, the truth comes out and Mari's parents turn on her killers. While the ensuing slaughter is strong stuff, the third act's oddest/most brutal bit of business is Mrs. Collingwood's oral castration of Weasel in a scene that seems to mock the Jewish rite of circumcision (thus explaining the chair left empty for Elijah). It should also be noted that she performs this act after first using Weasel's leather belt to bind his hands in what could be construed as an allusion to the philactery, the calfskin box containing Hebraic scripture that some Jews wear strapped to their heads and wrapped around their left arms during weekday prayers.

Again, I hasten to add that I don't believe ex-Baptist Wes Craven set out to slander the Jews with LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT but the Jewishness of the killers he created cannot be ignored. My feeling is that Craven was writing/casting/directing instinctively from a series of societal and cultural presets and prejudices. Certainly, living and working (first as a taxi driver and then as a young filmmaker) in New York, Craven would have had plenty of negative experiences with people of all ethnic persuasions. I half suspect Krug was modeled on a particularly noxious distributor who blew fetid cigar smoke in Craven's face while cheating him out of profits. However it all came together, these textures (real or imagined) give the original LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT intriguing layers of meaning. You won't find this kind of subtext in a New Millennium remake claiming to pay homage to 70s cinema while pissing all over a glorious, difficult and demanding decade that was never afraid to get blood on its hands.

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Read more from the intelligent (and pseudonymous) Arbogast, one of the best film reviewers on the internet:

http://arbogastonfilm.blogspot.com/

BODIES...The Exhibition Part One

The Voodoo Queen and I, and a friend, went last month to see the controversial touring exhibit, BODIES: THE EXHIBITION. This is an exhibit of flayed, plasticized human bodies and organs. (If this subject makes you squeamish, do not scroll down any further-- pictures follow.)

With images of the exhibit having appeared on the news, on billboards, and in other forms of advertising, most of you here in the U.S. have probably seen at least one grisly image. So whether you're anxious or jaded about the subject at this point, I hope you'll keep reading.

I had some trepidation about going. I'd heard rumors that at least some of the bodies came from Chinese political prisoners, but the exhibition company and the government of China have both denied this. I went, not being sure what was the truth, and seeing this as an educational event unlike any other I was likely to see in my lifetime. An exhibit that combines science, art, and ghoulish gore? I had to go!

I don't consider human remains as being exactly sacred; it's the feelings of the living that must be considered. I reasoned that there was no chance that anyone who knew the bodies back when they were people would recognize a corpse and be traumatized. So we went.

The first image I saw was an advertisement:

Which made me really want to see what lay in store inside. This was not at all like the teaser art of the carnival sideshows I can just barely remember from my childhood, where what you were promised was more than what you'd see (the "Amazing Alligator Man" might just be a bald guy with a few snaggle teeth and a bad rash); this was a photo showing you exactly what you were in for. I was hooked. (This was an opportunity to see in real life the sorts of things I saw in photos as a child in my father's medical books-- my dad being a small-town doctor-- but in greater variety and arrayed with imagination.)

Besides, as a severed head, I got in for free.

I'll let the images speak for themselves, mostly. I can tell you that the exhibit made every attempt to give visitors a sense of how our muscles function (hence the poses of specimens kicking, throwing, etc.), and every display had ample text to educate viewers about what they were were seeing and how it all worked. Every organ had was labeled, even the smallest. The exhibition was divide into different areas by curtains, according to what biological systems and organs were being focused on. It was too much to take all of it, fully and with understanding, unless you had hours and hours. I felt that what you came away with seeing the exhibition depended on how much effort you put into it; full observation of all the details and relating them to the text took patience; and I suspect most people (including yours gruely) didn't spend enough time and trouble for a complete appreciation of the complexity of the human body. But I'm sure all visitors came away with similar feelings of wonder, fascination, and revulsion. And likely too, curiosity mixed with twinges of sadness about the nameless individuals whose deaths allowed their bodies to be a part of the display.

I know, I'm taking too long to get to the photos. Some of the photos are ones we took (the bad ones) and some-- most-- are photos taken by photographer Steven J. Messina, and graciously shared with this blog. His photos are all excellent, and the next best thing to actually seeing the corpses in person. (His photos all have a white border around them.)

A few were swiped from the net before I went to this exhibit, and I've forgotten where they came from. They will be removed upon request of the photographers.

One of the first sights seen at this portion of BODIES (other portions of the exhibition form different units, like different touring troupes of one circus) was this gleeful pose of a man dancing with his own skeleton:



Followed by organs, more bones, and cross sections of people:



One of the strangest sights was seeing the brain, eyes, and nervous system all laid out, reminding me of monsters from sci-fi flicks like Fiend Without a Face and Mars Attacks:


The top picture comes from the online version of Prick magazine, (as does the b & w photo found above) and can be seen as part of an article here.

Those staring eyes (the only real ones seen in the exhibit, the rest being glass so as to look shiny and alive) were very creepy to me.

But the most unnerving sight was one that reminded me of what I've lost, being a drunken severed head:


Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

(Related link to the above photo: Icelandic Penis Museum news item)

RIP: Winemaker Robert Mondavi dies at age 94

It's time to have some wine.

Below is an Associated Press photo of Mondavi as well as a brief AP obit.
"In this photo originally provided by Departures Magazine, wine makers, Robert Mondavi, left, and his brother Peter Mondavi, hold hands at the 26th annual Auction Napa Valley at Meadowwood Resort, on June 3, 2006, in St. Helena, Calif. Robert Mondavi, the pioneering vintner who put California wine country on the global map, died Friday, May 16, 2008. He was 94."

(AP Photo/George Nikitin, Departures Magazine)

DEVIL MUSIC ENSEMBLE tours Europe!

Similar to the DME event pictured above, the Voodoo Queen and I saw the talented musical group DEVIL MUSIC ENSEMBLE perform an original score at a local screening last year. They accompanied a showing of the 1920 film version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

For the European readers of this blog, I recommend you see them as they tour this summer. Below is an announcement and calendar they sent me for their tour across the Old World. Look it over, then plan to go see this classic film-- one of the best versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's schizoid story-- with DME's live accompaniment. You will be glad you did.

Devil Music Ensemble
live soundtrack performance to a classic silent film
Tour in Europe
in support of our new Jekyll & Hyde DVD
May 23rd - June 8 2008
Performing an original soundtrack to
"Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde"
(1920) Starring John Barrymore
for more info go to www.devilmusic.org

Please pass this along to your Euro friends...Thanks!

Friday May 23rd FOCUS Filmtheater in Arnhem Netherlands 21.45 website

Sat May 24th Filmhuis Lumen in Delft Netherlands 19.45 website

Sun May 25th Cafe du Paris in Paris France 20.30 website

Mon May 26th Espace Autogéré in Dijon France 20.00 website promoter

Tues May 27th Caligari FilmBuehne in Wiesbaden Germany 20.00 website

Wed May 28th Kalkbreite in Zurich Switzerland 21.00
Kalkbreitestrasse 4, 8004 Zürich

Thur May 29th Ottensheim Ferry in Ottensheim Austria 21.30
Open air on a ferry on the Danube promoter

Sat May 31st Lichtspieltheater Lambach in Lambach Austria 20.30 website promoter

Sun June 1st Burgruine Arnoldstein in Arnoldstein Austria 21.30
Open air in ruins of a 12th century Abbey promoter

Tues June 3rd OPT (Osrodek Postaw Tworczych) in Wroclaw Poland 20.00 website

Wed June 4th Babylon Kino in Berlin (Mitte) Germany 20:00 website

Thur June 5th Pupille Kino An Der Uni in Frankfurt a.m. Germany 20.30 website

Friday June 6th Panorama-Museum Bad Frankenhausen Germany 19.30 website

Sat June 7th UT Connewitz in Leipzig Germany 21:00 website

Sun June 8th De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam Netherlands 17.00 website

Keep an eye out for the DME fall U.S. tour coming to a theater near you in September and October 2008. New film to be announced at that time (it's a surprise!)

I've been tagged! Ow!

Well, I got one of those "Read this, and send it to five other people"-type emails. On first glance, I thought it was the sort of thing that tells me to spread the word that Bill Gates will give you a pot o' money if you forward an e-mail to everyone you know, or implores me to spread the word that Jesus wants them to vote against Hillary Clinton because she once ate a boiled baby at a coven meeting in the White House, or some other such nonsense. My first reaction was to roll my eyes so hard I looked like Little Orphan Annie or Bruce Wayne with his cowl on. But I read on, since the e-mail was sent by my good friend Pierre Fournier of the blog Frankensteinia.

I'd misjudged what the e-mail was about.

It turns out that I was being "tagged"-- a game involving a "meme." (Ugh, what an ugly word-- and one of the most overused ones on the internet, with intellectual pretensions, to boot.) Seems I had to go to the closest book to me, turn to page 123, count the first five sentences, then post the next three sentences after that on the blog. Then I had to do the dirty deed of forwarding this "tag" to five other chumps, inviting them to do the same thing.

Okay, I admit it-- I mumbled and grumbled to myself at first. But after a while I decided this was akin to a party game and might be fun if I just tried it with a good attitude (a resource I sometimes run short of, which is obvious from the above paragraph), I grabbed the nearest book (an interesting Anne Perry mystery, Southampton Row) and turned to the required page.

I'm not lucky at games. I once pinned a donkey's tail onto the teacher's butt while blindfolded. This game proved to be no exception to my "unlucky streak".

Here are the sentences:

"I resented Cornwallis for wishing you onto me. Took you as a favor to him, but perhaps it wasn't after all."

"Why do you owe Cornwallis any favors?"

Outta context, the selection ain't exactly a grabber, is it?

Maybe I should parody it, a la Beavis and Butthead:

"I resented Cornholeis for wishing you into me. Took you as a sexual favor to him, but perhaps it wasn't after all."

Naw, that stinks.

I wish I'd had my copy of The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery closer to hand!

The five I in turn tagged are Gary Macabre of Blogue Macabre, Kirk D. of Secret Fun Blog, John Rozum of John Rozum, Erick of Wonderful Wonderblog, and Iloz Zoc of Zombos' Closet of Horror.

I wish them luck. (I'm actually hoping every one of them cheats!)

VIDEO WATCHBLOG IS WRONG! Plus, Tim Lucas' secret "acquaintance" unmasked!

(Alright, I admit it up front: the subject line above is an overstated "grabber" to get you to keep reading. But you are, aren't you? Keep going!)

In an entry at VIDEO WATCHBLOG last Thursday titled "The End of Blogging Days - A Rumination,"* the award-winning, well-respected writer Tim Lucas, publisher of the magazine VIDEO WATCHDOG and the author of MARIO BAVA: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, wrote about his mixed feelings regarding blogging as a worthwhile activity. The post had been prompted by his being invited by an unnamed party into a horror blog "guild." Lucas had politely declined to join on the basis of time constraints and his qualms about blogging. The inviter, whom he had called "an acquaintance", told him he'd experienced similar mixed feelings.

I can verify the truth of this, because I was the secret "acquaintance" and the "guild" is The League of Tana Tea Drinkers. (The use of the term "guild" is Mr. Lucas', and a better one than those of us in LOTT-D have come up to describe the group. Thanks, TL!)

Tim Lucas didn't actually name me or link to this blog (he referred to me only as an acquaintance, which is accurate), but I didn't expect him to. All the same-- oh, the woe! The crushing shame of having my identity hidden kept me contemplating dark thoughts; why I even considered rolling myself into the paper shredder to end it all! Severed heads with drinking problems have notoriously delicate egos! But now, at last, you know the secret identity of Mr. Lucas' acquaintance.

(Above photo, left to right: Tim Lucas, an acquaintance of TL, and author David J. Schow. Below: Schow, Donna Lucas, and Tim Lucas, three people who are incredibly charming and engaging from the first time you meet them.)

And I do have mixed feelings about blogging. As with Lucas, I do sometimes feel "a burden of guilt" when I go several days without posting. (And who needs that?) And, like him, I find blogging an "unremunerative drain on my time and energies"-- I don't get paid to do it, and the time I spend on my blog could be spent doing something that might make me some money. Perhaps I may sometime have to face leaving off blogging for other pursuits. If so, then Lucas' statement "it becomes the secret wish of all bloggers to stop blogging" will seem amazingly prescient. But don't many interests eventually pall or become impractical to continue? Everything passes under the soil of accumulated time. "All is vanity...there is no remembrance of former things."

Lucas says that "blogs do indeed form communities of the heart", but feels they are "a gratifying pantomime of achievement rather than achievement itself." The gratification is "nice...but lasts only for an instant." And when a blogger and his/her blog are gone, they are quickly forgotten: "the nature of cyberspace that allows such disappearances to heal over quickly."

Au contraire, mon frere. One of the first bloggers I ever read, James Lileks of The Bleat (part of his multi-layered, fun website Lileks. com), came to seem like a friend. His writing is personal, and I came to appreciate his sense of humor, his bemused love for his family, and his biting sense of humor. That is, until he became more political (he's very conservative) and his biting sense of humor gave way to negative ranting; I stopped checking in years ago. But to this day I wonder how he is, and some of his memorable posts I still recall. The same is true of Kirk Demarais' Secret Fun Blog (of the larger Secret Fun Spot site)-- some his posts have long stayed with me because of their combination of knowledge about a particular subject and a passion for same, with personal details thrown into the mix. The list of names of memorable posts by interesting bloggers goes on and on, at least for me.

Of course, we come from different perspectives. I'm married to a woman I first met and got to know via the internet, and our marriage was celebrated online by our friends, so I am disposed to think well of online activities ; Tim Lucas, as a writer, has to support himself by writing articles, novels, and screenplays, and blogging doesn't pay the bills; naturally he would have to conclude that very much time online could be harmful to his own best interests.

Lucas and I have in common the fact that we both have made and strengthened many valuable friendships over the 'net, and I have to admit that I've made mistakes in gaging the proper balance of life in the virtual world and life if the real world. Last October, when I accepted the 'post-a-day' challenge for Halloween season, I put a temporary strain on my marriage that I regret. A few other times I've skirted close to it but didn't; and sometimes I've wondered if the time I've spent blogging might be better spent trying to engage friends socially. But time in the virtual world is attractive to my friends too; it seems harder to maintain regular socializing in the real world than it used to.

I wonder how the balancing act blogging requires has affected other, non-professional areas of Tim Lucas' life; I know he feels the desire to blog fairly keenly, as he stated "...if it was financially feasible, I would probably stop VIDEO WATCHDOG tomorrow and write this blog full time... blogging typically invigorates a writer's productivity."

Tim Lucas rightly identifies the regrettable trend of the virtual world to supplant areas of the real world: "All around us, our growing indifference to the world outside our computer screens is causing newspapers with over a century of experience and tradition to topple, venerable bookstores to close, magazines to fold, literature to die." But it now seems as fruitless to curse this trend, however lamentable, as it is to decry the replacement of small businesses with Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and megachains of all kinds, or to rail against urbanization for the isolating anonymity it can bring to people who live near each other. It is harder to buy locally, to know one's neighbors, and to socialize in the real world, but it can be done.

Blogging isn't solely a part of the problem in the latter area. Though it typically does not initiate or strengthen friendships, it does sometimes; I've met a couple people through my blog that I'm glad I've gotten to know. If blogging "doesn't help you to make the hand-to-hand, face-to-face connections that are necessary to anyone's professional advancement" (are there no exceptions to this?), then it has brought me, at least, some, and provided something to discuss with established friends.

The same is true for message boards for areas of common interest have brought me many real and lasting friendships, although it has brought me far more friendly acquaintanceships, such as I have with Tim Lucas. Still, a friend, however found, is an invaluable personal asset. The virtual world, if negotiated wisely, can bring much that is good to one's life.

I'm grateful to Tim Lucas for posting two thought-provoking entries at his blog (the first was Followed up by a clarification of his feelings in a second post titled '690'), but he's good at that. (I'm also grateful to have a natural opportunity to mention him and VIDEO WATCHBLOG; that will surely drive up this blog's hits! Ha ha ha!)

I look forward to reading more by Tim, both in virtual print and real, and to seeing him in real life again, as I did at Wonderfest last year. Listening and talking to him (and David Schow, and many others) was a rewarding, fun and warm experience. See ya 'round, Tim!



* Does this make Tim Lucas a ruminant? (I kid, I kid!)

Happy Birthday, Jack Pierce!

"Happy Birthday!" to one of the finest makeup men in the history of cinema. He was born on this day in 1899.

Sign an internet petition to get a long-overdue star for Jack Pierce on Hollywood's Walk of Fame at this link:

A Star for Mr. Pierce

Brian Horrorwitz' ANTENA CRIMINAL

Note to readers: Below is a post that I will be expanding next week, but I wanted to post now and will edit later. I interviewed the creator of the documentary ANTENA CRIMINAL, Brian Horrorwitz, Brian's the front man of the band The Ubangis, and he had previously provided music for other Franco films. His passion for the director's films led him to become a filmmaker, documenting the making of the 2000 Franco flick BLIND TARGET.

So I will be posting an update notice next week, but you can see the most important part, the interview that forms most of the post below, NOW.
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Brian Horrorwitz' Antena Criminal is an independent documentary film released at the end of 2007 that examines and documents the making of Blind Target (2000), one of Jess Franco's more recent films. Antena Criminal is a promising first documentary from Horrorwitz, and makes the watching of Blind Target a better experience. (But it would just about have to-- BT is not exactly classic cinema!)

Horrorwitz is the proprietor of Trash Palace, a cool site for buying odd novelty and exploitation films on DVD and for buying high-octane lowbrow music on CDs. Just as Trash Palace has introduced me to some interesting, unusual stuff, Antena Criminal and Blind Target introduced me to the weird, sometimes trashy world of longtime genre filmmaker Jess Franco. Whether this is a favor or not remains to be seen, but I enjoyed Antena Criminal as an unblinking look at filmmaking on a shoestring, and I recommend YOU buy it! You get the two disk Antena Criminal set and a separate dvd of Blind Target, all for $11.98!

I wasn't unfamiliar with Franco --you can't learn anything about the history of foreign horror films without learning about Franco-- but my first introduction to his work came as a surprise! When I was about 12, one of my grannies sent me for Christmas a book on the history of vampire films, since I've always been a fan of monster movies. What she didn't know (and I didn't either) was that a couple of nude photos from Franco's Vampyros Lesbos were in the book! (I managed to keep my happy surprise under the radar, and my parents never knew about the illicit images I'd been given.) So, from then on, I was curious about the Spanish director's movies, and sometimes even for reasons of intellectual curiosity!



What I gathered, from everything that I read as I grew older, was that Franco was a schlock artist who turned out far more dreck than diamonds. Still, he was said to have done some outstanding stuff, so I had high hopes for the first Franco flicker I saw.

Well, my hopes were dashed by Blind Target. The anonymous writer who wrote the IMDB plot summary for Blind Target describes the story this way: "Blind Target is about an expatriate author is the story of a young woman who emigrated from the poor tiny Latin American country of San Hermoso only to strike it rich and famous as an author in the United States. When she returns to her homeland to promote her novel "Desperate Letters" - a thinly veiled expose of her native land's political corruption - she is in for a welcome that she could not have imagined in her worst nightmares." Her worst nightmare would have to be that she is in a film that features poor performances (except for those by Linnea Quigley and Lina Romay), has poor sound and dubbing, is marred by rough camera work done by Franco himself, looks cheap, and has unintentional laughs. (The biggest has to be a lesbian love scene where one character is pressed up against a glass window; the movements of her partner behind her mash the actress' face into odd contortions, like the kind kids make when they use their fingers to make funny faces.)

Thankfully I had Antena Criminal to help me appreciate Franco a little better. He's a man who lives to make films, as he has for over fifty years, no matter what size budget or lack of talented help he may be saddled with. And he has made some good films, if his Jack the Ripper is any indication. (My wife suggested I watch that one after the boredom of Blind Target; I did and enjoyed it.)

And now the interview with Brian Horrorwitz:
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Max the drunken severed head: What is the meaning of the title? I saw the words spelled out in the building windows early in the documentary, but had no idea what they referenced. (I do know that "antena" is the Spanish spelling for "antenna" in English.)

Brian Horrorwitz: Well, it's a few things. First, I got the name from this huge sign that was posted in some guy's window. If you see the documentary, there are shots looking up at it. That was the same building Jess and Lina [Romay] were living in at the time. I stayed there for a month as well at the corner of the building just above them. And right at the very top above me was the Antena Criminal guy. If you look closely you might notice a whole ton of antennas up on the rooftop. I think maybe they were relay antennas put there by some company for who knows. And apparently they were really screwing with the guys electricity in his apartment. So that was his way of protesting. That building was way up high on the hill above the beach. And if you were driving anywhere near there or walking down the boardwalk or whatever you just couldn't miss it. At night he'd leave his lights on so the sign was illuminated. Really a brilliant way of protesting. Also for me it kind of represented a vibe I saw in the minds of some of the Spanish people there. Very creative, very laid back but still willing to come up with an idea to make their statement should a protest arise. There are other meanings to the name too but that's for you to decide.

You told me in a prior phone conversation that Blind Target, the film whose production is the focus of your documentary,is far from being Franco's best work. Prior to shooting the documentary, did you have different expectations?

Well, I didn't really know what to expect. I can tell you that they ran into a lot of problems before the shooting ever started, like the original lead actress dropping out a couple of days before the shoot, things like that. And don't get me wrong, there are things about "Blind Target" that I really like. But it seems to me, although some might disagree, that maybe there were too many fingers in the creative pot. The basic storyline wasn't necesarily the type of thing Franco would normally do although he has made several other movies dealing with espionage. But the Franconian elements are all there because, no matter what's in the script, when Jess is at the helm it's always gonna come out being a Jess Franco movie one way or another.

What held up the release of the documentary?

Just a combination of technical things, money... the usual b.s. Also I wanted to screen it a few times and get people's feedback because I was concerned that maybe it was a bit too eclectic, had maybe too limited of an appeal. I mean to me it means something but I wanted to try and see if it connected with anyone else and fortunately it has with a few people. I kind of shopped it around a bit but it really does have a limited audience to be honest. I was hoping before I went over there I could create something that non-Franco fans might appreciate but I don't know if that would've been possible in this case without it coming across as another typical "DVD extra" type of documentary. I wanted it to have it's own mood and style, which it does. Whether it is works or not I can't say.

What do you love about Franco's films? What do think Franco fans "get" about his films that his critics don't?

A lot of things really. I love the fact that each movie is like a piece of a puzzle, the puzzle being the mind of Jess Franco. And the more you watch the more connections you see. I like the fact that he comes up with these creative little background stories for his characters to set all the debauchery in motion. I think it makes the sex scenes more interesting if there's a reason behind it. Also the fact that, like some of my favorite directors, his films work on a more cerebral level rather then technical. They don't look slick, he shoots on location, the settings aren't lit fancy, the camera wanders through a lot of the times in the same way that the eye sees things, like a voyeur peering into someone's demented dream. And I think a lot of people appreciate that kind of approach because it's so different then what we see today in movies. Some people can't get past the cheapness of his films but to me most of them make up for it and then some by exploring things on a whole different level. Fellini wasn't that different, he just had much more money and made much fewer films.

What emotions did you feel seeing Franco work on Blind Target?

Well, there were many and they were all good! First, being a long time fan, it was all kind of surreal seeing him in action. It was impressive seeing this man work, too. He obviously knows his shit! The way he could be shooting one scene while the next one was being setup by the crew. He was really fast and held it together all the time. I am convinced that if he ever had more money to work with he easily could direct another "Eugenie" or "Faceless". His mind was 100% sharp and he was very focused on what he was doing, knowing at every moment exactly what he wanted in all aspects; what lights to use, where to set them, the choreography of the actors, the cinematography (he still does all of his own shooting), etc. I did feel a bit odd at times because I knew ahead of time that he wasn't really keen on having a camera in his face the whole time. He and Lina and everyone there in fact were as nice as could be, there was no hostility whatsoever. But when things started hitting the proverbial fan, and, as you saw, it did, I could tell he felt a bit uneasy about having me there shooting all of that. But not as uneasy as I felt, believe me!

Franco never seems to crack a smile or laugh in your film. Did you find him to be a very serious person, or was he struggling with frustration or sadness? Certainly Blind Target seemed to have some production troubles.

No, actually he smiles and laughs all the time. But when he is working he is very focused. And actually despite a few brief blow-ups I think he handles the frustrations amazingly well. You've seen Antena and you know what frustrations I am talking about, well, if it had been me I probably would've lost it much sooner then he did. So actually he held it together quite well considering what he had to deal with sometimes.

What amused him? How does his sense humor express itself in his films?

It's hard to say; I think Jess can appreciate a sort of nutty theatrical type of humor, laughing at someone acting like a goofball. He also will sometimes make you do things for a laugh, like when I had to run down a mountain road 5 times in "Blind Target". I think about half-a-second of that 20 minutes of running ended up in the actual film. And I'm still not sure if he was having a laugh at my expense or not but it was pretty funny. Just before that we had been served our breakfast which was called "Megas" or something, this kind of greasy mush made out of bread stuffing, fried sausage and a fried egg...I forget what all else was in there... all squished togther in a bowl. And after I are it I had to do all that running and I almost hurled. Well, if you look at the outtakes on the Antena DVD, there is a scene were they're discussing that the running shot didn't come out and we might have to do it over again. And Lina pipes up and says "I'll go get another bowl of Megas ready for you."! She is really funny, she cracked me up quite a bit. In his movies she always plays these demented nympho characters in this sort of spaced out sex-freak mode. But if you've ever seen her doing a comedy role she is quite good at them, she can really pull it off, and that is much more like her real personality. You can tell in Antena, she is always kidding around but when it's time to shoot, she jumps in there and nails it like a pro. She also loves to film and ended up shooting several parts of Antena.

I assume you met Franco for the first time while making Antena Criminal. As you got to know him a bit, did he surprise you in any way? If so, how?

Actually I got to meet him once at a horror convention a few years before that. He was quite personable and very interesting to hang around with and talk to. He could go on and on about music and film. I've never met anyone that knew so much about old Hollywood movies! Also the fact that he could handle joking around even about his own movies. We were at some restaurant and he recommended I try the blood sausage and I asked him, "Wasn't that the name of one of your films? The Bloody Sausage?". He thought that was funny.

The torture of women is a major and recurring element in his films. Why do think that is?

Well in his case, as I said before, it's never just obligatory, there's always some narrative motivation behind it. I think there are quite a few men being tortured as well. And more often then not there is a woman who is controlling the torture. Even in his women-in-prison movies, it's always Ajita Wilson or someone pulling the strings. Outside of the sexual elements and the fact that Jess loves the idea of the dominating woman, the femme fatale, the succubus, etc., he likes to spin a story in a very old fashioned style, much in the way of old Hollywood films. And I think that sex and torture for him are story telling devices believe it or not. He'd never have someone getting tortured for no reason, he uses the exploitative elements to tell the story.

How are the erotic elements of Blind Target different from his other films?

Well, I think more then ever they are used to move the plot along. I don't want to give anything away but the sex is used as a manipulative device in the movie, and then later as an act of violence, both times altering the storyline.

He claims to be a feminist. Do you believe him? I get the feeling that he merely romanticizes-- and idolizes-- women as superior to men in all ways.

Well, I suppose that depends on what one's definition of feminism is! I mean there is no question that he idolizes women. But if you listen to what he has to say in one of the interview segments of Antena he most certainly has definite ideas about the importance of women in the world and they are VERY feminist. He may express those ideas in an overtly sexual or "pulp" manner in his movies, but it seemed to me that he was quite sincere.

What was his relationship with Ms. Romay like, as you observed it?

Pretty much the way it comes across in Antena: 2 people who have a deep love and caring for each other. I can't imagine 2 people who understand each other so well too.

What do you imagine Franco would be doing if were not a filmmaker?

My answer to that is I cannot imagine him doing ANYTHING else! It is impossible. If he were not a film maker then he probably wouldn't exist.

What is the one Jess Franco film you wish everyone would see?

Hmmm... Well, I don't know if there is just one, but I think there might be one for everybody; People with a taste for arthouse cinema might appreciate "Succubus" which is my personal favorite; gorehounds would probably dig "Faceless" quite a bit; and a lot of people like "Venus in Furs".

Please tell me about your music tracks for Blind Target and for Antena Criminal.

Uuuummm... Well,... after Jess had used a few songs from my band The Ubangis' first CD in "Lust for Frankenstein" and then we collaborated with him to compose music for "Vampire Blues", his producer contacted us about writing the score for "Blind Target". But this time we were given lyrics to use that were written by somebody else and told to write music that sounded like this or that. And that was all well and good but then, they way I remember it, they kept changing what they wanted. And we wrote and recorded these tracks very quickly and by the time it was all done I wouldn't say it was among our better material but not bad. And when I finally got to Spain and played it for Jess I could tell that he wasn't thinking it fit, which it didn't because at that point they decided they wanted something with a more Latin flavor to represent the mood of the fictional country in the film. Which we most defnitely could've done if we were told that up-front and just left to do our thing. And I don't think it was Jess' fault, he trusted us with his ideas for "Vampire Blues" and we were right in synch with him. But this time really there were, like I said before, just too many fingers in the pot. So they ended up using one track, a vocal track, and I cringe every time I hear it. But the instrumental stuff we recorded came out pretty good and it was in my head the entire time I was there shooting there so I decided to make it the Antena score and for that it works quite well I think.

Does Franco like rock music himself? Do you know what he listens to?

Yes he does! I think Jazz is his main thing but he is actually very progressive when it comes to using music in his films and if he didn't like it he probably wouldn't use it with a few exceptions ("Faceless" theme anyone?). I mean, at his age the guy made "Killer Barbies" and used bands like Sexy Sadie and The Ubangis in his movies fer chrissakes! And if you listen to some of the scores from the '70s, there is some very modern jazzy stuff in a period piece film like "The Demons" for instance. And Manfred Mann in "Venus In Furs". I know Jess considers himself a musician and to me he definitely has good taste. I found a small record shop in Malaga when I was over there and picked up a couple of LPs I had never heard before. I told him "Jess, I got a Count Basie album today!". "Which one?" he said. "Count Basie Plays The Beatles!". He makes a sour face. He was right!

I'll close with a stupid, Barbara Walters-style question. If Jess Franco's films were a sandwich, what kind of sandwich would it be?

Uuummm... Ham with extra cheese? No, no... I am kidding of course! Geeze... I DUNNO!!

And I don't know why I asked such a silly thing. But thank you for this interview!

Above: Max the drunken severed head and Brian Horrorwitz!

The unnerving figures of RON MUECK

Years ago, Steve Martin had a routine about "getting small". He riffed about shrinking in size as if it were a metaphor for using psychedelic substances. The artist Ron Mueck must have also wanted to "get small", because he creates art that makes the viewer feel Lilliputian; he makes hyper-realistic, over-sized sculptures of human beings , and they are a trip!

His art is currently touring the country, and Jane and I went to see his breathtaking work about a month ago at the Warhol Art Museum. Here's a photo I took of a work titled A Girl:


The closer you get to Mueck's mammoth, extremely detailed works of art the smaller you feel,


until you feel mildly horrified, with a suspicion that you are dreaming nagging at your rationality.


Ron Mueck has no formal art training; he formerly worked in model-making for t.v. and for movies such as Labyrinth. He learned how to expertly work in silicone and fiberglass, the materials of the works you see in these photos. His models (or "hollow sculptures") are practically perfect: the skin appears translucent; veins and minor blemishes can be seen. In the piece below, a model of Mueck's own face titled Mask II, you can see nose hair inside the nostrils:


The sculpture below is Untitled (Boy). It typifies how Mueck's works in a public setting can appear to be something out of a sci-fi movie; except the viewer is in the presence of an actual marvel, rather than seeing rapidly projected photographs of one. The photo reminds me of films where oversized "freaks" or monsters are made to exhibit themselves to a paying crowd of curious gawkers.

(The above photo comes from the Flickr set of "erniea".)

To get an even better sense of the scale of this work, here's a detail photo (my thanks to G. Solomon):


He works in small sizes, too. One work that I saw placed the figure of a man about 1/4 normal (but hyper-realistically detailed as usual) inside an actual rowboat. I thought of The Incredible Shrinking Man, as the title character begins his transformation in a boat.

I recommend anyone who has a chance to view Mueck's work to make every effort to do so; you'll never forget what you see.

Related links:

Awesome Sculptures of Ron Mueck!
(an excellent overview of Mueck's work)

Like Life
(A negative review of Mueck's sculptures)

More links to come.

News flash: Mix yourself a woody!

The following "new flash" has been making the rounds; I've gotten several copies in my e-mail. But in case you haven't seen it, here's an announcement that ought to make "Happy Hour" even happier:

"Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer; the new concoction will be marketed under the name of 'Mount '