circles

'human beings have confined themselves to cubes full of dead ends and angles that impede our movement and break our harmony' antti lovag

outside

gustave cailebotte

28 rue taitbout - paris

didn't know much about the 19th century french maison laferrière. the maison used to be big as charles frederick worth's one (but laferrière couldn't appreciate the title of 'father' of haute couture or any prestigious similarities, probable because of a lack of self-promotion vision), and since all this french fashion ebullition started to show up as something really considerable on the business scenario, americans' department stores started to send buyers to paris in order to acquire samples of their creations, with the intention to build replicas (not copies, cause i don't want to sound too demi-mondaine). more than a century after, and well, in this aspect, looking to the brazilian fashion environment, i can annoyingly quite assimilate my profession to this elderly one

charles and odette

the entire film based on proust's 'swann in love' here:



'for what we believe to be our love, or our jealousy, is not one single passion, continuous and indivisible. they are composed of an infinity of successive lives, of different jealousies, which are ephemeral but by their uninterrupted multitude give the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity.'

mein liebster feind

final scene from herzog's 'my best friend', documentary about the really not easy relationship between the cineast and the actor

ivy and lux

poison ivy: we were both studying art at sacramento state college in the early seventies. it was a very strange art department in sacramento at that time, too, because the whole student population was made up of hippies, and they were into witchcraft and metaphysics and everything else. we met up in a class called art and shamanism. the textbook for that class was called the sacred mushroom and the cross, and the subject of that book is how the real topic of the bible is the amanita muscaria mushroom and that christ is a metaphor for this magic mushroom. the kind of instructors we'd have would say: "i haven't seen you in class for a while, what grade d'you want?" And we'd say, "Well, I guess an 'A' ", and they'd say, "Okay." So those were crazy times. it was just a very loose, very unique situation, and we met in that environment. we met in a very free way, and we fell in love very quickly.

i'd just started college, and one day i was hitchhiking back from the campus to my apartment, when lux and a friend of his gave me a ride. i'd seen him around the campus, and i thought he was extremely exotic. he would have these pants and each leg of the pants was a different colour. that kind of thing fascinated me. because it was the beginning of the new term, we had catalogues to see which classes we were going to take, so we were comparing to see if we'd be in any classes together. it turned out that we were, and that's where our real meeting began.

i was sitting in the art and shamanism class when i saw lux walking in. it was a very large class, too, because everybody knew the teacher got high, and i was sending out psychic brainwaves of, like: "sit by me! sit by me! sit by me!" and he did. he came straight to me and sat next to me. we were making small talk and i said, "it's my birthday", and he pulled a drawing out of his portfolio and gave it to me as a birthday gift right then. it was a female figure, but it was very abstract expressionist. it had a lot of physical energy that i can't describe in words.

i don't know if it was past lives or what, but i felt like i'd known him all my life. it wasn't like we'd just met. we were just together constantly, and we were pretty much out of our minds constantly, to be honest. we didn't come to the surface for quite a long time.

in certain astrology, both regular astrology and chinese astrology, there's some things that say that lux and i, we shouldn't be together, and the reason is that the function of the astrology was to maintain social order. it had to do with arranged marriages and how a certain man would belong with a certain woman because it would fit in with the social order and they wouldn't cause trouble. and combinations that they said were bad, it didn't mean that they wouldn't get along or wouldn't enjoy each other's company; what it might mean is they'll start a revolution or that they'll cause trouble or that they'll set things on fire. i think we're definitely the kind of pair that they would have tried to keep apart, because together we cause a lot of upheaval. from our point of view, it's creation. we're creating things.

we're not married. i don't know what you'd call what we are. we're deeply in love and feel like we've been together for more than this lifetime, but we're not aware of any particular ritual that would consecrate it in a way that makes sense to us. we sure don't need to make it any kind of institutionalised situation. nature upholds our bond.

there's not anything that we deny each other. i'll always hear somebody say, "oh, i'd like to buy that but my wife would kill me", or vice versa, and i'm, like, "god, what is that?" we don't feel that either one of us has any right to say anything about the other's needs. we just have to trust that person and what that person is entitled to. fortunately, we happen to like a lot of the same things, but even if we didn't, that shouldn't matter. we're both real free-thinkers. we're nice to each other. there's all those reasons why we're together, but i think it's also karmic. we're karmically entwined.

he's easy to love. he's someone i can get crazy with, i knew that about him right away. i thought: "oh boy, what's gonna happen now? something exciting!" it's still happening.

lux interior: first time i saw her she was walking down the street, hitch- hiking, and she was wearing a halter top and short shorts with a big hole in the ass with red panties showing through. i was with this other guy, a friend of mine, and we both just went, "who-o-o-oh!" we pulled over and i think i had a hard-on about three seconds after i saw her.

it was 1972, and we were at sacramento state college, although saying it was a college is stretching it a bit. you'd get credit for going there and everything, but it was just a bunch of weirdoes. it was crazy. half the teachers were just fucking the students and getting paid for it. it was really a great time, those days. really a creative environment.

we had to register for our classes and we had this pamphlet in the car that told you what classes you could take, and one was called art and shamanism. i remember i said: "what is shamanism?" she explained it to me, and i thought, boy, that sounds pretty interesting, i think i'll take that. and then when I showed up for that class she was there.

i remember the first day of that class, the teacher had us all sit around in a circle on the floor and hold hands. it was some kind of weird exercise, some mumbo-jumbo crazy cult thing where there was supposed to be energy which would fly around clockwise, and then he made it go counter-clockwise. it was great, it really worked, but just holding hands with her i felt about a thousand times the energy that i was getting from him.

she's incredibly beautiful, that was the first thing i noticed. and then when i talked to her she was incredibly smart, too. we just had a bond. a week and a half, maybe two weeks later we started living together. we just couldn't hard- ly stand to be away from each other. people would even tell us: "that's not right, it's not healthy, you guys shouldn't be spending all your time together." and they tell us that to this day.

it was a while on before the group actually happened. all my life i'd been to see rock'n'roll bands, but i'd never quite been in one myself until i met her. i remember her saying, "well, we should do that", and i'd say, "well, yeah, i guess we could do that", and she'd go, "of course we could do it!" i think we just talked each other into it. sometimes you have friends and they'll talk you out of doing things. they'll say: "you? oh yeah, sure." but the same thing can happen, you'll meet someone who'll talk you into doing things, too. if i hadn't met ivy i might just still be going to rock'n'roll shows.

she's really courageous and she's really smart. at first, when we started out we just wanted to have fun and we didn't want to have anything to do with the business part of all this band stuff, but every time we've tried to have somebody manage us it's been some kind of a bad experience, so she's taken over managing the band and she really does it great. that's why the cramps are still around after all this time, because she cares about it and she's capable of unbelievable acts.

this is our dreamchild or something, this is something that we make and we do together, and we're real protective of it. and we're also appreciative of the fact that we invented this thing called the cramps, and from that has sprung a subculture of people all over the world, and we feel we're representative of them. we take that real seriously. we've thought about having children before, but we've always been so busy doing this, and this seems more important to us. we have three cats and we can't even stand to leave them to go on tour. so I don't know how we'd deal with a child.

we're different in a lot of ways. i tend to fly off the handle and go crazy and start screaming and she tends to be a bit wiser and calmer and more patient than i am - before she starts going wild, too. i think she's a lot classier than i am, but i think i've gained a lot of class from her. it's hard to figure out how we're different because we're together all the time and we always do everything together. in a way it's kind of one thing, me and her, but she's also very much an individual and very strong. she grows like a tree. she's faceted like a diamond. there's a million sides to ivy and i just love all of them.


1998

women as furniture

this is a hint for whoever wants to give me a present

hairy face

portraits by naia del castillo

rudi and peggy

the bedroom interview with michael pitt

j.t. leroy: okay, the tape recorder is on. where's your favorite place to make love?

michael pitt: i don't think i have a favorite place to make love.

jt: do you prefer it on the floor or on the bed?

mike: i do like it on the floor, only because it seems like you can get in there better. but sometimes on the bed you can get good leverage too, because it's high off the ground and you can be hanging off of it.

jt: so, you're staying in a lot of hotels because you're filming a sandra bullock movie right now called fool proof. do you worry that the maids are aware of your sexual habits?

mike: yeah, i'm always worried because every night they have to replace the body lotion but not the shampoo and conditioner. i always wonder if they know i'm jerking off with it.

jt: do you just leave them a big tip or something?

mike: yeah, i actually do give them a big tip, only because they put up with it a lot. i'm really dirty.

jt: when was the first time you masturbated?

mike: about fifth grade, in CCD class. i was always really bored, so i would go to the bathroom and try to masturbate. i thought masturbation was fake, i thought everyone was just kidding about it because nothing would happen for me, nothing would come out. but I would just do it anyway. i remember there was a crucifix right over the toilet. then finally one time, all of a sudden, it just went off and I couldn't believe it. it was all over my hand so i tasted it, because, you know, i was just a kid and I was curious. after it happened, i was like, oh my god, i'm doing this all the time.

jt: how did it taste?

mike: it tasted like, you know, like how it tastes. i know you know what semen tastes like.

jt: yeah, i know.

mike: i remember walking back into class and they were talking about the word of god.

jt: and you had just discovered it!

mike: yeah, i did. i didn't feel guilty at all. i thought, wow, maybe god isn't so bad.

jt: well, in the play that you got discovered in, trestle at pope lick creek by naomi wallace, you had to jerk off, right? and you masturbate in hedwig and the angry inch. do you ever worry that you'll be known as the jerk-off boy?

mike: no, i think to worry about something like that would probably cause it to happen in some way. i'm not really modest when it comes to sex stuff. if there's a reason to do it in the story, then I do it. i feel like i'm in a great position to show people that things that aren't necessarily "normal" are okay. we're so uptight as americans. i think just showing that you're comfortable doing those things, stuff rubs off — no pun intended.


jt: did your mother come and see the play where you were whacking it?

mike: yeah, they did. they said that they liked it, but you could tell that they were kind of weirded out. i got weirded out during a sunday show where all these senior citizens got in for free — and they really didn't know what they were going to see. the whole front row was old ladies.

jt: oh my god.

mike: my face was literally a few feet away from them.

jt: were you wearing clothes?

mike: yeah, i was wearing clothes. well, they were half on and half off.

jt: well, what did they think?

mike: i don't know, my eyes were closed. but they were really loud. i remember this one lady saying, "what's he doing? agnes, what's he doing?"

jt: did agnes answer? "he's whackin' it, ethel."

mike: no, or at least i didn't hear.

jt: so how do you feel about being turned into a sex symbol? you know, with men and women falling in love with you, like the way they do with brad pitt. how do you deal with that?

mike: i don't think i'm considered one right now. but I think if it happens and starts getting in the way of doing things that are important, there are ways to fix that. like johnny depp. he was a sex symbol and he totally turned it around. and you can tell it was a conscious choice, you know? it wasn't something that just blindly happened. he was kind of forcing people to look at him the way he wanted them to see him. i admire that.

jt: yep. um . . . you're a very romantic kind of guy.

mike: yeah?

jt: yeah, you don't think you are? you strike me as really tender.

mike: thanks.
jt: i find you very sweet, very tender, very sensitive.

mike: [very quietly] yeah, well i find you the same way.

jt: well, now you're making me blush. [laughs] but like . . . i mean . . . i guess . . . so, when you're . . . oh gosh . . . rewind!

mike: wow, that was easy.
jt: what? to get me flustered? well, the thing that's intense about you is when you're with someone, you're very much with them. you've got an intensity of focus with them, like what you bring to your work.

mike: [quietly] it depends on the person.

jt: what makes the difference?

mike: i don't know, like good people and bad people.

jt: i mean in a romantic sense . . . are you always intense with someone you're with?

mike: no. it's not as one-sided as you think it is. i think i give off what's given.

jt: kind of like acting in a scene and rising to the level of others?

mike: oh, let's not talk about acting.

jt: is it easier to talk about sex?

mike: yeah, i guess.

jt: so you have very sensitive nipples?

mike: oh, god. i have weird-looking nipples. i have girl nipples.

jt: 'cause they're so sensitive?

mike: no, 'cause they're so girly. 'cause they're kind of big.

jt: well, I think that's really sexy. you don't like them?

mike: i don't really like 'em; some people like 'em.

jt: i think the combination of your lips and your nipples is going to make the gay community just totally fall in love with you.

mike: well, what about the straight community?

jt: well, the girls will love you too. take river phoenix: he was somebody that girls loved, men loved and he didn't really give a fuck what people thought. he was so fucking great. like martha plimpton said, river would just fall in love with people's souls and it didn't matter what sex they were. you know, that's so great in a world where people constantly have to define themselves. like tom cruise always denying that he's gay.


mike: well, I think that's more about being secure. i look at river as someone who was really secure about himself.

jt: do you get fan mail?

mike: my mom gets the fan mail for my role on dawson's creek. i didn't like to read and respond to them because it always depressed me for some reason. i went from doing theater where adults would come up to me and tell me i gave a really incredible performance, to having twelve year olds sending me mail saying, "i think you're hot." it got really hard for me to play the game, to pretend like it mattered, because i felt like i was lying to people by doing it. but my mom gets a kick out of it for some reason. she tells me she gets all these letters from guys in jail.

jt: that's hot. do you answer the letters from jail?

mike: well, my mom's kind of sweet and gullible. she's sending them headshots.

jt: how do you feel about being the san quentin pin-up boy?

mike: i feel like i probably shouldn't get arrested.

jt: that's a good answer. so you're not answering twelve-year-old girls, but you're answering these hard and fast criminals?

mike: no, my mom answers everyone. she's still doing it and I ask her, "mom, what are you doing this for? it's all little girls asking things like, what's my favorite color?" and she says, "yes, but that's important, that's important stuff."

jt: do you think hedwig is really going to change your life? people really, really love it.

mike: i don't know if it'll change my life, but I hope people will like it. your life doesn't really change.

jt: well, it does if you get really famous and you can't walk outside. i know how you like to ride the trains.

mike: yeah, but a lot of times I see people looking at me, but they don't say anything because i'm on the subway too, coming home from work or whatever.

jt: do a lot of teenage girls recognize you?

mike: they did when I was on dawson's creek. it was really, really fucked up, 'cause you feel like a circus clown. they'll literally just start screaming and pointing at you, like you're a three-headed donkey.

jt: and for them it's not even you, it's what you represent. speaking of representations, is tommy gnosis, your character in the movie who falls in love with the transsexual hedwig, bisexual?

mike: i don't know; i didn't play him that way. i played him as a straight kid who just fell in love with someone. i felt like he fell in love with her the first time he saw her. i could have played him gay or bisexual, but I thought he'd be more interesting if he was straight and there was nothing he could really do about it because he had already fallen in love.

jt: i think that's absolutely perfect. i think that's a lot more interesting. when a straight guy falls in love, he can't help it, despite the situation or who the person is . . . just one last question. what's the most erogenous part of your body?

mike: what's "erogenous" mean?

jt: you know, what has the most sexy feeling, what's most sensitive. what part of your body feels the most incredible when somebody touches it?

mike: it really depends on the person. my lower back. that's really weird, but i really like my lower back being touched. that's horrible.

jt: why is that horrible?

mike: it just seems like a really unexciting way to end an interview.


from nerve - july, 2001

sweet movie

duašn makavejev’s 1974 film sweet movie is the kind of movie you dont quite know how to explain the symptoms on your stomach it caused and what you really found about it when it ends. There is this strong emphasis on how we all are just animals playing the rational character and an anti-political and anti-psychological engagement showed through widely-open sexual and masochism contents followed by documental images from the katyn massacre with a non lineal story. authentic sample from 70's transgression. i know, the plot sounds a bit doubtful written by me, and maybe it is, but it is greatly shot, and has relevant images.  



 

turbeville

don't know exactly how to point out the reason of my fascination with these images, probably is something with the extinct sight of a group of women in my environment, and how this is less posed and unconcerned - an idea i've been surrounding and adding to my vocabulary. 

here is a interesting analyses made by the comic artist, derek a badman, about deborah turbeville's work

his animal grace

'i mopped the floor with my hair…the reason i'm so interested in taking my body to those extreme places is that that’s a place where i learn, where i feel most in my body. i’m really interested in the repetition, the discipline, and what happens to me psychologically when i put my body to that extreme place' janine antoni about 'loving care' in 1992

rick and michèle