Curious About Kim Novak

Somehow Calm as She Walks Off Stage

Kim Novak is such a peculiar actor, its probably because she's not a good actor but the characters she's played are all intriguing in a hollow way. She always comes across as cold and empty. Even so, I always feel interested enough to romantically believe that there's more there than meets the eye; that the blank personality is only the surface to a submerged and highly exclusive truth that's too sacred to herself to reveal.

Novak never seems convinced of herself, almost a lack of confidence that refuses to admit she's a beautiful star. The women she's played appear to not understand why they are desired. Vertigo, Strangers When We Meet, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Picnic are the four films I've seen her in so far. In each film, we find a woman, more or less, who is a simple girl set upon an overwhelming circumstance. When the drama swelters into a scene and she has to perhaps step out of a comfort zone, its noticeable and I sense as if it taxes her a bit. She's an actor who doesn't like to expose herself into any role. Which is fine but she also doesn't like to expose the characters into her roles. In fact, she pulls the characters into herself; almost hides and keeps them securely kept away from the surface, where no one can harm them.

Regardless of what I've said above its only the opinion of a voice that has not enough material with which to fully or accurately judge his subject. So I am forming a list of Kim Novak films to watch that I've not seen. Hopefully, the intention is to gain a new perspective on a performer whom I already consider interesting.

The Joke on Prince Street

Chronicles of a Fuck-up

I Think an Unwritten Smiths' Song Just Happened to Me

So I'm walking down Prince Street on my lunch break and this girl who's too attractive to smile at me, smiles at me. I smile back very surprised. But then again, she smiled with her mouth open and a nod, so really...an attractive girl on Prince Street laughed at me. I have no idea why. She had some funny looking dog and shades. She walked normal so I couldn't see anything that she or her dog may be doing that she'd laugh at when being noticed by another person in the act. Maybe I gave her dog a funny look, I won't rule that out. I did take a small hop-step from the sidewalk to the street, which I didn't think resembled a misstep or trip. Maybe she was laughing at that. Maybe she was just a crazy person. Typical. Maybe I knew her and just didn't recognize her and she was delivering one of those, funny-running-into-you-here-of all-places sort of laugh greets. Or maybe its the most obvious, me walking down Prince Street on my lunch break is very quite a laughing matter. Comedy.

Music Video Fridays: Sum of Summer

I love this video and I love to love Donna Summer. This song is Kylie Minogue at her best and Donner Summer not even trying. The blonde guy dressed in all-tight-all-white is awesome! He looks high off his mind, then again I would be too as this song is Ecstasy as a melody, not to mention in the 70s Donna Summer was brown cocaine. Seriously though, this song is beyond sexy, beyond seductive; I feel like a mosquito who bites a vampire. Whatever that means.

And this is Donna Summer at her best:

December Heart Beats for Kylie Minogue

Let Me Know What You're Like

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

Look there, among scatters of voices and roused audience, that by their volume and pace orbit like violent debris; a gauntlet for the cosmonaut's atmospheric departure, among this spinning tetris my queen in black speaks.

Like a death, you announce with vivid detail, words from which I am absent. I make from one end to another; beats of hearts like bullets firing through a spark, an angry, tiny spark that shoots a long way. Your body, like a continent, I the foreigner. From borders I climb and hide in the tresses of your most abandoned attentions, where no thought inhabits such barren lands. Like a thief I make for these edges and consult my stubborn friend, Humility, its with the softest caresses that she convinces me to stay while opening my back with her blade.

What do I wait for? Is it Opportunity and its grifter tricks that send parlors a-roar? Is it Amnesia, that darling little fairy of repair, who patches the wound in a band-aid, too much matching the complexion that one forgets to remove it, mistaking it later for skin.

She's a Deftones song, something like Moana, something especially like Moana. A last song, an empire desired invitation to. She so carves my heart, and the stage with all its actors and rustled anxieties, glows like trembling jellyfish in fields of gossamer bedding. The sparks of nerves, the same bullets but now firing information, sensational execution!

And Moana as she exits this stage in her creme colored winter coat, an indigo scarf noosed about her pretty neck, on an escalator my eyes say goodbye to the back of her head. Yet another day that has introduced me as, "coward".

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

There Will Be Love

Anonymous Love Letters to Athena

Day by day, you are that thought which has been spanning throughout my mind. Yes, darling to me you are like an imperialist, who's power and ambition recognizes not any limits or boundaries. The thought of you in my mind, steals land, kills or cheats landlords, marries memories and all their fortunes; yes dear, the thought of you in my mind is doing quite well for itself.

Today -

I pass you by and pretend to not notice you, betraying my every instinct to stand directly before you and into your eyes, stare until sight or its focus, expires from me. In your department with your girls, your voice heard here then there, how it travels and so faithfully is it, how I follow. Its perfume to the ears, and then when coursed with a visual accompaniment, it becomes flavor to the eyes--an aromatic, gourmet cuisine. As fine as you are yet you starve me, or more so to the point, I starve myself from you. I chase myself away, the perfume I treat as a stench and the flavor, like an acrid taste, which I then dry heave with perfect disgust.

Am I like the beggar who pretends the banquet is nothing more than a culinary compilation of vile slop, simply because he isn't invited to any access of it?

O love of mine-not-yet-mine, if only that you could see through the facade; perhaps I reveal as much, when distanced from my countenance. Know that my disgust is the darkness from which I invite light to evolve. I want to hate you, despise and detest you so that I may savor every subtle dissolution that transforms, slowly, that enmity into love. Experiencing every atom of love that gradually collects until a planet results, and hatred becomes an atmosphere that shields that love and all of Life within it.

To you, all this love and further, all its future.

Universally yours,

Une Ammiratore

To Not Know so We May Know

On the Occasion Where We May Exchange True Words

For the way you smile and the way your voice sounds in my mind, I'll hope for the day when we no longer see one another so that by chance, one day we'll have a casual reintroduction. On a day when we have no occasion to think about one another; on a setting foreign to the association of either you to me or I to you. Taking a second to even recognize our faces, and then scurrying into the archives of our memories for each other's names that do not arrive immediately to the grasp of our tongues.

You'll smile and your dark, wide eyes will hold me in place for a second. We'll talk when we remember who we are; we'll talk as if we were more than just a brevity of familiarity, as if we were friends. You'll tell me what's new in your life, even though its all new to me, since I never knew anything personal about you. Likewise, you'll listen and update my profile as I anchor the news. We'll see one another out of context and as a result, for the first time. Its as if it was only through costumes at a ball that we experienced one another, until finally an opportunity has randomly placed us side by side without our masks; and the surprise of what lies beneath somewhat interests us both.

Fear, Shame, Embarrassment, and How They Cut

I once knew this girl who stole a blade from me. It wasn't exactly stolen, more like it was taken away without a presented incentive for me to attempt a rescue. She was older than I, taller and stronger, probably not smarter but that didn't help me much.

It was a summer in the late 80s or early 90s and I was in the Dominican Republic. Los Alcarrizos, thats where my aunt-godmother lives; thats where I ran across a field behind the houses with the other kids and embarrassingly stepped into a pool of mud, just as the kids imagined a New Yorker would. It was right where my brother and I competed for smiles from Josie; where my cousin Yuri constantly tried to kiss me, but failed. So many of my visits to the Dominican Republic are forever committed to Los Alcarrizos, low concrete layers of houses, dirt roads and steep hills, random fields, avocado trees, and the smell of wet tangerines after a fresh rain. It was also here, in Los Alcarrizos, that after one of those fresh summer rains, a shaving blade that I had been entertaining since the morning was removed and taken hostage.

I don't remember her name but she was the neighbor's daughter. She was the older sister of this annoying kid, who was around my age, who I had just pushed off my aunt's property, off a platform, down to his front dirt (there was no lawn). I pushed her brother a few days prior to her stealing my blade. I only pushed her brother because he kept asking for it, literally.

"If you're such a bad ass from New York then prove it...Push me off this ledge. Go 'head, push me."

Translated from spanish of course. After a long, monotone looping of his request, I became bored or irritated and I complied with his order, he thanked me by crying and maybe hurting his arm. When he called his mother I made a break for it. Not that anyone would believe his story, even if it were true; I was considered an angel.

His older sister, however, she saw right through me. She was about thirteen or fourteen and politely asked to see my blade as I stood outside my aunt-godmother's house. She let me have it in the open, very straightforward did she smile and tell me what she thought of me, that she knew I pushed her little brother. I was barely paying attention, I just wanted my blade back and made a face to reply to the smell that followed her like a disciple. After she wrapped up her veritable accusations, I asked for the return of my blade. She must have misunderstood, because instead of placing the blade back on my palm which I held extended, she did something quite contrary. One would wonder if my spanish was indeed that awful, that cock-eyed as to have someone confuse, "give me back my blade," for "shove my blade down your pants."

I stood before this older, taller, stronger girl and pouted my entire face with annoyance. "Is she serious?" I must've said with my eyes. All the while that disciple of hers warmed like an aura around her, like an atmosphere. I almost had to hold my breath but my anger usually demands air through flared nostrils. I asked her once again to return my blade, release the hostage, let's walk away from this peacefully. She replied with an invitation, said that if I wanted the blade so bad I'd have to reach in and pull it back out.

Now, don't get me wrong, she was dirty. She looked like a dark, wet alley cat. Nothing like Josie or her older sister, who wore long skirts and smiled like a piece of something sweet. There was nothing sweet about this kidnapper, this terrorist pervert and that sour smell which perfumed her like a bad frame. Nothing sweet about her smile or her husky voice, yet when it came down to whether or not I would reach into her crotch for my blade, none of this made an impression on my decision. I blushed at the idea and in the end, I didn't get my blade back but not due to disgust, rather because of fear.

Soon after, I left with my family to another town to visit some other relatives, my cousin, Yuri probably came with us. I never saw that girl again, neither on that trip or any future return. She ran off with something I was scared to do, something sharp and intimately fresh. As a result, there is a possession of mine wandering along the past, snuggled soundly in the crotch of a teenage alley cat; and when I see an older dominican woman, who is questionable in character, I think only of my blade and its rightful, manual owner.

How I Most Likely Got Brainwashed into Kylie Minogue

This afternoon I saw an old classmate from grade school. Her name, "E." She has a son, I didn't notice the kid since she still had the prettiest smile. We recognized one another and exchanged a smile with a partial nostalgic hand wave. I've seen her a couple of times in the past 2 or 3 years, though its the first time I've seen her son. Its weird because today E looks like a mom, like an adult woman walking her son home from school but when she smiles I see her at about her son's age back in first grade in 1988.

I had a few crushes in grade school, E was never one of them but I always thought she was pretty. In first grade we sat at the same table. One day I thought I'd cheat on my writing exercise, we were suppose to work on our letter Ts, so I figured to make things easier I'd write out a series of vertical lines, like a bunch of lower case Ls and then in one long stroke, I'd pass a horizontal line through all the lower case Ls to transform them into crossed Ts. Of course when Mr. Cohen made his rounds and came upon my desk he didn't find it as clever as I did, in fact, he said I had to do it over. E and the other girl at our table thought the humiliating correction to be hilarious. I wasn't too fond of either girl much after that.

I also remember that E had a thing for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack as well as Locomotion by Kylie Minogue. Everyday after recess, Mr. Cohen had us lay our heads down and he'd play music for ten to fifteen minutes, whenever E got to pick the playlist it was a sure bet, Hungry Eyes, Time of my Life, and/or Locomotion. E was a dark puerto rican girl with long dead black hair, she looked like a native american princess dressed like a mini Molly Ringwald.

Mr. Cohen by the way always reminded me of Tom Hanks.

Young Women, Marriage, and the Men They Drive Wild

The Other Boleyn Girl - (2008) Directed by Justin Chadwick

Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana

Father wants daughters to bed prince.

I enjoyed a few things about this movie, Natalie Portman, the subject, and the costumes. Out of the three I mentioned, the last one left the biggest impression. The wardrobe was really detailed and looked really good in the film, so was the lighting, many scenes looked as if Vermeer himself was commissioned as set designer.

I felt really bad for Mary, people say Scarlett is a bad actress but she's all right when in the right role, Ms. Johansson gave Mary an inexperienced vulnerability that worked really well on screen.

Take Her, She's Mine - (1963) Directed by Henry Koster

Starring James Stewart, Sandra Dee, Audrey Meadows,

Robert Morley

Father wants daughter away from all men, even princes.

Fun Comedy, Jimmy Stewart as a over-protective father, who by the way resembles Jimmy Stewart and constantly gets himself into questionable situations in the name of trying to look after his newly matriculated daughter. Not that it would've worked but I could imagine this film in the 80s or early 90s with Bill Cosby and Lisa Bonet.

Barefoot in the Park - (1967) Directed by Gene Saks

Starring Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Charles Boyer,

Mildred Natwick

Princess marries prince but takes a moment to live happily ever after.

The Love Sequential

I'm pretty sure there is only one woman for me. I've had the fortunate plaisir of not only meeting her but enjoying a brief accumulation of time with her that might not sum to much but given the quality, has lasted.

There is comfort but there is also tension, understanding trailed by confusion, surrender but also dominance, pride, and conceit...The likes of which only Selfish Lovers may know. For now, we're to make due as friends, which apparently we can't stop being, regardless of sabotage from either party. Not to portray myself as hopeful but there is that little human habit of assumption through pattern recognition and conditioning, it tells me, "its far from over." Thats not a good thing but I keep it to myself (I guess not anymore).

It doesn't matter since she doesn't read this blog. She shouldn't be surprised, its not a crush, we both know the deal. Over the years I've made a myth of her, only recently have I returned to those first eyes of mine that originally saw her.

here's a video that says it better than me.

Èlégant

Coco avant Chanel - (2009) Directed by Anne Fontaine

Starring Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola,

Marie Gillain

I enjoyed this film, its a limited bio on the early adulthood of fashion pioneer, Coco Chanel. Yet another important figure I did not know a single thing about other than associating the name with fancy clothes. Ironically, fancy is what Chanel's fashion was meant to not be about. Extra fuss and unpractical design was exactly what Mademoiselle Chanel sought to dismantle, believing in freeing the woman's body from corsets, giving her back her shape, as oppose to an unnatural cage that conformed to man's expectation of woman.

The film, I felt, successfully borrowed the style of Chanel, it was free and natural, not romanticizing Chanel, it possessed the 'elegance of simplicity.' However, because of this simplicity, there's an underlying anxiety of greatness, a constant hint of what this woman will have accomplished, influenced, and changed through the course of her life and then beyond; one almost wishes the film were epic so as to see this cause for legacy manifested on screen. But then again, this film should be considered a biographical prequel. And judged as one, I would say I thought it rather well executed.

Three things I hate about prequels:

01. Allusions to the future via catch phrases or mannerisms.

02. Random appearances by people who don't necessarily serve a purpose other than showing them in the past.

03. Darf Vader

Coco avant Chanel had none of these annoying clichés. And yes, I included Darf Vader as an annoying cliché.

The film ended with the beginning of Chanel's success, in a scene made extra special by mirror reflections for an interesting natural effect. Anne Fontaine's bio-pic does not show dates throughout the film; only 1895 at the beginning of the film, which is where the only voice-over narrative takes place (just one line). The film is also shot, at certain parts, by a hand held camera. Much like Michael Mann's Public Enemies, the unsteady movements of the camera in Coco avant Chanel provide me with the opinion that this technique adds a new form of respectful realism to a period piece. Instead of keeping the camera still to avoid the viewer's becoming conscious of technologies non-existing in the setting of the film, it moves fluently but does not alienate the viewer, rather further includes him/her by offering a modern style into the perspective. I feel this works when done correctly because "modern" is relative. 1912 was modern in 1912, our modern camera movements only reinforce that to these characters in the setting, their period is modern. The technique also reflects Chanel's boldness and innovative philosophy, giving the past back its body, allowing it movement instead of the very still cage that frames it for the present.

I'll lastly state my wish to understand french; especially so, in this case, to make better use of actor, Benoît Poelvoorde's performance as Étienne Balsan. He has a really cool voice and his presence is very charming, his character may not always be agreeable but overall you can't find the sufficient means to hate the guy.

At the Height of it All

J is in the hospital, A made this for her. A also made this for Ms. Mosshart who is 60 feet tall. If any other girl were like J, she'd have to be 60 feet tall; if any other girl could take J's trouble she'd not last long, were she not 60 feet tall.

For the cold, shameless, and dangerous A, there is no alternative.

October Heart Beats for Emily Deschanel

I think I'm ready to see Emily Deschanel in more film roles. I'm not too interested in TV series, I have never watched a full episode of Bones. I remember her small roles in Spider-man 2 and Cold Mountain, her face is so memorable. In the meantime I really need to find this short film.

That Night - (2005) Directed by Steve Gordon

There must be a site to watch short films, especially by New York based directors. If there isn't I am extremely disappointed. If I weren't such an underachiever I would start one myself, it would probably be a really good idea.

Yo Spliff, Where Tha Weed At?

Psycho - (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin

and Janet Leigh.

Finally saw this in its entirety. I was wondering about the films of Alfred Hitchcock because he was a well known director in his time. I mean when a Hitchcock film hit theatres I'm assuming it was anticipated before hand and a rather popular awareness of its release did float about among moviegoers. Watching Vertigo and Psycho last night I realized that some of the images are, when contrasted to today's commercial films, a bit strange. For instance the close up on Janet Leigh's eye after she gets poked, or the lingering shots of the running shower head, this we only expect in independent films, where such "artsy" aesthetics seem welcomed. I say strange, but its not strange as much as it is just good film making, as these shots are very effective and affective images on screen. Most of today's thrillers lack imagination and make up for this through loud sound effects and split second camera cuts.

Alfred Hitchcock did finance Psycho out of his own pockets so in a sense it was an independent film but Paramount distributed many of his films to theatres, including Psycho. And Hitchcock was definitely not a freshman in Hollywood at the time, although it was his first horror film. Watching Psycho and Vertigo, I got a feeling that experimentation in film is popularly, less acceptable today as it was 40 or 50 years ago. There are a few sporadic instances, but for every bright spot of today's cinema there are 10 new dark clouds that cancer the sky.

Marion Crane is a woman. I love her voice and her manner of speaking, its intelligently probing, maybe rude for its boldness and straight-forward delivery. She should've came to my town with that money. Something tells me that Sammy Boy would've played the boy scout had she actually made it to his town with a stolen 40,000 dollars. A woman like that and a man like me are precisely the purposes for which, $40,000 and True Love were specifically created. Maybe then she could've gotten poked by something else in the shower. I'll stop here.

Please, Please Don't Eat the Daises

I mean, I really love Doris Day.

"...supposin' it showers while you're eatin' flowers,

the hours will be wasted away."

Her Beauty's Like a Bunch of Rose

The Long, Hot Summer - (1958) Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa,

Orson Welles, Lee Remick, and Angela Lansbury

I really enjoyed watching this but I won't share details as to why. I have more important matters to simultaneous confess and attend. Attendance by Confession, if you will.

Angela Lansbury, viewing this movie has made me realize that I really find her attractive. Something about the shape of her face, her big eyes and full chin, that neck that, oh my lord, calls for my canines with the lure of vampiric fetish. She was about 33 when she acted in this film and about 19 when she made her debut in Gaslight in 1944.

She's also a really good actress, though I haven't seen her in much, what I have seen already displays range of character. A strong manipulative mother in the Manchurian Candidate, a snobby high society adulteress in The World of Henry Orient, a delusive mother who won't except that her son's no good in All Fall Down, a sassy, british house maid in Gaslight, and a country woman itching to get hitched in The Long, Hot Summer.

September Heart Beats for Christina Hendricks

Pop Quiz Hot Shot

what's orange and blue and randomly discovered by google sailors when they image search 'dominican women'?

Don't Drink The Water?

After a long, thirsty day I decided to perhaps free a Jackson from the nearest ATM. I was bone dry and though I was still considering l'eau du sink, I was of a certain feeling (the kind that favors water of a lesser gray persuasion). The matter would soon resolve itself for me via a lady stranger. Madame of the Lake, in a white spring dress and short, straw-blonde hair; she no sooner took the problem and sorted its pieces than I took her pieces into account without realizing what she had just done for me. That is, my savior, my clairvoyant angel, so informed of my sinful, desert tongue that held its own Ark and was much overdue for a Deluge, had left for me a resolution as clear as a plastic cup filled with ice.

Parked on top the very traffic drum I removed from the middle of the sidewalk; as if knowing of her offering, I had to set up the altar for her tithe, she left me ice in a plastic cup. From no doubt, farther a distance she had purchased a drink and in the happening of a walk and the repeated expansion of two lungs that pulled out of an orange straw, the beverage, she made her way to me. My distress sung to her ears, in melodies that warmed her to heed my call. It was the reverse relationship between sailor and siren, where the three avian women sail out to the voice of the shipwrecked Odysseus. And there it was to be, a drink for a thirsty soul.

In the sprite-ful spirit that defined the image as negligible when obedience to thirst is to be primarily considered, I knew I would pick up that cup and thank my mermaid. Cherished, Mother of Lancelot, I'd dare not refuse. I saw her from my shop window. And the ice, like diamonds in a crystal glass, hailed lustrous invitations to me. The shop was already closed so my river nymph was all but too timely. As I pulled down the gate and locked up, I noticed I am already the owner of my anonymous inheritance. I notice that no one considers the gift that could easily be as much theirs as it is my possession. However, they did not receive the affair as I had. To any other passer-by on E9th Street, that plastic cup could've been placed on that traffic drum by as much a disagreeable source as their imagination may allow. My thirst and I are of a more intimate understanding, therefore we drink.

My Jessica Christ drank something involving watermelon. That or I fancy her lips are watermelon flavored and from the straw (which I removed with the lid) the ice somehow absorbed this attractive memento. In any case, my thirst and I were closer to satisfied. My Lady Niagara had left me quenched.

If I have not mentioned that this straw-haired, aqua-philanthropist was in fact very attractive, it is only because I wanted to pay appropriate tribute to her deed before acquiring for you, impressionable, physical details. Before continuing I will now also mention my sensitivities which run quite confluent to that of the other passer-bys of E9 Street; who are without my shop window and what we, behind it, were prospectively televised. I would, like any of those passer-bys, have ignored Lilandra's Crystals had I missed the prelude. If a plastic cup filled with ice had appeared sans my knowing who placed it there, I would have taken a very parched, uptown commute. But being that she was pretty enough and I complimentarily, shallow enough, I drank.

Jessica Christ will be physically gauged by my easiness and readiness to drink from her. Wine made water and flesh made cubic congelation of that same wine. You will find me quite narrow when women are concerned. It is not any Godiva that will make a Tom of me. To say I am picky is to say champagne is liquid, it is only the initial generalization from which to begin. But perhaps it may have been influenced by the thirst as well as the excitement I usually feel at the end of a work shift that bids me a euphemistic view. I, no doubt was ecstatic of my work day's end and water was on my mind, as well as beautifying anyone who delivered any of the two. Still, I am of the opinion I got good enough a glance to know gorgeous from gorgon. And from that opinion I will attest, she was pretty enough. In fact, our heroine, the blonde Aspen Matthews was attractive enough that had she walked up to me, as a stranger and kissed me, made out with me, I'd do no more than offer very little protest. I'd accept her lips and our salivating tongues sliding off one another like two orcas in love. I'd be a hypocrite to then refuse Holy Water from this Temple on which I'd gladly prey.

Had she'd been a man, a less appealing woman, or a child, I'd have no problem with making due with my dry throat 'til a South Bronx apartment door was opened and a walk to a refrigerator provided me that overdue deluge. The horror of a child, I shutter. Children are the worse of all possibilities since they care the least, germs and hygiene are at best distractions to them, easily ignored. You'd have a harder time becoming ill washing your face with a handful of phlegm than drinking from the same plastic cup as a child. Circumstance being as welcoming as it was, I was deemed fortunate and presently, grateful.

Thus my anonymous donator is thanked most amicably. In a white spring dress and straw-blonde hair she continued on, as the evening was as young as it was blooming with distressed sailors. Will you read this, from wherever you may happen to be, if ever your reading eyes do stray across this entry, know this my darling, that I drank down to the last cube. I am yours, ever quenched.