PAPERMAG: WORD UP!

R.I.P. Cyd Charisse

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:59:48 -0500

Even in the remote mountains of West Virginia we eventually hear the news and this news is sad indeed. Cyd Charisse, one of the most golden of the golden gals from Hollywood's Golden Age, passed away yesterday morning. This amazing dancer and star of yesteryear will thankfully live forever in movies like Singin' in the Rain. Here she is with Gene Kelly in what might be my favorite slice of celluloid. This number continues to amaze and I get goosebumps every time I see it (and I've seen it HUNDREDS of times!) Rest in peace Cyd. You were a SUPERSTAR (with SUPER STELLAR GAMS!!!!)

Monks 'N Poppies N' Stuff

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:58:20 -0500

I just had to share this fantastic photograph that appeared in Sunday's Travel section of the L.A. Times. The most recent editor's choice from the "Your Scene" page (which features reader's 'amateur' photographs) this visual jolt of orange sunshine should see me through my two months back in West Virginia... where I should be by the time this gets posted. Hope I am as lucky as Sam Chien of Tustin and happen upon six meditating monks on the red-eye flight back east! If not I'll just imagine I'm in a field of California poppies! Viva L'Orange! From the L.A. Times: "At the peak of bloom season, Sam Chien of Tustin decided he'd better get up to Lancaster to see the poppies. So he and a friend, Tom Wang, drove north. "That day was wonderful," Chien says. While there, they happened upon six monks, also absorbing the riot of blooms. One 'started to meditate, and I thought it was a lovely subject.' Chien used a Nikon D70S."

R.I.P. Sydney Pollack

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:05:30 -0500

Most folks know by now that the wonderful film director (and equally wonderful actor) Sydney Pollack passed away on Monday. The Academy Award winning director of A-list fare like Tootsie, Out of Africa and The Way We Were, Pollack also directed one of my favorite movies They Shoot Horses, Don't They? They sure don't make movies like that anymore! They don't even make trailers like that anymore!

Buy a Fake Basquiat, Support Real Art at LACE - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

Thu, 22 May 2008 11:52:40 -0500

Or nab a genuine Andrea Zittel smock! Or a real Vito Acconci lithograph! Or an original John Baldessari! Or an honest-to-God Paul McCarthy! Or a tried-and-true Sister Corita, Sherry Levine, George Stoll, or Jim Isserman! Or any one of over 100 original artworks by a galaxy of art stars from yesterday, today and tomorrow! Your big chance is tonight -- this Thursday, May 22 -- when all this art is up for auction at Re:PRESENT, LACE's 30th anniversary benefit/art auction that yours truly has been asked to emcee and perform at! (Details here.) So pick up a pair of trashy, patent-leather, thigh-high platform boots on Hollywood Boulevard (where LACE currently resides) and climb aboard the Way Back Machine with my new character, The Time Traveling Hooker, as she takes you backwards, forwards and sideways through a brief history of time and LACE! (Find out why young girls were comin' to the canyon and gettin' the hell out of NYC long before it went to the Sex and the City clones!) Musical accompaniment will be provided by Kristian Hoffman, harpist Alexander Rannie and special appearance by Phranc! (With a performance earlier in the gallery by the ever adorable Will Power!) Doors open to the public at 7 p.m. Will Power goes on at 7:30 and our show starts at 8 PM followed by a live auction!

Go See The Fall (So Sayeth L.A. Woman Guest Blogger Scott Bradley)

Wed, 21 May 2008 20:14:27 -0500

Greetings to the Readers of Ann Magnuson's PAPERMAG Blog! My pal Ann invited me to share something special with you about a movie called The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh. Before we go any further, you should watch the trailer for this film, which can be seen above or at the movie's official website. (No rush on watching that -- I'll wait for you...) Okay (assuming you watched it -- but even if you didn't, that's fine)... So, how cool does that look? Extremely, right? I mean, it's got a freaking elephant floating in the water! I saw this movie last week, and, y'know what? It's EXACTLY like that trailer times 10. Which is to say: It's jaw-droppingly gorgeous and emotionally engaging in its vision of the redemptive power of primal "once upon a time"-kinda storytelling.

The Olive Motel

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:59:34 -0500

After getting a nice compliment on my Dan Attoe blog from one MySpace pal named Jesse I decided to check out his art as well. I enjoyed what I saw (see some below and more of it here) but it was his snapshot in front of Silver Lake's infamous Olive Motel that really caught my eye. I've never stayed there nor have I known anyone who has but I've passed by this relic for years wondering when Andre Balazs was gonna snatch it up and turn it into a rich-hipster's paradise. Fortunately Jesse agreed to send me his account of staying at The Olive. I do hope it remains untouched by gentrification and stands as a reminder of a Los Angeles that is disappearing all too fast!

Happy Mother's Day (with Jobriath)

Sat, 10 May 2008 13:26:49 -0500

Finally someone has posted Jobriath's ultra-rare videos on YouTube!! (Thank you Richard Metzger for leading us to them!) I actually bought Jobriath albums when they came out (anything that smacked of Bowie was catnip to this ziggystardusted teen) and loved them! But I was in a small but special (Hello Morrissey!) minority. Somehow I missed his rare TV appearances but here they are posted below in all their openly gay glam-rock glory. (Is this but one reason Bowie became a cokey R&B revivalist?) But it's this Mother/Son video that I believe Jobriath's brother posted about the once maligned, now deceased and legendary glam rocker from the early 70s that broke my heart. Sadly, embedding of the video is disabled by request (which is why I've posted instead the clip above from a VH1 doc that explains who Jobriath was). But you can see the Jobriath Mother/Son tribute by clicking here. This one is for all of us who no longer have our mothers (and brothers) with us.

Physicist Hottie Nima Arkani-Hamed To Explore 11th Dimension

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:14:23 -0500

One of today's lead stories on CNN.com is on handsome particle physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed and Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider . According to the story, if the multi-billion dollar collider is successful, it "may change ideas of spacetime for the first time since Einstein." Of course, some people also think that the particle collision that is slated to occur this fall (in an experiment that National Geographic calls "the hunt for the God particle") could also create a black hole and swallow the earth and our own galaxy up in the process. Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say. All the more so since it was just yesterday I was watching a slew of YouTube videos on string theory and M-theory. This Ten Dimensions video posted below was one of my faves.

Klaus Nomi Tribute at Tel Aviv's Glamourama

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:26:33 -0500

Many thanks to my MySpace pal Marcoshark for sending me this tribute to the legendary Klaus Nomi. It definitely is helping make this Monday a happy one. (Can Glamourama finally bring peace to the Middle East? We can only hope!)

Dan Attoe at Peres Projects BERLIN

Mon, 05 May 2008 09:30:25 -0500

One of my favorite young artists, Dan Attoe, has two shows opening this month. First up is the American painter's second Berlin solo show at Peres Projects BERLIN which opened over the weekend. The exhibition, called "Simple Thoughts and Complicated Animals," features new works in painting and mixed media sculpture and runs from May 2 until June 21. Attoe's second show this month, "American Dreams" opens at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, MUSAC in Leon, Spain and will be on view from May 17 – July 6, 2008.

The Phoenix Lights Are Back! In Arizona AND Florida! UFOs?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:54:22 -0500

The infamous Phoenix Lights are back and they aren't just doing their wacky orb formations over Arizona they are in Florida as well! Are these UFOs or secret military maneuvers? The F-117 Stealth bomber has just been stealthily retired. Perhaps to make way for new technology currently being tested? Or are the Chinese implementing Phase 2 of the Takeover now that all the everyday goods needed for a successful invasion have been stocked in Wal-Marts and Targets across the country? Many of us hope for the first explanation, if for no other reason than to get something on the news other than the Obama/Clinton feud. At least former Republican Arizona governor Fife Symington finally admitted to seeing The Phoenix Lights in 1997 and that it was, most likely, something 'otherworldly'. (See video below. Every press conference should include someone in an alien costume!)

RIP B-I-N-G-O

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:51:42 -0500

L.A. Weekly columnist Seven McDonald wrote a wonderful eulogy to everyone's favorite dachshund, the recently deceased Bingo. Anyone who had spent any quality time in Silver Lake's Sunset Junction area -- or even just a fleeting moment -- fell in love with the bacon-loving Bingo. (Bingo was given one of L.A. Woman' s Choice People Awards in 2007 as he brightened our days as much as any two-legged, life-loving Angeleno!) Officially the charge of Sarah Dale, proprietor of the hipster boutique Pull My Daisy, Bingo soon became everyone's beloved pet (especially if you fed him bacon from the once packed, now-closed EAT WELL restaurant next door!) Sadly, Bingo was getting older and his judgment must have been impaired the day he darted into the street. His death was quick but his memory will last as long as those of us who adopted Bingo are still eating bacon (now the tempeh variety down the steet at the popular new vegan hang-out Flore).

English Russia Presents The Apocalypse, Russian Style

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:00:51 -0500

English Russia has been one of my favorite websites ever since POPBITCH introduced me to it via their snark-a-thon newsletter. (They lured me in with the link to the exotic pet owners who kept a Siberian tiger in their tiny Soviet block apartment. I particularly liked when they fed the kitty live chickens in the living room and huge live catfish in the bathtub!) When you've had it up to your democratic jackass with the primary or feel a little wobbly about the increasingly wobbly state of our U.S. economy then check out what is happening in Mother Russia! You'll get a few laughs and just maybe a much-need shot of gratitude. I LOVE these conceptual images by Russian artists who envision The Motherland post-U.S. preemptive strike. Hey, looks like a Chuck Heston flick!

Charlton Heston: Alpha Male/Omega Man

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:27:55 -0500

I very much enjoyed Carina (The New Pauline Kael!) Chocano's article on recently deceased movie legend Charlton Heston that appeared today's L.A. Times. A grand assessment of Heston's heroic old-school grandiosity, the piece also painted an evocative picture of what movie-going used to be -- grand events in even grander movie palaces. In other words, it was the multiplexes that got small (no doubt shrunk to fit the caliber of movie stars). But I have to say, I was disappointed that the L.A. Times obit of Heston did not mention one of my favorite childhood movies, The Omega Man. (Clips above and below -- good stuff.)

Moby Is Mystery Guest as NYC Embraces J. Keith van Straaten's What's My Line?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:29:59 -0500
This past Monday night, Moby left the taping of Conan O'Brien just in time to make a surprise appearance as the Mystery Guest on "What's My Line? - Live On Stage" (now appearing at the 199-seat Barrow Street Theatre). As Fiona Apple looked on from the audience, her boyfriend (author Jonathan Ames) led the panel in guessing Moby's identity. J. Keith van Straaten, host of the stage adaptation of the classic TV show, could barely get Moby to say a word about his new CD, Last Night, which dropped the next day. The shiny-headed musician preferred telling cautionary tales of mixing business with ex-girlfriends!