Entries from March 2008 ↓

Intriguing article in the New York Times a week ago—as part of Dan Barry’s fascinating “This Land” series—on “double-proxy weddings,” performed only in Montana. Through the process, couples who cannot meet physically in order to be married have stand-ins do the job for them.

“Ceremony No. 1,” says the judge, Heidi Ulbricht. That would be the marriage between two members of the Air Force far, far removed from this room in the Flathead County Courthouse. The real groom is 7,300 miles away, in Qatar, while the real bride is merely 1,700 miles away, in Kentucky.

“We are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses to join in holy matrimony this man and this woman, who have applied for and received a marriage license from the state,” the judge says.

Turning to Sarah Knapton, 22, college student and professional proxy bride, she asks: “Will you have this man by proxy to be your lawful wedded husband, and with him to live together in holy matrimony pursuant to the laws of God and this state?”

“I do,” answers Ms. Knapton, elbow on table, chin in hand.

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It’s only 4 seconds, but this would have been a geek-o-gasmic ending to one of the greatest movie fight scenes—and, when you really think of it, dance sequences—of all time.

It was getting ugly there, for a second, with the, “you’d make a good vice-president” stuff, and dusty Geraldine Ferraro talkin’ that talk!

But since Hillary Clinton has said she’s sorry “to Black voters,” we can take up right were we left off: Pointing out what this race is really about on a certain level, thanks to the clip.

In truth, it’s more twistedness from political mashup theorist Michael Stevens, right, the brain behind CamPain 2008. Some of the piece looks creepy, e.g., the smooch itself, and Chelsea’s wink at the end. But favorite details abound: Hillary’s “thought balloons,” clearly taken from the audiobook of her autobio, Living History; Wolf Blitzer’s discomfort; the close-ups of approving Hollywood tag-alongs.

In fact, since you’ve been good, also gander at Mike’s other amazing spectacles: a happy-go-lucky rip on the thankfully dead campaign of Rudy Giluiani; Hillary killing crowds with her passion for change; a John Edwards promo that should stop any still-remaining “Obama running mate” chatter; John McCain’s vain attempt to connect with younger voters; and what comes off to me as a Jack Nicholson-styled endorsement of Ron Paul by R. Kelly, if you can get your head halfway around that. Collect the whole set.

One very happy smiley face: del Rio shows her considerable talents

Count on the impossibly design-consistent Taschen to come up with something like this: Not only does their foot-square, 396-page, 1,500 numbered copies, $700 Vanessa del Rio—a retrospective book on the life and career of the ’70s porn star—arrive signed by her, in a slipcase, with an original 140-minute DVD documentary. As well, one buyer, and only one, is going to find something even more amazing, below: A Willy Wonka-like “Golden Ticket good for an all-expenses paid evening with Vanessa, to be documented by a world famous-photographer”:

I’m presuming “an all-expenses paid evening with Vanessa” merely means dinner. However, clicking on her ticket here will get you the next best thing to that meal: a short, but aurally NSFW Taschen video clip of del Rio riffing on her life and history as, not only the first Latina porn star but, “the first woman to do a DP.” Don’t ask. My favorite part: Toward the end, del Rio displaying two fellatic black & white 8x10s…after having put on her granny glasses.

Valve, creators of the landmark, 2004 Half-Life 2 PC game, is selling a 13″ plushie version, above, of their unstoppable Hunter attack “synth,” below. (The Hunter appears in the 2007 Half-Life 2: Episode 2 mini-sequel.)

Available for $39.95 through their online Steam service, the soft toy features the original, three-legged, “bioengineered” “shock troop”‘s ice-blue eye sensors, and poseable appendages, all featured prominently and lethally in this Episode 2 trailer.

Half-Life 2 tells the story of a rebel insurrectionist group attempting to overthrow the totalitarian and oppressive Combine, an invading alien race. Both iterations of Half-Life are considered milestones in the history of computer gaming, breathtaking for the breadth of their narrative and design.

Half-Life 2 has sold over four million copies. (Thanks to TOMOPOP.com for the tip!)

Honored to be blogrolled by Canned Thinking, though I’m guessing that doing it twice was just a mistake. : ) Self-described “aspiring writer” Aaron Matthews writes it, and he seems to possess least two qualities that endear anyone to me: Clearly diverse interests and a love of interviews. Both are on display in his Q&A with comedienne Chelsea Perretti, right, who, with her brother Jonah, created the Black People Love Us! web site a couple of years ago. (I couldn’t stand the site, which seemed self-congratulating in an unintended, white way, but I’ll look out for her stand-up.)

Mucho appreciation to Giles Li, who did a thoughtful write-up on my “No, Seriously: I’d Much Rather Listen to Obama Girl” riff about Will.I.Am’s Obamaffectionate “Yes We Can.” I’d not heard of Mr. Li’s work previously, but a look at his bio shows a dedication to arts education that I find inspiring and believe to be badly needed.

Also, thanks to FOBBDeep: Fear of a Brown Blogger‘s Ninoy Brown for building on the same subject matter—”We Are The Ones,” Will.I.Am’s flaccid follow-up to “Yes We Can”—while mentioning me and the piece. Whether it be covering the work of music video director Rik Cordero, the apparent temporary saving of 1520 Sedgwick (hip-hop founder Kool D.J. Herc’s former home and early performing space) from gentrification, or Rolling Stone‘s current Obama cover piece, seen here, Brown seems to be dutifully cracking the oysters for pearls.

Of course, super-thanks to everyone who’s posting and writing comments. Thanks for blessing my little shingle with your words. Just keep speaking your minds.

The Alfa Romeo Brera: Sex on wheels, not for real

The old cliché says that middle-aged men buy expensive sports cars in order to get sex. So, in a way, perhaps Spitzer was just cutting out the middleman.

Of course, everything about the Spitzer sex scandal boggles the mind: The original chastity of his reputation; the salaciousness of the details connected to his disgrace; the height of his fall; the magnitude of the humiliation and embarrassment invoked when being the highest elected official in one’s state means having to tell your wife of twenty years—the mother of your three teenage daughters—that you’ve cheated on her with prostitutes—most recently the day before Valentine’s Day—and that, in mere hours, this fact is going to be on every newspaper cover and TV news program she’s ever seen and known by every living person she’s ever met.

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Stand by your man: Silda Wall Spitzer and the cheating governor

When politicians cheat on their wives, why, as they give their public confessions, do their wives stand next to them at the podium?

Joe Garofoli’s San Francisco Chronicle piece, “Why do political wives stand by their men?”, asks this great, little-asked question:

Part political theater, part open-air therapy, these excruciating public confessionals demand three things of the spouse: to hold her family together at a moment of crisis; to support the person she supposedly loves; and to provide a least a shred of future political viability for her man.

But some analysts wonder if these humiliating productions have outlived their political usefulness.

“They have put these women through so much already – it just seems to be a second level of humiliation,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It is supposed to make him look like not such a bad guy. Like, ‘Geez, look, his wife was standing next to him.’ But in this case, she looked so pained that, to me, he looked less sympathetic.”

Also in the SF Chronicle, Debra J. Saunders (“The emperor’s wife”) reasonably asks

If we have to see the wife, couldn’t it be as she is throwing his suits, socks and golf clubs on the sidewalk while invoking the name of a ruthless divorce attorney?

It would certianly make better television. Watching Silda Wall Spitzer, all I could think was that she looked like she probably felt: That she’d been socked in the gut. (Reportedly, she’d learned of the scandal the day before.) She didn’t even have Dina McGreevey’s odd little frozen smile.

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Check out the Huffington Post‘s article, Emperors Club: All About Eliot Spitzer’s Alleged Prostitution Ring. (You can click on the pic, also.)

Is it just me, or are these pictures, like the one at right, kinda creepy?

Is there an odd kind of deathliness to this whole thing: To ordering women with no heads, seated in kind of fake-artsy poses, so that you can have sex with them?

As a child born in the early 1960s, I can remember when every print ad in National Geographic seemed to be done in this style: Painting of athletic and slim white man and woman in some otherwise impossible, wildly desirable setting, madly enjoying some consumer item that, it seems, would not be that all interesting, actually, if you, say, lived in a bleeding-edge, part-glass, woodland home cantilevered over a stream, or a couple dozen stories above a headlamp-lit New York City street.

Both are by illustrator Charles Schridde. As the awesome Paleo-Future notes, the top pic is from a Motorola television print campaign:

This series ran in Life Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post from 1961 until 1963 and was immensely popular for its elegant, futuristic look.

Though the Western-themed stuff Schridde seems to most paint these days does zero for me, thankfully, his work is preserved on the web, in books like Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising and The Golden Age of Advertising – the 70s. Click on the pics to see close-ups. Thanks to FFFFOUND, StrangeHarvest, Paleo-Future, and The World of Kane for the links.