On the hill overlooking Back Beach and the middle harbour, facing toward a distant Taiaroa Head, which is the small eminence in the distance behind the cargo warehouse to the left there.  The track to the far right hairpins down to the beach and is part of our No. 3 walk.  Going down it, cool; coming up- not so much.

We did this loop on Sunday.  17ºC in the middle of winter lol.  No, that's not normal but what the hell is these days?

Do you have a garden?  I've never been without one, except for a period of upstairs flatting in central Christchurch.  It's been dry and mild for a week or so now and we've had our arses in the air developing one of the feral sections of our current garden, basically a small wilderness of blackberry, broome and elephant weed.  It's the last place left on our land that's sunny enough for roses, below and to the west of the section in the pic below.

Construction helps keep depression off my fucking back in winter and if that's you too, I highly recommend it as a therapeutic measure.  I'll post some pics when things are starting to look more like a garden and less like a tar pit.

The sun's just starting to get back into the top of our hillside now after reaching its nadir.  ^ This is my favourite Cabbage Tree Cordyline australis specimen; it's a very truffula-esque guy with a great beard of dead leaves.  To the right is a Cordyline Green Goddess with its broader, more upright leaves and slightly different habit.  It's a difficult cultivar that likes to shit itself and die at the slightest provocation even here in its native New Zealand, so don't feel too bad if you've killed a few.  In the mid ground you can see a Magnolia x Shiraz budding up and some Arrow Bamboo Pseudosasa japonica.  This is one of my personal favourites due to its quick growth and elegant leafage.  It doesn't really run here, even though we're Zone 9 and well-watered, happier to clump and just expand in a polite manner, usually toward the sun.

I'm probably boring you stupid with this reportage so let me spice shit up in here.  Stagger Lee: those degenerate go go boys put hearts in my eyes.  Every damn time.  


I'll try and get to finishing the second part of the West Coast trip series this week.

Burning resin spat from the tall splinter of pine that Sachiin pushed down into a narrow fissure in the table, hissing where it fell onto the back of his hands.  Their gracile shapes were painted in a flickering orange degraded into umber and obscurity by the light of the flame at the end of the wood, its plume of oily smoke snaking toward the ceiling of the chamber.  That it had once been a refectory was evidenced by the gaping, crater-like fireplace standing at the far end of its rectangular extent and still housing the great kettles and cauldarium, rusted and overturned.  The dusty black scent flushed down the chimney flue was overlaid by the amberous emissions of the living flame; Susan leant back as she sat before it, another glob of hot sap landing on the wood before her.

“That had better not explode.” she murmured.  A pile of medlars gleaned from beneath the two trees of Sachiin's discovery lay in repose upon the table, their strange autumnal smell reminding her again of their equally peculiar savour.  He sat down across from her, easing his long legs over the bench.  She dealt seven cards from the slick airport pack in her hands, face down onto the dusty grey timber. 

"You have to be quiet for this.  I'm going to pick up a card, and you have to tell me which one it is.  If you only get a colour, just say which one." she instructed.
"I'm not psychic."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do." he chuckled dryly.  "The universe has spoken."
"Just do it."

He set his chin on his hand, murmuring answers as she worked through the suite.  Her perplexity, writ faintly at first, deepened as the experiment concluded.  

"You got every last one wrong." Susan frowned, gathering the cards and suspecting the blamelessness of his expression before looking round the feeble details allowed by the torchlight.  “No Petrouchka again.” 
“A girl’s got to eat.”
“Eat what?  I’m the only thing on two legs for god knows how far...”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
"I told you... she's avoiding me."

In entering the chamber Kala'amātya troubled the smoking flame but made no sound, and Susan quashed an embarrassing start, keeping both feet on the ground.  While he surveyed their seclusion mutely it occurred to her that he was providing an opportunity to demonstrate disinclination; when she made no obvious objection, he sat down at the end of the table and chose two medlars for himself.  The torch stood mirrored in the polish of their eyes as a golden ellipse, and she was struck, then disturbed by the idea that they would have dispensed with it altogether if she had not required it, contenting themselves with a darkness that was no more opaque to their perception than rain was to her own.  The glow was returned by their faces, its effacement of all minor detail rendering them so perfectly alike that one might have been the reflection of the other, though when she made a deliberate attempt to confuse them, she discovered it was not as easy as she feared.  She shook her head at Sachiin none the less.  

"You're dyeing your hair." she told him.

Kala'amātya drew his knife through the medlar in his palm and ate as though unaware of the scrutiny she accorded the entirely novel tableau; Sachiin’s stare narrowed in sympathy with the rest of his expression, shifting with the pressure Susan placed upon his foot under the table.  She addressed herself to their visitor.

“Have you seen Petrouchka?” 

“She left three nights ago.” Kala'amātya replied, while she selected her own piece of fruit.  

“Because of us?"

"No."  Sap sparked again from the torch.  

"What do you think the weather will do?”

He cut around a blackened portion of the drupe; she spectated patiently, leaning on her elbows.

“Snow.” 

“We won’t get stuck here, will we?  I thought we might get going, in case that happens.”

Again she waited, leaning further over her arms in an unconscious attempt to discern the wordless aspects of his discourse, finding only subtle disapproval of the inquiry in his gaze.

"Will we?  Get stuck here?" she pressed.  Kala'amātya chose another medlar.

“Christabel, he's not going to putt a fucking box of chocolates out his arsehole.” his brother assured her dourly.  She sighed his name.  “Susan…” he countered, wide-eyed.  "You don't have to pretend it's not gruesome... look at him... it's like trying to small talk with a giant fucking shrunken head."

She examined their guest again, revealing a tilt in her expression that grew while Sachiin continued to enumerate objections until they seemed more to obscurely commend than execrate their object.  Dealing seven cards for Kala'amātya, she explained the procedure briefly, receiving his silence as assent; he looked from each toward her as he rendered his verdicts.

"Six of clubs.  Black king.  Red queen.  Ace of spades.  Two of hearts.  Small red.  Black jack."  

Susan frowned as she attempted to articulate her findings.

"You um... you got them all right..."  He watched her colour at the implications as she stared at them in turn.  "You're not... are you?" she demanded.  Even as she spoke Kala'amātya's gaze caught and bound her own, altering to the colour in the foot of the flame, its consuming, gem-like blankness stoking her dismay.

"I can only read you when you're looking at me." he told her.  In the darkness of the wall against which he had leant Sachiin rolled his eyes and sighed at her horrified credulity, picking up one of the cards.

"He's fucking with you.  We can see them in your eye." he laughed, leaning forward so that she could perceive the red queen miniaturized upon the surface of his own.  Susan snatched it back from him, including them both in her admonition, her tormentor receiving it with the faintest of half-turned smiles.  Sachiin shrugged.  "Yeah well, I warned you about him."  
“What did those alujha want the other night?" she demanded.  "Did they talk to you?”
“They came to troll Pet for putting us up... she called them a bunch of banjo-picking ballbags and told them to fuck off.”
“And what else?”  His reply was complicated by another medlar and she turned to Kala'amātya for clarification.
“They were looking to be compensated for their loss of personnel.” the latter explained.
“You’re joking... what, money?"
“Initially."
"And..."
"We told them we weren’t carrying any currency.  Any claim they might have had was voided by their offensive anyway.”

Clearing his throat conspicuously, Sachiin let his stare settle on his brother’s face.

“See the rainbow this morning?” he asked.  She grinned as she shuffled the cards.
“No... you’re not still afraid of them, are you?”
“It’s not fear, it’s respect.”  
“I used to be scared of vacuum cleaners.” Susan chuckled, looking back to Kala'amātya.  “So, what... you told them we were broke... and?”

“They said they’d take you, in lieu of money.”  That she did not at first believe him was expressed in laughter and he elaborated.  “Your inamorato explained his objections the only way he knows how, and since negotiating with someone aspirating their own blood presents technical difficulties, I was forced to support his position.  After which they left.”

She scowled again at Sachiin.

"I thought you said it wasn't on."
"They started it."
“So... you beat them up and they went away with nothing?”  The cast of Kala'amātya's gaze confirmed it.  “Good.” she concluded, returning her attention to him.  He bore it stoically, the lack of unequivocal refusal in his demeanour like some persisting mirage.  She decided to test it further.  "What's India like?"
"Difficult to summarize." he replied.
"Could you have a go?"

"It's adjacent to Afghanistan."

In the ensuing silence she turned her expression to Sachiin, who smiled back at her contentedly.  

"I know it's probably horrible, but I really want to go to Afghanistan for some reason." Susan declared. 
"I don't care for it myself."
"Shall we just go to India then?"

His disinclination was tangible, like a change visible through his skin.  The thought that his plans might diverge from their own in actuality was like a kick from a stranger, and something she could not immediately accept.  Taking the box of cigarettes from the end of the table she applied herself to picking out the gold tab from its cellophane.

"Why were you pretending to be an artist?"
"High spirits got the better of him." Sachiin mused.
"I don't understand why you weren't allowed to make anything.  It just seems completely mad."  Her knowledge of the ancient interdict sent Kala'amātya's gaze back to his brother, but he replied in his own time.

"It is the axiomatic fundamentalist ultimatum.  All creation performed outside the divine inceptive act is necessarily profane, and ours was a profoundly idiopathic subversion of the natural process... any hieratic structure was obliged to instate an orthodoxy emphasizing absolute legitimacy to confute the presumption inherent in all independent creativity."

She emitted a smoke ring, watching it slow and double over as it dispersed.

“So..."

"It suffices to say my motives may not have borne sustained inquiry."

Susan's frown migrated to the side of her face.

"I don't know about that... I just... I'm not convinced you ever do anything you don't really want to."
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"I don't know why... will you please just go back and find Lilian, for god's sake?  It drives me mad just looking at you."  Kala'amātya greeted her impassioned observation darkly.  "Do you honestly believe she never wants to see you again?  And don't say you don’t want to go against a woman’s word... you're not fucking pro-choice when it comes to teeth.”
“Would you have preferred to die of sepsis?”
“No.”
“Some arguments are academic, some are not.”

Sachiin received her exasperation with equanimity, though the sound of his brother rising from the table pulled her off the bench in an impulsive attempt to prevent his departure.  He stood as though awaiting some concession from her; Susan was loath to provide it, sitting back down only when he moved to do so, wary of any further evasive measure.

"I... while you're both here, there is something we should sort out." she told them.  "I do know that if anyone's going to get dragged into an unmarked van, it's going to be me... if that happens, I want..."
"If you get picked up, we come and bust you out.  Je m'en fous." Sachiin interjected.
"But y..."
"The only thing that can't happen, Christabel, under any fucking circumstances, is us getting pinched together.  If I'm collared, you have to get as far away as fast as you can."  
"There are fifty billion of me... you're all that's left of you.  I mean it... do everything you can to help each other, but don't get caught on my account... promise me that."

The brothers looked to one another in a mirror-like consensus.

"If we end up in the pokey it's because we were dumb, or drunk, or both.  I wouldn't pull his arse out a wet paper bag and the feeling's pretty fucking mutual."
"You haven't even thought about this, have you?  You could wake up in a steel box with air holes and be stuck there for the next two hundred years while they do god knows what to you!  You won't even get the chance to blag your bloody way out of it." 

"That's the point of individual responsibility." Kala'amātya reminded her.  

"I said I wouldn't bust you out." his brother muttered.  "We got her into this shit and it fucking behoves us to get her out of it, if it comes to that."

"How long could you watch someone taping electrodes to her before you agreed to whatever they wanted?"  

Susan slapped a hand to her forehead.

"Thank you.  If anything happens to me, drag him in the opposite direction."
"The fuck he will."
"Acquire some defensive capability and it might not come to that." said Kala'amātya.  Susan dropped her head and shook it wearily.
"Will you both stop nagging me?  I told you... I hate guns, and I'd be complete rubbish at them anyway."  She lit another cigarette, squinting when the smoke from the torch swung back into her face.  "I did mean to ask you, though... what's it like, being shot?  Out of ten?"
"Twenty nine." Sachiin muttered.  "We don't have a luxury shock reaction.  We get it all, the going in, the hitting the bone, the turning round, coming out back out again... it's very detailed." 
"Is there anything you can do to stop it happening?  Magic words... getting your tits out?”  

Kala'amātya appeared to deliberate upon the extent to which he should oblige her inquiry, the pause lending such weight to his reply that she was startled by, then suspicious of its brevity. 

“Run."  

"That's it?"
"He's being polite." Sachiin sighed.  "Do you really want the R-18 version?" 
"Do you want to stop being a patronizing muppet?"

"Out of any ten people with a firearm, seven will be competent to hit a stationary object at close range, five at a distance, two if it's mobile." Kala'amātya continued, unexpectedly.  "Ballistic weapons are the friend of the contemporary imbecile.  If you have a brain, use it if you don't want it emulsified.  Being female is to your advantage if you're willing to embrace the fundamentals."

"How do you mean?"

"Without training, you're too small to hurt anyone conventionally, so don't try, except in extremis."  She was less than pleased by the blunt nature of his assertion, but did not interrupt.  "Always cry.  A significant proportion of human males from any cohort cannot execute a weeping woman.  And offer sex.  Feign enthusiasm.  Someone will eventually cut your hands loose."  Susan folded her arms, looking away from him.  "There's no more discredit in that than there is in eating their food.  If you're committed to survival, the only failure is to waste an opportunity."
"I don't know if I could."
"I'm pretty sure most of us would fellate a fucking warthog if it had a nine to our ear." Sachiin assured her.  "You do whatever you have to do... I've done it, he's probably done it... live, and have a breakdown later." he added, far more gravely. 

"How hard is it?  To shoot someone, when they're looking at you?"

Kala'amātya did not respond and his brother interceded.  

"It depends who you are... some people can gut you with a clawhammer but can't pull a trigger... others can strafe you stupid but couldn't slap a douchebag if he was teabagging their grandmother on the front lawn."  She screwed up her face; he leant across the planks and took a hit from her cigarette.  "Some people are born lucky and can do you both ways, right from the get go... the tueur fou, ange de la mort... but you really should learn to pop a cap, cloudcheeks, allez.  It's not like we're asking you to hang someone from a fucking light cord and go at them with a baseball bat.  It's baby steps to the psycho shit... for erm, most of us." he chuckled blackly.

Sachiin's companions looked to one another in silence.  

Susan had come to recognize the small cues provided by their detection of approaching parties, and sat up while their erstwhile hostess shuffled along the passage outside, tripping over the heaps of plaster lying by the walls.  She could smell Petrouchka before the latter hove into view through the arch in her saturnine mink, hands and mouth, chin, collar and sleeves blackened thickly by fluids that had lost their sheen and settled into tarry craquelure.  

“Look... is like chernozopy hut, in Akusha..." the vampyre gurgled, laughing at the humble nature of their arrangements.  “Black hair will grow from your ears.”

C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

Midwinter means my Aloe collection's thoughts turn to conjugation.  More and more species are flowering regularly as my fleshy little friends begin to mature and that is very gratifying to any doting succulent parent.
I've written up some of these species already (okay, one) so hit the links to see more of the plant.
All photos are the work of the Lovely R.  
(Please don't post these elsewhere without at least crediting and linking back to the site, thanks.)

The surpassingly beautiful Aloe albiflora, a native of the Madagascan highlands.  Well, it was, until exterminated in the wild by mining and habitat degradation.  Luckily it thrives in cultivation and mine flowers almost nonstop.  

While our coastal light is slightly blue-leaning in winter, the cool-toned image to the top right there is actually pretty representative of how Whirl appears on the lip.  It looks like Velvet Teddy or Pander Me in the tube, but that's where the resemblance ends and it's not the cute warm nude I feared as I snapped the warmer shots.  To my eye, you're looking at a neutral to very slightly cool taupe with river stone, ash and even distant violet in its DNA.  Like the superfine silt that washes up around the grey cobbles in mountain waterways, if you've ever had the pleasure.

So the warm-light tube shots here are quite a long way off-true.  The cooler pic above left where a little bit of use is starting to rough up the surface is what you'll get on the lip.  It's darker, odder, more complex and less friendly than you may be assuming, far more of a cross between dry drinking chocolate powder and dusty slate than peachy-marshamallow.  To which I breathed a great sigh of relief, since I was looking for something like MAC Del Rio in a matte finish.  Del Rio is warmer and more rosy, but the closest of all the nudie/neutrals I currently own.

Evening light in the shot below gets us a little closer to the tonal truth.  There seems to be a wide range of textures in these new MAC mattes and I can report that Whirl goes on quite smoothly and evenly, dries down to a true paper or suede-like finish and is waxy enough to leave a few lip creases naked after a while.  That's no biggie if you're deeply-pigmented but might become an issue if you're not.  It is 95% opaque, slightly buildable and I'm getting a sense of impending dryness/slight discomfort after an hour of wear.

Someone else might be able to achieve that apparently coveted cretinous inflatable jailbait look with Whirl, but I'm too cranky and too bitey for it to look insert cock here-ish.  On me it looks adult and even austere, so don't be afraid of any imagined dumbification or associative toxicity with this shade- personal context is everything.  Are you as glad as I am?

Postscript- I was going to pick up MAC Stone from the same collection, but I've seen it on a few other people now and ooooh... tough one to pull off.  Approach with ten layers of caution.  While it might be interesting in the bathroom mirror (and this is coming from someone with very broad tastes), I've yet to see it look like anything but scuffed arse and/or nasty footpath in outdoor lighting.  Nasty footpath can be a perfectly legitimate thing but it should probably be a conscious decision, lol.  Stone needs a very careful supporting look and a really narrow set of undertones.  My advice- admire from a distance and invest elsewhere. 

He nominates this shot of a horse's neck as one of his best and I concur.  See more  H E R E

I know it looks bigger when you shave, but 'tis an illusion that serves no purpose and there is something both reassuringly adult and endearingly personal about pubes.  Which is perhaps why they've been so thoroughly abolished. 

Shit.  Now I'm dying for a fucking cigarette.  A handsome cigarette. 

Love Your Money: love this song, in retrospect though because I never caught it back in the day.  I can play the bass part (with a lot of help from ye olde Rat pedal + silver Fuzz) and that warms my inept cockles.

Orpheus (1863) — François-Louis Français
Source:vardlokkurulv

“I lisp now." Susan sighed, sliding her tongue between her teeth; her hand lay open on Sachiin's knee and she peered down at her open palm while he leant over it, working the thorns free with the point of a folding blade.

“You don’t lisp.” he chuckled.  

They sat on the parapet and chair respectively.  A ceaseless wind, cold and bone-dry, blustered over the edge of the yard under the midday sun, its distant solitaire lost in a sky of insuperable, gaseous immensity, snapping through the clothes and strips of hare meat on the drying frame they had improvised from branches.  It curled against the hill and swept back toward them, dosed with the smoke still rising thinly from the remains of their laundry fire.  Below the forest formed a sea of undulous shadow green in which the bald peaks rose like desert atolls, thick skirts of snow still lying, topaz blue, amid their shade.  She looked up, the sun flooding brightly-veined crimson through her lids, then returned to examining his peculiarly toneless expression, an effect of his devotion to his task; Sachiin's colours were favoured by the same light that dramatized the landscape and her gaze enjoyed him in the same leisured and impersonal way.  The thorns he cut free left behind a shallow, sapid burn, relieving the pressure of their intrusion.  Susan closed her eyes; in her pellucid mood the sound of him leaning in his chair to discreetly address the tin of condensed milk secreted beneath it did not move her to active intervention.  

"You'll get diabetes." she murmured. 
"I don't care.  This shit is incredible.  It’s...”
“Ten years past its use-by date... sickly and disgusting?”
"Sans déc.  It’s the Hello Kitty of food... like someone dipped a cow in gur.  What's caramel?" he added, frowning at what he could make of the recipe printed on the tin.
“Stop eating it!  It’s not even ours.” 

When she swatted impulsively at the can he rose with it and walked some distance from her, leaning over the edge of the roof to vomit the substance into the void beyond, the polka dotted fabric of her underwear sagging on his hips.

“There’s fucking miles of it down there.” he assured her, referring to the aging cache they had discovered in the alcoves below and taking another from the portion they had requisitioned, peeling off its lid with an ecstatic murmur.  His small porcine devotee squealed impatiently at his feet and danced in anticipation as he bent down and offered the treat to its questing snout.

“Give that one to him and get another, for god's sake.  And put some pants on.” she complained, easing herself from the chair and crossing the yard to take his jeans from the line; cognizant of her intent, he stepped up onto the parapet and used its broken length in a leisurely evasion, scooping what remained from the tin.  

“Hey, if only the black helicopters could see me now.  I dare you!" he declared, shaking a fist at the sky.

“They'd have to fly back to base and bleach their eyeballs for an hour, so stay up there.” she observed, feigning resignation before lunging sideways at him.  He walked over the chair and took refuge behind the fire where she cornered him, Fyodor dashing after them.    

“You can’t forcibly re-pants a spirited ch... child of...”  The protest was interrupted by the re-emergence of the second tin of milk, which he bent over to eject.  "Nature... is that caramel?" he inquired, nodding down at the ground.  As she kept hold of his wrist and shook out his trousers he lost his elusive verve, standing tranquilly and smiling at her as she hauled the garment up over his legs.  “While you’re down there.” he grinned, enjoying the slap to the rear that his remark inspired.  “I can't help this, you brought more underwear than I did.”   

“So did Kermit the bloody frog.”  She buttoned his fly and shook her head at another of his new scars, a wide, slightly corrugated crescent on his hip that he twisted to see for himself.
“Well, at least I didn't get it in a tranny fight at Taco Bell, though that would have been a fuck of a lot more glamorous.”
“We should have let your brother turn them into kebabs when we had the chance.” Susan muttered, walking back to the chair.  He paused to douse his head in the bucket of water.
"Alas no, my bloodthirsty petal... an alujha death feud is a game nobody wins."
"Aren't we in one anyway?"
"Technically no... they started it, so if we don't do anything else, it's not on."  He consulted the tin in his hand once more.  "It says... caramel happens when you heat it up." he added, gaze shifting to the cans that formed part of Susan's rations and equipment, the former assorted into daily allowances, the latter cleaned, examined and laid out to dry.  Sachiin edged one toward the coals with his foot whilst dipping a finger in the can and applying it languidly to his neck and chest.  She let her head settle against the chair. 

"If you're going to do that, your name has to be... mmm... Richard... you have to be new in town and just looking for a place to stay, and you're going to be passed around a lot of strange... I think this time... strange firemen." she informed him, smiling at his groin's gentle and intermittent conjunction with her ear.  He rolled his eyes.  
"Richard again?"
"Your name is the least pornographic part of you... I can't help that.  How can you have ants in your pants?  We just washed them."  The narrow shadow in the corner of her smile granted it a strangely endearing quality.
"Les dents du bonheur." he contended at the sight of it, touching his thumb to her lip.  "It's happiness.  I have happiness in my pants."
"I know.  It's poking my eardrum.  Sit down... if you don't stop eating that rubbish I'll have to tie you to something.  Have a go at the back of my head."

Susan knelt over the stone and he sat on the edge of the chair to work the tangles from her hair, searching out the thorns that had lodged in her scalp.  The stroke of his hands closed her eyes; he leant down to set the tin on the ground for Fyodor, who nosed it greedily.

"Do you ever think about how strange you are?" she inquired.
"How do you mean?"
"I mean... do you feel it?"

He looked out toward the mountains.

"Parfois.  Sometimes I feel loose.  Like the parts are rattling around... talking about me behind my back."
"You have parts?" she laughed.  "How many?"
"Three.  One at the back, and one behind each eye.  The left one has a creepy voice... go platinum blonde, drink a case of Pernod, light curtain fires..."  He adjusted his intonation accordingly.  "I try not to listen but he's very persuasive."
"How can you be three things at once?  Who am I talking to now?"

He shrugged.

"My threefold shit is all up in your grille, poupée... every part likes you.  Je suis désolé."

From looking at him she took another measure of the encircling horizon, resting her chin on her hands.

"If I'd known you were this creepy I would never have slept with you in a million years." she smirked.  He ran his tongue over his teeth inside his own smile.
"Now you're stuck with me in a place where there's absolutely nothing else to do.  The very heart of darkness."
"Yes, and I'm not overly fussed about staying.” 
“Give it a couple of weeks."
"Weeks?"
"You’ve got some carbs to suck down before we take a run at the border.  You’ll have to walk behind me when we do, though... Gévaudan’s gone straight to you arse and it’s giving me a special feeling.”  
“Make the most of it.  It'll be fit and sporty by the time I’ve hauled it back to civilization.”  

“Don’t say that, Christabel... rub some butter on it.” he exclaimed, edging the chair forward so that he could enjoy more intimate contact with her posterior.  She reached back in a futile attempt to deter the attention.  “What do they say... starve a cold and feed a booty?  An arse in the hand is worth two on the dancefloor?  A hot rack is silver but trunk junk is gold?  A double-down donk is a man’s best friend?”  
“It’s speaking is silver but silence is gold.  Silence.  And stop that.”
“I can’t.”  She shook him off and climbed up onto the parapet to lie on her stomach, taking advantage of the meagre warmth afforded by the stone; he let himself down on top of her, blowing a rolling purr on the back of her neck and watching her ears turn pink.  "Un petit coup en vitesse?"  
"You have to say it slowly." Susan complained.

"It loses its charm." he laughed, settling beside her with his back to the drop and his head propped on his hand.  His eyes shared their hue with the distant trees behind him so that they seemed to have commandeered his gaze, his stare undermining the quietude that she encouraged by closing her own.  “I was going to tell you something, but if you don’t want to hear it... alright then."  Sachiin maintained his threatened embargo for longer than she anticipated, though he began flicking his teeth with a fingernail.

"Tell me or I'll push you off.” 

“I just wanted to say that I was worried... you know, that Ed had done the right thing... the grown up thing... by letting Frost go.  I’m glad I was too needy and pathetic.  So... thanks, for not running off screaming.”  
“I did run off screaming.”
“Thanks for not running off screaming from me specifically.”
“I’m not planning on running ever again.” she assured him.  "But... I would hate to be sitting in bloody Hackney right now wondering what you were doing and realizing I'd just made the most sensible adult decision ever." 

He clapped a hand to his heart.

"My left ventriloquist is having an erection."  Susan accepted his kiss with some hesitation, wary of its nebulous, luring gravity and pushing him back onto his side when he slid an arm and leg across her.

"I hope it doesn’t cost anything to get wherever we're going because I’ve about ten francs and change left.  What've you got?”
“Fifty lei, in my good pants.  I dropped my last US on Azeri single malt in the Nizami küçəsi."
“So... we're skint?”
"Pretty much."
"And you're not bothered?"
"Not really.” 
“You sound like such a rich kid."
"Is that good or bad these days?  I don't know, Christabel, I just can't get all bent about money.  It comes and it goes... we just have a casual thing."
"I don’t know if I can go from tooling around in a Jag to... panhandling, probably, in eastern Europe...”  
“No prise de tête.  Auberjonois’ll sub me whatever we need.  If there’s something he loves more than pulling thirty percent for sitting on his hairy fucking arse eating cheese, he's too ashamed to tell me.”

He groaned as he sat up and let his legs hang over the drop, and she curled around him.  

“Your walking away from a Jaguar is a lot sexier than driving around in one like a plonker.”  
"It took me forever to find that fucking car.  I was trying to impress you." 
"Do they not come with a key and matching doors?"
"I asked my inner lady what she thought about the guy who drives a minty XJS and she said she just couldn't imagine wanting to fuck him."
"Your inner lady should buy some underwear." she laughed.
"Well, first we'd have to hit the lending arm of the international bastard bank of Kala'amātya, but that's cool... he’ll pay me to go away in a fucking heartbeat.”  

Her frown returned.

“I don't think we should leave him alone at the moment.”
“It’ll do him good, the sulky prick.  You're the first person to survive calling him a sadistic mental case in the last two thousand years, though... that's progress now that I think about it." 
"I wish we could send him to counseling."  

He laughed, its strange sound falling over the wall and booming down the slope.

"You girls and your Jesus complex... he's just not a modern guy, Christabel.  Skullfucking, unsolicited amputations... it's all ikebana to him.  Leave him to the expert."
"She left him."

Sachiin issued a dramatic presentation to the gorge.

"Kala'amātya in therapy... what seems to be the problem, Mr Lamb?  Why are you such a creepy, twisted fuck?  I don't know, but I start stabbing clinical psychologists if I can't find my skull bag, and what the fuck did I say about eye contact?"  He made a splattering sound between pursed lips.  "Clean up in cubical four."  Having wiled his way into the narrow space between them and under his arm, Fyodor set his little hooves against her to complete his usurpation.  

“That pig is in love with you.”
“I’m in love with him.  But I’m not in love with my brother, and there’s something about the way he was grazing me with small arms fire the other night that tells me I’m getting to the end of what I can do for him in his present state.”

They remained in their respective silences for a while, Susan biting at a fingernail.

"I don't want to stay here.  Petrouchka's avoiding me, and when she isn't, she's giving me looks.  I'd rather sleep under a tree."
"I don’t know the technical shit involved in the whole undead conversion thing, but I do know the human brain probably isn’t designed to be flogged five hundred years past its use-by date, especially when it wasn’t your flashest feature in the first place.  She's petite noblesse... she can marry well and find veins and that's about it.  Don't take it personally.”
“Stop trying to make me feel superior.” 
“You are superior.” he assured her.  
“What, because I have a pulse?”
"Give it two weeks, cloudcheeks.  Fourteen tiny little days.  Pour moi?"

Muttering, Susan set the pig down on the roof and sat up alongside him, pushing a hand into his hair and attempting to derange it to her satisfaction, only to see it slide back in its sericeous disregard.

“I never thought I’d miss midnite madder, but I actually do.  If we can go pretty much anywhere, I fancy India.  For Diwali or something."
“Long walk.”  She groaned but he remained resolute.  “It’s lo-fi pedestriation until we lose the heat.  You get safety or you get convenience.  They don’t hook up.”
“But I like convenience...”
“I like not having the door of my condo kicked in at three in the morning by black op freaks or roidy bloodsuckers."  He glanced at her fondly.  "And I love a feral pants-optional destination so what about Holi, somewhere backwards and country... I'll trade plumbing and florists for not having to worry about you so much.”  
“Having me around must be like this nightmare egg and spoon race that just keeps going.”

He shook his head at the exoticism of the activity to which she referred.

"If I had known you were this weird I would never have slept with you." Sachiin smiled, lurching perilously at the shove she applied to his shoulders.
“About your brother...”  He put a hand to his throat and commenced a doleful choking but she persisted.  "When I think about it, he's probably the smartest person I've ever met, so he must know if he stopped sulking and got on a plane he could actually be with Lilian.” she insisted.
"He's smart enough to know you can't fix a fleshwound with a fucking machete.  Frost cut him a break... I never thought she would... if he jumps the rope and goes after her it'll end in a smoking hole in the ground and I'll be the one who needs a fucking shrink."

"Everything ends badly." she observed.  He stepped over her and walked back toward the remains of the fire.

"Trust me, it's a matter of degree.  Christabel, I know what you're saying... a year ago, all this was me.  I was the one humping his leg trying to get his attention.  He told me himself, over and over... get off my dick, Sachiin... no really, I prefer my own company... strictly no romanticizing my evil, Sachiin.  And he was right.  He’s the scorpion, not the frog... don’t get it twisted.”  She murmured something toward her chest.

“I said they both drown.” she sighed at his insistence, lowering her voice as he leant over the shifting red glow of the coals as though listening to something obscure within them.  As she opened her mouth to ask, a cracking report sent a spray of caramel bursting from the can he had left upon the coals.  Wiping a hand over the streak of browned milk decorating his midriff, he murmured to himself and licked it from his palm.  

C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe  do not reproduce

rnorburyuk

Robert's work is superlative.  Check it out via the link.

There are many people who are keen to explore photography beyond just snapping a picture around a table in some crappy restaurant and I have noticed that for someone new to the craft it can be complex, intimidating and full of confusing and conflicting information.  Plus possessing an opaque jargon and being seemingly magnetic to bizarrely aggressive old geezers online when you want to ask questions.  So I thought I'd attempt some advice on digital photography and equipment; how we've minimised the cost, the choices we've made and why, with results as illustrated on Kelly's blog.

I assume that whoever reads this has dipped into the odd photography book and or has a basic grasp of such parameters as shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc.  But I'll still try to be clear about everything in case you don't.

My credentials; I'm a reasonably competent amateur, if a top notch pro is a 10 then I think I'm around a 6 or a 7 (I don't mind admitting that there's always more to learn).

Once upon a time I worked in a film processing lab, I also blacked out a kitchen and printed my own black and white prints as well.  I was deeply ambivalent about the whole process though, as I felt I was fighting to acquire sufficient skill to attain the results I wanted.  So for me the semi-magical creation of images from lumps of silver on celluloid staled.  Film for me felt constrained and I regard the sentimentalisation that surrounds it now as a bit perverse and regressive.  I know there are some for whom this is not the case- good luck to them.  I sold my gear, trashed my negatives (which I regret) and got a bit depressed about photography. 

Perhaps it was the endless sequences of 80's family portraits in my day job...they haunt my dreams still. 

But all that has changed.  The digital imaging revolution has made this the best time ever to explore your desire to create and record images; yet a confusing whirl of expensive esoteric products and software has arisen to potentially impoverish the budding photographer.  Furthermore, every new cycle of camera models seems to relegate the previous one to the dustbin.  Which is perhaps as discouraging for many as the days of film (I constantly hear of people who have taken photography courses but have found it all 'too difficult'). 

This needn't be the case, for the silver lining is that older gear has become very cheaply priced on the second-hand market and, because of rapid model upgrading, is often in lightly used condition.  So do you need the latest and greatest?  Can you trade your way to essentially free gear (spoiler; yes you can)?  What is a good model/brand/type of camera to go for?

Camera forums are, oddly, often of little help as most commentators there want to vicariously spend your money and nobody they would talk to could possibly want low-end gear (they're serious photographers lol). 

Kelly's my (glamorous) guinea pig; she went from total non-photographer ten years ago to taking some really good shots today.  I've watched her closely to see what she finds difficult or easy as she composes and shoots, and her satisfaction level with the outcome.  It's worth also noting her (and my) utter distain for the technological aspects and the snobbery surrounding them; like many artists she already has a good eye and just wants great results as easily as possible.  She is extremely impatient, doesn't want to spend money on gear and so I needed to acquire camera gear that  gives great results easily and cost very little money.  This is how we did it.  I hope it helps someone. 

You'll need a dSLR (digital single lens reflex) and I'll tell you why.

Many older digital cameras (in particular mid-range, not entry level, dSLR's and up) are made to the highest standards simply because the old-skool element in many Japanese production companies haven't been able to ween themselves away from making them to the same excellent build quality as their classic film equivalents...if you know your models and makers.  Second-hand these can go now for 5-20% (!) of their original retail price, particularly if you buy as a kit and sell excess items separately.  You know these names already; Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta (now Sony) etc. 

Secondly.  The dSLR, for all its slightly awkward shape and size, is the best camera to use by the new photographer for a number of reasons.  This might seem counter-intuitive since these cameras look complex, but they're usually very straight-forward in operation and any question you have for a common model is easily resolved by a quick trip to a good internet forum.  You will learn good photographic technique easier and faster and take better pictures with a dSLR.  In particular with the better handling mid-range 'semi-pro' models. 

Why?
1: Everything about a good dSLR is immediate.  It responds right away so that you don't even notice it happening; this is vital as it allows you to think with less distraction about the image.  If you have a bright lens and a quality glass viewfinder, the shift from your eye to the subject requires minimal mental adjustment; when the mirror blanks the view as the shutter fires it feels as natural as a blink.  The key word here is natural, it feels natural.
This direct forthright quality engages the photographer and encourages confidence and immersion; it is rewarding.

2: The chunky size; pick up a dSLR, the large buttons and dials fall to hand in a comfortable way, as they should do since it's based on a refined 50+ year old design.  Ergonomics are a real thing and it does matter.  However marvellous all those tiny compact cameras are technically, they aren't comfortable for sustained use.  We are now seeing extra battery grips/ handgrips/thumb hooks etc as 'must have' accessories for the latest teeny mirrorless gems that still don't fit normal sized hands.  A little weight and size is good.  It commits you to holding the camera and lens properly and this aids concentration. Concentration helps you take better pictures as you tend to shoot an extra shot or two or try another angle, exposure or other variable.  It helps you to feel 'serious' about it, and I'm being serious; your mindset is vitally important.

Say to yourself 'it's worth taking the camera', get a good bag, limit your lenses, think about if you need a strap/what type of strap etc and you'll get over the mental block of a minor inconvenience. 

3: A dSLR kit actually allows for simplification; this is because we are all different in what we choose to photograph.  As you or I develop as photographers, we can use the versatility of a dSLR's considerable lens and accessory options to shoot exactly as we wish.  If you experiment in one direction but end up choosing another, the excess gear can be sold or put aside for when you do wish to use it.  A quick lens change and an ever-ready bag can transform your massive telephoto nature rig/studio portrait/macroflash camera to a neat holiday snapshooter.

The counter to all the above is that the very newest compact camera models ( also including massively expensive pro dSLRs) are blessed with better sensors, but this leads to point four.

4: The quality that can be squeezed from a camera 2 or 3 generations removed from the current can still be outstanding, far better than you need it to be, and can create printable images of exhibition scale.  A camera that was used to make great images 5 years ago will still make great images today.  Think of an older camera with plenty of life left in it as a massive fridge full of classic film and free processing.  It seems a shame not to use it, doesn't it?  Furthermore, with the application of continually advancing software with regards to noise reduction, tonal enhancement and sharpening, that 'film' quality ( i.e. your older dSLR result) actually gets better over time. 

Also, and not a minor consideration, camera gear that has cost you relatively little money can be used with less paranoia regarding damage/loss/theft (another mental barrier). 

Choices. 

If you've followed me this far, you might then ask 'okay but what camera brand and model among the massive array of options should I chose?'  I'm not going to start a brand war here; I'll just tell you what I chose and why, but believe me there are many great choices... look for the beautifully built but 'obsolete' and you're on the right track. 

My choice; the D200 and D300 Nikons, or, if you have the money (I don't) their sibling the 'full frame' D700.

My reasoning?  They're very widely available, often auctioned with easily-resold accessories, in particular the Nikon 18-200 VR (vibration reduction) lens and Nikon sb600 flash.  Find out what these kits typically go for on your local auction sites- so you know what to bid to- and perhaps wait for an auction that starts at a high enough or fixed price to discourage competition.  Buying bulk items then reselling separately really can make money- do it a couple of times and the proceeds can mean that your camera body ends up being free. 

We like the Nikon D200/300s because of their wide metering compatibility.  This means you have a massive second hand and vintage lens choice, right back to '70's film gear; 40 years worth of Nikkor (made by Nikon) and third party Nikon-mount glass is a very important resource for the frugal photographer.  This includes many cheap manual focus and very high quality (Ai & Ais) fixed focal length ('prime') lenses because these bodies will meter them.  

You'll be buying well-proven build quality and reliability.  The D200/300s are probably some of the strongest cameras made; solid bricks of weather-sealed magnesium alloy.  If they have a few K's on the clock they should continue to play nicely with you for a long time because the most likely failure danger-zones are when new ('lemons'), or once you start to hit a six figure shutter count.  There are many, many D200 and D300 bodies that list on auction sites with 20-60 thousand clicks; these are the ones to go for.  Also, you'll get a battery common to half a dozen very popular camera models (quite important).  In summary- a deep back catalogue of versatile accessories is a very good thing.
If you shoot Raw (high quality 'digital negative' files), then the Nikon '.nef' files are supported by all image editor programs like Photoshop. 

As far as learning photography from scratch is concerned, the button and dial set up on dSLRs is the way to go; you press down an external button and move a dial to change settings.  It's as simple or as complex as you wish.  You can experiment and easily see why and how your results change (this is how Kelly tweaks her exposure because she doesn't care enough about optics to learn the principles). As an aside, many otherwise nice 'entry level' dSLRs make you dive into menus for common adjustments, or are missing vital external buttons; menus are horrible when you're in the midst of taking pictures.

There's the speed factor too.  Fast operation, fast accurate autofocus (particularly the D300), big image buffer (meaning you can take a lot of photos without the camera slowing down) and a truly decent nice, bright viewfinder. Did I say fast?  The D300 is still near the gold standard as far as autofocus is concerned.  This speed capability aids even slow, considered photography by removing consciousness of the camera and allowing concentration on the image. And, most importantly,  these two cameras are superseded by the D300 's', D7000, D7100, D7200 amongst 'Dx' size sensor dSLRs plus a slew of new 'full frame' models. 

Below is our D300 with the classic Tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens (the 'f' number is important, it tells you the brightness of a lens - a small constant number is what to look for), as a suggested setup. Look at the nice big roomy grip and the large well spaced buttons and dials.

After selling the kit lens and flash that came with this body and buying the Tamron lens second-hand, we were only in for a few hundred dollars. Subsequent buying and selling of other gear for modest profits has made this a freebie.
A freebie that could last us an easy decade. 

There is no reason that you can't do this too; you're on the Internet aren't you? 

So what does this particular set-up give us?
Well, for starters, a very nice tough and meaty walkabout, general usage wide to normal to modest telephoto camera with low light capability.
It's also a nice portrait combo and focuses close enough for garden/nature/detail work.

When it comes to starting as a photographer I think the biggest problem is being confident enough.  No one except a photo nerd like myself wants to read the manual (though you should, just sit down with a glass of wine or whatever); so many people fuck up perfectly good photos by having the wrong settings on their camera and then just throw their hands in the air thinking that it's 'not for them'.

But don't be afraid. I'm here :-)

Do a full Reset (usually a two button press on most cameras and at the front of the manual if in doubt). 
Bung it on P (for Program), Auto for White Balance, .jpg fine (for Quality), Matrix for Metering, a single central Focus Point to aim at and an ISO (light sensitivity) of around 400. Then check your Focus Mode (should be 'S' for Single). 

Now go outside in good natural light in the morning or late afternoon and take some pictures; this should give nice initial results and create an encouraging starting point. 

I'll write some more on this subject at a later date; I do hope this will help more people enjoy photography as much as I do now.

Cheers
- The Lovely R.

(I buy all my own review items @ full retail and have no association with any of the suppliers mentioned.
This is more gratuitous oversharing than a review anyway lol.)

This week I think the Lovely R is writing something about photography on a budget; which gear and why, where to start etc.  He knows what he's talking about and he's cheaper than a cold pie so I'll just let him get on with it.

This is a straight-out-of-the-camera jpeg with our new/old Canon Powershot S95 compact- no processing.
We bought it to shoot a few wish we had a camera pics when we're walking; it actually fits in a pocket and does the job photographically.  You don't usually get both.  Nice little unit.

The dumb acceptance conferred by sleep relieved little of the disgust Josephine felt for the conscript's ruined and brutalized faces.  Rain that had begun as shiftless mist condensed the smell soaking the timbers of the structure around them and it could scarcely have done more to discourage occupation.  The forest without had affirmed her worst suspicions as she returned from watch, no wind stirring the branches that dripped so ponderously onto the leaking thatch, the weeping trees destructing the silence of the grove like colluding militants.  

The binocular elements over her eyes painted Shaw in pointilistic green against the gable wall.  He looked up over his shoulder from the crouch he had assumed to plumb the contents of her pack, holding perfectly still for an elastic moment before shifting a hand toward the assault rifle on the floor beside him.  She covered the movement with her own weapon and he abandoned it, sitting on his haunches.  Pushing back her visor slowly, Josephine stood in the glow of the night light hanging from the rafters while the rain dripped from her fatigues and he awaited the subtle easement of her posture that would allow him to rise.  She looked instead at the sleeping figure on the floor nearby and kicked at its legs.  

“A One...” she muttered.  “Get up.”

Two hours squatting in a bed of gleaming briar canes had deadened Josephine’s feet to the point where she could barely own their presence.  Beside her, hunkered amid their weapons, Shaw and the four conscripts watched the second eidiré through the same barbed tracery, the treeless midst of the surrounding glade guarded by one half of the remaining C corps.  Any loyalty they felt toward their isolated compatriot had proved soluble in rain and darkness; the smoke drawn from his cigarette drifted toward them, the slow precipitation blurring his shape and hissing as it struck the solitary ember.  Shaw experienced his vulnerability as a constriction of his throat.  The sentry opened the fly of his camouflage trousers and released a steaming stream onto the rank, bowed grass.    

Behind him, the vapour lying stagnant under the trees began to drift, curling around the corners of the longhouse and creeping forth between its stout, drab piles.  Josephine sank further and dropped the visor to her eyes as the figures she awaited began to coalesce beneath the eidiré, gathering black materia from the obscuring mist and drawing it into determinate shapes, their stares flashing like coin silver in the darkness.  An arrant, dreamlike silence bore them out into the rain and two broke from the incursive party, passing through the grass toward the oblivious sentry as he stood wiping his hand on the leg of his pants.  They closed on him from either side, so unhurried that his notice seemed assured until they seized and gagged their victim in a smooth, wordless accord, slicing open the great vessels in his thighs with dripping blades before he could utter a syllable.  

While he bled out, the remaining the alujha turned back toward the longhouse, Josephine's visor casting them in cold, tarnished relief through the pluvial static until they were lost to observation.  That they had somehow ascended into its interior was betrayed by the cries escaping it, then stuttering volleys of automatic fire crashing wildly through the thin plank walls.  Two inmates struggled from the doorway, lost their footing and fell in a tangle, Wessner kicking free from his subordinate before they were both snatched up and dispatched like cattle drafted onto a killing floor.  The percussive speed and terse perfunction of their deaths worked on the hidden conscripts; they shuffled thickly, altering their grasp upon their weapons and working their jaws so that only the rain preserved their concealment.  Familiarity had muted Shaw’s own reaction, the same dull principle warning him of the decapitations that were an inevitable sequel, that they would be performed with no particular efficiencies or flourishes.  From doubling over the corpses, the alujha rose in turn with smirks greased red, swallowing down the morsels they hacked out of and sliced from their victims, grunting over their division.  They had set down the choice munitions and equipment looted from the eidiré; with their trophies consumed, it was examined and re-packed, then passed amongst their number.  Saplings cut from the edge of the forest were replanted in the glade, their denuded crowns replaced with the slack-jawed heads of the slain, their labile fluids oozing thickly down the smooth bark.

When they had disappeared into the southward trees the conscripts remained within their crouching silence while Shaw examined the glade through two sets of visors.  Declaring it clear, he rose and gave the signal to advance, only to look back to find he had stepped out alone and that the men had lain down and writhed amid the thorns, clutching their heads.  He strode toward their tormentor.

"What the hell are you doing?" he hissed, snatching at the fob in Josephine's hand.  "We are done.  We walk out, right now."

Her victims climbed back onto their feet, shedding the wet debris gathered from the ground by their clothing, still too impressed by their erstwhile adversaries to audibly deplore their treatment.

“Toss their bunks.” she told them.  Shaw put out a hand to stay the remaining corps, but they looked to Josephine, and pushed on into the glade.

C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

Looking across Blueskin Bay toward the Silver Peaks, coastal Otago, New Zealand.

I took this a couple of years ago but it's very relevant today since it's pissing down and freezing cold.

How you doin up there in summer?  Sweaty pits?

Well, perception is a very personal thing and while someone else might not make that particular connection, I stand by my choice of descriptors.  Personally I'd like to see more challenges to lipstick convention and congratulate Nars on having the guts to issue something this subtly weird.   I don't think you're going to find a dupe any time soon.  Guerlain Rouge G Gigolo is the closest thing in my own collection though it's miles brighter and cleaner; if you mixed that with something like MAC Del Rio or Retro or some other earthy neutral you might come close to Audrey.  Contrast the tube shot below left with the swatch underneath and ponder why there seems to be confusion about this shade online.  To summarise: muted, muddied, carnal, slightly sinister.   A lot of reviewers just seem to get 'oooh pretty happy purple'.  Maybe it is on a preppy blonde.  That's some eye of the beholder contextual shit.

Wild at Heart. So stupid and threadbare and yet so utterly, comprehensively glorious in its chunk-blowing emotional impact and motherlode of gross eternal truths.  So many eternal truths are at least vaguely disgusting, don't you think?  Love is a negotiated chokehold and its exigence can be the most humiliating force on the planet; no real good can come of it.  There's always a whiff of Bobby Peru in the only kind of sex worth having; it doth liberally mock the meat it feeds on, making you a fucking slave to the slippery vagaries of genitalia- is that not the dumbest thing in the world and also seething with functional blerg?   

A lot of people were mad at WaH back in the day, waaaay out of proportion to any offence its artless dumbness should have inspired, which tipped me off to the real reason for the foaming at the mouth; all surrealist drag aside, Lynch (praise be upon him) was bitchslapping us with too much holistic, discomforting authenticity and that shit catches in a lot of perceptual windpipes.  Wild at Heart is the feral, airless passion, the witless devotion and the trip to the clinic afterwards.  They don't make them like that any more.

I first saw it with someone more Sailor than Sailor and it reminds me of him, always fondly, sometimes agonisingly, but he would have hated to be the cause of my avoiding an earthly delight and so I watch the damn thing anyway and am always glad I did.

Laura Dern was so great as Lula and never gets any credit for what was a fantastically instinctive performance- brittle, unfortified, slutty and stainless, the like of which we almost never see in these dry times with all the meta-meta bullshit and watchful posing that latterly passes for performance.  Dern extruded Lula from her own darn flesh. You need to stand in front of a mirror and try it yourself in order to truly appreciate her achievement.

Twenty five years.  Wild at Heart stomps that time down into an arm's length, so that it just seems like the distance between you and the overloaded ashtray into which you flicked your Camel, back when you still smoked.  It reminds me to fuck and to be fucked, to embrace intoxication in all its many forms, and that my beard-scissors hairdo is a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

ex0skeletal:
Preview: El Gato Chimney’s “De Rerum Natura” at Stephen Romano Gallery