Exactitudes

Think you’re special?

Then maybe you should check out Exactitudes, a website about a book about a portrait series by two Dutch photographers who “provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity.” It’s compelling.

Even though they’re actually from Rotterdam, I found a lot of typical Portlanders — “Ecopunks,” “Dreads,” and “Emos.” Those looks are international, apparently.

I also found my father, my mother, and my sister. One type I couldn’t find, though, was my own. Seems like I really am incredibly unique. But honestly now, wasn’t that a foregone conclusion?

You Are Beautiful

You’ve seen the stickers. Now see the website.

 Portland

 Philadelphia

If you send them a self-addressed, stamped envelope, they’ll mail you stickers for free. Be the first on your block. Or the tenth. Whatever.

Cooking for Engineers

With the holidays coming up, perhaps you are searching for a good recipe for an herbed Chevre cheese ball crusted with glazed Marcona almonds? If so, I can’t really help you. However, if you just want to make a decent pumpkin pie, then may I recommend Cooking for Engineers, a well done little website with a slew of good basic recipes, most of them complete with excellent instructions, measurement conversions, and loads of pictures. In an endless sea of internet food sites, this one rise to the top for attention to detail alone.

The thing I appreciate most, however, is that their “Recipe File” is so useful, consisting of classics like cheesecake, pecan pie, or peanut butter cookies. That’s the stuff most of us actually want to cook and eat, especially for Thanksgiving. Me, I’ve got organic, locally-grown pumpkin from last fall in the freezer, and I’m finally going to make a pumpkin pie.

Fox and His Friends

Being as opinionated as I am, I’m often inclined to suggest a book or a film or even a butter substitute to my friends, and that instinct is even stronger when preparing this blog. So far though, I haven’t done very much of that around here. The problem is that I mostly just want to say “See this!” but don’t really have anything intelligent to write about creative works (much less about Earth Balance), and I don’t want to waste anybody’s time, least of all mine, trying to produce a useful, interesting review.

 Rainer Werner Fassbinder (right) in Fox and His Friends

However, I think I’ve stumbled upon a solution. With the limitless bounty of the internet right at my fingertips, I have access to practically infinite pre-existing reviews of anything and everything. Why not make use of them? Could I really have anything to add to the work of a professional film (or book or butter) geek anyway? So rather than write reviews, I’m going to start making recommendations and then, for those few of you who do not take my word as gospel, supplementing that with links to what others have to say on the subject.

Well….

Future Shipwreck
Recently a friend sent me a link to a blog called Future Shipwreck by this annoyingly capable and prolific 19 year-old whippersnapper in L.A. who writes about gay culture, the movie biz, and other assorted cool stuff. I browsed through, and it was indeed diverting. But it wasn’t until I got to his recommendation of Fox and His Friends, possibly the best film made by legendary German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder, that I thought it deserved more attention. I guess it all comes down to the fact that this kid can find, watch, and recognize the qualities of a relatively obscure and underappreciated film then select it for a special mention. I figure if he’s got that much on the ball, then he deserves special mention too.

(Also, his post on Queer Men Who (Indie) Rock has rekindled an old idea of mine for an entry: “Gays Who Don’t Suck.”)

Fox and His Friends
His film Querelle, based on a violent and homoerotic novel by Jean Genet, is the best known of Fassbinder’s work (if mainly for the steamy sex appeal of a shirtless Brad Davis), but Fox and his Friends is certainly its equal in importance, if not far superior. (At least so say I.) If you have a genuine interest in film, by which I do not mean Hollywood movies, then this is one that belongs on your list.

Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine:

“One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s towering masterworks, Fox and His Friends is the devastating story of a poor circus worker who wins the lottery and finds himself fleeced out of his fortune by lecherous upper-class monsters….

“…first and foremost a riveting evocation of social Darwinism in action…” (full review)

Jim Clark, Jim’s Reviews:

“…one of Fassbinder’s most poignant and accessible films. The story and performances are direct, and the look of the film is polished and inviting. Yet it is also a powerful work, dealing with some of Fassbinder’s central themes, such of the search for love, and exploitation in its many forms…” (full review)

Who doesn’t like exploitation in its many forms? So, enjoy!

Cute Overload

 Look. His little leg is stuck in toilet paper roll. Awwwww.

If there’s one blog that really lives up to its name, it’s Cute Overload. Bunnies, kittens, puppies, ponies, ducklings, pandas — they pull no punches. I wasted an entire afternoon browsing through two years worth of entries. Consider yourself warned.

I got 99 problems, but…

Falling in love with your best friend — your straight best friend — is practically a rite of passage for gay guys. While other teens are plumbing the depths of their hormone-addled passion with a high school honey or, for late bloomers, a college sweetheart, gay boys are jealously watching from the sidelines, burning with a secret longing they know would change everything if anybody found out.

But there is one person, one guy, giving a tender hearted homo the attention he needs — his best buddy. Naturally, the two have a lot in common. They enjoy each other’s company, spend all their time together, prefer each other to anyone else. They get drunk together then pass out in the same bed, knees and elbows and sholders brushing together all night. They share their secrets. Talk about sex. Talk about love.

Sigh. Love.

It’s all tragically inevitable: the infatuation, the declaration of love, the rejection, the despair. Everyone’s been through it, but not everybody loses everything the way gay boys do. Best friend, social network, the esteem of others, personal identity, hope — all gone. And worst of all, nobody cares because he’s straight and you should have known better (as though knowing better has anything to do with falling in love).

Usually that painful episode happens (the first time) during the emotional turbulence of early adulthood, but last week I was hanging out with a friend who needed to talk. We went to a coffee shop where he gradually revealed the real reason he was upset. For the first time in his life he had fallen for a stright guy, his best bud. At almost forty, he should have known better. As an experienced adult, he did know better, but, you know, it just happens.

The guy was a carpenter. A total hunk. They spent the summer building stuff together in the backyard. They played guitars together. Got drunk together, crashed in the same bed, fell asleep curled up in each other’s arms. A crush was unavoidable. Shit, I was falling in love with him myself after that story.

So I sat there on a comfy sofa in a cosy coffee shop, listening to my friend as he politely spilled his guts. People at nearby tables cast us sidelong glances after especially scandalous confessions, but neither of us cared. (After decades of urban gay life, the things that shock other people inevitably seem rather quaint.) I assured him repeatedly that I understood what he was going through — all too well, in fact.

Daisy Chain
And that would have been that, except for one very fortunate digression. During the middle of our conversation, he looked up and commented on the song playing, one of the most beautiful ever written he thought. Forgetting his probelms for a moment, he launched into a thorough and knowledgeable history of “The White Album” by the Beatles, where the song came from. He was so eloquent and informed that I had to find out more, and I looked up the album when I got home.

For the first time ever, I took an interest in the Beatles. (Verdict: They’ve got potential.) I downloaded a bunch of songs and thoroughly explored a part of our popular culture that had always been there, looming in the background of my life. I always find that satisfying; it’s nice to fill in the blanks.

Better still is when it leads to new discoveries, when one thing leads to another, and to another, and so on. I like to think of it as a cultural daisy chain, each thing linking to the next until it brings you back around again, full circle. It’s like getting lost on back roads then suddenly coming to a familiar place and realizing where you are and how you got there. Or maybe you could think of it as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, hold the bacon.

The Grey Album
For example, I read that The White Album has inspired innumerable tributes, and one of them is especially infamous. I’ve known of it for years but never actually heard any songs since you can’t buy it. It’s the work of a then little-known DJ called Danger Mouse who laid down vocals by rap zillionaire Jay-Z on top of samples from White Album songs. Jay-z is so rich he can afford to release his work directly into the public domain to foster the creative endeavors of others, which he did with an a cappella version of his Black Album. The name of the Danger Mouse mix compilation was therefore something of a foregone conclusion. It’s called, of course, The Grey Album.

Problem is, this Danger Mouse guy did it all for fun, made it for his friends, and he didn’t bother to get legal clearance for all those Beatles samples. When the mixes went viral on the internet, he was promptly sued. Now, the only way to get the music is to download it illegally, which, I hardly need to mention, is not much of an obstacle.

The first song I listened to, 99 Problems, was so good that I downloaded all the rest, and I have to say that The Grey Album does indeed deserve the universal acclaim. If you like any rap at all (and thirty years into it, there’s got to be something), you need to hear it.

Aside from the musical discoveries, I also learned a lot about Jay-Z (He’s dating Beyoncé! Wooh!), and about Danger Mouse, who lived in Athens, Georgia and did remixes for one of my favorite bands, Neutral Milk Hotel. (You’ve really got to listen to their album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.) Clicking through one connection after another, I chose NMH but could have followed Beyoncé if I’d cared to and seen where that would lead, or really, I could have turned off in any direction. That’s what’s so interesting about the daisy chain: You get to pick your own daisies. The possibilities are endless, but they all eventually lead back again.

This chain started, as they usually do, by chance, with a song playing in a coffee shop. It ended a few hours later with a song playing in my headphones, me thinking about my friend’s man troubles, being so glad that wasn’t happening to me again. Jay-Z was rapping, “I got ninety-nine problems, but a bitch ain’t one.” And I thought to myself, amen, brother.