Sophie as Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks for halloween!

my yard

oна нащупала его ширинку, расстегнула и пошарила рукой:


— Вот... вот... видишь... у тебя маленький такой... и когда ты подрастешь... то есть когда он вырастет... вот... то ты уже... потрогай еще, не бойся... вот... и ты можешь в дырочку войти... вот... а сейчас еще рано... зачем ты руку убрал... еще потрогай...


Зазвенел звонок.




— Ну хватит... — Она выпрямилась, быстро подтянула трусы с колготками, поправила юбку. — Хватит... ну, ты никому не скажешь? Точно?


— Нет, не скажу...


— Честное пионерское?

— Честное пионерское.

Francesca Woodman by Tim Roessler

The Woodmans

Francesca Woodman made visionary photographs. She created a body of work that her peers and parents recognized for their specific genius, and that have since gained worldwide renown, been collected by major museums, ripped off by fashion photographers and form the basis for a cult. She’s big on Twitter. Much in the same way young female poets have to contend with Sylvia Plath, young female artists wrestle with Francesca Woodman’s visions.

She achieved this before she committed suicide at 22 by jumping off a tall building in New York. The suicide, like it or not, adds the glamour of death to her story, as it does for Ian Curtis, Adrienne Rich or Vincent Van Gogh.

The Woodmans is a documentary about her family. Her father, mother and brother are all artists themselves. None of them, as they themselves note ruefully, have reached anything like the acclaim of Francesca. They’re collected; they’re in the Whitney and so on, but: not that famous.

Betty, a Russian Jew from Boston married George from New Hampshire and Harvard. George’s family, classically WASP, refused to have anything to do with him after the marriage. They moved west, got jobs at the university in Boulder and had children, first Charlie, now a video artist, and then Francesca. “Gift/calamities,” as George calls them.

Betty and George – “so very married” as Francesca would write in her diaries – share a fierce commitment not only to art, but to living life esthetically. They eat from the dishes Betty, a ceramicist makes. Their house in Boulder is a modernist art installation as much as a home.

"Our children learned that art is a very high priority; you don’t mess around. They learned this is a very serious business at an early age, " Betty says. The couple buys a farm in the hills outside of Florence. They send the children to the Uffizi with notebooks so the parents can work undisturbed.

Betty’s ceramics are functional, cheery, decorative. George’s paintings are abstract, cool, about pattern and repetition.

At 13, Francesca receives a medium-format camera as a gift from her father. She starts taking photos and never really stops until the end of her life. They’re mostly self portraits, mostly nude, dreamlike, gritty, mysterious, personal, Dionysian, even. "My art is about myself, for a lot of wrong reasons," wrote Francesca Woodman in her journal.

That is, everything her parents’ work is not.

Yet they recognized the brilliance of her photographs immediately.“She was so good; she made my own work look kind of stupid,” George Woodman says. “I wouldn’t mind getting a bigger slice of that cake myself.”

After boarding school at Phillips Andover, Francesca arrived at the Rhode Island School of Design a fully-fledged artist with a distinct vision. She worked hard. Her fellow students were awed and impressed. She was “intense,” “dramatic,” a “rock star.” Some loved her.

Next, she went to New York. Her parents had also recently moved there wanting to jump start their careers.

Francesca struggled, couldn’t find work, didn’t get a major gallery show, ended up assisting a fashion photographer. A breakup with her boyfriend triggered depression. Suicide attempts followed. Her parents “babysat” her, and found her a therapist who in turn prescribed medication. She seemed to do better. Then, late January, she threw herself from the top of a building.

The story turns back to the family and friends. The friends choke up when they speak of Francesca’s suicide. George and Betty know what the filmmaker’s up to, respectful as he is and as the documentary is. They do not shed tears. Betty’s eyes harden. It’s a subject she won’t deal with. Period. George, haunted, won’t say much either. Old school. Or, wary survivors.

After their daughter’s death, Betty stops working. Then she turns away from functional to fine art ceramics.  George reacted differently to her death, as Betty notes with a hint of a mother’s jealousy of a daughter’s place. He couldn’t focus, then turned to Emily Dickinson’s poems.

The film shows George at work. He’s taking photographs now with a medium-format camera of young women who are frequently nude. The model in the film is reminiscent of his daughter. The photos themselves are layered, lush and sensuous.

As the film draws to a close, we see Charley arrive at the Tuscan farm with his wife and child. Betty’s commission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing goes up, an exuberant mish mash of color.  We see the surviving Woodmans in the lobby, robust in old age, he a hale country doctor from New England, she, an indestructible babushka in striped socks and sandals.

The documentary, directed by Scott Willis, is lucid and respectful. It’s an authorized version. He had access to Francesca’s diaries. Her words float up out of the notebooks. He features her photographs throughout. She made some videos as well, and he uses these to great effect, the soft-edged black-and-white VHS dusty and ghostly. We hear her voice, surprisingly girlish.

It’s a tasteful film, made up of well composed shots and close ups, mostly of George and Betty, and it remains their story, finally. It’s brisk, too, clocking in at 82 minutes. Formally, it’s straightforward – talking heads, the subjects working, the subjects at home, archival material, well crafted. It pulls back at key moments and lets you draw your own conclusions, or makes you fill in the blanks.

It leaves several unanswered questions. The main one is: Why did she do it? The suicide itself, as central as it is to the story, is handled briskly. There’s very little description of her last few months. The parents resolutely do not want to open the door to any theorizing. She got sick. We tried to help. She died.

In some ways, the whole situation reminded me of a lost, American Thomas Mann story. Art can kill. It's a fatal disease, a kind of Dr. Faustus bargain with the devil, a virus that destroys. Or: is it art that's responsible, or a blind devotion to art above all else that can be as destructive as greed or sexual fixation? What is art worth? How much should you be willing to devote to creating great work? We routinely say whatever it takes, and then most people are too lazy to follow up with that commitment. But what is it worth to get into the permanent collection of the Whitney? To be an art star -- that is, to be collected by the fashionable and the rich? Is that the measure?

Let's say, we're all Zen and it's all about the work. So, are the pleasures and pains of creating something in the studio and the discipline and time spent in that worth, say, a daughter? A son? We generally see art as a positive good, or even in our secular times, as the ultimate good. But what does it cost?

Assuming that depression led to the suicide -- and, let's be clear, suicide and depression don't have to go together -- but assuming that her depression was the cause: would she have been diagnosed earlier? If you examine the work by Francesca, does it seem moody and alienated in a modern way, a romantic kind of fascination with the dark? Or can/should you reduce them to being symptomatic?

Can the exquisite kill? I'm not implying that the Woodmans themselves exhibit the kind of hysterical refinement you see in The Pillowbooks of Sei Shoganon. But what would be the consequences of pursing a purely aesthetic existence above all else? Is there a point when it crosses over from enriching daily life to becoming a weight, a heavily enforced obligation to make each moment a kind of epiphany of beauty?

The levels of pain that George, at least, must have endured, can only evoke sympathy. But somehow, you can't help but judge, weigh, and wonder.

In the end, it terrified me. Deaths of children do that to me. I felt both sorrow and pity, and, I have to say that a few times I found myself thinking that they, the survivors, were monstrous mediocrities – but how much they had worked to make it there, how truly brilliant and accomplished they are. And yet, they’re only going to be Salieris to Francesca’s Mozart. And they know it. 

nice weekend to you all!

MY SEXY DINNER

Boil, cool and peel the hard boiled egg.

Cut Roma tomato in half
 .
Place ½ of the tomato on top of the egg and sour cream dots too!

Add lettuce on bottom of dish as a garnish

Hitlers Master Spy Rudolf Roessler ( OUR RELATIVE)

As early as the late 1930s, Rudolf Roessler had been cultivating a cadre of young, mostly of aristocratic background officers in the Abwehr (Germany’s intelligence department) who were to have unrestricted access to Hitler’s top-secret plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union. From his cover as a rare book and documents dealer in Lucerne, Switzerland (with the code name Lucy) Roessler and his Swiss radio operator used a constantly moving van in the transmissions by wireless of the virtual tons of intelligence that he received from Berlin prior to, and throughout the war. Had Stalin not initially rejected Roessler’s reams of infallible intelligence on Hitler’s blitzkrieg plans for the Ukraine (he distrusted and disdained spies who did not demand money) the German campaign in the early stages of the invasion could have turned out disastrously for Hitler long before Stalingrad. Rudolf Roessler is virtually unknown in the literature of anti-Nazi espionage. Yet he 

He was the Greatest spy of all!

Most robust specimen from Colorado Mountain High

advice from da hood: keeping your refrigerator stocked will get you pussy

Shrooms are here in the Rockies! Todays picks!

Pink and Rinkly at the movies!

Just watched an old soviet film High school diploma. A 
Masterpiece!

Sophie gets an Award at graduation from Andres Serrano and Nelson Atkins museum

 

Just    got back from Sophie's graduation from Kansas city Art Institute! The incredible commencement speech

was  delivered by the most fabulous New York artist/photographer Andres Serrano of Piss Christ fame, thats his pic up above too!

And Sophie got an Honorable Award from Him and Nelson Atkins museum for her Art Work!!! I am soo proud!

Serrano

ps. Turns out Andres's wife is Irina Movriga,  from Russia!! She was
  there too and she is a Russian Beauty! (thats her pic below)

                        Sophie - The Graduate!

the ballad of Joe and nina

Tims movie about our son joe from a while back

Two days ago
I bought special flowers
Only had them planted
A couple of hours.
When out to check them
Later that day
Guess who I spied
And they didn't run away.
 Two cute little bunnies
And real furry, too
Were cutting down those flowers
Fast as they could chew.

best glue to sniff

If you're gonna sniff glue, go for Elmer's school glue. It's pretty benign. Modeling glue is the best, though!

Anyway, sniffing glue has always been popular but mostly with the people that could not afford smack, cocain or even pot. As our economy is taking a dip, more and more guys I know are wondering: what am I gonna do when I stop being able to afford my favorite drugs. Sniff glue? Yes! But what kind ? Well , we just told you. Have fun!

nice restaurant

Guys, next time you'all are in Paris , drop by this place! Even if you are not into fish eggs! Its great. Food is old fashioned , a little fattening but there is not much of it on the plate and you wouldn't feel gross afterwards . All real good. And the old world atmosphere and its owner will charm you forever! I loved it! Metro La Tour-Maubourg.

About Marilyn:quotes by Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan

" My days of sucking all that cock for parts are over", - said Merilyn Monroe when she first got her real studio contract . That's according to a Henry Miller (oops, I meant to say Arthur Miller) book about her I'm reading right now.
Previously I was reading the memoirs of Elia Kazan who said that about her : " Her pussy was always wet".
These two renowned artists were obviously real gentlemen! I mean what nice things to say about a woman whom they both claimed to be their muse. Ah?

В лесу стояла тишина.

Соколов шел уверенно и быстро, треща валежником, поблескивая очками.

Oн прошел между березами и остановился. Перед ним лежала небольшая, залитая луной поляна. Невысокая трава искрилась росою, листья орешника казались серебристо-серыми.

Небольшая кучка кала лежала в траве, маслянисто поблескивая. Соколов приблизил к ней свое лицо. От кала сильно пахло. Он взял одну из слипшихся колбасок. Она была теплой и мягкой. Он поцеловал ее и стал быстро есть, жадно откусывая, мажа губы и пальцы.

Снова где-то далеко закричала ночная птица. Соколов взял две оставшиеся колбаски и, попеременно откусывая то от одной, то от другой, быстро съел.

от хижины дяди Тома до белого дома

peace pacts

“If, against all expectation, Germany finds itself in a difficult situation then she can be sure that the Soviet people will come to Germany's aid and will not allow Germany to be strangled. The Soviet Union wants to see a strong Germany and we will not allow Germany to be thrown to the ground.”

- Joseph Stalin, 1939

Signature page of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact,
August 1939
And the rest is history...

Friday The 13 (today) - here is the poem

This morning I busted a mirror
which means that the next seven years
are due to be filled with misfortune,
catastrophes, fuck ups and tears.

With all the bad luck I'm confronting,
it seems that I'm probably cursed.
It may be the 13th this friday.
Fucking true - could not be any worst.

April Fools

Today is my Mom's B-Day and I was remembering how I used to torture her when I was a teen. Turns out there is A new generation of super naughty girls in full bloom and they happen to be our own pretty daughters!
Here is the message my friend Ira S. got in London from her daughter Ru on April 1! Hilarious, at least she didn't tell her she is pregnant like my other friends daughter told her Mom on April 1!

Rides - How to have sex in a car

1. Skip the backseat and recline the passenger side instead, which will give you maximum space and comfort.

2 If your car has leather seats, lay a blanket down first so his and your skin don’t stick to the seat.

valentina lisitza

Down below is my iPhone pic - Before the Concert

Last night we went to a concert in Denver and heard Rachmaninov 3rd Concerto played by a Russian pianist Valenina Lisitza up above. I have heard this concerto a million times but Never
Ever played with such passion, and I was moved to tears. Valentina got a standing ovation and
the crowd refused to let her go..and then she played Shuberts Ave Maria... She is breathtaking! BRAVO!!!