Boobies

From the age of about 6, I wanted some x-ray specs.  Underwear would have been fine to spy upon, though some flesh would have been good, too.  I used to check out the ads in the backs of comic books for these things.  I was pretty sure they didn't work and that if they did, I probably shouldn't have them.  Either way, there was no way I was going to let my mom in on the fact that I had a desire to see through women's clothing.  She would not have thought that was very cute.
Years later a friend of mine asserted that by that stage in our lives, we had enough experience to know what a woman's breasts looked like through their clothes.  I'd say I would agree with him for the most part.  Though modern bras are very adept at subterfuge.  And natural breasts are anything but cookie cutter.  I don't think I've ever experienced two alike and that includes the ones on the same chest.
I was obsessed with boobs from a very young age.  I really loved Cat Woman.  I've never been into the size as much as the shape.
I wouldn't call myself a boob-man, because I like tushies, too.  I never really recognized a girl's butt as being attractive until I was in the sixth grade.  It was very impressive though.  I was standing on Hawthorne after seeing a movie at the Bagdad.  I'm thinking it was a Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder flick, maybe Stir Crazy, though my memory isn't quite that good.  Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that was it.  Anyway, we were waiting for my friend's parents to pick us up afterward.  Matt said something like, Look there's Julie S.  She didn't go to our school, but she was well-reputed to be a fox. (To use the parlance of that time.)  It was the first time I had ever seen her.  She was standing in front of us.  And there it was, one of the greatest butts of all my middle school years.  (I tried for years to get a date with Julie.  I finally gave up.  And then later, during high school, I dated her younger sister briefly.)
My early obsession with women's chests was probably a result of not being breast fed.  I would suppose that explains a lot about me if anybody buys into Freud anymore.

J. Crew Sells Out

They're selling out not in a Warholian fashion, but in a retail way.  The jacket above is of the type of heritage American workwear coveted in Japan and lovingly and painstakingly recreated and reinvented by companies like Kapital.  It's beautiful stuff.  The jacket above is neither vintage nor Kapital.  It's a collection created by Heller's Cafe, a vintage clothing museum in Seattle,  and Warehouse, a Japanese denim company, for J.Crew.  It just launched and much of it is sold out already.
I also noticed that J. Crew just released a shawl collar sweater with toggle buttons much like some of the Kapital coats we shot this spring.  Of course fashion is endless recapitulation and replication, but it seems like J. Crew has really jumped on the Japanese, and perhaps specifically the Kapital, bandwagon.

They are going for it.  Check out the facial hair and the unkempt locks on this male moodle.  I do notice that though they may go for the bohemian stylings, they still can't abandon their youthful demographic.  Only a company like Kapital has the cojones to cast an old blue-eyed bastard like my high school classmate Robbie Daigle shown here in Kapital's beautiful 40s wool melton wool with hand-tied rope toggle buttons.

Wasted

I Know These Guys

City of Culver City

I've been in Los Angeles since Saturday.  (I flew on September 11th.)  I'm staying at the Culver Hotel.  My room is right next the H of the HOTEL sign in the photo.  The hotel is historic, built in 1924.  The exterior and the lobby are very nice.  The rooms and upper hallways not so nice.  I do love the view from my room though.  I'm right on the end of the building so I have those two windows facing west as well as two facing south and one to the north.  Nearly panoramic.  I like seeing the lights and sky to the west at night as Washington and Culver Boulevards intersect.  John Wayne owned this joint long ago.  One if its other claims to fame is that the actors playing the Munchkins stayed here while the Wizard of Oz was being filmed.
Many of my friends have asked why I'm staying in Culver City.   No particular reason.  Last time I was here, I stayed in Santa Monica.  I like being near the beach, but everything else is too much of a shlep when you're out there.  One can experience the openness of this area on foot.  You have to get in your car to go anywhere at many hotels in LA.  Except for downtown, but I didn't feel like staying downtown this trip.  The purpose of which is mainly restorative and to see some people.  I like the simplicity of being around here.  Some of the architecture is nice.  And the hills to the south feel like some sort of uninhabited border, the other side of which could be a vast western desert instead of Inglewood and LAX.  The streets are very clean without it seeming posh or exclusive.  There are some good restaurants just across the street such as Ford's Filling Station and The M Cafe.  There's a movie theater to the right of the plaza in the photo.  I saw The American there the other night.
The scale of Culver City feels very comfortable.  I first drove through here late one night many years ago before it was revitalized.  Then a couple of years ago my friend had the privilege of opening a new play by David Mamet at the Kirk Douglas theater.

I was staying with him, so the night I went to see the play we went over to Culver City and had dinner at Ford's before he went to work.  I roamed around by myself until curtain.  It was a typically beautiful Los Angeles  evening.  Everything had a nice feel to it.  I've stayed all over the place down here.  I don't know that I would make Culver City my forever go-to spot in LA, but it's got its advantages.

Kapital Casting

Two of the models above are professionals.  The rest are friends, people I found on the street and my son.  I like street casting.  Especially for a company like Kapital that favors interesting faces over the usual ho-hum plastic people.

19th Century Fonts

Big Sur Revisited

The powerful feel of Big Sur's enormous sky above as I got to know the character and his world had become part of the book and stayed with me as I continued to read it back in the Pacific Northwest.  

I love that I carry that sky with me - both the infinite, pacific blue of its days and the sparkling cosmos in the gloaming black of its nights.

I've Found This To Be True

Movies are impossible to make and they ruin you,
but children run and run.

Adult Reading

I just finished The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Barry Udall a few days ago.  A very enjoyable read.  Reminiscent of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany – but better.  Better because it was less sentimental and not as corny.  Irving's books almost felt like guilty pleasures when I read them long ago.
Now I'm reading Timothy Egan's The Big Burn.  I've been wanting to read The Worst Hard Time, Egan's book on The Dust Bowl, before his latest book, but it didn't turn out that way.  I was given a biography of Teddy Roosevelt by one of my acting students years ago and I wanted to read that prior to The Big Burn as well.  I've learned though, that sometimes you just have to dig in.  I love reading history.  I was a history major, actually, though that seems very long ago, and as I specialized in Mexico, it seems even more remote.  I even earned a lifelong membership to Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, though I've yet to put that on a resume.  Growing up I loved American History.  I had a set of encyclopedias in which I wore out the entries on all the American Wars and the Presidential biographies.
However, in the early 90s when I went to college, I was studying Spanish and Mexican folk art.  And there was a renowned scholar of contemporary Mexican history that had just come to Portland.  I became his student.  When I went down to the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla - the USC of Mexico - for a semester I took a seminar on The Mexican Revolution.  Professor Schuler's lectures and assignments prepared me well.  Even though the course was conducted in Spanish, I earned an A+ on my first essay exam.
One of the joys of blogging is to be able to recall such forgotten moments in one's life.  It has no relevance and to mention such a minor triumph seems almost immodest, but it I think it's good to remember such things.  To write them down and make them real.  For no one other than myself, and perhaps any reader that needs a reminder to recall their own small victories.
What it does for me is to evoke the whole person that I am.  To overcome my habit of editing myself to the point of nullification at times.  I am a pinball.  I ricochet from one interest to the next, immediately forsaking much of my hard-earned recent experience, gathering all of my energy for the next target.  I roll bright, shiny and confident toward it, though I feel the chaotic randomness of my path acutely.  Pinball really is a good metaphor for my life as it is a seemingly random game that actually can be played with skill and sometimes bravado.
It's important for me to remember as my fascination with 20th century American History reignites that my Mexican scholarship wasn't a waste or something to ignore.  However distant it may feel.  To be honest, it felt distant when I was studying it.  Not only was it history - events in the past, but it was foreign in so many ways.  As I traveled around Mexico, meeting people and staying with friends' families, they often remarked that I knew Mexico geographically and historically better than they.  Maybe this is part of the greater puzzle that I am trying to piece together  - no matter how much someone says I know, I tend to doubt it.  Fear.
One thing I'm coming to view as a strength is the seeking and the chasing – the ricocheting pinball rolling at a high speed toward yet another pin, knowing full well it's not going to find stasis as it hits the bumper but will likely gain velocity and a new course.  This is a pivotal insight.  For so long, I've been trying to find some sort of equilibrium.  For others to hear this usually produces at least a scoff.  I'll admit it's a funny way of going about it.  Reminds me of the wisdom to know that the playground bully is often the most afraid - tough to believe, especially when his wrath is coming at you, but invariably true.
I have no need to justify my interest in the subject of Timothy Egan's National Book Award winning, New York Times bestselling book.  Plenty of people didn't drive through forest fires in the early 70s with their grandparents or study history in college or have an acting student that was obsessed with Teddy Roosevelt or have an affinity for vintage American work wear or have an old friend that's a legendary forest firefighter have read this book and enjoyed it and have done so presumably because they feel connected to the stories within simply because they're human.  Maybe that explains my need to enumerate my qualifications - I don't find it easy to connect.  Maybe because I'm a steel ball bounding about.  And maybe because I find it so god darned difficult to be satisfied with simply being human.  It doesn't feel good enough much of the time.  It's important that I don't beat myself up about this.  I can just take a look at it.  I must really want to, because it's pouring out of me.  Today all I really wanted to blog about was what I've been reading.  To be really honest, I just wanted to post the image of the cool slide from the New York Public Library archives I found at the top of the page.  But the thoughts come.  And then they go.  And some of them come around again and again.

Dogs That Chase Cars | The Nuances of Seeking

Some dogs are born to run and to chase.  It's in their nature, certainly, but it proposes danger to both chaser and chased should the operator of the vehicle react recklessly or be exposed on a motorcycle or bicycle.  There are steps owners can take to modify and, or prevent such behavior.  I've been chased on my bicycle and motorcycle multiple times.  Scary.  Not fun.  On a motorcycle it's not so bad as it's easy to decelerate and then take off to throw off the dog's angle of pursuit.  On a bicycle it goes against every instinct to slow down when being pursued.  Once in the woods of Pennsylvania I had to jump off my bike and scramble up a tree as a Rottweiler got way too close for comfort.  One thing each of these experiences has in common is that every time the owner acted as if this was completely surprising behavior on the part of their dog.  I have a friend whose dog has a tendency to chase bicycles.  When they're out for a walk she keeps him on a short leash when bicycles approach.  Many people don't.  The owner of the Rottweiler actually told me that her dog wouldn't hurt me as he growled and bared his fangs from the base of the tree in which I was seeking sanctuary.  I would submit that she had an opinion of her dog that was unrealistic.  She was delusional.
Yesterday I caught up with an old friend.  We were very close in the late 90s.  We were business partners and we traveled extensively together.  Some of my favorite stories involve him.  We lived life to the fullest during that time.  Things happened to us that seem like tall tales.  Since he and I didn't speak for the past ten years, many of those things started to feel more mythical than actual.  There was no bad blood, we just lost touch -- he's definitely not the type for social media.  So we talked and got caught up.  He asked me what I was into these days.  It's a question I expected from him.  The basis of our relationship back then was he was Mr. Gerard and I was Wiseacre.  We had pencil thin moustaches and wore spectator shoes.  We got fitted for custom-made zoot suits and hats together by Valentino in Las Vegas.  Everything we wore was either vintage or custom-tailored.  Our pictures appeared in publications such as Life, Esquire and The New York Times.  On Wednesday afternoons we got straight razor shaves from a barber.  Before I could answer, he posed some guesses.  And before I could reply with much depth, we were off on another tangent.  At some point he said, "You're a chaser.  You were always chasing something."  He admitted he followed me when he could, but sometimes he couldn't keep up.  I got a little tongue-tied.  I wanted to deny his claim, but I thought about it and I told him he was probably right.  I admitted that there always seems to be something that catches my attention.  I'm a seeker.  It wasn't easy to say it unapologetically.  I think I've long equated being a seeker with being lost.  It's a stretch for me to see that being curious and adventurous and sometimes reckless is part of my nature and that it's made me the worldly, sensual and sophisticated man that I am.  I want to hold onto that -- to accept and embrace the multitude blessings in my life that have come about because of my nature.  Because it's much better to be a seeker than to be delusional.  Even though sometimes they feel like they're one in the same.

Io Sono L'Amore

I love Tilda Swinton.  She's powerful and gorgeous and sort of grotesque.  She's not afraid to contort or expose her body and soul in unflattering ways.  She's an actor from the old days of film - her beauty is a result of her artistry rather than just another pretty face. 
My friend suggested this Italian film called "I Am Love" the other night.  "Tilda Swinton is in it."  All he needed to say for me to agree.  But it was god awful.  It tried so hard to be good the first third.  Which was annoying, but there were many beautiful shots and settings and people to get to know.  They were all presented as if the filmmaker thought he were Rossellini.  But he isn't and Rossellini's once avante-garde manner of introducing a place is now passé.  Tilda was amazing in the first act, however.  She palyed the patrician wife perfectly and quietly.  So tall and regal.  She has such an expressive body in the simplest of ways.  (Think of her in Michael Clayton.  Her physical life was amazing.)
Then the second third of the film a lot of stuff happened without motive, but again, it was pretty.  But not that pretty.  Or simply pretty the way some blond women are pretty - kind of boring.  The film was so dull that Tilda Swinton getting very naked did nothing for me.  If kind of make me feel like she had wasted something in exposing herself so in this dog of a film.  It seemed as if the filmmaker stopped trying.  And then in the third act, it was if he was trying really hard to be bad.  The music got really overt.  Opera would seem understated in comparison.  Agonizingly solemn and at once tragically hysterical.  As we walked out of the theater my friend said he was glad he saw it for one reason only, that he would be able to use it as a barometer for film tastes.  If he met anyone that loved it, it would tell him a lot.
I still love Tilda, but I won't blindly go see another film just because she's in it.

Swooning

Swooning is a physical sensation often brought on by a profound feeling of adoration.  It is experienced as a sort of electrical charge traveling from the chest downward, sometimes all the way to one's toes.  It is usually followed immediately by a sigh and a relaxation of the muscles accompanied by a heady giddiness.  To swoon is often amorous in connotation, but it can also mean to experience generic symptoms of light-headedness, dizziness and, or fainting.
This more debilitating swoon is known as a vasovagal attack.  A vasovagal attack is a condition involving slowing of the heart, reduced blood pressure and reduced blood circulation to the head which reduces the oxygen supply to the brain and can lead to fainting or convulsions. The condition is brought on by over-activity of the vagus nerve, a remarkable nerve that supplies nerve fibers to the pharynx (throat), larynx (voice box), trachea (windpipe), lungs, heart, esophagus, and the intestinal tract as far as the transverse portion of the colon. The vagus nerve also brings sensory information back to the brain from the ear, tongue, throat, and larynx.
The condition is more common in females than males and is often associated with conditions such as lack of sleep, illnesses involving fevers and excessive fasting.
Of course these things are related -- we experience many sensations in the organs and body parts listed above when we love.  It makes sense that as the tenth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve transmits mucho informaccion from our heads downward.  In a new love affair there is little sleep to be had, falling in love is often associated with fevers and one rarely has an appetite when in the throes of early courtship's passions.  These symptoms are also common for parents of newborns.  There are other objects of beauty, both in the natural world and things manufactured, that make one weak in the knees.
I wanted to give the physical sensations of appreciative adoration a little thought tonight, because I've been swooning all the goddamn time lately.  I'm finding Fellini all over the bloody place – life is freaking grand.

We Really Shouldn't Bomb Iran ... Ever

Eyes Without A Face

Oh, the random joys of living in a digital world.  By the way, if you're over forty, think of how often you read, said or heard the word digital in the first two thirds of your life compared to the past third.
So anyway ... I was enjoying the morning today.  No reason to jump out of bed and take the day by storm for once.  The soft light was casting shadows on my walls and ceiling of the lovely patterns of the tree branches outside my window.  I was playing some Billie Holiday on my iTunes.  All was well in the world.
Then one Billie gave way to another and Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face started.  It felt so out of place and remote.  Not in a bad way.  Maybe like a status update from someone that you don't know very well on Facebook -- mildly inappropriate and unwelcome somehow.  But there it was.  In between Billie Holiday and Billy Riley.  Just one song from some random 80s collection.
The song always reminds me of a message left on my answering machine in high school.  I was friends with a guy who later went on to become one of the founders of a major social networking site.  He had a very deep-toned and distinct way of speaking, very drawn out and bassy.  "Neal, what's up, power?  What would it be like if your girlfriend had eyes without a face?  Call me back, it's B____."  As if I didn't know that or could ever forget it.

The Perfect Gift

 Today is my birthday.  Several months ago I bought three Pendleton muchacho blankets commemorating Oregon's sesquicentennial.  They're beautiful blankets that come with a beautifully written letter from Oregon's current First Lady.  I'd been waiting for the right occasion to present them to my children.  I didn't want to give them to them for Christmas as they would get lost in the shuffle.  Nor for their birthdays or other special occasion as they would hardly be welcomed instead of a desired toy or video game.  This morning I decided that my birthday would be fitting. They opened their boxes as I read the First Lady's letter just after breakfast.  I could tell they got it, each according to their age, and that it was a gift joyfully and proudly received by all.  Throughout the day I noticed my son proudly laid his on his bunk bed.  My older daughter used hers as a cloak of invisibility.  My youngest as swaddling for her favorite doll.
After dinner and birthday cake, they presented their gift to me – the Pendleton robe pictured above.  It is described below.  As a long time collector of Pendleton and other trade blankets, this exchange of gifts was very touching.  I was especially proud that my children enjoyed the richness of their blankets and were able to keep it a secret all day that they too had a blanket for me.  Especially as I read the letter explaining the tradition of exchanging blankets to show respect.

Our Father’s Eyes is a tribute to the men who watch over and guide us as we journey through this earth. Diamonds represent the eyes of a father. They are symbols of the clarity and wisdom with which he watches over and guides his children. Within the diamonds, outstretched arms of the father reach to embrace his children. Arrowheads signify the unwavering protection a father provides for his family and the direction that he offers to his sons and daughters. In traditional Native American symbolism, arrows pointing to the right offer protection and those pointing left ward off evil. Feathers signify the spirit and creative force as well as honor. On the left the spirit feathers of the father await birth. On the right, feathers remind us that our father continues to watch over and send us his prayers after he passes on. The traditional step pattern echoes a father’s lifesteps from birth, to adulthood, to old age and finally to the spirit world. The wave design represents water and the ebb and flow of life’s ups and downs through which our father offers his love and support.

SF Kitchen

Big Sur

I can't tell you what I was doing there nor who I saw while there nor where I stayed nor anything specific at all aside from this:  after a few days up on those mountains and down on those shores, the back of my neck felt like jelly.  A magical place to let go of some tension.  An unforgettable few days.

Four Wheels in Big Sur

Live Fast

I'm temperamentally inclined to slow living, or so I'd like to think.  Yet I'm very impatient and impulsive.  So there are times that the stream of life is a rushing wall of water crashing through my normal existence.  The profferer of the Canada job called me two weeks ago with yet another job that I accepted and spent the following eight days completely absorbed by.  It went well.
Then I spent another week wrapping that job and recovering physically and organizationally.  So here I am, sitting quietly on a Friday night.  Thinking about old friends and more exciting, but not necessarily better, times of my life.
The motorcycle has proven to be a very good idea.  I'm enjoying that.
What else?  Not really sure.  I'm not writing or missing writing.  I'm trying to stay connected to finishing Dangerous Writing, but it feels like a chore for the most part.  I do want to see it finished, but the process is a trudge to say the least.
I just moved out of the office I've had for the past two and half years.  I had to go through all the detritus of making movies and teaching acting.  I tossed a lot of it.  Not most or anything drastic, but I let go of somethings that I've been hauling around for a decade or more.  Part of me would like to see all of it go.  I'm not very attached to it.  But some of it still makes me money through rentals and the occasional job, though the more photo jobs I do, the less I want to make movies for any amount of money.
The other reason I find it hard to let go of my film-related stuff is that it is stuff that has value, or so it would seem.  I had a collection of scripts from the 60s-80s that I offered to whoever on Facebook and to the NW Film Center.  You can get a lot of them online now, but these were copies from the studios and from the time when there was no internet.  There were no takers.  I tossed each of the one to three pound bricks into the recycling skip at my old office.  And that was that.  Times change within and without.
I have an old film camera that I need to sell as well.  Part of me wants to heft its heavy metal case up into a corner of my attic and see what the world thinks of it in twenty years.  But my attic is mostly empty and I'd like to keep it that way.  So I'll donate or sell my beautiful and trusty old Arriflex to someone that will find a use for it.
My father-in-law once reminded me that money is just an exchange for time. That holding onto stuff that you think you could sell or use again someday is really just shorting yourself time.
Since I tend to live faster than I often realize, I suppose I shouldn't short myself time by hanging onto possessions that no longer serve me.