Author: matt

When two movies (one based on real events, the other on a Philip Roth novel) that have very little to with each other both turn out to hinge on lies and the lying liars who tell them, you gotta wonder just what about the zeitgeist puts us in the minds of deceptive prevaricators. Oh, right.

“Hefner’s two little black books from 1957 and 1958, include a who’s who of celebrities and cultural icons of the day, ranging from Richard Avedon to Oleg Cassini. Christie’s says the address books could fetch up to $12,000 apiece.” Bunny Booty On The Block In Playboy Auction By Paul Tharp

Buried at the very end of Armond White’s review of The Human Stain in this week’s New York Press is this:
The moments are so especially erotic, it’s clear we’re watching Coleman’s secrets and dreams. (Nakedness bathed in Jean-Yves Escoffier’s amber light; Coleman snorfling a young Wasp woman’s body with curiosity as much as passion.)
Snorfling? What the snorf?!? Curious, I snorfled over to the blogger’s best friend, Google and tried to find this word. Here’s what I got: What is my Greyhound trying to tell me?
The click/snap is actually a replacement for the lick; you will find that most of these dogs aren’t lickers. Sometimes they yelp, bark, or make throaty noises while clicking. “Snorfling” might be a good description of this activity.
Snorfled that right up.
Earlier thoughts on Armond White from low culture.

Back in 1994, Douglas Coupland complained in ArtForum that the younger generation of artists and art critics had completely forgotten James Rosenquist. (The essay, on Rosenquist’s F-111, a portion of which is above, is collected in Polaroids from the Dead.)
Not so anymore. Rosenquist is the subject of a big retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York (through January 25th) and pops up today in one of those mini profiles in The Times Metro Section. Here’s a little bit of wisdom from an art world survivor to all you young turks out there:
We lived like kings in New York in those days on very little money. The younger artists today think they have to turn their fine art into cash to pay the rent. Now what happens is they show too early and the critics say they stink and they think they stink.
Keep at it, kids. This guy is 70 years-old.

Saw the trailer for The Last Samurai last night. What’s the deal with Tom Cruise always wanting to be uglied up in his movies? In the Samurai trailer we get two shots of a badly bruised and swollen Cruise, his coverboy looks destroyed.
Reminded me of Vanilla Sky, in which he spent the majority of that film looking like Quasimodo.
Any shrinks out there wanna take a crack at this?

Not sure how I feel about this: it appears the FOX Network (or at least their marketing people) has discovered this weird thing called ‘meta’. How else to explain the ad for the soon-to-be cancelled new show Arrested Development with this phrase:

All This Praise is Embarrassing. But We’re Fox… We Don’t Get Embarrassed.
It’s called heading off criticism at the pass, people. And when your show stars Jason Bateman, it’s an absolute necessity.
Earlier FOX antics from low culture

Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure
Anyone know when George Gurley‘s birthday is?
[Thanks, Madame J!]