The Detroiter: Who Are You People?

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Multimedia performance artist Laurie Anderson would like you to know the following three things:

  • 1. Sydney’s dog population loves rock music.
  • 2. There are no further plans to develop the amusement park she was planning with Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel in Barcelona. Peter Gabriel no longer wants to do it and the saddest thing Ms. Anderson can think of is a modern, high-tech amusement park one year after it’s opened and all the technology has become obsolete.
  • 3. If you want to do a fall tour in Europe, and you’ve never done a tour, let alone been to Europe, email 500 performance spaces in Europe and you’re bound to hear back from some of them. You will get your fall European tour.

Laurie Anderson gave a lecture, entitled Spirit and Opportunity (named after the Martian rovers), at the historic Detroit Film Theater as part of its lecture series on space last night and she wanted to talk about two things: Her stint as NASA’s artist-in-residence and how that influence her later project building Japanese sound gardens for Expo 2005.

She received a call one day back in 2003 and the man on the other phone said that he was from NASA and wanted to invite her to be the inaugural member of their artist-in-residence program. She told him he wasn’t from NASA and after a series of assertions that he was, indeed, from NASA she asked him what an artist-in-residence for America’s space agency even does. The answer?

“We don’t know”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Who are you people?” Ms. Anderson replied.

“We’re NASA,” the man replied.

Eager to jump on board with a project that had no definition, something completely new, Anderson started visiting NASA sites and annoying technicians. Artists and scientists, she says, are very similar. They must create an idea and then they must execute said idea, working out the problems as they go along.

She was especially excited by a white board she came across that showed a series of problems the scientists were working on with terraforming Mars. In other words, making Mars look like Earth which caused Ms. Anderson to sarcastically remark that we as a species have done such a fine job perfecting our own planet. She, if you did not know, is against manned space travel. She thinks that it’s a waste of time given the advancement of robotics, a mere propaganda tool to advance nations over their enemies, much like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon was a great victory for America during the Cold War. She does admit, however, that she got very excited about manned space travel during “the Kennedy thing.”

The Terraforming Mars project, by the way? It’s scheduled to be completed in ten thousand years.

Not everyone at NASA was too pleased with her though. Astronauts had no time for the short, androgynous woman with the artist-in-residence namebadge and the people in charge of colorizing the photographs received from the Hubble Telescope (the Hubble does not actually take pictures, it merely sends a series of data that are then organized into pictures) were not so happy when she questioned their heavenly color scheme of pale pinks and pastel blues.

“People like it,” they said. And NASA is an organization that relies heavily on a positive public opinion.

Laurie Anderson would like you to know a fourth thing

  • 4. China is currently in international court claiming ownership of the moon. The Russians say they were there first, the Americans say they had the first people there and the Italians? Well, they saw it first.

Laurie Anderson was the first and last artist-in-residence as the people in charge of the budget decided that $20,000 to have an artist look around and be inspired by the program for a year was an outrageous, unnecessary expenditure. Ms. Anderson has campaigned for it’s reinstatement ever since so that other artists may get the opportunity accorded her.

Part of their problem with the program, she thinks, is with the work she decided to produce upon completion of the experience: a long-form poem entitled “The End of the Moon.” She thinks that, as a multimedia artist, they thought that she would do something with bouncing lights off of satellites and onto the moon in a sort of cosmic light show and they were disappointed with her creation. She said in a Q&A portion after the show, that no new work (other than the poem) had come from the experience, but in quoting a selection from her suggestion for Crasstalk’s book club*, she said “Who told you that to be a good person, you had to be a productive person?”

She wasn’t completely unproductive, however. A year later, when working on Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, she was concerned with gardens, and what they meant. The Japanese don’t think of gardens the way we do and in the Japanese language, the word for garden translates to setting stones. Japanese gardens are stone arrangements and, working with a Japanese architect (the preparation for this exhausted her as the Japanese work ethic was a culture shock to the already hardworking artist), she studied how they work as spaces and how to incorporate sound and visual.

Working in a space about the size of Central Park, Anderson came up with a series of solutions that answer the problem “How do we see?” An aquascope that is basically a tube that lets you see underwater (there are no lenses, it is merely a tube) A box of air that created imagery of moving birds and a series of haiku sticks in different languages.

Ms. Anderson loves haiku because it captures a moment. She came up with one on the spot:

Cold Icy Morning
A Puppeteer Blinks
What am I talking about?

She also incorporated haiku into a fountain that, when water rippled the water, spread various translations of various haiku throughout the water, though it was unclear if this was a visual or a tonal piece.

There was a bridge that, when you held onto the rail while walking across it, caused a unique tune produced by gongs sounding softly against the river and the space as designed by the architect started out very dark, until it turned scary, then awful until, finally your life felt over.

A garden by Xanax.

The piece that captivated me, however, involved mud. She had noticed that the Aichi soil had a remarkable similarity to what we know of Martian soil and designed a piece wherein plasma screen televisions would be set into the ground, their cover appearing to be a thin sheet of water that displayed images captured by the Martian rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. She recalled being in the control room when Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. All of the engineers who had worked on the project were there, each one of them only designing a small portion of the robot. Nobody knew exactly how they actually worked, and no one knew exactly where they were until the numbers started coming in. Remember, there are no cameras in space, only data and numbers. The numbers showed that the robots had entered the atmosphere. The numbers showed that the robots had released their parachute. The numbers showed that the robots had landed. The numbers showed that the robots had unzipped themselves from their case and started basking in the sun in order to fully power up. And then?

There are no cameras on space, but, thanks to NASA, there are cameras on Mars.

She gave a Q&A and then left after going ten minutes over. In case you were wondering, by the way, she wore a boxy black suit with a white shirt , and red flats with matching red socks.

Photo: Matthew Piper

My friend and I, quite invigorated from the experience but not yet ready to drive home decided to head over to the famed Scarab Club for their poetry series. We were able to catch the last two poems from the mesmerizing William Copeland, though were sad to have missed the previous poets as we thought the event was from 8-930, not 7-830. The Scarab finished their Silver Medal Exhibition earlier in the week and had debuted a new gallery of work, three of which caught our eyes (unfortunately, they only had the listings from the previous show so I currently do not know who created these works).

  • A doorway with striations of sticks coated in graphite
  • A series of photographs of images from years past (painting, photograph and mural) covered with their modern corollary. An image of Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” mural was covered with a piece of photojournalism, the caption of which announced the opening of a new car plant in Turkey.
  • Paintings on wood and a sculpture that told the tale of a claustrophobic animal cracker with a broken leg.

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The Detroit Film Theater is located at the John R entrance of the Detroit Institute of Arts at John R and Farnsworth. They are open Friday through Saturday and are currently showing the Academy Award Nominated Short Films and Lust for Life starring Kirk Douglas. Vision and Sampson & Delilah start next weekend. Tickets are $7.50 and $6.50 for students and members of the DIA. The full lecture calendar, along with further information on the Detroit Institute of Art including current and upcoming exhibitions can be found on www.dia.org

The Scarab Club is located at 217 Farnsworth across the street from the Detroit Film Theater entrance.  Galleries are free and open to the public Wednesday-Sunday from 12p-5p. They also have weekly life drawing sessions on Thursdays and Saturdays that are free to members and $7.00 to non-members. There are also a number of special events including Third Thursdays and Brown Bag along with Costume Balls and Garden Parties that are member exclusive. In conjunction with WRCJ 90.9 FM, The Scarab Club hosts a monthly night** of chamber music that costs $20 at the door, $18 if ordered in advance and $10 with a student identification. More information about The Scarab Club can be found at www.scarabclub.org

*Laurie Anderson’s Book Club selection is How To Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson. It discusses productivity and its meaning in a world where we are experiencing technological burnout.

**The Scarab Club sponsors and runs the night of chamber music. However, the event only takes place at The Scarab Club every other month. The next night will be March 6 and will take place at The Scarab Club

Note: If you’re hungry after a visit to the DIA, The Scarab Club or anywhere in Detroit’s Cultural Center, I suggest a trip to the Cass Cafe for cheap, good food and drinks along with what is always an eclectic sampling of local art. The Cass Cafe is located at 4620 Cass Avenue at the corner of Forest Avenue.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to email 500 European performance spaces about the European tour of my exciting new piece “Gee, I’m Drunk”

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of February 17

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Today is going to be hot. It’s 50 degrees here on the North Coast, and we would totally go to the beach today if it wasn’t so cloudy. Clouds aren’t hot. The sun? That’s hot. Get ready, kids, because it’s everyone’s favorite daily: Life, Death and Violence. It’s gonna be a hot, hot heat.

LIFE! (Conception is hot. The actual miracle of birth? Not.)

Everyone born today is either hot, or has made a career out of the word “hot.” We’ll also be bringing you the exception to the rule.

  • 1490: Charles III, Duke of Bourbon: This sexy thang look spectacular in a suit of armor, and why wouldn’t he? He’s a hot, distinguished French military leader who defied the stereotype and never surrendered, until he was killed in battle, which, of course, means he surrendered in life. Those French! Always surrendering!

Charles, like any smart person, married into nobility when he married his wife, Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon. This marriage led to his being named the male-heir to the House of Bourbon and therefore, we assume, an unlimited supply of Maker’s Mark. Lucky man! Damn, we still can’t get over how gorgeous he looks in that suit. Barney Stinson should redefine “Suit up.”

He became a turncoat and fought for the Italians after losing a promotion and having his wife’s money, which she left to him, taken away when the mother of the King of France decided it was hers because she was Suzanne’s closest blood relative.

1836: Gustavo Becquer: Salaciously hot. He is totally pulling off that soul patch in a way that Apolo Anton Ohno only dreams about. Gustavo was a Spanish poet during the post-Romantic era, which, naturally, increases his hotness tenfold. Let’s read a poem:

The dark swallows will return
their nests upon your balcony, to hang.
And again with their wings upon its windows,
Playing, they will call.
But those who used to slow their flight
your beauty and my happiness to watch,
Those, that learned our names,
Those… will never come back!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Naturally, we’re smitten. Fun fact! His brother painted that portrait of him and when they changed their names, they took the same fake last name. Family should stick together.

  • 1963: Larry the Cable Guy: Not hot (sorry, we’re just not into bears). Larry is known for being a redneck, but that’s only on stage. He’s not even from the South! He’s from Nebraska. However, our nephew is obsessed with Mater, so we’ll give him a pass.
  • Still, we’ve always been a fan of scripted comedy as opposed to stand-up, with the exception being Kathy Griffin because she’s just so funny and because as proper gays, we have to like her. Have to. We made Kathy Griffin laugh with a Celine Dion joke when we met her and it was one of the greatest moments of our lives.
  • What we’re saying here is that we’d much rather talk about Kathy Griffin, but it’s Larry the Cable Guy’s birthday, so we should get back to that.  Larry the Cable Guy owns three champion bucking bulls that participate with that other PBR, Professional Bull Riders Inc. Now that’s a fact that’s fun! Their names are Chicken on a Chain, Booger Butt and Git R Done.

  • 1981: Joseph Gordon Levitt: Not hot. Better than hot. The most beautiful man in the world and our main celebrity crush. There are so many things we’d like to do with him and it was probably a sign when we were younger and watching Third Rock from the Sun and only wanted to watch the scenes with Joseph Gordon Levitt in them.  Look at that smirk on his face! So cute! He’s totally our Aubrey Plaza.
  • And what a name! We know that three-namers are associated with serial killers, but you know what? He is killing us with his serious good looks. The man (he’s thirty today!) is funny and smart and quirky and rocks in so many movies, our favorite being (500) Days of Summer which is our ultimate love/hate movie because we love it, but we’re basically Tom and being the romantic in the relationship hurts. WE LOVE YOU JGL! Call us!

And, last, but certainly not least!

  • 1981: Paris Hilton: HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARIS! You’re 30 now! That’s totally hot!

DEATH! (Picking up a guy at a funeral? Hot. Picking up a dead guy at a funeral? Not.)

Let me open up my newspaper to look at today’s obituary, and by newspaper, I mean Wikipedia. Let’s talk about hot dead people because necrophilia is sexxxy.*

  • 1673: Moliere: The original king of comedy and bad boy of theater, Moliere had several of his plays banned by the French government for being too perverse (on pressure from the Catholic Church). We’re currently re’reading our favorite play of his, The Misanthrope, which, if you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s a fabulous tale about an asshole who spends the entire play criticizing everyone including himself.
  • Moliere is also known for having one of the most ironic deaths ever. During a production of what was to be his final play, in which he played a hypochondriac, he succumbed to his tuberculosis. He was able to finish his performance, but died shortly after. Guess it wasn’t such an imaginary illness after all. Sad. A tragic way for a really funny guy to leave this little blue ball we call home.
  • (Excerpt from Act 1 Scene 1 Le Misanthrope)
  • “Great Heaven? let us torment ourselves a little less about the vices of our age, and be a little more lenient to human nature. Let us not scrutinize it with the utmost severity, but look with some indulgence at its failings. In society, we need virtue to be more pliable. If we are too wise, we may be equally to blame.”

  • 1939: Willy Hess: He played violin, taught at Harvard and was concermaster for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His violin was a Guadagnini which we think means it was a really good violin, but we’re pretty sure he’s not dead. We’re pretty sure we’ve seen this guy at Metropolitan, like, a lot, when we used to go there on Tuesdays.

  • 1961: Nita Naldi: This sultry silent film star was typecast as a femme fatale/vamp and boy was she able to pull that off. She was also in the Ziegfeld Follies and became famous after working with Rudolph Valentino and Cecil B DeMille while signed to the Famous Players/Lasky studio. She declared bankruptcy in 1932 and when she tried to make a comeback, was criticized for her weight. Hollywood never changes.

  • 1970: Alfred Newman: Oh wait, there’s another Alfred Newman. That’s a picture of Neuman. NEWMAN! The most decorated composer in all of cinema, Alfred Newman was a force to be reckoned with. He won 9 Oscars and was nominated 45 times! He’s only second to Walt Disney in both wins and nominations for a single person. What we’re saying is that the guy was a really accomplished film composer.

VIOLENCE! (Napalm’s hot. Mustard Gas? Not.)

  • 1838: We don’t understand a word of what is said in this, so we’re just going to copy Wikipedia’s words exactly and let you guys figure it out. It sounds cool though: Weenan massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus. Seriously, we’ve read the Wikipedia page and all we get is that people died and that it took place in South Africa. Every other word confuses us.
  • 1865: Union forces burn Columbia, South Carolina to the ground on orders from General William Tecumseh Sherman (he denied these reports) Hot! Literally, that must have been a hot day, what with all the fire. That Sherman sure liked burning things, but maybe that’s why he’s known as the first modern general. You know, because he was cool with killing citizens.
  • 1871: After months of BANG BANG! SHOOT EM UP! ZING! POW!, the Prussian army captured Paris, thus ending the Franco-Prussian War. Wait, James Franco built a time-machine and lost a war against the Prussians? Watch out, JGL, your status might be in jeopardy! We here at LD&V have uncovered an exclusive photo of James Franco in his apartment, reacting to the loss while the Prussians marched upon his city.

That’s so Franco! And so French! Oh, the French! Always losing!**

OTHER NEAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED! (Future duelists? Hot. The moon? Not.)

  • 1801: It’s a tie! The House of Representatives casts a vote and ZOUNDS! The winner is Tommy Jefferson! The loser gets the vice-presidency and that would be our high school hero, the one and only Aaron Burr! Why is Aaron Burr our high school hero? Because we really hated reading The Federalist Papers, like, with a passion and we were so glad that somebody shot that sonuvabitch Alexander Hamilton. GET OFF OUR MONEY ALEX, WE STILL DON’T LIKE YOU!
  • 1904: Madame Butterfly opens. We never really liked that one.
  • 1913: A lot of really important artists exhibited their work in the NYC 69th Regiment Armory.
  • 1933: Happy Birthday Newsweek! Oh, what’s that? You’re completely hemorrhaging and had to be sold to the Daily Beast and now Tina Brown is running you and everyone’s being fired so that you can focus on an online presence because print is dead? Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to rub salt in the wound. Do you need some neosporin?
  • 1965: Project Ranger photographs the moon in preparation for the Apollo missions.
  • 1996: Gary Kasparov beat IBM’s Deep Blue at chess. Too bad Brad and Ken aren’t doing so hot against Watson, but, hey, at least they know Toronto isn’t an American city.
  • 2008: Kosovo declares independence. Happy birthday, Kosovo! You go(sovo) girl! That was a terrible joke. An absolutely terrible joke. We’re ashamed of ourselves, so much that we’re just going to end today’s Life, Death and Violence right here without so much as a witty conclusion paragraph.

Oh! We couldn’t do that to you! You’re so special to us. Our readers? Hot. Dolphins? Not (but they sure are pretty cool!)

*Necrophilia is not sexy.
**We’re French and Irish. We’re allowed to make fun of those two nationalities as much as we please, thank you very much.

CALL US JOSEPH!

Your Happy Morning Open Thread

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Well good morning, sleepy head. Thanks for dropping by. Here is some breakfast related news to provide you with a nutritious start to your day.

Attention promiscuous teens. A new study suggests that teen mothers who eat breakfast have healthier eating habits overall. The study also suggest teen mothers who eat breakfast promote healthier eating habits for their kids.

Contrary to rumors that he is in ill health, Hosni Mubarak was seen having breakfast on the beach of his private resort yesterday. The interim government is reportedly shocked by the amount of corruption and graft they have uncovered since Mubarak’s departure.

Also yesterday, Miley Cyrus had breakfast with her mom. I am not sure why this is important.

Have a wonderful day.

Face Off Liveblog/Loveblog

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Welcome to the Face-Off liveblog open thread! If you’re not familiar with a liveblog/loveblog/open thread, just hang out, watch the show, and comment away! It really is that simple, but I’m sure you already know that.

If you’ve been watching Face Off, you know the deal. Special effects “artists” compete by completing challenges under given time limits, and being ripped apart by a panel of judges. It’s a pretty awesome show, but the absence of Tim Gunn renders it inferior to Project Runway, which incidentally kind of started sucking, but hopefully will be back in awesome action during its next season, but I digress. Like, a lot.

So far this season, they’ve done nude body painting, created aliens from some planet that I guess was made of water, drew/painted/licked on fake tattoos, and something in the first episode that I didn’t watch, so fill in the blanks for me if you like (upon checking the website, it looks like they gave people bug heads). They also slept during challenges, made big boo-boos, bitched, flirted, and made cakes.

As for the contestants, they’re a pretty motley crew, which is to be expected for special effects artists I suppose. I’d love for the producers to throw us someone who is actually unpredictable like a guy who works in a bank and wears a tie to match his socks every day. However, our crew is a pretty colorful bunch and I wouldn’t trade any of them. Except for Tom.

Tom, aka Captain Ego has his own FX shop and I guess actually has somewhat of a career in indie film. Sweet. He has some other interesting things going on I think, but I can’t remember specifics over the sound of his massive ego.
Gage, the token gay cutie with the ear gauges apparently has awesome parents who bought him a special effects magazine when he was a kid because he was terrified of Freddy Kreuger, in an attempt to make him less scared. He was also a protégé of Tom, which Tom was sure to let the audience know in the first episode.

Anthony owns a studio called “Demonic Pumpkins Studio”, which is a pretty kick-ass name. He also won the nude painting challenge in episode 2 and claimed it was “Better than winning any Academy Award”. Aim high, Anthony.
Megan; a 24 year old Pittsburgh suicide girl, has a not-at-all subtle crush on Conor and hasn’t seen a penis in 2 years (true story). She attended Tom Savini’s Special FX school of Makeup, also in Pittsburgh. She’s also way high strung and I predict there will be the throwing or intentional exploding of something messy in the future from her.

Conor is the 40 year old that either likes them young, or is a gigantic tease – maybe both. He apprenticed for the makeup artist for Dick Tracy, although I’m not sure they had scary monsters. Other than Madonna, naturally. He also works on the Vampire Diaries and is an instructor at the Joe Blasco Makeup School. These schools get way creative with their names, don’t they?
Marcel, the 24 year old anti-Top Chef Marcel, already has a shaved head and has yet to use foam in anything. He’s a vet assistant by trade which… wait, what? He seems like a decent guy and actually has skill though, so is he the dark horse of Face Off? Am I even using that term correctly? It’s my first time.

Sam hails from Decatur, GA, where she practices and teaches “permaculture”, creates make up effects – for who or why, I’m not sure, and illustrates the chalk board at her local Trader Joes. I wonder if she’s frenemies with the chalkboard illustrator at Starbucks. She also does corporate art and custom prosthetics and has a hippie mom. Good for her.

Jo is Mila from PR’s hapless doppelganger. She not only fucked up in the first episode, but she painted her model in the nude body painting challenge with latex paint, which the audience learned both has a tendency to peel off of human skin, as well as feeling rather itchy and horrible. The judges liked it anyway though, so she was safe. More recently, she showed blatant jealousy of Megan and Conor’s “relationship” and wore a sour face pretty much the entire series so far.

Finally, there’s Tate, whose mom was an artist and his dad a boxer, which means he’s probably financially supporting them by now. He’s done a few cool things, most notably prop fabrication for Jim Henson studios, which is pretty high on the awesome meter, but he’s not standing out yet to me – the person who has no experience in this stuff beyond going to see movies with makeup effects.

Our host, one McKenzie Westmore has an illustrious career, seemingly due to her family being the Barrymores of the special effects world. Her dad created a whole shit-ton (Yes, that’s a unit of measure, per me) of awesome aliens for Star Trek and her great-grandfather was some other movie guy who was apparently successful enough to get the ball moving on getting the entire family on the Hollywood walk of fame. Also, her dad dresses exactly like my dad, therefore is adorable and by rights should be a republican from western Pennsylvania. Ms. Westmore also has a bit of an acting career, most of which seems forgettable, but apparently she was on NBC’s soap opera, Passions, so there’s that.

Finally, our shrewd judges include Ms. Ve Neill, the brains behind the looks in Pirates of the Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands. That might be a bit of hyperbole, but I like to think of her that way. She also won three Academy Awards, which I hear is kind of a big deal. Also, Glenn Hetrick of Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the FREAKING X-FILES people, and Patrick Tatopoulos, who had a hand in Underworld, Independence Day, and Resident Evil: Extinction.

For tonight’s challenge, Friday the 13th director, Sean Cunningham stops by to see how the contestants do with creating their very own horror movie villains. Something tells me no one is going to make cute little satanic woodland creatures this week. What do you think the over-under is on a murderous clown being created? How about a SEXY murderous clown?

Ok kids, this is our first time and we want to be able to come back, so dispose of your cigarette butts, roaches, and beer bottles properly, leave the place cleaner than we found it, and be sure to write a nice thank-you note to the owners of the joint before you leave. The show starts at 10 Eastern Time on Syfy, so be there or be… well, just be there really. Enjoy the show!

*So the show starts off with the contestants discussing Frank.  Apparently, he’s one of those hate him or love him types.  Being that he slept during two challenges and openly slacked off, I’m not seeing the appeal, but maybe people like that kind of thing?

*Bates motel!  I think I’m seeing the problem with this show.  These contestants need to start wearing khakis and polo shirts.  This whole multiple piercings/tattoos thing clearly doesn’t work.  Except for with the judges, so… never mind.

*Is “Go big or go home” the new, “I’m not here to make friends”?

*Jo does not like Megan.  She really really super extra does not like Megan.  Ask her about it, I’m sure she’ll tell you.  She’s making a disfigured nun, by the way.

*Now Jo’s having her patented insecure time and fishing for compliments.  I’m a horrible person because I would have told her it was terrible just to shake her up.  As a wise man said, sometimes when you go fishing, you catch a boot.

*Now the contestants are pitching their ideas to the PR girl.  They have to come up with a movie name, tagline, and of course, the villain.  Some are good, some are not.  For example, one movie is to be named “HIM”.  You know, in reference to the guy the movie is about.  Alrighty then.

*Conor’s tagline; “Death is just the beginning”.  That’s been used before, hasn’t it?  In other news, Megan’s super annoying.  I’m starting to see Jo’s side.

*So Tom doesn’t know how to make a teddy bear.  Really Tom?  What have you been doing with your life?

*Marcel made a boo-boo.  He almost didn’t get get his silicone out of the mold, which I gather isn’t a good thing because a.) you kind of need it for your villain, and b.) I hear it takes a long time to set .

*So Nicholas Cage is the official go-to guy for shitty action movies now, right?

*Gage made the same boo-boo Marcel did, only his mold isn’t opening.  Megan comes over to “help” and rips the mask.  Gage is understandably not happy.

*Anthony states he’s re-creating things that have already been done.  As I said before – Aim high, Anthony.

*Ah, Tate’s “Him” is a chick.

*Jo’s proud of her nun, but I’m not sure I should be that impressed.  It’s basically a burned woman with buck teeth.

*Anthony threw his away – it blows.  He said it himself.

*Conor’s is just fucked up.  There’s no other way of putting it.

*Sam’s “Baby Doll” is terrifying.  Absolutely terrifying.  They need to make a movie about it.

*Megan has a creepy photographer guy who looks like Marilyn Manson.  Yawn.

*Marcel’s was pretty ok.  So was Gage’s.  He made some deformed fisherman, which looks like, well, a deformed fisherman.

*Tom’s is some sort of murderous teddy bear humanoid holding a human head.  I can’t wait to see how this turns out for him.

*Conor, Sam, and Jo are safe.  Being that Sam’s doll is going to give me nightmares, I thinks she should have won this challenge.

*Gage gets really good praise.  I guess they didn’t hear about the prosthetic that almost wasn’t.

*Oh, Anthony – “I’m more into mental horrors than a brute standing in a doorway hacking people up”.  The looks he got were priceless.  I’d feel bad for him, but I don’t.

*Megan and her floppy hat are being criticized because her scary photographer guy’s mouth can’t move, so basically, he’s useless.

*Tate got good reviews, and when you look at the creation, he really worked his ass off.  Good job, Tate.

*Marcel just made a reference to the limited amount of time he had to complete the costume.  He did NOT just say that after Tate was up there.

*Ok, Tom’s teddy bear axe murderer is pretty damn scary.  Disturbing, even.  He pulled off a win for this one.  Good job, Captain Ego!  Speaking of Captain Ego, he pontificates that Megan should go home (because the judges asked him).  I have a feeling she’s going down.

*You guys, I can’t imagine how Liam Neeson was able to make a movie about losing his wife after actually losing his wife.  My cold, blackened soul feels sad for him.

*Elimination time!  Poor Marcel and his shitty paint job and concept is out.  I’m never right about these things!  This is why I don’t gamble.

Next week on Face Off – a gender challenge of some sort.  May be interesting, it might be not – the only way to find out is to watch!  Or DVR – that works too.  Goodnight!

Democracy Protests Rock the Middle East and North Africa

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This story is a joint effort by Waspy, BBQ Cornnuts, Lady_E, Dürers Rhino, and The Grand Inquisitor.

Demonstrations and riots are sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa this week as protestors, emboldened by the success of the Egyptian Revolution, have demanded reform from their own governments. Demonstrators and government security personnel have been killed in several counties. According to the Associated Press, Hillary Clinton urged civic leaders in effected countries to “seize the historic moment for democratic change

In Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi has been in power since 1969, demonstrators are organizing for Thursday commemoration of the 2006 deaths of 14 protesters. Dissidents have organized a Facebook group is calling for a February 17 Intifada.

Pro-government demonstrators showed support at Sunday’s prayers to commemorate the birth of the prophet. The government is also making an effort to discredit the opposition. Libya is facing unrest in part because of government-subsidized housing projects. Many homes are not completed and thousands of residents are without a place to live.

Dissidents have circulated a petition emphasizing “the right of the Libyan people to express their opinions in peaceful protest, without any form of harassment, threats or provocations” by the regime. The opposition also called on Gaddafi and his family to relinquish authority and “revolutionary, political, military, and security” powers.

In Iraq, citizens of the city Fallujah protested to demand a stop to arbitrary arrests. They also asked the government to resume conscription and to dismiss any foreign citizens, including Americans, from government positions. They also accused the Talabani administration of corruption. Local officials joined in the demonstration and called for basic services, such as rations and electricity.

Meanwhile, unrest has continued in Iran. Two people were killed and dozens were injured during Monday’s protests. New clashes broke out on Wednesday at the funeral in Tehran of a student who was killed in a recent protest. The government blamed the killing on anti-government protesters, but conflicting reports suggest security forces might have been responsible.  While information has been difficult to get out of the country, some estimates have put protest numbers at 350,000 people. In what has become a familiar cycle, Iranian pro-government forces have called for a counter-demonstration against the opposition leaders. In turn, opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who are under house arrest, have called for more anti-government protests.

Yemen is in its sixth day of protests calling for democracy. Dwindling oil reserves and a looming water crisis have motivated an increasingly impoverished public to call for regime change. The President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been in power since 1978. He has attempted to quell the protests by announcing that he will not seek re-election in 2013, urging the public to use democratic solutions rather than violence, and entering talks with individual tribes to bolster support for his government. However, the demonstrations have become increasingly violent as police, military, and plainclothes government supporters have attempted to disperse protestors. Police shot and killed two demonstrators in the main southern city of Aden and several people were wounded in the capitol city of Sanaa.

In Bahrain, protests continued into a third day. Ruled by a centuries-old Constitutional Monarchy, Bahrain’s Sunni minority and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa have been accused of discrimination against the country’s 66% Shia majority. Demonstrations calling for fair representation in Parliament have become more peaceful after police killed two protesters and the King subsequently issued a rare apology on Monday. Demonstrators are setting up a “Protest Camp” in the capitol’s Pearl Roundabout Park and have stated that they will not leave until their demands are met.

The Washington Post is reporting on a potentially explosive development.  In a speech delivered to Jewish American leaders and later repeated in an official press release, Israeli Foreign Prime Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, claimed that two Iranian warships are preparing to enter the Suez Canal, a move that Israel would view as highly provocative.  Mr. Lieberman also claimed that the warships were crossing the Canal to reach Syria, an Iranian ally, presumably to deliver weapons for Hezbollah to use against Israel.  Mr. Lieberman offered no evidence to back up his claims and Egyptian authorities denied the report.  Egypt requires 48 hours notice for entry into the Suez Canal.   However, the US State Department did confirm the two ships were in the Red Sea near the Canal.

The possibility of an Israeli-Iranian conflict poses serious concerns for the region, Egypt’s transitional government, and the anti-government movement in Iran. A confrontation between Israel and Iran could halt the reform movements region-wide dead in their tracks and divert media and world attention from the current uprisings, a situation which would have additional perils for protests that have seen state sanctioned violence slightly curtailed in recognition of the attention focused on the government responses.

The former Mubarak regime considered Iran to be the greatest threat to regional stability and Egypt’s 1979 Peace Treaty with Israel and assistance in enforcing the blockade of Gaza put Egypt in direct opposition with the Iranian government.  The Treaty and blockade are widely unpopular among the Egyptian population, but, this past Sunday, the current Egyptian military government released Communiqué No. 5 pledging to abide by all of Egypt’s foreign treaties and commitments, which includes the Peace Treaty, during the transitional period.  A direct challenge to the Egyptian-Israeli alliance by Iran could greatly complicate the military’s already precarious role as a caretaker government and potentially derail constitutional and statutory reforms that the military has pledged to oversee.

Iran is currently facing the largest anti-Regime protests since the 2009 Green Revolution. A confrontation with Israel would allow the Iranian government to rally the nation against Israel and could lead to deadly violence and treason charges (which carry the death penalty) against any protest participants.  It is not out of the realm of possibility that this is a strategic plan by the Iranian government to undermine both the Egyptian military and its domestic opponents.

While the potential consequences of this report being true are alarming, Mr. Lieberman is well known for issuing dire, and later found to be untrue claims, about Iran and her allies.  Mr. Lieberman is considered by many to be a far-right, anti-Arab hardliner by many and while his party (the Yisrael Beytenu Party) is a part of the new coalition government, they are not the largest in the three party Coalition.  In this Q&A interview in Newsweek, Mr. Lieberman gives a good overview of his positions, his attitude towards Arabs and his view of the Peace process with Palestinians.  Finally, The United States would likely use its influence with Israel to attempt to dissuade any retaliatory response that could undermine the pro-democracy movements taking place.

Demonstrations are expected to continue throughout the rest of the week throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Watch all the action here.

Why We Can’t Dress Ourselves

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by Daisy Sage and KatScratchFever

Daisy: KatScratchFever and I decided to write this article, to both complain about and explore the reasons why it seems like we can’t find cute clothes of decent quality to purchase on a working persons budget for several years now.

Neither Kat nor I are extremely overweight or oddly put together in any way. We are both quite fab, as a matter of fact.  Kat is tall, well built, and striking.  My body type could be described as a short  (5’4”) version of Christina Hendricks, with more or less her same differences in measurements, if you shave a couple of inches all over (I found this out when they were auctioning off some of her Mad Men dresses online and printed all the dress measurements.)

However we are both grown up women whose figures are not flattered by the thin tubes of crappy fabric run up by some poor 12 year old in a sweatshop somewhere, desperately trying to not to lose consciousness until the next rice and water break, for the purposes of filling the burgeoning racks at the likes of Forever 21 or even H&M.

What follows is a dialogue between Kat and I, to explore the reasons for this dilemma, and find possible solutions.

Daisy: When did you first start noticing that it was so difficult to find nice clothes that were affordable?

Kat: It probably started years ago, but I wasn’t fully conscious of it until I was out of college, had a full-time job and began budgeting and being critical of the things I was spending my money on. I very much want to subscribe to the idea that “I’m too poor to buy cheap”, but in the case of clothing, it seems almost impossible. Housewares and furniture have the kind of longevity that makes it rewarding to have a “buy less, buy better quality” ethos, but clothes are not as durable. You spill things on them. The cat swipes at you as you walk by and rips a hole in them. You slip on the four inches of ice crust the Snowpocalypse left in its wake and tear them. They wear out in the horrible industrial washing machines you use because you don’t have the luxury of laundering things in your apartment. You can’t afford to have your entire wardrobe dry-cleaned once a week.

Daisy: Indeed. In the last few years, I have lost several clothing items I liked through “attrition”; i.e. tossed out worn things, or given them away in a fit of feng shui, only to wait in vain for proper replacements to magically appear.  I still pine for a perfect pair of royal blue velvet jeans that I wore threadbare in places to the point that they tore across the ass, which you can’t really repair. (Maybe the velvet jeans and I could have made it work out, somehow.) I currently have in particular a “jeans deficit”.

Consider the dichotomy of two pairs of Gap jeans I own. One of them is one size larger than the size I have normally worn for years, that I bought when I had gained a little weight. Since, then, I’ve lost some of that weight, and these jeans are now so large on me that I can only wear them in public for very short jaunts down the street, covered by a very long sweater (because they WILL inevitably fall all the way down on my ass if I don’t catch them in time).

Conversely, another Gap pair of jeans I own, which the label says is the size I have traditionally worn, (just one number size below the ass hanging ones) are so still so tight on me that I can only get them on by lying on the bed and doing a type of yoga breathing exercise in which I expel and exhale all the oxygen from my body on a cellular level.

A third pair, also in my regular size fits just fine, but the fronts of the legs have worn so thin, and have rips from constant wear, that they are only suitable to wear on a hot summer day to a HORDE concert, and I’m not sure they have those anymore.

I’ve been told by those who know clothing manufacturing that in the last few years, the Gap is so loosey goosey about pattern cutting in their factories, that you could try on 10 different pairs of their jeans, all ostensibly the same size, and not one of them would be the same size or shape.

Kat: Most certainly, in the last four or five years I’ve noticed a decline in quality, or a huge jump in price, from the places that used to be my stalwarts for reasonably priced, well-made women’s clothing (the Gap and J Crew come to mind), and by far my overall satisfaction with the stores where I used to achieve moderate success on this front (H&M, for example) has gone way, way down.

Daisy: I concur.  H&M is a sad shell of its former self, selling various sad shells of clothing.  I find it useful to stop in for a random pair of sunglasses or socks when I pass by, but that’s it. Although, I must admit, I bought a sundress there last summer on sale for $10 that I didn’t even try on, and it ended up looking great on me.  Go figure.  Anyway, Kat, what is your opinion about why this decay in our clothing options has happened?

Kat: My opinion is that this is a result of a giant mess of apathy on all fronts. The general public no longer cares how they look, or at the very least takes minimal pride in putting themselves together well. Clothing retailers are apathetic about the quality and construction of their product and care mostly about their net profitability. Everyone cares more about being “Fashionable” and “Hip” than dressing appropriately for your body. We live in a throwaway society, which has little respect for high production standards. I think that much in the way that some people say there is “no middle class” anymore (or it will be that way in the very near future), there is no real “middle class” for clothing, only expensive boutique garments, and things that I will end up using as cleaning rags in six months or less.

Daisy: I think what you say makes a lot of sense.  It seems like even moderately priced clothing of decades ago was constructed so much better than today.  And the dye colors of the fabrics were more rich and vivid.  I once had an A-line winter skirt my mom had worn when she was young, bright blue mohair, lined, with a fuchsia and dark purple thin plaid pattern over it.  Below the knee, side zip, kick in the back.  I kept that thing together for years re-sewing ripped or loose seams, fixing belt loops, until I gave up on holding it together.  I know I won’t find anything like that again, outside of a high-end boutique.

Kat, what is one of your worst shopping for clothes experiences in the last few years?  Which retailers do you detest the most and why?

Kat: Oh, there are many, but this one still stings. I was in H&M (on a budget, as usual) in the dressing room with about seven dresses to try on for a wedding I was to attend. Most of them wouldn’t zip or were too weirdly shaped or too revealing and I was growing frustrated and running out of time. The fifth frock had a side zip, but to put it on I had to slide my arms into the sleeves and pull it over my head. Overall it fit so damn well, except that the short sleeves were obviously tailored for a size 10 woman with size 0 waif arms and my barrel chest was stuffed so tightly in that it was difficult to breathe (a typical clothing woe of mine). Defeated, I tried to take it off by first pulling my arms out of the sleeves, but they were so crammed in there they wouldn’t budge. I tried to pull it up at the waist over my ribs to give the arms a little slack, but still, no dice. I finally resorted to a technique I’m sure many women have used before in this situation: hike dress up over hips, bend in half at waist, cross arms around body and try to slowly inch the dress off inside-out, peeling your sausage arms out last. This time though, it didn’t work, and now I thought I’d have to call the dressing room attendant for help. Some sort of dressing room rage took over at this point, and I just started flexing my arms and yanking at the thing, which finally ripped, giving me enough extra room to extract myself and fling the dress on the floor, ready to HULK SMASH!!! I put it back on the hanger, hid it between the other dresses, gave everything back to the attendant and went to the closest bar to quell my rage with a bottle of wine.

Daisy: Oh I’m feeling your pain there. I have experienced the existential angst of being trapped in a cheap dress in a try on room, on more than one occasion.  Either I couldn’t get it up over my chest or down over my hips. As I pulled on it, I wondered how I got into it in the first place. It’s completely exhausting.  You CAN’T be trapped in a dress, except yes, you are.  I would not fault you one bit for ripping the freaking thing.  What else were you supposed to do?  I’m sure H&M survived the potential loss of the $1.67 the dress was actually worth (as opposed to the $29.99 it probably retailed.)

Kat: As for hated retailers, Forever 21 is just the worst. Other cheapo stores like Rainbow and Strawberry get lumped in there as well. Most of them don’t even have dressing rooms and the ones that do are so small I barely have room to try anything on. I’m convinced this is because they know if you can’t try stuff on you will likely buy it anyway because it’s cheap, and the likelihood of you coming back the within the time frame of their return policy (usually 7 days if you want your cash back, not store credit) is slim. It’s a racket, I tell ya.

Daisy: I didn’t even know Rainbow was still around. The last time I was in one was years ago.  I was working part time for a small business out near the east end of Long Island.  There was practically nothing around in the way of civilization, so many times on my lunch break, I would get some kind of fast food, and then go wander around the Rainbow in the local strip mall. It gave me something to do, and I figured I might find a clothing item in my price range. Never found anything there except a customer base of old before their time “Sixteen and Pregnant” candidates pushing double strollers and their irate moms. The merchandise was not only depressing; some of it was literally dusty.  I felt as though it was the retail store that time forgot.

Kat: Why do you think it is that it is still so hard for “normal” shaped/sized women to find well fitting clothes? Is it because retailers are still trying to mimic the high-fashion world where everyone is a size 2, despite the actual size of their clientele?

Daisy: I think it is a convergence of a couple of things. Yes, I do think retailers are trying to mimic the high fashion, size 2 model, because it is what is promoted in the magazines, and there is a burgeoning demographic of young girls who either naturally fit into that stuff, or are willing to starve themselves to do so. Also, I think that as food manufacturers have over the last few years managed to keep the prices of packaged foods relatively stable by sneakily reducing the size of the packages and/or the portions of food inside them, that clothing manufacturers are able to sell cheap clothing by using less fabric, and lower quality fabric to make the bulk of their clothing.

Kat: I like equating the cheap wardrobe I have that is filling my closet and dresser but leaving my soul empty to fast food and portion sizes. Your analogy is very apropos.

Daisy: Thank you. So Kat, what do you think is the way forward for stylish ladies such as us to dress ourselves well?  Vintage?  Ebay? Vigilant Goodwill shopping? Sewing?

Kat: I think Muumuus are the wave of the future. In twenty years everybody will be bulbous piles of jelly zipping around on scooters ala Wall-E and I won’t ever have to wear another pair of pants again. (Fingers crossed!) Here’s where I’m hoping our fellow Crasstalkers have some opinions and advice to soothe our wardrobe-weary souls. I have always been interested in learning to sew, but continuously fail at finding the time or finishing beginner projects. Since my sewing skills are only advanced enough to make tote bags, unless I cobble all fifty of them I have into a utilitarian, carryall ToteMuumuu, I won’t be wearing any homemade garments any time soon. I scour thrift stores regularly, but everything worth buying has long been picked over in NYC by all the fly-by-night Ebay vintage store mavens and Brooklyn Flea Market clothing hoarders. My girlfriends are all in the same situation as I, and though we sometimes do clothing swaps, none of us have a go-to store for new items that stand the test of time. Your ideas?

Daisy: I actually can sew, although I haven’t touched the machine in years. It is a whole lot of work, as you say.

As to the clothing swap thing, it’s the kind of idea that sounds fun, but for me is not that practical because my female friends are all different heights and sizes.  And even if we   fit into each others clothes perfectly, it seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Personally, I’m very excited about your ToteMuumuu™ concept.  Let’s speak privately about trademarks and lining up investors. If we hurry, we can hire an Indonesian manufacturer, and roll that sucker out to the floors of the women’s departments of Sears and JC Penneys within a month.  (Of course you will have the final say on whether the samples live up to your aesthetic vision.)  After we cash in, we can buy ourselves wardrobes from high-end boutiques and have all our clothing tailored.

Ratings Shuffle: America Still Likes These Boobs on Their Tube

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So, Charlie Sheen does the Crack. Um, okay. I totally get it, booze, girls, and a television show that gives you a veritable monetary windfall — to, uh afford your booze, girls, and now crack cocaine. Sounds almost exactly what we expect from Charlie Sheen, minus the part where he tells kids to “Stay off the crack unless you know how to manage it.” Ho, Boy! Yeah. That Sheen — doing so much for America’s youth.

Anyway, this does nothing to explain how America is still keeping Two and a Half Men at the top of the Nielsen Charts. I’d really like to meet a Two and a Half Men fan one day. Mostly to see if they have tails and live beneath the basement stairs in various old age homes scattered throughout Middle America, but that’s for another day.

Here now is what’s going on in your new weekly ratings report!

CBS, this behemoth network full of single men and/or nerds sharing a home, military head slapping, and a guy who tells his kids about all the women he has sex with that aren’t their mother, was the leader of the pack last week pulling in 3.4 adults in the 18-49 group, edging out Fox which finished a tenth of a point behind with a 3.3 rating. ABC came in third with 2.1, and NBC, home of The Cape, trailed in fourth place with a 1.6 rating! (Is it because of the The Cape, because I think it’s because of The Cape.)

The number one program, and undoubtedly the biggest draw for the CBS network last week, was Sunday night’s Grammys Award Show which apparently many of you sycophants thought was awesome. I did not. We’ll agree to disagree on that point.


The much troubled Charlie Sheen and Co. came in at a more than respectable #6 according to Nielsen, but was beaten out by American Idol on both Wednesday and Thursday nights, followed by Modern Family, and Glee. However, the crack afficionado and cast still managed to win in ratings over House, NCIS (Head Slappers!), The Big Bang Theory, and Grey’s Anatomy, which rounded out the top ten. [TV By the Numbers]

Unfortunately, or fortunately, who knows! The network’s rebooted James Belushi and Jerry O’Connell legal drama, The Defenders, is looking at the chopping block. And, guys, it’s looking back and saying yum. Not the first show on the network staring down the barrel of cancellation, Medium had that honor. Reportedly, there’s a bit of scuttlebutt about how the network cancelled Medium just to put The Defenders, a seemingly worse show, in its place. That’s mostly all bunk since Medium had abysmal ratings and was slated for cancellation anyway. Case and point, I personally haven’t watched that show since the early 00’s right before the big, “I see dead people who haunt me and help me solve crimes” boom, which eventually became, “I have psychic/stellar deductive reasoning skills to help me solve crimes and wiggle my eyebrows at pretty girls” boom, all mostly serving to clog up television like a preternatural arterial blockage of unoriginality. But whatever, Psych! It rules! The Mentalist…not so much. Luckily, we’re only down to about two of those now, but no, it’s certainly not The Defenders fault. It was just time for Medium to end.


Things also aren’t going so well for T.J. Hooker’s new grumpy old man series, $#*! My Dad Says. Um, can I just say that the Zapf Dingbats My Dad Says Shit-show didn’t really look like a good idea to begin with? I don’t know, but something about James T. Kirk walking around in a khaki vest haranguing his son, even without a purse on his arm, just seems so very 1986. Estelle Getty is probably somewhere in the ether shaking an angry fist at the blasphemous portrayal of her shtick.

So, that’s it folks. CBS reigns supreme. This makes me sad, mostly. I blame everyone else. I take responsibility for The Big Bang Theory, but that’s all. We should gift wrap V in an alien egg incubator and give it to CBS. That would help. No, really, this is awesome for CBS, I think.

Meet Your New Favorite Planet: Tyche

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Astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believe they may have discovered a new planet in our solar system.  Nicknamed Tyche, the object is believed to be the size of four Jupiters, comprised of helium and hydrogen, and orbits our sun at a distance of 15,000AU (one AU, or Astronomical Unit, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, 15,000AU is roughly 1/4th of a light year).  This orbit puts it well within the boundaries of the Oort Cloud — a cloud of debris orbiting our sun with a radius of one light year — where long-term comets (those with an orbit greater than 200 years) originate.

Matese and Whitmire first proposed the existence of Tyche in 1999 as a result of studying the origins of long-term comets.  It was discovered that their orbits originated in a cluster that was roughly the same angle from the ecliptic, or the path of the Sun through space.  An object at least the size of Jupiter in the Oort cloud could explain the disruption of debris along this plane, which could in turn account for the pattern of mass extinctions on Earth.

In 1984, paleontologists David Raup and Jack Sepkoski found a pattern of mass extinctions in the fossil record dating back 250 million years.  They discovered that every 26 million years, a mass extinction occurred.  The lack of any Earth-based evidence of any sort of change led the team to believe that the cause was extra-terrestrial.  The existence of Tyche could explain this pattern due to the orbit of Tyche disrupting Oort Cloud objects and send them towards the inner Solar System, thereby increasing Earth’s chances of an impact like the one that is believed to have killed the dinosaurs.

NASA’s WISE Telescope (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer) may have already discovered Tyche.  In April, the first batch of data from the telescope is set to be released.  Matese and Whitmire think that it will reveal the existence of Tyche within two years.  The object they are looking for is believed to have cloud bands much like Jupiter, and have a temperature of -73C, or five times warmer than Pluto.  The heat would be left over from its formation, and would take longer to cool off due to its size.

If Tyche is found to exist, though, it would not add to the number of planets in our Solar System, as it most likely formed around another star and then captured by the Sun’s gravitational field.  The International Astronomical Union would most likely create a new category for this planet.