Just how much was she the mistress of desire, and how much a mere meat puppet?
We’ve stared at her photos for so many decades, looked into those eyes and perceived so many countless life-affirming fantasies. We’ve assigned to her superhuman attributes on the basis of a consistently and profoundly confidant photographic demeanor. Given the brutal facts of her post-pinup life, we’re left to wonder whether we can still sustain the precious illusion…
It takes very little introspection to arrive at one of the primary reasons for Bettie Page’s appeal. Her image, as silently projected through thousands of photos (and even a few hundred yards of film), creates a personal illusion for each and every one of us. The mystery is almost sacred. We have no idea who she is, yet each of us feels as though she’s a personal friend. We are convinced her smile is genuine. We are assured that her grimace is a put-on.
I know I’m posting this up everywhere I possibly can (except perhaps at Lolebrity.net) but it deserves repeating. Quite an exclusive gathering this will be.
From a bright-eyed Friday, September 4th through to a groggy, shaken Tuesday the 8th morning, we’ll be closeting ourselves away in a secluded BC resort doing nothing but writing. The goal: to create a novel from start to finish in three straight days.
Every year the 3 Day Novel Contest comes around, and every year, something gets in the way. The purpose of this retreat is to ensure that over those three caffeine and stress-packed days, you have nothing else to do but write. And maybe slam some energy drinks.
a resort within an easy ferry ride/drive of Vancouver
Town/City:
Beautiful BC
Phone:
778-235-0592 but email instead, PLEASE
Email:
lorraine.murphy at gmail.com
Meals, shelter, companionship and isolation as you choose: all are included in the price. We’re still in negotiations, but at this point it looks like the four days (checkout 11am Tuesday) will run us about $500, including your 3 Day Novel Contest registration fee of $50.
There is an absolute maximum of 20 attendees, so express your interest sooner rather than later.
Obviously, we’ve yet to lock all the deets down, so consider this a preliminary announcement and we’ll consider your ATTENDING/MAYBE/NOPE RSVP to be equally tentative until everything is ready for launch. We’ll contact everyone then with the official registration link, where you’ll be able to make your reservation via debit, paypal, or credit card. For now, just drop a comment or email to let us know you’re interested and we’ll keep you informed.
Oh, and by the way, we’re not officially affiliated with the 3 Day Novel Contest, we’re just big fans who’ve been thinking about doing this for years.
Michio Hoshino, a photographer known for his pictures of bears and other wildlife, was mauled to death by a brown bear on the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia. He was in his mid-40’s and lived in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Encouraging hints are emerging, leading those who’ve enjoyed his fine words even as we’ve missed his fine mind for, say, the last seven or eight years, to hope that the message might yet match the medium in terms of quality. And we are all about the terms of quality, yo. One of the earliest expressions of senility in retreat came in the form of this remarkable video and article:
Christopher Hitchens Gets Waterboarded
From http://www.vf.com. How does it feel to be “aggressively interrogated”? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America’s use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere. VF.com has the footage. Related: “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” from the August 2008 issue
Interview conducted by David Rose and filmed by Arya Surowidjojo.
Note the opening remarks: I don’t know what Hitchens did to piss Graydon Carter off, but Toby Young is lucky he got out of there when he did, from the looks of things.
So, why did getting waterboarded so suddenly turn Hitch‘s mind from self-centered, cranky mush, to something closer to a source of intellectual insight? It’s complicated, but I have an idea.
Actually, that generally goes without saying, doesn’t it? Both parts of that sentence.
So, the idea is this: as we all know, Hitchens is infamously immoderate of appetite(s). Since pre-puberty his brain has been stewed in a tepid chemical bath of scotch, tar, nicotine, preservatives, unmentionables, Red Dye #’s 1 through 642, and whatever it is that middle-class dealers cut their drugs with. Naturally, as time went on the effects got worse, culminating in the interminable Route 66 piece aforementioned, not to mention the neaderthal reactionarianism and spittle-flecked defensiveness that have marked/marred his work ever since.
Through the (admittedly rather drastic, but hey, we’ve got to be realists in this world today, amIrite?) use of the latest in waterboarding technology, thanks to one short session, the patient’s brain is already showing signs of improvement. We at the ol’ raincoaster blog believe this to be the result of nothing less than the cleansing flushing action of a pure water near-drowning, a remarkably successful (and inexpensive) way to restore the brain itself to youth and beauty.
Waterboarding. The Cranial Neti Pot of the Future.
Were we making the terrorists smarter and younger all this time? I see a future for battle-scarred veterans; no longer dependent on a sadly-depleted GI Bill or consigned to a gloomy and inadequate Veteran’s Hospital, nor shunted to the streets, they can now use the skills they developed across the oceans in the millions of American day spas. Spa visits will never be the same.
Well, it’s been far too long since we’ve taken a stroll down Self-Referential Road on the ol’ raincoaster blog, but that situation is about to be rectified. For lo, in addition to having broken into Vangroover’s Social Media Elite for Sale Or Rent (aka Will Tweet for Access) and been asked to some pretty damn-fine swankaliciously exciting events, including some I can’t tell you about yet (for lo, it would endanger my access to the open bar, and since I’m on a liquid fast that could be catastrophic and I know you wouldn’t want that to happen, right? right) and the recently blogged Capones and Bombay Sapphire events.
And as I’ve gotten on the radar for invitations, so I’ve also scrambled and clawed my way onto the radar for interviews, which come with much greater exposure, if far less gin. I’m gonna hafta do something about that: social mediaistas, are you with me? I say we get together and talk about going on strike over a few drinks and then forget all about the movement, as usual.
Anyhoohow/whatever, Kontent Creative just up and emailed me and interviewed me that way. This will sound familiar to some people. Unlike on previous occasions, I actually got back to them relatively promptly and, thus, they put it up promptly as well. Kontent Creative has a snazzy angle: each interview is just five questions, obviously designed to appeal to limited attention spans of the Twitterati. So there goes your barrier to entry.
2) What is your favourite online resource?
It’s a tie between Fark and The Guardian. The day is not complete until I’ve checked both of them, and on certain days it’s quite difficult to tell them apart, really. Except Fark would never let Polly Toynbee near a keyboard.
raincoaster 