Today I received in the mail a box containing a CD marked, oddly, “Dog With Coconut”. Hoorah! Vacation pictures from my partner in crime, Fractal. The only person who would have been as excited about a run-down Costa Rican mortuary as I was.

When traveling to foreign countries, I highly reccomend not lugging a camera with you. They are heavy, expensive, and eternally prone to falling into ponds, getting stolen by erstwhile nice-looking grandmotherly types, or being left behind on various forms of public transportation. Instead, invite your photographically inclined friends to go on vacation with you. This way you have a record of your adventures without all the fuss.

Fractal hauled not one, but an entire duffel bag full of various cameras (mostly plastic ones circa 1987, some of which are held together with such technological innovations as rubber bands and cleverly folded bits of cigarette packs) around with us, along with a plethora of expired film. This may seen absurd in this newfangled digital age, but it is the only way to acheive vacation photos that actually look like they were taken in the mid-1970’s:

a few more after the jump…

So, I’ve been a slacker at posting here, mostly because I’ve been hella busy and any posting I’ve done has gone into Haute Macabre.

What have I been busy with? Reinventing the salon. Not the sort one gets one’s hair done at, but the  16th and 17th-century ideal of a gathering place for artists and intelligentsia, a place for cross-pollination of ideas and a mingling of the best and the brightest minds around. It’s an interesting concept, and a tough one to do: how do you pull together interesting people under one roof, and begin to form the sort of community in which a free flow of ideas and creativity just naturally happens?

Meet my new baby: The Bone Room Presents. A gallery by day, and space for author talks, lectures, classes and gatherings by night, all tied together with a single theme: Natural History.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter!

Also, I will be constantly on the lookout for artists to show in the gallery, as well as for people who will be in the Bay Area to give academic lectures, authors to speak and sign books, and people with interesting skills to give classes. Write me if you would be interested in becoming a part of the project! So far, our Grand Opening was an artist reception for engraver Sharon Augusta Mitchell, and a reading, talk, and book signing by the amazing Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

To give you some idea, here is a talk Mary did at this year’s TED conference, entitled “10 Things You Didn’t KNow About Orgasm”. Wait for the pig-diddling video. It’s AWESOME.

Heads Up! Pigface online listening party – new album finished! 

Hey! Join me tonight, Tuesday, June 9 at 8:00pm CST for an online Pigface listening party. I’ll be chatting online with Martin Atkins and other special guests while listening to the 6 – the new album.. 

This album has been a long time coming. Pigface started recording (and filming) at the very end of the Free For All tour – some 3.5 years in the making and five years since the last album. You’d better get your head on straight and listen to some of the new songs before the tour is announced!

To participate in the listening party go here: http://invisiblerecords.com/community/news/-test- 
and click the big button that says enter the chat room. 

What is it that makes a photograph ‘noir’? It’s a term that seems to get bandied about a lot lately, and used to mean any old black-and-white photo. First off, ‘Noir’ has a whole lot to do with lighting.  Film Noir was shot in high contrast black and white, often using low-key and chiaroscuro effects- using a single bright light to separate the foreground from the shadows. The results are purposefully eerie, especially if the subject is surrounded by deep shadows. You will see the same types of lighting in related genres as well- horror, for example, and German expressionist films (think Nosferatu), which are often considered the forerunners of film noir, although the two often seemed to feed back and forth.

Secondly, ‘noir’ has a great deal to do with subject matter. No matter how striking the lighting or how mysterious the shadows, a photo of a kitten is unlikeley to qualify at ‘noir’. Noir films were full of sexuality and violence, sometimes critiquing modern ‘moral ambiguity’ and sometimes seeming to fetishize it. The expressionist films dealt with dark material as well, although it was often handled through symbolism and hyperbole.

Photos by Ryder Makeup Labs

It is not often that I listen to a CD and immediately jack off. It just happened, with The Enemy’s “We Are The Enemy”.

At first when I looked the band up after hearing a few songs, I thought David Thrussel was the voice behind an entirely fake band . Their MySpace page had a lineup listed that appeared to be absolute bullshit, with pictures of some hipster kids, even though there is no way to hide Thrussel’s “I am fucking you in the ass right now and I’m about to come” voice, or his fuck-being-cool-I’m-pissed-off politics. (And I am very unsure which is hotter.) However, it appears that just to confuse me there are actually TWO bands called “The Enemy”, which appeared at roughly the same time, one in Austrailia (Thrussel’s) and one in the UK (filled with hipsters). Sad, as the hipster oen is currently on tour and for a minute I was really excited.

I hate to say it, but the last time a CD it hit me in the clit like this, it was another David Thrussel project, SNOG. It is really, really a shame that the man is not physically attractive. I call it Leonard Cohenitis. It’s why girls think Nick Cave is hot (actually, Nick Cave IS hot, except in profile, when it all goes to Hell).

So, I’ve been pretty much MIA from this site, mostly because I’ve been pouring my energy into getting Haute Macabre up and running and making sure there is enough content on it to keep interest up. It’s been getting TREMENDOUS response, so we’re in the process of building an actual website for it, as well, which is just as excruciating as I remember it being.

However, I figured an update was due:

- Suicidegirls just put up a shop on Shopfick, which I don’t recommend as the prices are a bit higher than in the SG Shop. However, we did spend an entire day shooting ridiculous little videos for Shopflick, so if you’re bored you can watch me, Missy, Sash, Rigel, and Des make arsehats of ourselves trying to talk like QVC girls.

-Over at Zivity, I have a new set up- “Hollywood Babylon”, shot by FotoMark. If you still need a free Zivity trial membership- CLICK HERE!

My ad for Brimstone organics is currently a full two-page spread in the December issue of StatusInk- one guy liked the picture so much he had it permanently atatched:

Beyond that, I’ve spent the holidays in grand style- was back in SF for New Year’s and then off to Vegas to shoot machine guns! Now I’m back in Los Angeles, broke as Hell and jobless, but excited about heading back to the Bay come March.

Furtling:

The use of ones hands to simulate or create the impression of anatomical features in a postcard or photograph. This practice was more commonly for entertainment purposes rather than overt sexual gratification.

In an era before radio and television, Furtling was a somewhat common parlor phenomenon in the Victorian era. -Courtesy of the Urban Dictionary

Wait, WHAT???

Let me explain. You take a photograph or drawing and cut out various naughty bits, then use your hands and fingers to recreate the missing features. A good furtler can imitate legs, breasts, buttocks, and even more intimate ares- this is my finger:

That's one hot furtle!

.

Further your Furtling:

-More hot finger photos at The Secret Finger Trick

-Be the life of your next steam punk tea party by printing out these Furtling Postcards kindly provided by Fentiman’s.

-The Naughty Victorian Handbook: The Rediscovered Art of Erotic Hand Manipulation

I would like to introduce you to Haute Macabre, a brand new dark fashion blog from the twisted brains of yours truly and her good buddy Samantha, dedicated to the way dark fashion should be (read, we hate mall Goths too). We are in beta right now, so feel free to leave us comments, suggestions, or presents. Or send us samples. We like that idea.

I will of course be continuing my VISAGoth column here as well.

Finally, childhood photography I can appreciate: the horror photography of Joshua Hoffine.

Caged: Lux Asthetic, 2008

Edgar: I have an entertaining idea for you, my little night-bird. Why don’t you stand upright in the closet all night? You might fancy yourself walled up by mistake. It should prove exhilarating, and introduce you to unparalleled new sensations…

From Claustrophilia, by Amy Freed

Claustrophilia is Amy Freed’s subtly erotic play about Edgar Allen Poe and his child bride, Virginia. In her fictionalized account, the girl who inspired Annabel Lee becomes increasingly enthralled with confinement in small spaces and the freedom it gives her within her own mind. Night after night, she urges Poe to lock her in closets and nail her in barrels, smother her in blankets and tie her to chairs, and by day she recounts her journeys through internal landscapes.

Added to my Christmas wish list when it randomly appeared as I was Googling this:

Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in Midieval Literature

Because really, noone did it better than those guys.