melissa gira grant

On.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:08:45 -0800

On.

Stay safe, New York.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:46:05 -0800

Stay safe, New York.

Pour L’Egyptienne (from “Six Epigraphes...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:40:33 -0800

Pour L’Egyptienne
(from “Six Epigraphes Antiques,” Claude Debussy)
performed by Ensemble Musical de Paris

(I did some damage to my theme. I know.)

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:35:44 -0800

(I did some damage to my theme. I know.)

Scouting for what the building that housed Anais Nin’s...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:37:27 -0800

Scouting for what the building that housed Anais Nin’s printing press in the 1940’s may have looked like then. This is one block away.

(via)

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:06:36 -0800

(via)

Stripperwrecks: on questionable naked...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:47:00 -0800

Stripperwrecks: on questionable naked aesthetics

thestripperhatesyou & Kat have turned around this topic quite a bit, but I want to boil it down to the essential meme-able portion. So. I propose an investigation into Stripperwrecks: the most questionable aesthetic choices of naked dancing for money (and related erotic industries).

The subject for this round: GET ME AWAY FROM HERE I’M DYING, or, the most questionable choices of stripper soundtracks. We can blame outdated jukeboxes, or iTunes shuffle, or dj’s with boners and axes to grind, but the common thread here is: we actually took our clothes off, to this.

I’m starting. Fall 2004. San Francisco. The Lusty Lady. A skinny beardo boy is jacking off in the booth in front of me when this comes on. Of course. I’m test-driving a fancy blonde hairpiece passed on by a co-worker who wore it once as part of her Nelson costume for Halloween. It’s enormous, bump-it-y high and makes my eyes look even bigger and my body obscenely, little-girl-ishly, out of proportion.

Luna, who’s all mall-gothed out for the stage show though she never dresses like that usually, in a torn fishnet shirt made from pantyhose and Hot Topic boots in stinky PVC, is working the window next to me, and beardo keeps stealing glances at her. I take this as a challenge, shimmy even nearer to the glass so he can’t crane his barely-hairy neck to take in the girl who, next to blonde Barbie me, looks way more like she brings herself off at the end of the night, alone in her bed under a shrine made from old NME covers, naked but for a well-worn cardigan and her own tears.

He’s crestfallen at the possibility that he’s going to have an orgasm in front of such an obviously uncool girl, unaware that I’m paid to prop up a certain common denominator of male fantasy, and today, not just his. And neither is Luna perfect, but given the choices, she’s less humiliating to his carefully-put-on sensibilities.

So “Ohhhh,” I say, blocking his view and flipping my “hair” towards him, mouthing along, just for fun. “Yeah, this is good. So you have the ‘Legal Man’ 7 inch at home, too?”

(via fauxlaroids)

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:01:00 -0800

(via fauxlaroids)

Reading pornography on my lunch break. (TicKL magazine,...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:45:14 -0800

Reading pornography on my lunch break. (TicKL magazine, tickl-magazine.com)

Too busy to photograph. Here’s all there is.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:04:59 -0800

Too busy to photograph. Here’s all there is.

“The one that got away”

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:12:00 -0700

“The one that got away”

Bryan Ferry, “These Foolish Things”

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:12:39 -0700

Bryan Ferry, “These Foolish Things”

"His thesis is that San Francisco’s legacy has been shaped as much by sexual culture wars as it..."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:54:46 -0700

“His thesis is that San Francisco’s legacy has been shaped as much by sexual culture wars as it has been by class, ethnicity or earthquakes.”

- ‘Erotic City,’ by Josh Sides

In the Mood for Love (2000) d. Wong Kar-wai (via)

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:08:00 -0700

In the Mood for Love (2000)
d. Wong Kar-wai

(via)

Real Rebels Risk

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:54:00 -0700

“The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naïve, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The New Rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of the gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law.” —David Foster Wallace in ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction’ (via Mer, via claytoncubitt)

Love in the time of whatever

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:51:00 -0700

“Love at the beginning of the 21st century has been diffused and discredited. Feminism is partly to blame, but only partly. We inhabit a world in which every aspect of romance from meeting to mating has been streamlined, safety-checked, and emptied of spiritual consequence. The result is that we imagine we live in an erotic culture of unprecedented opportunity when, in fact, we live in an erotic culture that is almost unendurably bland.” - Cristina Nehring (via heartbeatcity)

Roxy Music, “Editions Of You” (For Your Pleasure,...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:43:59 -0700

Roxy Music, “Editions Of You”
(For Your Pleasure, 1973)

“I hope something special will step in to my life / Another fine edition of you / A pin-up done in shades of blue”

Halloween

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:35:07 -0700

Where does one get little unicorn figurines?

Campbell Apartment, Grand Central Station. (Life slowly moves...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:17:09 -0700

Campbell Apartment, Grand Central Station. (Life slowly moves above Houston, also.)

10 tactics: for turning information into action:...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:20:32 -0700

10 tactics: for turning information into action: trailer

(It’s here, this marvelous thing I worked on this summer with Tactical Tech! And crazy timing? It’s the first internet video I watched from my desk at Third Wave, where I started working today.)