#eva hayward

[zurich-snows]

Eva Jospin, Forêt Palatine, 2019-2020, at Among the Trees, Hayward Gallery, 2020. © Eva Jospin 2020. Courtesy of Hayward Gallery. Photo: Linda Nylind

[hotvintagepoll]

THE TOURNAMENT IS OVER! Eartha Kitt lounges in her deck chair in the sun, dipping her toes in the pool with Toshiro Mifune and sipping a brightly colored fruity something with an umbrella in it.

Far below in the shadow realm, however, the fallen hotties dance in the dark—let's take a minute to look back at them under the cut.

PRELIM PRETTIES:

Claude Gensac, Silvia Pinal, Ewa Aulin, Rita Tushingham, Annette Funicello, Norma Bengell, Catherine Spaak, Brigitte Auber, Micheline Presle, Nanette Fabray, Libertad Lamarque, Vera Miles, Martha Raye, Catherine McLeod, Virginia Mayo, Elizabeth Allan, Belle Bennet, Virginia Cherill, Mary Brian, Ruth Chatterton, Agnes Ayres, Merna Kennedy, Marie Prevost, Corinne Griffith, May Allison, Virginia Brown Faire, Alice Brady, and Jetta Goudal

ROUND ONE WONDERS:

Angie Dickinson, Thelma Ritter, Geraldine Chaplin, Evelyn Preer, Vanessa Brown, Betty Blythe, Susan Hayward, Mae Clarke, Sally Ann Howes, Ossi Oswalda, Adrienne La Russa, Hermione Gingold, Barbara Bouchet, Melina Mercouri, Anna Karina, Edwige Fenech, Charmian Carr, Pina Pellicer, Marlène Jobert, Tsuru Aoki, Alice Roberts, Leila Hyams, Lady Tsen Mei, Geneviève Bujold, Dolores Hart, Anita Berber, Bonita Granville, Vonetta McGee, Claire Windsor, Zizi Jeanmaire, Tuesday Weld, Grace Darmond, Carol Channing, Deanna Durbin, Laraine Day, Mariette Hartey, Wendy Hiller, Candy Darling, Hermione Baddely, Valeria Creti, Ella Raines, Ann Miller, Dana Wynter, Dalida, Martine Beswick, Gale Storm, Simone Signoret, Cristina Gaioni, Mabel Normand, Stéphane Audran, Ruth Weyher, Anna Wiazemsky, Ann Sheridan, Sandhya Shantaram, Alice White, Anne Francis, Gena Rowlands, Lyda Borelli, May Whitty, Cathleen Nesbitt, Jessica Walter, Virna Lisi, Barbara Shelley, Iris Hall, Heather Angel, Anne Shirley, Joanna Pettet, Virginia O'Brien, Joan Collins, Greer Garson, Gracie Allen, Peggy Ryan, Frances Dee, Shirley Maclaine, Geraldine Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Margaret Hamilton, Eva Gabor, Francesca Bertini, Julie Adams, Olga Baclanova, Misa Uehara, Yvette Vickers, Milena Dravić, Jenny Jugo, Madeleine Carroll, Benita Hume, Olive Borden, Shirley Jones, Miyoshi Umeki, Dorothy Lamour, Gale Sondergaard, Mary Anderson, Charlotte Greenwood, Sybil Seely, Mona Barrie, Kathryn Grayson, Katharine Ross, Madge Bellamy, Rhonda Fleming, Sally Gray, Jana Brejchová, Debra Paget, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Evelyn Brent, Zelma O'Neal, Marie Laforêt, Türkan Şoray, Beatriz Costa, Irene Zazians, Eleanor Powell, Susan Luckey, Patsy Kelly, Lil Dagover, Norma Talmadge, Dorothy Mackaill, Madge Evans, Virginia McKenna, Amália Rodrigues, Mamie Van Doren, Valerie Hobson, Isabel Jeans, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Claire Luce, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Nieves Navarro Garcia, Janet Leigh, Carmen Miranda, Jean Harlow, Aud Egedge-Nissen, Nina Foch, Jean Simmons, Piper Laurie, Katy Jurado, Jayne Mansfield, Anita Garvin, Frances Farmer, Lizabeth Scott, Joan Greenwood, Una Merkel, Arlene Francis, Ethel Merman, Doris Day, Suzanne Pleshette, Ruta Lee, Carolyn Jones, June Richmond, Eva Nil, Diana Dors, Anna Chang, Colleen Moore, Alexis Smith, Yvette Mimieux, Ruby Keeler, Viola Dana, Dolores Grey, Marie Windsor, Danielle Darieux, Jean Parker, Julie Christie, Acquanetta, Leatrice Joy, Ghita Nørby, Julie Newmar, Joanne Woodward, Sandra Dee, Eva Marie Saint, Simone Simon, Katherine Dunham, Birgitte Price, Lee Grant, Anita Page, Flora Robson, Martha Sleeper, Elsie Ames, Isabel "Coca" Sarli, Glenda Farrell, Kathleen Burke, Linden Travers, Diane Baker, Joan Davis, Joan Leslie, Sylvia Sidney, Marie Dressler, June Lockhart, Emmanuelle Riva, Libertad Leblanc, Susannah Foster, Susan Fleming, Dolores Costello, Ann Smyrner, Luise Rainer, Anna Massey, Evelyn Ankers, Ruth Gordon, Eva Dahlbeck, Ansa Ikonen, Diana Wynyard, Patricia Neal, Etta Lee, Gloria Stuart, Arletty, Dorothy McGuire, Mitzi Gaynor, Gwen Verdon, Maria Schell, Lili Damita, Ethel Moses, Gloria Holden, Kay Thompson, Jeanne Crain, Edna May Oliver, Lili Liliana, Ruth Chatterton, Giulietta Masina, Claire Bloom, Dinah Sheridan, Carroll Baker, Brenda de Banzie, Milú, Hertha Thiele, Hanka Ordonówna, Lillian Roth, Jane Powell, Carol Ohmart, Betty Garrett, Kalina Jędrusik, Edana Romney, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Kay Kendall, Ruth Hussey, Véra Clouzot, Jadwiga Smosarska, Marge Champion, Mary Astor, Ann Harding, María Casares, Maureen O'Sullivan, Mildred Natwick, Michèle Morgan, Romy Schneider, Elisabeth Bergner, Celeste Holm, Betty Hutton, Susan Peters, Mehtab, Leslie Caron, Anna Sten, Janet Munro, Nataša Gollová, Eve Arden, Ida Lupino, Regina Linnanheimo, Sonja Henie, and Terry (what a good girl)

ROUND TWO BEAUTIES:

Evelyn Nesbit, Thelma Todd, Tura Satana, Helen Gibson, Maureen O'Hara, Rocío Dúrcal, Mary Nolan, Lois Maxwell, Maggie Smith, Zulma Faiad, Ursula Andress, Musidora, Delphine Seyrig, Marian Marsh, Leatrice Joy, Sharon Tate, Pina Menichelli, Teresa Wright, Shelley Winters, Lee Remick, Jane Wyman, Martita Hunt, Barbara Bates, Susan Strasberg, Marie Bryant, Diana Rigg, Jane Birkin, Rosalind Russell, Vanessa Redgrave, Brigitte Helm, Gloria Grahame, Rosemary Clooney, Bebe Daniels, Constance Bennett, Lilian Bond, Ann Dvorak, Jeanette Macdonald, Pouri Banayi, Raquel Welch, Vilma Bánky, Dorothy Malone, Olive Thomas, Celia Johnson, Moira Shearer, Priscilla Lane, Dolores del Río, Ann Sothern, Françoise Rosay, June Allyson, Carole Lombard, Jeni Le Gon, Takako Irie, Barbara Steele, Claudette Colbert, Lalita Pawar, Asta Nielsen, Sandra Milo, Maria Montez, Mae West, Alma Rose Aguirre, Bibi Andersson, Joan Blondell, Anne Bancroft, Elsa Lanchester, Nita Naldi, Suchitra Sen, Dorothy Van Engle, Elisabeth Welch, Esther Williams, Loretta Young, Margueritte De La Motte, Ita Rina, Constance Talmadge, Margaret Lockwood, Barbara Bedford, Josette Day, Stefania Sandrelli, Jane Russell, Doris Dowling, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Donna Reed, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Billie Burke, Kyōko Kagawa, Françoise Dorléac, Hend Rostom, Monica Vitti, Lilian Harvey, Marjorie Main, Jeanne Moreau, Lola Flores, Ann Blyth, Janet Gaynor, Jennifer Jones, Margaret Sullavan, Sadhana, Ruby Myers, Lotus Long, Honor Blackman, Marsha Hunt, Debbie Reynolds, Michèle Mercier, Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur, Judy Holliday, Tippi Hedren, Susse Wold, Vera-Ellen, Carmelita González, Nargis Dutt, Purnima, Harriet Andersson, Yvonne De Carlo, Miroslava Stern, Sheila Guyse, Helen, Margaret Dumont, Betty Grable, Joan Bennett, Jane Greer, Judith Anderson, Liv Ullman, Vera Zorina, Joan Fontaine, Silvana Mangano, and Lee Ya-Ching

ROUND THREE ELECTRIFIERS:

Jean Hagen, Sumiko Mizukubo, Mary Philbin, Ann-Margret, Margaret Rutherford, Claudia Cardinale, Eleanor Parker, Jessie Matthews, Theresa Harris, Brigitte Bardot, Alla Nazimova, Faye Dunaway, Marion Davies, Anna Magnani, Theda Bara, Myrna Loy, Kay Francis, Fay Wray, Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Hideko Takamine, France Nuyen, Claudine Auger, Miriam Hopkins, Maylia Fong, Samia Gamal, Maude Fealy, Machiko Kyō, Sharmila Tagore, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, Juanita Moore, Anna Fougez, Waheeda Rehman, Ruan Lingyu, Nina Mae McKinney, Ethel Waters, Nadira, Olivia de Havilland, Abbey Lincoln, Louise Beavers, Agnes Moorehead, Lana Turner, Norma Shearer, Maria Falconetti, Reiko Sato, Marie Doro, Clara Bow, Margaret Lindsay, Catherine Denueve, Madhabi Mukherjee, Rosaura Revueltas, Hu Die, Mary Pickford, Fredi Washington, Louise Brooks, Leonor Maia, Merle Oberon, Paulette Goddard, Vivien Leigh, Francine Everett, Savitri, Tita Merello, and Meena Kumari

ROUND FOUR STUNNERS:

Judy Garland, Dorothy Dandridge, Yoshiko Yamaguchi, Marilyn Monroe, Irene Papas, Lupe Vélez, Pola Negri, Gene Tierney, Barbara Stanwyck, Gina Lollobrigida, Lena Horne, Nutan, Jean Seberg, Kim Novak, Gladys Cooper, Tallulah Bankhead, Linda Darnell, Julie Andrews, Carmen Sevilla, Gloria Swanson, Glynis Johns, Anne Baxter, Angela Lansbury, Anita Ekberg, Toshia Mori, Deborah Kerr, Hazel Scott, Chelo Alonso, Cyd Charisse, Nancy Kwan, Devika Rani, Shima Iwashita, and Anouk Aimée

ROUND FIVE SMOKESHOWS:

Setsuko Hara, Pearl Bailey, Joan Crawford, Madhubala, Marpessa Dawn, Keiko Awaji, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Ava Gardner, Greta Garbo, Grace Kelly, Xia Meng, Suraiya, Natalie Wood, María Félix, and Mbissine Thérèse Diop

ROUND SIX SEXY LADIES:

Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Vyjyanthimala, Jane Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Josephine Baker, Elizabeth Taylor, and Ingrid Bergman

QUARTER FINALIST GLAMAZONS:

Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Lauren Bacall

SEMIFINALIST ICONS:

Rita Moreno, Diahann Carroll

FINALIST FABULOSITY:

Hedy Lamarr

ULTIMATE CHAMPION OF THE HOT & VINTAGE MOVIE WOMAN TOURNAMENT:

Eartha Kitt

[hotmusketeerspoll]

Here stand the current entrants for the Magnificent Musketeer Tournament - updated

Submissions are still open, so if one of your favourite characters isn't here yet, make sure you send them in.

Also, if there's a character already here that you have strong feelings about, you can submit them yourself!

Quite a few characters have no text propaganda or photos, here's a list of those that need some help.

On to the list!

All contestants are listed chronologically, from oldest to newest

D’Artagnan

Douglas Fairbanks

Max Linder (Dart-In-Again)

Gene Kelly

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Jeremy Brett

Michael York

Jean Valmont

Chris O’Donnell

Gabriel Byrne

Hugh Dancy

Logan Lerman

Luke Pasqualino

Tamaki Ryou

Malachi Pullar-Latchman

François Civil

Athos

Oliver Reed

Kiefer Sutherland

John Malkovich

Matthew Macfadyen

Tom Burke

Uzuki Hayate

Vincent Cassel

Aramis

Richard Chamberlain

Igor Starygin

Charlie Sheen

Jeremy Irons

Luke Evans

Santiago Cabrera

Miya Rurika

Romain Duris

Porthos

Brian Blessed

Frank Finlay

Oliver Platt

Gerard Depardieu

Ray Stevenson

Howard Charles 

Pio Marmaï

Milady

Lana Turner

Faye Dunaway

Margarita Terekhova

Rebecca de Mornay

Milla Jovovich

Maimie McCoy

Mollie Hindle

Preeya Kalidas

Eva Green

Constance

Marguerite de la Motte

June Allyson

Raquel Welch

Julie Delpy

Gabriella Wilde

Tamla Kari

Lyna Khoudri

Richelieu

Nigel de Brulier

Vincent Price

Charlton Heston

Bernard Haller

Aleksandr Trofimov

Tim Curry

Christoph Waltz

Peter Capaldi

Rochefort

Guy Delorme

Christopher Lee

Boris Klyuev

Michael Wincott

Mads Mikkelsen

Marc Warren

Anne of Austria

Angela Lansbury

Geraldine Chaplin

Catherine Jourdan

Gabrielle Anwar

Anne Paurillard

Sheena Easton

Juno Temple

Alexandra Dowling

Vicky Krieps

King Louis XIII

Hugh O’Conor

Ryan Gage

Louis Garrel

Treville

Hugo Speer

Marc Barbé

Duke of Buckingham

Simon Ward

Orlando Bloom

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd

Planchet

Roy Kinnear

James Corden

Grimaud

William Phillips

Matthew McNulty

Jussac

Ángel del Pozo

Felton

Michael Gothard

Madame Chevreuse

Sophie Craig

Madame Coquenard

Jennifer Matter

Louis XIV

Louis Hayward

Richard Chamberlain

Leonardo DiCaprio

Robert Sheehan

Phillppe

Louis Hayward

Richard Chamberlain

Leonardo DiCaprio

Maria Theresa

Joan Bennett

Vivien Merchant

Kristina Krepela

Cardinal Mazarin

Gigi Proietti

Gerard Depardieu

Michael Ironside

Raoul

C. Thomas Howell

Peter Sarsgaard

Lousie de la Valliere

Jenny Agutter

Mordaunt

Michael Gothard

Kim Cattrall (Justine de Winter)

[thatbiologist]

G’eth Character Name Bank

First Names

Masculine Names

Alfred, Andrew, Arlo, Arthur, Balthazar, Barry, Ben, Benedick, Bernard, Burchard, Cedric, Charibert, Crispin, Cyrill, Daegal, Derek, Digory, Drustan, Duncan, Edmund, Edwin, Elric, Evaine, Frederick, Geffery, George, Godfreed, Gregory, Guy, Harris, Harry, Horsa, Hugh, Humphrey, Iago, Jack, Jeremy, John, Kazamir, Kenric, Lawrence, Leoric, Lorik, Luke, Lynton, Lysander, Madoc, Magnus, Maukolum, Micheal, Miles, Milhouse, Mordred, Mosseus, Ori, Orvyn, Neville, Norbert, Nycolas, Paul, Percival, Randulf, Richard, Robert, Roderick, Stephen, Tennys, Theodoric, Thomas, Tristan, Tybalt, Victor, Vincent, Vortimer, Willcock, Willian, Wymond

Feminine Names

Adelin, Alice, Amelia, Beatrix, Beryl, Bogdana, Branwyne, Brigida, Catalina, Catherine, Claudia, Crystina, Deanna, Desdemona, Elaine, Elinora, Eliza, Enide, Eva, Ferelith, Fiora, Freya, Gertrude, Gregoria, Gueanor, Gwen, Gwendolyn, Hannah, Hegelina, Helen, Helga, Heloise, Henrietta, Igraine, Imogen, Jacquelyn, Jane, Jean, Jenny, Jill, Juliana, Juliet, Katie, Leela, Lettice, Lilibet, Lilith, Lucy, Luthera, Luz, Lyra, Malyna, Margherita, Marion, Meryl, Millie, Miranda, Molle, Morgana, Morgause, Nezetta, Nina, Novella, Olwen, Oriana, Oriolda, Osanna, Pamela, Petra, Philippa, Revna, Rohez, Rosalind, Rose, Sallie, Sarra, Serphina, Sif, Simona, Sophie, Thomasine, Tiffany, Ursula, Viola, Winifred, Yrsa, Ysabella, Yvaine, Zelda, Zillah

Gender-Neutral/Unisex Names

Adrian, Alex, Aiden, Arden, Ariel, Auden, Avery, Bailey, Blaire, Blake, Brett, Breslin, Caelan, Cadain, Cameron, Charlie, Dagon, Dana, Darby, Darra, Devon, Drew, Dylan, Evan, Felize, Fenix, Fernley, Finley, Glenn, Gavyn, Haskell, Hayden, Hunter, Jace, Jaime, Jesse, Jo, Kai, Kane, Karter, Kieran, Kylin, Landon, Leslie, Mallory, Marin, Meritt, Morgan, Nell, Noel, Oakley, Otzar, Paris, Peregrine, Quant, Quyn, Reagan, Remy, Robin, Rowan, Ryan, Sam, Samar, Sasha, Sloan, Stace, Tatum, Teegan, Terrin, Urbain, Vahn, Valo, Vick, Wallace, Waverly, Whitney, Yardley, Yarden, Zasha

Surnames

Surnames, Patrilineal - First Name (Patrilineal Surname)

Ace, Allaire, Appel, Arrow, Baker, Bamford, Barnard, Beckett, Berryann, Blakewood, Blanning, Bigge, Binns, Bisby, Brewer, Brickenden, Brooker, Browne, Buller, Carey, Carpenter, Carter, Cheeseman, Clarke, Cooper, Ead, Elwood, Emory, Farmer, Fish, Fisher, Fitzroy, Fletcher, Foreman, Foster, Fuller, Galahad, Gerard, Graves, Grover, Harlow, Hawkins, Hayward, Hill, Holley, Holt, Hunter, Jester, Kerr, Kirk, Leigh, MacGuffin, Maddock, Mason, Maynard, Mercer, Miller, Nash, Paige, Payne, Pernelle, Raleigh, Ryder, Scroggs, Seller, Shepard, Shore, Slater, Smith, Tanner, Taylor, Thatcher, Thorn, Tilly, Turner, Underwood, Vaughan, Walter, Webb, Wilde, Wood, Wren, Wyatt, Wynne

Surnames, Townships in G’eth - First Name of (Location)

Abelforth, Argent Keep, Barrow Springs, Barrowmere, Bedford, Brunhelm, Bumble, Casterfalls, Dunbridge, Falmore Forest, Folk’s Bounty, Frostmaid, Fulstad, Heller’s Crossing, Hertfordshire, Humberdale, Inkwater, Little Avery, Marrowton, Mistfall, Mistmire, Morcow, Necropolis-on-Sea, Otherway, Parsendale, Piddlehinton, Port Fairwind, Redcastle, Ransom, Rutherglen, Saint Crois, Tanner’s Folly, Tavern’s Point, Wilmington

Surnames, Geographical Locations in G’eth - First Name of the (Location)

Cove of Calamity, Deep Woods of Falmore, Eastern Isles, Eastern Mountains, Foothills, Frozen Peak, Lakes, Maegor Cobblestones, Northern Mountains, Southern Isle, Tangle, West Coast, Wild Wild Woods, Woods of Angarad

Surnames, Nickname - First Name the (Something) 

Bald, Bastard, Bear, Bearded, Big, Bird, Bold, Brave, Broken, Butcher, Bruiser, Careless, Caring, Charitable, Clever, Clumsy, Cold, Confessor, Coward, Crow, Cyclops, Devious, Devoted, Dog, Dragonheart, Dreamer, Elder, Faithful, Fearless, Fey, Fool, Friend, Generous, Giant, Goldheart, Goldfang, Gouty, Gracious, Great, Hag, Handsome, Hawk, Honest, Huge, Humble, Hungry, Hunter, Innocent, Ironfist, Ironside, Keeper, Kind, Lesser, Liar, Lionheart, Little, Loyal, Magical, Mercenary, Merchant, Messenger, Old, Orphan, Pale, Polite, Poet, Poor, Prodigy, Prophet, Proud, Reliable, Romantic, Rude, Selfish, Sellsword, Scab, Scholar, Shield, Shy, Singer, Sirrah, Slayer, Slug, Small, Stoneheart, Swift, Tadde, Talented, Tart, Tenacious, Timid, Tiny, Tough, Traveller, Trusted, Truthful, Viper, Wizard, Wolf, Wyrm

[lookingfornoonat2pm]

Ecstasy and Epilepsis

From the E Conze translation of the Heart Sutra.

"Therefore, O Sariputra,

in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness ;

No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind ; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind ; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to :

No mind-consciousness element ; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to : There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.

There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment."

From "Raving" by McKenzie Wark

"I was texting my friend Eva Hayward about it all morning. 1 don't know if some of these lines are hers or mine. A good conversation is also a rave that way, the blending, edgeless dance. It goes and then stops.

Problem with being human these days is that our subjectivity never adds up. The subject is always split, always divided, feels it lacks. You can spend years in therapy working through that. Or become a raver. Get out of your head, merge into k-time. Take some hard lefts. Drives go off in at least three directions: ravespace, xeno-euphoria, enlustment.

Maybe there's still more kinds of dissociation one can prac-tice. Practice, like an art. Maybe dissociation could be its own aesthetic category.' Not specifically a trans thing but something at which we're virtuosos."(p.48)

"From the autofictional writing of perceptions, then, to an autotheoretical writing of concepts. But with the general proviso that the auto that writes doesn't add up. It will be a mix, some part auto and some part allo, other, and more interestingly, part xeno-invitingly strange: xeno-flesh. Just fluctuating bundles of feelings and thoughts. And with the rave-situational proviso that what the auto needs most of all is moments when it can dissipate itself, not be there, pare down to a moving part or floating notion."(p.50)

I'm in Koyasan, Wakayama, Japan, reading the sutras sacred to Shingon alongside "Raving" by McKenzie Wark, a book about raves, bodies, and ketamine. Reminds me of reading Dada along with Rumi, some 14 years ago. Radically different routes to administer analogous wisdoms.

The thing with me and with epilepsy and with control is this: Almost every route "out of my head" requires crossing the feelings of dissociation I most closely associate with my seizure aura. It is almost impossible to find a way to "let go" that doesn't feel like I am about to just die. This isn't that special or specific to epileptics, I'm sure (in fact, I'm not sure how many epileptics actually experience the kind of dissociative experience I do as part of their auras). Either way, by 2024, it is practically mundane to mention that letting go, and "embracing life" or whatever requires crossing an abyss of some kind.

I was joking recently that, sooner or later, I will make the switch that so many cis men in the BDSM world do: domination becomes finally boring and completely redundant, so submission is the last and most important taboo to violate... there are other formulations of it, but the index of pleasure and control is the abstraction that resonates most with me (thanks, Wark). But I'm not sure if it isn't just a joke. I can understand the boredom, but I don't know if I will ever, ever, ever, ever overcome the terror that is entailed in letting go. Even framing it that way feels too cis, too masculine. I can't say seriously that I expect to ever trust a person enough to think that that loss of control will not result in death--irrational or not, I can't ignore this bodily wisdom.

On the way to Koyasan, I met a couple of German backpackers who were looking for the best vegan food Japan has to offer. When I said I planned to stay almost a week, "Wolfy" said, "Going to find yourself?" And I said, "Something like that." It might be more accurate to say I'm trying to lose myself.

I don't much care for ketamine, and nitrous oxide is fine, but mostly pretty much more addicting than it is transcending. Cannabis has helped me dissociate time and again, but it feels more proper to say that it helps me associate strictly: associate strictly with pleasure, associate strictly with the moment I'm in, or associate narrowly with the movie or video game or rock show I'm enjoying. Paranoia settles in too easily, though, so it's far from a reliable route.

I continue to flirt with Buddhism, and with esoteric and ecstatic traditions (NOT to be confused with one another), mainly because of its promise of nothingness. I come back to Vajrayana again and again because of the promise that compassion--an experience I only barely ever get out of, mainly temporarily, through sadism--will bring me unity with everything. The ecstatics promise a machinic dance upon which you can trust a safe return to presence. The esoterics promise instantaneous transformation of consciousness, without having to cross the abyss.

The vegan food is pretty fucking good here.

[kwebtv]

Burke’s Law -  List of Guest Stars

The Special Guest Stars of “Burke’s Law” read like a Who’s Who list of Hollywood of the era.  Many of the appearances, however, were no more than one scene cameos.  This is as complete a list ever compiled of all those who even made the briefest of appearances on the series.  

Beverly Adams, Nick Adams, Stanley Adams, Eddie Albert, Mabel Albertson, Lola Albright, Elizabeth Allen, June Allyson, Don Ameche, Michael Ansara, Army Archerd, Phil Arnold, Mary Astor, Frankie Avalon, Hy Averback, Jim Backus, Betty Barry, Susan Bay, Ed Begley, William Bendix, Joan Bennett, Edgar Bergen, Shelley Berman, Herschel Bernardi, Ken Berry, Lyle Bettger, Robert Bice, Theodore Bikel, Janet Blair, Madge Blake, Joan Blondell, Ann Blyth, Carl Boehm, Peter Bourne, Rosemarie Bowe, Eddie Bracken, Steve Brodie, Jan Brooks, Dorian Brown, Bobby Buntrock, Edd Byrnes, Corinne Calvet, Rory Calhoun, Pepe Callahan, Rod Cameron, Macdonald Carey, Hoagy Carmichael, Richard Carlson, Jack Carter, Steve Carruthers, Marianna Case, Seymour Cassel, John Cassavetes, Tom Cassidy, Joan Caulfield, Barrie Chase, Eduardo Ciannelli, Dane Clark, Dick Clark, Steve Cochran, Hans Conried, Jackie Coogan, Gladys Cooper, Henry Corden, Wendell Corey, Hazel Court, Wally Cox, Jeanne Crain, Susanne Cramer, Les Crane, Broderick Crawford, Suzanne Cupito, Arlene Dahl, Vic Dana, Jane Darwell, Sammy Davis Jr., Linda Darnell, Dennis Day, Laraine Day, Yvonne DeCarlo, Gloria De Haven, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Richard Devon, Billy De Wolfe, Don Diamond, Diana Dors, Joanne Dru, Paul Dubov, Howard Duff, Dan Duryea, Robert Easton, Barbara Eden, John Ericson, Leif Erickson, Tom Ewell, Nanette Fabray, Felicia Farr, Sharon Farrell, Herbie Faye, Fritz Feld, Susan Flannery, James Flavin, Rhonda Fleming, Nina Foch, Steve Forrest, Linda Foster, Byron Foulger, Eddie Foy Jr., Anne Francis, David Fresco, Annette Funicello, Eva Gabor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Reginald Gardiner, Nancy Gates, Lisa Gaye, Sandra Giles, Mark Goddard, Thomas Gomez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Sandra Gould, Wilton Graff, Gloria Grahame, Shelby Grant, Jane Greer, Virginia Grey, Tammy Grimes, Richard Hale, Jack Haley, George Hamilton, Ann Harding, Joy Harmon, Phil Harris, Stacy Harris, Dee Hartford, June Havoc, Jill Haworth, Richard Haydn, Louis Hayward, Hugh Hefner, Anne Helm, Percy Helton, Irene Hervey, Joe Higgins, Marianna Hill, Bern Hoffman, Jonathan Hole, Celeste Holm, Charlene Holt, Oscar Homolka, Barbara Horne, Edward Everett Horton, Breena Howard, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr., Arthur Hunnicutt, Tab Hunter, Joan Huntington, Josephine Hutchinson, Betty Hutton, Gunilla Hutton, Martha Hyer, Diana Hyland, Marty Ingels, John Ireland, Mako Iwamatsu, Joyce Jameson, Glynis Johns, I. Stanford Jolley, Carolyn Jones, Dean Jones, Spike Jones, Victor Jory, Jackie Joseph, Stubby Kaye, Monica Keating, Buster Keaton, Cecil Kellaway, Claire Kelly, Patsy Kelly, Kathy Kersh, Eartha Kitt, Nancy Kovack, Fred Krone, Lou Krugman, Frankie Laine, Fernando Lamas, Dorothy Lamour, Elsa Lanchester, Abbe Lane, Charles Lane, Lauren Lane, Harry Lauter, Norman Leavitt, Gypsy Rose Lee, Ruta Lee, Teri Lee, Peter Leeds, Margaret Leighton, Sheldon Leonard, Art Lewis, Buddy Lewis, Dave Loring, Joanne Ludden,  Ida Lupino, Tina Louise, Paul Lynde, Diana Lynn, James MacArthur, Gisele MacKenzie, Diane McBain, Kevin McCarthy, Bill McClean, Stephen McNally, Elizabeth MacRae, Jayne Mansfield, Hal March, Shary Marshall, Dewey Martin, Marlyn Mason, Hedley Mattingly, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Patricia Medina, Troy Melton, Burgess Meredith, Una Merkel, Dina Merrill, Torben Meyer, Barbara Michaels, Robert Middleton, Vera Miles, Sal Mineo, Mary Ann Mobley, Alan Mowbray, Ricardo Montalbán, Elizabeth Montgomery, Ralph Moody, Alvy Moore, Terry Moore, Agnes Moorehead, Anne Morell, Rita Moreno, Byron Morrow, Jan Murray, Ken Murray, George Nader, J. Carrol Naish, Bek Nelson, Gene Nelson, David Niven, Chris Noel, Kathleen Nolan, Sheree North, Louis Nye, Arthur O'Connell, Quinn O'Hara, Susan Oliver, Debra Paget, Janis Paige, Nestor Paiva, Luciana Paluzzi, Julie Parrish, Fess Parker, Suzy Parker, Bert Parks, Harvey Parry, Hank Patterson, Joan Patrick, Nehemiah Persoff, Walter Pidgeon, Zasu Pitts, Edward Platt, Juliet Prowse, Eddie Quillan, Louis Quinn, Basil Rathbone, Aldo Ray, Martha Raye, Gene Raymond, Peggy Rea, Philip Reed, Carl Reiner, Stafford Repp, Paul Rhone, Paul Richards, Don Rickles, Will Rogers Jr., Ruth Roman, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Gena Rowlands, Charlie Ruggles, Janice Rule, Soupy Sales, Hugh Sanders, Tura Satana, Telly Savalas, John Saxon, Lizabeth Scott, Lisa Seagram, Pilar Seurat, William Shatner, Karen Sharpe, James Shigeta, Nina Shipman, Susan Silo, Johnny Silver, Nancy Sinatra, The Smothers Brothers, Joanie Sommers, Joan Staley, Jan Sterling, Elaine Stewart, Jill St. John, Dean Stockwell, Gale Storm, Susan Strasberg, Inger Stratton, Amzie Strickland, Gil Stuart, Grady Sutton, Kay Sutton, Gloria Swanson, Russ Tamblyn. Don Taylor, Dub Taylor, Vaughn Taylor, Irene Tedrow, Terry-Thomas, Ginny Tiu, Dan Tobin, Forrest Tucker, Tom Tully, Jim Turley, Lurene Tuttle, Ann Tyrrell, Miyoshi Umeki, Mamie van Doren, Deborah Walley, Sandra Warner, David Wayne, Ray Weaver, Lennie Weinrib, Dawn Wells, Delores Wells, Rebecca Welles, Jack Weston, David White, James Whitmore, Michael Wilding, Annazette Williams, Dave Willock, Chill Wills, Marie Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sandra Wirth, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, Dana Wynter, Celeste Yarnall, Francine York.

[shhlima]

Congratulations EVA, you have been accepted into the University of Lima as JANE HAYWARD !! To keep your spot at UoL, make sure that you send us your account within 24 HOURS and complete the CHECKLIST. But beware, Shady Lima is just waiting to expose your secret!

OOC INFO

NAME/ALIAS: eva PRONOUNS: she/her AGE: 33 TIMEZONE: cst ACTIVITY LEVEL: 8/10 PREVIOUS RP BLOG: [redacted] TRIGGER(S): none ANYTHING ELSE?: nope!

INTRODUCTION

Hey, Lima, I’m JANE HAYWARD but everyone calls me JANE, I identify as a CIS WOMAN and use SHE/HER pronouns. I was born on JULY 16TH making me TWENTY years old and a CANCER. Most people call me the ACTIVIST, maybe that’s because I am PASSIONATE but also JUDGMENTAL. If I had to describe my vibe, I would say it revolves around SPIRITED DEBATES, DESIGNER PANTSUITS, & 80S HORROR FILMS. Of course there is one thing I hope no one ever finds out, and that's MY PARENTS ARE PAYING PUCK OFF TO CONCEAL THE FACT THAT I’M HIS BABY MAMA. Anyway, on a more fun note, people always say I look like ZARIA SIMONE .

FAMILY INFORMATION

HOMETOWN: westerville, ohio FAMILY: hayward TYPE OF SIBLING: full BIRTH ORDER: middle PARENTS STATUS: yes POSSIBLE SIBLINGS: full or adopted

SCHOOL DATA

YEAR IN SCHOOL: sophomore MAJOR/MINOR: political science EXTRACURRICULARS: glee, GSA LIVING QUARTERS: 2 br apartment with bree OCCUPATION: what is a job when your family is wealthy?

HEADCANONS

Growing up, the Haywards expected perfection from their children, and Jane was always one to comply with whatever was asked of her. After all, they were wealthy and given all sorts of advantages as children, such as music and dance lessons, creative summer camps, vacations that were both luxurious and educational. It only felt right to soak up the vast opportunities being presented to them, so by high school, Jane had never gotten any grade lowered than an A, could play multiple instruments, had been in show choir for years, had a dance background, and had developed a knack for fighting for what was right.

Call her a feminist, a social justice warrior, an activist — it's all true. After her parents had to sue the all boys' academy that her father and uncle attended for high school just to get her enrolled, Jane grew passionate about fighting for women's rights, as well as the rights for any and every one that was ever discriminated against or unjustly mistreated by the law. She's constantly attending protests, she started a Ride Home program as a teen that allows sober teenage girls to drive drunk girls home from parties to keep them safe, and she's regularly forcing her parents' friends to donate to important organizations and to even help the wrongly accused in Ohio hire good lawyers instead of public defenders. For her parents, this is practice for the political journey they plan to see her go through on her road to becoming the first female president, which is their goal for her whether Jane truly wants it or not.

One summer, Jane met one Noah Puckerman at a party, and him taking her virginity turned into her getting pregnant. The Haywards were not about to allow their gifted daughter be a teen mom, so they told everyone that she'd signed up for a study abroad program, while she was really staying with relatives on Martha's Vineyard and being homeschooled to conceal her pregnancy. Her family wanted her to either abort the baby or give it up for adoption, but Jane asked Puck what he wanted and Puck chose to keep their baby, a daughter they named Maya.

Thus the other part of the secret was born: in exchange for keeping Maya and raising her without their side of the family being involved, the Haywards pay Puck to keep the identity of Maya's mother a secret. Jane doesn't like it per se, but she also knows better than to go against her parents, so she's kept her word to stay out of her daughter's life and let Puck raise her alone. To do that, she didn't come home after she had Maya or after she got her diploma, enrolling in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to keep distance between her family.

Unluckily for Jane, she spent her first year of college partying and drinking to get rid of her mom guilt, and for the first time in her life, she'd even failed a few classes. Her parents were pissed, as one would expect, so they made her take a year off afterwards to get her shit together. Now, she's getting back to her old self, and her parents thought it was time she come back to Lima so they could keep her on track.

[dankusner]

From: Daniel Kusner Subject: Lawrence wright Date: September 7, 2015 at 1:29:18 PM CDT To: "Kusner, Daniel" Daniel.Kusner@dps.texas.gov

You could use this: "Austin is already at the center of the bicycling culture, with flatlands on one side and hills on the other, and great weather for cycling. All we need is more bikeways to make it the perfect place for bikes to rule."

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:10 PM, Kusner, Daniel Daniel.Kusner@dps.texas.gov wrote:

Next Thursday, author Lawrence Wright ("Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.") is coming to Dallas for a reading and signing to promote his newest, “God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State ” which Knopf releases on April 17.

In Chapter 7, “Big D,” Wright recalls having dinner with Robert Wilonsky. That same chapter, Wright says, “The Dallas Morning News, the most important paper in the state and one of the leading papers in the county."

PDF — 512 CYCOLOGY

PDF new yorker — 1988

Can God Save Texas? A Film God Like Richard Linklater Might Help

One of Texas film's greatest voices speaks on the "cruelty" of the criminal justice system in a new HBO docuseries.

Eva Raggio

Film director Richard Linklater takes a look at the inhumanity of Texas prisons. Mat Hayward/Getty Images for IMDbGod Save Texas, a trilogy of documentaries that debuted Feb. 27 on Max, examines some of the state’s deeply rooted issues. Based on the book God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright, the limited series was made in three parts, each by a different Texas director.

The first, “Hometown Prison,” was directed by Richard Linklater; the second, “The Price of Oil,” by Alex Stapleton; and the third, “La Frontera,” by Ilana Sosa.

Linklater has produced a widely varied body of work, including the highly stylized intellectual favorite Waking Life, the coming-of-age comedy and stoner cult classic Dazed and Confused and indie hits such as School of Rock and Bernie.

Cinephiles are perhaps most sincerely attached to his naturalist masterpieces on time, such as Boyhood — which followed its characters through scenes that took place over 12 years and earned Patricia Arquette a Best Supporting Actress Oscar— and the Before trilogy, in which he surprised viewers with out-of-the-blue sequels, completing a love story through near-voyeuristic glimpses of a couple (played by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) across cities and decades.

We spoke to Linklater via Zoom from Paris, where he's working on a film that’ll keep him away from his adopted hometown of Austin’s SXSW festival — an event he’s hardly missed in two decades. It's nighttime in the City of Lights, and he has Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and much more on his mind.

For the Austin-based director, dealing with real subjects (including his own mother, Diane Margaret Linklater, a former professor and advocate for inmates) in God Save Texas prompted a different form of investment into his film’s characters.

“I'm always close to my characters, even if I've kind of created them, written them,” Linklater says. “But there's a real actor there. There's a real person you're working with. So in this case, you're working with real people, you're getting their own personal stories. On one hand, it didn't feel that different. I want to have an affection and an understanding for people, but it's personal: It's their lives, it's my life, it's my mom. It couldn't help but be personal. And you're asking others to tell very personal, sometimes painful stories in their own lives. 

"So yeah, it's a big ask. But I think in a way, they trusted me because I was local and maybe they knew it was personal for me, but I feel close to every story. You're just trying to tell in the way you feel. So it felt right.”

Intercut with scenes from protests and stories of death row inmates, the film sees Linklater returning to Huntsville, a city 70 miles north of Houston that has the most active death row prison in the U.S. Viewers can practically smell the grease off the small-town diner menus as Linklater reflects with his subjects (many of them his old classmates), on how his hometown’s prison industry grew so wildly out of control — at least tenfold, from 10 prisons to 114 — in the past few decades, and uncovers the inhumanity of inmates' living conditions.

The auteur filmmaker is a proud Texan whose roots creep up in his work. And he maintains the love of home while decrying its systemic failures.

“You're catching me on the wrong night,” he says of his feelings for Texas. “We're executing an innocent guy tomorrow in Huntsville, Ivan Cantu, who's being put to death without … I mean, I can't believe it. I'm just stunned and really depressed, kind of a little desperate. We've been doing all we can. It's just like, gosh, the new normal. OK, we can kill innocent people. The next administration, maybe we can start … There's talk of camps. What's next? What can we put up with? 

"So on the one hand, I love Texas and I love the people, but I really do feel a disconnect with the cruelty. ‘Cause I know Texans aren't cruel by and large, but I think our government policies are extremely cruel, and this executing an innocent person is about the top of the list. So I don't know. It's times like this you feel pretty bad.”

Linklater says he didn’t stumble into any major production roadblocks, but taking on a project that required such a deeply personal investment was a matter of facing his past to expose a haunting present.

“Everyone was so giving and open and kind; I think it was just me getting over just wanting to go there myself,” he says. “This film concerns my mom. It's a lot of my own past. I was asking people to tell their stories. So it was just deciding to do it, I think. And I mean, these issues about criminal justice and the death penalty, these have swum around in my head all these years. 

“It was kind of cathartic and satisfying to find a home for some of these feelings. And my summation is fairly simple, really. I think after all of it, it's just like, yeah, the death penalty really does hurt a lot of … there's a lot of collateral damage to so many people and these state employees who have to be dragged through it. So to me, it's just kind of unnecessary trauma induced on innocent people.”

The film focuses on the trauma on both sides of the bars, from convicted inmates (many of whom proclaim their innocence) to state workers whose daily duties include strapping the bodies of death row prisoners onto and off the gurney. His opinions on the death penalty haven’t necessarily changed, but Linklater is more adamant than ever that the system predatorily exploits human error for profit, as we idly cede our rights to a state where punishment far too often exceeds the crime.

“My conclusion is don't do it,” he says. “I'm not a full-blown prison abolitionist, but I'm heading that way only in that — I don't mean let murderers out on the streets. I just think we could approach in a much more humane … the way we systematically create all this pain. We could systematically create more worthwhile treatment. I mean, face it, the prisons are full of people in on — it's mental health and drug addiction. If you treated those things, there goes 90% of the population right there.

“And then keep really the psychopaths, the murderers, serial sexual assaulters. I think we all have a vested interest in keeping certain people isolated from the general population, but people who made a bad mistake or something, I can't explain a tenfold increase. Crime is down everywhere. That's just the trend. Violent crime, everything's down. So why is our prison gone up 10 times in the last 40 years? I don't know. Things we have to ask ourselves. ... We should be investing in people, not just punishing them.”

For God Save Texas, he says, the trio of directors hardly compared pre-production notes beforehand. 

“We were sort of siloed in our own projects,” Linklater says. “We knew what everybody was doing, but I guess I went first and set a certain tone, maybe with the personal. When we started I don't think we really had a full plan. I was like, ‘Larry [Wright, who also executive-produced the series], so are we gonna go to Huntsville?’ And we just felt our way through it.”

Before and After the Before Trilogy

With his cinematic oeuvre falling into an array of styles and genres, Linklater doesn't give much thought to his overarching body of work, preferring to hyper-focus on each film. He says he hasn’t even pondered the uniting thread woven across his projects.

“I don't know. I'm always telling kind of character-based work,” he says. “The concept is never bigger than the characters. They're pretty far away from superhero or anything like that.”

While his films are often of the deeply felt variety that persist on viewers’ minds long after the credits roll, he also adds: “Or laugh. I've made comedies, a little bit of everything. I don't know, just always trying to express myself in my own relation to the particular story or subject.”

Least of all does he consider his legacy, or his writing living on through the ages.

“Boy, I can tell you, I never think I'll live on for generations,” he says with a laugh. “I'm really focused on what I'm doing like right now, making this movie. So that's really all you can do.”

He concedes that he's mildly aware the Before movies have prompted a niche form of tourism, made up of fans who visit the first film’s Vienna locations, for example. But he hasn’t been to Vienna in about 15 years and assumes the interest has dwindled. (It hasn’t; visit the record shop where Jesse and Celine share a charged exchange of awkward missed glances in a listening booth, and see for yourself.) He laughs at our joke suggesting the Austrian capital should’ve given him a key to the city.

Nonetheless, as he finds himself in Paris, Linklater has learned that the bookstore featured in the second installment, Before Sunset, is still a bit of a treasure for fans following the Before map.

In Huntsville, he’s known as “Rick,” a former football player for the state’s highest-ranking team. As a young adult, he self-taught filmmaking on a Super 8 camera. Before long, Rick went on to receive Academy Award nominations, be named one of Time’s most influential people in the world in 2015, and become an advocate for filmmaking, and particularly Texas filmmaking, as co-founder of the Austin Film Society.

He's a successful independent filmmaker whose movies have made a crater-sized mark on pop culture, so one would assume Linklater finds himself in a privileged spot coveted by any artist looking to make an impact without the fine print double-dealings. 

“Successful? I don't know. It doesn't feel that way all the time when you're working on a real low budget and you don't have enough time or money to make your movie,” he says. “But maybe that's it. I've just never cared about, I guess, the money or that result. I've really just focused on the next story I'm trying to tell and kind of avoided a certain kind of careerist trappings. Maybe staying in Texas probably was a good thing for my mental health.”

It hasn’t been hard, he says, to sustain that balance, keeping a sense of artistic autonomy while avoiding industry money grabs and other Hollywood pitfalls.

“You say no a lot," he says. "I think you define yourself a lot in this world — it sounds corny or maybe you heard it: It's like you kind of define yourself by what you don't do. Just because you have opportunities doesn't mean you have to do it. So the things I've turned down, the things I've not wanted to do that I could have, kind of defined you. It's like, yeah, no, I'm really focused over here. I know that's more money and that [I’ll] get to work with some big star, but I don't really want to do that. I want to tell [my stories]. So just follow your own muse.”

During the pandemic, his kids became an elite audience in a Linklater-selected, at-home film festival. He was glad they’d grown past the animated children’s movie days (“I could not wait to get out of kid movies. We did that pretty quick. I'm a filmmaker, I was showing them stuff, but yeah, I could not wait until they were starting to ask me more about movies”) and into more sophisticated cinematic territory.

“Say what you will, the pandemic was terrible, but we watched a movie every night,” he says. “These teenagers [would ask], ‘What movie are you going to watch now? Let's do the French New Wave, or let's watch films from Brazil.’ It was like my own little one-year curation, my own little film society in the family.”

For all the brilliant dialogue that mark his own films, the uniting thread he never thinks about, Linklater isn’t surprised that the most quoted line from his movies was famously ad-libbed by Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused.

“He wasn't even scheduled to work that night,” he says of his fellow Texan. “We worked up that scene and he just threw in that 'All right, all right, all right’ — he said that as he was driving in, and I thought it was really funny."

Linklater remembers that "within a day or two after that," the expression became a popular saying among the film crew.

"I noticed a key grip say, ‘OK, we're laying some dolly track over there. Let's go do that. And [he] goes, ‘All right, all right, all right, all right.' He was already repeating it," Linklater says. " And on one hand, I'm not surprised. I mean, of course you're surprised when you see a T-shirt with it or something like that, that's crazy.

“Matthew … he's earned it, I guess.” 

click to enlarge 

A new HBO docuseries finds Austin director Richard Linklater visiting his hometown to examine a universal issue: the ever-expanding prison industry. 

Max/Richard Linklater

newyorker.com

In “Hometown Prison,” Richard Linklater Looks at Life on Both Sides of the Wall

Richard Brody

8–11 minutes

With little fanfare, a complex and far-reaching personal documentary by Richard Linklater, “Hometown Prison,” dropped last week on the streaming service Max. It’s one of a trio of excellent films made under the rubric “God Save Texas,” based on the book by Lawrence Wright, of this publication—all of which consider the state’s history and politics in the light of the filmmakers’ own lives and families. The second film, “The Price of Oil,” directed by the seventh-generation Texan Alex Stapleton, traces the economic racism on which the state’s oil industry was built, as manifested in its disproportionate pollution of predominantly Black neighborhoods, including her family’s own. The third, “La Frontera,” by Iliana Sosa, who was born in El Paso to a family of Mexican descent, considers the historical unity of that city with its Mexican neighbor, Ciudad Juárez, and the enduring burdens imposed on Mexican Americans by white supremacy and the resulting militarized border. It takes nothing away from these latter films—exemplary blends of journalistic investigation, historical analysis, and intimate experience—to call particular attention to the power and the aesthetic range of Linklater’s documentary, which combines a narrow focus on a single institution with a conjoined exploration of the director’s life and his œuvre.

“Hometown Prison” is about Huntsville, Texas, where Linklater lived from 1970 (the year he turned ten) to 1981. He has previously explored his boyhood experiences there in such films as “Dazed and Confused,” “Everybody Wants Some!!,” and, of course, “Boyhood.” However, “Hometown Prison” concentrates on one oppressive peculiarity of the town: there’s a large prison in the middle of it, in plain view of much of daily life there, and a vast network of prisons spread throughout the town and its vicinity. The prison system is the town’s main employer. Texas, as Linklater relates, has the most incarcerated people of any state; it also executes more people than any other state, and those executions take place in Huntsville. Prisons, in other words, are a ubiquitous presence in Huntsville’s landscape, and yet, Linklater says, “At some point, you don’t really even see it.” In “Hometown Prison,” he attempts to see—and to give voice to silences on the subject, in his life and his work, that he has until now not managed to break.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Though Linklater credits Wright (one of the filmmaker’s longtime friends, who appears on camera, as he does in the other two films in the series) with the suggestion to make “Hometown Prison,” the work is anchored in two incomplete projects of Linklater’s. The first, a drama that he’d hoped to make in 2002, was about two high-school football players who, a year after graduation, end up on opposite sides of the prison walls. The second was to have been made from documentary footage that he shot in 2003, of protests outside those walls, when an inmate named Delma Banks, Jr., was about to be executed despite abundant evidence of his innocence. Linklater couldn’t find funding for the drama and never did anything with the footage—plentiful amounts of which appear in “Hometown Prison.”

Here, Linklater breaks silence in the most direct and literal way—by speaking. He delivers a copious and confessional voice-over, complete with reminiscences, observations distilled from research, and candid assertions (as when he declares capital punishment “barbaric”). He also appears on camera, in conversation with Huntsville residents whose lives intersect with his and with the town’s carceral economy. Linklater’s recollections of his late mother, Diane (included by way of a talk with one of her friends), involve her activism on behalf of incarcerated people released into town with no support. One of the most revealing exchanges is with Elroy Thomas, a manager at a Huntsville bus depot, who estimates that, in his thirty years on the job, he has sold one-way tickets out of town to hundreds of thousands of newly released prisoners—and adds that, in the process, he has become acutely sensitive to their frame of mind and the extent of the preparedness to return to private life. It’s shocking to see a line of former inmates walking casually away from prison with no clear destination down the closed-off vista of a leafy street. “They don’t offer no rehabilitation,” one of them comments. “If you’re trying to get right, you need to do it on your own.”

Among the ex-prisoners with whom Linklater speaks is Dale Enderlin, one of his former baseball teammates from Huntsville’s Sam Houston State University, where Linklater’s mother taught. (The team was later the subject of “Everybody Wants Some!!”) Enderlin spent thirty-nine months in prison for white-collar crimes, and his main observation from his time there is how routinely young, nonwhite people are railroaded into confessions for crimes that they didn’t commit. A civil-rights lawyer, Bill Habern, who arrived in town as a public defender in the nineteen-seventies, dated Linklater’s mother, and remained a family friend, says, “I came to Huntsville and I thought I’d landed in Mississippi twenty years before.” He shows Linklater bullet holes in his home, estimating that there are twelve to fifteen. Ed Owens, the first Black warden of a Huntsville prison, says that he experienced far more racism owing to his work inside the walls than to anything in ordinary town life; during protests involving one execution, the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated outside his house.

A prison in Huntsville, Texas.

The attitudes of many Sam Houston students interviewed in the documentary belie the centrality of prison to life in Huntsville. Despite being on a campus with clear views of uniformed prison guards, inmates being released, and demonstrations against capital punishment, they claim not to pay much attention to the facility’s proximity. “I’ve never given too much thought to it, until you hear the siren go off,” one student says. Another notes, “It seems that everyone’s aware of it, but no one wants to talk about it”; a third adds, “I’ve never heard no professor talk about it.” Linklater affirms that the “disconnect” is “kind of a Huntsville tradition.” One of his former high-school football teammates says that, even now, the prison “doesn’t even come to my consciousness.”

Of course, there are some in Huntsville for whom the prison system looms large. Linklater interviews many of them: the formerly incarcerated, and family members of the incarcerated; a local historian and activist who seeks to change the town’s civic life and is well aware of being despised for it; former corrections officials, whose firsthand experiences witnessing or even participating in executions has caused them to reject the practice; and a current one who finds the rigors of the carceral system hard to bear. Moreover, Linklater recalls one of his stepfathers, a prison guard (whom he dramatized in “Boyhood”) whom the stresses of the prison system psychologically warped and darkened.

Just a few minutes into “Hometown Prison,” there’s a shot of a restaurant across the road from a barbed-wire-fenced prison unit, which has a cheerful sign announcing “Sunday: Kids Eat Free.” I was reminded of another movie in current release, Jonathan Glazer’s historical drama “The Zone of Interest,” which is set outside the walls of Auschwitz, in a house where the camp’s commandant, Rudolf Höss; his wife, Hedwig; and their three young children live, apparently pretending, to the fullest of their capacities, that their lives are normal. Unlike Glazer, Linklater doesn’t merely observe Huntsville residents’ lives alongside prison but also hears from them. He displays deep and sincere curiosity about what people involved in a cruel system—or even merely living in view of one—say, think, and feel. He probes the psychology of their efforts to keep prison from their minds and also considers the ideologies behind the prevalence of incarceration and the death penalty in Texas—including racism, class-based inequity, an enduring myth of frontier justice, brazen demagogy, and a form of Christian fundamentalism that emphasizes strictness rather than mercy—as well as the practical policies that sustain the carceral system there, including the economic motives of contracts for businesses and employment for residents.

“Hometown Prison,” with its free and hybrid form, empathetically and indignantly brings suppressed agonies to light. It does more, too. Linklater looks deeply at the town’s self-gaslighting, at how it’s maintained and who maintains it, and to what ends. The film is a fervent and trenchant work of political psychology, living history, investigative journalism, and anguished confession.

With humor and the biting insight of a native, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence explores the history, culture, and politics of Texas, while holding the stereotypes up for rigorous scrutiny.

God Save Texas (Penguin, 2018) is a journey through the most controversial state in America. It is a red state in the heart of Trumpland that hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office in more than twenty years; but it is also a state in which minorities already form a majority (including the largest number of Muslims). The cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king but Texas now leads California in technology exports. The Texas economic model of low taxes and minimal regulation has produced extraordinary growth but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. And Wright’s profound portrait of the state not only reflects our country back as it is, but as it was and as it might be.

Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of nine previous books of nonfiction, including In the New World, Remembering Satan, The Looming Tower, Going Clear, Thirteen Days in September, and The Terror Years,and one novel, God’s Favorite. His books have received many prizes and honors, including a Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower. He is also a playwright and screenwriter. He is a longtime resident of Austin.

A light reception will precede the event beginning at 5:30 pm, with the lecture starting at 6:00 pm. Parking will be available on the SMU campus. FREE passes will be emailed to registered guests before the event.  Seating is limited, and not guaranteed.

Wright's publication of the same title will be available for purchase and signing after the event.  

TEACHERS ONLY -- Please sign in at the registration table to receive continuing education credit.

Co-sponsored with SMU's Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Center for Presidential History, the John Tower Center for Political Studies, the Clements Department of History, the Dedman College Interdisiplinary Institute, and Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.

-- Southern Methodist University

[whatsonmedia]

Art in Bloom: Must-See Exhibitions This October!

Fall is a time of change and transformation, and the art world is no exception. This October, galleries and museums around the globe are unveiling exciting new exhibitions that showcase the work of leading contemporary and modern artists. From immersive installations to thought-provoking retrospectives, there's something for everyone to enjoy. Re/sisters Where: National Gallery, London, UK When: 5 Oct, 2023 – 14 Jan, 2024 This exhibition explores the complex and multifaceted relationships between women artists throughout history, from the Renaissance to the present day. It features over 100 works of art by over 50 artists, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse, Cindy Sherman, and Tracey Emin. The exhibition is divided into several sections, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the relationships between women artists. For example, one section explores the ways in which women artists have supported and mentored each other, while another section examines the ways in which women artists have challenged and subverted patriarchal norms. Philip Guston Now Where: Tate Modern, London, UK When: 25 Oct, 2023 – 25 Feb, 2024 This major retrospective of Philip Guston's work brings together over 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures from across the artist's career. Guston was a highly influential American artist who is best known for his figurative paintings that combine elements of abstraction, expressionism, and cartooning. The exhibition charts Guston's stylistic evolution from his early abstract paintings to his later figurative works. It also explores the key themes in Guston's work, such as identity, race, and violence. Hiroshi Sugimoto Where: Hayward Gallery, London, UK When: 11 Oct, 2023 – 7 Jan, 2024 This exhibition showcases the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, a Japanese photographer who is known for his large-format, black-and-white photographs of landscapes, architecture, and cultural artifacts. Sugimoto's photographs are often characterized by their long exposure times and their meditative atmosphere. The exhibition includes a wide range of Sugimoto's work, from his early Seascapes series to his more recent works, such as his Theaters and Dioramas series. The exhibition also features a new commission by Sugimoto, which is a response to the Hayward Gallery's architecture. Frieze and Frieze Masters Where: Regents Park, London, UK When: 11-15 Oct, 2023 Frieze and Frieze Masters, renowned art fairs, spotlight living artists and 20th-21st century masters respectively. This year's edition promises diverse global galleries and captivating exhibitions. Highlights include a solo presentation of Yayoi Kusama's work and a group exhibition on art and architecture's interplay. It's an unmissable fusion of contemporary and classic artistry. Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA When: 26 Oct, 2023 – 16 Apr, 2024 Delve into the Danish Golden Age, a pinnacle of 19th-century cultural and artistic achievement. Showcasing 100+ masterpieces by eminent Danish artists like Christen Købke, P.C. Skovgaard, and Vilhelm Hammershøi, this exhibition is a vivid tableau of the era. The exhibition unfolds through distinct sections, each illuminating a facet of 19th-century Danish art and culture. Experience the portrayal of natural landscapes in one section, and in another, witness the artists' reflections on the evolving socio-economic landscape of their time. It's a comprehensive journey through a transformative epoch in Danish artistic expression. Read the full article

[thepeoplesboyfriend]

some words about transsexuality, in honor of my recent deboobing/deboning:

“My cut is of my body, not the absence of parts of my body. The regenerative effort of my cut is discursive; my transfiguring cut is a material-discursive practice through which I am of my body and of my trans self. […] My cut is generative within material limits but not with affective fixity; my tissues are mutable insofar as they are made of me and propel me to imagine an embodied elsewhere.”

“Transsexuals do not transcend gender and sex. We create embodiment by not jumping out of our bodies but by taking up a fold in our bodies, by folding or cutting ourselves, and creating a transformative scar of ourselves.”

- Eva Hayward, Lessons From a Starfish

“I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”

- Frankenstein’s Monster, Mary Shelly

“I will swim forever.

I will die for eternity.

I will learn to breathe water.

I will become the water.

if I cannot change my situation I will change myself.

In this active magical transformation

I recognize myself again.

I am groundless and boundless movement.

I am a furious flow.

I am one with the darkness and the wet.

And I am enraged.

Here at last is the chaos I held at bay.

Here at last is my strength. […]”

“Though we forgo the privilege of naturalness, we are not deterred, for we ally ourselves instead with the chaos and blackness from which Nature itself spills forth.”

- Susan Stryker, My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix

“Some people say that there is no gender, that it is a post modern construct, that in fact there are only man and woman and a few marginal confusions. To those people I ask: if your [male] body–fact is enough to establish your gender, you would willingly wear bright dresses and cry at movies, wouldn’t you? You would hold hands and complement each other on your beauty, wouldn’t you? Because your cock would be enough to make you a man.” - Isabel Fall, I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter

“God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason he made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine: because he wants humanity to share in the act of creation. I am only doing the Good Works here on Earth as intended!” - Julian Jarboe

“ i’m a 24 hour living art form, unique on to myself and that’s a damn hard thing to be!“

“I deserve to press a man against my solid hard chest, feel his against mine, and have him feel mine against his. That’s what my heart feels, that’s what I want to express to him. I have learned to love my body—to finally be able to touch my nipples while masturbating and feel sexual about it—and I think I deserve to have my body relax with me. It will be like a miracle to look at myself, to run my hand over my chest, and to feel me.”

“I lay in the sun on the weekend, my skin becoming rich and golden. My body is vibrant with sexuality and tingling with sensation, electrified by every touch.”

- Lou Sullivan, We Both Laughed in Pleasure

“To be able to enter a safe, you must be open to hearing what the safe has to say about itself. To be able to enter your gender, you must be open to hearing what your self has to say about itself. Inside: riches. Inside: sex. Inside: love. Inside: beautiful bloody art. Inside: the chrysalis cracks down the middle, and out springs out a sacred figure with a bird for a head and visible glue and maybe jackelope antlers rising high like TV antennae and maybe vampire fangs implying a sentimental attachment to the rich earth of home, and to this reflection, disco-ball- sparkling, dissolving into the boundaries of my flesh, I say, oh there you are oh there you are oh there you are, oh there—and let the ocean interrupt me as it smacks me full in the face, full of salt and life, my eyes open wide to its sting, its illumination of new worlds and realms of being.” - Raphael Rae, Introduction to Safecracking for Transsexuals



[processedlives]

Across manufactured landscapes, and through chemically polluted oceans, endocrine disruption presents a challenge to how we conceptualize sex. Following out the knots in this issue, we turn to a model of sex that emphasizes sex as a dynamic processes in which organisms have more or less “open potentials” of sex, sex related characteristics, and behavior (Ah-King & Nylin 2010). Instead of thinking of sex as a nature-given dichotomy, or essentially discrete characteristic, sex is better understood as a responsive potential, changing over an individual’s lifetime, in interaction with environmental factors, as well as over evolutionary time. [...] Potential: to become. Capacity: is directed toward an elsewhere, an unknown future (even if that future is un-becoming). Latin potentialis: from potentia “power,” from potens—“being able.” Potential is an expressive unit, force, excitation through which organisms, bodies, and environments become themselves and more. Organisms are creative responses, improvisations with, through their capacity to become with their environments (but always through the refrain of their sensoria— their ability to sense and perceive their environments and those that inhabit it) (Hayward 2010). Sex potential is just that, an opening out, responsiveness that is ontologically more dynamic than static. While some organisms have a narrow regular range of sex possibilities—their potential is more delimited—the effects of endocrine disruption provide a reworking of even these limits. In other words, while some species of fish more easily shift from female to male as an environmental response to pollution, others, such as polar bears, shift with more trouble. And yet, hormonal disruption assures changes across borders of sexes.

Toxic Sexes: Perverting Pollution and Queering Hormone Disruption, Malin Ah-King & Eva Hayward

[librarycards]

Xenoestrogenic, even without the prefix trans-, is already an overgrown, weedy keyword sinking heterogeneous taproots into the histories, politics, and embodiments of life on planet Earth. Hence my recourse to etymology. It is an adjectival form of xenoestrogen: that is, an estrogen anthropocentrically and racially marked as “foreign” or “alien,” which includes those estrogens belonging to plants (phytoestrogens) and fungi (mycoestrogens) as well as various kinds of synthetic estrogens (e.g., Bisphenol A). The xenoestrogenic tangles with the more familiar rootstock of steroidal estrogens — estrone, estradiol, and estriol — that have come to define the female sex hormone. It therefore twines itself with the lives of transwomen who situate themselves within the milieu of hormonal transition or “hormone replacement therapy” (HRT). Prefixing trans- to xeno- produces fruitful tension. Trans- further concatenates the oversimplified alienations and -phobias connected to xeno- by enacting “movements-across-into-strangeness” that foster new conjugations, allowing xeno- to suggest alternate worldings rather than marking a discontinuous zone of incommensurable and inaccessible difference (King 2012). Trans-ing xeno- unsettles the oversimplified Others necessary for the production of stratification and disallowance, without in the process destroying difference and the ethics of encounter. Transxenoestrogenesis, a word with prefixes like nerve endings, recapitulates the syntax of sensate life folding over itself, invaginating itself, to encounter its own materiality.

Eva Hayward, Transxenoestrogenesis.

[abject-eden]

[...] my cut spills blood and affect.

Eva Hayward, “Lessons From a Starfish”

[swanlake1998]

francesca hayward photographed for anissa kermiche by eva k. salvi

[coldcanyon]

More Lessons From A Starfish

Eva Hayward

[sweetened-condensed-rage]

Niniyx: Family Reunion

Once upon a time I started playing D&D. Then I stopped. Then I joined an RP server and started writing for my characters. Now I have too many characters, too much in my head, and the motivation to post a rewrite.

So here's some story inspired by my first D&D character: a tiefling beastmaster ranger who ended up becoming a pirate mid-campaign. As typical of any D&D character, she's got some nice spoonfuls of trauma and thus her animal companion acts somewhat like an ESA.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, mixing with the salt of the ocean. She stared at the crest on the flag as it lowered in surrender, the crest that had sunk far too many of her ships. Something in the back of her mind told her to panic at its familiarity.

She shrugged on the captain’s coat and ran a hand through her hair, back between her horns. Without breaking stride, she stepped up onto the railing and hopped between the ships. Arrogance sat clear on her features as she strolled up to the ship’s captain.

“Nice ship you have here, Captain…?”

“Hayward,” he added a beat later, with a thin veil of confidence. “Captain Hayward of the Amiable.”

“Captain Lily of the Red Dragon…but I’m sure you knew that already.” The disconcerting silence settled for a moment before she spoke again. “So, tell me, who might your employer be?” Her smile disappeared as she took a step closer. “Because they’re starting to piss me off.” The patronizing smile returned as he stepped back in visible discomfort.

“Ah…the nobility of Faunewicke.”

As quickly as it had reappeared, her expression dropped again. “Well then,” she said slowly. The sound of the waves filled the several agonizing moments of silence. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to let your ship go. When you return to your employer, inform them‌ that they have three days. I’d like to have a word. Are we clear?”

He nodded.

“Good.” She grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Fair winds and following seas, Captain Hayward.” With that, she crossed back to her own ship.

Taking a deep breath, she scanned the deck, finding who she was looking for almost immediately.

“Lander.” The elf looked over at her as she approached. “Three days. Set course for Faunewicke.”

He paused, looking her over with concern. “Is this something…personal by any chance?”

She glanced away, biting her lip. “Yeah,” she muttered, before walking towards her cabin.

The white wolf sprawled on the bed barely opened his eyes as she entered and tossed her coat to the side. “Fourteen fucking years,” she snapped, slamming her hands on the desk. Her head dropped as she let out a long sigh. “Assholes,” she breathed, letting herself fall onto the bed with another heavy sigh.

She adjusted her coat and exhaled, feeling her nerves lessen. The doors opened, and she entered, head held high, staring down the man and woman at the end of the room. 

The couple’s clothes showed their status well. It made no difference to her as she didn't bow nor remove her hat in any show of respect.

She watched their faces as they swallowed their shock. The man tensed, glaring at her as his hands curled into fists. Meanwhile, the woman at his side sat up, looking between the two in alarm.

“Eva-”

“Niniyx, actually,” she said, cutting the man off. “Or rather, Captain Lily.” She could feel the cracks in his composure starting to form.

“It’s been some time.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose. Fourteen years, really, since you quite literally threw me in hell," she said, a bite creeping into her voice as years of suppressed rage boiled over.

“Watch your tone.”

“You have no right ordering me around.”

He stepped towards her. “I am your-”

“No!” she snapped, the fires in the room flickering a dark crimson. “I’m not here looking for any kind of reconciliation or acceptance. I came to show you what you did, what you made me.”

“And look at yourself,” he sneered, taking a step closer. “Some sea rat with no skill other than robbing hard-working men.”

She shoved him backward. “I don’t need your opinion of me. I already know. You didn’t want me.” She took a few steps backward. “I hope you’re happy because you’re starting a war you won’t win.”

He called for the guards as she turned to leave.

“Let her leave.” The woman’s order cut through the air before her husband could finish.

She looked back, briefly meeting the woman’s sympathetic gaze before turning back. Her footsteps echoed through the hall as she left, eyeing the guards and keeping a hand on her sword.