Saturday, December 08, 2007

Looking for bear grease and Russia, I found this about Russian culture:

Chukchi, the native people of Chukotka, the most remote northeast corner of Russia, are the most common minority targeted for generic ethnic jokes in Russia—many other nations have a particular one they make fun of (cf. Poles in American humor or Newfie jokes about Newfoundlanders in Canada). In jokes, they are depicted as generally primitive and simple-minded, but clever in a naive kind of way. A propensity for constantly saying "odnako" - "however" - is a staple of Chukcha jokes. Often a partner of Chukcha in the jokes is a Russian geologist.

Chukchi do not miss their chance to retaliate.

* A Chukcha and a Russian geologist go hunting polar bears. They track one down at last. Seeing the bear, the Chukcha shouts "Run!" and starts running away. The Russian shrugs, raises his gun and shoots the bear. "Russian hunter bad hunter, however", says the Chukcha, "Now you haul this bear ten miles to the yaranga yourself!"


Here's why bear grease was used in Russia during cold weather in 1987 (based on the entry's date, this practice is still in place today around the world):


March 20th, 2007, 01:01
During transitional seasons, if I want to wear something summery, but am not sure if I will be chilly, I often will rub bear grease on my body. I find it versatile, if not all that practical. I wouldn't recommend doinng this and going sockless. The bear grease makes it difficult to keep the shoes on my feet, especially if I'm wearing loafers. My wife has suggested that if I want to wear my GTH clothes in early April I'd be better served to wear my union suit underneath, rather than the bear grease, but I find it too bulky and the clothes doesn't drape as it should.

Sting doing a singing Frankenstein, instead of the Bride. Somehow, Andy's comment sounds absurd, only because of Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein. How can one top such a great film? If Brooks's film shows anything is that Frankenstein can only sing in a comedy. Then again, it could be approached as Phantom of the Opera. Or even better, Phantom of the Paradise, my favorite. But why should Sting stick to only singing? Maybe Andy is typecasting him. I particularly like Sting in Dune. His character made the day. And his fans just loved him showing off his body; at least I did.

As to Dolly Parton's breasts not being real, I did not really know that thin women could not have large breasts. I admit my ignorance. My girlfriend actually told me one day about a very thin woman in her Yoga class who had large breasts, and she said, "they have to be fake"--she sounded like Andy. I guess those who know, know. And I thought, wow! I never really thought about how it all worked. I guess once one realizes how breast size is linked to fat, the breast implant market makes complete sense. Here's how I figured the equation: Corporations push women to be thin, while pushing men to like large breasts. Because thin women can't have large breasts, then they must get implants if they believe this will make them attractive to men. The result is that (some) women are obsessed with dieting and exercising, while submitting themselves to the knife.

Here's the story on Dolly and her Breasts:

When she crossed over into pop and became a media superstar in the late 1970s, she was significantly overweight, although her small frame and costuming made her appear average in size everywhere except the breasts, which were very large and quickly became the target of late-night talk show host jokes. At the time, whenever asked if her breasts were real, she said they were real. In the mid-1980s, she lost a considerable amount of weight. Afterward, she avoided in interviews answering whether her breasts had been augmented, referring to any procedure as only a "lift." In 2002, however, she admitted for the first time in separate interviews with The Irish Independent and The Daily Mirror that after the weight loss in the 1980s, she lost a great deal of breast size and subsequently obtained breast implants to bring them back to a similar size as she had prior to the weight loss. Since then, she has made ample jokes in media interviews about their not being natural. She even once joked by saying "Yep they are mine! Bought and paid for!".

Live forever. Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg appear to be doing that. I thought one of them died, but apparently, they're both still alive. Checked various sites, and they all showed only their dates of birth.

I think the article I saw was about their split up. It sounded like death to me, I guess. The beginning of the following quote is a bad excuse on my part to talk about the beloved neo-dada artists:

There's nothing wrong, of course, with curiosity about the origins of any artist's inspiration, and seeking hard information is the biographer's primary task. But that said, Jill Johnston's "Jasper Johns: Privileged Information" and Richard Meryman's "Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life" — seem more prurient and oddly curdled than most. Johnston rakes through John's life and work on what is ostensibly a scholarly mission to uncover a "secret" figure in many of his paintings, and along the way she crudely and almost maliciously spills the details of John's relationships with Robert Rauschenberg and with one of his friend Merce Cunningham's male dancers. Meryman tries so hard to rough up Andrew Wyeth's burnished image (he lingers around the woozy attraction Wyeth felt for a female teenage model, as well as the possibility he had a sexual relationship with Helga Testorf, the subject of the famous "Helga" paintings) that his generally amiable authorized biography often feels like it's straining for effect.

Well, it looks like Andy and Paige were certainly fighting like a jealous couple. So there might be some truth to that article where she is featured as Andy's Valentine. That fight over Basquiat was not about him, but about them.

As to Pee Wee Herman, I will never forget his film, Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Although searching I learned that there's a book called Pee Wee's Great Adventure. Apparently, it's a spin on Pee Wee Herman. The book is about Pee Wee Worman, and the review is incredibly absurd and truly great, if one considers what the original Pee Wee is all about:


Pee Wee's Great Adventure - Book Review
Posted by Douglas Adams at 3/26/2007 5:37 AM and is filed under uncategorized
By Lillian Brummet

International Compost Awareness Week (early May) is a perfect time to read Pee Wee’s Great Adventure (ISBN# 0969788339) to groups of children during the various events celebrating the week. This book is the second installment in the series of three children’s books based on the character Pee Wee Worman – who teaches us about vermiculture, or composting with worms. Published by Recycling Resource Service, this book has taken even greater environmental steps during the production phases than the first book of the series (Pee Wee And the Magical Compost Heap). By using only 100% post-consumer paper that is both acid free and chlorine free the publishers are providing an excellent example of making choices that are better for the environment. Interestingly, even the ink been considered - only vegetable based inks were used.

Pee Wee’s Great Adventure continues with P.W. Worman, Nancy, her brother Scott and their friends Mathieu and Naseem. The story begins during a communal meal in the compost where Pee Wee is asked to tell about his origins, because he was not born in the compost pile. His tale of wild adventure and near death experiences will have little readers wide–eyed until Pee Wee reaches safety and finds a comforting home in the compost pile.

But my most recent image of Paul Reubens is defined by his role at Cal Arts as Alumni Committee Reunion Chair. I remember getting reunion invitations from my alma mater playing him up. And at that time all I could remember was Reubens's unfortunate incident in the nineties when he got caught masturbating in a movie theater. That incident placed a damper on his career, and then he was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons in 2002, again. Here's the scoop:

On July 26, 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida for masturbating publicly in an adult theater. The news media went into a frenzy and the scandal marked the near-death of the character "Pee-wee Herman," reducing both the actor and the persona to a ubiquitous punchline. Although the series Pee-wee's Playhouse had already ended by that time, CBS reacted by dropping its reruns from their lineup. Reubens made a deal with the Sarasota County court: in exchange for a fine and producing a few public service announcements, he was given a clean record.

Reubens was arrested again in 2002 in connection with an investigation involving child pornography. Public news stories concerning his case cast doubt upon the suggestion that Reubens intentionally acquired child pornography, as he stated that he was a collector of "erotic artwork" and that he had a sizable collection of vintage erotica with samples dating back to the 18th century. On March 19, 2004, child pornography charges against him were dropped by Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo after Reubens pleaded guilty to a separate "misdemeanor obscenity" charge.

"The DA waited 364 days (one day before the statute of limitations would have run out) and then alleged that some of it was 'child pornography' — decades-old physique poses, old art photos, and yellowed nudist magazines. Some of the nude photos were of minors — when the pictures were taken, but most of the models would have been dead of old age before Reubens was born. All of the photos, Reubens maintained, were legal when they were first published. The charges were reduced to 'obscenity', and Reubens pleaded guilty and paid a US$100 fine in exchange for probation."[10]

Said Reubens: "Personally, I think we're living in a very scary time. Do we let the legal system decide in a courtroom what's obscene and what's not obscene? I didn't want to be in a situation where there was a possibility I could go to jail... I mean, that just seemed insane to me.

"One thing I want to make very, very clear, I don't want anyone for one second to think that I am titillated by images of children. It's not me. You can say lots of things about me. And you might. The public may think I'm weird. They may think I'm crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That's all fine. As long as one of the things you're not thinking about me is that I'm a pedophile. Because that's not true."[11]

I think Andy got worked with this type of Crystals:

Rocks and gemstones house spiritual and healing properties that can be tapped into a variety of ways. Crystals can be carried or worn on the person, or they can be placed in a location where their healing vibrations can be felt by whomever is nearby. Healers also place stones on their clients' reclined bodies to balance the chakras and aura.

And can I say it? Andy sounds cheap with his healer. He should think of him as a cab driver, and give him extra for making him feel good. Was Andy really cheap? Check the word in the review of Factory Girl:

She and Warhol become mutually entranced. She's his Holly Golightly, only much crazier. Warhol puts her in his films, and, notorious cheapskate that he was, pays her a total of $50. She soon ends up doing the nasty with Dyl... I mean Quinn. The tabloids have been saying that their relatively tame sex scene was not simulated. Frankly, my dear, I couldn’t give a rat’s Gluteus Minimus if they were wearing full-body condoms.

Sex is boring, Andy says. He did make some interesting prints on the subject. Maybe he meant that Joan Rivers was boring to hear when she talked about sex, but not that the subject itself was boring?

Here's one more for the road.

I remember Joan Rivers when she was starting out as a comedian. I remember her stand up act. She was all over TV. She did repeat a lot of jokes, though. At one point I thought that she was going to be kicked out of show business because she said stuff like this: "Elizabeth Taylor has more chins than the Chinese telephone directory." Or this one: "The one thing women don't want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband."

And this one I do remember quite well: "She's so hairy - when she lifted up her arm I thought it was Tina Turner in her armpit. -- (on Madonna)"

Well, Andy's struggle with why anyone would copy chanel suits led me to an odd website. I looked for "Chanel suits" and got a site that shows a very small image of a model wearing a oversized woman's coat. The image is overpowered by a watermark going across the model's torso, and at the bottom of the page I found this legal statement:

Digital copying of images strictly prohibited; violators will be pursued and prosecuted to the full extent of the law including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

That webpage appears to be the result of new-media-phobia. And that image is so damn ugly, who would want to steal it?

As to Andy doing portraits of well-off ladies, well, he did do quite a few. He milked it:

Andy Warhol portraits were, and continue to be, in a category of their own. They are more than mere pictures; they tell a fascinating tale of his personal and artistic circle, as well as a chronicle of many of the most talented, best-known and wealthiest public figures of the period. Warhol's celebrated subjects included tycoons, entertainers, fashion designers and drag queens. His most famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Liza Minnelli are recognized all over the world.

Pat Hackett explained in the diary introduction that Andy began to rely more on portraits for income in his later years. This may be why Andy looked at the room full of women with the eye of a businessman.