sid on their way home with the remnants of some clown makeup on, including one small blue tear that matches the leather jacket they are wearing

i sort of forgot i was literally looking like this on my way home while typing this post

tickled by the extra layer here that anyone who *does* have a favorite commedia character would almost certainly be mad about their fave not being listed

i think often about how when developing a tightrope or trapeze act, one sometimes choreographs a moment that ideally feels like a real mistake or near-accident, to remind the audience to feel fear, that the stakes are actually life or death - an interesting difference btwn circus and ballet

i have to finish making a powerpoint presentation tonight, what goddamn font do i use

i believe in you!! it is happening!!

spoilers for Joker: Folie à deux

a year or so before Heated Rivalry, we were given a plausible setup for a Connor Storrie Joker movie, & his actual clown training & now explicitly homoerotic media associations could maybe make that interesting? what does a hot ripped gay clown Joker do?? idk!

sorry to hold the lathe of heaven for a sec but if we are gonna get a Joker movie starring former-actual-clown turned gay-hockey-show-heartthrob Connor Storrie

i would like to personally request it be released by mid-2029 so i can include it in my dissertation on movie clowns & masculinity, thanks

(making a distinction here between an interpretation of what the film may be asserting about how to live one’s life, and what the Vibes are that one is experiencing during the film)

thank you for helping me understand why, as someone who loves Scorsese and all the lead actors in The Age of Innocence, and who understands it is an exquisitely crafted film, it didn’t hit for me: it is simply Too Protestant

i like my Marty pictures as Catholic as possible

thank you for making me realize i should bring a cane to work on monday, instead of going “but i will only maaaaybe want a cane for the last hour of a very long day (i only very rarely need one, in a few specific scenarios) & it seems stupid to roll up with one in the morning while feeling v spry”

a hand holding a paperback copy of The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink by Mark Dery from 1999. the cover is a warped and mirrored photograph of Coney Island lit up at night. you can somewhat see a balcony and the finally nice weather in montréal in the background

spent about 90 minutes of my morning in the bathtub reading this book, and it is honestly astonishing that something can be both so deeply deeply 1990s and yet huge swathes of it absolutely read like 2026 commentary with one or two nouns changed

the question is, this time do i lose my virginity with clown makeup on

in comparison to the many other times my personal life has suffered due to my poor time management and/or being wildly over-committed when it comes to work projects, this one is at least a very funny bit

it makes perfect sense to me that a good costume designer might be a fetishist

we shall see how i feel upon rewatch but i think my overall take on Joker is that it’s poorly written, particularly the second half, and pretty vaguely directed, but Joaquin’s performance is phenomenal

the absolute irony of realizing that this weekend for professional reasons i may in fact have to turn down at least two different offers of sex in order to rewatch Joker (2019)

all the worst takes from the anti-sadomasochism side of the late ‘70s / early ‘80s “feminist sex wars” flashing before my eyes and giving me a nosebleed

beautiful hand-painted paperback covers for horny fantasy novels need to come back specifically so you can model for all of them

listen, some of us still have permanent brain damage from sexting with gen x men and should be owed compensation for damages

off-leash dogs seem to be somewhat of a thing in my neighborhood since i moved, but it’s exclusively done by ancient francophone men, one of whom also sings what i assume are québécois folk songs at full volume while walking said dog, so they feel more like apparitions from another time

Cremaster 2 (1999)

i still gotta see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, but i want to believe that one of the secret ingredients in it by all accounts being surprisingly good is a fact that i do know to be true, which is that one of the writers is a man of taste, aka a big Jean Rollin fan

to be so for real i have been thinking this thought at least once a week since i was like thirteen

holy shit, i'm genuinely astonished to hear Hampshire College is shutting down

i'm so pleased you liked it!!

two figures with long hair are on their hands and knees symmetrically with candelabras on their backs. at the center of the frame an older woman stands in the background.

an older woman is seated in a gothic location, with a blindfolded woman on either side. someone in a suit offers a drink on a tray.

a view from above of a patterned tile floor where two shirtless people kneel before someone holding an implement.

a talking head interview -- unfortunately a fairly large amount of the film, which is fascinating stuff but not paced well from what i recall -- with Catherine Robbe-Grillet saying the phrase "as a dominatrix"

"cruel, unusual, punishing"

i made a weird choice for this one that i wouldn't pick again today? tbh there are ways this documentary doesn't work, but: there are images I keep thinking about & Catherine Robbe-Grillet is a *fascinating* subject

The Ceremony (2014, dir. Lina Mannheimer)

a crowd in a variety of exciting costumes, many of which are doing sort of church-themed drag

the reverse shot, Imp Queen in a very tall wig and huuuuge lashes in front of a cross in a tile-patterned wall that makes me think a little bit of The Devils

Glamhag with pink pigtails and bangs, holding a spray can in a botánica

low angle shot from just behind a little boy who is looking up at a bunch of smoking figures in exaggerated makeup (the standing character third from the left is me, barely recognizable even to myself)

"gay, intellectual, funny"

Holy Trinity (2019, dir. Glamhag)

full disclosure, I am veryyyyy briefly in this one as part of the flashback origin story of someone's smoking fetish (see last image) 🚬😇

just had a fairly long conversation w a stranger in my bad french & am once again grateful to be an extrovert; i can’t imagine how much harder it’d be otherwise to move to a new country in my late 30s *and* move to a place where i don’t seriously speak the language of the region yet

haha i have had the thought more than once that if anyone ever broke into my apartment they’d be like … hm well i guess whoever lives here is a little bit freaky huh

and they would perhaps be right!