Topics | Dangerous Minds (2024)

01.13.2010

11:06 pm

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Wonderful short essay from Christopher Hitchens, writing about British novelist J.G. Ballard on the occasion of the publication of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard.

From The Atlantic:

For all that, Ballard is arguably best-known to a wide audience because of his relatively ?

01.13.2010

07:29 pm

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ScienceDaily reports on a species of ants that has adopted a completely asexual lesbian society…

Most social insects?

01.13.2010

07:23 pm

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South African crime lord “Fat Murphy” is not only feared on the streets of Cape Town, he’s also a congenital hermaphrodite. Police were pleasantly surprised recently when, during a chase, Murphy’s plastic dong fell out of his pants.

SOUTH African police caught more than they expected in a Cape Town drug raid when a strap-on dild* fell off a suspected crime lord during a search, the Sunday Times reported.

Fat Murphy, feared on the streets of Cape Town’s notorious Cape Flats suburb, told a court that he is a hermaphrodite who holds male and female identity documents - one under the name Fadwaan, the other under Hilary.

Police and a tearful Murphy recounted the saga during a bail hearing for Murphy’s charges of possession of stolen property, which come on top of earlier charges of kidnapping and intimidation, the paper said.

“I had a vagin* that could not be penetrated. But I also had male organs, testes. But I always knew I was really a man and that was what I wanted to be,” he told the court, according to the newspaper.

“God created me with both sexual organs. It was God’s decision, not mine.”

Included below is King Missle’s early 90s hit “Detachable Penis.”

(News.com.au: “Crime Lord’s” Fake Penis Falls Off During Raid)

01.13.2010

07:11 pm

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Sadness in the streets! The Bodhi Tree, one of the best bookstores, period, and THEE very best New Age and Spirituality bookstore anywhere on the planet is closing. Although in recent years I’ve not gone there nearly as much as I used to, in the mid-90s, I went to the Bodhi Tree every single Saturday morning without fail and poured over the shelves of the used books annex. There I found Leary first editions, tons of rare Crowley and even signed firsts of Terence McKenna’s The Invisible Landscape and True Hallucinations. I’d comb through this store sometimes twice a week. For book hounds into the occult and weirdo culture in general, the Bodhi Tree was like an intellectual candy shop. I felt great pride to see my own books and DVDs for sale there. But sadly, those days have passed. With Amazon and Barnes & Noble taking massive bites out of the profits of niche booksellers—Shirley MacLaine probably shops on Amazon—it’s hard to run a business on fumes. Even storied operations like the Bodhi Tree, in the end have their life cycles. I wonder what it will reincarnate as?

From the LA Weekly:

Owners Phil Thompson and Stan Madson informed their staff last Wednesday that the cozy Melrose Avenue shop, a nationally renowned and much beloved spiritual center, will be shutting its doors in a year’s time.

After some eight months of discussion, Thompson and Madson decided to sell the property to a local business owner who leases space to several other nearby retailers. The Bodhi Tree opened in 1970. Land values in the area have risen dramatically since then. Meanwhile, the business of selling print books has been on a steady decline. For years, real estate agents had been circling the Bodhi Tree like vultures. In the end, selling the property became a much more profitable option than continuing to sell books.

Thompson and Madson started the bookstore when they were in their 30’s. They are now both in their early 70’s. They were aerospace engineers who left a life of science for one of contemplation and meditation.

“Twenty years ago we felt like it was an expanding situation,” says Madson. “We were concerned the store was getting too big. We had a staff of 100. Publishing was expanding. Spirituality was expanding. But what changed was that the market became widely dispersed.”

01.13.2010

04:49 pm

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Newly discovered: a tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found the body of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. While the recording was made on October 25, 1956, in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden (the place of Hitler’s Bavarian mountaintop retreat), it was unearthed only recently by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel.

Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun. The men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer’s study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945. “When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa,” said Linge, who died in 1980. “Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a bullethole approximately the size of a penny on the right side of the temple.”

Guensche, who went to his death in 1983 refusing to give details about the dictator’s end, said: “Hitler sat on the arm of the sofa with his head hanging down on the right shoulder which was itself hanging limp over the back of the sofa. On the right side was the bullet hole.”

From that point, on Guensche and Linge started removing the bodies and preparing them for cremation. After Berlin fell—and before their story went very far—the pair were captured by the Soviets and whisked off to Moscow. Their testimony lay hidden all this time in Munich’s public records office.

Recording Of Nazi Officers Who Found Hitler’s Body Released

01.13.2010

04:35 pm

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Some fresh Burroughs loot was just added to the mountain of treasure that is Ubu: the entirety of Howard Brookner’s Burroughs: The Movie. Previously available on VHS only (a used copy on Amazon runs you 40 bucks), Burroughs: The Movie was released in ‘85 by poet, Warhol associate, and dial-a-poem instigator, John Giorno, through his Giorno Poetry Systems.

The film features such familiar-but-always-welcome luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Patti Smith, and Terry Southern. And while there’s a new Burroughs doc just around the corner, there’s still plenty of juicy bits in Burroughs: The Movie. Don’t miss Lauren Hutton introducing Burroughs as “the greatest living writer in America,” before his first appearance on Saturday Night Live (he reads an excerpt of Naked Lunch, by the way!).

Sadly—and unusual for Ubu—Burroughs: The Movie is unembeddable, but to quickly have your ticket exploded just click here.

01.13.2010

03:15 pm

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Last time it was Halloween candy, now it’s earthquakes. Is there ANYTHING shameful opportunist Pat Robertson can’t link to some infernal cause?!

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it,” he said. “They were under the heel of the French…and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ “True story. And the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal,’” Robertson said. “Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.”

The full, Christian Broadcasting Network take on the tragedy can be found here.

(via Politico)

01.12.2010

11:49 pm

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Really insane and/or terrifying humanimal sculptures by artist Kate Clark. This sorta reminds me of a post I did a while back on Alex Kovas: Freaky Manimal Model.

From Kate’s website:

Offering a heavy hand of irreverent wit striped with compassion, Kate Clark’s sculptures ask viewers to disregard pretense and to apprehend the idea of emotional uncertainty. Although the artist embarks on a journey towards shocking and repelling viewers as they recognize and reject the thing?

01.12.2010

11:08 pm

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It’s considered by some to be a controversial appointment, but the news of New York gallerist Jeffrey Deitch taking over the top spot at the embattled Museum of Contemporary Art comes off as a stroke of genius to us.

Speaking myself as a longtime New Yorker—before I finally wised up and put down roots in Los Angeles— I’ve long regarded the rise of Deitch and his Soho galleries to be the best—as in the single best—thing to happen to Gotham’s art world since, well, Andy Warhol died. That’s saying a lot, obviously. Deitch’s shows and opening-night parties were always the highlight of art-world socializing, mixing the highbrow and lowbrow crowds in way that only someone with Deitch’s Rolodex and social connections could deliver. His championing of emerging stars such as Ryan McGinness, Kembra Pfahler and E.V. Day was never short of visionary, and the art scene of Los Angeles gained much with Eli Broad and the MOCA board’s unanimous vote of confidence in Deitch’s hiring.

A great deal of the brouhaha seems to revolve around the fact that Deitch is an actual businessman, and a successful one at that, when it’s customary for museum directors to be cherry-picked from other museums or academic posts. Why this might prove detrimental to his performance in the job—Deitch is a Harvard MBA, a good business head is something MOCA desperately needs—is a complete mystery to us, but there have been calls for Deitch to divest himself of what must be a fairly substantial (to say nothing of quite valuable) collection of Modern art. Why? Should Eli Broad and David Geffen be required to do the same? Because Deitch has proved himself to be a shrewd operator in his chosen field of endeavor, he should therefore be penalized? Makes no sense. It’s hardly like the guy is a corporate lobbyist. This is the art world, after all. This is the way it’s supposed to work…

I, for one, welcome the arrival of Jeffery Deitch to the best coast with open arms. Smart move, MOCA, just make sure you spell my name right on the guest list.

Cross posting this from Brand X

01.12.2010

10:58 pm

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In his Los Angeles live solo debut, goth legend Steven Severin (he of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame) will be appearing at the Cinefamily/Silent Movie Theater for two evenings, adding moody live scores to several surrealist silent shorts (including Germaine Dulac’s “The Seashell and the Clergyman,” a collaboration with Antonin Artaud). The second night will see Severin premiering a “trance-inducing” new score for Jean Cocteau’s 1930 film “Blood Of A Poet.”

Jan. 13-14, $15 on Jan. 13; $17 on Jan. 14; 8 p.m., Cinefamily at Silent Movie Theater, 611 N Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 655-2510

Cross posting this from Brand X