Category: Uncategorized

Carl Larsson – [↑] The Model on the Table (1906); [+] Anna-Stina {Mrs. Alkman, née Rydell} (1905); [↓] Model Writing Postcards (1906)

One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot
it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Don’t hoard what
seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it,
give it all, give it now. The very impulse to save something good for a
better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will
arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from
beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself
what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything
you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your
safe and find ashes.
–Annie Dillard

Tono Stano – Right-angle Flight (1985-6)

If I had to guess I’d say this frame has been inverted from its original orientation.

In other words: whereas the image appears as if the model’s legs are hanging off of something, more likely she’s laying on her back on the edge of a table with her legs in the air.

Not how the little dark edge of the table you can see in silhouette in the top left corner echoes the angle of the seem betwen the wall and the ceiling in the background behind her right foot.

Also: smart money would theorize that this filtered through a jugendstil funhouse mirror served as the impetus for the frankly ridiculous scenes from LvT’s Nymphomaniac where Seligman imagines Joe’s sexual education.

Stano would’ve been 25 when he made this. LvT was in his late 50s when making Nymphomaniac. (And that’s why everyone believes Bjork and no one believes LvT–plus if you’ve seen his films you’re automatically predisposed to believing Bjork.)

Source: blueblackdream

Source unknown – Title Unknown (201X)

Upon first seeing this I felt a mix of critical animus and–strangely: interest.

I’ve been consuming pornography fairly consistently since I was fourteen or fifteen–but I’ve always been put off by the ubiquity of the money shot facial.

I think I was nineteen when I found out about creampies. Like if there’s a video feature a creampie produced in the late 90s, I’ve probably masturbated to it.

Although it did alleviate my issue with facials, it was a little like that one horse sized duck vs 100 horses the size of a duck conundrum: one big thing you don’t want vs hundreds of small manageable things that you nevertheless don’t want either.

For example: while I think that a creampie video was the first place where I first witnessed a woman orgasm from sex (I can’t find the video now but it was one of Cytherea first appearances), even despite the absence of a facial finish–there is still a myopic focus on male sexual pleasure.

And although the way this is presented appeals to me–for reasons I’m getting to–there’s still a lot I can tell you about the scene this emerges from just by seeing these excerpts.

I have no idea where this is from originally–Google’s image search gets worse by the day and TinEye just proves what I already suspected: that this gif has been desaturated from the original presentation. However, given the relentlessly depilated genitals on both performers, it’s probably safe to say this features in a a heteronormative mainstream porn clip.

Yet, the way it has been decontextualized from its source material is at least interesting. In the first frame, the viewer can see a vulva penetrated by a phallus; the only motion is the puling contractions of the cock.

The second clip validates the impression suggested by the first–the cock slips out, spurting a jet of semen.

In the third sequence: there’s not only much more jizz, a mix of secretions also sluices from between the labia.

I’ve seen enough creampie clips to suspect that while the stud has clearly gotten off, that the director is most likely off camera cuing the actress to squeeze the semen out. (The implication being that once again everything about the exchange hinges on male pleasure.)

Still, this presentation–if you only consider what is presented in this gifset–makes it look like the boy experiences the paroxysms of orgasm and the edit for this presents her contractions to expel semen as mirror spasms; she gets off as a result of his getting off.

I don’t buy into that cishet wishful thinking paradigm.  But what I adore about the way this is presented has to do with the way it reminds me of one of those middle school science projects on photosythensis where the human breathes out carbon dioxide and the plant breathes in the C02 and in turn gives off oxygen that is then consumed by the human.

It’s suggestive of a more symbiotic interaction. Also, conceptually: the form suggests an intrinsic cycling–but in so far as the viewer interacts with this sequence there is a sense of being included in the proceedings in a way that most porn can’t be arsed with.

Source: xxxpronexxx

Mr. Man – Explicit Masturbation in Mainstream Movies (201X)

On the one hand: this is a v. poorly titled super clip–I am familiar with about a third of these scenes but none of them are from mainstream movies. (Ken Park and Shortbus are as close as you’re likely to get to mainstream and they were niche, art house hits at most.)

On the other hand: with mainstream releases continually pushing the envelope on what it’s possible to depict w/r/t sexual exchanges in movies, it is nice to see work which includes explicit masturbation as a valid mode of sexual expression.

That these scenes exist at all is a pleasant and radical corrective to the heteronormalized dude meets lady character–the latter who exists with little more depth than straight up eye candy or some sort of motivational force for the male protagonist’s redemption arc. (Further it challenges the prevailing notion that if there is full frontal nudity, it will favor boobs and bush but exclude penii.)

Yet this also–queerly, in my mind–presents masturbation as an act on a spectrum ranging from decadent self-pleasure to something that is complimentary to interpersonal sexual expression, i.e. the scenes where folks masturbate as a group, or for a consenting audience or as a way of ersatz participation in an orgy setting.

In other words: there is this notion that masturbation is what one does when sex is not available. But this presents masturbation as just another (infinitely varied) form of sexual expression–and that is something that resonates strongly for me.

Julia Grossi – Jada Joyce (2017)

Vigils
by Ernesto Mejía Sánchez trans. William Carlos Williams

I
Vacant days, what shall become
of me? At nightfall
already conquered in our dreams,
facing a wall, uncertain we stumble
and go astray. To fall as night falls
without deceit, on any bed
which chance interposes, in search
of the most modest and white caress.
Tell me, my soul, elect
or favored, friend of the Lord
in the star filled night, how
bar the day from that blinding light.

II
Vacant days, what shall become
of me? Free as the steed
before the timeless goal, panting
but secure, free of the wall
placed about us blind, but
with the pride of one who gives
all that of himself that may be
given by a free man,
uncursed if it may be—,
knowing that I am here
today, and tomorrow … no where,
nor when, failing tomorrow. Free,
as a dagger, but with
you, suffering, self pitied,
keeping from self the power of
a most savage conscience and, for
all that, relentless love.
When I place you, my body,
sacrificial to night’s beneficence,
lowly I am reborn and humble me.

III
Vacant days, what shall become
of me? Bordered by a light
acid and sudden, sand
made vain by a lightning, like
foam at the edges of waves
to my heart’s thumps
swinging from bump to bump
toward the star. What whiteness
so stealthy, what sleepless
wonder, the live lime
rocks, the furious waters
cause to blanch, silver shouting
from the torch which never dims.
Bays solely blossomed in snow.
Days hardened by the moon
as if at a cobra’s gaze
and weeping melting the self
centered snow of meanest breast.
Oh implacable! Oh ferocious white
between grey and the air, shading water
to grey, shining, threatening,
debasing, with a murderous glint,
thus are the bones I shall leave
polished as a signal in the night.

IV
I am kneeling before the white wall
I write my name
upon the water. I see the hours
passing like clouds. There is no
bottom. Neither abyss.
At my feet shadow draws back.
Who am I? Do you not know me?
What strange monster
is sucking the minuscule
darkness that I need not
disappear? What delirium
the Uranian skies have willed on me?
I am within myself beside myself,
side by side, my fog, my
ashes, my breed, my
guts, look upon me for the last time
before I destroy myself.

V
Someone calls me and I don’t know how to answer.
I am not here. I have not returned. It is not I.
Subterfuge, unknown person,
unknown self who will continue calling
from always to never without stop.
I am not here. I am unknown to myself. Who is who?
I call, implore, question, no answer,
and I will continue calling, whom? and who
to whom, without end or beginning,
until I can call and answer
with one voice and at the same time.

VI
What plunging thoughts
the heart casts upon me,
your own heart. What
patent joy.
What amazement. Under
its bark life has
kept its forms by which
we know it, the egg
from which it was borne.
I desire what at once
I desire and spurn
—to remember, be false to
the present—and consent,
what difference? by you alone
my entrails are scorched.

VII
Pain does not point
either to movement or
movelessness. Thus
sway dancing between
the hurt and the joy
so that I no longer know
whether I live
or swoon. Let me spin
if I would persist.

Isa Marcelli – Untitled from Toccata series (2015-16)

In music, toccata means literally ‘light touch’ and is a designation afforded to a pieces (usually keyboard based but also sometimes including string instruments) which are notoriously difficult to perform but allow the musician to show off their deftly virtuositic lightness of touch.

With the image above, there are several layers of meaning to draw from this. First that the woman is holding an egg resonates with the title. (And I can’t help but recall the apocryphal account of Brunelleschi carrying a basket of eggs and dropping them as a result of his shock upon encountering Masaccio’s Holy Trinity Fresco.) Secondly, Marcelli is using collodion to produce ferrotypes. (Collodion wet plates experienced their widest usage during the U.S. Civil War–during which time collodion was actually used to close up severe wounds; but through a process involving a number of extremely hazardous chemicals, i.e. ether and cyanide, it was possible to produce a resilient negative image on transparent glass.) Also: collodion is not exactly the most user friendly format as you have roughly 12 minutes to evenly coat the plate, load it into your camera, expose and process the resulting image.

Source: wolfsonstuart.blogspot.com

Joy Episalla – [↖] TV 7 {Houston} (2005-8); [↑] TV 1 {Naples} (1998-2005); [↗] TV 2 {Madrid} (2004-5); [←] TV 3 {London} (2004-5) [+] TV 5 {Orleans} (2006-16); [→] TV 4 {Barcelona} (2004-5); [↙] TV 6 {Buffalo} (2006-8); [↓] TV 8 {Chicago} (2007-8); [↘] TV 10 {Philadelphia} (2008-12); [all from TV series]

[W]hen you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
–Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

Source: lesbianartandartists