You're Surrounded, It Won't Get Any Better

other half

 

file under; drawn; photographed; twins
link / 0 have made it up

new thing in progress that might be called You're Surrounded, It Won't Get Any Better, or some variant on that, or some different thing

alex kapranos photo by bob hardy
charles guislain photo by sacha dumain

other half now complete

 

file under; drawn; photographed; twins
link / 2 have made it up

Anyway You Choose to Give It

-
i didn't take the photo and don't know who did. i dont know who it's of. it is one of the best photographs i've ever seen.

drawing detail l-r

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made for the 5th birthday of here. luv u weaklings.

 

file under; drawn; photographed
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rewards for hard work that will not be otherwise discussed here

new blazer- cheap
ok-ish haircut- expensive
new hair color- free, sort of; i'd had all the stuff onhand a long time. it's white with a lot of violet toner
scallion ramen w egg + fried tofu- $6

 

file under; photographed; self capture
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this past december the incomparable kier cooke sandvik came to nyc for his 1st gallery opening here. below are photographs he took of richard hell, me, nicholas cook, and alan horn.

kier's line art and bw photography are likewise incredible. they should be investigated at flesh world. kier is 22, norwegian, my friend, and a born artist.

 

file under; kier cooke sandvik; photographed
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most people who come here do so from an image search on 'robert mapplethorpe self portrait'

here you go

polaroids taken 1972-1974

 

file under; photographed; robert mapplethorpe
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dont know who shot this

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
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2006
approx the first photos by Patrick O'Dell that i ever encountered
he is still going strong at Epicly Later'd and is a daily inspiration

 

file under; hero worship; photographed
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by Emir Ozsahin
found at offpop

 

file under; photographed
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here are the images from the entries that i had to delete because they got broken by spam. sorry person who knows about some wow gold in wow and person who likes to post very long strings of the word 'fuck', you must now find a new playground :).

Dennis Cooper + Robert Dickerson

Exactly What For, 2007

Cant Get You Out of My Head, 2006
oddly enough this is one of my only pieces of art to ever get displayed outside this website. it was at a show in Ireland curated by Alex Rose. the spam comments were mostly blank and didnt seem to advertise anything.

i posted this in like 2007 saying i wanted to make a movie where he plays Morrissey. for the unenlightened his name is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. photographer's name, don't know.

'Autoportrait', one of the first things i ever posted on here. polaroid self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1973. got filled to breaking with ads re sex and pharmaceuticals. he might have liked that.

 

file under; drawn; male beauty; photographed; robert mapplethorpe
link / 2 have made it up

happy xmas

found here

 

file under; +; photographed
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Robert Mapplethorpe by Sam Wagstaff
mid 1970s?

 

file under; photographed; robert mapplethorpe; twins
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Samuel Wagstaff selfportrait
early 1980s?

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; twins
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Did
800x600, 665x499, 665x473 pixels

 

file under; photographed
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Morrissey by Linder
early 90s

 

file under; linder sterling; morrissey; photographed
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Michael Stipe 4 Marc Jacobs, from Music Slut. i expected something more glamourshotish. photo by Juergen Teller.

 

file under; photographed; r.e.m.
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self-portraits by Gil

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
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Martin Tomlinson, 2003 or 2004
photographed by Andrew Kendall

large --> [1000x669 / 0.4MB]

--
the photo in the layout, just for Maria Kier :)

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
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no. 20
Green Tortoise Hostel
January 2007

 

file under; photographed; san francisco; self capture
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here's me in front of all my mom's Spode, in her new bungalow in Pasadena. everyone in L.A. keeps telling me they love my 'haircut'. i'm totally a compliment whore, so great; but: really? are these people serious? it's basically a hair-uncut, growing everywhichway because i'm waiting for my bangs to be long enough for a Franzboy before i actually pay for a cut. meanwhile, everything except my bangs is growing first and frizzy. if you ask me, i look like Andy Warhol.

 

file under; los angeles; photographed; self capture
link / 2 have made it up

James Dean, photographed by?

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
link / 2 have made it up

as previously promised, here is the mp3 to the song from which Look at My Hands takes its title. this song has a few of my favorite guitar riffs ever. in particular, i love the one that first starts at about 0:31 and repeats several times throughout the song.

right- or ctrl-click to save / 320kbps mp3 / ~9MB

Green Grow the Rushes by R.E.M.
on Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985 / lyrics

extra photograph
Michael Stipe 2002 -->

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; r.e.m.; sung
link / 2 have made it up

Top: Kermit Oswald 1981. The photo is from his own collection, but I don't know who snapped it. Kermit was Keith Haring's best friend throughout his childhood, and when Keith was briefly studying commercial art at a now-defunct art school in Pittsburgh, Kermit organized a carful of Keith's friends to all go visit him as a surprise, in conjunction with some art thing Keith was doing there at the time. Kermit was surprised by how much this touched Keith, his major impression of the experience being that Keith Haring, the artist, was 'obviously on his way'. Kermit saw the edges of a star expanding fast, fusing light. He also remembers that Keith tried to talk to him, but something stalled and failed. He remembers being embarrassed without understanding why.

^that's interpretive, some of it. K+K were of course best friends; the Pittsburgh carful happened; the 'obviously' quote is real. The remainder =how I read one of the memories Kermit shares in Keith Haring's official biography [1991], a book composed of quotes from Haring and people who knew him [family, friends, boyfriends, artists, musicians, Timothy Leary, etc]. Kermit Oswald has a few long passages. I find myself absolutely stuck on his story.

different scene from Kermit, in his own words [emphases mine];

When Keith and I graduated from high school, Keith went off to Pittsburgh, and I enrolled at the Kutztown State Teachers College, which is now called Kutztown State University. [...]

Around 1977, I was into chalk drawings, which is part of a well-kept secret. I did them all over the university. I did them on every wall... I was getting sick of working in the classrooms. I was sick of making objects that nobody was paying attention to. So I decided to take my art to the streets.

In addition to the chalk drawings, I did chicken-fat drawings, which I did on the cafeteria steps. I did salt water drawings on the gymnasium floor, to represent sweat. I was making paintings with salt. I was carving wax. I was experimenting all over the place. So these were pretty aggressive works which I did all over the campus , and I was nearly thrown out of school. I lost my student job. I was stripped of financial aid. I have nasty letters from the president of the university.

Well, when Keith came to visit, I showed him my stuff, and he said, 'This is urban guerrilla art!' It really raised the hair on the back of my neck- like, all of a sudden, something clicked. And he said, 'Kermit, on this one you're years ahead of your time!' And it scared the living shit out of me, because for the first time in my life the person I really looked up to and respected for having the balls to go after what he really wanted, was slapping me on the back for something he admired. I kept thinking to myself, 'What the fuck am I going to do to top this?'

Now: not to say that a single thing Keith H ever said to Kermit about loving Kermit's art was disingenuous. Not to say that at all. Keith was probably the biggest fan of Kermit Oswald's art who ever lived [for those familiar with another discourse, we might say Keith Haring : Kermit Oswald :: Morrissey : Linder Sterling]. And, certainly, Kermit makes his art sound completely prophetic for 1977. Just reading his descriptions of his work, you can tell Kermit Oswald is a fantastic rhetorician/bullshitter, or he is a genius that hardly anyone ever knew because he thought, quote, 'you can't really go after art; it's more like it wants you.' Still, Kermit eventually did get a workspace one day, a place in Nyc where he could paint, and like I said before, he ended up doing a whole bunch of paintings of trees that apparently no one found even the slightest bit interesting, because I've never been able to learn anything about them other than the fact that they exist[ed?]. I'd really love to see them.

By the time Kermit is interviewed for Keith Haring's official biography, in the late 1980s, there is still something he doesn't understand-

Even though Keith and I were separated and doing our different things, we still kept up our friendship. In fact, he'd come back from Pittsburgh and so we'd be in contact every thirty or forty days. And, we were always writing to each other. I mean I have these really beautiful letters from Keith and these incredible drawings that he'd send me. The letters didn't make sense, somehow, because I wasn't aware of the gay issue... all of a sudden this guy I've been spending my whole childhood with turns around and has an attraction for me.

So when I started receiving these really beautiful letters and drawings I said, 'What is this?' I mean, what does this suggest? Because part of me was experiencing some sort of guilt about what people might think about me. I mean, they'd obviously assumed that Keith and I must have had our moments. But I would point out we had done absolutely everything together but that! So it is what it is.

Yeah. First of all, what I would give to read those letters and see those drawings. Wow.

And yeah second, you probably don't become a major artist if people think you had sex with Keith Haring and this is somehow a problem for you. Rushing to point out that you did everything 'but' that is... 'what it is'? Is that actually a helpful way to think about it, 'it is what it is'? Maybe Kermit is right when he says that art has to claim you, and not the other way around, but I think he is talking only about himself.

of course
talking about yourself, to yourself
[as Kermit did]
there's a name for that. think it's
the rainbow connection?

anyway, yeah. discomfort Has
a fucking beautiful face [more images] -->

 

file under; drawn; keith haring; male beauty; photographed; quoted
link / 2 have made it up

one day i will take a trip to Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where Keith Haring grew up with his sisters- Kay, Kristen, and Karen- and his best friend, Kermit Oswald, who was also his first sexual fascination. Kermit knew Keith from elementary school onwards, and Kermit eventually moved to New York City too, several years later than Keith. after an unsuccessful career painting mostly trees, Kermit went on to make frames, like for paintings, and he also supervised the construction of most of the gigantic, public, metal sculptures Keith designed late in his life. one of those sculptures is in front of the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and has been since the SFMOMA Keith Haring retrospective in 1998. that, incidentally, was brilliant shit. at the time, i already knew Keith Haring's work well from art books. that was my first real experience, in an art museum, where i was like 'shit wow now i'm seeing the _real thing_'. i'll never forget spotting A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat- the actual, large, triangular canvas- out of the corner of my eye, for the first time. and what was that super-early, super-unusual work that i saw at the SFMOMA retrospective but have never seen anywhere else, not even in books- something like I Know Where Meat Comes From It Comes From the Store? god, that was amazing. i wish i could see that painting again.

so this gate to Kutztown: it's located somewhere in the 20s at Nyc Port Authority. the ride from here takes around 3 hours. i don't know anything about Kutztown, which is generally described as a 'borough' [whether of Reading or Philadelphia, i have no idea]. i'm pretty sure the ticket price must be under $35, but i've never tried to actually find out and i have no idea where the ticketing counter for that particular bus line even is. i don't know where, in Kutztown, the bus lets you off. once i got to the bus station, i don't know where i'd walk from there.

all i need to know is: Kutztown, Keith, Kay, Kristen, Karen- and somehow; especially: Kermit. i will bring Keith H's journals and official bio, and maybe some of his favorite writings on art, and i will bring my sketchbook.

so far, i have tried to learn as little as possible about Kutztown. i know there is a Haring sculpture there that i have never seen [one that Kermit constructed]. apparently there's some kind of small quaint downtown area. i hear it is 'conveniently located' to Allentown [which i've never heard of really] and Reading [where Keith H was actually born].

buses leave from Nyc Port Authority every day. it's just a question of packing my backpack one day and getting on one of those buses.

in other news, i won't be posting many drawings in the coming weeks, because i'll be doing gift drawings that are going to belong only to the people that receive them. i'll stick something public up every one in awhile, though. i can never resist.

in the meantime, photographs. today at Port Authority, which is becoming one of my favorite places in the world, this confounded me.

--
edit: also, on the photo for the Kutztown bus gate, you see where it says 'Departure Times See Schedule Below'? literally, the only thing 'below' that lit sign is a door and then the floor and then i guess the dead.

 

file under; photographed; writ
link / 2 have made it up

--
Polaroid self-portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1973

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; photographed; robert mapplethorpe
link / 0 have made it up

The things that confuse most people have never confused me. Who I want to fuck? Myself as Robert Mapplethorpe, forever. What happens to us after we die? We flop back onto the world, returning everything we won and grabbing at what we lost. The things that confound me are tiny and specific: numbers, flames, pieces of hair. These things are much more confusing. It is easier to picture creation clearly than it is a fire.

Last night, though, sitting on the edge of my bed in my first track jacket [red of course], I experienced my first spiritual crisis while looking at a pretty small cross-section of delivery menus from my neighborhood. It was one of the most ecstatic things I have ever felt in my life. Now I get why people like to be confused about giant things like why we are here; how: the slip never ends? Freefall surely isn't the only freedom, but it must be in the top 3.

When I was growing up, I was never a particularly churchy person because my parents only ever took me to one [obviously not unusual], La Cañada Presbyterian. Kevin Costner and his family also went[/go?] there. The place is preppy, fake, and boring to the max. I loathed being ordered to dress up. Too many people in the congregation had had plastic surgery[*], and the entire sight was just kind of sickening and scary to me. The church was located across from the only place I ever remember seeing a cigarette machine, a chain restaurant called Conrad's in a strip mall that also held a Vons market, Baskin Robbins ice cream, and my mom's favorite drycleaner.

I remember what bugged me most about church, starting from when I was little and through high school [after which i kind of forgot that people even go to church], was the idea that the world had been created for humans. I found it arrogant, and also for some reason, a lot of people used this idea to justify the idea of eating meat to me, or even to instruct me to eat meat [including, repeatedly, i shit you not, the extremely conservative Christian math teacher i had throughout most of high school]. When I think about the idea of a human-centric world now, the idea of 'meat' just has nothing to do with it. I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that these concepts were even connected in the minds of so many people I knew.

So, last night. I was ever so slightly drugged and sitting on the edge of my bed with maybe like 4 or 5 menus in my hand [we probably have about 40 from restaurants that will deliver here], trying to think of what I wanted to eat, and I got extreme vertigo, and I fell, not over physically, but just fell, dropped out. It was like being a ghost and walking through the papers that were in my hands in front of me. It felt so amazing. I don't know how long it happened. It wasn't instantaneous, and it didn't last longer than 15 minutes, but it could have been a few minutes or a couple seconds, I don't know.

I was realizing that there were god, what?, over 500 [vegetarian] dishes that I could order and have brought to me? And suddenly I considered that if the world was created for humans to use? That is actually the humblest way to possibly think of it. If the world was not created for us, we absolutely took it anyway and we are going to use it right up. How. Fucking

um

oh

For the first time I read the introduction to The Thief's Journal in the original French. The Grove translations of Genet's books are all loveably awkward [lots of 'i buggered him' and 'we were buggering together'... i expect to see new ones sometime in my lifetime]. The translations of Sartre's introductions are also slightly off. The idea at the end of the introduction to The Thief's Journal more or less makes it through, though: basically, every person's greatest secret is that s/he is exactly the same as you. This is totally distinct from the idea that 'we are all the same', which is how a lot of people misread the introduction. What Sartre is pointing to is the bigness and darkness of the secret, and the possibility of endless twins and mirrors. S/he is the same as you, s/he is the same as Jean Genet, and you are the same as Jean Genet, but the three are not the same. There are secret endless twins, but no triplets. I guess I'd phrase it: what no one will ever reveal to you, specifically, is that s/he is exactly the same as you, specifically.

It took me a long time to put my head back on after I read that. As far as I am concerned, there is hardly anywhere to go from there except to blood and bleach and out. It was months before I even started the actual book.

If that is our enormous and unlit, well, a smaller wink belongs to you and me

--

Our Littlest Secret

 

file under; brooklyn; drawn; jean genet; photographed; self capture; writ
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file under; photographed; self capture
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--
whewee. so this is what i look like when i'm artistically spent. fucking arted out.

i'm definitely still going to finish 100 drawings by the end of November, but i'm gonna take another 2-3 days and just kinda breathe. i'll probably post my next set of drawings midweek.

oh, and i decided to grow out my hair some. my goal for the winter is to get my muscle tone back [i haven't been to a gym in, like, a year] and then get an 'Alex Kapranos 2003'-style 'floppy fringe' haircut.

 

file under; photographed; self capture
link / 2 have made it up

so as many of you know, i had the fortune of hitting up the Drawing Restraint retrospective at its only U.S. location, SFMOMA [twice!]. anyone who also owns the DR9 sketchbook either got it at SFMOMA or in Japan. or through eBay etc.

this photograph was at the entry to the floor with most of the Drawing Restraint stuff, framed and poster-size, maybe about 30" tall?

now, titling something is kind of a feat, right? -->

 

file under; matthew barney; photographed; writ
link / 0 have made it up

outfit 1: 2005, 'i raided Conor Oberst's closet, blow me'
outfit 2: 1999ish, what is that, duct tape? i own a closer crop of this print, and the weirdness of his outfit isn't readily apparent.

outfit 2 photo by Todd Oldham; don't know who shot the first one.

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; r.e.m.
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me in my favorite shirt, 2004
Runyan Canyon, Los Angeles
shot by Steven

 

file under; los angeles; photographed; self capture
link / 0 have made it up

A little under a year ago, Steven and I were driving all our belongings cross-country to Brooklyn in a Penske truck. It was expensive.

I took this picture on a day when I was sick, to show that I had gotten a cherry limeade from Sonic that was as big as my head. It really was; it's not an illusion. I think it was 64 oz maybe?

I made it home to Brooklyn safe because I was wearing my lucky sneakers. I didn't know at the time that they were lucky.

 

file under; photographed; self capture
link / 0 have made it up

totally
2006

 

file under; photographed; self capture; twins
link / 6 have made it up

not quite
2005

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; twins
link / 1 have made it up

Me?

Me, I have long held that the best way to code yourself as physically available [which is to say sexually available, yeah, but also something much larger, 'in public' in a way that's morally correct]- the best way is to look a little bit preppy, a little bit young+masculine, and a little bit pink. If I want to look like a whore [a: servant of the city], I imagine a boy in a pink Lacoste shirt with chemically burnt hair, and I try to evoke him through similar gestures. Not the same gestures, precisely. I don't look very good in a Lacoste shirt myself.

Soooo, I wanted to like the new hot pink automat in the East Village a lot more than I do;

St Marks Pl -->

 

file under; photographed; self capture; st marks pl
link / 8 have made it up

Josh Winter, 2005

Josh used to play bass with my boyfriend and me. Now he plays keyboards in Waterlaso. I took this photo in an apartment building on Hollywood Bl that was once owned by Peter Falk. While Steven and I were living there, we spotted Ron Jeremy in the building several times. He didn't live there, but at least one time, he was clearly there filming a porn movie. He was in the lobby coercing some poor woman who kept saying 'I don't want to do that with that guy here'.

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
link / 1 have made it up

In the first place, I'm writing this without the magazines at hand. I'm in a room where musical instruments are scattered upside-down, empty glass bottles crowd every surface, and a busted trampoline faces me directly: my view. Not exactly how I planned it but at least Storz+Bickel are present.

I encountered this girl in the apparently final print issue [2001] of Propaganda Magazine, an enterprise of Fred H Berger, a dude whose cultural role I have never quite gleaned. He takes photographs [which are pretty good]; reviews minor music releases. For a time, I guess, he was behind a print magazine called Propaganda. I always find that the most unexpected people know Propaganda Magazine, so if you know it, you know it. If not;

Early issues were goth-oriented and 2 steps above Xerox. As years passed, it grew into a reasonably glossy... 'scene magazine'? 'Fictional photoessay' magazine? Basically, these really hot, androgynous boys and girls would pose for clearly made-up Life Magazine-type photojournalism pieces. Or would you call the pieces porn? The narratives were similar. The pictures were generally sexual, but didn't have nudity.

For example, in the photographs below, The Girl, dyed blonde in black leather looking like a boy, is acting the part of 'Dmitri', a Russian street hustler. Dmitri's words are briefly quoted; he mentions his girlfriend 'Zosia' [the other girl below]. He actually says 'I'm not a faggot' with reference to his invented profession, and this gets a block quote. Seriously... at whom was this magazine aimed?

So yeah: The Girl. I don't know her name. My feelings for her are singular... unlike, unlike, unlike...

One time I tried to explain it by saying I didn't know whether I wanted to fuck her or to be her. It wasn't a flippant expression; it was an honest attempt to reduce the conflict, to aim it at a 'central tension', chill the situation out. I asked other people, who is it for you? You can't decide whether you'd prefer to be or fuck who? And I mean really, like if you actually gave it a lot of thought?

I got gorgeous answers: Egon Schiele, Kim Gordon, Morrissey. But I realized that my friends played the game differently. To the names that attracted them, enormous lives and myths were attached. No one proferred an anonymous photo and said, That One. Instead, they felt a pull, more or less, between Fucking That and Having That Career / Having Made That Art.

It's true that with the girl in the photos, I don't know if I'd rather fuck her or be her. I know that I'd say yes to either and both. The former, of course, is unremarkable: you can all see that she's boyishly cute, self-aware, and involved in some kind of weird art project. But as for being her, I don't know what her daily life is like now, or what it was ever like; I don't know where she lives; I fundamentally don't know what she does. Further, if I were to be her, it wouldn't be so that it was me in these photos in Propaganda Magazine. It's not that I wish I had been the one to make that art- art that's totally unobjectionable and quite sexy at turns, but not the sort that makes me jealous.

I guess I see: The Surface of The Girl. If she walked toward me, in a mirror or on the street, and said, Do You Want To Switch?... and she would become me and I'd become her and we'd walk away, each into a new life formerly belonging to the other... I Would Say Yes. No doubt, I would probably try to fuck her too. So basically this makes her... a point of entry? I see the other side already.

Some people want themselves. Some people want you. Some people want boys or girls coaxed halfway into existence; some people want light; and some people want the whip. Me;

I want Two I want Twice

2 more photographs

 

file under; photographed; self capture; twins; writ
link / 0 have made it up

Sexual jealousy at the state of the art

Want

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; matthew barney; photographed; quoted
link / 0 have made it up

Robert Mapplethorpe, shot by Andy Warhol, 1983 [left]
self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1975 [right]

both Polaroid
Robert's vanilla
Warhol's a Polacolor ER print

 

file under; andy warhol; hero worship; male beauty; photographed; robert mapplethorpe; twins
link / 0 have made it up

1/8th is plenty, 8 is plenty

 

file under; photographed; san francisco
link / 0 have made it up

Hard, 2004

Soft, 2006

 

file under; photographed; self capture; twins
link / 3 have made it up

 

file under; baudrillard; morrissey; photographed; quoted; self capture
link / 1 have made it up

the one on the right in the top one, and on the floor in the bottom one, sent me two of the most amazing letters, once, before he got famous. just look at him; imagine what getting a letter from him must be like; you don't know half of it.

Virginia Puff-Paint by Jeremy Laing, 2004
Jeremy Laing and Will Munro, shot by Bruce LaBruce

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; photographed; twins
link / 0 have made it up

earlier / earliest

 

file under; brooklyn; photographed
link / 0 have made it up

Jake, 2004
shot by Ryan McGinley

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
link / 0 have made it up

Ryan McGinley and Kent somebody, 2006
shot by Amy Kellner

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; twins
link / 0 have made it up

nolan
by William Galindo

 

file under; photographed
link / 0 have made it up

For a Friend 2006

Day-

So complete is my inability to resist temptation that I don't claim to know how it feels to be tempted-

Evening-

The night became a blur

 

file under; photographed; self capture
link / 8 have made it up

Today the wall had a sign pointing to it

 

file under; brooklyn; photographed
link / 0 have made it up

In the 1997 Taschen 'Complete Works 1976-1996' for Pierre et Gilles (perhaps the best $40 that has ever been spent on a gift for me*), there's an essay written in French by Bernard Marcadé. It's translated into English by Martyn Back and into German by Uta Grosenick.

There's also an essay written in English by Dan Cameron. It's translated into French by Frédéric Maurin, and into German, again by Uta Grosenick. I think in both cases, Uta Grosenick actually translated the English version into German, not either French version, but obviously I don't know (might you know?).

Anyway, translator irrespective- the essay titles are as follows-

-
Bernard Marcadé's
In the original French: 'Pierre et Gilles, ou Il n'y a pas de second degré'
In English: 'Pierre et Gilles, or What you see is what you get'
In German: 'Pierre et Gilles, oder »What you see is what you get«'

-
Dan Cameron's
In the original English: 'In the Name of Love'
In French: 'Au nom de l'amour'
In German: 'Im Namen der Liebe'

-
My impression [?]
;There's no real way to say Il n'y a pas de second degré in English - literally, in French, 'There is no second degree', generally meaning something like 'There's not another layer/level'.
;There's no real way to say it in German either.
;There's also no real way to say 'What you see is what you get' in German.
;But 'in the name of love' means the same in all three languages.

-
Christophe 1981

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; quoted; twins
link / 0 have made it up

Lou Reed
shot by Andy Warhol, in the Factory kitchen

 

file under; andy warhol; hero worship; lou reed; photographed
link / 0 have made it up

Open Your Mouth, 2006

context

 

file under; brooklyn; photographed
link / 3 have made it up

Reasons to Live

1, 2005

2, 2006

Smaller, smaller...

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; self capture
link / 0 have made it up

So, The Sounds have visual clones of both Morrissey and Damon Albarn? Sign me up?

Is their music any good? What song/s should I check out?

-
photograph by Cass Bird, 2006

 

file under; photographed; rebel rebel
link / 0 have made it up

Damon Albarn on Brett Anderson, 2001: 'Yeah, I know I went overboard with all that stuff... I was rather pissed off... but I have to ask one question, is he still a bisexual who's never had a homosexual experience? Because I'm essentially straight, and I've had homosexual experiences. If he actually is bisexual, he's obviously got some sort of hang-up.'

-
photograph of Damon Albarn by Gregg Williams, for Make Trade Fair
photograph of Brett Anderson 'bi'... ?

 

file under; photographed; quoted; rebel rebel
link / 2 have made it up

2 more

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; the libertines
link / 0 have made it up

Steven (right) doesn't like this one, but I've always been kind of proud of it. It's one of the first good photographs I took of people, and one of the first I didn't crop.

What do you suppose animals hear when they hear music
2004 / a bunch of pixels X a bunch of pixels
large (3000x2250 / 3.1MB / 7.5 x 10 inches at 300dpi / right- or ctrl-click to save)

 

file under; photographed; self capture
link / 5 have made it up

He's been in two stunning films, Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and Mike Figgis' The Loss of Sexual Innocence. Other than that, the crap-roster is pretty incredible - from that Woody Allen movie to indie garbage like B Monkey to the painfully calculated attempt at a cult hit that is Killer Tongue, it's hard to know where to begin. Bend It Like Beckham is enjoyable enough and probably his best-known film, but still he's perching, waiting to be really seen, actually remembered. Maybe his role in the next James Bond movie will be the one, but I sort of doubt it.

It must be said, neither Velvet Goldmine nor The Loss of Sexual Innocence demands much of him as an actor. He plays the former in more-or-less one tone (to good effect), and he has almost no lines in the latter. Not to say he's a poor actor, precisely, but he seems to have two effective strategies, blankness and melodrama. When he tries for something in between, it rarely works.

If films were still silent, he'd be one of The Ones.

For me, he's a symbol, what of, I don't know. He's one of the beauties, and if he's remembered, it will probably be for that only. His surface is endless and holy. Anyone who claims that physical beauty has symmetry at its heart has never closely studied his face.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, photographed by Greg Lotus

 

file under; male beauty; photographed
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From the booklet to the new Morrissey album, Ringleader of the Tormentors.

Update, 8 PM on 2 April: it is, for sure, the back of a medal for the Order of the Crown of Italy. Knights class, maybe? The front should show a crown.

Can anyone pinpoint the era?

Apparently, the Order was created by King Emmanuel in 1868, when Venice was annexed, to celebrate the unification of the Kingdom of Italy. It was given to both Italian nationals and foreigners (civilians and soldiers) as a symbol of national gratitude. It was issued through 1946 and today has been replaced by the Order of Civil Merit of Savoy.

 

file under; hero worship; morrissey; photographed
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Most days, still kind of do.

Michael Stipe, 2003, photographed by?

One of the best live versions I have ever heard of ANY song by ANYONE is Harborcoat by R.E.M. from the 'Bochum 1985' bootleg. It makes me wish I could be Bill Berry as well, or rather play the drums the way he did back in 1985.

Harborcoat live in Germany, 1985
by R.E.M. / lyrics
album version on Reckoning, 1984

Too bad, isn't it, that the most recent R.E.M. album, Around the Sun, was such crap? Given that it was an overt response to 9/11 and the Iraq war, the impression I got was, 'OK, the war has creatively destroyed R.E.M.' I have high hopes for the next R.E.M. album, though. I found New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up both subpar (the former, dreadfully so - why in hell does everyone call it their 'return to form'? it's SHIT!). But after those records, they made Reveal, their best album since Murmur.

Beat a Drum
by R.E.M. / lyrics
from Reveal, 2001

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; photographed; r.e.m.; sung
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Their talent is not in music making, but in physical beauty.

Martin Tomlinson, Selfish Cunt

Authority Confrontation live in London, c. 2004
by Selfish Cunt / lyrics coming
album version on No Wicked Heart Shall Prosper, 2004

Tom Atkin, The Paddingtons

Tommy's Disease live in London, c. 2004
by The Paddingtons / lyrics coming
album version on First Comes First, 2005

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photos by Andrew Kendall

 

file under; male beauty; photographed; sung
link / 4 have made it up

art not meant to be seen or heard by anybody

self-portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe
Polaroid, 1973

Honey You Know Where to Find Me
rough demo by Morrissey / lyrics
Southpaw Grammar sessions, c. 1995

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; morrissey; photographed; robert mapplethorpe; sung
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2002
the year I was born

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Ilford b+w disposable camera

 

file under; photographed; self capture
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Nick McCarthy and Alex Kapranos, V Festival, 2004

another by Andrew Kendall

 

file under; franz ferdinand; male beauty; photographed
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Morrissey, March 1985, photographed by Stephen Wright

Morrissey, 2006, photographed by?

 

file under; hero worship; male beauty; morrissey; photographed
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Carl Barât and Pete Doherty, 2003

photographs by the peerless Andrew Kendall

My favorite track by The Libertines, one of the best songs ever written, is Last Post on the Bugle from their second and final album.

Last Post on the Bugle
by The Libertines / lyrics
from their 2004 self-titled album

 

file under; disbanded; male beauty; photographed; sung; the libertines
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