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Trial n93 upload

Caught in this masquerade

The Masquearade Parade, where locals let their collective freak flag fly. I saw most everyone I knew in town along the way. I shot all of these with the Nokia N93 which they’ve given me to try out. My first pass assessment: the trigger's a little sluggish, but as you can see the images are amazingly crisp and rich for something shot with a phone. All images are un-retouched.

Robert and Alex

Sisters are doing it for themselves

Follow this tangent: I took some pictures of a demonstration for the celebration of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Republique in Paris when I was there a couple of weeks ago. A French Trans gathering and I wandered right into it. Sometimes I wonder at my luck.

I’m in Key West  right now where Fantasy Fest is fully On. Later tonight I’ll be posting some pictures of the Masquerade Parade, which these Paris pictures made me think of (Tangent Accomplished). It’s a mostly-locals late-afternoon foot parade through Old Town’s back streets, with costumed revelers wandering from guest house to guest house throwing back free shots and is quite definitely Good Times.

 

Spirits in the material world

Important article in the International Herlad Tribune by Thomas Cranston called Confessions of Criminals of the digital age. Some rad French citizens who belong to the group StopDRM staged civil disobedience of a kind to demonstrate their anti-DRM (Digital Rights Management) grievances. The punitive copywrite protection techniques employed by record companies make making mixtapes for your friends terrifically tedious, so all artists-getting-their-due concerns aside I am so with them.

On the other side of the globe the pro-DRM Forces begin indoctrination early as Boy Scout age, the AP and endgadget report. Troop Leaders in Los Angeleare handing out merit badges for not sharing music illegally, which is so fucking fascist it’s shocking. And I say ‘shocking’ with the same  arch, indignant and English-accented way Madonna did in her Oprah interview. Shoh-cking.

 

Un Homme et Une Ferrari

Claude Lelouch’s 1976 C’etait un rendezvous. Warning: Loud and long (8:14) and lovely.

Read all about the history of the film at rendezvousdvd.com and check out some impassioned, obsessively detailed analyses of the car in question at Subdriven.

Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

Old shot from the Spidey 2 premiere, but damn Stan Lee is cool.

Sofiaphobia

Marie Antionette won’t be Sofia Coppola’s first visit to cinematic princessdom. The wretched Francis Ford Coppola section of the New York Stories omnibus(well worth re-viewing, as Scorses’s meditation on artistic ferment and self-indulgence is sheer perfection) was a collaboration with the young Sofia. The story of the daughter of fabulous parents and her baroque, sickeningly ostentatious misadventures were the clear product an imagination nurtured by a family that considers themselves royalty in a way that’s both Italian and Cinematic. The scene of her avatar throwing chocolates covered in gold foil to a homeless man living in a box in Columbus Circle was simply shocking. Don't tell ME to eat cake, little girl.

 

But all Sofiaphobia aside, the 2-disc soundtrack to Marie Antoinette is outrageously good. Disc One is possibly the choicest Deep New Wave mix ever assembled, and Disc Two is more ambient, piano driven stuff both period and contemporary. Along with music supervisor Brian Reitzell (whose Thumbsucker OST included the lacerating Elliot Smith cover of Cat Steven’s ‘Trouble’)she’s crafted a narcotic sonic tapestry that's both fashionable and personal. The kind of anachronistic juxtapositions of period that are used to odd effect in the film (high tops with ball gowns) are put to sublime use in a mixtape that conjures a fabulous film thay may have nothing to do with the one Coppola made. The sequencing is inspired, drawing goosebump-raisingly apt connections between the ebullience of Adam and The Ants’ Kings Of The Wild Frontier and Vivaldi’s Concerto in G.

Stalking Ami James

I was in Miami last night at the launch party for the phone tattoo artist Ami James designed for Motorola. I must admit I was dubious when I heard about the phone-it sounded gimmicky. But looking at them in person the graphic quality of the designs made sense on the flat surface of the RAZR; a different kind of skin. I didn’t get it together to actually shoot any of the phones as I was too busy surreptitiously shooting him from behind as he hung with his crew. The shaved head, the arms bursting with veins, completely sleaved, the white t-shirt, the pin-strip suit: very nice.

Why I didn’t go up, talk to him and take his picture like a normal, psychologically healthy member of the press I don’t know. I guess I like it a little freaky.

Flop Sweat

I actually caught Bush’s press conference on October 12^th and it was one long, strange trip of defensiveness, floundering and random stabs at humor. By the end of it you almost felt bad for the guy, even a little protective. Of course, as my friend Greg pointed out, the Daily Show writers must have thrown their pens on the table at the end of it and said, ‘Well, our work’s done for today, let’s take the afternoon off.’

 

The feverish reception Stewart gets at the beginning of the show certainly puts this tee shirt in context. For this and more of Lorenzo di Flaneur’s cultural reportage and hunk tracking check out his Flickr page.

God Bless Robot Chicken and God Bless Adult Swim