After coming away from Céline Sciamma’s magnificent Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) it got me to thinking about women’s films in general. As a movement, or even a genre in their own right, films made specifically to appeal to women, to tell their stories, have moved in and out of fashion, sometimes maintaining prominence, at others drifting away completely. The Woman’s Film reached its most prolific height during WWII, when Hollywood —  realising that most of the core audience was now heavily weighted in favour of a female demographic with many of the young men (potential ticket buyers) away at war — responded with a slew of Gothic melodramas and romances; Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) were perhaps the first to set the trend and represent two of the most successful examples; both established a (lucrative) place for literary Gothic romance in the cinematic canon. In tangent there were also sweeping lavish costume dramas such as Gone with the Wind (1939) cleaning up at the box office to recoup their exorbitant budgets in the process. Yet, since then the popularity of the Woman’s Film has ebbed and flowed, unlike films targeted at men: westerns, action films, war dramas, buddy movies, crime thrillers, which have always maintained a constant stream at the box office.  

What interests me is how much the Woman’s Film has been reinvented over the decades. In the 50s and 60s we saw the emergence, or re-emergence of the Woman’s Film, most notably those produced by Ross Hunter at Universal International, who made a conscious attempt to not only capture the imaginations of women and lure them into theatres — whom he felt were being neglected as an audience demographic but who held an appealing and potentially profitable weight by numbers alone — but also to bring back some classic Hollywood flair. This was the age of Hunter’s bold technicolor melodramas such as the work of Douglas Sirk, or Doris Day comedies and dramas made with the same sense of visual flair and high fashion goals as Golden Age Paramount fare. While in the comedy a new type of distinctly modern femininity was emerging via stars such as Shirley McClaine.

Popularity for the Woman’s Film waned in the 70s as cinema turned to telling much more nihilistic action focused, and increasingly violent stories, only to appear again in the 80s, in a much more intimate form with a focus on the trials and tribulations of the everyday woman —  through films such as Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982); or 9 to 5 (1980); Terms of Endearment (1983), Steel Magnolias (1989); all of which put an emphasis on the theme of ‘things women have to put up with’, in work, motherhood, marriage, and relationships. Many came with a distinct focus on the message there is strength in numbers, heralding the power of intimacy in same sex friendships and strong familial ties. By the 90s, largely thanks to films like Thelma and Louise (1991) or Muriel’s Wedding (1994), we were getting the riff on the (traditionally male) buddy movie, only this time it was women teaming up, and they were sick of your shit. 

Once again came the lull as quiet Woman’s Films drifted out of favour. And that’s not to say there haven’t been films directly marketed at women, however, many of these have vied for bums on seats by replacing masculine heroes with ball breaking Amazons — a trend which really took off in exploitation film in the 60s and 70s, for example Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! (1965) or Coffy (1973) and literally every other film made in this genre; reaching the mainstream via blockbuster franchises like Alien (1979), Star Wars (1977), or Terminator (1984). 

In recent years this has been a growing trend in the superhero/comic book field, replacing Superman with Wonder Woman, rearranging the Ghostbusters as female, and all manner of other ‘look we have women here’ cash-ins. While I recognise the importance of physically strong female characters on screen — I grew up in the era of Sigourney Weaver, Margot Kidder, and Carrie Fisher after all — and this is especially important for younger women, I find the modern incarnations of these fierce action-orientated characters to all too often represent little more than cardboard cut-outs with nature defying abdominals (but then the men aren’t really faring much better either). Mainstream cinema currently fixates on the spectacle, strong fetishised super human bodies, both male and female, smash about and blow things up as they wrangle violently on screen amongst computer generated effects. I find seeing women front and centre of the action incredibly cathartic at times, but it doesn’t reflect reality. All it does is place women in violent competitive men’s worlds, where their stories tend to get drowned out in the screaming thud of ear piercing sound effects — this was never the case for the 70s and 80s female action heroes who often had far richer back stories or motivation. What’s more these films seem entirely sexless, which can never be a good thing for reasons I will explain shortly. 

So I ask, where are the women’s stories in all of this? Their own authentic stories, beyond the narratives about fighting to survive, the ones that let us in on the quiet intimate details surrounding actual women’s lives? Well, it appears they are thriving in the independents… and seriously, thank fuck for that. 

One film that really pierced my I am so bored with modern cinema veil — when it comes to English speaking cinema at least — and really spoke to me was Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy (2014). Seriously, the film is flat out one of the most gorgeously sensual and erotic films I have ever seen, but most importantly it takes place in a world where men don’t appear to exist, and are certainly never spoken about. In doing so it allows us to focus completely on aspects of female desire. It goes further than that though, in an incredibly intuitive way because it also explores desire and ageing, as well as the politics and power in relationships. And in exorcising a male narrative completely we are able to see the acute details of women’s lives, especially their innermost erotic lives, in total clarity. So often we see women’s desire played out for men — and this isn’t a criticism; just a comment on the way things are — either as the submissive lover, or the dangerous femme fatale. In removing a man’s needs altogether we are able to see that women can be just as powerful when it comes to love and war, because all sex and desire is political after all. 

The Duke of Burgundy reminds me in a way of Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963), which positioned two male characters under the microscope, locking them into a perverse power play mostly in the singular setting of an unassuming middle class town house. Although this film doesn’t have overt sexual overtones as far as the central dynamic is concerned between man and man — Losey didn’t really do sex, unless it was to explore themes of power,  this is more about struggle and class divisions — the couple — thanks to Harold Pinter’s incredibly rich scripting — eventually end up occupying a bizarre almost marriage like relationship, as the film examines the pushing and pulling, humilation, and fight for dominance that can often occur in dysfunctional romantic relationships. The Duke of Burgundy explores more than a little of that, explicitly, by having the main couple locked in a sadomasochistic relationship — and in fact I was delighted to hear that weirdly one of the main inspirations for the film was Terry and June, a popular classic British sitcom. Likewise, The Duke of Burgundy also has echoes of Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972), another manless landscape (although they are mentioned) where women become embroiled in a sadomasochistic powerplay stained with narcissism and frail insecure ego. And in addition, which is possibly my favourite thing about the film, it also follows on from the post Belle De Jour (1967) narratives which use S&M as a journey to self-awareness or sometimes personal evolution and freedom; films such as the aforementioned Petra, Check to the Queen (aka The Slave, 1969), The Libertine (1968), Femina Ridens (1969), The Story of O (1975), or The Maids (1975). 

Combining the Sadeian with the feminine is always a potent and powerful blend though. To quote my eternal spirit guide author and screenwriter Angela Carter from her groundbreaking book The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography (1978), for not the first and most likely not the last time, ‘Women do not normally fuck in the active sense. They are fucked in the passive tense and hence automatically fucked up, done over, undone. Whatever else he says or does not say, Sade declares himself unequivocally for the right of women to fuck—as if the period in which women fuck aggressively, tyrannous and cruelly will be a necessary stage in the development of a general human consciousness of the nature of fucking; that if it is not egalitarian, it is unjust. Sade does not suggest this process as such; but he urges women to fuck actively as they are able, so that powered by their enormous and hitherto untapped sexual energy they will then be able to fuck their way into history, and, in doing so, change it.’

On this note another film that recently really spoke to me was Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favorite (2018). Although the film was highly acclaimed, and Olivia Colman rightfully won an Oscar for her role, I found a number of men in my immediate circle were uncomfortable with it because in their words, or variations of this same theme, “the women weren’t likeable”. To me this speaks volumes about the film’s power— seriously, why do women have to be likeable? We can admire plenty of unlikeable men in cinema, in fact entire genres thrive on it (take the noir or crime thriller for example). Plus, there is something incredibly potent about seeing a woman who can so freely speak the word cunt on screen. The fact this bothered a certain type of man delighted me even more — one day I will write an entire Cineslut column on why I think women reclaiming the word cunt is one of the most powerful actions we can ever take; but alas I will have to leave that story for another day because there’s an entire thesis in this one thought. Like The Duke of Burgundy, The Favourite examines power relationships between women — a threesome this time — in a sadomasochistic field. And even though men are present this time, the focus really is about the women themselves. 

Placing sex front and centre in these narratives is a powerful act. If the postmodern Woman’s Film has an underlying theme then it is the release of libidinal force on a woman’s terms alone. Women owning their own sexuality for themselves completely is still something that many male audience members struggle with; it’s dangerous that’s why. Repressing and suppressing female sexuality through double standards, slut shaming, relationship rules of deportment, dress codes, and all manner of other coercive tactics is the one thing that has stood in the way of true equality for centuries. And this was something that really struck me about Guilermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017). The fact so many men, and there was an entire screaming thread I saw on this on a popular genre magazine’s page, were upset that one of the first scenes featured a woman masturbating in the bath. For them it was a step too far, largely, I suspect because the act was done for the character’s pleasure and not theirs. Yet, by placing such an emphasis on sex we are than able to really dig into the nitty gritty, and often ugly details, surrounding women’s lives; take the family and work relationships, in addition to the themes of rape trauma seen recently in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2016) for example; or how lack of sex and intimacy can affect a woman’s self esteem and become a way of oppression, in Catherine Breillat’s Romance (1999)

Much like the peak Woman’s Films of the 40s and 50s, we have seen a return to Gothic and period settings in many of these more recent films, which is something The Favourite does really well. Unlike the aforementioned films the Bluebeard angle (women trapped in a dangerous marriage, not least if she becomes too curious) is either eliminated entirely or turned around on its head. If literature has a parallel movement it would probably that led by the work of Sarah Waters — whose rich novels, often steeped in lush authentic period details, quite often, although not exclusively, explore sex within queer narratives, such as Tipping the Velvet, or The Paying Guests. Water’s novel Fingersmith, set on a traditional Gothic Victorian stage, not only looked into the themes of female desire and lesbian relationships, but also cast a wider net to examine marriage and class, then gave birth to another powerful example of a perfect Woman’s Film, when it was re-interpreted by Park Chan-wook in a gorgeously sly and sensuous form, as The Handmaiden (2016) — a film, despite being internationally acclaimed, was heraled as completely overlooked if we are to believe a recent article published by Vice; Spoiler: it was so not fucking overlooked. 

Another stand out period set piece, to me at least, because the film doesn’t seem to have had a particularly wide distribution and certainly didn’t have much in the way of a theatrical release, was William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth (2016) — a loose adaptation of the novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. Or maybe it’s not had a massive amount of press because the film features another unlikable woman (joke) because sadly I don’t seem to hear much about it. The film flips Bluebeard on its head to turn victim into aggressor, and in the process looks into Draconian marriage laws, the theme of woman as property, with more than a little emphasis on awakening female sexual desire in a class based oppressive sphere. Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire pulls apart some of the same themes with very different results, taking the idea of arranged marriage into a painfully romantic, and wonderfully queer, direction when compared to Oldroyd’s film. Portrait also allows the themes of female intimacy and friendship to pulsate away in the background, while also finding time to comment on abortion practice and the question of choice surrounding women’s bodies. Abortion and lesbanism also featured heavily in Annabel Jankel’s Tell It to the Bees (2018) — based on a book of the same name by Fiona Shaw — which was another film I found accutely and painfully romantic (once I got beyond Anna Paquin’s ‘Scottish’ accent that is). In that case, in having two women develop an illicit lesbian relationship in a closed and judgemental Post-war community, Jankel’s film, following the book, was able to explore things such as double standards when it comes to female desire, as well as marital abuse, and the idea that women, because of societal standards, rarely get what they want. 

On the lighter end of the scale — in resonance at least; certainly not in theme — other films which have captured my gaze recently include Claire McCarthy’s Ophelia (2018), which takes Shakespeare’s eternal doomed lover and reimagines her as a fighter and survivor. While Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) proved to be a candy coloured costume-porn lurid fantasy fest of the highest order, but still found space to again comment on traditional marriage values as well as exploring burgeoning sexual desire in a young woman, recently married. On a side note I remain eternally impressed with the way Coppola approached the themes of sex and desire in respect to teenage girls in The Virgin Suicides (1999) — which I wrote about here —  although I wasn’t half as impressed with her recent remake of The Beguiled (2017), which I found couldn’t hold a candle to Don Siegel’s 1971 original; but seriously, what can? Both Ophelia and Marie Antoinette possess an incredibly painterly approach to style and are exceptionally lavish and colourful; McCarthy took inspiration from Romantic art for some of her compositions, for example. And fuck, I am a sucker for bold lavish detail and colours. 

I could go on and on with this subject. The fascinating Woman’s Films we have seen emerge in the last couple of decades are certainly not exclusive to those mentioned here. These are just a few of my favourites. Summing up though I wanted to say I was inspired to write this piece purely off the back of coming away from Portrait of a Woman On Fire, which is always a wonderful thing when a film speaks to you with that much resonance you immediately want to sit down and hammer out 2000 plus words. And I guess that’s why we need Woman’s Films, stories that move away from the smash bang glamour of re-interpreted female action heroes, films that speak to our innermost desires, our authentic lives, our trials, our suffering, our needs. Long may it continue. 

The post Confessions of a Cineslut: A New Golden Age for the Woman’s Film? appeared first on Diabolique Magazine.

Who is your favorite Beatle? Some choose the harder-rocking, experimental John Lennon. Others prefer the technical expertise of George Harrison. Hipster contrarians make compelling arguments for Ringo Starr’s unsung genius even though their opinions are just about as worthless as Ringo himself. All acceptable answers! Because in this debate there is only one wrong answer: the goddamn bassist.

Paul McCartney is a bassist first and foremost. I don’t care what other instruments he played or how many hit songs he wrote. You wouldn’t introduce a member of ISIS to your family as “The best euchre player I’ve ever met… oh and also he’s in ISIS.” The evil within a man must take precedence.

If I were president, I would demand that every bass lesson start with a tutorial on how to breathe through the nose. None of those mouth-breathers get it. Stop drooling all over that fretless Stingray, dickhead.

But I digress. Paul’s hits aren’t even that good. “The Long and Boring Road?” “Maxwell’s Silver Dildo?” “Sgt. Pepper’s Incel Emo VFW Band?” Give me a break. If someone were to hold a gun to my head, then sure, I’d admit that “Live and Let Die” slaps. But even a broken bassist is accidentally going to find the right root note twice per day.

“Octopus’s Garden” is my favorite Beatles song. And you know who wrote it? A Beatle who was neither a bassist nor a wife-beater. That’s right, it’s your boy Ringo– the everyman of the group. You won’t see Ringo palling around with James Corden in a Nissan Altima singing “Yellow Submarine” like some corporate puppet. No, he’s busy throwing up peace signs like some hippie gangbanger.

Loved ones have countered my arguments with rebuttals like “You’re just mad because every bassist you’ve ever had leaves you for a better band” or “Dude, just admit that you secretly play bass. Let go of this misplaced hate.” And to that I say, you and Paul McCartney can take your trash guitars and shove them right up Les Claypool’s syncopated ass.

The post I Don’t Care How Many Hits He Wrote, Paul McCartney Is Still a Fucking Bassist and I Will Never Respect Him appeared first on The Hard Times.

When most of us think of music, we imagine things like words, electric guitars, and the concept of songs lasting between three and five minutes. But for local jazz fan Jared Davidson, who loves jazz, music is a completely different and far more interesting affair!

 

When it comes to music, Jared is a little unconventional. Instead of listening to music that sounds like it was written down in advance, he prefers songs in which the notes appear to be conjured out of the very air, in a loose, improvisational manner. And get this – some of the songs go on for a terrific amount of time!

 

“Some of the jazz songs I listen to can last for up to 12 minutes,” Jared recently announced on a blind date. “Instead of words, there are saxophone solos. Instead of a singer, there is often a trumpet player. Sometimes there is even someone playing an upright bass, which is very specific to jazz as a musical genre.”

 

Out of sight! The sounds of jazz are more interesting to us than those of other music!

 

 

And we’re not the only ones who admire Jared and his love of jazz.

 

“I mostly like music where people sing about topics, like going out at night or having sex,” said Jared’s latest ex-girlfriend, Dina Harris. “But Jared likes music that often declines to reference a specific topic and instead, as he puts it, ‘explores a musical soundscape unlike any other.’”

 

“We broke up because he was too interesting for me,” Dina added.

 

Although liking jazz is probably the most interesting thing about Jared, there is no shortage of other interesting things about him. For example, Jared sports a mustache, has read one Toni Morrison novel, and is a big fan of someone named ‘de Kooning’, who is an artist. Jared has often likened de Kooning’s art to jazz, a statement which has never failed to interest its listener.

 

At press time, Jared remained insistent that he is just a ‘normal guy’ — albeit a ‘normal guy’ who knows who Miles Davis is!

 

“I do consider myself a bit of a jazz expert,” he admitted. “But at the end of the day, if someone thinks I’m interesting for listening to jazz, which Wikipedia once described as ‘America’s classical music’, well… they said that, not me.”

 

We can all agree that Jared’s love of jazz makes him much more interesting than the average human being. As one of Jared’s jazz songs would say: bebop bop be bebop [trumpet sound]!

So you’ve been recreationally smoking marijuana since you were a kid and now you’re thinking maybe you should stop because it’s expensive, kind of bad for you, and brings little to your life besides making you moderately anxious and extremely sleepy? Well you shouldn’t! Here’s how you can push through and continue smoking weed even though it gives you anxiety because, come on, weed, man!!

 

Make sure it’s always around.

Accessibility is a key factor in ensuring you never stop passively smoking bowls on bowls of marijuana for little to no reason. Keep a piece out in the open so that your eyes will inevitably fall on it at the end of a long day and you’ll think, “Eh, why not?” First smoke a little, then smoke more until suddenly your heart is beating really fast, you’re incredibly overwhelmed by every small task you have to complete in the near future, and all that’s left to do is take deep breaths and tell yourself that in 20 minutes you’ll just be tired. It’s weed! You love the stuff. Do you? Do you not? Whatever, this is your life now.

 

Remember the times you liked weed.

Think back to high school when you and your friends had to smoke weed in secret and being high was illicit and hilarious in and of itself. That was fun, right? Or were you anxious then, too? We can never remember the past truthfully, so go ahead and tell yourself that smoking weed was once awesome and will be again! It’s weeeed! It’s silly; it’s fun. Shut up. I mean you’re not going to stop, right? So what are we even doing here? Roll the joint – grow up.

 

Look at representations of weed in media.

If you’re doubting whether you really enjoy smoking at all, take a look at all the delightful representations of weed smoking in film and TV. These characters are all getting baked and going on wild adventures! Of course, when you smoke you feel paranoid and afraid of the entire outside world, but hey! It’s all gravy, baby. You’ve got weed, right? Smoke it, then buy some more and never stop. This cycle can just continue until you one day die because it’s what? W-w-w-w-wEED.

 

 

So try these tips to simply continue smoking that fine-fine kush despite the reliable anxiety it gives you. Just reading this did kind of make you want to smoke weed. Right? Right? Attaboy. Smoke’s up!

Cavan Grogan fue el gran pionero del rockabilly revival y un ícono superlativo del movimiento teddy boy. El líder de Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers falleció el domingo 16 de febrero cuando faltaban dos días para que cumpliese 71 años de edad. El capítulo 15 de Sótano Total lo protagoniza EL Kurt Baker Combo y charlamos con Kurt Baker y el bajista Juancho López sobre su conexión con Siniestro Total.
Playlist;
(sintonía) CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “My little sister’s got a motorbike” (Our own way of rockin’)
CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “Knock knock” (Rockability)
CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “Tear out my soul” (Rollin through the night)
CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “Teddy boy boogie” (Live at the Rainbow)
CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “Rock around with Ollie Vee” (Live at the Rainbow)
CRAZY CAVAN and THE RHYTHM ROCKERS “Old black Joe” (Our own way of rockin’)
THE DEL PRINCE “Assumpta” (Sótano Total Cap. 14)
SINIESTRO TOTAL “Que corra la nicotina” (Menos mal que nos queda Portugal)
KURT BAKER COMBO “Qué corra la nicotina” (Sótano Total Cap. 15)
CHILL “Mash it up” (7’’ EP)
CEREMONEY “Five years” (The reaction 7’’ EP)
RAF MOD BAND “Want you to know” (Split town)
LUKAS SHERFEY “I won’t be crying” (7’’ EP)
SEX MUSEUM “Bailaré sobre tu tumba” (directo en la Puerta del Sol)
HINDS “Good bad times” (adelanto próximo álbum)

El personaje más importante de Manuel Vázquez no fue Anacleto, las hermanas Gilda o la abuelita Paz. Fue su propia leyenda. Vázquez dedicó toda su vida, tanto fuera como dentro de las viñetas, a construir su propio personaje, a definir al perfecto estafador que seguía sólo sus propias normas.

Manuel Vázquez Gallego (1930-1995) nació el 27 de enero de 1930 en Madrid, pocos años antes de que la Guerra Civil arrasase el país. Por eso su niñez estuvo marcada por la extrema pobreza: «Todo lo que recuerdo de mi infancia es hambre, pero hambre feroz». Tal vez en las dificultades de sus primeros años esté la explicación de cómo uno de los mejores dibujantes de tebeos de España cultivó una vida de moroso, estafador y polígamo que incluso le llevó durante un tiempo a la cárcel. Más aún, este comportamiento también le hizo desaparecer con frecuencia de la Editorial Bruguera para evitar que le encontrasen sus acreedores cerca de su lugar de trabajo o de su casa.

Por poner un ejemplo de las muchas anécdotas que han forjado su leyenda podemos confiar en el retrato que el creador del Capitán Trueno hizo en una de sus novelas autobiográficas, El tranvía azul (1985). En ella, Víctor Mora contaba que otro dibujante de la editorial acogió a Vázquez en su estudio durante un tiempo para ayudarle a huir de la policía, que le buscaba en la pensión en la que se hospedaba. Parece que el motivo tenía algo que ver con que Vázquez había comprado a plazos unos electrodomésticos que había revendido al mes siguiente a mitad de precio. Este dibujante expulsó al prófugo de su estudio en cuanto descubrió el motivo por el que su radio había dejado de funcionar: Vázquez había vaciado la carcasa y vendido los componentes electrónicos.

El gran Vázquez

Dejando a un lado que Francisco Ibáñez le incluyó como el moroso del ático del 13, Rúe del Percebe (1961-1970), el icono de Vázquez despegó en el número 27 de la revista Din dan (1968-1975), en el que se publicó la primera entrega de su nueva serie, Los cuentos de tío Vázquez (1968-1988). No era la primera vez que este se dibujaba a sí mismo, ni tampoco la primera vez que un dibujante de Bruguera se incluía en sus propias historietas, pero sí la primera serie con cierta envergadura (dos páginas en cada entrega) en la que alguien de la editorial se convertía en el protagonista absoluto.

Habría que señalar aquí la importancia del papel del director de estas revistas, Rafael González, al que se le suele describir poco menos que de ogro. Es sorprendente que un editor con un control tan férreo del estilo y los personajes de Bruguera diese el visto bueno a una extravagancia como esta. O no tanto si se tiene en cuenta que también permitió que Vázquez hiciese algo parecido en una de las primerísimas páginas de La vida esa vista por Hollywood, en el Can can n.º 5 (1958). En aquella historieta, titulada El gran Vázquez, el dibujante ya empezó a burlarse de su propia autobiografía al colocarla a la altura de figuras históricas y otros personajes de la cultura popular.

Lo interesante es que se trata de una serie de inspiración autobiográfica en la que Vázquez es cualquier cosa menos dibujante de historietas. Veámoslo de otro modo. Muchas de las series de Bruguera se centraban en los estereotipos de una profesión: los chistes de médicos con El doctor Cataplasma, los de chachas con Petra, criada para todo, los de espías con Mortadelo y Filemón… ¿En qué profesión encajaría Vázquez? En la de moroso. Moroso profesional.

De profesión, moroso

Puede parecer que un proyecto como este tendría las características perfectas para estimular la productividad de Vázquez, pero en realidad en su primer año sólo dibujó 20 páginas. O dicho de otra forma, de 52 números de la revista Din dan sólo 10 llevaban páginas de esta nueva serie. Tampoco hablamos de un arranque muy prometedor. En cada entrega el protagonista se encontraba con un acreedor del que se intentaba desembarazar con una elaborada trola: que había perdido el dinero salvando a un niño perdido en el bosque, que una serpiente le acababa de envenenar o que podía pagar con un algún objeto que, sin que el otro lo supiese, no tenía ningún valor. Es decir, el dibujante intentaba salir airoso con uno de «los cuentos de tío Vázquez».

La dinámica mejoró a partir del Din dan n.º 147 (1970), cuando apenas se habían publicado 34 páginas de esta serie. Los falsos flashbacks pasaban al olvido y la colección se llenaba de acción, persecuciones y violencia. Vázquez se convertía en antihéroe y sus acreedores, en villanos. Seguía siendo un pícaro, pero uno aventurero, con una vida tan asediada de peligros como la de un agente secreto. Vázquez aparecía corriendo en todo momento por ciudad, mar y campo, perseguido por acreedores tan variados como la Fuerza Aérea Británica, un genio de la lámpara, el Hombre Enmascarado o el fantasma de Napoleón.

Sin embargo, también fue el momento en el que la editorial Bruguera se cansó de no poder planificar con antelación los contenidos de Din dan. Los cuentos de tío Vázquez, como otras series de este autor, empezó a pasar a manos de diferentes dibujantes anónimos que cubrieron los huecos de sus continuas desapariciones. Así se mejoró la regularidad pero se perdió el sentido de este personaje: ¿qué lógica había en que la autoparodia y el culto al ego lo hiciesen otros?

Villano, lascivo y ludópata

Según le fue apeteciendo, Vázquez fue entregando esporádicamente más páginas que la editorial intercalaba, como digo, entre las de otros dibujantes. Si el personaje pudo sobrevivir a este baile de autores, la cancelación de Din dan no le supuso mayor problema. Vázquez siguió entregando páginas para las que la editorial encontraba un hueco en cualquier otra revista: en Super Carpanta (1977-1981), en Super Mortadelo (1972-1986), en Bruguelandia (1981-1983)… Precisamente en Bruguelandia n.º 2 (1981) coló una nueva autobiografía en forma de cómic de 6 páginas en la que se burlaba de sus estancias en la cárcel, un detalle desconocido para los niños que le leían.

Vázquez ya era un personaje de pleno derecho. Se había dibujado como antihéroe, pero también como el villano de Anacleto, agente secreto, o de sus otros detectives, Ana y Cleto (1982)… o Tita & Nic, según la editorial. Podía protagonizar tiras de humor más bien blanco como Así es mi vida (1982) en El pequeño país, o Cosas mías… en Garibolo (1986-1987), como podía ser el protagonista de los devaneos de humor erótico en Sábado, Sabadete… (1990) o Mujeres o diosas (1991). Y, por supuesto, jugando en ese complicado espacio que separa el cómic para niños del dirigido a un público adulto, protagonizó una de sus grandes joyas, ¡Vámonos al bingo! (1982), en la que Vázquez parodiaba su propia ludopatía desde la completa autoconsciencia de este trastorno.

Todas estas historietas y muchas otras a mí me llevan a una conclusión: es lógico que se estrenase antes un biopic del autor que la adaptación a largometraje de cualquiera de sus personajes. Es más, El gran Vázquez (2010) de Óscar Aibar se podría ver más como la adaptación libre de Los cuentos de tío Vázquez que como una biografía al uso y seguramente es lo que el dibujante habría preferido. La película no es una recreación exacta de la vida del dibujante, pero en ningún momento es una traición a su leyenda.

Para aprovechar la promoción de esta película las editoriales de cómic colocaron en las librerías recopilatorios que estuviesen relacionadas con el estreno. La desaparecida Glénat sacó en Lo peor de Vázquez (2010) una estupenda recopilación de los tebeos autoparódicos de sus últimos años, en la que se mezclaban las páginas infantiles con las de corte adulto. Por desgracia Ediciones B sólo recopiló 44 páginas de Los cuentos de tío Vázquez en un tomo que resultó más bien escaso. El recopilatorio que esta serie merece acabará editándose más tarde o más temprano, y ese día (si se me permite este chascarrillo) se saldará esta deuda pendiente con Vázquez.

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La entrada ‘Los cuentos de tío Vázquez’: 90 años del moroso de los tebeos Bruguera aparece primero en Canino.

Kids learn a lot throughout their time at school: who invented lightbulbs, for instance, or fun rhymes about Henry VIII beheading his wives. What they don't learn are lessons that are actually useful in adult life, like how to file taxes, make an aubergine curry or go down on someone – if they're that way inclined.

Straight cis men, especially, are taught by mainstream pop culture that the simple act of eating someone out is good enough: a few flicks of the tongue and... bam, a mind-blowing orgasm (and even if not, they should at least be grateful that you're trying).

But as anyone with a vulva knows, there is a difference between someone going down good and someone going down not so good (the same goes for dicks, I'm sure, but that's a separate piece entirely). The "alphabet trick", for example – where you're instructed to spell out the alphabet with your tongue – was most likely invented by someone who'd been on the receiving end of too many fake orgasms.

If you want to know how to eat someone out properly, it's best to not listen to anybody but the source. To that end, we mined the wisdom of people with vulvas to find out what they think constitutes a good eating out.

'Don't assume what worked for one vulva will work for another'

"My main thing is to ask people what they're into, because every vulva / vagina is different. I would always advocate for as much communication as possible and asking people how they want to be touched. Problem is, people with vaginas are typically discouraged from even exploring their own bodies, and are almost fed the idea that sex isn't 'for them', so a lot of people may not even know what it is they want, because they don't know their bodies well enough.

"Personally, I still have enough internalised shame and weirdness that I can't always tell someone to stop doing one particular move or thing. So I think it's important for the person going down to say, 'If I do something you like, tell me,' or, like, a sexy equivalent of that.

"Also, don't assume that what worked for one vulva will work for another. Do check in regularly, and don't be a baby if someone tells you to change up your method. Also, straight guys need to spend way less time at the hole, because that is not where the party's at."

– Alex, 26

'Start soft – and use lots of spit'

"I would say you need softness and intuition. Also, be confident enough to ask *exactly* what they want because it turns you on to know. The best way to harness that intuition – and I know this sounds trite – but really read what the body is doing. But I'd say always start soft. Oh, and lots of spit."

– Eleanor, 35

'If you're not relaxed, you're not going to come'

"I personally think a lot reaching orgasm is in the mind – if you have a vagina, anyway. I have no idea what it's like to have a penis. If you're not relaxed, you're not going to come. It's as much of a mental-emotional thing as a physical one. If you want to be good at oral sex, make sure you and your partner are relaxed and connected. Make the mood right. Try to alleviate any pressure that either of you might feel. Nobody has to come. I find that once the pressure to come is off, you're more likely to come anyway.

"When it comes to actual technique, that's tricky, because different people like different things. It's about learning what an individual likes. For example, I know someone who really likes to be penetrated at the same time. But I wouldn't like that, because I don't respond well to penetration. Also, like... get inventive! Put warm water in your mouth and go down on them? Try different types of lube. Sex is supposed to be fun."

– Rhiannon, 29

'Find a repetitive move that gives pleasure'

"Explore all the elements; there's more than just the surface. Don't stay down there for ages without knowing what feels good for the person. Ask, talk, explore. If you found a spot and they say it's good, don't leave that spot until they say so! Stay there – and I repeat, STAY THERE. Find a repetitive move that gives pleasure. Don't think just stroking with your tongue feels super exciting, either – it takes harder work than that sometimes. Also, obviously don't go down on someone if you don't feel like it, or feel obliged. And don't ever make fun of the shape or size."

– Angela, 28

'There's not a one-size-fits-all approach to going down'

"Everyone's body is built differently. Some like it soft, some like it rough, some like it in certain areas and others prefer it in others. So I would say there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to going down on someone. Instead, it will take some learning and exploring that person's body. Ask them if they like what you're doing, and try different things until you find something they're into. Also, pay attention to body language and response. And I mean really pay attention to it. If they are turned on by what you're doing, then carry on. And if you're not sure, then ask them – communicate.

"I personally think it's good to start off slow and build up. For most people, vaginal pleasure doesn't just happen immediately without any work put into it. If that was the case, we'd all be turned on by smear tests and tampons. If you have a vagina yourself, it helps to imagine how you would like someone to touch you, and go from there."

– Rach, 26

'Take your time'

"It's pretty simple, but it bears repeating. Do: ask me what I want and take your time without any expectation. Don't: just shove your tongue down there and assume you know where my clit is and also assume I'll come after like two minutes because that's what you've seen in porn. I'm a fan of certain porn, but mainstream porn has not done wonders for any of our sex lives when it comes to expectation."

– Jo, 24

@daisythejones

HQ Trivia, the app you probably feverishly downloaded several years ago and had entirely forgotten existed in the weeks and months since, is no more. The company is shutting down and “will part ways with 25 full-time employees,” More »

Esta cifra corresponde a xullo de 2019 e supón un aumento un 0,64% respecto a seis meses antes

L

La novena entrega de Jazz y Chistes, el podcast de Kike García con el mejor jazz y con los mejores chistes.

La edición más austero y libre jamás grabada. ¿Oyes eso? Es el jazz. Y los chistes. Sin guión, sin ataduras, sin chistes, sin jazz. Pero con jazz y con chistes.

On Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me, Michael Shelly interviews the legendary bass player, Carol Kaye. Unless you're a hardcore music nerd, you may not know who Carol Kaye is. You need to fix that.

Carol Kaye is the bassist on thousands of 20th century recordings, from The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds to Nancy Sinatra's These Boots are Made for Walkin', to Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman. Oh, and she also played on the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! and the Batman theme song. The list goes on and on and on.

Get this woman into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, stat!

PKM: When producers, like Brian Wilson with “Good Vibrations,” would do a single song in parts over many sessions was that frustrating or fun for you?

Carol Kaye: You know Brian was a nice young kid. We worked for a lot of those young guys back then and Brian had something special about him, and he grew with every date. You saw his talent getting better and better and better. He’d only do one song for a three-hour date and that does get boring after a while, but he would come in and he’d give you this handwritten, kind of funny sheet music with stems on the wrong side of the notes and sharps and flats everywhere. He would sit down at the piano and play the song, to kind of give us a feel for it, and then he’d go in the booth and take charge from there. I never knew he played bass until a lot later because he never told me he played bass, I thought he was a piano player. But he wrote the bass parts out because he had certain parts that he wanted to jibe together and he heard these sounds. I think it was because of his fascination with The Four Freshmen. Brian heard music in a different way. He was a nice young man who had a sense of humor and everything he touched was a hit. And the Beach Boys were never there. They’d come in and say hello for five minutes and then walk back out, but Brian was in charge of it all, so he was a sharp young guy.

PKM: So the job as you’re describing it was to make the song happen whether it was inventing your part or cold reading notes or somewhere in between, and bass is interesting because some non-musicians don’t even know the bass does, they can’t even identify it, but it can really affect a song.

Carol Kaye: The bass is the foundation, and with the drummer you create the beat. Whatever you play puts a framework around the rest of the music, and Brian Wilson was bass conscious. Sometimes he’d have a string bass playing along with me, mixed so that you never heard it too much, but you felt it there. Another date with the string bass was “Boots” by Nancy Sinatra. That was kind of a throwaway tune, the last tune of the three-hour date. Lee Hazlewood in the booth said to Chuck Berghofer, the string bass player, to play a line like (Carol hums a slow descending bass line), so that’s what Chuck did. Lee stopped him and said “No, no. Make them closer together.” So that’s what you hear when you hear that bass go (Carole hums the famous bass intro to “These Boots Were Made For Walking”), and then I’m joining in at the bottom. We went to the next date and didn’t think a thing about it, and that darn thing was a big hit.

Read the rest.

Here is a short YouTube introduction to Ms. Kaye.

Image: YouTube Screengrab

From the BBC: "A diary written by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is being hailed as providing remarkable evidence of tolerance towards homosexuality in Britain much earlier than previously imagined."

O doutor en Historia da arte e xefe da área de Cultura Xacobea, Francisco Singul Lorenzo, ten abordado en distintos traballos a relación que existiu entre o viño e o Camiño de Santiago xa dende a Idade Media. Con el coñecemos o consumo de viño que se facía nesa época, así como a evolución da […]

La entrada “Na Idade Media en Galicia contábamos cun bo viño que se exportaba a Inglaterra” aparece primero en Campo Galego.

I first read He’s Just Not That Into You, the 2004 “no-excuses truth to understanding guys” mega-hit self-help book, in 2005, when I was 19. I was incredibly new to dating and already felt disillusioned by it: The first person I ever had sex with, a guy I had known for four years, ghosted me immediately afterward… only to text me nearly a year later to apologize, sleep with me again, and then ghost me immediately again. I felt like the book was speaking to me directly.

The book’s thesis is simple: when a guy—and yes, it’s always a guy—is into you, a woman—and yes, it’s always a woman—he will make sure you know how he feels. That means he will...

1. Ask you out
2. Call or text you back
3. Be single or otherwise available
4. Be willing to date you “officially”
5. Want to have sex with you
6. Want to see you while sober
7. Not dismiss the idea of marriage, if that’s something you want
8. Not cheat on you
9. Not break up with you
10. Not ghost you
11. Not be mean, nasty, or abusive

This advice is simple and obvious. It was also revelatory. I’d spent so much time looking for answers, trying to figure out “what happened” and what I did wrong, when the answer was perfectly clear: He’s just not that into me. I lent the book to my friend David, who, like me, immediately declared it life-changing. HJNTIY and its many aphorisms (like, “Don’t waste the pretty,” shorthand for the notion that you’re too special to squander time on someone who doesn’t see that) were a frequent topic of conversation during our four-hour shifts at Victoria’s Secret that summer. “Greg is RIGHT!” we said to each other across the PINK panty table. “He’s just not that into me!!!” Just as the book promised, this realization wasn’t demoralizing; it was liberating. That fall, I created the Facebook group “I Read ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and Suddenly It All Made Sense.”

I have thought about He’s Just Not That Into You a lot in the 15 years since I first read it—usually when I’m listening to the story of a friend’s would-be love interest whose behavior is eerily similar to one of the book's many “this guy sucks” scenarios. Other times, it’s been begrudgingly: Although I never doubted the book’s thesis, I admit I have not always implemented it.

The book's premise is also true when a woman is into a man, or a man is into another man, or a woman is into a woman, or any person is into any other person. You’re allowed to want to be more than “sort of dating” someone; to want them to love and respect you clearly and reciprocally. You can argue that your love interest is just scared of intimacy, or had a rough childhood, or is just bad at texting, or whatever else renders them exceptional—but the fact remains: People who are into you show you undeniably.

Because so many people still need to hear this advice, my assumption was that, heteronormativity aside, He’s Just Not That Into You would still hold up in 2020. Turns out, I was… sort of correct.

---

Before “he’s just not that into you” was a New York Times bestseller or a truly terrible 2009 movie starring an astonishing number of A-list celebrities, it was simply something that one co-worker said to another. As the story goes, one of the women on staff at Sex and the City asked her workplace pals for their opinion on a dating situation; the women all jumped in to reassure her that the guy must be scared to be in a relationship, or was intimidated by her. They asked Greg Behrendt, a comedian who was a consultant on three seasons of Sex and the City, what he thought. His considered but firm reply: “Listen, it sounds like he’s just not that into you.”

“We were shocked, appalled, amused, horrified, and, above all, intrigued. We sensed immediately that this man might be speaking the truth,” Liz Tuccillo, the executive story editor of Sex and the City who co-authored the book with Behrendt, writes in its intro. “Soon, we went around the room, Greg, the all-knowing Buddha, listening to story after mixed-message story. We had excuses for all these men, from broken dialing fingers to difficult childhoods. In the end, one by one, they were shot down by Greg’s powerful bullet… A collective epiphany burst forth in the room, and for me in particular. All these years I’d been complaining about men and their mixed messages; now I saw they weren’t mixed messages at all. I was the one that was mixed up. Because the fact was, these men had simply not been that into me.”

After the writers'-room conversation, “he’s just not that into you” made its way into a 2003 episode of Sex and the City (“Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little”). It’s a fairly minor subplot: the girls tell Miranda the guy who hasn’t called her is probably just intimidated by her; Carrie’s new boyfriend, Berger, says, “He’s just not that into you,” and Miranda is empowered. So empowered, in fact, that she tries to get ahead of it: After a different guy tells her he doesn’t want to go home with her following dinner, she launches, bemused, into a monologue about how she gets it—he’s just not that into her. He looks increasingly uncomfortable, then confesses that he was into her, he’s just about to have diarrhea. (From the curry—classic SATC!)

The phrase immediately resonated. It was discussed on The View after the episode aired, and the self-help book hit shelves the next year. After the authors’ appearance on Oprah, the book shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for months; it was translated into 30 languages, and turned into a daily tear-off calendar and a wildly depressing movie that grossed $181 million worldwide.

In a phone interview, Liz Tuccillo, who was most recently a showrunner and executive producer on HBO’s Divorce, said He’s Just Not That Into You is one of the things she’s most proud of doing. “To witness a piece of work causing direct change… Women read that book, put the book down, and immediately broke up with people," said Tuccillo. "Like eight months ago, I was getting out of the elevator. This woman getting in was like, ‘You’re Liz Tuccillo,’ and I’m like, ‘What?’ And she’s like, 'He’s Just Not That Into You is a very powerful and special book,' and then the doors closed.”

He’s Just Not That Into You is a product of its time—a time when it felt like reality TV stars were taking over; when a Super Bowl halftime show caused a moral panic; when an HBO show about sex and dating in New York City that ignored the existence of queer people and people of color, but sure did love talking about anal sex, racked up Emmy nominations; when everyone wanted love, but felt like dating sucked because everyone knew that “the rules” had changed but no one knew what they were yet, or how to get others to abide by them—if any of that sounds at all familiar to you now? As I reread HJNTIY last month, I kept stopping to highlight, and to read resonant passages out loud to my girlfriend.

Reading Chapter 11, which deals with mean and nasty behavior, I was reminded of many fairly recent Captain Awkward letters and r/relationships posts, the kind of requests for romantic advice that make you say, “Oh… oh no,” as you’re reading. “There’s a lot of behavior that can be considered abusive that doesn’t involve getting beaten,” Behrendt writes. “It’s hard to feel worthy of love when someone is going out of their way to make you feel worthless. Being told to get out of these relationships may not work for you. Knowing that you’re better than these relationships is the place to start. You are better than these relationships.”

Two chapters added in the 2009 edition speak eloquently about how hard it is to put the book’s principles into practice. Tuccillo directly addresses the reality that expecting to be treated with basic respect and kindness might mean you end up alone:

Love is something most of us want very badly in our lives, sometimes more than we even want to admit. And when we get close to getting it, when we are reminded of how great it feels to have it, even if it’s for a moment, even if it’s just a whiff of it, we may forget everything we believe in. … The minute you start feeling those familiar pangs of sadness and longing and obsessing, please pull the plug. If you take nothing away from this book, please remember that nothing is worse than longing for someone who doesn’t want you. Even loneliness is better, because with loneliness you at least have hope and possibility and imagination. But being in a situation where you start to feel hurt and small and rejected, even though it may be a nice little break from the tedium of no dates and no stories to tell your friends, will rob you of your newfound confidence and self-esteem. And nothing is really worth that.

You could be forgiven for missing some of these golden truths; upon rereading, I realized that much of the book’s best bits are gummed up with a tone that is so painfully early-aughts, I felt, at times, like I was being lectured by the reanimated corpse of an Ed Hardy T-shirt. Even though I was a lady who was there to listen, I cringed at the “LISTEN UP, LADIES!” tone.

I knew the book was gendered—it’s right there in the title!—but I didn’t realize that imagining a 2020 refresh wouldn’t be as simple as changing the pronouns; it would require fully gutting it to remove its Rules-esque apriorisms. Throughout the text, Behrendt is adamant:

Men, for the most part, like to pursue women. We like not knowing if we can catch you. We feel rewarded when we do. Especially if the chase is a long one… I know it’s an infuriating concept—that men like to chase and you have to let us chase you. I know. It’s insulting. It’s frustrating. It’s unfortunately the truth.

It’s a shame that the authors buried good points about self-respect and expecting your partner to actually like you in bullshit evolutionary psychology language that makes the book easier to dismiss wholesale, and that fundamentally ignores the existence of queer people.

I get that most dating books are meant to demystify the opposite sex; their heterocentricity is the point. But He’s Just Not That Into You is, at its core, a book about respecting other people’s boundaries and the subtle ways they communicate no. The fact that the book’s advice is understood to be strictly for straight women is particularly disappointing given the fact that it’s so often straight men who can’t accept that the women they want to date are not interested. Since 2004, the conversation about nice guys, sexual violence, consent, and harassment has become fairly mainstream. The real-world consequences of men who can’t or won’t take no for an answer are pervasive, terrifying, and sometimes lethal.

That’s not to say that women can’t be creepy or entitled or toxic—they absolutely can. The authors don’t engage much with that idea; for the most part, the book’s advice is framed as, “Acting this way is beneath you,” instead of, “Acting this way is not cool and maybe even a huge red flag.” (Though, to be fair, "Nikki," the intentionally extreme Goofus-esque character who pops up throughout the book, is finally admonished toward the end of the book with a fairly lighthearted, “That's the best way to elicit the 'what did I ever see in that psycho bitch?' response,” and a reminder to “always be classy; never be crazy.")

This oversight is even more evident in the movie, when the protagonist, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, engages in “desperate” behavior that is legitimately unsettling. One of many examples: Early in the film, she shows up alone at a bar where her crush is a regular, hoping to run into him, and tells the hostess and bartender she is “meeting someone” for a date—her crush, who has not returned any of her calls in a week.

“We had originally wanted to write the book for both sexes,” Behrendt said in a phone interview, when I asked if he’d change anything if he were writing the book now. “The publishers were like, ‘There's just no market for that. The only people that buy self-help books are this kind of women. So you're not doing yourself any favors by trying to cover everybody.’” (Both Tuccillo and Andrea Barzvi, the book’s agent, were perplexed by this claim. Tuccillo said they were often asked, “Why isn’t there a book called She’s Just Not That Into You?” at events, and that Behrendt always took the lead on answering, explaining that men didn’t need the book because they don’t process dating disappointments by obsessing over every little thing a woman ever said. Barzvi said she doesn’t remember this conversation, but if it happened, it would have been when they were brainstorming the proposal—so, before any publishers saw it and it “probably lasted all of two seconds.”)

“I grew up in the time I grew up in," said Behrendt, who was thoughtful and measured throughout our conversation. "I don’t know that I’d write a book right now that was so gender-specific. I was raised to ask girls out—that was the way I was raised as a cisgender male,” he continued. “You don't have to look far into film and television and books to see that that's how the world operated. So, you know, if you weren't being asked out by a guy, you just weren’t being asked out. And now... I don’t know who does the asking!”

Behrendt, who gives Tuccillo credit for the book’s existence and mega-success, said he was initially a bit uncomfortable with the idea of writing the book. “I was very cautious about saying anything,” he said. “I wanted to be really careful about how I said something to women. When you're addressing them as a whole, you definitely don't want to come off like you think you know something and you're better than everybody. You want to come off as a friend, and just another compassionate human being saying, ‘Hey, I think you deserve better.’”

“We would have gay men and women say, ‘Well, what about me? Or ‘What about us?’ And I would say the rules still apply,” Behrendt said. He said that what still rings true about the book is intention: It's everything in relationships, and it looks like intention. “I continue to do this work”—he told me he’s working on his next book, Don’t Take Bullshit from Fuckers, which, like HJNTIY, will be rooted in principles of self-respect—“and my feeling was always the same: Is this how you imagined it? Or did you imagine it being better? Because you can have better,” Behrendt said.

We can have better. The book’s extremely straight lens and insistence that The Two Genders™ do be like that is a bummer, because “just not that into you” is a concept that is widely applicable, and that everyone needs to internalize. A lot of us could stand to get better at recognizing and accepting a soft no from the people who are too uncomfortable or too shy or too lazy or too afraid or too over it to give a clear no.

What was true in 2004 and remains true now is that it can be really, really difficult to be vulnerable and brave; to get your hopes up again and again, only to be disappointed; to believe in your own worth when everything feels incredibly stupid and irrevocably fucked. We are a horny, lonesome, exhausted, and ultimately hopeful culture. As long as we keep desiring real connection, we will occasionally need to hear a gentle but confident six-word nudge to respect ourselves and one another—they're just not that into you.

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El detenido sacó una botella de whisky del vehículo, invitó a chupitos a los clientes del bar y acabó sufriendo un accidente en Outes

Sometimes out of chaos, works of art are created. It isn’t unheard of, especially in Hollywood. Throughout the decades there have been less than favorable partnerships that have resulted in absolutely brilliant films on screen. 

John Ford was a taskmaster on set. He was exacting and knew how to get the results he wanted. The director was famous for cutting his films “in camera” so he could have control over the finished product and not someone in the editing room. 

It wasn’t unusual for him to berate his actors in public. However, they continued to work with him because they realized that he truly was a genius and his films were visual masterpieces. Ford would forever be linked with another man of tough principles, John Wayne. While the two fought like cats and dogs behind the scenes, they were able to forego all that backstage drama to create works of art. 

In fact, Wayne recognized that Ford was the man who guided his career and through his direction, the actor achieved the kind of success that most in Tinseltown dream about. Maybe it’s that constant friction that in the end produces the kind of films that people talk about decades later. 

Another case of geniuses colliding would be prevalent in the professional relationship between Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas. Both men were forged in iron and tough as nails. Each came to the table with their opinions and their visions and woe to the parties that got caught in the middle. 

Despite their differences, these two artists were cut from the same cloth. It almost seems from their formative years; this pair were destined to circle one another at some point in time. Douglas was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants and from the beginning, he had to make his own way in life. Ambition and drive were part of his lexicon. 

He paid his way through college working different jobs and continued that pattern when he began to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Like all thespians at that time in the 1940s, he appeared on Broadway briefly before finally making his debut opposite the titan of leading ladies, Barbara Stanwyck in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). Three years later, he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a relentless boxer in Champion (1949). 

Where Douglas was persevering with his eye on the prize at all times, Stanley Kubrick was an underachiever and a rambler who barely attended school. Although, as it turned out, he had an eye for photography and at 16 years of age, was selling his pictures to Look magazine. Kubrick was a pioneer of sorts and in 1953, his first movie, Fear and Desire was an independent effort that was unheard of at a time when studios ruled everything in the entertainment industry. 

The catalyst that brought the two men together was Humphrey Cobb’s, Paths of Glory (1957). After Kubrick made The Killing in 1956, he was searching for his next project and Cobb’s novel which he was enamored with for many years sprang to mind immediately. After he optioned it, he brought it to Douglas’ Bryna Productions. Kirk believed in the story and it was also a starring vehicle for him. Despite the fact that he knew a picture expressing an anti-war stance wouldn’t exactly be a box office bonanza, he rolled the dice and made the movie with Kubrick in the director’s chair. 

However, all was not copacetic because both men fought over the script. Kubrick, who was thinking like a businessman at the time, wanted to give the film a happier ending. The director thought by doing that, audiences would like it and would be more compelled to recommend it to others. He did so without running it by his producer and star of the film which incensed Douglas to no end because he wasn’t interested in making a popular film. For him, this effort wasn’t about the money. It was more about the ideals that the production represented. The two giants went back and forth over this make or break bit of business until Douglas forced Kubrick’s hand. For keeping the ending in line with the book, in the words of Kirk Douglas, “Paths of Glory will always be good, years from now.” How right he was! To this day, the movie is considered to be one of Kubrick’s most beloved works and a harbinger of masterpieces to come. 

Three years later during filming of the epic blockbuster, Spartacus (1960), the two almost came to blows again. This time over an iconic scene that would become the tagline for the movie. From the get-go, this production was fraught with tension. Kubrick replaced director Anthony Mann and almost immediately came in like a whirlwind imposing his vision on everything. Russell Metty who was the cinematographer basically did nothing on the film because Kubrick took over since Metty’s approach wasn’t what he was looking for. 

But that wasn’t the only part of the endeavor that met with Kubrick’s derision. He found the script to be “silly and melodramatic.” The director wanted to eliminate the now famous, “I am Spartacus!” scene. The row between Douglas the producer and Kubrick became a battle to end all battles. At one point, their arguments on set were so rancorous and vindictive that Kirk’s wife suggested counseling for the duo. Even Tony Curtis at one point asked who did he have to screw to get off the set?

Once again, as he did in Paths of Glory, Douglas bested his director and “I am Spartacus!” stayed in the picture. Even though the fights were epic and on the scale of a nuclear war, the end results were timeless classics that influenced generations of films to come. One can still catch glimpses of Paths of Glory in Kubrick’s later Vietnam War opus, Full Metal Jacket (1987). The legend of Spartacus clearly lives on and resonates in Ridley Scott’s Academy Award-winning, Gladiator (2000) starring Russell Crowe. 

Whoever said art wasn’t worth fighting for? Sometimes compromises must be made in order to bring a specific vision to light. In the case of Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick, their uneasy partnership was the stuff that dreams and lasting legacies are made of.

The post When Geniuses Collide: The Uneasy Partnership between Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas appeared first on Diabolique Magazine.

Hace más de dos décadas que descubrí el agua de Valencia en una de las escapadas con amigos a Valencia. Allí fue donde probé este cóctel por primera vez, y no en una coctelería, sino en un pub con una amplia terraza. Y os tengo que confesar que me supo literalmente fatal, una horripilante mezcla naranja hecha para la chavalería que recuerdo que estaba subidísima de alcohol y que además llevaba zumo de naranja de brick. Es más, no recuerdo siquiera que tuviera gas.


Recuerdo que alguien que veraneaba por allí me dijo que si la probaba bien hecha me iba a encantar pero aquello quedó en el olvido para siempre. Pues bien, hace unos meses leí que el Café Madrid de Valencia, el bar que creó este renombrado cóctel, reabría sus puertas completamente reformado para servir comida, cócteles y como no, el agua de Valencia. El caso es que pensé que sí que debería de estar estupenda esta bebida para que este local la abandere en su reapertura.

Pues bien, ahora que tenía por casa todos los ingredientes, y unas buenísimas navelinas de la empresa Naranjas Mirador, me decidí a prepararla en casa pero modificando las cantidades un poco a mi gusto. Al final el cóctel resultó ser una delicia, ni por lo más remoto parecido a aquellos brebajes que probé y nada que envidiar a cócteles tan famosos como el mojito, caipiriña o el aperol spritz. Definitivamente el regreso estaba justificado y este coctel tendría que volver para triunfar en muchas barras de toda España.

Poca gente sabe que el agua de Valencia (Aigua de València) no la inventó un valenciano, sino un gallego, coruñés para ser más exactos. Su nombre era Constante Gil Rodríguez, y os preguntaréis ¿qué hacía un gallego en Valencia haciendo cócteles? Pues bien, enamorado del clima y de la ciudad se instaló en Valencia a mediados del siglo pasado y no fue hasta 1956 cuando cogió las riendas de una cervecería que había pasado ya por varias manos y nombres y que acabó siendo Cafetería Madrid.

No fue hasta 1959 cuando Constante se inventó este cóctel que, según cuenta la escritora María Angeles Arazo en su libro Valencia Noche, fue una improvisación para un grupo de clientes vascos que siempre que llegaban al bar pedían 'Agua de Bilbao', en alusión al mejor vino espumoso que tenían en la casa. Pues bien, para variar un poco lo que pedían, Constante se inventó este cóctel en base a zumo de naranja y diversos alcoholes, y según parece fue un éxito, aunque no se popularizó del todo hasta los años 70.


Ya os adelantamos que en este sitio no hay ingredientes secretos, hemos visto que la familia lo ha confirmado en algunos medios, y sólo ha advertido que, cualquier variación en los ingredientes originales que ahora os vamos a relatar, dejarían al cóctel fuera de la historia del agua de Valencia. No tiene que llevar nada de Angostura, Cointreau, sidra, licores, zumos envasados, refrescos carbonatados de naranja, etc. Para saber más sobre el tema pinchad aquí.

Los ingredientes del cóctel son muy sencillos, se trata de 1 medida de zumo natural de naranja (sin filtrar), 1 medida de espumoso tipo Cava, 1/2 medida de ginebra, 1/2 medida de vodka, hielo y opcionalmente azúcar. Es decir, si las naranjas son dulces y el espumoso es un semi seco, no es obligatorio echar azúcar, pero si no es así, creemos que hay que endulzar, y para ellos os recomendamos echar 1 cucharada sopera de azúcar por cada vaso (500 ml) de cóctel, entre otras cosas, porque nosotros no tenemos en casa almíbar o sirope para coctelería. Nosotros hemos optado por rebajar un poco los destilados y ahora veréis cómo, de esta forma no os repuntará tanto el alcohol. Importantísimo tener el espumoso muy frío.


Lo primero será exprimir las naranjas, y una vez exprimidas echamos el azúcar y removemos. Echamos algo más de 1 medida de zumo, 1 medida de espumoso, 1/2 medida de vodka, 1/4 medida de ginebra, usamos una ginebra que supuestamente va bien con la naranja. En una coctelera pondremos 2 piedras de hielo, y echaremos el zumo con el azúcar para enfriarlo bien. Luego los alcoholes, removeremos de nuevo. Por último el espumoso muy frío, aquí removeremos muy lentamente para no perder la burbuja. Dejamos que repose un instante mientras conseguimos un borde azucarado en las copas. ¿Cómo? Primero mojándolas con algo de zumo y luego con azúcar.


Decoramos con una rodaja de naranja en un lado, y servimos con cuidado el cóctel sin romper la burbuja, podéis echar algún hielo despacio.


A nosotros nos ha parecido que estaba buenísimo, insistimos que es un cóctel que se debería instaurar en el aperitivo o la noche, al menos en la temporada de cítricos que aquí en España no es precisamente corta.


Carlos Dube.

Existe una creencia generalizada de que la cantidad y la intensidad del contenido transgresor en la pornografía han aumentado. Sin embargo, las cosas no parecen ser así.

A pesar de las consignas ideológicas que se repiten machaconamente desde algunos púlpitos mediáticos, consumir más ficción violenta o más pornografía ni genera más asesinos, ni más violadores ni una escalada armamentística hacia un porno cada vez más procaz y aberrante.

Análisis

Según un reciente estudio que evaluó si la cantidad o la popularidad del contenido transgresor (violencia, incesto o BDSM) había cambiado en determinado período de tiempo de 16 años, se constató que no hubo un aumento significativo en la cantidad de contenido con esos temas o su popularidad entre los consumidores (medida por las vistas por día).

Estos resultados, además de investigaciones recientes que presentan hallazgos similares dentro de los vídeos pornográficos, no respaldan las percepciones populares de que el material erótico se está volviendo cada vez más transgresor. Más bien, dicho contenido parece ser relativamente consistente.

El interés, al menos en una búsqueda bruta, tampoco parece haber aumentado. De hecho, se percibe incluso cierto hastío, como podemos ver en Google Trends:

El fenómeno de la pornografía no es novedoso, pero sí lo es su acceso universal, gratuito y fácil de ocultar, y desde su universalización ha disminuido los crímenes sexuales, incluidos el exhibicionismo, las violaciones y el abuso infantil.

Donde hay más disponibilidad de pornografía, los delitos sexuales han disminuido o no han aumentado. Si no se presentan problemas físicos, mentales o psicológicos previos, practicar o consumir mucho sexo no genera adicción, tal y como explica Pere Estupinyà en su libro S=EX2:

Y cuando existen problemas previos que provocan una búsqueda obsesiva y compulsiva de recompensas, el sexo suele ser la consecuencia y no la causa. De hecho, en la bibliografía científica se pueden encontrar casos de adictos al sexo que también lo son a las compras, al juego o que tienen obsesiones como lavarse las manos compulsivamente.

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La noticia El porno más “duro” apenas ha aumentado su contenido en los últimos años fue publicada originalmente en Xataka Ciencia por Sergio Parra .

Esta semana en Condenado Fanzine estamos inspirados por la figura de Ronald Reagan como influencer de la escena hardcore punk estadounidense como puedes oír en nuestro podcast Fucked Up Ronnie de Radio Condenado. Sin embargo, aunque su llegada a la presidencia de Estados Unidos en 1980 coincidió en el tiempo con el nacimiento del hardcore made...

Some 60 years ago, during the era of McCarthyism, comic books became a threat, causing a panic that culminated in a Senate hearing in 1954. [...] The reaction to the suspected scourge was the Comics Code (CBLDF) — a set of rules that spelled out what comics could and couldn't do. Good had to triumph over evil. Government had to be respected. Marriages never ended in divorce. [...] What adults thought was best for children ended up censoring and dissolving years of progress and artistry (Buzzfeed News), as well as comics that challenged American views on gender and race. Consequently, that cemented the idea that this was a medium for kids — something we've only recently started disbelieving. The insane history of how American paranoia ruined and censored comic books (Vox)

Another excerpt from the Vox article:

The man in charge of tying comic books to society's ills was a bespectacled German-American psychiatrist and author named Fredric Wertham.

Wertham was working in a Harlem hospital treating juvenile delinquents when he noticed that those he treated read comic books. At the time everyone was reading comic books, so the fact that the delinquents were doing so was not particularly noteworthy — except to Wertham.

Comics became his crusade. According to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Wertham's public attacks on comic books started in a 1948 interview with Collier's Magazine called "Horror in the Nursery." From there, Wertham spoke at a symposium called "The Psychopathy of Comic Books," explaining his belief that comic book readers were sexually aggressive and that this led to them committing crimes.

Going back over his research now, it appears Wertham fudged and disingenuously represented what he had found. But at the time, people trusted him. They followed his lead, resulting in events like a public comic book burning by a Girl Scout troop from Cape Girardeau, Missouri (The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu; preview via Google books).

Wertham's crowning achievement against comic books came in 1954. He published his book The Seduction of the Innocent (2nd edition on Archive.org). Seduction also featured bad research (summary by CBLDF, NYT, NYT archived). It made hard-to-substantiate claims, suggesting Wonder Woman was a lesbian (Lost SOTI*), Batman and Robin were gay (Comics Alliance), and comic books were leading children into danger. Wertham's comic book witch-hunt coincided with McCarthyism in the US, adding fuel to the fire.

In the decades since, there have been a number of efforts to bypass or break the Comics Code. The first revision came in 1971, then in the 1980s, greater depiction of violence had become acceptable, and there was another Code update in 1989 (CBLDF x2). By the 2000s, advertisers no longer made decisions to advertise based on the appearance of the stamp, but the impact of Seduction of the Innocent persists, though in a different way.

*Lost SOTI is a site dedicated to dedicated to the comic book censorship crusade of the 1940's and 1950's, Seduction of the Innocent, and the works of Dr. Fredric Wertham. The site has a detailed timeline of events, and archived copies of notable publications that related to the censorship of comics in the 1940s and 1950s in the U.S. The site takes its name from comics that were referenced in SOTI, but lost, or not yet identified by fans. A number of titles have been identified, or found.

Meth began to thrive in Missouri for many of the same reasons it thrives in other disaffected towns in the rural Midwest: As factory jobs evaporated or migrated overseas, the ones left behind often paid less and came with fewer benefits. Some Missourians turned to making and selling the drug to supplement their income; others took to using it, as a performance-enhancing medication. Meth furiously ramps up productivity, allowing people to work longer hours "or bear the work they were doing," Pine says, "which can be backbreaking, like concrete work; or boring, like factory work or truck driving." In his new book The Alchemy of Meth, anthropologist Jason Pine chronicles how methamphetamine addiction reshaped rural Missouri, and beyond. Sarah Holder reports for City Lab.

The impulse to find productive outlets—or to mentally escape once those outlets are gone—should be familiar to anyone, in any social class or region in the U.S., Pine says. That's the reality of America under what UC Irvine anthropologist Kim Fortun has dubbed "late industrialism"—a time when many workers are overextended and living in precarity. Coping mechanisms might be chemical or digital, benign or toxic.

During his struggles to write the book, Pine found himself growing increasingly reliant on Adderall—usually seen as a more white-collar, professional form of performance enhancement. "Adderall made writing about meth users easier, and faster, but there was an uneasy chemical proximity," he writes. (When Pine appears in this own book, it's in the third person: He asked friends and colleagues to interview him, so he, too, could be a part of the analysis.) His use of the drug similarly helped position himself alongside his subjects, not above them; under Adderall's influence, he becomes more aware of the "psychopharmaceutical bleed" that breaches regions and classes and legal divides.

"It's not just about trying to make ends meet—it's also about feeling useful," he says. "Where did that deficiency come from? It comes from some kind of internalized self-critique that comes from a neoliberalist sensibility: that you're on your own, you are what you make of yourself, and you're never enough."

Fetishists aside, most people are not comfortable with the idea of gas and feces sneaking into their sex lives. Never mind that sex is by its nature a little messy, and that sometimes a little poop will make its way into the mix thanks to illness, anal play, or any other number of factors; waste is just a taboo and a turn off. So it should come as no surprise that many people do not look at those with ostomy bags or pouches—essentially external colons that collect waste from a stoma, an opening created in the abdomen to bypass the rectum and parts of the intestines—as sexual prospects. Often, pop culture and jokes do not even portray them as sexual beings, reducing them instead to cursed figures shackled to unwieldy, unpredictable, and precarious bags of noxious shit.

About 500,000 people live with permanent ostomy bags in the United States alone, and many more will use temporary bags for months or years while they heal from conditions ranging from Crohn’s disease and colorectal cancer to complications stemming from childbirth or abdominal injuries. Many people internalize these stigmas and as a result can struggle—at least for a time—with their body image and self-esteem, wonder if their pre-surgery sexual partners will leave them or if new partners will want them, and worry about how their sex lives might be limited. And their partners may indeed get psyched out by the presence of a bag in bed, or worry about damaging the pouch or hurting their partners.

But all of the desexualizing stigmas surrounding ostomy bags are, simply put, bullshit. Most bags come with charcoal filters and are well sealed and secured, eliminating odors unless one is actively emptying them. Even then, some “ostomates,” as many people with ostomy bags call themselves, take pills or use deodorizers to further limit the risk of smells sneaking out. Many use straps, or specialized underwear, to keep their pouches covered and close to their bodies and empty them regularly, making them almost invisible while they are clothed and close to anyone who isn't actively looking for them. Some also invest in specialty small, low-profile bags for when they are nude or near-nude.

If someone gets an ostomy bag because they are having their rectum or part of their intestines removed, the surgeries involved do risk damaging nerves leading to the genitals, which can cause short- or long-term erectile dysfunction, vaginal dryness, pain during sex, and trouble orgasming. Removing rectums, which often involves sewing the anus shut, takes anal penetration off the table and reduces support for the rear wall of the vagina, which may change the way that certain acts or positions feel for some people. (Removing certain portions of one’s intestines may also mean that they can no longer absorb the active ingredients in oral contraception fully.) Some ostomates also find they have to avoid positions that put too much pressure on their bags—which, though sturdy, can sometimes rip or burst if put under heavy physical duress. And the need many feel to make sure that their bags are empty, or to take an antidiarrheal to keep their bags empty, before engaging in sexual play can make erotic encounters feel less spontaneous than they used to be. (Some people’s bags fill up faster than others depending on the nature of their conditions and bodily idiosyncrasies, so not every ostomate feels the same need for prep.)

But in general, most ostomates find that their bags do not substantively change their sex lives in the long run, so long as they can avoid or overcome any partner or self-internalized stigmas and hang-ups.

A heartening number of support groups, blogs, and YouTube channels have popped up in recent years for ostomates to seek info on, and share their experiences of, navigating sex and stigma. Even outlets like Cosmopolitan and Metro have started to feature a surprising number of positive and helpful stories about sex with ostomy bags of late. This has helped to put a real dent in common stigmas and helped many ostomates build fulfilling sex lives.

Yet most of these resources focus on the experience of ostomates alone, skipping over partners' experiences and couple dynamics. To add to the growing body of narratives on and resources for this topic, VICE recently spoke to Eric Polsinelli, who had his colon and rectum removed and got an ostomy bag in 2013 to treat debilitating symptoms of Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory disease affecting the digestive tract, and who now blogs about his experiences at VeganOstomy , alongside his wife, Kelli. We talked about how they first processed the idea of, and eventually navigated, bringing a bag into their bed. Every ostomate and their partners’ experiences will be different, but Eric and Kelli’s story shows how, in some cases, an ostomy bag can actually improve a couple’s physical intimacy.

Eric: We’ve been married for 18 years now, and we’d been together a few years before that.

I got sick [and was diagnosed with Crohn’s] in 2008. My disease was up and down; I would have months where I would feel okay and other months that were absolute nightmares. [At their worst,] my symptoms made it difficult to eat and I was bed-ridden for weeks or months at a time. So, intimacy was kind of put on the back burner, because the focus was more on trying to survive.

That’s not to say there weren’t good days where sex was on my mind—certainly, it was. But as far as taking it to the next step, that was a bag of worms. There are all of these practical things you have to keep in mind when you’re talking about a disease that creates incontinence. You also essentially lose control of your bowels [with Crohn’s]. So, it was always like: What will happen if we do something sexual? Will I make a mess in the bed? That was a real possibility.

Kelli: He was ill for five years, and during that time we concentrated on getting him better, not our intimate life. It was inappropriate, under the circumstances of his illness, and with him feeling self-conscious, [to put too much focus on sex and physical intimacy.] So, during that time, unfortunately, we had a friendship—a very close friendship—but not an intimate relationship.

That affected me really hard. I lost my best friend as well as my intimate partner. There was no hope for the future. It made it very difficult to have any kind of a relationship [between us].

Eric: [Things got bad enough that] my doctors suggested that we consider a temporary ostomy to give my body some time to rest, then we’d see where we’d go from there. My question was: “Is this going to be something where we have a temporary ostomy, go back, then two years down the road I’m in the same position again?” In 2013, I went to speak with a surgeon and we agreed that a permanent ostomy would be the best option. And it turned out that it certainly was.

Kelli: I’d thought earlier on that would be the outcome. I mentioned [the possibility of an ostomy] to Eric. He doesn’t remember saying this to me, but he said: “I’ll never get an ostomy.” Eric is stubborn. But I was all for that ostomy. He was in constant pain. And I wanted my husband back.

Eric: I do remember that. Yeah, and when my doctor first mentioned a temporary ostomy, I took that terribly. I thought: What is this going to mean? Am I going to be locked at home all day, just managing this bag all the time? And at the time I viewed surgery a kind of failure [to manage my disease]. But that’s not the case. Surgery is a viable treatment for a lot of people!

Back then, even having had Crohn’s for years, I hadn’t looked into what living with an ostomy bag would entail. The only experience I’d had with ostomies was what you’d see in movies or hear in jokes—and those portrayals can be so negative. Later, I learned my grandmother, who passed away because of colon cancer, had an ostomy bag for some time and I’d had no idea.

Kelli: The nurses and doctor explained it to us. [But to me,] it didn’t matter how it worked. It wouldn’t change my opinion of my husband. We both accept each other for who and what we are.

Eric: Once I started going online and seeing other patients living their lives [with an ostomy bag,] that was a huge turning point. A lot of them were very honest, like, hey, I’m going through this now and here’s how we plan to fix it. There wasn’t a lot of sugar-coating, and that’s important for advocacy and education in this space. I also had a great surgeon and team of nurses who brought sexuality up [and the potential sexual side effects of my surgeries]. Even in the follow-ups appointments, she’d ask, “how are things going [with your sex life]?” From what I hear from other patients, that usually doesn’t happen. A lot of the time, patients have to bring sexual issues up.

By the time my surgery was close, we were excited about it. My kids and I had set up an [Advent] calendar, but for my surgery. It was like , let’s get this done; it can only get better from here.

I immediately felt better as far as my Crohn’s symptoms right after my first surgery [to create my bypass stoma, but before the second surgery to remove my colon and rectum]. So I was excited to get back to making love to my wife again. We talked about that very soon after. But I had to get the okay from my surgeon that everything was looking and feeling good so we could try it—and that took like four weeks. But that was on my mind the day [I got out of that first surgery].

Kelli: He researches everything, so he’d already figured out a way to maneuver the bag and put a strap around his waist so that it wouldn’t be flopping toward me. So I don’t notice anything when we’re intimate. We’ve really got it down to a science here [by now.]

Eric: For people who wear clear bags, like I do, concealment is often on your mind, whether it’s using a pouch cover or a band or a support strap. I know some people just like to have the bag dangling. That’s a matter of personal preference and comfort. I personally like to have things a little more secure when I’m getting intimate. I was fortunate to run into one guy’s YouTube channel, where he brought up this product called the Stealth Belt that allows you to wear your ostomy bag sideways. It very much looks like a belt you’d wear to the gym for back support. It keeps the profile of your bag very close to your skin and secure. The Stealth Belt was something I could just wear all day, not something I needed to worry about only during intimate moments.

But there are a few things we have to take care of [before getting intimate].You do always want to empty the appliance before you do anything sexual to help keep the profile of the bag low and keep it out of the way. Some people grab a shower before if the fear of odors is on their mind. There were more things to plan [right after my surgery] due to a lack of experience. But over time, this becomes like second nature. I can change my whole appliance in 10 minutes now, for example, whereas before it might have taken me like an hour and a half.

Still, spontaneity changes. You can’t just wake up, roll over, and go at it. The bag tends to have filled up [overnight,] so it’s not a practical thing. That’s probably the biggest challenge [for me].

Kelli: I’m just so used to it now. You have to keep in mind that I saw everything—the way the disease looked, the way the ostomy looked. So if he’s comfortable and I’m comfortable, the intimacy is just as good as it was before. He’s just as energetic and willing and romantic and sweet and lovely as he’s ever been. Except for the added appreciation that now we can have intimacy.

Eric: I actually run a support forum where people all around the world ask and answer questions [about ostomies] now. It seems to be taboo to talk about having sex in general, but sex when you have an ostomy is even more so. Looking at research statistics, there are a lot of people suffering who essentially put sex on the back burner indefinitely. Some of that is due to very real physical side effects of surgeries. A lot of that can be addressed by just talking things through with your surgeon [and saying,] it is what it is and I’m just not going to give up [on sex and intimacy.]

When one partner is not secure or comfortable with having the appliance in their lives, it reflects onto the other partner. So a lot of times it’s about learning how to build confidence, knowledge of how to handle your appliance—and not thinking about it too much. When we think about our medical conditions too much, it can have negative consequences [on our personal lives]. Just trying to move forward and live life like we normally would does a lot of good. I do feel like I’m always learning something new, though. And being comfortable and confident—that comes with time.

Kelli: It’s just about asking questions, talking with your partner, and being honest. Be open about things you feel you have to get over to be intimate rather than just deluding yourself [and hiding those feelings]. I would imagine that there are divorces over this. But we just laugh about it.

I can only say that I love him with or without the ostomy bag. It doesn’t matter to me.

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Macaulay Culkin, who many know as a member of the Pizza Underground (he was also in that one movie Home Alone), hasn't been up to all that much lately, acting-wise. The 39-year-old former child star has a podcast and runs a satire website called Bunny Ears, but hasn't really been in many movies recently, save for Seth Green's Changeland. But according to a new Esquire cover story, that's all right by Culkin. Speaking to writer Ryan D’Agostino, Culkin asks to be called "Mac," and offers a pretty revealing interview about his life, grappling with fame, and how he managed to survive the darkest parts of being a child star.

Among the many things you should know about Culkin is that he has a bunch of cats, is dating actress Brenda Song, smokes Parliaments, and is currently playing WrestleMania 2000. Honestly, his life sounds delightful, as he tells the magazine, "You know what I’m going to do after this? I’m gonna take care of my back—I’m gonna take a hot bath. I have a video queued up: the history of Castlevania, the Nintendo game. It’s 55 minutes long, and that’s the perfect bathtime amount of time." It's truly fascinating that the man who once starred in the film Home Alone likes spending time home, alone!

The profile tackles how life hasn't always been easy for Culkin. His rise to fame was particularly turbulent and full of burnout, and his relationship to his pushy father was pretty tenuous. He also lost his sister to a devastating car crash in 2008 and in a moment where Culkin talks about how he mourns his sister on the anniversary of her death, he says, “Her favorite drink was Budweiser. So I’m gonna drink some Budweisers tomorrow. And listen, I’m not gonna get into it. But it’s my day, when I mourn my sister. So yeah.”

With this in mind, seeing him genuinely happy in an interview is quite touching. He divulges about his relationship to drugs, where his alleged use was the subject of countless gnarly tabloid rumors:

“One of my favorite jokes: I’ve been accused of having a drug problem, but nothing could be further from the truth. Drugs are the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” He cracks up at this.

But, really, how bad did it get with drugs?

“Um? Listen,” he says, “I played with some fire, I guess is the best way to put it. At the same time, I’ve never been to rehab or anything like that. I’ve never had to clean out that way. There were certain times when I had to catch myself, once or twice. You’re having too good a time, Mack. I mean, I’ve had friends who ask me, ‘How do I get clean?’ And I go, I’m the last person you should ask, because I’m gonna give you the worst advice, which is: Just stop. Just stop! And that’s not the way it works. But I never went so far down that road where I needed outside help. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t had drugs in my life at some point or another. I had some illuminating experiences—but also it’s fuckin’ stupid, too, you know? So besides the occasional muscle relaxer, no, I don’t do drugs recreationally. I still kinda drink like a fish. I drink and I smoke. But I don’t touch the things. I do love them. They’re like old friends. But sometimes you outgrow your friends.”

He clarifies his relationship with Michael Jackson:

“Look,” he says. “I’m gonna begin with the line—it’s not a line, it’s the truth: He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has passed on. If anything—I’m not gonna say it would be stylish or anything like that, but right now is a good time to speak up. And if I had something to speak up about, I would totally do it. But no, I never saw anything; he never did anything.

Culkin had an awkward run-in with James Franco after Leaving Neverland came out:

“Here’s a good Michael Jackson story that doesn’t involve Michael Jackson at all: I ran into James Franco on a plane. I’d bumped into him two or three times over the years. I give him a little nod as we’re putting our bags overhead. Hey, how you doing? Good, how ya doing? And it was right after the Leaving Neverland documentary came out, and he goes, ‘So, that documentary!’ And that was all he said. I was like, ‘Uh-huh.’ Silence. So then he goes, ‘So what do you think?’ And I turned to him and I go, ‘Do you wanna talk about your dead friend?’ And he sheepishly went, ‘No, I don’t.’ So I said, ‘Cool, man, it was nice to see you.’ ”

He had a bad audition recently:

He auditioned for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, the Quentin Tarantino movie from last year. The audition did not go well. Actually: “It was a disaster. I wouldn’t have hired me. I’m terrible at auditioning anyway, and this was my first audition in like eight years.”

Cheers, Mac.

Probablemente también tenga el récord de más muertos a sus espaldas cuando ha interpretado a diferentes asesinos, pero no sabemos si alguien lleva tan bien esa cuenta. Lo que sabemos es que el veterano actor Danny Trejo ha ganado un nuevo récord que cambia las tornas, y resulta que es el actor más veces asesinado en la pantalla de la historia del cine.

Buzz Bingo (a través de Bloody Disgusting) ha hecho una infografía de Mortalidad de películas que revela que Trejo ya ha sido asesinado en la pantalla 65 veces, más que cualquier otro actor en la historia y con esa cifra ha superando a Christopher Lee, que tenía 60, logrando el récord por un buen trecho.

El Top 10 de grandes muertos múltiples está seguido por el mítico Lance Henriksen (51), Vincent Price empatado con Dennis Hopper y Boris Karloff con 41, John Hurt (39), Bela Lugosi ( 36), Tom Sizemore (36) y Eric Roberts (35). La representación femenina sale ganando en pericia y la actriz con la marca más alta es Shelley Winters con solo 20 muertes, seguida de Julianne Moore con 17. En términos de muertes en pantalla por año, 1997 fue, con mucho, el año con la mayor cantidad de muertes en pantalla con 330 en total entre las 50 películas más taquilleras. 1990, 2014, 2017 y 2013 completan el Top 5.

Las muertes en la pantalla de Trejo se debieron principalmente a múltiples heridas de bala, pero por lo demás el catálogo incluye aplastamiento por elevador o aparejos ligeros, aplastamiento por un televisor CRT, apuñalamiento por taco de billar o varita de limpieza de piscinas, jeringas clavadas, explosión, decapitación, taladro en la frente y salto de edificio. El gráfico no pone a Sean Bean encabezando la lista de los actores con más probabilidades de morir en la pantalla sino un empate de Kit Harington, y Merritt Butrick, con Mahershala Ali y A.J. Cook empatados en segundo lugar con un 50%.

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La noticia Danny Trejo ya es el actor que más veces ha sido asesinado de la historia del cine fue publicada originalmente en Espinof por Jorge Loser .

Consuelo García del Cid es escritora e investigadora. En 2012 publicó "Las desterradas hijas de Eva" y sacó a la luz las sombras del Patronato de Protección de Mujeres, una institución que operó en España desde 1902 hasta 1984, siendo brevemente clausurado entre 1935 y 1941. Durante el franquismo, el Patronato tuteló a menores "caídas o en riesgo de caer" que ingresaban por conductas inmorales o problemas de comportamiento. Muchas de ellas eran entregadas por sus propias familias, pero otras eran denunciadas y reclutadas por las llamadas "celadoras guardianas de la moral". Consuelo estuvo internada en una de sus instituciones regentada por religiosas, estos son algunos de sus recuerdos, reconstruidos a partir de una entrevista con Consuelo, que prepara su tercer libro sobre el Patronato. Dice que las pruebas documentales contra la institución son "demoledoras".

La primera vez que ingresé en el Patronato lo hice en las Adoratrices de Padre Damián 52, en Madrid. Era 1973, tenía 15 años y estaba a punto de cumplir los 16. La mía era una familia pija, burguesa y conservadora de Barcelona y yo, con esa edad, empecé a rebelarme. Lo mío no era una cuestión de drogas, discotecas o chicos, que era lo que llevaba a algunas familias a ingresar a sus hijas allí. Era una cuestión de pensar por mí misma, de ideología. Me manifestaba contra el régimen franquista y mi familia me puso un detective privado para descubrirlo. Realmente lo hicieron muy bien, porque no me di cuenta. Lo supe años después.

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Un día muy temprano (serían las 7 de la mañana), mi madre entró a mi habitación mientras yo dormía acompañada de mi médico de cabecera de toda la vida, que era del Opus Dei. Me dijo que me iban a poner una vacuna contra la gripe y yo no pude reaccionar. Me cogieron de los brazos, me pusieron una intravenosa y cuando me desperté estaba en una habitación que no conocía de nada.

Tenía la boca seca, mi lengua parecía una lija y no sabía dónde estaba. Intenté abrir la puerta y vi que estaba cerrada con llave. Me di cuenta de que a los pies de la cama había una maleta que me resultaba familiar. La abrí y vi que había ropa para todas las estaciones del año. Seguía sin entender nada. Entonces me asomé a la ventana, que daba a la calle, y me di cuenta de que todos los coches tenían matrícula -M: me habían llevado a Madrid.

"Mis padres pagaban una especie de alquiler por mi celda. Pagaban por tenerme en una cárcel"

En el Patronato yo era considerada como una de las rebeldes. Éramos las más vigiladas y no teníamos apenas libertad, ni siquiera para hablar con el resto. Al poco de entrar, aún sin saber muy bien dónde estaba, se me acercó una chica y me preguntó muy bajito: "¿Tú eres del Patronato?". Le respondí, también susurrando, que qué era el Patronato. Inicialmente pensé que era algo bueno, porque me lo preguntaron varias, pero yo les respondía que no lo sabía, que desconocía si era o no del Patronato.

Después supe que no. Que yo era "de pago". Había entrado por decisión familiar, lo que venía a significar que mis padres pagaban una especie de alquiler por mi celda. Pagaban por tenerme en una cárcel. Pero de pago éramos relativamente pocas.

Las que sí que eran del Patronato, las tuteladas -entonces la mayoría de edad estaba en los 21 año y si el Patronato se hacía cargo de tu tutela subía hasta los 25- llegaban acompañadas de la Policía. Aquello era un sistema penitenciario oculto que se vendía como una institución de ayuda a la mujer.

Funcionaba a través de una serie de congregaciones religiosas: Adoratrices, Oblatas, Monjas de la Caridad, Cruzadas Evangélicas... Todas ellas tenían los reformatorios, pero no los reconocían públicamente como tales sino como Escuelas de Formación, asilos u hogares. Realmente eran cárceles para que las adolescentes y mujeres jóvenes nos convirtiéramos al modelo único de mujer del Régimen: el de Pilar Primo de Rivera.

"La vida en el Patronato se reducía a reducía a rezar y trabajar gratis"

La forma de captar a las chicas (aunque a veces era la propia familia la que las entregaba, como en mi caso que pagaban o en el caso de muchas muchachas pobres a las que entregaban, de familias de pueblos que apenas tenían para comer y vivían hacinadas) era a través de las llamadas celadoras guardianas de la moral. Eran monjas que salían por las calles, por los cines, los bares, las piscinas o las salas de baile y, en el momento en que veían a una menor en actitud que consideraban sospechosa llamaban a la Policía y se las llevaban al Centro de Federación y Clasificación, que estaba en la calle Arturo Soria.

El centro era regentado por Trinitarias y lo primero que les hacían a las chicas al llegar era un examen ginecológico. La que era virgen constaba en el expediente como "completa" y la que no, como "incompleta". Esto era determinante para que se las llevaran a un reformatorio más o menos severo. Además de chicas pobres y de "rebeldes" como yo, había mucha huérfana que venía directamente de todo el entramado institucional, del auxilio social, del orfanato... pero también prostitutas o mujeres que se habían quedado embarazadas fuera del matrimonio.

Ellas eran llevadas a parir a Peñagrande y a muchas de ellas se les arrebataba a sus niños nada más nacer. Cuando escribí mi libro Las desterradas hijas de Eva, se empezó a hablar de la relación del Patronato con la trama de los bebés robados. Recuerdo a dos de ellas en las Adoratrices, llorando y sujetándose el pecho y manchadas aún de sangre, contando que venían de Peñagrande y que les habían robado a sus bebés. Me da escalofríos pensarlo, pero entonces aquello me parecía normal: pensaba que si a mí me habían metido allí por nada, qué no iban a hacerle a las embarazadas.

La vida en el Patronato se reducía a reducía a rezar y trabajar gratis. Te levantaban a las 7:15 de la mañana con palmadas. En menos de 10 minutos tenías que estar duchada, vestida y con la cama bien hecha, porque si no estaba bien hecha venía la monja y te la deshacía. Después, a misa en ayunas. A las 8 nos daban de desayunar y de ahí a fregar. Luego íbamos a los talleres de trabajo, en los que trabajábamos para empresas grandes pero no veíamos un duro. Yo trabajé, por ejemplo, cosiendo para El Corte Inglés.

Después teníamos una hora patio, pero no se nos permitía hablar con quienes no pertenecían a nuestro hogar, que era como se denominaba a cada pabellón (los pabellones tenían unas 20 chicas y era la forma en laque estaba distribuido aquello). En las Adoratrices llevábamos uniforme y aquello te borraba por completo la identidad, pero acababas reconociéndote con el resto de internas simplemente por la mirada. Incluso algunas inventamos un lenguaje con mímica.

Pasado un tiempo que denominaban "de arresto" (que dependiendo de tu comportamiento era de seis o siete meses y que quería decir que en ese periodo no veías la calle en ningún momento) las monjas te buscaban o bien un trabajo, que siempre era de limpieza o de niñera, o bien un curso. A mí me buscaron trabajo de niñera. El dinero, que cobraba por semanas, se lo tenía que entregar a las monjas. También me apunté a puericultura. Pero un día salí hacia el trabajo y nunca volví. Me escapé.

"En las Adoratrices llevábamos uniforme y aquello te borraba por completo la identidad, pero acababas reconociéndote con el resto de internas simplemente por la mirada"

No tenía nada planeado pero como había ayudado a escapar a tantas llegó un momento en el que aprendí yo. Me acuerdo perfectamente del día. Me levanté y, sentada en la cama pensé: hoy es el día. En lugar de encaminarme hacia el trabajo, estuve dando vueltas por Madrid y conseguí un billete para el Talgo a Barcelona pero cuando llegué a Atocha la estación estaba llena de Policía y pensé, fíjate qué inocente, que estaban allí por mí, buscándome.

No era así, claro, pero de igual manera estaban pidiéndole a todo el mundo el DNI y en el mío ponía la dirección del Patronato, así que no me monté. Llamé a una tía que tenía en Madrid, mi único familiar en la ciudad, y le dije que me había escapado. Estuve un mes con ella siendo consciente de que estaban preparando mi siguiente ingreso. Y así fue. Un día me metieron en un avión y cuando llegué a Barcelona y vi a toda mi familia allí pensé "ya está, me llevan al Buen Pastor".

De estar institucionalizada y como a muchas chicas las cambiaban de centro —por mala conducta, por haberse hecho amigas dentro de un centro— acababas sabiéndotelos todos. Siempre existía la amenaza de ir a Villalba o Baeza, dos de los centros más duros, según decían, o a Ciempozuelos, un sanatorio en el que fueron ingresadas cientos de mujeres del Patronato sin diagnóstico alguno. Sobre eso trata mi último trabajo, que aún estoy escribiendo. Pero aquel día, al ver que nos dirigíamos al Tibidabo lo confirmé: me iban a meter en el Buen Pastor. Llegué muerta de miedo y descubrí, a los pocos días de mi ingreso, la doble moral del Patronato.

A diferencia de en Madrid, en el Buen Pastor tenía una habitación individual, lo que me garantizaba cierta intimidad aunque el cuarto no tuviera techo y la puerta fuera cerrada cada noche con llave. Tampoco había uniforme, te podías vestir y cortar el pelo como quisieras, y nos dejaban fumar hasta tres cigarrillos al día y hablar con todo el mundo, sin restricciones. Pero lo que más me sorprendió de todo fue que los talleres se pagaban.

Allí trabajé cosiendo los dobladillos de las sábanas y toallas de la Seguridad Social y pañuelos de ojos de los Sanfermines. Cuando llegó el final de mes y la monja nos dijo que nos pusiéramos en fila que íbamos a cobrar pensé que nos iban a pegar, pero en lugar de eso me pusieron en la mano 2000 pesetas y cuando le dije a la monja que qué era eso, que en las Adoratrices no me pagaban, me respondió que aquello no eran las Adoratrices.

"Todo el mundo sabía quiénes éramos y cuando nos sacaban a dar una vuelta por la calle la gente nos miraba como si fuéramos unas putas"

Al principio tenía miedo de las internas, porque como allí podíamos ir vestidas como nos apeteciera veías realmente cómo era cada una y los perfiles eran muy serios. Ahora ver a una chica tatuada es normal, pero en los 70 en España era lo más marginal del mundo. Uno de los primeros días estaba en el patio y me empezaron a rodear. Me preguntaban que qué hacía ahí si era "un pimpollo" y me decían "mira la pija esta, ¿de dónde habrá salido?". Entonces les conté que me había escapado de las Adoratrices de Madrid y una con pinta de camionero me respondió "olé tu coño".

En la vida había oído esa expresión, y lo que más grave me pareció no fue que lo dijera sino que la monja que estaba a su lado no la regañó ni le dijo nada. Entonces gritó "es una fugada" y empezaron a acercarse un montón de internas, a presentarse, a ofrecerse para tatuarme o conseguirme tabaco, para sacar cartas al exterior... una incluso me dio un beso en la boca. Al principio pensaba en qué era aquello y de dónde habían salido todas esas chicas, pero después me lleve maravillosamente con ellas.

Además de con mis compañeras tuve mucha suerte también con las monjas, que estaban mucho mejor preparadas que en las Adoratrices. Al poco tiempo de ingresar me dijeron que iban a hablar con mi madre porque si lo que ocurría conmigo era que tenía problemas familiares los tenía que resolver en familia, no allí. Yo les rogaba que no lo hicieran, que por favor me dejaran allí, porque pensaba que lo que haría mi madre sería llevarme de vuelta a las Adoratrices, pero no fue así.

En 1975 salí del centro del Buen Pastor. El día que me dijeron que hiciera la maleta, que era libre, no me lo creía. Cuando me despedí de mis compañeras, en el patio, les juré que, aunque pasaran muchos años, un día sería escritora y el país entero se enteraría de lo que nos había hecho. Cumplí la promesa 36 años más tarde, con la publicación de Las desterradas hijas de Eva. Y empezaron a salir por redes sociales un montón de exinternas que habían vivido lo que yo. Para mí supuso un desgaste emocional enorme reencontrarme con tantas historias terribles, con tantas muertes, con tantos suicidios, pero también fue bonito poder hablar con excompañeras que, como yo, lograron sobrevivir al Patronato.

Al edificio en el que estuve interna en Madrid, el de las Adoratrices, se le denominaba "reformatorio de niñas díscolas y caídas". En Chamartín, el barrio en el que estaba, todo el mundo sabía quiénes éramos y cuando nos sacaban a dar una vuelta por la calle la gente nos miraba como si fuéramos unas putas. Como resultado de ello, además de de las torturas, hay mujeres que no quieren siquiera reconocer que pasaron por el Patronato. Algunas de las que entrevisté cuando estaba recogiendo testimonios me hablaban por Skype por la noche, cuando sus maridos ya estaban durmiendo, porque ni lo sabían ni querían que lo supieran sus propios esposos.

Hasta que publiqué Las desterradas hijas de Eva primero y Ruega por nosotras después nadie había hablado en España del Patronato, una institución que, paradójicamente, tuvo como vocal durante la II República a Victoria Kent, una supuesta feminista de pro. Solo había una pequeña referencia en Mujeres para después de una guerra, de Asumpta Roura y una mención en un libro de Mirta Núñez Díaz.

"No creo que todas esas monjas que tanto daño nos hicieron fueran malas. No creo que fuera su culpa sino del sistema"

Cuando en 2012 publiqué Las desterradas hijas de Eva empiezo a recibir amenazas. Durante la gira que hice con motivo de su promoción no salía a la calle sola y vivía con miedo. Cada noche dormía en casa de una amiga distinta por temor a que descubrieran dónde estaba y que me hicieran algo. Nunca descubrí quién fue, pero supongo que tendría que ver con el caso de los bebés robados, o quizá con que algunos de los últimos cargos del Patronato, que desapareció en el 1984, fueran miembros en activo del Partido Popular. Lo descubrí por el BOE, que es lo único que en España nunca miente.

Lo único bueno que saqué de aquella experiencia fue que el sufrimiento y el maltrato te purifican. Te convierten en una especie de hipopótamo, en un ser tremendamente duro. También te enseña a comprender. No creo que todas esas monjas que tanto daño nos hicieron fueran malas. No creo que fuera su culpa sino del sistema: ellas pensaban que estaban haciendo lo correcto. Que aquello era lo mejor para nosotras, que nos estaban haciendo bien. Esto, claro, lo aprendí y lo comprendí con los años. Que ellas no eran las culpables sino un sistema que no concebía un modelo de mujer distinto.

Mi madre también tardó años en comprenderlo. Me pidió perdón cuando aparecí en un programa de televisión y hablé de las atrocidades del Patronato y vio que un montón de mujeres llamaban para intervenir telefónicamente y confirmar que todo aquello era verdad. Me dijo que, en su momento, creía que yo me lo inventaba. Pero no: nunca me inventé nada. Y siempre supe que tenía que contar mi historia, mi historia y la de tantas otras que no fuimos ni somos víctimas sino supervivientes.

Supervivientes de un drama silenciado primero e ignorado después, incluso por los más comprometidos con la Memoria Histórica. Quizá porque nosotras no tenemos muertas en las cunetas. Quizá porque las nuestras no fueron fusiladas sino que se suicidaron o vivieron con depresión toda su vida al serles arrebatados sus hijos en Peñagrande.

Sigue a Consuelo García del Cid en @txaite.

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The Del Prince versionan "Assumpta" de Siniestro Total. La canción se publicó en el disco Menos mal que nos queda Portugal, 1984.

Letra y música: Miguel Costas

Estudio: Soul Food (la cocina de la casa de Marcos). Mezclado y masterizado por Ely Agramunt en Slapback.

The Del Prince son:

- Marcos Sendarrubias: voz solista

- Jose Ramón Sánchez: voz bajo, guitarra y batería

- Juan Manuel López: coros

- Roberto Ferrer: coros

- Cristina Cordo: coros

La entrada Harley Quinn, Billie Eilish y las E-Girls, ¿qué hace diferentes a los emos de la gen-Z? aparece primero en Beatburguer.