charlie warhol: he's my darling

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Spotify is Now Available in the US! [music, technology]

Great news for geeks and music lovers alike - Spotify is now (finally!) available in the US!

Head over here to get your invitation, or if you can't wait, you can sign up for a premium account for $4.99/month.

Then head over to Lifehacker and read their guide "The Essential Spotify Tools" to get the most out of your account.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Best Things to Do on Father's Day in SF [holidays, events]

There is a lot of (mostly) free stuff going on in the Bay Area for Father's Day this year, so there is no excuse not to take Dear Old Dad out!

1. The Northern California Pirate Festival is happening in Vallejo from 10:00am to 6:00pm and celebrates all things Pirate.via FunCheapSF:

Celebrate all things Pirate, as Pirate Entertainers, Musicians, Singers, Swordfighters, Craftspeople, and more turn Vallejo’s waterfront into a Pirate Town the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Tortuga. Come on out for this two-day festival over fathers day weekend and have a swashbucklin’ great time at the SF Bay Area’s only Pirate Festival.

The entertainment roster encompasses performers featured on the main stage, the children’s stage, main gate stage, swordfighting & pirate’s “brawling” areas, participating vessels and roving entertainment

2. The 57th Annual North Beach Festival will be held in San Francisco from 10:00am to 6:00pm in Washington Square Park.

3. The 61st Annual Juneteenth Festival is happening in San Francisco from 11:00am to 7:00pm in the Fillmore.

4. For all you dancers, there is a free Michael Jackson "Beat It" Dance Class in SF from 12:00pm to 2:00pm at Bollyhood Cafe.

5. If you are a parkour fan, be sure to check out the 1st Annual Urban Ninja Festival in Berkeley from 12:00pm to 6:00pm at Memorial Glade (UC Berkeley).

6. The Stern Grove Festival 2011 kicks off tomorrow in SF at 2:00pm with the sounds of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

7. The Father's Day Kite Day is happening in Berkeley from 12:00pm to 4:00pm at Cesar Chavez State Park.

8. For the urban history nerds (and cannon enthusiasts!) there is a hike of shipwrecks and and cannons starting at 2:00pm at the Presidio in San Francisco.

9. World Music Day will be held in Palo Alto from 3:00pm to 7:30pm.

Click here for even more free events!

Friday, April 8, 2011

Teeth & Vagina Dentata [film, phenomenons, cake]

I watched Teeth (2008) last night with my girlfriend. Yes, that whole movie about a girl with teeth in her vagina doing (horrid!) damage to the males she encounters. Basically, a man's worst nightmare.

While we were watching it, we were actually surprised. The film was done a lot better than either of us thought it would be and we actually enjoyed it (even me, the penis-possessor of the pair!); the film wasn't just a vagina-chewing-penis horror flick that most seem to expect in line with the Scream-born modern era horrorgore without a story line, and wasn't pornographic or overly gory as I thought it might be.

I admit I don't have much faith in modern horror.

M. commented on the cinematography and the well-thought out shots (as opposed to most modern horror films, people!) and I enjoyed the purposeful pacing and the fact that they actually explored the real cultural phenomenon of vagina dentata without being exploitative in any way.

Note: this film could be triggering to some, watch with caution.

"Vagina dentata" is a male cross-cultural myth seen in numerous cultures around the world (Native American, Greek, African, Egyptian, etc.) in which the man is afraid of inserting his penis into a woman's vagina for fear of his penis being injured by the supposed toothed vagina.

From The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker:

"Toothed vagina," the classic symbol of men's fear of sex, expressing the unconscious belief that a woman may eat or castrate her partner during intercourse. Frued said, "Probably no male human being is spared the terrifying shock of threatened castration at the sight of female genitals." But he had the reason wrong. The real reason for this "terrifying shock" is a mouth-symbolism, now recognized universally in myth and fantasy: "It is well-known in psychiatry that both males and females fantasize as a mouth the female's entranceway to the vagina."

When I did a Google image search for "vagina dentata," the only blog-appropriate images were cakes. Yes, cakes inspired by the film.

If you'd like to see a more "adult" photo, click here.

Vagina Dentata cake via Cakes and Comics and Cartwheels.

Another vagina dentata cake via Miss Cakehead's Flickr stream:

Cakes are not the only culinary items adorning the vagina these days; click here for an earlier post with a recipe for Vagina Muff-ins.

Even if you are not a baker, at least click to see what a muff-in looks like!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Ryan Gosling Band's Creepy Music Video [celebrities, music]

Ok, I apparently was the last one to get the memo, but Ryan Gosling has a band called Dead Man's Bones. And they made a creepy music video with a choir of zombie children.

1974 was a Golden Year for Film [film, 1970's]

Wow. 1974 sure was a golden year for film; it was also quite a year at the Academy Awards!

I’m currently watching The Conversation, which was filmed here in San Francisco and directed by one of my all-time favorite directors, Francis Ford Coppola. I have a slight obsession with movies filmed here in the Bay Area.

I also adore The Towering Inferno, which came out the same year and was also filmed in San Francisco. It was up against The Conversation for Best Picture (they both lost to another Coppola film, The Godfather III). It did end up taking home the award for Best Cinematography, and it truly is a visual treat.

My all-time favorite film, John Cassavetes’ “A Woman Under the Influence” also came out that year, and Gena Rowlands was nominated for Best Actress but ended up losing to Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Ben Quayle is Not Funny [video, politics]

Ben Quayle, Dan Quayle's son and Republican Representative from Arizona, is not funny. At all. His speech at the annual Congressional Correspondents' Dinner last week is cringe-worthy.

So is his infamous campaign video, in which he says "somebody needs to knock the hell out of Washington" andcalls Obama "the worst president in history" while staring into the camera with his famous deer-in-headlights expression.