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domingo, 14 de dezembro de 2008

Bettie Mae Page



She went to both Hollywood and New York hoping to make it as an actor, hoping to be "dis"covered. When, in 1952, she was finally "un"covered it was not in the way she had originally intended. An amateur photographer, Jerry Tibbs, found her on Long Island beach and took some photos. It was the beginning of a long, if unusual career.

The bondage pictures she eventually posed for were amazing. When I see them I cannot believe the sheer courage it took to pose for those pictures in the 1950s. For her they were, however, simply a job, an opportunity to practice her art. She became known as "the Queen of Bondage", but she wanted to free herself of this image. Betty took acting lessons, and she tried out for summer stock and Broadway.

Her acting ambitions were not immediately rewarded, and she moved into a period in her life where many different photographers would seek her out as a model for an hourly fee. She had few known male companions and fewer female ones. During the summer of 1954, Betty met her own blond good-luck photographer, Bunny Yeager. Like Gabrielle, Bunny helped Betty get a "new look" that was more clean-cut yet still sexual.

Her career went down hill from there, and unfortunately, there were rough personal times ahead.

She was called to testify before a McCarthy Era congressional committee that was seeking to weed out obscenity. There, Senator Refauver reprimanded her and lectured her on the sins of pornography. I cannot imagine going through something like that.

In 1957, Betty Page disappeared from public life and spent to the next 40 years seeking religion and a family life.

Page never intended to be a hero, to become a symbol of sexuality and of power, but somewhere along the way, she did. Her legend and legacy have indeed become larger than life.

As I look at the many strong female images the 90s have given us, from Madonna, to Hilary, to Xena, I cannot help but think of Betty Page, the woman who helped make strong women possible in her own small way.







(Nashville, 22 de abril de 1923 - Los Angeles, 11 de dezembro de 2008)












http://www.whoosh.org/issue34/phaup1.html#biography













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segunda-feira, 22 de setembro de 2008

Sheila Chandra


Before you confront her influences, philosophical constructs and musical theories, you have to confront the voice. It’s an instrument that is seductive and serene, a voice of rapture tempered by intellect. Singing a cappella, in multi-tracked harmonies and counterpoint, over sinuous drones, it’s the voice of promise and mystery.

Sheila Chandra captured the Zeitgeist of modern vocal music with her 1992 album, WEAVING MY ANCESTORS’ VOICES. She wrapped her extraordinary instrument around themes from Ireland and India as well as mediaeval Gregorian chants. In the process, Chandra embodied a more archetypal sound. WEAVING was the first in a trilogy of recordings with THE ZEN KISS and ABONECRONEDRONE. If those were definitive statements, then the music heard here, recorded before and after the trilogy, is of an artist on an odyssey of discovery, with ancient maps, tarnished signposts and cloudy prophecy.
Although WEAVING MY ANCESTOR’S VOICES illuminated Sheila Chandra as a beacon of vocal exploration, she had already spent a decade exploring many of the sounds that would become codified on the trilogy.



ROOTS AND WINGS paved the way for the trilogy where Chandra perfected her vocal drone concepts and global connections. In a 1993 interview for the radio program, Echoes, she said:
“I was intending to highlight the spiritual ancestors that I’ve claimed rather than my actual ancestors. It might be a great soul and gospel singer or it might be an Andalusian singer or it might be an Indonesian singer, or it might be Gregorian chant or Bulgarian music. Any of the things which I think are very, very skilful and ornate but also heart-rending. Those are the things that I’ve listened to and just been compelled to try and sing”.




And that’s where Sheila Chandra has always worked, beneath the surface, deeper than the soothing tones of New Age divas, more emotionally resonant. Her radiant voice lures you in with its sensuous, soothing tones and perfect pitch technical mastery, then unfolds a world of archetypal connections and emotional nuance. Sheila Chandra creates a music that touches the spirit, that speaks to a primal source within us.

John Diliberto






http://www.sheilachandra.com/albums/retrospect.html

http://www.sheilachandra.com/

quarta-feira, 27 de agosto de 2008

A glimmer from afar (X)

I lay down by the river, The shadows moved across me, inch by inch. And all that I heard Was the war between the water and the bridge. Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me, Turn and drink of me. Or look away, look away, look away And never more think of me. Carry me, Carry me. I heard the many voices Speaking to me from the depths below. This ancient wound, This catacomb Beneath the whited snow. Come to me, come to me, come to me, Come and drink of me Or turn away, turn away, turn away And never more think of me. Carry me, Carry me away. Who will lay down their hammer? Who will put up their sword? And pause to see The mystery Of the Word...










Um dia ela disse-lhe "guarda o meu silêncio embrulhado em lágrimas dentro de ti". Ele não era capaz disso. O silêncio explodia-lhe em estilhaços de aço nos ouvidos, ensurdecedores no peito, e as lágrimas eram ardentes por cima da alma descarnada.
Um dia mais tarde ela disse "sementes insuspeitas germinaram no deserto".
Ele sentiu-se maravilhado; as bombas negras por explodir tinham sido envoltas por rebentos de flores lilás.
Uma mão inexperiente de jardineiro a querer desfolhar as bombas, uma mão de artilheiro alucinado que queria ser jardineiro e desactivar bombas ao mesmo tempo, criaram mais uma cratera de palavras na areia onde cresciam flores.
O silêncio seguiu-se.
Guardaria o seu silêncio embrulhado em lágrimas desta vez, juntar-lhe-ia as sua próprias lágrimas, e regaria a alma e as suas palavras. O tempo que fosse preciso.








Through the woods, and frosted moors, Past the snow-caked hedgerows I Bed down upon the drifting snow, Sleep beneath the melting sky. I whisper all your names, I know not where you are. But somewhere, somewhere, somewhere here Upon this wild abandoned star...And I'm full of love, And I'm full of wonder, And I'm full of love, And I'm falling under Your spell. I have no abiding memory, No awakening, no flaming dart, No word of consolation, No arrow through my heart. Only a feeble notion, A glimmer from afar That I cling to with my fingers As we go spinning wildly through the stars. And I'm full of love, And I'm full of wonder, And I'm full of love, And I'm falling under Your spell. The wind lifts me to my senses, I rise up with the dew, The snow turns to streams of light, The purple heather grows anew. I call you by your name, I know not where you are. But somehow, somewhere, sometime soon Upon this wild abandoned star. And I'm full of love, And I'm full of wonder. And I'm full of love, And I'm falling under Your spell.

sábado, 12 de abril de 2008

Subsídios Para entender "call girl"


Feminist Film Theory

by Anneke Smelik

Introduction

Feminism is a social movement which has had an enormous impact on film theory and criticism. Cinema is taken by feminists to be a cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity. Issues of representation and spectatorship are central to feminist film theory and criticism. Early feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes of women, mostly in Hollywood films (Haskell 1973/1987, Rosen 1973). Such fixed and endlessly repeated images of women were considered to be objectionable distortions which would have a negative impact on the female spectator. Hence, the call for positive images of women in cinema. Soon, however, the insight dawned that positive images were not enough to change underlying structures in film. Feminist critics tried to understand the all-pervasive power of patriarchal imagery with the help of structuralist theoretical frameworks such as semiotics and psychoanalysis. These theoretical discourses have proved very productive in analysing the ways in which sexual difference is encoded in classical narrative. For over a decade psychoanalysis was to be the dominant paradigm in feminist film theory. More recenty there has been a move away from a binary understanding of sexual difference to multiple perspectives, identities and possible spectatorships. This opening up has resulted in an increasing concern with questions of ethnicity, masculinity and hybrid sexualities.

[...]

Gertrud Koch (1980) is one of the few feminists who early on recognized that women could also enjoy the image of female beauty on the screen. Especially the vamp, an image exported from Europe and integrated into Hollywood cinema, provides the female spectator with a positive image of autonomous femininity. [...] Moreover, the sexual ambivalence of the vamp, of for example Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, allows for a female homo-erotic pleasure which is not exclusively negotiated through the eyes of men. In Koch's view the vamp is a phallic woman rather than a fetishized woman, as she offers contradictory images of femininity. The vamp's ambiguity can be a source of visual pleasure for the female spectator. The disappearance of the vamp in cinema, therefore, means a great loss of possible identifications and visual pleasure for the female audience.


[...]



segunda-feira, 4 de fevereiro de 2008

Ana Carolina confessa

"Acho engraçado quando alguém chega a meu camarim e diz: 'Que coragem a sua de cantar Eu gosto de homens e de mulheres!'. Poxa, 'coragem' é uma expressão muito antiquada nessa área"

Na semana passada, a cantora Ana Carolina deu uma entrevista a VEJA que contém uma confissão pessoal e ao mesmo tempo é o reflexo de uma mudança e tanto na forma como os jovens brasileiros encaram a sexualidade. Ana Carolina falou sem meias palavras sobre suas preferências. "Sou bissexual", disse ela. "Acho natural gostar de homens e mulheres." O que chama atenção é que ela trata do assunto com leveza. E, é importante frisar, sem ter a mínima intenção de fazer proselitismo em favor de causas políticas. "Sou contra essa postura de levantar bandeiras para defender o homossexualismo, pois fica parecendo que ser gay é uma doença", diz.

titudes como a de Ana Carolina atraem dois tipos de oposição. Sua maneira de falar de sexo parece ultrajante para os conservadores, mas também incomoda muitos homossexuais aguerridos, que gostariam de vê-la empunhando a bandeira do arco-íris. Ana Carolina pertence a uma era pós-engajamento. Parte da militância não se conforma com suas negativas a se apresentar na Parada Gay paulistana ou em casas noturnas voltadas a esse público. "Acho que passeatas e discursos no estilo 'nós, os homossexuais' só alimentam uma visão estereotipada", diz. Inspirada por autoras como a americana Camille Paglia, que admira por suas polêmicas no âmbito do feminismo e da cultura gay ("O que mais me incomodou num assalto por que passei foi levarem por acaso um livro dela", brinca), a cantora não quer ser aprisionada num nicho. "Posso até estar saindo com uma mulher, mas se eu me apaixonar por um homem e decidir casar com ele na igreja, de véu e grinalda, ninguém vai impedir", diz.

http://www.e-jovem.com/curitiba/musica.html