The Wit Of The Staircase

Every so often I go on a spring cleaning rampage in my RSS reader, deleting out blogs that I may have read once but have since failed the “why the heck am I reading this?” test. Two-thirds of what I have loaded in NetNewsWire are picture, mp3, pop culture archeology, or otherwise meta blogs that I just scan without actually reading in depth. Of the third left over, a couple belong to friends, a couple more are coding/Apple related but there’s also a group of blogs written by complete strangers that so just so well-written that I’m compelled to just keep reading. Someone, somewhere out there linked to a post, I toss the feed into NetNewsWire and presto, I’m another anonymous follower.

Case in point… Theresa Duncan’s blog “The Wit Of The Staircase.” Couple years back I ran across her Chelsea Hotel post, read some more (“LA and Detroit” is another good place to start) and quickly concluded “hey, this is some terrific writing.” Since then I’ve been reading her writings about perfume and various lateral epiphanies about architecture, music, Los Angeles, and random esoterica – most of which punctuated by photographs of Kate Moss. It’s all good stuff.

Of course reading what someone posts on a blog isn’t equivalent to, well, knowing someone personally. However once you’ve consumed enough words, music, and generalized creativity you may not know the person, but you think (or at least you like to think) that you understand their P.O.V. Which makes this all the more unexplainable:

Writer, filmmaker and perfume aficionado Theresa Duncan has not posted at her Venice-based blog, The Wit of the Staircase, since July 10. She gave no indication of taking a break, and now an Internet discussion forum has posted an unconfirmed report that Duncan killed herself last week in New York City, where she was making a film. From the same report, her partner of many years, artist Jeremy Blake, is missing off New York’s Rockaway Beach, where a man was seen going into the ocean Tuesday night. The news comes from Anya McCoy, a Florida perfumer who says she spoke with an ex-girlfriend of Blake. I can find no recent news reports tonight on Duncan in New York or her hometown of Detroit, so I’ll stress again that none of this is confirmed.

7 am Update: Art critic Tyler Green blogs at Modern Art Notes that Duncan committed suicide last week and that the NYPD confirmed Blake is missing.

9:30 am: I’m told there is a funeral for Theresa Duncan tomorrow in the Detroit area. And Kate Coe, who knew her, talks about Duncan at Fishbowl LA.

The Wit of the Staircase marked its second anniversary on July 4. A personal favorite of mine, Duncan’s blog interests ran to literary allusions, Kate Moss, perfume and possibly apocryphal moonlit debaucheries of the Los Angeles Lunar Society. In her 20s she created the video games “Chop Suey,” “Smarty” and “Zero Zero.” With Blake she produced The History of Glamour, an animated mockumentary about an art scene similar to Andy Warhol’s Factory. I have never met Duncan, but always figured I would someday. Blake’s paintings and video art have been shown all over the place, and he created the abstract hallucination scenes in Punch Drunk Love.

When confronted with something like that you can’t help but wonder at how things could go so terribly awry. There’s no clues in the blog, only a small community of other shocked readers. I wonder if there’s any irony in her blog’s title…

From the French phrase ‘esprit d’escalier,’ literally, it means ‘the wit of the staircase’, and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended. “Esprit d’escalier,” she replied. “Esprit d’escalier. The answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till aterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late.”

R.I.P.

Dear Larchmont Village

I admire your tenacity at remaining relatively unchanged for more than a decade but lately I’ve noticed some fraying around the edges of your social fabric. Your village has accumulating a lot of village idiots and it’s time to flush them out and enroll everyone in some remedial etiquette. Consider this some tough love.

If you are in a car:

  1. The universal sign for “I’m waiting for a parking space” is to turn on your right-hand turn signal. You may only do this if you see someone who is visibly getting into their car with an intent to vacate the parking space. Do not stop on Larchmont in the hopes that someone *may* vacate a space.
  2. If you are behind someone who is waiting for a parking space to become available you may not a) use your horn unless a suitable length of time has passed. b) pass the car in front of you by veering suddenly into the left-turn lane and accelerating profoundly.
  3. Parking spaces are defined as, well, parking spaces. Stopping your car in the middle of Larchmont Blvd. while you “dash” in for your coffee does not qualify as legally parking your car. If anything, this qualifies you to have your car crushed and melted – even if (or especially if) there are still passengers inside.
  4. Remember, even if you are parking you still have to follow the rules of the road. You may not disregard stop signs, turn signals, and randomly walking pedestrians even if there is an empty parking space ahead.

Exceptions to 1, 2, 3, and 4: if anybody (and I do mean anybody) is on a mobile phone, you are free (if not obliged) to open fire. However, I believe Miss Manners suggests firing a warning shot over the miscreant’s head first.

And if you are a pedestrian:

  1. Although you might prefer to think of Larchmont as a sleepy little village it is still in the middle of Los Angeles – a very busy city! If you are in a group of three or more people, please do not walk in tandem across the sidewalk if there are other people attempting to pass. If you are piloting a SUV-sized baby stroller barge, the maximum limit is one across.
  2. Driving an oversized baby stroller does not give you an automatic free pass to cut in line, stand in the middle of doorways, or otherwise be a road hog.
  3. If you are crossing Larchmont Blvd. please use the crosswalks… Nah, screw that. Just use some common goddamn sense. If you run out directly in front of a driver, sure they are legally required to stop, but you’re also running 2-1 odds of causing a rear-end collision between circling parkers who aren’t paying attention to anything other than parking.
  4. If you are crossing Larchmont Blvd., please cross the street! Do not stop in the middle of the street to talk to your friends, talk on your phone, etc.

Thanks everyone! It is my hope that with these suggestions we can all cooperate and make our difficult lives a little bit easier. Otherwise, may the forces of the Great American Corporate Leviathan mow every single inch of your “village” down in its tracks and sow the ground with radioactive salt. I’ll miss Sam’s Bagels, but if it’s going to continue to be such a pain in the neck to deal with Larchmont Village I can handle scratching it off the map.

P.S. To the two douchebag guys and one douchebag girl who felt the need to become a slow-walking roadblock on the sidewalk: OK, sure… I’m vaguely irritated at having to walk into the street to pass you guys even after I attempted to excuse myself through, but did you really have to offer up a stream of “some people” and “what’s your hurry?” criticism? It’s very high schoolish and not age appropriate for folks like you who are in your early 30s. I have to admit that I was initially thrown because you guys were still clinging to your Part Time Punks tote bag, your dubious hipster haircut, and your loud self-assumed intellectual broheim critique of Z Pizza as being “too California.” Guys, you are in California but even we managed to get rid of the pink polo shirt and white jeans combination some time ago. It’s just embarrassing now and not at all ironic. Actually on second thought, please just go die now. k thx bye.

Sheesh, I feel like some sort of emo blogger. Oh wait a sec…

The iPhone “holy crap!” moment

I figured that would be a couple months and/or the release of Leopard before we would begin seeing some truly impressive uses of the iPhone. Er… try a week and a half. Telekinesis is a remote access app for the iPhone. It’s a super early alpha release, but, well… holy crap! This make my wish for a iPhone terminal app somewhat redundant.

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Photo via tonx on Flickr.

Eau de Moron

Forwarded without comment from Evan Dorkin…

In the new Previews catalog there are listings for two fragrances (scents, perfumes, useless smelly liquids in chintzy bottles, whatever the fuck you want to call them), based on the works of Neil Gaiman.

Now fanboys and geekgirls of a certain fantastical persuasion can joyously cover up the wretched stink of bad personal hygiene and chronic loneliness by simply sprinkling these magical new unguents across their ripe marsh-like armpits, sweaty, dirt-lined necks, and dewy, mint-in-pants genitalia. For only a few dozen dollars you can be one of the more distinguished stinkpots traipsing about the San Diego Comicon floor, marching with the Society for Creative Anachronism, or trundling through the local Renaissance Fair –  cock of the walk, sporting a devilish grin, proudly smelling like a mystical whatever-the-fuck, Ahhh, the smell of it!

Now, seriously, would somebody please go out and shoot this fucking industry in the head, pretty please? Just blow it’s tiny brain out like any other mindless, scuzz-stained zombie deserves. The eu de moron sales benefit the CBDLF, which is nice, and I’ve got nothing personal against Neil, who I’ve met and who seems to be a lovely person, but I’m still waving my hate flag proudly for this one. This just makes my head spin. I know, perhaps I’m being a mite harsh here, because, as we all know, nothing says classy like shopping for perfume in Diamond Previews. It’s where I most often turn to when I’m in the market for formal outerwear, accessories, toiletries and what have you. Ascots, cuff links, gaiters, monocles, top hats, of course, it makes perfect sense to see Diamond Previews first. But this…well, for me, it goes beyond the pale.

Who would dream this up, who would approve this, who would manufacture this, who would want this, who would buy this, who would wear this, who would admit to any of the above?

Find them. Chain them. Stop them.

I guess it could be worse. Joe Matt could have a fragrance line.

The rest of Previews, it goes without saying, besides about a dozen or so pages of prudently clipped offerings, was the usual mind-numbing, eye-assaulting, heart-stopping display of madness, greed, incompetence, witlessness, and outright trash. But this tooketh the cake.

Happy Fourth of July: Another Gallery Of Great Americans

Inspired by Coop’s list here’s my additions…

Robert Mitchum

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Ed Abbey

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Charles & Ray Eames

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Fiorello LaGuardia

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Julia Child

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Judge Roy Bean

4th_judgeroybean.jpg

Sun Ra

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Jean Shepherd

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Jackie Cochran

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Link Wray

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Harry Franck

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Bill Gaines

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Iggy & The Stooges

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDTTB2p-OoI[/youtube]

Pray For Rain

Alabama has been suffering from a drought for awhile now and with little relief in sight governor Bob Riley took action. Instead of announcing a comprehensive plan to switch to lesser-impact agriculture that uses more efficient irrigation systems, the governor’s plan is, well, a bit more speculative:

The governor issued a proclamation calling for a week of prayer for rain, beginning Saturday.

Riley encouraged Alabamians to pray “individually and in their houses of worship.”

“Throughout our history, Alabamians have turned in prayer to God to humbly ask for his blessings and to hold us steady during times of difficulty,” Riley said. “This drought is without question a time of great difficulty.”

A prepared statement included endorsements from the Alabama Farmers Federation and the Alabama Farmers Market Authority.

As much as I want to take the cheap shot here, I have to back off and default to my higher power: Charles Fort, Lo! part 2, chapter 4:

For months, there had been, in the Provinces of Murcia and Alicante, Spain, a drought so severe that inhabitants had been driven to emigration to Algeria. Whether we think of this drought and the prayers of the people as having relation or not, there came a downpour that was as intense as the necessities. See London Times, Oct. 20, 1879. Upon Oct. 14th, floods poured upon these parched provinces. Perhaps it was response to the prayers of the people. Five villages were destroyed. Fifteen hundred persons perished.

Isolated incident? Try again (also from Lo!):

At a meeting of the Royal Geographic Society, Dec. 11, 1922, Sir Francis Younghusband told of a drought, in August, 1906, in Western China. The chief magistrate in Chungking prayed for rain. He put more fervour into it. Then he prayed prodigiously for rain. It began to rain. Then something that was called “a waterspout” fell from the sky. Many of the inhabitants were drowned.

And what the heck, let’s dogpile on some more:

Droughts in Russia. Straits Times, June 6 — droughts ended by downpours in Bengal and Java. In Kashmir and in the Punjab, violent thunderstorms and earthquakes occurred together (Calcutta Statesman, June 1 and 3). In Turkey, there would have been extreme distress, but about the first of June, amidst woe and thanksgiving, destructive salvations demonstrated efficacy, and for a week kept on spreading joy and misery. Levant Herald, June 4 — earthquakes preceded deluges, and then continued with them.

I know I know, dodgy stories from the past by a crackpot who tracked fishfalls. But can we at least agree that it might be prudent to be careful what you wish for? Apparently, Governor Riley missed that day in school because a couple days later:

Just a couple days after Gov. Bob Riley called for residents to pray for rain, a series of strong thunderstorms brought torrential rain, flash floods and lightning to the area.

The storms didn’t match the intensity of Friday night’s bad weather, but still strong enough for the county to be under a severe thunderstorm warning part of the early afternoon.

Several areas also reported flooding, with one north Huntsville resident reporting water flowing out of the drainage ditches into her and neighbor’s yards, even knocking down a fence.

Greetings From Big Letters, USA

Greetings From Rice, California - big letter post card It’s that postcard over there on the right that started it all. A dead town east of Joshua Tree that wasn’t even that much of a town before it died. However, someone thought enough of it to commission up a “Greetings From” postcard for the soldiers who were passing through town on their way to North Africa with Patton.Some twenty-five years later I’ve got a small collection of so-called “large letter” postcards and there’s enough of us online to support the inevitable Flickr group. CreativePro.com looks back at the history of the Teich company who basically created the large letter style.