Choire: Yes!

Natasha: Do you 'get it'?

Natasha: Like Gaga overall.

Choire: I *largely* get it. I mean, obviously I groove on the, I guess, excitement level? And I don't despise the music, although it's remarkably unremarkable. But I get it!

Natasha: Good! Let's talk about this videeeeoo.

Choire: You mean: the night the Internet exploded?

Natasha: The night of broken Internet glass. Did it shock you?!

Choire: Part of the excitement with this Important Short Film was that everyone was sort of group-excited? Like pockets of Twitter were going "kablammo" and definitely all of Tumblr that wasn't talking about racism was like "UM TELEPHONE"?

Natasha: Which in itself is pretty mind-swaying is as how this is over a MUSIC VIDEO–a medium which was sacrificed largely by its maker

Choire: And not one made by actual prisoners in the Philippines or whatever. There's one thing that happened last night.

Choire:

Tom Scocca: I have not even watched.
Choire: Is a Tarantino pastiche mostly?
Tom Scocca: So… pastiche pastiche?

Choire: Which: right. So can we start with talking about Tarantino??? Who you and I are both largely on the same page about which is: yes please, QT.

Natasha: So a Tarantino pastiche–about ladies.

Choire: Right, the lady element is key. And I do wonder why the video is sort of like way more than just a tribute to Tarantino??

Natasha: So you have the pussy wagon, the girls bent on vengance, the kind of altered state feel of the whole thing a-la- Natural Born Killers–

Choire: Um and you have the HAIRDO on Beyonce from Death Proof, etc. On and on.

Natasha: Tarantino visuals are kind of a lingua franca to the youth organically.

Choire: Because your generation grew up all on him?

Natasha: Yep exactly. But what I think offsets everything, in a good way, is the LADYNESS of it.

Choire: Yes! That's what's I love and also what takes us back to Madonna again.

Natasha: She resonates with the ladies so furrriously. I think that it's largely because she comes out of theater instead of being a recording artist. The one way to snap your audience awake is by being grotesque. In the traditional sense of the term. Outrageous and over the top. Transgressive. And speaking of trans!

Natasha: The girl on girl trope is so tired but here we have here surrounded by surly dykes, leathery cholas, and forbidding black ladies. So here's where it gets transgressive because unlike say Madge, who leaned over and kissed Britney on a "GEE ARENT ME NAUGHTY" trip.

Choire: Well, you know, I *just* looked through Madonna's 1992 "Sex" book the other day. Because we found the opened and the unopened copies in the back of the closet. (Which: LOL, gays!)

Natasha: Were you scandalized?

Choire: Oh America came to a standstill back in 1992. I mean it was on the TV and stuff and there was "shock."

Natasha: Tell me what is was like the Before Time, Pa.

Choire: Well, you must not forget that people were enraged about "Beavis and Butthead."

Natasha: How do the "Sex" and "Telephone" compare in terms of visuals?

Choire: A WHOLE LOT of the imagery we're seeing in today's Very Important Video is not that different? Weird race spectre stuff, lesbian hot making-out, bondage, etc. etc. The thing I like more about the Gaga video is the color super-saturation and the timely updates. Also the Steven Meisel stuff in the "Sex" book was all very "arty"? Like, post Bruce Weber arty? Which didn't age particularly well. And "Telephone" might not age well but it does look very NOW. And it's more camp and outrageous and jokey, I mean, SMOLDERING CIGARETTE EYEGLASSES, which, I am still LOLing. The Madonna book was sometimes humorous but it was never like "HA HA SUCKA!"

Natasha: Yeah, what the Video definitely had was our Black President calls the fierce urgency of NOW-WOW! To it. I'd also say that while "Sex" was a scandal it was all highbrow.

Choire: Oh yes. It was Very Upscale.

Natasha: Like it was, here's a serious art piece libertine adults could put on the coffee table. Where as this is sticky crude pop–in the tradition of Tarantino. Like YAAAAYYYYY GET CRZYYY ON YOUR (VIRGIN MOBILE) TELEPHONE!! Let's talk about GaGa as a sex symbol. Because I think that's what makes her so important that she 1) actually does something different 2) and what she does is scary and exciting.

Choire: You know, Madonna spent most of the early 90s dealing with her trademark. She tried to get Club Madonna, the famous strip club in Miami Beach, to change its name; when she started Maverick Records, she paid a band called The Mavericks $25,000 for the name; she got into it with Madonna Jewelers for the trademark of the name. And I cannot EVER see Gaga being involved in something like that? She seems more like a cult leader than a business entity, and that's where Gaga is more interesting to me (despite maybe being a worse musician???) and what keeps her scary and funny and fun.

Natasha: Yeah. Her music is unremarkable. Except it is perfect dancing in your bedroom music for girls. Which is something we all do.

Choire: Sure we do! Look, that product is EAR CANDY. What's amazing though is that if you listen to Britney Spears' last two records, the production is radically more inventive and challenging than Gaga? And yet Britney is dullsville.

Natasha: This is where I think the theater thing matters. She's a performer first. Not a PR construct. Also, there is so much more honesty in GaGa's game.

Choire: Well she's her own construct. And sure, from Day One: Fame Monster, hello. Wait, can I tell you my fave thing about the video? Speaking of transgression? It's from the director's Wikipedia page: "Jonas Åkerlund was a Masonic member of the Swedish black metal band Bathory from 1983 through 1984 and openly worships Satan."

Natasha: You see, people take the Viking Metal Genre for granted. It's at their own peril.

Choire: FOR REAL.

Natasha: I think the reason why people, espesh, ladies of their mid twenties, are excited about Gaga as much as they are…

Choire: TELL ME ABOUT THE YOUNGS.

Natasha: …is that we matured during the Britney Days.

Choire: Oh, because you were all raised on crap and Nickelback!

Natasha: Madge was already brittle and creepy and a fading icon.

Choire: Whereas we had Kate Bush.

Natasha: Snd so here comes Gaga who has the kind of shamelessness of a reality tv star. In the sense that she's like "BOOM. MAKE ME FAMOUS." Which seemed a taboo thing in the before Britney? Who was like, "I just love to sing yall (covered in oil, grinding on a giant snake." And not only that but instead of the virgin slut bullshit.

Choire: I guess at least you guys had Tori Amos. But right. None of the "girls" in your time were allowed to be like, MAKE WAY BITCHES. Or be like, "I'm a horny lady!"

Natasha: We get the pain/pleasure. scary / twisted. And Tori was for Wiccans at my high school.There was Garbage and Manson. But every one was trying to hard to build their brand on shock or being an outsider. The triumph of GaGa is how mainstream she is.

Choire: The time now was right. And that stuff plays very well on Long Island, "IN DA CLUB."

Natasha: And ultimately, she clearly doesn't think girls will run screaming if she frenches a leathery dyke!

Choire: WHICH, WHO KNEW?

Natasha: AND as a fan? That makes me feel good! Gaga trusts me! Gaga ain't talking down to me! Gaga knows I like it rough! BECAUSE MOST GIRLS DO!

Choire: *runs, hides*

Natasha: **eats blood**

Choire: Well what seems great to me is that the lingering effects of Riot Grrrl are still with us. Like this video wouldn't have been set to dance music 15 years ago! But then it also wouldn't have co-starred who I guess is the MOST POPULAR SINGER of our day? But when you look at it, everything in it is punk, from the Klaus Nomi outfit in the "strutting down the jail" scene, to the chains, to the vinylwear, reminiscent of the late great Poly Styrene and company.

Natasha: And yet it maintained the girly fantasy aspect of it– like some half clad broads running around in bras being BAD.

Choire: Totes. And more ephemerally, the "attitude." Also you know KILLING EVERYONE. Ha. But can we talk about Beyonce? Because that part is baffling to me!

Natasha: Yes B is, how we say, PROBLEMATIC.

Choire: She has always been so image conscious? And always willing to rip her kit off down to panties basically, but you know, "classy"-like.

Natasha: What I find interesting is the GROWL. Like she can do that empowered black woman angry growl? Snd she does it on the track. But she has no VISUAL GROWL. Fierce but not scary.

Choire: Because she's sort of winking and backing away. She's the good girl who hangs out with the bad girls sometimes.

Natasha: She's not ugly and doesn't know how to be. And let's be honest. Gaga is average looking.

Choire: OH sure. That's why I like her. I mean she's emaciated. And she cleans up real pretty. But she's One of Us. (Not you, honey, you're gorgeous.)

Natasha: Oh I'm mistaken for Beyonce all the time. But Gaga, she does her make up like broken cabaret dancer! A woman on the edge! In a society that is falling! I also love the cyclical nature of her videos.

Choire: Well right, she loves drama. All she wants to make are dramatic moments. My problem with the Gags is that she's all tableaux? And hence there's some cyclicalism, yes.

Natasha: Like she's angry! She's kissing! She's dancing! She's making food! She's killing!

Natasha: Which for ladies, is how WE FEEELLL. We don't feel like Britney crucified by our own fame.

Choire: I have always wondered What It Is Like For A Girl. (In your Rhythm Box, etc.)

Natasha: It's like that! We have cycles!A vibrant pastiche of emotions!!! That can kill!! So I think that's why she resonates so much. I feel like she gets lady-ness from the inside and then paints it with fashion and music and images. Also, QUIT CALLING ME IM DACINNNNN'. And poor Yonce, who is a dynamic performer and force of her own, seems stilted and two dimensional. Because, well, she kinda is!

Choire: But she's the Actressess!

Natasha: Oof please. Let's talk about the 'acting.' It was so John Waters to me! Beyonce is no good. But the dialogue, the super unnatural way it was delivered, the cheesey lines…. It was all so Crybaby.

Choire: You mean: Broad Strokes? But most of that was Tarantino too? A little John Waters? Where they meet, in camp heaven? My favorite stilted camp part is Gaga waiting tables, just standing there. Like, GREAT BRECHTIAN ACTING.

Natasha: YES!!!!

Choire: Hence the countdown in German? IDK!

Natasha: ALL BRECHT ALL THE TIME!! There is that 90's vitality that they've exploited, without feeling retro. It feels new.

Choire: Could you do me the favor of rating your top three Tarantino movies in order?

Natasha: This is like my Sophie's CHOICE!!

Choire: "LOL"

Natasha: 1. Pulp, 2. Inglorious, 3. Kill Bill 2.

Choire: I don't think we should ever talk again!

Choire: Mine goes: 3. Inglorious Basterds 2. Death Proof 1. Jackie Brown

Natashia I think what the Tarantino and gaga have in common is that an angry woman, a jilted woman, bent on doling out justice to those who done her wrong is something the two get and show well and seem to believe that women have a higher moral authority. So when they got done wrong, they do bad! Snd not bad in the 'oops my bras showing spank me' way.

Choire: Yeah, that coy little girl BS.

Natasha: But bad like put me in jail and pump iron with cholas and then go on a glorious blood soaked rampage. THE SANGUINE SEX.

Choire: Finally, I do find something angry making: that they promise "to be continued." Cuz you know that is a lie.

Natasha: They repurpose the pussy wagon! I believe that they will! I think this just means future collaborations, if Yonce can keep up (doubtful). I'm seeing Rihanna as a drifter, with John Mayer's sacrificial head on a spike. Also, one last thing, and I'm not sure where it fits in, but girls want to be famous. It's the same reason as teenagers we stare at ourselves for hours in the mirror, and make photo collages on out notebooks, and tend so diligently to our MySpace pages.

Choire: Isn't that about "attention"?

Natasha: Beyond that. We want an audience. An adoring audience. This is something a lot of girls grow out of. But I think it's a very teenage desire.

Choire: You were all jeals of the lonelygirl.

Natasha: MMMHMMMM But the kind of fame Britney had? That was terrifying and not real. Something about the way GaGa does it makes me feel 15 again lip synching in the mirror and pretending there's an audience on the other side.

Natasha: I just realized that's what my Tumblr is.

Choire: Well of COURSE that's what EVERYONE'S Tumblr is!

Choire: But also this kind of fame? It involves your skin being scrubbed digitally in every single frame, because, MAN.

Choire: And anyway yeah, what do you people think you're doing on the Internet? You're starring in your own music video!

Natasha: Jerking off on Chatroullette?

Natasha: Oh one more thing. What did you think about the dick joke? And how the dick rumor is still like the favorite gag of a certain website

Choire: Oh, I enjoyed it, though I thought it wasn't narratively consistent with the clearly delineated lesbianism of the matrons? I have a lot of thoughts on the rest of that whole issue which I plan to put forward at a later time! It is, as they said in the 90s, "problematic."

Natasha: I think that reaction to her is the strangest.

Choire: Well and it's pretty obviously phobic right?

Natasha: Yes! And a testament of how she's grinding up against sexual norms that make people uneasy while selling millions of records. Pretty spectacular.

Choire: In the end? The fashion in this video is IMPECCABLE.

Natasha: OH. BEYOND.

Choire: And that's sort of all I care about!

Natasha: I see all movie fashions" Chinatown, Dr. Strangelove, Rocky Horror Fishnets–then the high concept hats!

Choire: It's ALL good. There is nothing in there that is not good. And that's the true victory of this joint.

Natasha: Yes. It belongs to the ages.

Natasha: Girl, how did you feel about going into this movie?

Kia: Well. I didn't even want to see it. The trailer made me cry, so, I wasn't really looking forward to a full length version of that. It looked like that emotional porn? You know, downtrodden person going through trails, tribulations, strife, set to uplifting music and/or a gospel song, etc.

Natasha: I wanted to see it for two reasons 1. Oscars, natch. 2. I wanted to dislike it. BUT GURL I LOVED IT.

Kia: Part of my reluctance to see it was that it looked extremely manipulative. On the one hand you have the story of a poor black fat woman in the ghetto. Which is like, YES WE KNOW IT IS DIFFICULT. On the other hand you can't NOT tell these kinds of stories because it's real and it happens more than anyone not living it could imagine. But it was different than I expected, I can say that.

Natasha: What did you like about it? And what was different?

Kia: Well it sort of bypassed that whole "niggas ain't shit" thing. Like, her father was awful but we never met him. The only man we really meet is someone who cares for her when he really doesn't have to which I also liked.

Natasha: What is the "Niggas ain't shit" gimmick? I mean, I think I know to what you are referring, but please explain!

Kia: Just the idea that all men are dogs, you can't trust a man, men are the cause of all of our (black women) problems, etc, a.k.a. every Madea movie.

Natasha: And in this case all the problems were from….? Poverty?

Kia: So many things. Mostly Monique.

Natasha: Let's talk about MO.

Kia: I'm still torn on her. Was she ACTING? or BEING?

Natasha: Well that's what was so magnificent to watch. I think it was like these incredible performances (from the whole cast) where you do not think for a moment the person is acting. So about Mo's character: she abuses her daughter, allows her to be raped, belittles her, and is essentially evil. BUT what I found surprising…

Kia: Was that you totally felt sorry for her at the end?

Natasha: YES! The movie was actually able to delve, pretty well, into the root of this evilness.

Kia: The thing about child abuse is that its just so… ridiculous. By that I mean, you watch portrayals of it and think HOW COULD ANYONE DO THAT? This person is obviously heinous.

Natasha: Right.

Kia: Or you think "they should know better" or whatever. But you rarely get to see inside the abuser's mind and not that abuse should ever be justified, but it is rarely a simple as we want it to be.

Natasha: What about Mo's acting?

Kia: Ok, here's my thing: Mo'Nique is 100% to the core B-more. Hometown girl. So when I see her playing these ultra ghetto roles, I'm thinking to myself, "uh, that's just her." I don't know that woman but I know Baltimore. So beyond the ease of her execution of "white bitch" and other cussings, I do think she did an great job of just being… nasty, you know?

Natasha: For sure. One of the things that gave me pause, though, for a movie that did not try to patronize, was that all the kind women in Precious' life were light-skinned?

Kia: A lot of what I've been reading about it mentions this. That it's just a step down from "white woman saving colored youths."

Natasha: Did it catch your attention too?

Kia: Not really, because to say that a light-skinned black woman's assistance is less authentic is untrue. It was really irrelevant to me in this particular movie. Also because she wasn't made out to be some beauty queen "high yella" lady.

Kia: High yellow, btw, is black talk for very light skinned :)

Kia: And there were so many different women of color around her.

Natasha: My favorite scenes, btw, were the ones in the classroom with all those other saucy bitches.

Kia: That was so different than I expected! There was a lot of humor. But on the light skinned lady thing, the one that seemed to fail her the most, other than her mother, was the lightest one of them all.

Natasha: Yup. Ms. Mariah Carey, the social worker.

Kia: I thought she did a pretty good job. I mean, that bitch is so crazy though that slightly above average is AMAZING.

Natasha: Now what about her role? When Precious is like "you cannot handle this." I feel like this a moment that so many movies try to do and fail. You know—do-gooder versus reality—but it worked here.

Kia: Yeah, it wasn't like, 'Hey, Whitey. Let me take you to the ghetto and show you REALITY.' It just kind of dropped in her lap. Whatever little help she could provide from the Welfare office desk.

Natasha: Right. That's what was interesting about the whole 'safety' net of Precious' life. Not one person could save her; professor, social worker, or otherwise. And there was no intention of 'saving' it was like 'here is the one thing I can give you.' And even that isn't going to be very good or guarantee that your life is NOT AWFUL.

Kia: It wasn't like, say, The Blind Side, where a rich white lady takes in a wayward youth and essentially paves his way to a bright future.

Natasha: Why didn't this devolve into some Lifetime after school special? Or some white guilt tract, a la 'CRASH'? The thing is, I don't know that it ISN'T a white guilt manipulation-a-thon.

Kia: Part of me thinks that's why it's this year's indie darling. Because well-meaning ultra liberal whites are really FEELING THE POWER OF THIS MOVING STORY.

Kia: I viewed the movie totally different than how the average white American would.

Natasha: DO GO ON.

Kia: For one thing, you never EVER see overweight… well really obese black women as the protagonist of anything if you see them at all. And as a "person of color and of size"—or in lay terms, Big Black Bitch—I immediately empathize with her in a way that most people won't. Even if our lives are completely different.

Natasha: How do you think AMERICA sees this movie?

Kia: I was just trying to think about how to articulate that without sounding racist. I can tell you that I felt a little embarrassed watching it, which made me feel like a "bad Black."

Natasha: What made you embarrassed?

Kia: The mis-conjugation of verbs, for one: "what this is?" I also don't want to seem like I'm playing the "oh you can't appreciate this like I can" card.

Natasha: I can tell you that I'm embarrassed for liking the movie because I don't want it to seem that I'm pitying 'ghetto blacks' and giving myself a pat on the back for seeing their stories.

Natasha: AAAAH! This movie!

Natasha: The WSJ said this: "That's not to diminish the fable's value, only to note the near-saintly devotion of an alternative-school teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), and a social worker, Ms. Weiss (Mariah Carey), and to acknowledge the time-lapse pace of the heroine's blossoming under their care. 'Precious' is genuinely and irresistibly inspirational. If the filmmaking weren't so skillful and the acting weren't so consistently brilliant, you might mistake this production for a raw slice of life from a Third World country where movies can still be instruments of moral instruction and social change."

Natasha: It is that last line that makes me uneasy. Can a movie be a social act?

Kia: Oh absolutely! One of my favorite movies, though it isn't a feature film, is Angels in America. What I love about it is that it presents a discussion on "Americaness" through the experiences of gay men in the 80s. A group who then, and now really, are second or even 3rd class citizens. When you think of "what does it mean to be an American", don't nobody care about no gays.

Natasha: But with race, doesn't the problem become that art gets confused with "how the other half lives" kind of bullshit?

Kia: I don't think Precious fell into that trap. I don't think anyone involved in the creative process intended Push/Precious to be an "expose into the unknown lives of the less fortunate."

Natasha: The irony is, that it does. In a much more powerful way. Do you think it will get the nominated for Best Picture?

Kia: Well, white guilt is certainly a factor in what's nominated/who wins. For instance: Crash winning over Brokeback. I could have killed a motherfucker.

Natasha: I KNOW, I WANTED TO RAGE FOR DAYS.

Kia: They picked it to seem DOWN WITH THE STRUGGLE. But we can say that we genuinely liked Precious. Struggle aside.

Natasha: I'm glad we could have this discussion. RACE MOVIES ARE COMPLICATED.

Kia: I want to close with something witty and poignant, you know, as an Official Internet Black.

Kia: Somebody's got to speak up.

Kia: And say:

Kia: "Hey, Whitey?"

Kia: "No."

Kia Matthews and Natasha Vargas-Cooper like to stay up late and discuss.

Alex: Natasha!

Natasha: Can we talk about the motherf'ing Bad Lieutenant??

Alex: Yes. Yes we can.

Natasha: Pareene, tell me why this is a great movie.

Alex: Well. I think, first of all, that it is indeed about a Bad Lieutenant. I think that while Abel Ferrara's original movie was about a bad person who happens to be a Lieutenant, Nic Cage, in this film, was just not ever very good at being a Lieutenant. And I admired that, making a police procedural where none of the policing is ever very competent.

Natasha: Have you ever been to New Orleans where this movie was filmed?

Alex: Yes! Pre-Katrina. I was not "of age," and also it was a school trip, but one night I got ridiculously high behind our hotel and totally freaked out for about 4 hours, so I could relate to this film.

Natasha: I was there post-Katrina. And it was like… hmmm… what's a kind way to put this? Coastal Indonesia circa July, 2005?

Alex: Yes. I think Herzog's camera was basically like "fuck you, America, look at this shit."

Natasha: So one of the things I appreciated was finding a context of New-Lawlessness. Cause, I mean, really, could he have done it New York the way Ferrera did? I mean, you're from Brooklyn, you tell me?

Alex: Well there have been a lot of shootings recently in my neighborhood, recently—one of the most recent was apparently because of a 40-cent wing special at the Atlantic Center mall! But there is not really any sense of lawlessness at all, like things basically seem to be In Control, and the violence and death is nicely pushed to the periphery in Bloomberg's New York.

Natasha: You guys are so lucky to have such a great Mayor-King.

Alex: I know, I am thankful every morning. What did you think of Val Kilmer?

Natasha: ENJOYABLE! Also I think it was a smart choice to use Kilmer and Cage and make 'em both look sweaty and bloated. They both looked used and cadaverous.

Alex: Ha it was a smart "choice" to make Val Kilmer look bloated indeed.

Natasha: What did you think of him??

Alex: What I loved was, you know how in The Departed how Marky Mark just sorta disappears 2/3rds of the way through, and you don't even really notice because so much other shit is going on and Rolling Stones songs are playing and dangerous father figures are corrupting our heroes and then at the end, BAM, there he is, Marky Mark suddenly ends the movie, and you are like, SHIT. In this movie Val Kilmer disappears and— [SPOILERS DELETED].

Natasha: Which left you unsatisfied or DELIGHTED?

Alex: I was definitely delighted. Because if our hero was going to face a reckoning I would rather have it be at the hands of reptiles or sea creatures instead of, like, a GOOD lieutenant.

Natasha: Can we talk about the THRILLING use of creatures this movie?

Alex: Yes!

Natasha: Like, perhaps some of the most gasping-for-air moments involved slow lingering shots of animals!

Alex: I mean, the reptiles seemed generally to be laughing at the humans. An alligator caused the car wreck, the snake was totally digging the flooded jail cell…

Natasha: They seemed to heighten the drama of every scene in a way that I'm really not used to in movies. I think that's what was so gripping: this otherworldly emotion would come on screen from just watching a waddling lizard wander through the scene. Like, people in audience clapped for them! WE WERE MOVED!

Alex: Yes! Totally. I think we are supposed to be relating to the iguanas. They are sort of witnessing this bizarre comedy of human ineptitude along with us in the audience. And they seem to find it just as funny.

Natasha: Oh my god, those wise, bluesy, Iguanas. The Beta Fish that just stupidly floats in its cup, per Herzog, gets that we are all going through some comedic toil, even if we don't?

Alex: Nic holds the little cup up so we see his face distorted through the little fish's water bowl.The film is totally from the POV of little creatures.

Natasha: Let's talk about the best creature: Nic.

Alex: Ha. About Nic, can I say, that while the things he said and did were not necessarily always the sorts of things I have witnessed people saying and doing while on The Drugs, he did sort of occasionally start walking and talking like Paul Giamatti playing Nixon, and that was awesome.

Natasha: The flat paralyzed cheek thing! Where you talk like your molars are sewn together!

Alex: The bravura shouting and hysterically laughing bits were def what you paid to see, but just the way he stood and constantly gritted his teeth was both hysterical and also: totally true.

Natasha: Like, honestly, how many times have we seen the Junkie. And yet Cage brought the whole crazy toolkit of mania he has. Alex, why should people who are wary about Cage open their hearts to him for this movie?

Alex: I think some reviewer somewhere mentioned this but Nic Cage's character in this movie was Terence McDonagh and Nic Cage's character in the similarly epochal Raising Arizona was H.I. McDonagh And there is no one who is wary of Cage in THAT movie. If there is I don't want to know about it frankly!

Natasha: Like, Cage has some kind of fire he turns on when the set is right and it's like a fucking roman candle. But I'm not sure what it is. A good script? The threat of losing his Bavarian castle?

Alex: Well in a movie like GHOST RIDER, which I Iove but which I understand that others would not love, Cage is still making these Actorly Choices that make him crazy compelling to watch, like he decided that his character would constantly eat jelly beans and listen to the Carpenters, instead of "being an alcoholic" like the script called for. So he doesn't necessarily even need a Script or Director—he can also completely sleepwalk through something like Bangkok Dangerous, which I will NOT rep for, because it is boring, but even that is rare. And this is not a Bavarian Castle movie! National Treasure II is a Bavarian Castle movie. Maybe he just needs to make fewer Bavarian Castle movies and give up on his beloved Bavarian Castle!

Natasha: These are choices we must all grapple with, Alex. WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE CAGE LEST WE GIVE UP OWN BAVO-CASTLE?

Alex: The saddest thing to me is that Nic sold his COMIC COLLECTION. Because that is surely more important to him than a castle. He named his son Kal-el! Someone put him in 2012 2: 2013 so he can buy his back issues of Punisher back!

Natasha: My one gripe with this movie: Eva Mendez in no way has the skin of a woman who has been sodomized and smoking crank all week.

Alex: Haha NO.

Natasha: Loveless anal sex and rock cocaine does not leave one's skin rosy and honey colored. She needed some chest acne or some shit.

Alex: I think she is playing one of those Hollywood "High Class Escorts" whose only sign of the rough life they lead is a painted on black eye in one scene, and that eye is quickly avenged.

Natasha: Naturally!

Alex: And like the one time she is threatened with actually having to go through with what an actual prostitute does for a living it is a TERRIFYING prospect, that someone would do that to lovely Eva Mendes!

Natasha: Alex, why should people go to their local cineplex and patron this film?

Alex: A) It has the single funniest reference to Stroszek that you will see ALL YEAR

B) Nic Cage has no sideburns

C) Nic Cage threatens and insults old ladies.

Natasha: Generally when Cage is given sideburns is when we are forced to conceive of him as some kind of bad ass right?

Alex: Yes, I think sideburned/long haired Nic Cage is usually playing a badass criminal.

Natasha: But none of this is kitsch. Like, gritty is a term that's thrown around, but I feel like we've returned to 1999 levels, a-la-Leaving-Las-Vegas-levels, of realism and despair and comedy?

Alex: It is gritty in the literal sense, in that it feels filthy and abrasive. And it is also hysterical, and not unintentionally so.

Natasha: Why is that?

Alex: Because of the iguanas, again! I think the only logical response to the depths of damaged depravity we are seeing before us is to laugh at the foul state of mankind and its institutions. I mean when your hero appears out of nowhere in a nursing home threatening old ladies while OMINOUSLY SHAVING in a doorway, all because he lost his key witness in a Biloxi casino, I think you are supposed to laugh.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Alex Pareene have a lot of respect for Fitzcarraldo.

§ Off to Nevada! A 1934 article on Nevada's divorce law in Fortune magazine described the town as "Population 18,500. Elevation 4,500 feet. Reputation: bad." At the turn of the century, divorce laws were so draconian that couples would temporarily migrate to states with looser laws. Places like Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada lowered their residency requirements to get a chunk of the transient divorce trade. Nevada came out ahead by dropping it's residency requirements from 3 months to six weeks! During the dust bowl, locals entered the divorce trade by offering lodging to couples looking to get their marriage—as they put it in the ads-Reno-vated.

§So where did Betty get her chutzpah—or as a WASPY mainline 'brat' of her ilk might call it, 'moxy'—to declare D-day on Don? Henry Francis? Betty Friedan? Or was it all that sultry bath time? Here's a particular passage from The Group that may have resonated with our white-nosed Betty. Kay, a college grad in a unhappy marriage to a creative type named Harald, fantasizes about taking the train to Reno:

She had loved him at first, she reckoned, but he had tormented her so long with his elusiveness that she did not know, honestly, now whether she even liked him. If she had been sure of him, she might have found out. But things had never stood still long enough for to decide. It sometimes struck her that Harald would not let her be sure of him for fear of losing his attraction: it was a lesson he had learned in some handbook, the way he had learned about those multiplication tables. But Kay could have told him that he would have been far more attractive to her if she could have trusted him.

As was stated by the fussy man in the glasses, the state of New York very much did not want you to get a divorce! The legal grounds for divorce in 1963 was adultery, which had to be proved in open court (could you imagine the adulterer damp with sweat on the witness stand?). The idea of divorce due to incompatibility was not really legally absorbed until the late 1960s. Nevertheless, at the time, unhappy couples were pushing matrimonial law along—one disillusioned alimony case at time.

§ Speaking of disillusionment! Don's revulsion at being sold off has to do both with his free-pony-roaming the-silvery-plains sense of individualism (DREAMY) and also McCann Erickson's noxious reputation in the 1960s. 'Giantism' was their business ethos. Beginning in the early 1960s, McCann-Erickson, then known as Intergroup McCann-Erickson, gobbled up a mid-sized shops and retained them under one umbrella, but still forced them the compete for clients. This had an upside: two agencies could be under the McCann Erickson parent with one shop servicing American Airlines and the other shop servicing TWA. And a downside: the fear, at the time, was there would be leaks and betrayals between agencies. In 1964, Nestle left McCann-Erickson because they also serviced Carnation. Continental also withdrew their business because McCann was in bed with other airlines. "Bigness is an evil," a Nestle executive explained, "that strains relationships that ten years ago were very warm and close." Oh my God, can't you see Bert and a guy from Nestle drinking warm milk together and saying that to each other? Then being super sad?

The parallels continue (and perhaps will give us some clues as to what happens next season. Preemptive historic spoilers! Like Kennedy!). The head of McCann, a man named Harper, responded publicly about hemorrhaging clients and money one year with this pissy little quote: "We can't support people with little thoughts or little dreams."

Eventually, to keep their clients happy, Harper was sacked. One member of the board of directors for McCann said of Harper: "We thought of him as a genius with one glaring weakness: little sense of people."
So, lesson learned from season three, life, et al: Never take relationships (particularly those with ladies like Peggy Olsen) for granted.

If you skip forward eight years, McCann Erickson will reclaim its glory with this very un-Draper, dance around the maypole bullshit ad:

And in the same year, 1971, it will be made illegal to advertise tobacco products on TV, billboards or radio, which may prove a challenge for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce… or will it?

Perhaps the boutique shops that peddle vice will serve as base camp for the refugees of Madison Avenue after the 1960s. Or perhaps it will be the death blow.

You can always get more Footnotes with Natasha Vargas-Cooper here.

But stoIcism aside, there was a reference to the Kennedys in this episode that is not often discussed: the death of Jackie's baby while in office. In August 1963, a special press briefing was held to announce Jackie's fifth pregnancy. Ted Kennedy's wife was also pregnant, so he was chosen to deliver the news. Before, a reporter asked Ted if he was going to confirm the President's rumored upcoming trip to Ireland. "No," Kennedy said. "It's much sexier than that." The baby, Patrick, was born five weeks premature with respiratory problems. He survived two days in a glass incubator and was then buried in a cemetery in Massachusetts.

§ To understand how news of that day would reach a young bride sequestered in her hotel room or a secretary who had her radio off, let's look at the numbers.

Out of a group of 500 people that were polled ten days after the assassination, the majority reported learning about the shooting from other people—either by phone, by a co-worker or out while shopping or eating. Almost half said they learned about it first directly from another person.

Nine out of ten respondents said they knew about the shooting within an hour. Their reaction was to then use mass media to confirm what they had heard. Researchers suggested that the data showed that news of immense importance is most likely to be disseminated person-to-person than less important news. This ran contrary to earlier studies that suggested mass media disseminated important news faster than interpersonal communication. Which makes the wedding table chatter about 'what those phone operators were really up to' when phonelines in entire cities went dead perfectly in step.

79% of these people surveyed knew about the death within 15 minutes; the last person to hear about the assassination was someone who heard the news three hours later, at 1:30 p.m. Could you imagine what that guy's story was? Additionally, the majority of the respondents said they learned more from the radio rather than the television.

§ Speaking of numbers, what about the almost-too-precious poetry of Betty's favorite movie: Singing in the Rain, then 11 years old. (Notable movies of 1963, by the way? They include: The Birds and Hud.) The title song, and the best number in the movie, is set at night; Kelly is alone, for the most part, doing what you would expect. He is impervious to the elements because of his cheerful mood. Beyond the intricacy of the dance, perhaps one of the reasons why that scene is so indelible is because it's what so many Americans wanted from the movies: a quick respite from the hard rain falling outside, alone, in the dark.

You can always find more Footnotes, with your hostess Natasha Vargas-Cooper, here!

Wet and lumpy like pony-filled dog food! Wasn't that 'label' foreshadowing marvelous? During the focus group scene-ahem!-a new label to slap on the same horse product.

"That name got us where we are. Do you think that was just luck?" the dogfood heiress cries.

"I'm not saying a new name is easy to find… But it's a label on a can."

So: they eat horses, don't they? Yes, they do! And by 'they' we mean dogs and Europeans. Beyond any sort of animal rights advocacy, there's an American cultural taboo about the human consumption of horsemeat, even though it's perfectly legal. The horse, it seems, is too much a sentimental character in American mythology to be edible-even for our pets. But touting the savory flavors of equine chunks-that was once a selling point.

Like for Kalkan pet products, before they changed their name to Pedigree.

The movie referred to by Burt and the dogfood lady for the outrage it created over sliced pony parts was The Misfits, from 1961. The film was meant to be a sweeping Western with a dazzling cast: Marilyn Monroe, Clark Cable, Montgomery Clift, under the direction of John Huston, with a script by Arthur Miller. These beautiful screen stars rope and ride the elegant ponies (before they are sent to slaughterhouse for dog food. The ponies. Not the stars. That was the 30s. Poor Judy Garland). The fabulous film critic and historian David Thomson wrote that it was Huston's love of ponies that made you look at the horses and "see the wild four footed miracle."

The Misfits is considered an epic misfire, particularly because it was Gable's last role and the strenuous horse-taming scenes apparently led to his heart attack. (He died in 1960.) In the same Thomson essay, he writes that Gable's acute, grizzled performance was actually enhanced by the vague dreaminess of Marilyn's. Additionally, he wrote this about Gable's persona-it could now easily double for a description of Jon Hamm.

Gable succeeded on-screen because of the promise of force behind the smile-that's what made the smile knowing… He was like Jack Dempsey in a tuxedo…. Joan Crawford said [being near him made her have] "twinges of sexual urge beyond belief."

Hamm has that exhilarating algorithm of sexual command, poise and vulnerability that were all on full display as Betty forcibly peeled off the Don Draper label. In the Virginia Woolf scene referenced above, George and Martha seem forever tied because of their ability to tolerate furious confrontation and an exposure of personal failure. Does Betty have that same… should we call it courage?

You can always find more Footnotes here!

§ So now what else is there to do but draw a hot bath and pick up Mary McCarthy's The Group, the 1963 best seller about the post-Vassar lives of 'nice' girls in the 30s. Most regard the book as an early feminist novel, because it's an exploration of the follies and successes educated women experience when they are confronted with a society that only values their domestic abilities. While others—say, Norman Mailer—thought it, largely, boring: "not one of the girls even exhibits an engaging bitchery," he wrote. Although: "it is nonetheless possible now to conceive that McCarthy may finally get tough enough to go with the boys." Oh, wow, well: lucky her! Still:

These pissout characters with their cultivated banalities, their lack of variety or ambition, perversion, simple greed or depth of feeling, their indifference to the bedrock of a collective novel—the large social events of the season or decade which gave impetus to conceiving the book in such a way. Yes, our Mary's a sneak. Like any First Lady she disapproves of unseemly ambition, and yet she is trying a novel which is all but impossible to bring off in a big way.

So maybe this won't be the lit match thrown on Betty's tinderbox. (As it were.) And problematically, the character who most resembles Betty Draper is Elinor the lesbian, who jets off to Europe for most of the book. And overall, it seems like something closer to a factory worker picking up The Wealth of Nations instead of the little red book.

§ What about this clingy teacher lady?! Doesn't she seem a bit too blasé about the whole marriage thing? Maybe not. Another one of the lady-books burning up the best seller list was Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 book Sex and the Single Girl. Gurley, who, in her own odd way, inspired a generation of homewreckers and housewives to lead whatever sexual life made them happy (and rich!), wrote that she viewed infidelity as an inevitability. So why not chase married men? In a chapter entitled, "The Availables: The Men in Your Life," Brown speaks favorably about affairs with them. "I'm afraid I have a rather cavalier attitude about wives," she wrote.

Also, here's another little gem from the book: "My friend Agnes lives over a garage in one enormous room… A hot plate and ice box make the kitchen, but you can see wonderful old sycamores through the windows." Who does that remind you of? Hello, Bowdoin! (Fun fact: Bowdoin didn't actually start accepting women until 1970, so whose shirt is our little schoolteacher wearing, hmm?)

Brown's advice wasn't some radical critique on marriage or a purposefully risqué sexual diary. It's about class, as in, Brown did not even come from one. She grew up in a farmhand encampment in the South where women walked around barefoot and lifted their dresses to pee on the side of the road. Whatever it took to be forever removed from that caste, Brown believed you should take it: wife, kids, another mistresses, whatever! Brown eventually got out of the Southern slums, went to secretarial school, became a working girl at an ad agency, entered an essay contest for Glamour, won, and ended up where all nice girls do: Hearst publishing.

Looks like our girl Peggy will be running Cosmo in no time and, hey, maybe Betts will get another European charm on her bracelet. If you know what I mean.

You can always find more Mad Men Footnotes here.

Monday, October 19th
*A Streetcar Named Desire is playing at Film Forum. Oh, it's still so modern, it's all sex and violence, but the smart kind. I just wish Mark Ruffalo was a better actor because I think he could take on the Brando mantle.

Tuesday, October 20th
*Gore Vidal at the 92nd Street Y. Slides will be shown! And if you're going to sit through a slide show shouldn't it be Gore Vidal's? He just narrowly escaped the Summer of Death, this could be your last chance before the Autumn of Doom claims the greatest American essayist.

*Remember Napster? If I had Napster i'd download these new albums:

Flight of the Concords: I Told You I Was Freaky
Julian Casablancas: Phrazes for the Young [Update: This one got pushed back to 11/3.]
Kings of Convenience: Declaration of Dependence
The Pixies: Minotaur (The massive box set.)
Sufjan Stevens: The BQE

*Wednesday, October 21st
*Zombie Prom at the Hope Lounge. There will be a photobooth, booze and zombie-related games See, your thirst for organized adult whimsy can be sated without Dave Eggers!

*For those who like their political commentary in Def form, Saul Williams is doing a reading/performance thing at the Gramercy Theater at 8pm.

Thursday, October 22nd
*Elia Kazan week continues at Film Forum with Robert De Niro in The Last Tycoon. You know, I love De Niro when he plays a reticent Jew!

Friday, October 23th
*Cartoon legend R. Crumb talks about his new book with Francoise Mouly..

*Mark Doty, patron saint of poetry-loving gentle homosexuals, is reading with student pals at KGB.

*Antichrist, the new Lars Von Triers flick that features some genital mutilation and a talking fox, comes out today. This a necessary event to experience in order to engage in heated discussions about current 'cinema.' Also? Willem Dafoe is still pretty hot.

Saturday, October 24th
*Au Revoir Simone is playing at the Bell House! I love these ladies! They're like lo-fi nymphets with honey-hewed voices and keyboards.

*Still Life was described by the New Yorker as "uniformly expert" and has been compared to the clever play Proof. It's about a love affair between a burnt-out photographer and a taste-making ad-man. Tickets here.

Sunday, October 25th
*Cutters: An Exhibition of International Collage is not about self-mutilation.

*Want to meet young women? Want them to scream and crawl all over you? Then you could go to the vampire-themed haunted house, the creation of Timothy Haskell.

Monday October 26th
*Oh it's back. The Year of Magical Thinking, adapted from the Joan Didion memoir, will be performed once again by Vanessa Redgrave.

Tuesday October 27th
*Intelligence Squared is an Oxford-style debate series. This edition? Good Riddance to Mainstream Media. It features Awl nightmare Michael Wolff on the pro side and Awl hero David Carr on the con side. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

*John Irving reads at Barnes and Noble.

Wednesday October 28th
*'This Is It is the hastily-compiled footage from Michael Jackson's last concert rehearsal. Now you should probably read the (Awl columnist and overall music savant) Seth Colter Walls essay on the 'complicated' legacy of Jackson.

*New music this week includes:

Devendra Banhart: What Will We Be
Fela Kuti: The Best of the Black President
Gift of Gab: Escape 2 Mars
Pink Martini: Splendor in the Grass [Heinz]
Sean Lennon: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
Tegan and Sara: Sainthood (Ha, we KNOW.)

Thursday, October 29th
*Francine Spiegel, a glammy/gory painter has an exhibit that Dietch that looks titillating: her series of portraits are of "soupy, sloppy women" such as Rapper's girlfriends, socialites, and pin-up girls whom are all thrown into the stew of "mylar, goo, glitter, and chewing gum." Mylar sounds sticky!

Friday, October 30th
*Pillar of the Upright Citizen's Brigade, Matt Walsh, presents his comedic blood bath KILLGORE: The Resurrection. There's bloody fetus tossing in the preview.

*Creepy goat masks, deranged puppets and a screening of Nosferatu await you at the Halloween Extravaganza and Procession of Ghouls at… St. John the Divine?

* You know what's better than people watching in New York? PETS IN COSTUMES-WATCHING! Who among you has the balls to dress your pug up like Tupac (ie, Pug Life!)?

Halloween! October 31st
*Are you making the pre-trick-or-treating art gallery rounds? You should see the Michael Williams show at Canada. Just because there is a painting of a cooked lobster and a crab furtively Googling.

*So you could go out with the twentysomethings dressed like the Hipster Grifter or to the The Black Cat Masquerade. It's a 1920s flapper-themed fete with live jazz, flutes of booze, and girls gabbing about Dorothy Parker. It's also a launch for a new culture glossy: Vintage Nouveau magazine. Now there's a business plan.

*Want to stay in and hand out candy to kids dressed like the chubby Asian kid from Up? Okay, here are all the great movies you can watch on NetFlix on demand. Dog Day Afternoon, Frozen River, Taxi Driver, Labyrinth, MST3K, The Edge, Miler's Crossing, 5th Element, My Cousin Vinny, Leonard Cohen's I'm your Man, Deliver Us From Evil, World's Best Prom, Rivers and Tides, Persepolis, The Visitor and, of course: On the Waterfront!

When the star of the young adult Twilight movie franchise, Robert Pattinson, finally took the stage, he was greeted by a swell of withering sighs.

When that panel's frenzy eventually climaxed and petered out, a smaller squadron of females emerged from the bubbling mass. Together, they rode the escalator to the second floor so that they could have their own conversation about the Twilight world's attendant online fan fiction. I went up the escalator expecting to sit in another room filled with gasping girlies. I was completely wrong.

We were given a rose-colored program with panelists' names and bios at the door. They all went by their online handles: Angstgoddess003, Hopey, Lolashoes, Psymom. The forces behind Twilight fan fiction are women over thirty. Many of them are mothers.

Dressed in tidy, modest clothing, these women were spending this late July weekend away from their jobs as store clerks, hospital administrators, scientists and homemakers to meet and mingle with a group of strangers who, like them, were all enthusiastic consumers and purveyors of smut.

Smut is their playful nickname, given to X-rated fan-authored fiction pieces (Twilight fan fictions are called Twi-Fic or fandoms). The biggest Twi-Fic fan site is called Twilighted. It's a 60,000-member online community that, they said at the panel, gets three million unique hits a month. It was founded in March, 2008. The site, according to its tag line, is dedicated to 'All-Inclusive, High-Quality Fan Fiction.'

The top titles of the website have included: The List (a 78,890 word novelization of all the places the teenage couple of the series will have sex after they marry), The Office (an X-rated hybrid version of the NBC show, wherein Dunder Mifflin is staffed by vampires). There is a nine-part series named Edward and Bella's Sex Anthology. Here's a passage from The Office:

"Very, very bad move," he seethed through his teeth. Placing his hands on my shoulders, he looked into my eyes and slid the fabric to the floor. His hands took mine, turning me around, bringing them up and pressing my palms against the wall…. His touch left a spark of electricity all the way down my back, over every inch of skin he touched. I felt his hands grab my ass and squeeze, his breath hot and heaving in my ear. "Very naughty girl."


I yelped out in surprise as I felt his hand come hard against my ass, and my only response was a moan of pleasure. What the fuck was he doing to me? I would never do these things. Yet here I was, panting heavily at his rough touch. I breathed in another sharp gasp as his hands clasped the scant material on my ass and yet again, ripped it off.

These women edit stories, write reviews, judge writing contests, host podcasts, and have five conventions planned in the course of a year. The stories range from traditional romance plots (a cabin, a fireplace, a hot tub, general yearning) to ecstasy-fueled threesomes in college dorm rooms. Sites like Twilighted have filled a space on the internet that no publishing house ever could. They dodge copyright laws and taboos about teen sex. Also they do it for free.

And the leaders of Twilighted are trying to thread an extremely narrow needle. Nobody wants to get rid of the smut, because that's where the audience is. But no one really wants to talk about the smut either.

Twilight is not about vampires; it's a love story, a bodice ripper for tweens about the forbidden love between a killer and a shy girl. At the center is Edward, a 108-year old vampire housed in the exquisite body of a teenager. Though he harbors some Victorian notions about chastity and women, he also embodies the timeless qualities of a romantic lead: he is protective, mysterious and lusty.

Bella, a human in high school, has some quirks—she's klutzy and sarcastic—but really she acts as an unthreatening stand-in for the reader's affair with Edward. Most of the fan fictions on Twilighted are devoted to the sex life of Bella and Edward. (Sex between Rob and Kristen runs into legal trouble.) Many follow a general pattern: a slow build to the couple's first—usually forbidden—sexual encounter, a Bella masturbatory session, some explosive sex scenes, reflections about the nature of love and then more rapacious sex scenes.

Twilighted grabs hold of the Stephenie Meyer franchise and turns it inside out: sex, the rough and forbidden sort, which is the novel's subtext or denied desire, becomes the main focus of the writing. The fact that the characters involved are vampires is just a useful device.

Psymom, the founder and chief administrator of Twilighted, sat at the center of the panel. She's a plump red-head in her late 30s with a cropped Kate Gosselin cut and a candy-coated voice. The seven other authors on the panel show her deference, and the audience praises her with hoots.

During the TwiFic panel, Psymom skirted the sexual nature of the site. It's unclear if this is intentional dodging or just shyness—it would be reasonable to assume that someone who has made her fame in an anonymous online community dedicated to erotica could wilt before a crowd. In her introduction, Psymom plugged new aspects of the website that "have nothing to do with Twilight," such as published romance authors hosting workshops on writing, as well as non-Twilight-related fiction contests. But the crowd seemed uninterested in Twilighted's new ventures. The questions and the conversation stick to one topic: how can readers transcribe their own Twilight fantasies into compelling fiction?

Over a speaker phone, a voice asked Psymom, "Do you have any regrets or lessons learned by conceiving Twilighted?"

"I have no regrets, it has been the most amazing—" her voice cracked and she put the pads of her fingertips below her eyes, so her makeup wouldn't smudge. An audience member yelled out, "We love you, Psymom."

Shortly after the panel, I contacted Psymom to see if she'd be willing to discuss her website and the Twi-Fic world. She was delighted. I also contacted eight other popular Twilighted authors and administrators. All were happy to talk. In the course of one week and three emails, however, all were instructed not to go on record with me and a "message" was passed on from an attorney. "With participation at this level, including that you may want to use direct quotes, Twilighted would need final approval before publication to the extent it involves any input from our perspective," Psymom wrote in an email.

Two authors contacted me and said they'd be willing to be interviewed anonymously. And one actually agreed to talk.

"I'm a pervert," Becca Shear told me.

Becca is one of the top-ten most-read writers on Twilighted. Her series 'Smut, Please' remains of the 'most favorited' series on the site.

"I cuss like a sailor, I like the kinkier stuff," she said.

Becca is a 25-year-old nursing student who divides her days between school and working in the medical records office at a hospital in Phoenix. Becca has been a fan fiction writer for close to four years.

"I used to write about magic," she said. She got her start writing PG-13 fan fiction about Harry Potter. "It was tedious," she said, "because I had to come up with new spells all the time. "

We speculated about the fuzzy line between porn and erotica, and what exactly drives thousands of women to write and read Twilight smut. Becca believes it has to do with details.

"Smut, to me, is like the girl version of porn," Becca said. "Like, I'm a girl! I want details. I want a backstory! Watching two people have sex devoid of context gets kinda boring pretty quickly."

Becca is not prudish about old-fashioned video porn; she likes it. But she finds herself more titillated by serialized sex. "I like the tease!" Becca said. "I want to be seduced. Tell me about what you want to do me. That's so much more exciting."

Becca has created her own raunchy narrative using the characters and concepts from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series but she has little loyalty to the Meyers canon. In 'canon' Twi-Fic, the characters follow the same romantic lines as they do in the book: heterosexual, single partner, couples like Edward and Bella. All of Becca's stories have the tag "AU," for alternate universe. In Becca's universe, partners swap, get a little queer and have sex in Manhattan publishing houses and elite college classrooms.

There is a splinter faction of Twilighted members who disapprove of AU. Some have taken to trolling the message boards and comment sections and castigating authors of Alternate Universe smut for defiling the series.

What remains a constant theme from 'the canon' to AU fan-fic is the element of restraint. In the Meyers series, Edward refuses to have sex with Bella because the taste of her naked skin would arouse his homicidal vampiric instincts. So when things get hot and heavy between the young duo, Edward will break away. This creates a (really quite steamy) cat and mouse game that unwinds over four books.

In several fictions, Edward is recast as Bella's unimpressed professor or her undermining but ravishing co-worker or—my personal favorite—her dreamy doctor. In a story Becca co-authored, A Tale of Two Edwards, Bella gets caught in sex triangle between the Cullen twins (this is a Becca's own twist on the story; there is only one Edward Cullen in the original Twilight). One twin is cold and irresistible. The other is sentimental and chaste. Bella cannot have both—but oh how she wants to! This scene takes place in a wine cellar:

Opening my eyes, I found Cullen watching me, his face fixed on mine, watching me writhe beneath his touch. It was torture. The look in his eyes—lust, want, need—was all there, and it was almost enough to make me uncoil. Not wanting to waste the moment, I grabbed his face within my hands and said three little words. I knew it was all wrong, but all right all at the same time.


"Fuck me, Edward."


Cullen stared at me incredulously as the words tumbled out of my mouth. However, his shocked expression was soon replaced with a look of pure desire and need.

This "fuck me" meme is common in fan-fic. At some point Bella insists that Edward break through whatever professional, ethical and/or supernatural barrier prevents their lovemaking. I asked Becca if she thinks the older readers and writers of Twilighted are scandalized by it.

"No," Becca said. "It's the teenagers. They ruin it. Younger readers want you to stick the story. The moms and older set of Twilighted are more sexually adventurous."

The moms, said Becca, enjoy the sexual spontaneity of her fiction because they've "seen it all before." But Becca has shied away from becoming too involved in the website because the older ladies tend to act "cliquish" and also tend to take smut "way too seriously."

Psymom says she works as a research psychologist. Her skittishness regarding being written about is not surprising—it's not uncommon for people who run Internet communities to have a healthy and well-earned fear of outside attention.

But Twilighted is one these amazing user-driven corners of the Internet where the porn is literary and operated for and by women. This is rare; it deserves attention. And as the fandom swells in size and the possibility of monetizing this massive community becomes more likely, it's also possible that those sitting on top may be getting even more squeamish.

The day before our scheduled interview, I received an email from Psymom. She wrote, in part: "When reviewing the interview questions you sent to my staff and me, and seeing that the focus of those questions appears to be directed solely to sexually explicit fanfiction stories, I am troubled."

She also wrote: "I spent some time researching some of your work. Unfortunately, that raised some concerns on my part. Many of your articles seem to be focused on opinion-based commentary designed to tantalize your readers by denigrating the subject of the article."

Psymom did agree to answer questions about her website by email. Her answers included:

Q. What crosses the line from 'smut' to 'pornography'?
A. As with art, it is in the eye of the beholder.

Q. Do you feel like your work is subversive (i.e. sexualizing a teenage romance?) Given the fact that Stephenie Meyer is Mormon and one of the main themes of the book is chastity.
A. The overall theme of the books is love-it is a love story about a couple that falls in love, gets married, and has a child despite the adversities they must face.

Q. How do writers and readers react to gay story lines?
A. People read and write what interests them.

Throughout our correspondence, Psymom insisted that I just didn't get it. She explained that Twilight fan fiction was a huge genre and that what she called "adult" pieces only make up a minority of the fanfiction content. She said that there is nothing naughty or subversive in fantasizing about a married couple (Bella and Edward get hitched in the fourth book).

There are only two stories on Twilighted with "Psymom" as the author. (Her piece "Stranger than Fiction" was taken down "for legal reasons," she has explained on the site.) One of these two remaining pieces is about Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, just after they are cast in Twilight.

In the story, Rob calls Kristen the day before they shoot their first scene, in which the director will have them kiss. She is staying at the Four Seasons in L.A., and he comes by and picks her up in a silver Volvo, just like the character in the books. In the car, they listen to Debussy. They find an Italian place in Long Beach. "'Be with you in a moment…' said a very flamboyant guy with a nametag that said 'Marcus.' He was flipping through a copy of the National Enquirer and didn't seem eager to be interrupted." Then the waiter is overcome with his fandom for Pattinson.

Over dinner, the two actors plan to make out in the car—but decide to save their burning passion for the screen. "Method acting, remember?" Rob says to Kristen.

Her other story is about the characters Edward and Bella. "In honor of your birthday, Rob, I have written some 'Human Edward/Bella' smut…yeah, that's what we'll call it…" she wrote in the introduction. It contains this sentence: "As I slid my hand back down his shaft, I lowered to my knees and let my tongue make the next ascent."

The reviews were good—terrific, in fact.

"I had to take a cold shower after reading this, it was soo good!" wrote Kayleigh, signing her review "xx."

"I was undone from the first line–just imagining that ass!" wrote Laura Cullen. "Kudos!"

§ The Russians! They can be so problematic. Like shoebanger Nikita Kruschev, who threw a tantrum when he was barred from visiting Disneyland. This snub, according to capitalist stalwart Conrad Hilton, is what cinched our victory in the Cold War.

During a diplomatically fraught visit to the states in 1957, Kruschev announced that he wanted to spend some time in Anaheim's Magic Kingdom. Neither the LAPD nor the suits at Disney, they said, could guarantee Kruschev's safety. So during a dinner hosted by MGM (with Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe cavorting around with some Russians from the politburo), General Secretary Kruschev was informed that the trip would have to be canceled. Kruschev, who had already taken a fair amount of razzing about from studio heads and senators, was upset by the denial and left Los Angeles the next day.

It's unsurprising that Connie would regard with such pleasure seeing the desires of a wily dictator snuffed out by a cartoon mouse. Conrad Hilton and Walt Disney shared similar views about their role in American culture: while the rest of the country rumbled with social turmoil, both men believed that their particular blend of folksiness and modern efficiency could secure social harmony. They both built their empires on the notion that respect for traditional values could establish (or reestablish) order among a diverse and unruly public. Conrad's vision for moon hotels, as expressed to Don, echoes Disney's homespun vision of Tomorrowland: the terrifying solitude of space made orderly, sanitized and comfortable, with a bible in every bureau.

§ Let's slip out of the climate-controlled moon room into the sultry and prickly arena of gay sex. Specifically, let's look at the super homo-erotic imagery of the 1963 Lucky Strike Print campaign. Recognize the imagery?

The 'It's Toasted' slogan, from Season 1, seems to be a 1954 print campaign (Also? Kind of girly!). Starting in 1961, the thrust of the Lucky Strike advertisements were more along the lines of "SMOKING, IT'S WHAT MANLY MEN DO."

Hunters, farmers, fishermen,and men of worthy of a hard-won stubble dominated the images – with the requisite thousand-yard stare.

§ Speaking of staring into oblivion, though the (newly) coral-colored walls of the Draper home barricade the family from outside events, still the rushing tide of history does find a way to seep in. Burning monks, election results and political addresses intrude from the radio, TV—and via the tortured do-gooder conscience of Don's newest school-teacher fling (that was unnecessarily catty, I'm just envious. Of a fictional character. Christ).

§ As Carla solemnly helped Betty prepare dinner, a funeral service streamed on the radio. Four little girls had been killed in a firebombing of a black church, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a gathering place for civil rights activists in Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the eulogy three days later.

The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilt blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future.

This is the speech that Teacher Lady told Don she would read to her second graders and the same speech that caused Betty to question the fast-paced civil rights movement to Carla. (But do you see what I'm saying about overstating the drama? Wouldn't it have been richer to just let the eulogy play rather than walloping the viewer with it?)

The reverend of the church, who was giving a sermon as the bomb ripped through the building on a Sunday afternoon, told a local newspaper that it sounded as though "the whole world was shaking."

Doesn't it feel that way now, though? Like it's all crumbling? Perhaps that's why the overt use of white callousness and human dread as narrative felt excessive, ill-handled, suspect.

For more Footnotes of Mad Men, Natasha Vargas-Cooper is always on duty here.

§ Let us first turn to Betty's magnificent make over. Sophia Lauren? Anita Ekberg circa 1963? I think we can narrow the prototype down to Brigitte Bardot, actually, in her middle Euro sex kitten period. (That's long before the outspoken racist period.) In a 1961 profile of the then-26-year-old actress, Life magazine tried to pinpoint what made Bardot's on and off screen persona so appealing to both mass audiences and the European intelligentsia:

Roger Vadim, Brigitte's first husband, close friend and often director, thinks he knows. Vadim says, "Women are passing through a terrible crisis. Brigitte symbolizes their strivings for equality in conduct with men. That is why her real fans are not men, as some think but women."


Novelist Marguerite Duras, who wrote Hiroshima Mon Amour, says the opposite. "Bardot represents the unexpressed desires of males for infidelity," she argues. "Many women do not like Brigette. They never look her in the face. They look sideways, shrinking away. They see in her disaster."

Well. By golly, as Connie would exclaim.

§ Ah, Connie. Here is a little something from his 1957 autobiography, "Be My Guest," about the ethos of the Hilton brand in far-off lands. Hilton wrote that each of his international hotels was "a little America," a "laboratory" where foreign guests could "inspect America and its ways at their leisure." Seems like a certain American couple's idea of leisure is being away from America.

§ Did you catch the quick Ogilvy reference this week's episode? (I've taken to chanting Oggy Oggy Oy Oy when the Ogs is mentioned. Fun drinking game!) Don referenced his Hathaway shirt.

§ While we missed Peggy, we did get some Joanie—ah, did you like the Hermes logo looming in the background at Bonwit Teller (RIP), which now I've decided is just a Mad Men visual cue for regrettable sex. So Joanie mentions to Pete (ugh, that cad! He is the wormiest) that her hubby is thinking of going into psychiatry!

Psychiatry still had a dubious reputation in the mid-century, as it was considered only as a viable treatment for social deviants and criminals. Attitudes towards psychiatry started to thaw in the mid-60s. Thanks to a mental health speech given by President Kennedy in the summer of 1963, the profession was rapidly becoming more mainstream. Kennedy loosened up federal money so states could begin to deinstitutionalize state mental health programs and allow doctors to set up private practices in the community. Psychiatric hospitals were essentially warehouses for the crazy and senile at the time. For instance, this description from 1963:

Georgia's only mental hospital, saddled with the stigmatic name of State Hospital for the Insane at Milledgeville, was a monstrous snake pit. Behind the façade of an administration building that looks like the White House, it was crowded to its rotten, rat-infested rafters with 12,000 patients. At least 3,000 were senile oldsters who did not belong there—any more than the epileptics, dope addicts or alcoholics who jammed the hospital. Comparatively few patients ever got better, and those who did succeeded mainly on their own resources, for among Milledgeville's 50 doctors, many of dubious repute, were only three psychiatrists.

States like Georgia, Nebraska, and New Mexico with small populations and less wealth were set to gain the most from Kennedy's initiative. It was now the doctors who appeared on a wait list instead of the patients. Perhaps that's why Joan's rapey hubby suggested relocating to Alabama?

Captivity, it seems, is bad for everyone.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper always has more Mad Men Footnotes here.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6
• Queerly, I'm very excited about the new Massive Attack. You might recognize Massive Attack from the theme song to House. Or that song that played in every coffee shop for three years. See how complicated this music stuff gets!?
• Speaking of the impossible-ness about writing about sex/music, there is a Sufjan Stevens remix album of sorts, called Run Rabbit Run, which is the string quartet Osso's reimagining of his album Enjoy Your Rabbit. And Run, Rabbit the book contains some of the cringe-inducing passages about sex (a man's throbbing purple center and such) by one's American literature's most elegant writers. It's all so hard.
• Other throb-inducing music releases today: Air, Black Heart Procession and Gogol Bordello.
• You know what comes out on DVD today? Ally McBeal: The Complete Series. Buy it for someone you hate! Perhaps yourself!


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7th
• Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz are doing a Times Talk in New York. It is sold out but there are tickets on Craigslist and also you could pretend you are a member of the press, which is what we do! Worth it!


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8th
• Baaz (The Hawk): This 1953 Indian film, playing tonight at the Walter Reade Theater, is a musical about a female pirate—and it predates The Bandit Queen by 40 years. Tickets.
• Jack Pierson opens at Cheim & Read. All the gays will be there.
• The Mars Volta is playing Roseland for $42. That being said? They do a stellar live show, even if their odd hybrid prog rock Latin-jam metal-band thing has gotten more and more… diffuse over the last two albums.
• Some Like it Hot ends its week-long run at the Film Forum tonight. The only thing prettier than Marilyn Monroe in her prime is Tony Curtis in his.


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9th
• An Education opens tonight. Yes, more Nick Hornby. But people like this one!
• Wow. Tonight and tomorrow the Collegiate Chorale and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the 21st Century Orchestra are performing the score to The Fellowship of the Ring, while the movie plays? At Radio City Music Hall? This is so bonkers.


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10th
• Wishful Drinking. We are actually going to see this Carrie Fisher show, because we should. It was this, on Jezebel, that convinced us. Fisher reinvented the practice of maintaining a public persona that passes as authentic and completely revealing; but really, it's just persona in the service of comedy. Admirable, and tricky. Tickets here.
• This is the annual Open House weekend, which you can read all about here, in which you get to poke into people's apartments and also weird places in the city.


SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11th
• Is it going to be nice out? This show at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, of seventeen youngsters, is not to be missed.


MONDAY, OCTOBER 12th
• You know what comes out on DVD at midnight? Heh. Drag Me To Hell. Which is an awesome, wonderful film. Have you ordered it yet?


TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13th
• The Awl endorses exploration of the following albums:
Andrew Bird, "Anonanimal"
Del the Funky Homosapien/Tame One, Parallel Uni-Verse
Digital Leather, Warm Brother
Echo and the Bunnymen, The Fountain
The Flaming Lips, Embryonic


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14th
• Have you seen the Deitch show of Kurt Kauper's Portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama yet? It's perfect for the liberal cooling sentiment on Obama. Details here.


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15th.
• Oleg Videnin, a photographer who works in rural Russia, opens a show of new photography at Sputnik gallery. He is sort of the Robert Frank of Russia? Which, speaking of, if you have not seen the Robert Frank show at the Met, you are missing out, despite its awful exhibition design.


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16th
• You know what goes on view today? The Christie's jewelry sale, featuring the Annenberg Diamond, a 32-carat diamond that is going to test the high end of the luxury auction market. You can go and look for free, for fun!
• Dead-Alive Peter Jackson's no-budget, 1992 gorefest. Makes Saw look like Steel Magnolias. Tickets here.
• Bonerama is playing at Sullivan Hall. I saw them in a smoke-filled club in New Orleans and that night some booty-shaking girl with bangs lost control of her bottle of beer and now I have a chipped tooth. But you know? Worth it.


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17th
• As you know, this is the New Yorker Festival weekend. You know what's not sold out, as of this writing? The evening with Loudon Wainwright III today at 7:30, and conversations with Stanley Tucci and Tyler Perry. Tyler Perry is America's most successful entrepreneur, basically, and we should all be taking notes on that.


SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18th
• Who Can Kill a Child? Who, indeed? Maybe an English couple who is confronted by a an murderous tribe of island children? Hmm? MAYBE THEM? This is a 1970's cult classic that's rarely screened but that is what the New York Film Festival is for. Tickets here.

§ Throwing open her arms, the matronly designer introduces Don to his new living room. A kind of suburban rococo design with Eastern flourishes. The first piece: a 'Chinoiserie breakfront.' Chinoiserie is just a fancy French way of saying "sort of Asian." Chinoiserie became all the rage in 18th century France when Louis XIV decorated Versiailles with new andmost fanciful European interpretations of Chinese styles. It had a resurgence in 20th century design. Next to the breakfront, is a 'Japanese influenced Dunbar couch.' The low slung, brass footed loveseat is a fixture of mid-century design but the Japanese twist is a direct toss to Bert Cooper's Japonisme-themed office . (WHO MAKES UP THESE DESIGN TERMS?!) Japonisme is, yes, a French term that translates into Japanism. There was a heightened interest in Japanese graphic arts, textiles and fashion at the turn of the century (similar to the Western love affair with Art Nouveau).

According to the Met, early woodcut prints that made their way west showed that "simple, transitory, everyday subjects from 'the floating world' could be presented in appealingly decorative ways." Hmm. So then we take it that both Roger and Bert seeped their way into the Draper home this week!

§ Then, of course, there was much discussion of Footnotes' favorite, David Ogilvy. The Ogs' 1963 book 'Confessions of an Ad Man' is like a compendium of very clever bumper stickers about how to be a smart, classy man in advertising and in general. It reads like magazine writing; punchy and easily digestible. For instance:

H.L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first-class ticket through life.

Ogilvy's books are core curriculum in ad school, so understandably some modern young ad men tend to sneer at the Ogs philosophy. I asked Awl-pal and young(ish) advertising guru, Mark the Copyranter about his relationship with Ogs:

NVC: How am I supposed to feel about Ogilvy's eyepatch ad? I'M CONFLICTED.
MC: Ah, the very successful Hathaway man, campaign, of course. But stupid, nonetheless. I read 'Ogilvy On Advertising'… a long time ago. Didn't much care for his theories because I was a YOUNG AD REBEL
NVC: When you rebel against Ogilvy what are you rebelling against?
MC: British stuffiness, copy-heavy logical ads. The visual is the hero, baby! Any good madman believes this and was taught this in ad school… It's better to dramatically visualize a product's benefit, than say it. Because, then you can exaggerate (LIE) without as much rebuke. Plus, it looks cooler in one's portfolio.

Ah, could you imagine what Don's flash portfolio would look like? (With a Tumblr attached!) Wish I had a fainting couch to swoon on.

§ Speaking of sumptuous items that would only lead to our panties tangled about the ankles, what do you think Peggy's Hermes scarf looked like!? Well it could have been Jackie O's Hermes zodiac-themed kind, or this perfectly girly number adorned with pink butterflies. Or how about this purple scarf patterned with DUCKS! Wonder how many other girls were wrapped in such "elegance and success"?

So how hard to stand out nowadays.

So very much more can be found at The Footnotes of Mad Men.

But American destiny is not just our military might after all, according to American mythology. It's our uniquely American character that enabled us to be the chief influence in global affairs. We are allegedly self-made men, free from rigid caste systems of Old Europe. Who knows? The son of whore could grow up to be an ad executive—and a country boy could be hotel magnate.

Conrad Hilton beat back Communism. Well, that what's he joked to a TIME magazine reporter in 1963. One of the main reasons Hilton was able become the head of the inn-keeping empire was because this hotel chain built clean, efficient, new hotels in developing countries where people could meet and "get along with each other."

Hilton was willing to lose some initial profit to gain a foothold into new markets. "We think we are helping out in the struggle that is going on in the cold war today with world travel," says Hilton. "These hotels are examples of free enterprise that the Communists hate to see." He likes to say that "we beat Communism into the Caribbean by ten years," and one of his top financial backers, Henry Crown, adds: "We're second only to the Peace Corps."

But Connie, as he asks his friends to call him, was also a success due to his American charm. He was quick to respond to inquiries put out by po-dunk tourism ministers and would close the deal with face-to-face meetings. From TIME again:

The surprise about Hilton is that he is so much like the guests he caters to. Boyish, candid, trusting, he never fails to be amazed and pleased-even astonished-by the world around him. He cannot get over the speed of jet planes or his possession of a $100 Texas-style Stetson, whose price he mentions to anyone who will listen. He is susceptible to even the most transparent flattery.

So speaking of global expansion, Lane tossed off that 'Pax Romana' line within minutes of the Vietnam reference. Too rich! It precisely captures where the two countries were in their in their jockeying for global influence. The Pax Romana refers to a time when the Roman Empire cooled its heels on the whole military conquest thing and established a level of order in its territories. The empire, for the first time in centuries, was free from civil war or any social disorder on grand scale. Not really the case in 1963 America? We were entering the period of tremendous social upheaval and trying our luck at violent military influence in South East Asia—while, across the pond, pretty much they were putting their feet up after a job well done in WWII.

And so the conquest moves on: out of the farms and into the American suburbs. During the post-war housing boom, suburban homeowners were eager to cultivate turf around their properties. This interest in manicured lawns was not lost on Deere & Company. To meet the demand, the first John Deere lawn tractor (Model 110) was manufactured in 1963.

John Deere has been a symbol of the self-made man for nearly two centuries. Deere was born in Vermont in 1804. He began as a blacksmith, then created a low-cost line of farm tools. When farm equipment entered the age of mass production, tools were marketed as a way to plow one's way to independence from banks and industrial overlords.

Now juxtapose this earthy American grit to the stuffy, predestined men of England. Compare Ken Cosgrove's John Deere account to the recently-maimed Brit ad man Guy McKendrick's claim to fame: Mercedes Benz. Sure, comparing tractors and luxury cars is unfair. Americans, particularly in the mid-century, are subject to all types of castes and smothering subjugation. But England, well, they take the crumb cake on that sort of thing. If baby Eugene Draper had been born in England, with his haitches, he'd have little chance of ever setting foot—or losing it-at a place like Putnam, Powell and Lowe.

Still. True. We are all up in arms about adaptations, due to news of a movie version of Netherland—and also there is product placement in the upcoming "The Road." (How?) Harumph!)

On to delightful things!

Movies: Consider The Fox

Jennifer's Body. Me and The Awl staff are torn on this moving picture. But I'm going to overall endorse it and tell you that Megan Fox embodies the evil alpha queens of Heathers and does a pretty marvelous job delivering Diablo Cody's dialogue. Here are six other great reasons to see it. (Today)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: Oh man, I really liked this! (II know, surprise!) Mr. T has a big-ass part and is surprisingly a pretty fine voice actor. It also has a kicky script (even though it has a obligatory 'message to young people' ending tacked on. Boo!) and transfixing effects. (Today)

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: So, this was a risky move, right? It's not all bad, there are some very good monologues and sincere performances but there is a mortal flaw: David Foster Wallace. Writer/director John Krasinski, of Office-fame, did not adapt the book for the screen – as in, the actors are essentially reading off the page. Which means you have 17 different character actors all talking like DFW, it's unnerving and kind of deadening. Still, not terrible though!

Also, this trailer for Paranormal Activity, which comes out in small release on the 25th, has been getting a lot of hype and has been called one of the scariest movies EVER. Thoughts? Anybody?

TeeVee: EmMehs?

You know, I love the silliness and pomposity of the Oscars but the Emmys have always been totally lifeless. BUT! TV is kinda better than movies these days, right? So it could be cool this year. Also. Mad Men looks to sweep so might be worth tuning in to see steely Hamm eyes and man bangs. (ALSO! Our fabulous pal Mary may be live-blogging right here! SUSPENSE!) (9/20)

Bookses

Everyone and his mother is reading tonight! Bennett Madison! Paul Ford! Others! (9/18)

Preorders:
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. Hey guys, Hornby! (9/29)
Richard Powers: Generosity: An Enhancement. (9/29)

Music: You once were poor and lonely, wise and brave

Lightning Dust, live. Rather spooky indie folkies, really quiet enjoyable—opening for someone we've never heard of, at Bowery Ballroom. (9/19)

PLASTIC ONO BAND. FOR REAL. (9/22)

A.F.I. There are a slim selection of our readers who understand why A.F.I. is a 'problematic' but super catchy punk-vegan-straight edge band that enjoys commercial success. Do you want to be one of them? (9/29)

Mariah Carey. We love her. She has problems. She is probably a genius. (9/29)

Things To Do In New York That Do Not Involve a Trattoria

Tonight, awesome Miami photographer Naomi Fisher opens a new show at Leo Koenig. It is about a bunch of vintage Versace she found in the trash and nature? Totally worth it. (9/18)

Brooklyn Fashion Festival+Williamsburg Fashion Weekend is being billed as THE TENTS VS. 11211 (9/19)

The Craft Beer Scavenger Hunt. For those of you who like hops and being zany. (9/19)

Taxi Driver at the MOMA! (9/21)

David Byrne will be speaking at Barnes and Noble! Someone bring me a silver hair spike! (9/22)

There's a fake wrestling show thing at the UCB . It's called Cage Match. Described as Winner vs. Classic Masculinity. (9/24)

Doesn't that just sum it all up? Have a blessed weekend, you guys.

§ Sally Draper is acting out and her teacher is concerned. A teacher discussing a student's 'feelings' with parents would be flouting classroom management conventions, and would be part of a progressive new school of teaching. Behaviorial studies of the 50s suggested teachers assume a role of strict authority; if a student was misbehaving, then they were expected to be disciplined, not "counseled," the way Sally's teacher (clumsily) attempted to do. This 1963 guide to the role of a teacher in the classroom is a fine of example of changing attitudes: it encourages teachers to shed their roles as petty despots and "synthesizers of information" and assume a looser, more maternal role.

The ideology in transition recalled this passage about teaching, from Zoe Heller's book on stuffy old teachers and drippy new do-gooders:

Many younger teachers harbour secret hopes of "making a difference"… They, too, want to want conquer their little charges' hearts with poetry and compassion. When I was at teacher training college, there was none of this sort of thing. My fellow students and I never thought of raising self-esteem or making dreams come true. Our expectation did not go beyond the three R's and providing them with some pointers on personal hygiene. Perhaps we were lacking in idealism… We might not have fretted about our children's souls in the old days, but we did send them into the world knowing how to do long division."

There was that lovely contrast of touchy-feelyness with the cold columns of long division on the chalkboard in the background.

§ Speaking of being maternal, Betts has endured a nightmare; meanwhile, Don had his feet up in the cozy solarium. It wasn't until the late 70s that men were regularly allowed in the delivery room. Until then, men's role in a pregnancy, as far the medical establishment was concerned, ended at conception. Before then it was argued in the pages of women's magazines and medical journals that men would "contaminate" the delivery room, both physically and psychologically. Doctors didn't want to encourage the "prurient interests of men." Surprisingly, according to obstetrics historian Judith Walzer Leavitt, the consensus of most men was that they did want to be in the delivery room. In one waiting room guest book, a kind of semi-public library that was kept in expectant father's waiting rooms, one man wrote he wanted to "grab hatchets and chop through the partition" separating him from his laboring wife.
§ Which brings us to the anxious Sing Sing prison guard. Besides being holed up in waiting room, didn't the guy strike you as a bit unstable? Too agitated and erratic even for a papa-to-be. Weird? Actually, no!

From a 1967 study of prison guards:

When the recruit arrives he is plunged into an alien environment, and is enveloped in the situation 24 hours a day without relief. He is stunned, dazed, and frightened. The severity of shock is reflected in 17-hydroxycorticosteriod levels comparable to those in schizophrenic patents in incipient psychosis, which exceeds levels in other stressful situations. The recruit receives little, or erroneous, information about what to expect, which tends to maintain his anxiety.

And then there is our hero/antihero. Though Don's appeal, throughout the show, has been his effortless masculine attitude, he also always is extremely reluctant to engage with other men in the rituals of manhood. We all pace those cold floors alone, I guess.

As the tensions between Sterling Cooper and their new limey bosses mount, it's becoming clearer that each character is drawn from a historical figure of advertising.

Starting first with Don. Let's assume he's based on ad legend Leo Burnett. Burnett built his success in the ad world around the idea that tapping into consumers' basic desires and beliefs would stimulate them into buying products (rather than some lengthy text arguing the superiority of one detergent to the other, as was common practice then). For Burnett, images were the argument.

The tension between Don and his Limey boss Price stems from a clash of ideology about the role of advertising in the sixties. This is a famous speech given by Leo Burnett in 1967 about his philosophy and legacy in advertising. This line in particular seems to sum up the entire jai alai fiasco: "When you stoop to convenient expediency and rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism—for the sake of a fast buck—take my name off the door."

And what about that limey boss?
Given his predilection for smuggery and ruthless deal-making, it's safe to assume that he's based on Brittish dynamo David Ogilvy. In 1962, Time called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry." Ogilvy was responsible for General Foods, Bristol-Myers, Campbell Soup, Lever Bros, and Shell ad campaigns. He is most famous for making high end products, like Rolls Royce, seem like a 'sensible' use of one's money. Appealing to the consumer's refined taste and class status hawked some of the most high end products. He even made eyepatches look classy. This is a far cry from what Burnett called the "earthy vernacular" of images in advertising.

Ogilvy's own ad company was purchased in a hostile takeover 20 years down the road by another British holding company. Sir Martin Sorrell, the owner of Ogilvy's company was, in Ogilvy's words, an "odious little shit" and he promised to never work again.

Then there's the guy in the bowtie.

Bert Cooper is the cigar-chomping eccentric studio boss Charles E. Cooper, who ran Cooper Studios. The real life Cooper, who had a cultivated taste in modern art and elegant illustrators, attracted some of the best talent in the hand-drawn advertising racket. Cooper employed the breed of illustrators that Sal lamented were being washed away by photography.

Cooper Studios revolutionized old illustration concepts through the use of perspective, dimensions, and color in their drawings. Time caught up with them, and they did not attract the same level of talent or success when ads started to use glossy photographs. But before then, well, look at this beauty by lauded illustrator Bernie Fuchs (who would have been one of Sal's contemporaries).

Illustrator Murray Tinkelman, who also worked at Cooper's, gave an interview about the first time he saw Fuchs work: "It was gorgeous" he said. He conferred with the other two superstars of Cooper Studios, Joe Bowler and Coby Whitmore. Bowler and Whitmore arrived together to inspect the new painting. Whitmore was "speechless," Bowler said: "I don't know who the hell did this, but the business is never going to be the same."

Indeed, it never was.

So Lady G is the most interesting pop star out there (even if she's a wee bit full of shit.) She wants to be a walking art installation about stardom so, you know, fuck it, we're game. Here's a cryptic/awesome interview she did with Newsweek and you can read Jezebel's very impassioned Defense of LG here. (Also, Russell Brand is hosting again. Here is a delightful 'Fresh Air' interview with Brand. He talks about crack cocaine with Terry Gross!) (9/13)

Movies: Apocalypuppets!

* 9 (not to be confused with Nien, Cloud 9, or The Nine) is enjoyable! I caught a screening last night and like any Tim Burton collaboration, the dark and intricate visuals pretty much outweigh a weak plot and a suspiciously short running time. Go see it, tough. 9's thimble-eyed potato sack puppets scuttling around a scorched Earth makes for some fine drama. (9/9)

* And the week after? Jennifer's Body. Much more on this later. Heh. But for now, let us say that, based on a screening that was apparently not quite the final cut, 25% of it is Heathers-worthy. Is that enough? Maybe!

Books: On Hoarding and Brothers

* Catching up on the recently published, there'sAwait Your Reply by Dan Chaon and E.L. Doctorow's Homer and Langley, about the infamous New York recluses who hoarded all the ephemera and material progress of the 19th century in their brownstone on 5th Avenue (and it is good, despite the ludicrous Joyce Carol Oates review in the New Yorker.) This is my favorite passage from the book:

"They were Americans who had fled there to live in rows of shacks which their leader proposed to them as an idealistic Communist paradise. They had practiced suicide by drinking harmless red liquidin lieu of poison, but when it came time their leader said they could no longer tolerate repression of the outside world, they did not hesitiate to swallow the real thing. All nine hundred of them. I asked Langley, Where do you put this event? He said he thought at first to file it under Fashion, as when everybody is all at once wearing the new color."

Oh and obviously we will be arguing about the Lorrie Moore book when we finally start it.

* And upcoming this month! The Francine Prose book on Anne Frank, and, hell yes, Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. It's the year of dystopia!

* Here is a funny thing about this fall's book season: "'I've had both Philip Roth and Orhan Pamuk described as possible sleepers, which gives you an idea of what the fall is like when those people are sleepers,' Tom Nissley, senior books editor at Amazon.com, said." Heh. Books: coming out our ears.

New York Events That Aren't At Film Forum

* The Invisible Exports gallery is hosting a 30-year retrospective devoted to the work of the performance artist, gender-bender and provocateur Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. It's like the Gentleman Gaga. But, you know, way first. (9/9)

* And also the return of the art season brings a new show by Type A, the hot dude duo who do competitive boy things. (Opens 9/10 at Goff + Rosenthal, along with nearly everything else in Chelsea.)

* Along with the art season comes fashion week. Man. Like, avoid Bryant Park.

* Hamlet, with Jude Law, begins previews on Broadway. Oh my God. Twelve weeks only, Broadhurst Theatre! This is a fine reason to link to Lane Brown's comic about hunky Broadway stars. (9/12)

* Possibly official Awl Favorite Band/Person, Destroyer, is playing! This Saturday! At the Miller Theater. (9/12)

* And those freakballs Of Montreal are playing at Terminal 5, which will sell out soonish, one would imagine. (9/18)

* The Candidate, staring the Ref! (9/8)

* The Moth Main Stage is the venerable storytelling series done both without notes and with brevity. You've heard Moth stories on This American Life and they have moved you in weak moments. Favorite: Collin Quinn tanking at a Robert De Niro roast. (9/10)

Events that are Happening in LA that are Not in Silverlake

*John Hughes Tribute at the New Beverly. Mr. Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day off is going to be there! (9/4 & 5)

* A.J. Jacobs is reading at Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena. He will have a lot of shtick. (9/17)

* Notable on the UCB schedule: Rob Hubel and Paul Sheer are doing a night (9/7). Also Paperheart star Charlene Yi. who is as precious as a singing Gummy Bear, will perform on 9/11.

* Coming of Rage: The Sins of Anita Bryant is opening at El Centro. LA Weekly's theater critic, who is one tough cream puff to impress, suggests that you go! (On now.)

Enjoy this cotton-top tamarin!

[Photo: Gabi Porter]
Ah, wistfulness for the traditions of the Old South! You may have been to Derby Party—an event held, quite ironically, in Brooklyn—but once this soiree is removed from its recent, "enlightened" and urbane context, a Derby party is meant to be one of the most vulgar displays of wealth east of Ole Miss. "My Old Kentucky Home," the theme of Roger's Derby party and the name of the ditty he crooned whilst in blackface, is the state's official song. (The verse referencing 'the darkies' was later amended—in the 1980's.)

And though the racial attitudes, in the days of flannel suits and TV dinners, had so far evolved enough to make Don Draper grimace at Roger's minstrel act, the Derby party is still extravagance without any taste, impossible to untangle from a racist cultural "heritage."

A typical Derby party, like Roger's, features a towering circus tent filled with gaudy rose bouquets, men in ye olde style floppy bow ties, their dates in garish floral dresses, both pretending as though they were members of extinct breed of Southern gentility. At least in part, it's the shameless "fancy people" décor alone that makes a farmhand like Don uneasy.

Toss away the mint julep and let's go sip martinis in Joan's cozy mid-century apartment. Joan lives in a world about five rungs down the class ladder from Roger—but she still manages to stay chic and thoroughly modern. Her apartment has the Draper touch—Dorothy Draper, Manhattan's sometime-top interior designer until near the time of her death in 1969. The color scheme and décor here is lifted directly from a Dot Draper tear sheet.

Dorothy used vibrant, "splashy" colors in never-before-seen combinations, such as aubergine and pink with a "splash" of chartreuse and a touch of turquoise blue, or, one of her favorite combinations – "dull" white and "shiny" black. Her signature "cabbage rose" chintz, paired with bold stripes; her elaborate and ornate plaster designs and moldings – over doors, on walls and ceilings… all contributed to dramatic design often referred to as "the Draper touch".

Additionally, Joan's insistence on proper hostess etiquette comes from Dot herself. In 1941, Draper's book, Entertaining Is Fun! How to Be a Popular Hostess, was a huge best seller. Together, Dot and Joan have a loose and playful sense of decor. Clash the colors, hang an antique mirror and serve the the booze in dingbat-patterned glasses! Be exuberant but never gaudy!

Based on the dataload provided by their two interiors, Roger is a lost cause for the future. And questions about Joan's ability to adapt to what we modern viewers know is the coming cultural shift remain unanswered, but we'll keep checking her couch cushions for clues.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper has been writing The Footnotes of Mad Men since the mid-late-60s.

Movies

· Hey, have you downloaded Patton Oswalt's new stand up album? It's surged up to the number 4 slot on iTunes today. So Patton, a comedic gem, is making his Serious Actor Turn in Big Fan. The trailer will instantly dissolve any skepticism because Patton just looks like he's acting his big, lesbian-lookin' heart out. Also, it's kind of comforting to know that people are downloading a brainy comedian's album in droves. People: they can be great! (Aug 28)

·TIFF! Tiff, what a great name for a festival. Say it aloud, isn't that fun? Okay so: big Important Movies are premiering at this Toronto film festival. Like the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. It's about wormy midwesterners. And, once again, the trailer on its own is marvelous (related: would you like to see my favorite trailers of all time? Here and here.) But TIFF's most anticipated premiere will be The Awl's favorite peen flashing adaptation: The Bad Lieutenant, staring the mystifying Nicolas Cage! The reviews coming out of Toronto should make for some choice reading. (Sept 10)

TV

·A couple of weeks ago I was in a teeny conference room with a writer/actor for The Office and some other oily members of the Hollywood press corp. So. We're chatting about the show and the challenges of writing about Pam's pregnancy. And he was like, "When we can't write something funny, we try to write something real." So it sounds a bit trite now but The Office has done this successfully for five seasons. You try to do that. (Sept 17)

· House. Come on guys, Hugh Laurie is a dish. He can do no wrong because of this:

(Sept 21)

DVD
· Crank 1 was described by our hero, Patton Oswalt, as the "the cinematic equivalent of meth, terror, oral sex and shameful joy, delivered at the end of a taser." Crank 2 totally outdoes the lung-bursting, shame inducing, shit-your-pants action of its predecessor. (Sept 8)

· Obsessed is basically like The Room with Beyonce. It is out on DVD this week. It makes every bad decision a movie can make but does it with complete conviction. (Today!)

· Stuff Happens with Bill Nye comes out next week! Bill Nye is how my snot-nosed generation understood the scientific repercussions of putting our faces on hot stoves! (Sept 1)

Music
· Jay-Z: Blueprint 3.0. When I was too lazy to take the train back to my austere apartment in Brooklyn, I would pay a cab driver to take me. When we could come over the bridge, a giant billboard of Jay-Z would emerge on the horizon. Here's something I have never felt for a musician before: proud to live in his hometown. We must believe in Jay-Z for he believes in us. (9/11.)

· Juliette Lewis: Terra Incognita. We are going to buy this as a novelty item. Maybe we will like it! (9/1.)

· Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs. The thing is, we buy all these albums. Sometimes we love them! Sometimes they come on your iShuffle and make you sleepy. (9/8.)

Tickets
· AN EVENING WITH MARIANNE FAITHFULL at Town Hall. If you can still get tickets? Get them. (9/24)

· Also Motorhead is playing at Roseland! (9/9)

CANCELED
· "THE 50TH LAW-Book Tour with Robert Green and 50 Cent." Some things were too good to be true.

⚀ When the scheming Vice President of Madison Sq. Garden chastised Communist/bear Paul Kinsey for being just like the no-goodnik "Ada Louise Huxtable," he was referring to the much-awarded architecture critic who is still elegantly trashing developers over at the Wall Street Journal. In 1963, when the war for Penn Station was lost, Huxtable wrote a rich and wry farewell for the Times: "Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

Well, Huxtable went on to win a Pulitzer in 1970 and Linkin Park eventually sold out the Garden. So, you see, everyone wins in the future.

⚁ Speaking of the future, nobody really thought diet sodas were going to be a big thing—except Royal Crown Cola! From 1961 to 1963, Royal Crown was selling 50 million cases of the sugar-free soft drink a year. To compete, Pepsi created Patio Diet Cola. One Pepsi official said that the soda giant wanted "new consumers—those people who because of weight or health problems never have consumed soft drinks."

But Pepsi was fearful to lend their brand name to a new and risky venture like diet soda. Patio crashed and took on the title Diet Pepsi in 1964. I guess the name Pepsi sounds more refreshing than an outdoor floor.

⚂ And on the subject of floors, Roger Sterling threw out a reference over a tense round of drinks about making a "Yetta Wallenda-sized misstep." Wallenda was a famed circus performer and tightrope walker who plunged to her death in 1963. Wallenda was part of The Great Wallenda family troupe of circus performers. 
The Wallendas often had close scrapes with death during their years of aerial acrobatics. Two Wallendas died in 1962 when a human pyramid of seven collapsed. The night of her death in Omaha, Walleneda was billed as one-of-a-kind performer who was "skirting on the borderline of eternity."

Don't that ring true.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper has been writing The Footnotes of Mad Men since the mid-late-60s.

At 2 a.m. on Friday, people started to line up for treatment. Most patients are local. Some drove in from San Francisco and a few folks came from Nevada. It's not a destitute crowd. Many are working families, though some attendees hail from shelters. Hundreds slept on the sidewalk outside of the Forum to be granted access around 6 a.m.

The patients are mostly black, Latino, and Korean residents of L.A.'s working class suburbs like Compton, Hawthorne and Boyle Heights. They are service workers, seniors, immigrants and children who have not seen a doctor since the day they were born.

The majority of people came to get their teeth fixed. During the first two days of service, RAM dentists have put in 947 fillings.

Dawna and I sat in the bleachers of the Forum. She is small woman with a nut-colored tan and sun-bleached hair. Dawna was about to be the 425th dental patient seen today. Dawna "was conceived on Venice beach" and currently lives in her van by the Venice boardwalk. She has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety. She takes her meals at a shelter. She can no longer chew food because of impacted incisors. Ten years ago, however, Dawna worked as a home health in aide in Texas and Alaska.

"When I eat," Dawna said, her hands clutching her jaw, "my gums bleed. I'm in pain all the time." She tells me that she hopes that the dentist will just pull her front row of teeth out.

They will. Crowns, caps, and fillings are expensive procedures that require follow-up, which patients can't afford. Most the dentists working on the floor are going to yank a bad tooth rather than try to restore it. By Saturday morning, RAM dentists had removed 471 teeth.

According to the registration volunteers, most RAM patients seeking medical attention suffered from chronic conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes. These are all conditions that spur other medical aliments. If patients who suffer from chronic conditions were able to receive care early and often, treatment would be less costly as conditions would be less severe.

SANTA BARBARA—During the cross examination of Jesse James Hollywood, District Attorney Joshua Lynn approached the witness stand with a small, bulging envelope. He plucked a ring from the envelope and asked, "Do you recognize this ring?"

"No, sir," Hollywood said.

"You're telling me you don't recognize this ring?" Lynn asked. Hollywood said no. Lynn slipped the ring back into the envelope and took an extended pause before more questions.

This is the moment when Jesse James Hollywood lost his capital murder case. Not long after, it would be recommended by the jury that he spend the rest of his life in prison, without parole. In October, the judge will or will not accept the jury's recommendation.

The ring is chunky and gold with a wide band and a square black face. It's a ring that's meant for the thick fingers of man, not those of a bony teenager. Starting with Nick's grandfather, the ring was given to the Markowitz men on their 16th birthday. At the reception for Nick's bar mitzvah, Ben, his older step-brother, turned up drunk. Nick's mother was upset and wanted Ben removed. He was belligerent and demanded to drive Nick home. The family quarreled in an upstairs recreation room at Shomrei Torah Synagogue. Ben cooled. To make amends, he gave Nick their father's ring. After that night, Nick was never seen without it.

Though he didn't recognize it, Hollywood had seen the ring at least twice before.

The first time was during the van ride up to Santa Barbara two days before Nick's murder. According to testimony, after beating Nick to the ground and tossing him into a borrowed van, Hollywood and William Skidmore confiscated Nick's pager, wallet, address, book and the ring. Hollywood sat in the passenger's seat and placed all the items on the dashboard until they reached Santa Barbara.

The second time Hollywood saw the ring was when it was presented as evidence at the beginning of his own murder trial.

In his five-hour final address, Lynn presented the jury with a meticulously prepared PowerPoint presentation. There were 178 slides in total, 78 quotes from the record with corresponding page numbers, transcripts of 911 calls. All the slides were outfitted with a blue background and yellow font. The presentation reconstructed the chronology Nick's beating, kidnapping, and murder; it was designed to show Hollywood's hand actively moving those events along. Lynn concluded his closing remarks with a series of photographs that left Nick's parents, members of the audience and some jurors sobbing.

You would not know that you were looking at a cadaver at first glance because the picture is a close-up of a boy's shirtless back. The frame begins below his shoulder blades and cuts off at his hips. Blue boxer shorts narrowly puff out over the waistline of his jeans. His skin is a sickly yellow with streaks of dirt across it. His wrists cross over one another. Giant silver cocoons of duct tape, about an inch thick, obscure his hands.

The next picture was taken inside a lab or a morgue. It's a snapshot of a hand. The fingers are swollen and look as though they've been dipped in a dark rubber. After death, the process of cellular breakdown causes the flesh to loosen, peel off and blacken. It's called 'skin slip' or 'gloving.' The hand in the photograph lies limply, naked, except for a thick gold ring.

The last picture is of the backside of small, brown, skull. In the middle of the skull is a raised ridge where it looks as though two plates have been welded together. To the left of the ridge is a bullet-hole.

During the last few minutes of Lynn's closing remarks, the gruesome photo of Nick's decomposed hand lingered on the projector screen. Lynn reminded the jury that though Hollywood was able to recall what he had for lunch ten years ago, he was either unable or unwilling to place where he had seen Nick's gold ring before. It seemed, according to Lynn, that Hollywood only has a fantastic "memory for things that don't get him in trouble."

"This case reminds me of the movie Get Shorty," defense attorney Alex Kessel said to the jury in his turn. "It's a movie about L.A. and the film business. Here, in this courtroom, in Santa Barbara, it's more like Get Hollywood."

Kessel attacked the state's unwillingness to call conspirator Ryan Hoyt as a witness and their refusal to allow phone records into their case that would prove Hollywood never made any attempt to contact the Markowitz family. His point was: the charge that Hollywood ordered Nick killed for revenge or ransom was unfounded. Kessel fired off for another hour, assailing this small matter and that.

During this, the reporters around me, who were usually diligent note-takers, put their pens down. I wondered if they stopped writing for the same reason I did: Kessel's argument was so scattered and confusing, it was near impossible to follow. Maybe that was the point.

Kessel's colleague James Blatt, the more obnoxious of the two, this time took the more restrained approach. He began by addressing a query that the defense had carefully avoided: what was Ryan Hoyt's independent motive for killing Nicholas Markowitz? (Hoyt was convicted for his role in the murder in 2000; he is currently on death row at San Quentin.)

"What motivates young people?" Blatt asked. He tried out a theory. Hoyt was driven to murder because he wanted "acceptance." Blatt described Hoyt as a delusional, broken boy who wanted to emulate the gangster lifestyle and was able to fulfill that dream by spraying a teenager's body with bullets.

But as for Hollywood, Blatt said, well: given his obsessive compulsion for order and detail, he would have never been a part of such a poorly-constructed plan. Even though he was a drug dealer, Blatt said, "he was a businessman"—and would have never let a brute like Hoyt handle his affairs.

Blatt thought that this case was similar to what he thought of as the U.S. government's regular prosecution of outsiders. Blatt likened this case to Japanese internment camps, the McCarthy trials, and the frenzied persecution of child molesters of recent decades. Blatt described Hollywood as an outsider, too. He was a privileged young man who owned his own home but obtained it through illicit means.

Blatt wondered if the case would have attracted as much attention if Jesse James Hollywood "had a different name?"

Jesse James Hollywood owned the Tec-9 that was used to kill Nick Markowitz. Hollywood beat Nick and took his grandfather's ring. The van that Nick was thrown into belonged to Hollywood's godfather. Ben Markowitz owed Hollywood money but Hollywood was too afraid to confront Ben directly.

When you put these facts together, the prosecution argued that you have means, motive and a weapon that all trace back to Hollywood. But these facts were known even before the case went to trial. So did Jesse James Hollywood willfully set into motion a chain of events that caused the murder of Nick Markowitz? The jury, at least, said yes.

But was this verdict inevitable? Not at all. Hollywood was not present at the time of the murder and was not convicted on aggravated kidnapping (he was convicted on a lesser kidnapping charge), presumably because Nick was left unrestrained for most of his capture. Hollywood was recommended for life in prison, in part, largely because his defense team failed to provide any compelling counternarrative for Hollywood's motives and actions.

And though the defense had Hollywood testify, his endless denial of any responsibility reinforced a perception that he was a ruthless operator.

When the pictures of Nick's remains flashed inside the courtroom Jeff and Susan Markowitz pressed their faces together and let out sobs. During Blatt's closing remarks, he implied that the Markowitzes were playing up the drama for the jury. They had seen the pictures several times before. From the audience, Jeff snapped, "It's been ten years."

Judge Brian Hill intervened and asked the defense if they wanted Nick's father removed from the court. Jeff said there would be no need and walked out of the courtroom. Hours of remarks passed. Too nervous to hear Lynn's final words, I left during one of Blatt's last objections. Outside on the empty steps of the courthouse, Jeff stood waiting for Susan. I stood with him and we spoke about Nick. He was anxious but composed.

I had taken a call on my cellphone when the members of the Hollywood family came out. Jack Hollywood, Jesse's father, approached Jeff. Jack told him he was sorry for what had happened but assured Jeff that no one from Jack's family would ever hurt his. Jeff did not respond, and Jack Hollywood swiftly walked away.

The mood of people in the shops and hotel lobbies was low-key. Lots of folks in tacky memorial shirts, some with raised emotions. Some blubbering women made me blush but really nothing big. Hollywood felt as enthused as it did during any big event at the Staples Center—which even as I type, I realize isn't true because people were ecstatic about the Lakers. So, this was the variety of reflected reverence accorded to, say, a New Edition reunion concert: nostalgic but controlled.

There was a gathering of about 50 people at Michael Jackson's star on the Hollywood walk of fame around 3 p.m. I've stood in longer lines to vote, ride a roller coaster, and buy peasant bread at Trader Joe's. There were some flowers, teddy bears, candles. People stood in a line that was half a block long (about the span of 15 Hollywood stars, from Harrison Ford to Lucille Ball). Poor Tommy Lee Jones! There was a traffic cone right on his star!

People were polite and chatty. They used their cameras to take pictures of the guy dressed up like Superman and/or Jesus, and Tom Cruise's footprints, and each other. But there was something eerily off-putting about the guy dressed up in an uncanny Heath Ledger-as-the-Joker outfit. He stood smirking and rubbing his hands alongside the line. People took pictures with him too. How soon we forget!

At the end of the line, the people, with huge grins on their faces, had their pictures taken as they put their arm around a cardboard cut-out of a ghostly white Michael Jackson, right next to his star. Then they'd wander over to plant their hands on George Burns' palm prints outside of the Chinese theater.

What was fascinating to watch was the relentless hustle of the t-shirt street vendors. They had everything! Baggy t-shirts with loud collages of Jackson, baby tees embossed with golden lettering that said "POP IS DEAD," tank tops, hats, posters, and fans. When the vendors would run out of t-shirts, a man in a car came and delivered more. I asked one guy how many he sold; he said about 125 since noon, at $10 a pop. These men move product with an incredible efficiency. Someone wants an extra-small? If one guy doesn't have it, another vendor will snap up the sale and the two will split the profit.

These men are at every event in L.A. I remember first noting their tenacious business model at a collapsed apartment building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The t-shirts read: '7.4: I SURVIVED THE BIG ONE!' Was it a recession proof industry? They said yes!

In fact, the earthquake was a 6.7.

I have to imagine things would have been way more insane if the memorial was held at Neverland. Meaning: people would have to drive an hour away from anything to stand in line, sob, snap, walk, and then drive away again. There would be this concentrated bubble of grief festering in Santa Barbara that would have then spilled back into the city.

But the fact that the death of Michael Jackson was acknowledged by the city of L.A. and, like, THE WORLD, made diffuse the (supposed) intensity of the situation. Unlike the Princess Di death, where there was a total lack of official acknowledgment by the monarchy/state, this time, in L.A., it was like, "OK, REGULAR PEOPLE, WE KNOW THIS IS A BIG DEAL." And the regular people were all, "Okay. Cool. When's lunch?"

SANTA BARBARA—Yesterday I arrived at the Santa Barbara courthouse during the trial's lunch break, and so I wandered over to a small café off the main shopping drag. The place was called Judge For Yourself. Jack Hollywood and his family, all blondes with tan skin and bright clothing, sat at a corner table with their diner fare. I approached the counter and kept my gaze locked on the menu.

I remembered when, after we had witnessed Jesse James Hollywood get fingerprinted and jailed, we—the Markowitz family, some friends and I—went to eat at a family diner south of Santa Barbara. When we asked for the check, a teary-eyed waitress explained that the bill had been taken care of. She delicately put her arms around Nick's mother.

This time, I ordered a BLT. Over on the wall by where the Hollywood family were eating was a hand-stitched needlework. It read: "Lawyers don't die, they just lose their appeal."

District Attorney Joshua Lynn held up an 8 by 10 photograph for the defendant. The picture was a school portrait of a sleepy-eyed boy with gelled brown hair and a sideways smile.

"Whom is this a picture of?" Lynn asked Jesse James Hollywood, who took the stand in his own defense this week.

"It's a picture of Nicholas Markowitz," Hollywood said.

"Do you realize that in your three hours of direct examination today you rarely mentioned Nick's name?" Lynn asked.

Hollywood stammered. Lynn went on: "This is what Nick looked like." Throughout the cross examination, Lynn made sure to only reference Nick in the past tense and he made sure Hollywood did the same.

Hollywood is the first witness for the defense. His testimony is, to be quite obvious, is meant to present a narrative for his case. Instead of being the masterminding drug-thug who exacted revenge on Ben Markowitz by abducting and murdering Ben's younger brother Nick, Hollywood portrays himself as a passive bystander to the violence. Hollywood maintains that when he and three other men assaulted Nick and "ushered" him into a van, he had no further plans to physically harm Nick. And although the gun that was used to kill Nick belonged to Hollywood, he was not present for its use. In this version, the slap-dash capture and subsequent murder of Nick Markowitz up in the mountains was devised and perpetrated by Hollywood's crew.

Lynn asked how much force Hollywood used when he pinned him against a tree, while his previously-convicted accomplices William Skidmore and Jesse Rugge punched Nick in the stomach before they threw him in the van.

Hollywood explained that he had to use a significant amount of strength because "Nick is taller than me."

"Nick was taller than you. He was taller than you, Mr. Hollywood," Lynn said.

Lynn's questioning was controlled, methodical, and unrelenting. He challenged Hollywood to make definitive statements about the "decision-making." Lynn insisted that Hollywood pinpoint whether he believed each action he took "was a good idea or a bad idea."

Hollywood responded with the same answer several times: "It was a stupid idea."

Judge Brian Hill interrupted, unprompted. "You are not testifying on how you feel now," he said. "You are testifying on how you felt then."

Hollywood contends that it was because Ben Markowitz had smashed the windows of his West Hills home that he was motivated to drive by the Markowitz's house. According to Hollywood, he was looking for a confrontation with Ben. "It was the straw that broke the camel's back," he said.

Instead they found Nick.

Throughout his entire testimony, Hollywood has been careful to not use the words "kidnap" or "murder." He consistently referred to the crimes he's being accused of "the situation" or " the incident." Lynn tried to dismantle Hollywood's benign language. When Hollywood wouldn't budge, Lynn sarcastically adopted Hollywood's descriptions. Lynn referred to Nick's abduction as "the event that caused Nick to be ushered into the van." Several jury members smirked.

Hollywood is a compact man. He is short with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and arching cheekbones. He has a soft, strangled voice. And though he spent the past four years in Brazil, where he married and fathered a child, he still maintains the Southern California affectation of dragging the last word of every sentence upwards so most of his statements sound like questions. He also has a sedate but irrepressible swagger. If we were in school, a teacher would call it "getting cute."

Lynn asked what was going through Hollywood's mind when he encountered Nick that night. Hollywood said he wasn't thinking of anything specific. After several minutes of phrasing and rephrasing the question to draw a more concrete response, Lynn asked, "Do you think you were being irrational?"

"You could say that," Hollywood said.

"I am saying that. What do you say?" Lynn asked.

"About what?" asked Hollywood.

Whenever Lynn was able to get Hollywood to reveal any unsavory details about his character, Hollywood would double back and contort his testimony. Lynn asked Hollywood when he decided to have the murder weapon, a Tech DC-9 machine gun, modified from semi-automatic. Hollywood said he couldn't recall and said that even though he owned a machine gun, a pistol, and a rifle, he wasn't really a "gun person."

This careful avoidance of culpability made his testimony appear over-rehearsed. Hollywood said he regretted "the terrible situation" so many times that eventually the judge asked him to stop. Hollywood's detached, dry repetition of remorse, the kind of penance found in high school detention hall, was undermined by what he was so obviously omitting. Whatever humanizing counter-narrative Hollywood was expected to create while telling a story that we have waited to hear for nearly a decade—well, none of it materialized.