by Brett Warner
The first copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger I ever saw was an aged, ominous looking mass-market paperback sitting gravely at the top of my mother’s bookshelf. Its cover was a very solemn looking burgundy with gold font announcing its title and author. No picture on the front, no plot summary on the back – this book just simply existed. My mother, having passed on her uncanny hunger for books of all types and sorts, once shared the story of how my grandmother lost her shit when she found out her daughter was learning about this filth in school. I knew then I had to read this book right away.
For six decades, The Catcher in the Rye has been both the most ardently taught and fervently banned book in American literature. Along with James Dean and rock & roll, Salinger’s stream of conscious tale of angst and alienation invented the American teenager and, by extension, changed the way we create and market everything from clothes to music and movies. Its hero is a sixteen year-old, anti-social fuck up named Holden Caulfield, who has been kicked out of at least three private schools, has no qualms about going to New York for the weekend to have a few drinks and pick up some girls, and sees through all the insincere, “phony” bullshit that constitutes ninety-nine percent of our sad, pathetic adult lives.
Caulfield’s attitudes and viewpoints remain evocative of their time and place, when the ever-increasing gulf between childhood and adulthood had nearly imploded and the infuriating restraints of proper society threatened to strangle an entire generation. Yet, his anger and his fear resonate more than half a century later, those immortal words echoing through the dividing, massively constructed social schematas in which we live and breathe with little alternative. Is The Catcher in the Rye still meaningful in 2011? If anything, the book’s message is more imperative now than ever before.
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by Liz Goldwyn
Documentary filmmaker and writer Liz Goldwyn’s lifelong fascination with the inimitable glamour of classic burlesque inspired her to spend the eight years corresponding with, visiting, interviewing, receiving striptease lessons from, and forming close relationships with the last generation of the great American burlesque queens. In her book, Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, Goldwyn steps back into an era when the hourglass figure was in vogue and striptease was a true art form.
Here in this SuicideGirls exclusive, Liz compiles a Top 10 list of Super Sexy Striptease Tips gleaned from studying and/or talking with the burlesque stars of the past and present, such as Zorita, Sherry Britton, Gypsy Rose Lee, Lois de Fee, and her close friend Dita Von Teese.
10 Tips For A Super Sexy Striptease
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by Blogbot
As the LA Weekly’s Nightranger nightlife columnist, Lina Lecaro has clocked up more hours than most in the metropolis’ liquor-soaked lounges. Having an affinity for spots that keep it dingy and real, Lina has condensed the knowledge she’s amassed as a by product of her “day job” into a handy little guide to getting sauced in the city entitled Los Angeles’s Best Dive Bars – Drinking & Diving In the City Angels. In the excerpt below, Lina selects six of her favorite drinking spots that combine well-worn comfort with a rockin’ attitude, and just the right amount sleaze.
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By SG’s Team Agony
Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.
[Salome in Pop Art Clash ]
Q. I’m 26, he’s 50. I really like him, he is respectful, thoughtful, humble, smart, funny, and just an overall wonderful person with good energy. We have been seeing another for about 3 months now. I was in a bad living situation, and I just moved in with him over the weekend. We both have every intention of this being temporary. I know my feelings will get stronger, as they already have in the last month. He occasionally makes jokes about our age difference, and I feel that it bothers him. I’ve never dated anyone even close to his age, nor did I ever see myself doing so, but it doesn’t bother me at all. I guess I’m just wonderingly what the chances are of things working out.
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by Suri Suicide
Artist/SG Member Name: Sundae Suicide
Mission Statement: “I live in Israel, the country of great humus and endless politic conflicts. Non of that actually had any impact on me creatively, though I do love humus. It’s just that drawing was always a thing I did. Since I don’t have an unusual, fancy, interesting life, I make it happen through pen and paper. I’ve never have a “muse” or a vision. I can actually go months without drawing because I just can’t. I get my inspiration through dreams, things that happen around me, my (very troubled) relationships, drugs, mental states and so on…My sketchbook is like my diary, the story of my life – which can sometimes be really crappy and lame, but I try anyway. “
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by Suri Suicide
Artist/SG Member Name: Mrs_Misha
Mission Statement: “My art is a fusion of Japanese anime, Hindu and Buddhist religious imagery, and traditional tattoo design. My favorite subjects to paint are mermaids, pin-ups, geishas, and monsters – preferably a mix of at least two of them at once. I like the dichotomy of having a monster look cute and sweet. My paintings and drawings are not based in reality; I try to create a world where even monsters are cute and the world is a happy place. Seeing the people not as they are but as cartoon characters. I also love doing pop culture art, using the paintings of old masters and redoing them with one of my big-eyed girls. I’ve done several variations of the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and Venus Rising from the Waves. Part of the pop culture love is video game art, tributes to the old 8-bit era, an interest that I’ve had since childhood and was rekindled by a group show I was in at gallery in L.A. in 1988.”
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By SG’s Team Agony
Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.
[Elea in Soul Nighter]
Q. I have a girlfriend named Stephanie and I love her with all my heart. We were together for about three months and everything was perfect. Then she had to move to Miami for family issues and is supposed to come back to Vermont this November. We still talk and she says she loves me a lot still, but her status updates on MySpace and stuff give me a different idea. What should I do? I don’t want to lose her.
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