the sobsister

Poster by John Rooney. If you'd like to buy a copy, proceeds will benefit children and families in Palestine.

Ivan Dalla Tana, (untitled) (1982)

Dalla Tana, working in NYC in the early ‘80s, photographed a number of Keith Haring’s subway drawings, the series subsequently called Art in Transit. In many cases, these photos are the only record of an incredibly ephemeral yet significant and impactful body of work.

"Kar-Mi Swallows a Loaded Gun Barrel and Shoots a Cracker from a Man's Head" (n.d.)

Kar-Mi (né Joseph Hallworth in Chelsea, Mass.) had quite a career in the sideshows:

Follower of Jacques Bellange, Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (c. early 17th c.)

"Vision of Saint Catherine of Siena Drinking from Christ’s Side Wound," Geistliche Rosengarten (Life of Saint Catherine of Siena after Raymond of Capua). Date: Early 15th century (ca. 1425 AD).

"According to Catherine’s biographer, Raymond of Capua, the saint was caring for a woman named Andrea—a Sister of Penance of St. Dominic—who suffered from a horribly foul-smelling, festering cancerous sore on her chest (though secondary accounts vary on the specific disease). The stench was so unbearable that Catherine felt nauseated and was about to vomit.⁣ ⁣ To overcome her physical disgust and 'mortify her flesh,' Catherine drank the pus and bloody water from the basin used to wash the woman’s sore—down to the last drop. The very next night, Jesus appeared to her in a vision and said:⁣ ⁣ 'Because you, for the love of me, have drunk that liquid which human nature finds repulsive, I in turn will give you a supernatural drink—the drink that flows from my own side'."⁣ (@archaeologyart on IG) File under: Early-modern Catholicism normalizes mental illness like nobody's business. Also: Modern Catholicism normalizes Catherine of Siena's body horror/lust fixations on blood like nobody's business.

See also: "holy anorexia." Rudolph Bell's book by the same name, and Carolyn Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast are good sources for academic inquiry into the topic.

"Exterior of Kaleidoscope Pavilion, with uniformed hostess" at Expo 67, Montreal

"Sponsored by six Canadian chemical companies and conceived with the theme of 'colour,' Kaleidoscope was created by the University of Waterloo’s Institute of Design and the Toronto industrial design firm of Morley Markson and Associates. The pavilion exterior was designed as a cylindrical carousel of 112 vertical fins making up a three-dimensional colour wheel."

Robert Johnson, "Come On in My Kitchen"

Broadside Bloody Butchery by the British Troops; or The Runaway Fight of the Regulars (1775)

A 2015 profile of Marcia Lucas, George Lucas' wife, editor, and collaborator on the OG trilogy. Her edits, suggestions, and ideas shaped the films that then shaped a generation.

Despite this, she has been, informed sources write, erased from the Star Wars narrative or reduced to a footnote, a sentence here and there.

She divorced Lucas the year Return of the Jedi premiered, and the series promptly went in the shitter.

The article reproduces a telling quote from Peter Biskind’s 1997 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls:

“I felt that we had paid our dues, fought our battles, worked eight days a week, twenty-five hours a day,” she said.

“I wanted to stop and smell the flowers. I wanted joy in my life. And George just didn’t. He was very emotionally blocked, incapable of sharing feelings. He wanted to stay on that workaholic track. The empire builder, the dynamo. And I couldn’t see myself living that way for the rest of my life.

“I felt we were partners, partners in the ranch, partners in our home, and we did these films together. I wasn’t a fifty per cent partner, but I felt I had something to bring to the table. I was the more emotional person who came from the heart, and George was the more intellectual and visual, and I thought that provided a nice balance.

“But George would never acknowledge that to me. I think he resented my criticisms, felt that all I ever did was put him down. In his mind, I always stayed the stupid Valley girl. He never felt I had any talent, he never felt I was very smart and he never gave me much credit.

“When we were finishing Jedi, George told me he thought I was a pretty good editor. In the sixteen years of our being together I think that was the only time he complimented me.”

Marcia Lucas has died, age 80.

She not only shaped the OG trilogy, but she also collaborated with Martin Scorsese on Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, and New York, New York. After her divorce from Lucas, she never edited another film again, retiring to raise their adopted daughter.

An unjustly unknown giant and pioneer. aav.