hensonathon!

In my lifetime, only once have i been deeply moved by the death of someone i'd not met.

Jim henson.

In another year, i'll be the age he was when he died. Perhaps i'll commemorate the observance with a pilgrimage to...well, is there some perfect henson landmark? His creature shop is in England, but that feels like a corporate cringefest waiting to happen.

How about a tribute, by way of ultimate hensonathon!

-The Muppet Show (rita moreno)

-The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (kermit, guest host)

-The Muppet Show (milton berle)

-THE MUPPET MOVIE

-The Muppet Show (marisa berenson)

-LABYRINTH

-The Muppet Show (liberace)

Did i miss any gems? The greatest ernie & bert moment ever? Maybe Fraggle finally produced something worthy in its later seasons? Some obscure TV special? Write in!

your beauty

Forgive my gaze
I see your hidden fears
Your beauty makes me hurt
and mourn this world of tears
I know you see the games
Only survival, no victory
But follow my heart
to transcend insanity!
The rules i'll reject
Negotiation i'll neglect
Unconditionality resurrect
to love and set you free

devour

Don't trust this poetic slate
Words manipulate
Don't countenance my kindness
It begs your blindness
Let me in, let me devour
I'll deify your flower
Hour after hour
Traverse my tower
Encircle my power
Flowering, devouring, then...
showering

"The Jim Henson Hour"

 -created by jim henson

1989-1992

Did you ever have some creation by one of your favorites creators that you missed seeing/hearing for years or decades, so that eventually the anticipation of it became towering in your mind as some sort of lost gem of a genius?

That was this show for me. Jim's return to TV after the success of The Muppet Show. When i finally saw it...WOW, just...

Awful. A trainwreck.

Don't let the semi-long-looking run fool you. It was cancelled in its first year - and deservedly so.

On the surface, it sounds wonderful. Jim starts and ends each show, talking to the audience. Some of the Muppets are back, plus guest stars, plus the Storyteller fairy tale collection, plus other shorts from the henson workshop...but none of it ever gels beyond "forced". Apparently jim had fights with the studio, and was never given the freedom to make it what he wanted. There are similarities to its predecessor - backstage at Muppet Studios, kermit oversees a variety show. But most of the characters are new, and none of them pop. It's basically kermit and gonzo with a little link and a lot of who-the-hell-are-you?

Perhaps the absence of frank oz was the show's death blow. He makes cameos as fozzy and piggy, but...was he off being yoda? His absence is heart-rending.

There are bright moments...piggy's duet with dudley moore, and the short film "Living with Dinosaurs", which captures the awkwardness and cruelty of childhood with heart and humor...

But overall, watch this only if you're a devoted fan who is comfortable with disappointment.

wrob's practical suggestions for saving the world

Unemployment...the official rate is almost certainly a politically-contrived lie. Is it 20%? 30%? We treat this statistic as a negative, proportional to how high it goes, but i don't see it that way. The more unemployment, the more people not stuck in soul-sucking, criminally non-paying "vocations" that are an assault on humyn health and dignity.

But i'm not immune to the argument that work gives life meaning. So here's how to solve unemployment overnight, and make the lives of the already-employed immeasurably better as well. Cut the weekly hours of everyone working instantly in half, without changing any aspect of their pay or benefits. The unemployed can instantly fill the missing productivity hours, at the same pay rate the original worker was making.

You'll make every worker in America more efficient, energized, and productive, and create a glut of new, desirable jobs the likes of which have never been seen.

And the "american dream" will move closer to not being the howling lie it's always been.

"When God was a Woman"

 -by merlin stone

1976

Historian stone looks at the archaeological/textual evidence for the argument that 3000-2000 years ago, invading indo-european patriarchal religions conquered matriarchal religions. Early judaism and christianity existed side by side with goddess religions, and were instrumental in erasing them. Stone contends that the matriarchal religions were more peaceful, sex-positive, and literate - a claim that may only be a projection of feminist wishful thinking...but no one can argue that patriarchal religions aren't hotbeds of violence, womyn-hating, and sex-shaming, and it's disturbing to see how deeply biblical scripture is both an overt and veiled degradation of half the humyn race. Were these earlier religions truly matriarchal, or just matrilineal/matrifocal? In any event, it's fascinating to see how patriarchy co-opted and re-wrote the myths of these earlier religions.

porn

 I've been watching porn.

By porn, i mean the traditional semi-pejorative definition, low-budget movies poorly (or barely) written, created to show bounteous nudity and real fucking.

I've actually seen very little porn in my life, before this. Oh, i adore a little soft-core, NC-17 action, but the literary snob in me always turned up my nose at traditional porn, plus i never much fancied watching others do what i wanted to be doing. If i'm seeking masturbation fodder, some still images artfully done, or the waterfall scene from "Beastmaster", suits me fine.

I'd only ever seen one full-length porn before, as a teenager. It seemed obvious and crass. Plus one anime tentacle film once, which i thought was actually kind of cute.

But last month, i found myself with access to a free porn channel, and i thought i'd see what the fuss was about.

It was pretty much as expected. Dreary, under-written, and badly-acted.

With one unexpected redeeming quality.

It was soooooo non-neurotic. Blessedly, blissfully non-neurotic. There was no angst, no hand-wringing, no "Oh i can't, oh i must, oh i won't, oh i must..." Just humyn beings getting turned on and fucking. Not until you see sex from this perspective, do you appreciated just how neurotic ALL cinematic depictions of sexuality are. In every mainstream movie ever, from NC-17 all the way to G, any time sex or romance are portrayed or invoked, there's inevitably a tinge (or tonnage) of neurotic oppressiveness that accompanies it.

You can't appreciate how pernicious and unhappy all that weight is, until you see something completely free of it.

Of course, my literary tastes prevent me from dwelling overlong in the land of "porn"...but it all makes me long for the obvious hybrid cinematic sub-genre: porn with real acting and real writing. How can there not have been a studio or three devoted to this? ARE there? How can there not be??

Hollywood sucks, and porn sucks.

I want something sexy and non-neurotic that doesn't suck!

Is that so much to ask?

erosneous

Head, hormones, heart, love, lust, like

We weave a dance, a hypno-trance

Stretching each lover across this graph

It's very funny, why don't we laugh?