sundance

Naked News: Free female condoms, tween sex, and high-tech coitus interruptus

• DC is to become the first city to distribute free female condoms — in beauty salons, stores, and high schools — in an effort to fight HIV.
  
  
• According to Cellphones.org, 15% of Americans have interrupted sex to answer a cellphone call.
  
  
• Speaking of modern life messing with our booty, apparently Americans are too tired for sex almost 25% of the time, according to a new study by the National Sleep Foundation.
  
  

Somebody Feed James Cameron’s Wife. Seriously.

James Cameron with his wife Suzy Amis on the red carpet before the Oscars

Maybe I’m just getting too old and cynical for the Oscars. Heh. When you see Joan Collins out every night, you do start to wonder – what the sam hell is going on? This post will be briefer than the lasts as, well, baby is hungover. Yes, I know. AGAIN. There does seem something so wrong about Oscar week in LA. The abundant narcissism and back slapping is fricking hilarious (“Good Job! That movie you made was awesome! Forget curing cancer – you are the best person alive! Especially because you are so rich and pretty!”).

House Industries vs. Eames

I’ve always adored the guys at House Industries, the font foundry in Delaware that makes really great fonts. Yes, I said fonts. I am a nerd. I know. Anyway, House Industries in recent years has brought fronts from famous designers/architects, like Richard Neutra and Alexander Girard, to life. Now they’re about to unleash a new project with the most iconic of all Mid-century Modernists.

Remembering Raimund Abraham

A few hours after giving a lecture at SciArc in Los Angeles where he taught, experimental architect Raimund Abraham was killed when his car crashed into a bus in downtown. The lecture, “The Profanation of Solitude,” addressed his “enduring love for architecture and his willingness to fight for design discourse,” and surely the monumental buildings he left behind are a testament to just that. Abraham was most famous in the US for the Austrian Cultural Forum, “the most significant modern piece of architecture to be realized in Manhattan since the Seagram Building and the Guggenheim Museum in 1959,” according to architectural historian Kenneth Frampton.

Los Angeles schools seek savings with green upgrades

State-level budget crunches are taking their toll on local school systems, with many resorting to layoffs and service cutbacks to stretch funds. The Los Angeles Unified School District is no different: a quick scan of their news releases shows the board approving layoffs, and the district’s superintendent proposing a shorter school year and even taking furlough days.

LAUSD is also considering some more unusual, and more sustainable, approaches to making ends meet: cutting energy and water use through the implementation of green building and transportation.

How do you define “had sex”?

Go ahead: try to answer that question. It’s tougher than you think. Does it mean intercourse? Then how do gay people “have sex”? Does it involve penetration? Then what about those who only climax from external stimulation? Does it involve orgasm? Then what about all the women who’ve had sexual relations with a second party but never climaxed? Does oral sex count? Not since the Clinton days. Well, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University recently studied this gray area by conducting a random, telephone survey of 204 men and 282 women, mostly hetero, living in Indiana, ranging in age from 18 to 96 — and found no consensus. The L.A. Times summarized the findings like this:

Oscar thank yous

I’d like to thank whoever had enough time to kill to stitch together this 1 minute clip of “thank yous” from Oscar acceptance speeches over the years. The Weinsteins got as many shout outs as God.

Noah Baumbach and Ben Stiller do a whole lot with “doing nothing” in GREENBERG – in theaters March 26

In GREENBERG, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter/director Noah Baumbach (THE SQUID AND THE WHALE) brings us the funny, touching and poignant story of two souls adrift in Los Angeles, trying to forge a connection.

The Six Worst Moments From Last Night’s Oscars

1) Starting the show with the 10 lead acting nominees having to take the stage and smile for the cameras. Doesn’t the rest of the evening torture them enough?

2) The clips for the 10, count ‘em 10, Best Picture nominees. Add them up and they were longer than some of the films themselves! Besides, way back in 1939, the 10 nominees were instant classics like Gone With The Wind, Stagecoach, and The Wizard of Oz. But this year? The Blind Side and District 9! Let’s go back to just five. No, make it three!

3) The way the cameras kept zooming in on the front runners right after they lost. When THE HURT LOCKER won Best Original Screenplay, they closed in on a shaken Quentin Tarantino. After PRECIOUS bagged Best Adapted Screenplay, they cut to a sweaty Jason Reitman. Even when AVATAR lost some sound award, they cut to Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington. This practice totally appealed to the sadist in me, but for the sake of others with some heart, let’s only watch people squirm before they lose from now on.

HOTEL RWANDA on Tastemakers

HOTEL RWANDA (2004) is the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a Hutu hotel manager who took in hundreds of refugees, Hutu and Tutsi alike, during the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which one million people died over the course of only three months in one of the most abominable UN bungles in history. Despite [...]

It’s Hard to be Old, White and Rich in H’Wood These Days

PRECIOUS stars Mariah Carey and Gabourey Sidibe, at the Independent Spirit Awards Wow. The last couple of days have been a BLUR… Friday were the Independent Spirit Awards – which rocked. For some reason the gods decided to bless me and my date, Estee Lauder Pres. John Demsey, and sit us front and center with [...]

Pre-Oscar Parties: A Blur of Vodka, Cigarettes, Lawyers and Space Heaters

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio

When will I learn? Every year I go to LA for the Oscars saying, “I’m not gonna go too crazy…” Right. Because of Mushie (Musharraf) I didn’t get to go to Nicolas Berggruen’s party at the Chateau Marmont – which is a shame. It sounded hilarious. Gerard Butler was there hitting on anything that was an actual woman that moved (what’s new?) while the women only wanted Leonardo DiCaprio. That shit always makes me laugh. It’s like 3 am at a frat party with two targets. And at this point, Gerard Butler is so gross, only the sluttiest of women are into him. It’s been YEARS since 300 and let’s be honest – those years ain’t been good to him (ed. note: Man Boobs!) And Leo? I don’t get it.

Transverse Temporal Gyrus: A Psychedelic Evening with Animal Collective and Danny Perez

Traverse Temporal Gyrus at The Guggenheim. Photo credit: Celia Quinnette

Upon entering the psychedelic bat cave that was Traverse Temporal Gyrus (the latest installation at The Guggenheim from Animal Collective and film artist Danny Perez), you were immediately bathed in a surreal environment of swirling sound and floating images. The museum was abuzz last night as fans crowded in for this special one-day collaborative exhibit. Selling out almost instantly, The Guggenheim had to add an earlier show to accommodate the spiked interest.

Pogo stick art

Pogoism – painting with pogo sticks! from artstartgrant on Vimeo. This promo video for the Australian Council for the Arts is a fun demonstration that combines exercise, a popular childhood toy, and art as two artists bounce around using a pogo (like a kangaroo?) dipped in paint on a large canvas.

THE GHOST WRITER

Set in Martha’s Vineyard and shot off the coast of northern Germany, all is grey and grim and perpetually drizzly in Roman Polanski’s latest directorial effort, THE GHOST WRITER. We never learn the name of The Ghost (Ewan McGregor), who’s hired to finish the memoirs of Adam Lang, the former British Prime Minister, after the first ghost writer is found washed up on the beach, the first in a series of suspicious events that seem to hover around Lang’s house like the dense cloud of fog outside.

Green tech finds (3/4/10)

Robots, biogas, and a green 7-11… it’s green tech finds time! Solar power from pea plants: Many researchers are looking to the plant world for inspiration for harvesting solar energy more efficiently. Prof. Nathan Nelson of Tel Aviv University is looking at pea plants as a potential source of nano materials that could “…form the [...]

Meeting My Mushie

Sometimes I just sit back and look at my life and giggle. It’s like my life goes from the ridiculous to the sublime – or is it the sublime to the ridiculous?

So, I decided to bail on “Oscar” related things yesterday because: 1) On the Wednesday before Oscars not much is really going on, and all the real peeps are home still rehabilitating with ice packs, hoping the Restalyne and botox puffiness will go down by Sunday… AND 2) I got invited to dinner with former (and hopefully future) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. I shit you not. Fun fact: I am a Middle Eastern history buff. So meeting Musharraf to me is like a 14-year-old girl meeting the un-married Jonas Brothers.
Pervez Musharraf AKA My Mushie

Waiting 270 hours for the perfect photo

In pursuit of the perfect photo of wild lions in their natural habitat, specifically that of lions quenching their thirst, wildlife photographer Greg du Toit went to extreme measures. After a year spent digging and hiding in various holes and trenches near the lions water fountains in a failed attempt to capture the eye level, up close and personal photos, he took the plunge so to speak into the lions’ watering spots. After a total of 270 hours in the water (3 hours per day, 7 days a week), the photographer finally got the pictures he wanted, but not before contracting some nasty bugs, such as malaria and bilharzia.

Ralph Helmick’s “Disorders of Magnitude”

Lo here, taking a break from the sex writing for just a day to talk about art. Did you see that cool wall installation made from staples by Baptiste Debombourg that Matthew wrote about the other day? I loved it too. Then, just yesterday, I got a letter from my first cousin once removed, the [...]

Em & Lo’s 1st Annual Hotscars

• Most Disappointing Sex Scene: The Na’vi love scene in AVATAR. Um, how could their tails NOT mesh? We’re waiting for the unrated version on Blue Ray and it better deliver.
• Couple with Least Chemistry: Meryl Streep and Steve Martin in IT’S COMPLICATED

Shacking up for the Oscars: Botox, Boytoys and Big Parties

Actresses Marcia Gay Harden and Susan Sarandon at the 2004 Oscars. Woof.

So. My liver finally recovered from Sundance – just in time for the Oscars! Oh Yeah! And without the altitude to help… Well: the upside is: less High Altitude Flatulence (you know who you are!!!!) but the downside is: the alcohol content in California is considerably more potent than Utah (note to self: no more Dark & Stormy’s!).

72 hours for clean American energy

The news out of Washington has grown discouraging lately. Lawmakers are bickering and Congress is in gridlock. Corporations, meanwhile, have been given license by the Supreme Court to purchase more political influence than ever before.

The Armory Show 2010

You’d never know the economy is still stuck in the mud with some of the outrageously high bids fetched at art auctions in the last year. Andy Warhol’s dollar bill painting went for $43.8 million, a Matisse still life of cowslips went for $45.6 mil and a chalk drawing by Raphael topped them all at $47.5 mil. Of course contemporary art is going for slightly less. A lot less, actually. Sotheby’s London contemporary auction brought in a total of $26 mil, the lowest in 5 years. That said, it will be interesting to see how sales go at The Armory Show this week in NY.

Perpetual domino machine

This perpetual domino machine titled “Ouroborus” by Karl Lautman is mesmerizing to me. The artist explains: I’m fascinated by this tension between what we want, and expect, a machine to do, and what the machine “wants” to do. I call it “machine tension,” or just “McTension.” I explore McTension in my work by making things [...]

Filmmaking at the speed of pink

Filmmaking is becoming a brain science. According to an article “Bringing New Understanding to the Director’s Cut” in the Science section of the New York Times, cinematic language is beginning to align more and more with our natural brain patterns. Researchers at Cornell University have discovered that directors are increasingly using groups of shots of a similar length, edited together in clusters. They call it 1/f (one over frequency) or they call it “pink noise.” Apparently this pattern of pink noise is everywhere in our world…. in a heart beat, the flow of tides and traffic, the movement of our stock market, in the movie BACK TO THE FUTURE (apparently a very pink movie) and most interestingly in the way we think! So the fact that movies might unknowingly take advantage of this pattern almost sounds like accidental brainwashing – perhaps a very good kind of brainwashing but certainly with some questionable side effects. It could at least give me a good excuse for why I sometimes involuntarily cry during the cheesy sad moments of mediocre films (on an airplane with no audio)…