Hidden, the sophomore release by British “art-rockers” These New Puritans, is now available Stateside. You know, as in: domestically. It’s a lot of things, this aural assault: a mélange of the cinematic and the classical, the intimate and the evasive, the post-modern and the profound. However, one adjective that isn’t applicable for what’s quickly become my favorite release of the year (thus far)? Sophomoric.

Spot-check this Most Correct clip for the album’s single “We Want War,” directed by Daniel Askill:

:: click here to obtain :: the ‘neither of either’ :: a ten-incher :: my favorite size… of VINYL, sleazebags! ::

(Gahhh! Mind/Cable Telly, Much?)

&, for those prone to the “Covet. Love It” when it comes to collectibles…

These New Puritans have rarities to offer their disciples:

(A deluxe version of the CD, complete with 80 pg. hardback book? Drool-worthy.)

Full Disclosure: While I Loathe Band “Groupies” (seriously? try screaming at an art opening or academic conference—that’s subversive… whereas offering to give roadies head for a laminate back-stage? such a seventies’ cliché; I’m yawning), I Have An Insatiable Affinity For The Limited-Edition/Signed-&-Numbered/Gatefold/Box Set/3″ CD/10″ EP/Colored Vinyl/Picture Disc Of It All.

& no, I won’t be gauche & remind you I’m an Aries. Instead, moving right along…

The video for “Elvis,” a single from the band’s premiere album Beat Pyramid , is also Most God, Indeed.

† “We’re all waiting/Or Forever Made/And if there is a God, then please take me up…” †

Consider the gents on the handsome side?  You’re not alone.  Twin brothers Jack (vocals) and George Barnett (drums) have been ogled by the fashion set since the band’s inception in 2005. Before they’d even released a full-length album, designer Hedi Slimane commissioned the “band” (translation: George, whom Slimane also featured on the catwalk) to record a soundtrack for his final collection at Dior Homme, the “Hiver” 2007 runway show. This was Barnett’s first professional modeling gig, though the demand for pale, angular creatures from the xy set has kept him busy: campaigns for Lanvin and Ray-Ban; editorials in Dazed & Confused, Zoo, Arena Homme +, 10, GQ, Another Man, and Vogue Hommes Japan; and runway work for dozens of designers, including Burberry Fall/Winter 10/11, Prada, YSL, Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Dries van Noten, Veronique Branquinho, Galliano, and Gucci.

However, insofar as far as my own taste goes? Not that you asked, but I’m backin’ Jack over George. & speaking of back, let’s do exactly THAT

with

Another video from Beat Pyramid: “Swords of Truth”

& here’s a tribute video for TNP song “Costume,” as created by Hugh Alexander Scott-Douglas II

(YouTube channel aaabracadabraa)

Related Text:

“Scrying is a magic practice that involves seeing things supernaturally in a medium, usually for purposes of divination or fortune-telling. The media used are most commonly reflective, translucent, or luminescent substances such as crystals, stones, glass, mirrors, water, fire, or smoke. Scrying has been used in many cultures as a means of divining the past, present, or future. Depending on the culture and practice, the visions that come when one stares into the media are thought to come from God, spirits, the psychic mind, the devil, or the subconscious.”

:: hiding beneath this vicious shade of pink? :: the facebook page :: for ::

:: & yes, they’ve got a MySpazz profile, children :: complete with tour dates :: (though lacking: these United States) :: click here ::

Thanks to a number of friends aware of my affinity-bordering-on-obsession with actress and mega-model Kristen McMenamy, my in-box has been bombarded with .jpegs and .tiffs offering peeks into her latest performance: that of the ‘centerpiece’ for Viktor & Rolf’s AW/11 collection during Paris Women’s Fashion Week.

March 6, 2010 at Espace Ephemere Tuileries

:: The “Glamour Factory” as presented by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren ::

one conveyor belt, two brilliant designers

ten layers of garments, their Ready-To-Wear collection

stripped off the show’s “leading lady,” piece by piece

oftentimes turning them inside out—before

dressing one of the walking-sticks models awaiting.

& then? the inverse:

each wearing black leather caps, sunglasses, their hair pulled back

top models, yes: but in this context,

all just “part of the machinery.”

Replicas.

:: & note :: the dress :: becomes a behemoth Elizabethan collar ::

Brilliant.

Congratulations are in order for auteur Matthew Mishory—in whose biopic  “Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait Of Derek Jarman” I’m honored to appear—for winning The Eastman Kodak Grand Prize for Best Short Film at this year’s US Super 8 and DV Film Festival!

:: forthcoming :: screenings ::

March 4, 2010 & March 6, 2010

at

The Durango International Film Festival in Colorado,

March 5, 2010

at

The Hole On The Hill Gallery & Art Space in Seattle,

as well as

March 10, 2010:

Australian premiere at the
Byron International Film Festival.

“The more personal and affectionate paeans to Derek’s life and work that are out there, like this gorgeous little film, the better.”

– Scott Treleaven, visual artist and filmmaker

Previous Festivals/Retinal Treats:

Delphinium Review by Osmosis.tv

:: click here :: to visit the official website :: delphinium

(Click Image Above To Order)

:: information about ::

“Depression, addiction and mental illness are common problems in the modern world, with one in four people likely to experience a mental health problem every year. Established in 2009, Little Episodes is a not-for-profit organization consisting of professional writers, artists, musicians and actors with two prongs to its mission statement. The first, to destigmatize depression, addiction and mental illness, whilst raising awareness and providing empathy. The second is to provide a platform for talented, emerging and established writers/artists to find community and recognition. We combine the two by giving our participating writers and artists the first statement as their theme.”

Founded in the U.K., Little Episodes also curates ‘Late Night Episodes,’ a recurring event featuring spoken word, performance, music and visual art.  Late Night Episodes is held at the Novas Contemporary Urban Centre (London) on the last Saturday of every month.

]]> http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/new-story-by-clint-catalyst-in-little-episodes-anthology/feed 2 http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/pills-review-in-instinct-magazine http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/pills-review-in-instinct-magazine#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:08:48 +0000 Clint Catalyst http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/?p=2754 February 2004

]]> http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/pills-review-in-instinct-magazine/feed 0 http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/wonderland-at-royal-t http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/wonderland-at-royal-t#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:16:02 +0000 Clint Catalyst http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/?p=2672 At Royal/T Café, Store and Artspace

8910 Washington Blvd, Culver City CA

The evening of February 4th, 2010

was a hare-y sitch for photographer Dirk Mai, as captured by Polite In Public.

har, a hardy-har har—Umm, YEAH.  (How ’bout I spare you guys the slab of  Velveeta?  Sound like a plan?)

That’s what I thought…

Chubby Bunny (L) and Yume Ninja (R) of Bubble Punch brought cosplay Correctness for us to look upon,

Whereas Lenora Claire —another ‘repeat offender’ on this humble Dot Com—fully LET US HAVE IT with a mind-melding, retinal-shattering, hot hot hottt hairstyle!

Oh! But what have we here? An adorable  Kat Lee , per chance?

As a matter of fact, yes: yes it is, indeed… and in the haus with her band mate and business partner, the multi-talented Kaila Yu (L)!

Our exploration of Correct Culture continues

with burlesque beauty Courtney Cruz sandwiched between an Alice duo… ♥

(while pssst! Here’s a little “JSYK,” if by chance you’re in the No instead of know):

The estimable Miss Cruz presents “tassle-twirling with a spin” at her once-a-month installment of The Devil’s Playground at Bordello bar. Described by journalist Erin Broadley as “Beyond traditional fan dancing and martini bathing,” the Devil’s Playground “integrates pop culture and niche fan favorites with the classic art of the striptease, modernizing burlesque with cleverly themed, character-driven performances like Video Game Girls, Comic Book Vixens and…Tails From the Crypt.” Known most recently for creating a disturbance in The Force for her Star Wars-themed bump-and-grind, it’s no wonder the L.A. Weekly deemed this Busty Storm Trooper’s resident troupe as Best Burlesque Club of 2009.

Here, Cruz exercised control with chanteuse Jessicka Addams and Mia Vixen, one of The Devil’s Playground performers.

Wait a minute.  I mentioned this was an art opening; didn’t I?

Oh-Kay.

Unfortunately, the gallery ran out of catalogs—so I can’t even credit the Kunstler responsible for the creation pictured above.  That being said, please allow me to segueway back to other deep and meaningful content, such as

the photo booth fun I had myself…ditto, Ela Darling and The Dirkulous Maximus.

Caught here on the other side of the camera is “Nightranger’s intrepid reporter Lina Lecaro,

whose years of  fearless ventures—from immersing herself deep in the trenches of trannies werkin’ the merkin to ravers wielding glow-sticks as if they were num chucks—have garnered her quite The Reputation.

Incidentally, Lecaro “dipped into the population” this eve not only for the sake of a newspaper word count, but also to celebrate the completion of her first full-length manuscript. (No, people: I didn’t say script. Leave those to your dental hygenist, who’ll likely have “something for you to look over” before the luxury of another kind of script gets written.  Oy.)

By manuscript, I mean book—of which her debut is titled
Los Angeles’s Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the City of Angels.  Its release date is May 1st, 2010

but why not go ahead and pre-order the betch?  Assuming you remembered to close out your tab at the bar last night, that is!   Such a hassle, retrieving one’s 16-digits on plastic The Day After.  Isn’t it?  [AHEM!]  I mean: So I’ve Heard.

“Besides: it’s not like I had a hang-over or anything!  It was more like…a lean-over.”   Yeah.  That was it—

:: oh my! ::

Back To Alice/On The Flip,

through the proverbial looking glass:

Alice & Absinthe. And Absenta. In absentia… Obviously, like Mr. Carroll, I’m a big fan of word play. ~Such breaking news this is; innit?

No, really: the photographers positioned me like this.  I was doing any but anything other than advertising the New & Improved “Hater” Prize Ribbon!

BAM!  Flawlashness revisited, with Miss Lenora Claire—

whereas totes the LOLercaust is pictured above.  Check me out, all tryin’ it —Rude with a ‘Tude, in a Buffalo Stance. As if! Basking in bad-assery, I am not…

However, this intimidating shopkeep?  Dare you cross such a retail terror? In the only image I captured by camera, it appears as if Mr. Jared Gold dared party-goers to dislike the wares of his pop-up store.

Conversely, this photo pilered from Lina Lecaro’s coverage of the Royal-T party is a more accurate representation.

And an accurate representation is what we’re going for here, yesiree! In the words of The Duchess herself: “Be what you would seem to be”—or if you’d like it put more simply—

“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”

Until next time—

:: Say What You Mean ::

x o x

C

The ability to send the blood rushing—to thaw hearts as impenetrable and cold as marble—through a glacial striptease?

This is what it is to cast spells: not of the premeditated chanting from a back-room magick book, none of the hackneyed “add this herb; follow these directions; do it THIS WAY, no THIS WAY, no THIS WAY.” There is no guide book for psyche-penetration, no recipe by which one can be taught how to affect the human condition effectively.

It just it what it is: a medium that for some, is a camera lens; for others, a paint brush & a canvas stretched to its limits; others still, a pen hungry for pages on which it can conduct, gather all the energy from the soil on which we stand to mustering up the truth tucked deep inside us, an honesty of whom we really are versus how we present ourselves or what others perceive us to be—and it’s in the marrowbones, the core of our beings.

And what it is?

Something raw and real and imperfect.  Something greater than I can assign nomenclature—let alone fully comprehend. It’s a force that travels through us yet belongs not to us; it’s those “accidents” that happen when we don’t set out To Create but seem to create themselves for us all the same…those inexplicable pieces of perfection for which we somehow feel we weren’t responsible, or perhaps can’t pinpoint with specificity. Can’t name a technique or place in this space, a state of being I won’t pretend to understand though have heard referred to as La Duende, the spirit of evocation, a state of possession : vox popula. Vox populi—a sense of I can’t tell you ‘How I Did It’ when it feels as if I wasn’t even at the wheel

yet

what we see, what we discover is credited as ‘ours,’ what we feel equal parts distant from as well as intimately involved—it’s when our limbs jangle and that four-chambered metronome pounds against our sternum, and the eyes and voices and fingertips of others respond, pounding sentences out in a quicksilver frenzy.  It’s when an image you took has the power to peel back the ribs of a stranger, or near-stranger, or incite the syllables and consonants that come rushing out at 1:31 a.m. to be ’strange’ enough, strange enough;

It’s when all the odds are stacked against your viewer, yet he throws every ounce of his being down along with his better judgment. All bets are off in moments like these, in a moment like this, when your brow is furrowed & mouth hangs open in disbelief and the little voice nestled in your skull asserts “This is insane!” in a whisper, the words scalpels…

And yeah: insane it is. Would you opt for the blandular instead, the khaki-clad with lips pursed for air kisses and ass kissing? Would you rather have the safe-yet-soggy response that’s the verbal equivalent of a microwave pizza box lining?  Because in three minutes I may splash faucet water on my face, feel the shock as I regain physicality and shrug off this rant of a reaction.  In three minutes I may very well glance back with a deep-throated laugh and ask myself “Seriously, What. The. Fuck?”

But three minutes is a long time. Don’t believe me?  Set your alarm; then hold your breath.

What the fuck?  Seriously: because I live for this madness, I live for the spine-snap urgency to bound down the staircase and haunt my neighborhood streets—Micheltorena, Sunset Blvd., Alvarado—to dig my fingernails into the raw evening, to tear down the sky and polish the stars. I live. I live for.

I live for these unforeseen moments of inspiration in which I feel alive alive alive…

They’re how I know I exist: the flames lapping at the backside of my corneas like the backlash of a furnace blast.  The sensory overload.  The feral fervor. I live for this severity that destroys any sense of severity, no matter if when or how much I feel it siphoning the life force out of me.

While you may not be poisoned with the same ‘unnamed ‘which wears me down to an angry frazzle, I’m drawn to some irrational spirit of artistry  I intuit is chambertombed to you, to your need to search and to see and to leave something lasting, some body of work that no longer has to be searched for, as it’s already found; as it’s already found you; it’s found you,

found it’s you.

]]> http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/the-visualthe-verbal-speaking-in-hieroglyphics-grabbing-language-by-the-throat/feed 0 http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/retail-pervery http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/retail-pervery#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:31:53 +0000 Clint Catalyst http://www.clintcatalyst.com/blog/?p=2626 (…and it’s long overdue)

THE SIXTH PRIZE RIBBON among

the JARED GOLD/CLINT CATALYST CO-BRANDED MERCHANDISE—

as modeled by the Most Correct Miss Lenora Claire , an L.A.-based art curator, freelance writer, television/nightlife personality and phenomenonicon.

Item Description:

Congratulations! You are really did it this time! You’re twisted, deviant, salacious, and—of course, lovable. What better way to announce it to the world than this “Perv” Prize Pin?

:: CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS NOW! ::