One more part coming tonight. Hopefully I'm finally getting over whatever's been making me so ill/exhausted/migrainy these past 2+ weeks and can soon function normally in society again. Hopefully. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, Part 3 I find it hard to imagine that sideshow based entertainment like Geek Love could exist without one of the most controversial and career destroying films of all time. Freaks is Tod Browning's opus. Tod Browning could have become one of the most successful directors of all time. There is no denying he was a prolific director in the early days of Hollywood: 58 films in 17 years is nothing to sneeze at. That's roughly 3 1/2 films a year on average, though he did direct less films each year. He directed 62 films in total before giving up 7 years after Freaks. His most famous work would have to be Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi.
I wish I could find a clip of one of the more atmospheric elements of the film, but this does the job nicely. Browning was not afraid to leave the camera on a performer. Look how long the cuts are between Van Helsing and Dracula in that clip, how much space is left for genuine reaction and character development, how effective the twitch of a lip or tilt of a face was when given enough time to sink in. It still gives me chills after so many viewings. The release of Freaks a year later in 1932 was a long time coming. Tod Browning pushed MGM Studios to purchase the rights to a short story called "Spurs" by Tod Robbins years before. The story concerns a little person falling in love with a bareback rider at the circus, only to be targeted by the rider and her real lover when they discover he has received a large inheritance. The plans fall asunder when the rider insults the little person on their wedding night, claiming she can carry him from one side of France to the other on her shoulders, humiliating her new husband. As revenge, he forces the rider to carry him on her shoulders a distance equal to the width of France. It's a disturbing concept that forms the loose basis of Browning's film. Freaks has been experiencing a sort of renaissance in film culture. What was once disregarded as pure exploitation is now appreciated in three very different lights. One, for the skill with which Browning made the film and speculation as to how much better his original cut of the film had to be. Two, as well crafted historical documentation of many famed sideshow performers. Three, as a very effective horror film. All three ideas are a validation of Browning's skill, and truly point out the loss created by his retirement in 1939. I'll leave you with the most famous scene of the film, for now: the wedding night:

Labels: dracula, freaks, geek love, katherine dunn, tod browning

I will go full circle back into a closer text based analysis on Saturday as I feel Tuesday glossed over far too many issues. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn: Part 2 Geek Love could not exist without the strange and disturbing world of the freak show. Assuming the rough definition of an exhibition of oddities or rarities, we can safely say the earliest documented case of a freak show comes from the 1630s, where Lazarus Colloredo toured throughout Italy displaying his parasitic twin brother Joannes Baptiste. An etching follows: Peter I the Great of Russia should perhaps be credited with the earliest instance of a more familiar incarnation of the freak show in the 18th Century. He collected human oddities at Russia's first museum, the Kuntskammer. This marked the known introduction of the variety element of the freak show. The collection did not travel as we would imagine freak shows do. Popularity of the freak show did not really gain popularity in the United States until the 1840's. This was after famous "Siamese" twins Chang and Eng were exhibited in America. After a documented telling by J.G. Milligan, P.T. Barnum began touring his "human curiosities" throughout the world. Tom Thumb was the first, though he was by no means the last. The Wild Men of Borneo and Zip the Pinhead soon followed, and the Barnum museum would list 13 known "human curiosities." So called "dime museums" quickly followed Barnum's lead in providing "edutainment" through freak shows. Aimed at the lower class, wild stories were invented for countless acts like Zip the Pinhead as a false front to exhibit "human curiosities," soon "freaks," for shock and amusement. The first Philadelphia World's Fair even exhibited wild Australian Children and a fat lady as part of its festivities. In 1880, Coney Island started its first freak show. Soon, a person could hold a lucrative career recruiting freaks for various shows, real or created. By the end of the 19th Century, scientists began theorizing and investigating actual reasons for the existence of these "human curiosities." One of the earliest theories proposed that freaks were one off anomalies pulled from the early evolutionary stages of man. Scientific American, in 1908, published an article decrying the exhibition of freaks. And by the 1940s, the view that these shows were taking advantage of people with real medical conditions began to take over, slowly putting an end to the traditional freak show. While various performers have attempted to revive the traditional freak show, the acts have been met with strong opposition. An exhibition of fetuses in jars was shut down by the police; other people with medical deformities were barred from certain venues and could not rely on their physical condition to earn income. By the 2000's, a new style of freak show had developed. Self made freaks, like Enigma – a man covered in jigsaw puzzle tattoos and other body modification procedures, began touring with a more extreme variety of acts. These sometimes include suspensions – hanging from hooks through various parts of the body – and other surreal and awe inducing acts. Some of the performers, like Black Scorpion, actual have the same medical conditions as earlier freak show performers, and use these venues as a way to comment on the past and current treatment of like people. Now that we have a solid foundation of the history of freak shows, we can continue on with a closer look at Geek Love and other freak show related media on Saturday.

Labels: freak show, geek love, katherine dunn

While I've anticipated writing about Geek Love for quite a long time, I'm upset at the circumstances surrounding its discussion. It's all my fault. I kept telling myself "I have time to finish Watchmen. The film doesn't come out till March." Then I said, "I can finish it the week before the film and write about it." Then I realized, "Oh crap. Everyone is going to write about Watchmen next week. Better stay up to finish it." And then I just woke up realizing I fell asleep plowing through it last night. Meaning my Watchmen week is happening the week of the film, rather than the week before. At least I can discuss the film that Saturday, as I'll be seeing the film opening day with my brother. And possibly opening night with friends if it isn't awful. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, Part 1 I'll come right out and say it: Geek Love might be my favorite novel of all time. It's certainly in the top 3, with Hard Times by Dickens and The Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber. Take my personal taste for what it's worth. I like offbeat literature and I'm not afraid to say it. Novels don't get much stranger than Katherine Dunn's masterful Geek Love. Following the life of Oly, a genetically engineered albino hunchback considered too normal by her side show family, Dunn unfolds a story oozing with dark humor and genuine shocks. I think an excerpt better establishes the tone:

"When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. 'Spread your lips, sweet Lil,' they'd cluck, 'and show us your choppers!'"

Fear not the spoilers, as this is the opening paragraph of the novel. That's tame compared to almost everything that follows. Like descriptions of "Crystal" Lil's current medical state after being treated with various drugs and chemicals during pregnancy to build a family side show. Or Oly's brother Arty, who attempts to form a cult celebrating his fins and flippers. Or Ella and Iphy, conjoined twins and piano experts. Or little "Chick," who was cursed by being born with no physical deformities. Or even the twisted plots of the father, Al Binewski, who wants nothing more than to make the sideshow a profitable family affair. I'm linking to a series of quotations from Katherine Dunn to finish this post. While not everything is applicable to Geek Love, you should gain a pretty good understanding of her style and interests expressed in her books. This week will have some interesting turns, and possibly multiple posts on Saturday to better mine the territory connected to Geek Love.

Labels: geek love, katherine dunn

Sorry this is coming 14 hours later than usual. I had a 10 page paper due today, written in two installments: 4:30-7:45 AM, and 11:30-1:45 PM. Fill 8:00-11:15 and 2:00-5:30 with class, then 5:35-9:45 with rehearsal and there you have it. That and the proselytizing for votes. Have you voted for Horror 101 yet using that nifty banner over on the right? I'll still be up half the night catching up on this kind of thing. Due to time constraints, I will be doing the Saturday topic today and saving the big bang of explosive prose for Saturday. Mina Loy: Part 2 I already introduced you to the Jesus on Clothesline mixed media piece Mina Loy did. Stunning, yes? That was much later in her career, though the influence of Futurism is still apparent. I really like Futurist art, especially when it straddles multiple styles. Take, for example, this gorgeous Cubo-Futurist hybrid: Or what of this lovely example of early Italian Futurism from Severini: And you can't forget Futurist film, the earliest of which comes from Anton Bragaglia: I'm cutting it short, people. Apologies all around. I need sleep.

Labels: bragaglia, futirism, malevich, mina loy, severini

I don't think I've unclenched my teeth since Thursday night. I'm so stressed out from those nasty parents, my voice is suffering and I'm coming down with something. That is the absolute worse case scenario a month from production, especially since I finally have been given rehearsal time to push the students through the proper performance style for the music. Apparently, the choreographer (who is voluntarily retiring, but not till after this show is finished) has convinced the director that this is a dance show above everything else and he needs all the rehearsal time. I wasn't aware that a mostly sung through musical with 10 leads was actually meant to be performed like Movin' Out. New Topic: Mina Loy, Part 1 I don't think it's a secret that Modernism is probably my favorite style of literature. I could make a case for Realism or Pre-Victorian Gothic, but that evidence is far more limited when I find myself voluntarily picking up tome after tome of Modernist literature. I mean, I'm currently taking my fourth course with a strong connection to Modernism (1: freshman honors seminar tracing how literature shifted from Realism to Modernism and beyond, focusing on Modernist drama; 2: a history course that focused on Modernist design style and taught by a professor who appreciated my external research on appropriately connected literature; 3: a seminar on James Joyce mostly focusing on Ulysses; 4: my current seminar on Modernism which sadly is mostly focusing on poetry and skipping actual Modernist prose (Heart of Darkness? only approached from modern race criticism? give me a break)). Plus, there are always new discoveries and classifications in the period that take a while to be accepted or classified. One of my favorite recent discoveries is Mina Loy. There are a few ways you might have heard of her before: she had a brief, passionate relationship with Futurist leader Fillipo Marinetti upon moving to Italy, only to leave him and the group because of their connection to Fascism; she was a close friend to Gertrude Stein and a regular in the salon community; and is still well respected within the art community for her mixed media work: What I've grown to love of her is her poetry. While she was alive, her contemporaries – including Stein, Pound, Eliot, and Marinetti – praised her poetry and fully embraced her as a writer. And then, nothing. Cursory research is indicating the main resurgence of Loy's poetry started picking up momentum in 1998, over 30 years after her death. Perhaps the most remarkable element of her poetry is the use of space. Woolfe had her semi-colon, Dickinson had her dash, and Loy had_____her_____space. Unlike the wretched example just provided, Loy's use of space actually facilitates the meaning of the poem. It's as easy to swallow as a well placed coma. Take, for example, this openning of her poem "The Effectual Marriage, or The Insipid Narrative of Gina and Miovanni" (1917): Even a space isn't just a space, as the length of space varies throughout the poem. This poem was written about her relationship with Futurist Giovanni Papini, another man she left because of Fascism. The door image is pulled throughout the entire poem, as she hypothesizes that Gina can never fully connect with Miovanni as they are on two separate planes of existence. Not because of gender, but because of life concerns; Gina keeps the house in order and serves his every need, while Miovanni is living in outer space figuring out concepts she'll never understand. The spaces work to expand meaning. The space after the names indicates that no one quite understands why the relationship works. The space after "They knew" indicates a confidence that otherwise might not be as sincere. And the spaces between the last two lines of the excerpt are supposed to pull the reader into an almost hypnotic state, pulling them into the relationship they might fail to otherwise get. Loy wrote a good bit of lengthy poetry considering all of her other interests. She wrote, for example, a poem on James Joyce's Ulysses, with eighteen stanzas connected to her interpretation of the mythological influence of the Odyssey in each of the eighteen chapters. She also wrote a manifesto on Futurism, another manifesto on a lesser known post-Futurist group, a gorgeous essay on her friendship with and admiration of Gertrude Stein, and a very informative essay on what was considered Modernist poetry while she stayed in Europe. Eventually, Loy grew frustrated with the European scene and left for America, where she participated in theatrical works for many years before focusing her attention on mixed media art. Mina Loy is one of the rare artists who was very good in many fields, and whose influence and recognition might suffer because her output in any given field isn't as expansive as her contemporaries. The discussion should take an interesting turn on Thursday.

Labels: fillipo marinetti, futurism, gertrude stein, gina and miovanni, giovanni papini, james joyce, mina loy, modernism