About Me
I love black metal, black coffee, dark chocolate, self-referential fiction, structural linguistics, and biblical literature. I graduated, in chronological order, form the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and the University of North Dakota. I'm currently reading Wyndham Lewis, listening to old NWOBHM records, and watching short Thelma Todd films. I wrote a novel:
SCREAM QUEENS OF THE DEAD SEA
if you're into
THRASH METAL
SUBVERSIVE POLITICS
MILITARY MISADVENTURES
PSYCHIATRIC FACILITIES
BIBLICAL REFERENCES
HARDCORE SEX
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
and
SATANIC POETRY
you'll love it.
It's set in Jerusalem:
The protagonist is an assistant nurse at a psychiatric hospital:
All kinds of things are going on at the hospital:
The book has lots of references to good music:
Robinson Crusoe is in it -- as a literary allusion:
Julie Strain is in it -- as an obscure object of desire:
It's funny:
It's sad:
And it has a blurb from Mary Woronov:
The German Edition:
The Hebrew Edition
(aka MASTER OF THE SYMPTOM):
The Russian Edition:
My essay on the Israeli separation barrier
is in the January 2008 issue of Adbusters:
HOW I LEARNED
TO
STOP WORRYING
AND
LOVE THE WALL
They’re building a wall in Israel. A new wall: 25 feet high, 300 miles long, electric fencing, trenches, access roads for armored patrol vehicles, electronic fence sensors, electronic ground sensors, thermal imaging equipment, video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, sniper towers, barbed wire, razor wire, landmines.
And if you think I’m against it, you’re wrong. I think it’s a good idea. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of this new wall is not to prevent Arab terrorists from sneaking into the forbidden Jewish zones. Rather than a security barrier, the wall functions as a curtain, a dividing screen that separates the ugly from the beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Arabs should not enjoy basic human rights. I’m not saying they should be denied access to food, medical care, transportation, education, employment, or water. I’m not saying they’re not human beings. All I’m saying is we don’t want to be forced to look at them every day. They’re not visually pleasing, to use a crass understatement. We came to Israel to build a beautiful country, to inherit our old-new land, the land of milk and honey, lavish landscapes, manly men, and gorgeous girls – not a land populated by unkempt, unclean, unshaven slobs.
Not that they need to be banished. Not that they have to die. We just don’t want to see them, that’s all. Extreme poverty produces extreme hideousness, and extreme hideousness demands an appropriate concealing device. The wall is not imprisonment. It’s not incarceration. It’s an aesthetic quarantine.
Israel is a modern miracle. A young, sexy, bubbly nation in the heart of the filth and darkness of the Arab world. It seems only right that half the people who live in this beautiful democracy should be excluded from participating in it: the ugly half. For 50 years they’ve been cleaning toilets, washing dishes, sweeping streets, scrubbing floors. Which is fine, if that’s what you want to do. But at the end of the day, please be kind enough to take a shower. We’re talking basic social behavior here, elementary consideration for other human beings. And if you have no money to buy soap, or if you have no running water at home, or if your home has been demolished, we can offer you all the sympathy in the world, but please don’t expect us to be eager to look at you. And the wall, in spite of the hypocritical objection of the European community, in spite of the anti-Semitic threats of the International Court, in spite of the ungrateful, backstabbing, double-crossing propaganda of a self-hating minority that condemns it as a crime, does the job. It keeps the Arabs out of sight.
The construction of the wall, therefore, should not only continue according to plan, regardless of the screams and shouts of the pseudo-compassionate world, but also expand. We should put up more walls, walls to hide away the sick, the tired, the obese, the elderly, the gentiles. Our Jewish concrete slabs are perfectly impenetrable, harder than metal, stronger than steel, mightier than any moral value. Just like our 2000-year-old Wailing Wall, this new one is not temporary. It’s not reversible. It’s here to stay. The nations of the world can yell and protest all they want, but they would need a lot more than a bunch of trumpets to knock this one down.
My essay on Paris Hilton
is in the
September 2007 issue of Adbusters:
CURSE OF THE WITCH
One of the most enigmatic episodes in her career, an incident that still perplexes admirers and critics alike, is the strange call placed to her cellular phone amidst the shooting of her cinematic debut, the seemingly unauthorized film in which, in the absence of a more complex or coherent script, she engages, rather halfheartedly, in sexual congress with her ex-boyfriend. Boasting a grainy, homemade quality that augments its authenticity, the crudely titled One Night in Paris—the obvious ambiguity of the proper noun accentuated by the preceding preposition and its implication of penetration—opens with a single-shot sequence that follows the nineteen-year-old heroine through her first attempt at pleasing a man on camera. Kneeling before the hotel room sofa in which her partner is ensconced, clad in nothing but a pair of black lace-trimmed boyshorts, she handles his belt buckle and zipper with remarkable dexterity, cupping his impressive erection with the spindly fingers that have since become her trademark. Her lips, lustrous and succulent, are eager to accept his throbbing manhood, her hungry tongue caressing the engorged length of his tumescent member.
And then, just before the action peaks and the scene reaches its predictable climax, her phone rings.
An intriguing, controversial figure, the young heiress, actress, singer, model, author, businesswoman and self-professed spoiled princess seems to enjoy keeping her fans, as the phrase has it, in the dark. Speculations concerning the identity of the mysterious caller include, in no specific order: her mother, unaware, of course, of the whereabouts or actions of her daughter at the time of the call; her father, who, having received information regarding the apparent intention of the unruly scion to document her lovemaking routine for future distribution on digital video, was determined to issue a last-minute warning, a harsh admonition which, as friends of the family would later tell the press, contained the implied threat of disinheritance; an anonymous co-conspirator, hired by the party girl herself to give her a premeditated, well-rehearsed, perfectly timed ring that would, so she hoped, enhance her image as a busy, popular socialite; a random friend; a telemarketer; and, naturally, a wrong number.
In any event, the call, although understandably distracting, managed to solicit from the rising starlet the conditioned, practically reflexive response that proved her only line in an otherwise nonspeaking part: Let me get my phone.
Equally spontaneous was her partner’s reply, an unforgettable retort that injected the conversation with a certain sense of balance: Fuck your phone.
And while one may be justified in denouncing the boyfriend for the rudeness of his protestation, others might be more inclined to condemn the insolence of a self-centered brat who, while in the throes of passion, insists on taking calls.
Regardless of the on-screen impasse between female interlocutor and her male counterpart, the dialogue itself is nothing short of brilliant. The showstopping imperative, a forceful command cleverly disguised as a polite request, is followed by the exclamatory complaint of an emasculated bedfellow, a resounding cry of genuine, almost tragic frustration. A snappy, powerful, wonderfully succinct exchange, it testifies, more than anything, to the sinister omnipresence of wireless technology in our lives, its merciless invasion of the inner sanctum of our sexual privacy, and the helplessness of humanity at the face of an endless, relentless disruption of intimate activities.
It is ironic, of course, that the great intruder, the encroaching celebrity who plagues our airwaves with her ubiquitous presence, has fallen victim to an invasion of privacy similar to the one she inflicts upon the public on a daily basis. In that sense, she becomes the perfect sorceress, the alluring yet evil woman whose private practices fascinate, impinge on, and ensnare the community in which she lives. Despite her personal insignificance, René Girard is famous for saying, a witch is engaged in activities that can potentially affect the whole of society.
RANDOM PICTURES
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Monterey Bay
South Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota
East Grand Forks, Minnesota
Fargo, North Dakota
Jane Russell
More pictures here:
http://elbom.livejournal.com
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