On demand

A peek inside Demand Studios for the Los Angeles Times by your humble hostess.

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No Bodies for Erin

The "Bodies" show is here in Cleveland.

The much-heralded exhibit features carefully dissected and plasticized cadavers. Goat and Lil' OB will probably attend, but not me.

Don't get me wrong. I realize that this is an Important Educational and Enlightened Experience. And yes I am a dyed-in-the-wool open-minded art-supporting liberal, but still, I'm not going. Plastic dead guys and Erin don't mix. I know. The "Body Worlds 2" Exhibit was here five years ago and my peeps convinced me to attend. The proceedings did not go well.

While others marveled and pointed, I swallowed hard and cast my eyes down.

Moms were trying too hard. "Do you see this, Brittany?" lilted one as my queasiness bubbled. "That's an actual intestine. That's where your poop goes. Isn't this fascinating?"

People were commentating. "Jesus H Christ, no wonder this guy croaked."

People were extrapolating. "These people signed up for this. This is what they wanted."

Uh-huh.

I am not the least bit uncomfortable with nudity--on live people. Dead naked people turned out to be a different story. Virtues of integrity notwithstanding, as I stepped among the plasticized cadavers, an internal dialogue ensued:

No, Erin. No! There is not. There is not a severely twisted necrophiliac walking around this room right now having sexual fantasies. NO! So just stop thinking about that nonsense this very minute.

Between the live people, the dead people and my imagined army of necrophiliacs, I was crumpling, fading more with each carefully preserved corpse.

And then I saw something that actually interested me: the sinus display.

That labyrinthine network has plagued me throughout my life, with chronic bouts of snoring, hay fever, congestion and sneezing. The connection between all those tubes and cavities has been a source of mysterious fascination for me ever since I learned that tilting my head a certain way sometimes aids in the draining of my beleaguered nasal passages. So I closed in on the dissected skull to see what I have visualized for years. I blinked for a moment or two, then revelation dawned.

This was some poor guy's head!

I snapped away only to find myself before a whole pregnant woman whose cadaver was "exploded" in order to expose the condition of pregnancy. She had died in her fifth month. Her frame was so slight; she might have been a teenager.

I backed away and collapsed onto a bench. As I hugged either elbow and rocked back and forth, I kept thinking, surely someone else in here is freaking as badly as I am.

I searched faces for a brow knitted with bewilderment, a set of lips pursed in distress, but found just the opposite. It was near the end of the exhibit and curiosity and been replaced with ennui. People yawned and sighed and checked their watches.

Two fiftyish women in polyester pantsuits moved bovine-like past the plasticized obese man.

"I am starving," said the one in lime green, pulling a tissue from her purse.

"Me too," responded the one in peach. "Let's get something to eat."

The blood drained from my head. I rose zombie-like and walked through the exit. A counter, upon which a half dozen thick journals lay open, lined the wall. "Please leave your comments," implored the accompanying sign.

"But what about the people?" I wrote, my script barely legible.

I set the pen down and stumbled out into the air.

* * *

That experience affected me so profoundly that I wince each time I pass a billboard advertising the current "Bodies" show. For those who are interested, here's a more levelheaded review.

I took the photos for today's post at the East Cleveland Cemetery on E 118th street. Click on any to enlarge. This is about as close as I can get to images of the dead, but even walking those grounds filled me with a vague distress.

There is a voice inside of me that I don't hear often, but it is familiar nonetheless.

Be careful with the dead guys.

Boston

Hi Boston. I'm Erin.


South Station amigas.


Future home of Dahlia's Dungeon of Delight or past armory? Dunno.


Rooftop employee lounge @the Boston Globe. Chairs, yes. Peeps, no.


He's sorry. He's really sorry. Forgive the poor guy already!


Roses are red, my shorts are blue. I sell flowers. Here's one for you.


Boston Globe Editorial Design Department Condiment Distribution Center : That's hot!


Gimme a big ol' plate of spaghetti, some garlic bread and a bottle of that wine that's wrapped in a basket.


Hi peeps.


Geo, I SO hate to mention this, but you've totally got a camel toe in this pic.


Woof. Woof woof woof. Meow? MOO!


Sculpture and trailer.


Cute dolly.


Lighten up already, dude.


Goat 'n boats.


Chillaxin' on the strip of green left by the Big Dig.


More peeps and I love it.


Silly chick and interior shot of ladies' room: Boston Globe.


In the belly of the USS Constitution. Freak me out!


Bye Boston. You're cool!

* * *

Being married, vol. 4

HUSBAND and WIFE sit on the couch, newspapers strewn about them, coffee cups upon the side tables.

WIFE: How about some scrambled eggs?

HUSBAND (from behind newspaper): Sounds great.

WIFE heads into kitchen, where the shuffle of cooking begins: the refrigerator door opens, pans clatter and .... the sound of breaking eggs. Then all falls silent.


HUSBAND turns page of paper.

WIFE (from kitchen): Hey Hon?

HUSBAND: Yeah?

WIFE: Did I tell you about the study I read the other day?

HUSBAND: What study was that?

WIFE: The one about the eggshells?

HUSBAND: What about eggshells?

WIFE: How consuming eggshells was shown to increase the size, hardness and duration of a man's erections?

HUSBAND: No. You didn't tell me about it.

WIFE: Well there you go. Some ... um ... enzyme or something. In the eggshells. Eggshell enzyme kicking up erections.

HUSBAND: An eggshell enzyme? Imagine that.

WIFE: Yep. Enzyme. Right there in the ol' eggshell.

The clatter of plates comes from kitchen.

WIFE: Breakfast!

* * *

The best thing I ever saw in my life ever

Damn these tears

Click to enlarge, I'd recommend it.

I'd write it all right now, right this moment, save for the tears. Behold Whiskey Island, July 22, 2010.

This place is full of ghosts. I have more pix, but need to process it all before I can write it and show it and breathe it. Right now, the words overwhelm me.

Damn you dead guys. Damn you all to hell.

Love, Erin

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Honeymoon intermission

Oh sweet joy of life.

I am in the middle of Honeymoon Week, but had to take a break from the action in order to blog this.


Your humble hostess purchased this complete wooden Wentworth puzzle (with figurative pieces, some of which I didn't even pull from the puzzle for display) for the sum of 99¢ today at the esteemed Unique Thrift.

To use a phrase that normally evokes a great huff and the rolling of eyes from me:

That's what I'm talkin' about!

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New Bedford, Massachusetts

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage ... --from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851

Ishmael, baby, no worries. You're in good hands. New Bedford know boats. New Bedford know fish.

What'd you say, Ish?

Oh, that. Call me Erin.


See? Lookie here: they even gotta fish-dude statue.


And plenty o' boats.


Ish, do me a favor and hold my purse for a sec. I gotta check in here for a buddy of mine.

Hey Quint? You in there?


I think I found your buddies, Ish!

Queequeg? S'that you? Man, it's too hot to be on that ol' boat.

Whaddya say you come on with me and Ish and get a beer? Come on, already! Round up Stubb and Flask.


What, no time for a beer? Aw hell, okay. I understand.

You guys go on and catch you a fish. I'll just have a walk about.

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Comments

So sorry about comment moderation, peeps. I've got a category 5 troll hanging around here. I'll lift it as soon as the coast is clear.

Just what I needed today--ughville.

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The rippin' and the tearin' since 1988

Sometimes a bit of film moves you so profoundly, you feel obliged to share it with close friends.



I think he looks pretty.

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YouTube round up: homo-erotic tension, heterosexual men

First up, Cool Hand Luke. Watch the whole 10 minutes. Hell, get your hands on the movie and watch the whole thing. You will not be disappointed.

But if you only watch the first minute and a half of this excerpt, you'll see what I'm talking about when I'm talking about homo-erotic tension amid heterosexual men.



That scene: the content, Newman's performance, the staging, wardrobe, dialogue .... it's all so good, it might make you forget George Kennedy's terrible fake accent.

What draws me so intently to Luke and the boys is beyond what's on the screen. It's that guy-on-guy chemistry I can never witness first hand. A woman walks into a room full of men, and the chemistry changes. That's true whether she's in fishnets and stilettos or baggy jeans and sneakers, whether she's 22 or 62, whether she's gay or straight.

Although some chicks admittedly alter the (ahem) chemistry more than others:



Behold the ying yang that rules human sexuality and gender. On one end of the spectrum lies 100 percent masculinity, with 100 percent femininity on the other end. Same goes with orientation: 100 percent straight faces off against 100 percent gay, but very few of us live on those edges. We're all scattered somewhere in between like dots on a graph. Every woman has a dose of masculinity, just as every he-man has some measure of homo-eroticism floating inside of him. Some of us move around a little bit, trying to find the perfectly sized white dot to fit into our black swirl or vice-versa.

Yeah, yeah.

Enough of my penny-candy philosophy. Here's some clips from other movies I love that play with the concept of homo-erotic tension among heterosexual men.

Jaws



One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest



Deliverance



And just to mix it up, A little sugar from Hedwig and the Angry Inch:

Witness

Meanwhile, Back in Cleveland ...

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Comments are welcome here or email the New York Times.

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View from a Cleveland bartop, July 8, 2010

Two minutes surrounding the James' announcement in a particularly Clevelandy bar with your humble hostess, Erin O'Brien, the Clevelandiest Clevelander in all of Cleveland.

Big Muskie and the Huletts

In much of Southeast Ohio, including Perry State Forest, strip-mining scars still meander over the terrain, but they don't mar the dreamy nostalgia of the Big Muskie bucket, which sits in the Miners' Memorial Park in Noble County. The bucket is all that's left of the towering 220-foot walking dragline; and when the mouth of the giant strip mining machine was finally moved to the park, it was like a funeral procession.

The strangest thing is that despite the acres of earth she laid bare so unceremoniously and despite the distance between her violent activities and my life, I wax nostalgic when I browse the pages devoted to Big Muskie. Maybe I feel that way because there's nothing left of the Hulets, not even one of their gnawing steel mouths.

I was about seven or eight when Dad took me to watch the Hulett ore unloaders. He loaded cans of Stroh's into the XKE and drove down closed roads that wound through dangerous piles of debris to Whiskey Island. We finally came upon the Hulett's, which were outlined in white dots of light as they dipped graciously into the bellies of the massive oar boats. The air was thick with humidity and bugs, the smell of gasoline.


"They used to have to unload the ore boats by hand," Dad said.

"Really?" I asked, enchanted.

"Terrible, dangerous job. One wheelbarrow at time," he said, fishing his Zippo from his pocket. He paused and lit his cigarette, snapped the lighter closed with a sound I'll never forget. "Then came the Huletts."

"Must of used to take them forever to empty those boats before that," I said as they arced across the night sky.

"The new ships are self-unloading. They don't need the Huletts anymore. These are dinosaurs, Erin," he said and wagged his Marlboro at them. "You remember these."

A man emerged from another steamy parked car. He was shirtless as he stood before our headlights, a challenge. His pants were unbuttoned. He deflated a bit when he realized we were not a threat.

Dad sipped his beer. "Time to go home," he said.

From then on, I always looked for the Huletts from my perch upon the bluffs of Lakewood Park, particularly at night when their lighted silhouettes were moving ornaments upon the coast--something secret and unique in my derided hometown.

Eventualities unfurled over the years, as did I. The mighty Huletts did not survive. Neither did Dad.

I miss the Huletts.

I miss the damnable industry that surrounded them. I miss their terrifying steel works and gears. And when they were headed to the scrap heap, I wish one of those indignant historical groups that clamored and shook their collective fist had won. After all, they were right. We've lost something.

Maybe I'll drive down to Noble County this summer and visit Big Muskie's bucket--a vicarious pilgrimage courtesy of the coal industry. Maybe I'll place my hands upon her rusty steel flesh. Maybe I'll shed a tear and say a prayer.

Maybe I'll forgive her sins.

* * *

Back to the future

Left to right in the above photo are Althea Crome, Lynn Bernstein and Yours Truly. The year is 1983 and the place is the fourth floor of McKinnon Hall at Ohio University. It was my freshman year and LORDY what a time we had.

Your humble hostess is beside herself with joy as both of these wonderful women are on their way for a visit.

I've got the wine chilling and the bread baking, girls. Can't wait to see you!

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American dream

While I'm first in line to wish the good ol' United States of America a happy birthday, the headlines these days do not bode well. I won't list all our troubles. After all, it's a holiday, but I will glance on one touchy subject.

The righties are all still pretty excited about the illegal immigration thing.

Now imagine a day when life on the streets of San Diego or Los Angeles or Phoenix doesn't look much better than life on the streets of Mexico City. When that happens, my dear fellow Americans, you can bet people will stop coming.

Don't believe me? Read this.

Imagine poor Uncle Sam, sniffing with doe eyes as he glances over his shoulder, wondering what happened to the shouting matches and shaking fists that clamored over the poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to be free. Like a has-been movie star that once bemoaned the frantic paparazzi, he'll miss them when they're gone.

Happy Birthday, America. You enjoy yourself today and have a few beers, although the party is already over. Sure there's always tomorrow, but really, how long can you keep waiting on tomorrow?

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The O'Brien is still lazy and this is brilliant

Not to fear, original content will return shortly. Until then, here's a 15-minute short that absolutely transfixed me.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.