If Looks Could Kill - Graphic Art & Design

Shown at right is the CD cover for Slayer’s newest release, “Christ Illusion,” which has been banned in India. This is surprising, because a) There is a market for Slayer in India. b) India is mostly Hindu, why are they offended by a so-called “mutilated christ?”

Slayer has been accused in the past of utilizing Satanic symbols more for marketing than out of true personal beliefs. If this is the case, they win from the publicity garnered by this BBC article.

Personally, I like Slayer and find nothing offensive about this. Even if I did, then perhaps I would refrain from buying said CD instead of making a fuss over something so innocuous. This is trivial in the grand scale of problems faced by India.

The band wound up putting a white mask over the offending artwork, so that it is only partially seen through cut-outs of the logotype spelling the band’s name.

Get this shit:

EMI India said it withdrew the albums and destroyed them so no community would be offended by the material.

Thank goodness people are being protected from Slayer! I find them to be a problem on a daily basis and my every waking thought is consumed by this band and the havoc they wreak. Hopefully, you’ll note the sarcasm dripping from the preceeding sentence. ;)

All Slayer artwork is done by artist, Larry Carroll.

Big thanks to Angel of Malevolence, the Metal Mistress, for digging up the artist to credit, something the articles neglected to do (for shame!).

This article details a woman going through the effort of un-adopting a boy.

I’m not getting on her for wanting to be rid of him. He had molested other children in the neighborhood, as he had been, himself. It was withheld from her that the child had a horde of mental afflications resulting from parents that abused drugs, alcohol and him.

My point in posting this is to harrangue the pro-life extremists. This kid has had and will continue to have a miserable life - past, present and future. What does he have to look forward to now? Some people ought not have pups.

Where are the people with all the free time to march and protest birth control and abortions, who think that no life should be thrown away? Does that only apply to cute and unspoiled fetuses, who haven’t been damaged by life?

*** Please DO NOT HOTLINK TO MY IMAGES ***

Just finished watching The Notorious Bettie Page, recently released on DVD. I was marvelling over the mediocrity of Gretchen Mol playing Bettie, unable to figure out why she was cast until the bangs were cut and the clothes came off.

From there, it was at least visually stimulating, re-enacting many of her famous photo scenes. They nearly lost me earlier in the movie with a fake slap and recoil so badly acted that it makes professional wrestlers look like polished actors with finesse in comparison.

The storytelling is far from compelling, but this is still one I will add to my collection, since it involves Bettie Page and pin-up girls photography.

I also like that the movie portrays her as unrepentant for her cheesecake photos, even after she finds the Jeebus, fiercely declaring that Adam & Eve were nekkid, until they came into sin and were banished from the Garden of Eden - it was then that they wore clothes.

However, at the same time, they also showed that when she stopped modelling was when there was controversy over these photos and their “appeal to deviants,” and felt personal shame after overhearing the case against her photographer, Irving Klaw, in court. I wish she would have perservered, stigmas and religious fanatics be damned, but I suppose this was right for her.

I’ve seen recent interviews with her as an older woman now, and she insists on full shading obscuring her face and body from the camera as she spoke with her soft Southern voice. I think this adds to her iconic legacy in pop-culture, insisting on being remembered only as she was at her prime.

Unfortunately, there was a 1972 mugshot that did no justice to maintaining that memory. The woman in the mugshot has no spark, just joyless features vaguely reminiscent.

Frisco school district requests to open teacher’s file - Source (Free registration required) - an update on a prior post.

They claim the teacher was not expelled for nude art seen by 5th grade students on a museum field trip, yet this whole ordeal was triggered by a single parent complaint, so the statements made are rather conflicting.

If she wasn’t fired over this museum trip, then they are effectively acknowledging that this may not have been suitable grounds for termination, since they are acting like students have always gone and will continue to go to the Dallas Museum of Art.

This makes me happy me on so many levels:

1. A black Labrador is rescued from the side of the road, then again from the pound, selected for her people skills to be trained into a service dog.
2. Said service dog is helping 14-year-old Elena Winters, a primordial dwarf, live more independently.

   No teenager wants to be effectively babysat as they’re all struggling for independence, but Elena was out of necessity - to keep from being trampled and help her carry things. Now her dog, Jewel, handles it all for her, even pushing elevator buttons!

3. A dog was kept from being put to death and as a result, Elena’s quality of living has improved.

Her adoptive mom is an aspiring children’s writer, and keeps a blog. I’m always fascinated by life behind the scenes, biographies and blogs… what you can find by looking closer, to paraphrase American Beauty’s tagline.

I’m still seeing an influx of traffic from searches on primordial dwarves. I’m optimistically hoping that this is from intellectual curiosity moreso than anything else. They are far too beautiful to be made fun of.

One of my favorite artists. I’d forgotten how profoundly trauma inspired his paintings. At the age of 14, he saw his mother’s body retreived from the nearby river, a suicide, her nightgown pulled over her head, obscuring her face.

Additionally, every nude female form in his work was based specifically on his own wife, never anyone else. This is obvious when you see pictures of Georgette Magritte in comparison. I only wish I had a full body shot of her, better demonstrating this.

It seems limiting, to only portray a single female form, but speaks volumes of his love for her, now immortal.

On a sidenote, if you see the movie Dellamorte Dellamore / Cemetary Man, there is a steamy scene based on “The Lovers” painting shown at top. I highly recommend it on many levels: Gnaghi (I love him!), absurdism, sensuality, surrealism, gore and humor.