On this episode of UNHhhh, Trixie and Katya had intended to talk about the 2016 Olympic games in Rio, but ended up chatting about religion and their belief in a higher power. What do you believe?
The post Do Trixie Mattel & Katya Believe in God? Find Out on UNHhhh appeared first on The WOW Report.
It’s official, hunties: in next summer’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up” superstar, Zendaya will be playing the iconic caught-in-webby-love with Spidey-Man, Mary Jane Watson. Diehard fans have been long playing detective on who she would portray opposite British hunk, Tom Holland.
This is a groundbreaking casting choice and I’m going to tell you why.
Harvest Political Review has a mic-drop worthy exposé on “The Superhero Diversity Problem” (which you should totally read), and Muslim Reverie has an excellent piece, “Erasure of Women Of Color In Superhero Politics” (which you also should definitely read), but the truth of the matter is, I haven’t seen a leading woman of color in a superhero movie since 2004’s CatWoman with Halle Berry.
It’s a slippery slope, because on the one hand, we have the new Star Trek: Beyond, which features an extravagant, diverse, and complex cast (the Star Trek verse has always been remarkably and refreshingly open-minded):
But on the other, studio heads are continuing to whitewash characters in the superhero world:
Scarlett Witch in the comics is Romani, so she shouldn’t be white:
Probably one of the most buzzed about disappointments is Tilda Swinton cast in “Doctor Strange”:
And there’s even more instances with Scarlett Johansson in “Ghost In The Shell”:
In superhero movies where there is proper representation, like Zoe Saldana in “Guardians”, the only draw is she has green skin and is a non-human species:
Characters like Storm from “X-Men” were so important to me growing up and it’s safe to say that Berry was a huge let down.
And that’s not entirely her fault. Her role was so secondary compared to Jean Grey and Rogue, that the material didn’t give her more than a meer, non-fierce amount of throwaway lines. I personally think one of these two should’ve been cast:
Even in the latest “X-Men: Apocalypse”, we see Jubilee at a glance, but she doesn’t have any speaking lines:
All of these examples and more prove that the world has been, and, IS ready for more people of color in leading roles in Superhero movies. If we can have Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman coming out next year, we certainly have room to at least give the comics, and characters, actors/actresses that look/represent WHO they are intended to be/play.
If photos like this are important (and they are!), than it’s important why Zendaya was cast in a largely familiar and beloved character in a universal franchise like Spider-Man. The more we see ourselves represented on the big screen, the more love and understanding we will have in the real world.
The post Why It’s Important That Zendaya’s Been Cast As Mary Jane Watson In The New “Spider-Man” appeared first on The WOW Report.
The 18-year-old actor/gender fluid icon covers Variety this week, as part of their “Power of Young Hollywood” issue, saying despite his fame, he’s always felt like an outsider.
“I’ve always looked at life differently,” says the . “I always knew no one was going to understand me — since before I could talk — and that’s why I was so quiet. I was very calm, very to myself. I could tell I felt about life differently than other kids; I could tell by the way they treated me.”
Bless his heart.
He talks at length about his sense of style, his proclivity for wearing Batman costumes and dresses, and his clothing line MSFTS.
“I’ve always been super-duper fly and super-duper different,” he says of his style, adding he’s worn dresses for the last 10 years at least, but it was only fairly recently that it got attention. “People just start caring when they have a reason to start caring,” he says, and cites his style icons: Andy Warhol, the Joker, Poseidon, and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Now Smith has a clothing line on his MSFTSrep site. When asked to elaborate on the collective, Smith says, “It’s pronounced ‘misfits.’ I took the ‘I’ out of ‘misfits’ because we’re a team and there is no ‘I’ in team. It’s a place for the lost kids and everyone to go, and something for them to have.”
About the clothing line, he goes on to say:
“It was created for the girl that wants to be a tomboy or the boy that wants to wear a skirt, and people try to condemn. We’re here for you. Tell us your stories. If someone at your school’s trying to pick on you, it doesn’t matter because Jaden Smith’s got your back.”
Carry on, Jaden. You be you, because there’s no one else like you out there. As you well know.
The post Yes, Jaden Smith Is Aware No One Understands Him appeared first on The WOW Report.
Yep, today is National Hot & Spicy Day (not to be confused with INTERNATIONAL Hot & Spicy Day, which, of course, is January 16). Did you know: Archaeological evidence suggests that people have been using hot spices in their food preparation for over 6000 years? To celebrate, WOWlebrities Jason Carter and John Polly and WOW employees Irving, Jenny, Lilly, and Matthew take my first annual Hot Sauce Challenge. Hot Sauce flavors include the dreaded “Slap My Ass and Call Me Sally,” “See Dick Burn,” “Anal Angst,” and “The Hottest Fucking Sauce.” Will our contestants have the esophageal fortitude to survive this episode of “Eat It”?
Watch it below:
The post #FireInTheHole: “Eat It!” Honors National Hot & Spicy Day with a Hot Sauce Challenge appeared first on The WOW Report.
I am so excited about this next look. I was looking through Gucci’s Fall 2016 collection and I can not get enough of it! My eyes instantly latch on and never want to let go. It has influences from the 70’s and 80’s with a fun corky feel. Yet at the same time very classy. OH and the mixture of patterns and color is on point. Which leads me to my next “Look for Less” inspiration…
I love a good pattern mixing and although there is a lot going on in this look, it still feels very balanced. The color, prints, and glasses (oh those glasses) are really putting me in to a funky happy dance. So of course I had to create a look of my own!
This look from head to toe only cost me $205.00 (bag included *wink*). When putting this ensemble together I really just focused on having fun and not overthinking it. I love the idea of wearing colored socks with a strappy closed toe shoe and in this case, I would probably go with the gold to tie in the whole look. Just imagine all of the whiplash you will cause out at lunch in this outfit.
Happy Shopping!
For more “Look for Less” Check how to DIY your own blue jean jacket!
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How many times does it happen to you: Your texting away to someone, knee-deep in a passionate emoji exchange, thinking everything is going just fine, when… suddenly… THE DREADED “DROP-OFF” OCCURS. For no discernible reason whatsoever, they go silent. Completely dead. No response at all. No “goodbye,” no “the doorbell is ringing” or “my boyfriend just walked in” – Nothing. Just nothing. You’ve been e-ghosted.
Well, thank god for “The Brill of it All”‘s gorgeous, gorgeous Dianne Brill. She’s here with a solution to prevent the drop-off from ever occurring again. It’s so simple, so practical, and so BRILLiant, you’ll wonder why we haven’t been doing it all along.
Watch below.
The post The Brill of it All: Your Favorite Fairy Godbabe Gives Us a Texting Etiquette Lesson and Tells Us How to Stop Ghosting appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 20, 1918– Jacqueline Susann:
“A good writer is one who produces books that people read. So if I’m selling millions, I’m good.”
50 years after Valley Of The Dolls was first published, gay guys are still obsessed with the feuding, boozing, pill popping ladies of the camp classic novel and film. Neely O’Hara, Anne Welles, Jennifer North and Helen Lawson have all evolved into top Gay Icons.
Susann is indeed, camp, glamorous, and frivolous. Except for Andy Warhol, she is the most understood modern celebrity. Her female characters are always powerful, independent women who are not afraid of going after what they wanted. The men in her stories are pieces of meat, or fags, or both.
In the film version of Valley Of The Dolls (1967), the bodaciously fashioned, big haired, heavy mascara wearing creatures just could never choose a decent guy. Can we relate? Their over-sized egos matched their over-sized hairdos and high histrionics while these girls frolicked, tripped and dipped through nutty adventures in glorious Technicolor.
Susann led a life that was a lot of smoke and mirrors. She put herself out there as a WASP, but she was Jewish; she appeared to be a woman happy to not be encumbered with children, but she had a son who was institutionalized. She seemed to be high-bred born, the daughter of a renowned artist and his refined wife who did charity work, but her family was actually working-class Philadelphians and not particularly distinguished.
Her novels are not what they appeared either: they are not really literary but they did take on issues like society’s taboos and people who feel marginalized. They are really more than the sum of their chapters.
At 442 pages, Valley Of The Dolls was considered so candid in its portrayal of show-biz lifestyles, plastic surgery, abortion, gay sex, suicide and Demerol that my mother hid her copy and so did the mothers of my friends. The characters were based on celebrities like Ethel Merman and Judy Garland, making Valley Of The Dolls a must read for a little gay 12 year old like me. I thought at the time that the book was a rather impressive, fast moving Broadway-Hollywood soap opera and morality tale about the trials and tribulations, sex lives and problems of an aging group of 1945 era girls and their dependence on drink and drugs. The pills they took to pep themselves up, go to sleep and stay slim were nicknamed “dolls” by Susann herself. The novel made sense to me and I liked it much more than Lord Of The Rings.
One of the Ten Most Popular Books In Publishing History, ranking just below with The Bible and Dr. Spock’s Baby And Child Care, it initially sold more than 20 million copies, spending 22 weeks at number one on The NY Times Bestseller List, the most successful fiction work of the 1960’s worldwide, and making the author’s name a household word.
Before becoming a writer, Susann had a not so successful career as an actor and television performer. She appeared in minor roles in 21 plays on Broadway including the original production of Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women in 1937, but she became the first novelist to have three consecutive books: Valley Of The Dolls, The Love Machine (1969), and Once Is Not Enough (1973) making it to number one on The NY Times’ list. They all received scathing, dismissive reviews.
All three novels were made into very popular films, but only Valley Of The Dolls continues to play in theatres at festivals and retrospects, and to be the subject of theme parties and campy celebrations.
Unlike her characters, Susann enjoyed a long happy marriage. Her husband was press agent Irving Mansfield. They lived on the 24th floor of a building on Central Park South, where Susann did her three-finger typing in a study with pink Pucci print curtains. Once she had a theme, main characters and an ending, she would plaster her pink patent-leather walls with charts that plotted the characters and incidents. She wrote for eight hours a day on pink paper.
Susann worked tirelessly to promote her books and she was a frequent guest on television talk shows. In one memorable exchange on The David Frost Show, John Simon, the especially acerbic critic for New York Magazine, asked her:
“Do you think you are writing art or are you writing trash to make a lot of money?”
Susann answered:
“Little man, I am telling a story. Now does that make you happy?”
Gay writer Gore Vidal once quipped:
“She doesn’t write, she types!”
Truman Capote, also a talk show regular, appeared on The Tonight Show and stated:
“Susann looks likes truck driver in drag.”
When Susann threatened to sue him, Capote said:
“I apologize to truck drivers everywhere.”
The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson gave Susann the chance to fire back at Capote. Susann’s retort:
“Truman, Truman. I think history will prove he’s one of the best Presidents we’ve had.”
The film of Valley Of The Dolls starring Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate and Susan Hayworth (in a role intended for Judy Garland) contains a Susann cameo appearance as a reporter in the scene with Tate’s character’s suicide. Valley Of The Dolls was a huge commercial hit and it remains a gay favorite. Susann hated the film, telling the director Mark Robson:
“This picture is a piece of shit.”
It was re-released in Summer 1969 following the murder of Sharon Tate, and again proved to be a hit. Parkins, attending a 1997 screening of the film at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, told the sold-out crowd of cinema queens:
“I know why you like it… because it’s so bad!”
It was made into a television film in 1981 and a series in 1994. Our culture just can’t get enough. How about a more modern remake starring Melania Trump, Lindsay Lohan, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones?
In January 1973, Susann was diagnosed with lung cancer. She lived for 21 more months, finishing one more book before the cancer got her for good.
Susann’s own favorite of her books was her first, Every Night, Josephine (1963), the true story of her relationship with her poodle. It sold well enough to provide her the time and money to write Valley Of The Dolls. Susann hungered for success and she got there, becoming nothing less than her own brand. She was both a brand and a broad.
The post #BornThisDay: Writer, Jacqueline Susann appeared first on The WOW Report.
You don’t want to take pleasure in someone’s misfortune, it’s not right, but this week, God, the Goddess, the Universe, Karma –call it what you like– was sure doing mean things.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council –the anti-LGBT hate group that just had a conference in Orlando and promotes anti-trans hate in the south, among other hateful things– is now left homeless by the devastating flooding that has ravaged southern Louisiana this week.
Perkins who claims that HIS God uses natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding to punish people for sinning –most specifically gays and their allies– had his own home destroyed this week by the the big man in the sky.
If you think I’m being mean, remember Perkins is the guy blamed the Boston marathon bombing on “sexual liberalism” in Massachusetts. He’s still trying to figure out why God targeted him and his family.
“We’re gonna look for what God’s gonna do in this. I’m asking those questions and I’m going to see.“
Perkins — who’s also declared that natural disasters are acts of God, not consequences of climate change — said his family of seven escaped in a canoe when the water became 10-feet high in their driveway. After being turned away from one shelter, they were taken in for the night by a former member of their church — “in God’s provision.”
The next day, Perkins and his family were able to return to their property, and they’re now living in their motor home. Unlike most other Louisiana residents affected by the flooding, Perkins said crews are already working to repair his house.
Perkins called into his own radio show to talk about the disaster of “biblical proportions” claiming that God sent this deadly flood not to punish the gays but rather,
“as an incredible, encouraging spiritual exercise to take you to the next level in your walk with an almighty and gracious God who does all things well.”
Funny how he can interpret a disaster any way that suits his message, huh? He urges “Christians” to rejoice that God considers them “worthy of suffering for his sake.”
Logic tells one that either you ARE right about these natural disasters, and God is punishing YOU or, you are wrong, and this is the Universe being ironic to highlight your hypocrisy.
(via The Gaily Grind)
The post #KarmaBitch: Anti-Gay Pastor Who Said Gays Are Punished By Natural Disasters, Flooded Out of His Home appeared first on The WOW Report.
Lot’s of strange things belonging to celebrities have been auctioned off. Driver’s license, empty prescription bottles, even kidney stones. But you usually can’t buy the celebrity themselves.
More than 30 years after Truman Capote’s death, his ashes will be sold next month as part of an auction marketed as a rare “peek inside the lives of some of Hollywood’s most private stars.” Julien’s Auction House C.E.O., Darren Julien, says,
“I am sure people are going to think this is disrespectful. But this is a fact: Truman Capote loved the element of shock. He loved publicity. And I’m sure he’s looking down laughing, and saying, ‘That’s something I would have done.’ He was a larger-than-life character.
Basically, the estate didn’t know what to do with them And yes, before figuring out a conservative estimate of what they might go for—$4,000 to $6,000—the auction house did mull over the ethical implications of selling off Capote’s remains to the highest bidder.
We contemplated doing it, but because they are Truman Capote’s, this is probably what he would have wanted done. I’ve never heard of ashes being sold before, but between us and Christie’s and some other auction houses, we’ve sold some crazy other things. But I think this will be at the top of the list.”
…Christie’s sold Napoleon’s penis years ago. And we sold William Shatner’s kidney stone for $75,000. There’s all kinds of precedents for this. Like I said, if it wasn’t Truman Capote, we would pass because we wouldn’t want to be disrespectful. And the antics he was always up to, and how much he loved press—it’s no question that that is something he would have wanted done.”
As Vanity Fair tells the saga, the ashes themselves have had their own wild life.
Capote died in 1984 while inside Carson’s Bel-Air home, and Capote’s remains were reportedly divided between Carson and the author’s companion Jack Dunphy. According to Page Six, Carson kept the ashes in an urn in the room where he died. The remains were stolen twice, however—once during a 1988 Halloween party (before being mysteriously returned), and again at a party Carson hosted (with the urn in attendance) for a play about Capote. The culprit, however, did not make it out the door with the remains. In 2013, the ashes were even invited to the opening-night gala of Broadway’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (“We did try to get him here,” a Breakfast rep confirmed at the time. “Joanne says he always wanted to (see) Holly Golightly open on Broadway, and we thought it would have been poignant for the entire company.”) Alas, Carson did not want to risk another theft.”
The cardboard box—which measures three-by-four-by-four inches—is affixed with a label from Grand View Memorial Park Crematory guaranteeing that the ashes inside are indeed Capote’s. They are estimated to sell for between $4,000 and $6,000. (Multiply x 10, I say.)
The auction will take place at Julien’s September 23 and 24 in Los Angeles. You can find out more here.
Capote and Carson
(T/Y Tad; Photos, Andy Warhol; via Vanity Fair)
The post #LastLaugh: Truman Capote’s Remains To Be Auctioned Off To the Highest Bidder appeared first on The WOW Report.
Today is World Photo Day and it’s as good excuse as any to look at amazing pics of our country’s history. The Great Depression is all but forgotten as most of those who lived through are leaving us. It’s best remembered through the pictures that came out of the Farm Security Administration most of them were black and white but a small number of them were shot in color. Peter Walther’s new book, New Deal Photography: USA 1935-1943, which Taschen was just published last month.
Many photographers contributed to the FSA’s documentary photography program, but only a few shot with Kodachrome color film which was introduced in 1935. Developing it was a complicated and expensive process and it was also difficult to capture fast-moving subjects with it. Walther said, there was a “reservation regarding color photography” among artistic and documentary image-makers at the time,
“Walker Evans has characterized color photography as ‘garish and vulgar,’ although he took color photos as early as 1946. Color photography was not considered an art medium, but a medium of advertising and commerce.
The people in the photos could be our own grandparents. You can see the color of the clothes they wear. All of this is important information about daily life at the time.“
(via Slate)
The post #WorldPhotoDay: Rare Images of the Great Depression Show Our True Colors appeared first on The WOW Report.
In the never-ending pursuit of the ultimate shot people literally risk their lives. Today is World Photo Day and earlier this month, a man fell 8,000 feet to his death while posing for a picture on a ledge at Machu Picchu. So, how far would you go to get that killer shot? Take this in. In 2015, more people died from taking selfies than from shark attacks.
From falling down the steps of the Taj Mahal to being struck by lightning, Rolling Stone highlighted some most disturbing stories of selfies gone wrong…
Lightning Striking
An English hiker was struck by lightning in 2015 while trekking through the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. Authorities believe that the metal rod very well could have have attracted the electrical bolt.
Flying Selfie
A pilot, Amritpal Singh, lost control of the airplane in Colorado while posing to take a selfie. The Cessna 150 crashed into a nearby wheat field, killing both himself and another passenger upon impact. A GoPro camera was discovered revealing more footage of the pilot taking mid-flight selfies at low altitudes.
Up in Flames
An 18-year-old Romanian girl, Anna Urso decided to lie down on the roof of the stationary train car to take “the ultimate selfie”. When she reached up with one of her legs to pose, but she hit an overhead live wire that shocked her with 27,000 volts and she immediately burst into flames and was pronounced dead with burns on over half her of her body.
Taj Mahal Fall
A 66-year-old Japanese tourist lost his balance and fell backwards to his death down the steps of the Taj Mahal in September 2015. The man had reportedly been trying to take a selfie at the Royal Gate. Onlookers watched on as the injured manwas carried off by paramedics. He suffered severe head trauma from the fall and died in the hospital.
Last Bridge
A 17-year-old Russian teenager fell off a 30-foot railway bridge in St. Petersburg while attempting to get the perfect shot. Xenia Ignatyeva lost her balance and when she reached for a hanging cable, it turned out to be a live wire that electrocuted her. She plummeted to her death. Horrifyingly, Ignatyeya’s body fell next to her friend who was waiting for her at the bottom of the bridge.
Cliff Diving
A Polish couple’s two young children watched as their parents climbed over the safety barrier and fell to their deaths while taking a selfie on a cliff in Cabo da Roca, Portugal. They took a step backwards to angle their shot and tumbled off of the edge. The traumatized children, ages five and six, were put into the care of Polish diplomats after witnessing the horrific scene.
Killer Walrus
A Chinese businessman named Jia Lijun tried to take a selfie with a one-and-a-half-ton walrus at a zoo in Liaoning province, China. The man was a big fan of this particular walrus, having previously sent photos and videos of it to his friends and family. As the man entered the gated housing area to snap a photo with the female walrus, she grabbed him from behind and dragged him into the pool. Both Lijun and the zookeeper, who had cared for the walrus since she was a baby, were drowned, who was only trying to play and give them a “hug.”
Deadly Current
Chezka Agas, a 17-year-old engineering student from the Philippines, was swept into the ocean during a birthday gathering. She was part of a group of engineering students and several of the party guests were injured too, but only Agas was drowned in the wave. Her mother said Agas had been looking forward to the event for weeks.
No Bullsh*t
A 32 year-old man was gored to death during the 2014 annual running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. When David Gonzalez Lopez left the audience-protected area to capture a selfie in front of two bulls about to collide, a third bull ran from behind and fatally pierced Gonzalez’s neck and thigh.
(via Rolling Stone)
The post #WorldPhotoDay: 9 Horrific Deaths Pursuing “The Ultimate Selfie” appeared first on The WOW Report.
Yes, it’s World Photo Day and daredevil pictures always top the list, like death by selfie.
If talking pics hanging off the side of a mountain is your idea of a good time, then take a walk on 328-foot-long glass walkway, called the Coiling Dragon Cliff. It allows visitors to walk along a suspended path at the top of Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in the southern province of Hunan. The glass walkway is less than 6 feet wide and overlooks Tongtian Avenue, a mountain road that has 99 spiral turns. Suspended 4,600 feet in the air, this is not for the faint of heart. I have this to say. No no no no no no no…
(via Architectural Digest)
The post #WorldPhotoDay: China’s Coiling Dragon Cliff Is *#@%! Terrifying! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Arnet is offering a selection of photos, not for auction but for direct purchase (no buyer’s premium), if you a have a few thousand for a snap of Halston, a Gay Pride poster on the street or The Divine Miss M. Andy Warhol‘s photos are by his own admission his “visual diary” and they provide a glimpse into his life (of 3 decades ago) Warhol’s subjects ranged from everyday objects and landscapes, to portraits and candid shots of his star-studded social scene. Prices range from a few thousand into the teens. To see more images and even buy a little bit of Warhol history, go here.
The post #WorldPhotoDay: Andy Warhol’s “Visual Diary” Is On Sale Today appeared first on The WOW Report.
Amy Fisher
Brody Jenner
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
Carrie- Ann Moss
Chantelle Houghton
Hayden Panettiere
Jackie DeShannon
Jeff Stryker
Kelis
Kenny Rogers
Kim Cattrall
Kimberly Stewart
Loretta Devine
Paris Bennett
Patty McCormack
Peter Weir
RJ Mitte
Usain Bolt
The post August 21st: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 21, 1872– Aubrey Beardsley:
“If I am not grotesque, than I am nothing”
Because of my keen interest in Oscar Wilde, back in the early 1980s my boyfriend, the man who would eventually become my husband, introduced me to the work of an astonishing late 19th century artist. 35 years ago, he gave me a big book of illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, an English artist who was often associated with the works of Wilde. John Lane, Wilde’s own publisher, invited Beardsley to illustrate the English edition of Wilde’s play Salome. When it was published in 1894, both the play and the witty, provocative, and blatantly erotic illustrations created a sensation.
That same year, Beardsley became famous as the art editor of The Yellow Book, a new Arts and Letters periodical that Lane had put together. Beardsley’s stunning black and white drawings, title pages, and covers helped make the new quarterly magazine a big success. The Yellow Book was quickly the target of those stuffy conservative moralists who were gravely concerned about the influence of the decadent movement on English society and art. One critic described Beardsley’s designs for the periodical as: “Diseased, weird, macabre, and sinister”, words once used to describe my underwear drawer.
Considering the shortness of his life, he died of Tuberculosis at just 25 years old, Beardsley’s achievements remain astonishing. A highly original artist, he transformed the very idea of illustration in his era and profoundly influenced other artists of his own and future generations.
Beardsley’s expert draftsmanship made his drawings particularly suitable to the technical advances in printing at the end of the 19th century. His work came to maturity at a time perfectly suited to his peculiar genius, when theories of decadence, aesthetic expression to perverse sexuality and fetishism of all kinds were being offered in all the arts.
Beardsley’s work is sexually frank and even sometimes pornographic. He drew erect penises and stylized pubic hair. He fetishized objects such as shoes and accessories. He also depicted sexual obsession, lesbianism, sadomasochism, and male homosexuality with an honesty and a passion intended to shock and provoke. Even this morning, I can find few examples of his work that are suitable for publishing on The Wow Report, knowing how delicate you all are.
Beardsley had an intense preoccupation with sex, opium, cocaine and obscenity. In his brief, brilliant career, which saw him celebrated, disgraced, passe and dead in just a quarter century, he created a uniquely luxurious, lubricious illustrative style: a strongly contemporary graphic art of plush, monochrome obscenities. He wrote Under The Hill, a pornographic novel where, in one scene, Venus works up a mighty appetite for lunch by giving a hand-job to a unicorn called Adolphe:
“Adolphe had been quite profuse that morning. Venus knelt where it had fallen, and lapped her little aperitif”.
He collected sexually explicit Japanese prints and framed them for his bedroom wall. He delighted in books that detailed carnal curiosities. Beardsley hung out with sodomites and pornographers. But, nothing in my research brought any hard evidence that he didn’t die a virgin. Wilde:
“Don’t sit on the same chair as Aubrey. It’s not compromising.”
After Wilde’s arrest and imprisonment in 1895, Beardsley courted controversy by moving into rooms at Geneux Hotel, a suite which Wilde had lived in 1893 while writing his play An Ideal Husband and explore his keen interest in rent-boys. The address had been made notorious by Wilde’s trial as a place of homosexual assignations. With his own sexuality a matter of public speculation by Wilde’s imprisonment, I think maybe Beardsley needed a special spot to reflect on the impact of the whole Wilde affair while still seeking to provoke the public.
This is how we should remember Beardsley: an artist who tried to go beyond the limits of popular taste, both in terms of style and sexual orientation. You can just imagine Beardsley sitting in those rooms at the Geneux , pondering Wilde’s downfall at the very scene of his scandalous crimes; reflecting on his own subversive sexual appetites; sniffing at the linen for traces of male-on-male sex: glancing at the reviews of his work, and wondering if things would ever change.
In our own 21st century, Beardsley is viewed as a satirical artist, with a gift for caricature and the grotesque. He also created revolutionary designs, images and patterns of unsurpassed beauty. I totally dig his work. I hope you will also.
As with our own era’s Damien Hirst, Beardsley was just an innocent boy before he became a high priest of wasted decadence. I think Beardsley’s life story would make a fine film, maybe starring Tom Hiddleston and directed by Wes Anderson.
The post #BornThisDay: Artist, Aubrey Beardsley appeared first on The WOW Report.
Biggie Smalls
“I’ve always found before and after photos from dog grooming to be really funny. Usually it doesn’t even look like it’s the same dog in each photo! I had the idea of shooting a photo series that highlighted this extreme transformation. Each dog went way beyond their normal grooming schedule to grow their hair long and shaggy for the shoot.
There’s something so funny to me about seeing a dog so shaggy that they can’t even see! I wanted the after photos to be really extreme by showing a type of cut that’s uncommon to most of us here in the United States.“
Each haircut can take hours, as the majority of the styling is all done with hand scissoring. All the dogs in this series were groomed by Healthy Spot in L.A., many of which specialize in this style of cut and have been trained by masters from Japan. Can you stand this much cuteness!?
Rocco
Raider
Herman
Teddy
Athena
Yuki
Lana
(Photos, Grace Chon; Grooming, Alyson Ogimachi, Donna Owens, Koko Fukaya, Cindy Reyes, Patricia Sugihara& Cameron Adkins; via Bored Panda)
The post #PupCulture: These Before & After (Japanese-Style) Dog Makeovers Are Too *$#@! Cute! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Benjamin Brougham is the Director of Interiors for Jonathan Adler. For years now Jonathan Adler shops has sold my works on paper across the country, and Benjamin was once in charge of acquiring art, so we became friends. In 2013 he organized an exhibit of my work, called Pop Queen, in their London shop during the Queen’s Jubilee. His boyfriend at the time was in the House of Lords and commissioned a portrait of the Queen for the show, and for the opening he brought along Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York. He’s now Jonathan’s right hand with regard to interiors, so when he scored a new flat (he’s British) in Williamsburg, it was a cinch to make it look like THIS in just two months.
It’s not all Adler that you see but the sensibility is, since our man is in charge. Lot’s of vintage pieces mixed-in along with velvet chairs, a guest-friendly sofa and Adler’s iconic ceramics sourced from the brand’s collection. Have a look around.
(Photos, Maura McEvoy; via Design Sponge)
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Clinton Hill
A new book, Brooklyn Interiors by Kathleen Hackett, ($45; Rizzoli) proves that Brooklyn isn’t defined by any single aesthetic. With homes in neighborhoods from Bed-Stuy to Dumbo to Ditmas Park there’s diversity in the people and their styles in this borough of New York City that is known world-wide. A living room with an antique map and surfboard and another decorated with leather sofas and industrial pendant lamps.
I’ve thrown in the one above which is not in the book. It’s my former brownstone in Clinton Hill, now owned by my oldest friend, chef Cary Richardson. It features my paintings and artwork, as well as wallpaper that I designed for this room –and later sold through Anthroplogie Home– along with a rug and pillows featuring my work. It was just the scene of a fun birthday party this spring, when the book just came out. I hope the author doesn’t mind I included it here, I think it fits in nicely, in that it’s a unique Brooklyn interior.
Boerum Hill
Ditmas Park
Bushwick
Dumbo
Brooklyn Heights
Clinton Hill
Fort Greene
Bedford-Stuyvesant
(Photos, Matthew Williams; via Architectural Digest)
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Lou Pearlman, the disgraced impresario behind the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSYNC who was serving a 25-year prison term after being convicted of running a half-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, died on Friday night.
‘NSYNC member Lance Bass tweeted word of the news on Saturday, August 20, writing,
“He might not have been a stand up businessman , but I wouldn’t be doing what I love today without his influence.“
On the back of those boy bands’ success, Pearlman turned his businesses into an empire in the 90s, but it was all built on fraud, and he was sued by every act he represented, bar one.
But before and after his fall, rumors were rampant about Pearlman’s relationships with some of the male groups on his roster. NSYNC’s Lance Bass told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014,
“We would hear things, for sure. He would always have young boy limo drivers for Trans Continental Records. Those limo drivers would always be put into different boy bands. Then I’d hear rumors that he would molest the boys before they would even get into the groups. I don’t know how much of that is true, but to me, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.“
Louis Jay Pearlman was born in Flushing,New York in 1954, the only child of a dry-cleaner. His first cousin was Art Garfunkel who attended Pearlman’s bar mitzvah in June 1967, giving him an early taste of music superstardom. According to THR,
Pearlman got his entrepreneurial start in the late 1970s, after graduating from Queens College with a degree in accounting, by founding a helicopter taxi service in New York City. He later moved into blimp leasing. After the maiden voyage of the newly minted Airship International crashed in New Jersey in 1980, Pearlman aligned himself with a penny-stock operation. An initial public offering in 1985 for Airship International (ticker symbol: BLMP) raised $3 million in a widely suspected “pump and dump” scheme. By 1989, he was traveling in a private jet and had relocated to temperate Orlando.
All the while, Pearlman quietly was convincing would-be investors to get in on the ground floor of a flourishing — and fallacious — fleet of planes. Trans Continental would become the cornerstone of Pearlman’s Ponzi scheme of 84 businesses of varying degrees of legitimacy, in which investors contributed to the company’s Employee Investment Savings Accounts (EISA) program.
After a string of blimp accidents in the early ’90s, Pearlman soured on the airship business, remembering the time he chartered a plane in the late 1980s for money-minting New Kids on the Block. He placed a classified ad for teen male vocalists in the Orlando Sentinel in 1992 and fondly recalls “the days when we had the auditioning process, when we put it all together, trying to get a record deal,” Pearlman told The Hollywood Reporter.
Backstreet Boys were not an overnight hit, but Pearlman proceeded to sink millions into the group, assigning management duties to Johnny Wright and wife Donna. Success came with the 1997 hit “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” which helped fuel album sales of ultimately 14 million copies. They repeated the formula with NSYNC, and Pearlman proceeded to build his Trans Continental entertainment empire based in Orlando, Fla., containing a string of boy-band-type acts: O-Town, LFO, Aaron Carter, Jordan Knight, Take 5, and the girl group Innosense (which briefly included a pre-fame Britney Spears).
Yet it all unravelled in the late 1990s, with every act under Pearlman’s domain except one (the minor boy band US5) ultimately suing him for misrepresentation and fraud.
Indeed, Pearlman’s entire Trans Continental empire was built on fraud, and after investigators discovered in 2006 that his Ponzi scheme had defrauded investors out of at least $300 million. He fled the country and was arrested in Indonesia in June of 2007, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding.
He said in 2014,
“You know, I deeply regret what happened. And I’ll be back.“
Lou Pearlman was 62. (via THR)
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