p.s. Hey. ** CAUTIVOS, Hi! Thank you! I don’t know why either. Interesting. Take care! ** Misanthrope, I want to live in a diorama. Oh, wait, I guess I do. Pix of your bedroom perhaps? Ah, right, ‘Twin Peaks’, your pal is probably right, right? I was going to say, well, you have Pret a Manger over there until I remembered it’s a UK company using a fake French name. I’m almost always asleep by midnight on NYE. It’s almost a policy. I haven’t read that Isis book. Enjoy the piss slinging. ** David Ehrenstein, Dusty Springfield! ** Dominik, Hi!!! Happy you liked them. My collaborator/friend Gisele was really influenced by them. I know the name Daniel Allen Cox, but I … don’t think I’ve read him. I’ll seek out ‘Shuck’. Promising title. Wait, he mentions my books? Crazy. Okay, the hunt is on. Now I’m going spend all day trying to imagine what that doll felt. There are worse ways to use one’s brain. Thank you! Love somehow finding out that the guy in the second GIF from the bottom in today’s post is freaking out because he just learned that his poem has been accepted for the next issue of SCAB, G. ** David, Dead could be everything maybe, who knows. I’m glad your rape had a happy ending of sorts. How often does that happen? ** _Black_Acrylic, I alwaysthink France has a billion holidays (at least compared to the holiday-stingy USA), but it sounds like the UK has us beat. ** Bill, The interesting one to me was the person who’s into chandeliers. In the sense that I saw that and thought, ‘Well, naturally!’ It’s true we’re not that cold at the moment, but it is raining. In fact, I finally found ‘The Feast’ in a free watchable form last night, and now it’s cued up on soap2day for later today barring some intrusive disaster. ** Kage, Hi. Yeah, I never understand why people confuse the escorts and slaves, but people do. But you know I pay lot of attention to form. Glasgow’s not a party capitol? Restauranting with friends sounds nice to me. My only NYE ritual is falling asleep before midnight and maybe being briefly woken up by the clattering of fireworks, but with fireworks banned this year, I guess I’ll just get a good night’s sleep? I’ve never really liked alcohol. Its effect doesn’t interest me. Never really did. So NYE isn’t my thing since I don’t give a fuck about the changeover of the years. Anyway, the slaves will be here the day after tomorrow to see 2021 out! ** Steve Erickson, I’m pretty sure France won’t let Chick-fil-A inside their borders. But never say never. I liked your song! Everyone, Steve’s review of ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ can be read by you if you’re willing to click this green word. Word. And if you click these green words you’ll see his top ten films of 2021. ** Okay. I made something for you and only you today. It’s right up there. See you tomorrow.
_____________ The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
‘”The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” is an exploration of a collection of eighteen miniature crime scene models that were built in the 1940’s and 50’s by a progressive criminologist Frances Glessner Lee (1878 – 1962). The models, which were based on actual homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths, were created to train detectives to assess visual evidence. This seven-year project culminated in an exhibition and a book, Corinne May Botz’s The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (The Monacelli Press, 2004).
‘The models display an astounding level of precision and detail: shades can be raised and lowered, mice live in the walls, stereoscopes work, whistles blow and pencils write. My photographs highlight the models’ painstaking detail, as well as the prominence of female victims. Through framing, scale, lighting, color, and depth of field, I attempt to bring intimacy and emotion to the scene of the crime. I want viewers to feel as if they inhabit the miniatures – to loose their sense of proportion and experience the large in the small. Glessner Lee built the dioramas, she said, “to convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.”
GLESSNER LEE WITH HER NUTSHELL DIORAMA DARK BATHROOM.
‘Most of the dead in Frances Glessner Lee’s models are women killed in their own homes. (Seventeen of the nineteen dioramas are set in homes, and eleven depict dead women.) Women fallen down stairs. Women with rope burns on their necks. Women murdered in the act of packing to leave, dresser drawers and suitcases splayed open to reveal miniature clothes.
‘Frances Glessner Lee began designing and building the dioramas when she was sixty-five and worked on the project for ten years. Her life (1878–1962) spanned two world wars, women finally getting the right to vote, and the beginnings of second-wave feminism.
‘Much is made of her lack of education. Glessner Lee’s brother had been sent to Harvard, but she did not attend college. This did not stop her from inventing an entirely new teaching tool for police investigation. In 1942, Glessner Lee was named a captain in the New Hampshire State Police force, with no formal forensic training. In a letter quoted in Corinne May Botz’s book, Glessner Lee explains her interest in constructing the dioramas and her fascination with the field of legal medicine. “When an opportunity came to me to start something new in the medical line. I was delighted to take it on. As a girl, I was deeply interested in medicine and nursing and would have enjoyed taking training in either one.” She was a mother and a grandmother—in fact, in much of the writing about her dioramas, her status as a grandmother is insisted upon, as if grandmothers should not have anything to do with murder and violence, should not invent and build models of crime scenes.’ — Nicole Cooley
Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
____________ Murder Objects
‘The objects in these photographs were instrumental in cases of sudden and violent deaths. They pertain to solved-crimes, and are displayed in a glass cabinet at the Baltimore Forensic Medical Center. This series reflects my interest in how artifacts are displayed and viewed in particular cultural contexts and conditions. The mundane household objects reveal the transgressive possibilities of the domestic interior. During this time I was researching psychometry, in which psychics hold objects and receive psychic vibrations contained in the objects. I believed these objects would help to sharpen my psychometric abilities.’ — CMB
Nipple used as pacifier causing asphyxiation death of infant.
Electrocution. Note: Voltage Exit Burns
Elderly man who had daily medication prepared for him, cause of death related to pills left in container at time of death.
Lantern fueled by gasoline used by victim to heat automobile, which he was sleeping in. Victim died from carbon monoxide exposure generated by lantern. Note: Aluminum foil around heater globe and vent to restrict “light glow” of lantern.
Exhaust pipe cut by victim in an effort to camouflage a carbon monoxide suicide in a vehicle to have authorities rule as accidental.
Car Accident
Drug Paraphernalia
Pagan Motorcycle Club ID made from Tattoo on decomposed body.
A twenty-three year old woman was stabbed thirty three times with a pair of scissors in a drug related homicide. She was also bitten on the left side of her face during the attack. Bite mark impression castes were obtained from a suspect. He latter pled guilt to first-degree murder and received a life sentence.
Drug Paraphernalia
Drug Paraphernalia
____________ Haunted Houses
Haunted Houses is a long-term project in which I photographed and collected oral ghosts stories in over eighty haunted sites throughout the United States. The series was inspired by turn of the century spirit photographs and Victorian ghost stories written by women as a means of articulating domestic discontents. In being the medium through which the spirit of these houses was recorded, I continued the tradition of female sensitivity to the supernatural. When I photographed in haunted houses, I tried to open myself to the invisible nuances of a space. I photographed using a large format camera, with exposures often ranging from a few seconds to a few hours. Though the medium of the visible, photography makes the invisible apparent. By collecting extensive evidence of the surface, one becomes aware of what is missing, and a space is provided for the viewer to imagine the invisible.
Haunted Houses provides a unique way of understanding our relationship to the spaces we inhabit, and reflects romantic and dystopian notions of the domestic realm. The notion of hauntedness activates and highlights the home, revealing the hidden narratives and possibilities of everyday life. — CMB
Atlas Theatre, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Army Barracks, Vancouver, Washington
Séance Table
Old Bermuda Inn, Staten Island, New York
Private Residence, Clinton, Maine
The Roehrs House, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
Private Residence, Hawthorne, New Jersey
Apartment No.2, Brooklyn, New York
La Petite Theatre, New Orleans, Louisiana
Vealtown Tavern, Bernardsville, New Jersey
El Rancho, Las Vegas, Nevada
Edgar Allen Poe House, Baltimore, MD
Rental House, Tivoli, NY
_______________ Mein Hauptbahnhof
The love of objects is called “objectophilia.” Objectophiles do not feel attracted to people and instead are sexually and emotionally drawn to certain objects. They exchange experiences on the Internet and hope that their sexual inclinations will be recognized and accepted.
The photographs in the series Objectophilia were made during my visits with objectophiles. They show various love objects including: a pinball machine, computer, World Trade Center, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and steam locomotive. All of these objects were photographed with a large format camera and in a documentary style to serve as a counterpoint to the highly subjective and emotional video. — CMB
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Um, I don’t remember. I spent several days searching for them when I was bored or had nothing more pressing to do. That’s funny: I just saw a current pic of Jared Leto yesterday and thought the same thing. Keanu Reeves and Johnny Depp looked young and ageless until they hit their 50s, and then, in what seemed like a flash, they looked weathered. Love live-streaming himself picking his nose and eating his boogers, G. ** David, Cool, I’ve been vegetarian since I was 15. Never a second thought, even back in the days when that meant eating in restaurants involved eating a lot of iceberg lettuce and potatoes. Not narcissistic, no, I don’t think so. Other than some organic socks supposedly in the mail to me from a LA friend, I got no Xmas presents. Hope the meal didn’t give you indigestion, and, yeah, I like you too. ** Misanthrope, I need to eat Chinese food. It’s not that common a cuisine in Paris, strangely. Can’t imagine you having a Xmas or birthday without some form of gift-wrapped Chalamet. Crazy shirt. Cooper as in the tire company maybe? Wear it proudly, buddy. A bonfire sounds nice. We were sure they going to impose a NYE curfew here, but they didn’t, they just cancelled the big fireworks thing. ** _Black_Acrylic, My pleasure, Ben. Oh, I just restored another one of your old guest-posts, coming up in the next week and a half. I’ll let you be surprised. ** Tosh Berman, I still need watch the last episode of ‘Get Back’. Everyone seems to think or know that Lennon was doing heroin during the shooting, so that might explain things a bit. He kind of perked up a little in episode 2. Maybe he did a speedball that day. ** Kage, Hi. My guess is that I really did. Blush, I mea n. The slaves post is finished, and it will be here on the 31st like clockwork, yes. I think it’s kind of a dark one. Darker than even usual, I mean. But I’m usually making least two of those kinds of posts at the same time, i.e. an escorts one and a slave one, so they blur together in my mind. Do you do NYE celebrations? If so, what? ** Steve Erickson, And there it is! Everyone, Join me in debuting Mr. Erickson’s new song “o m i n o u s d r o n e 7”. I’m glad you like Beckman’s stuff, of course. My memory of ‘Speed Racer’ is that it looked great but its script was rote and obvious. But I haven’t seen it since its release. ** h now j, Hi. Oh, great that you’re fans Beckman’s. Thank you, thank you for whatever you’re sending! That’s so thoughtful. Congrats on the new room and park proximity. I live two blocks from the Tuileries, so I know how helpful that is. ** Bill, Happy you dug it. My holiday weekend was no more of a holiday than any other weekend, which makes it sound like a bad thing, which it wasn’t. Yes, your shit weather is news even over here. Not exciting shit? I’ll imbibe your friend’s release, thank you very much! Happy homebound life until further notice. ** Okay. I thought today’s post would be a good one to restore, and of course I hope you’ll agree. See you tomorrow.
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