Things made by people who say things like, “As it would be weird and most likely illegal for me to marry the dead James Dean, I decided I would have to worship him instead.” *

* (restored)

“Don’t judge me.”

 

The contents of the bedroom where Michael Jackson died are now on display at an auction house in Beverly Hills — and though the actual death bed was pulled from the event, fans have erected a makeshift memorial in the spot where it was supposed to be displayed.

 

“Tate, my love, from American Horror Story. The shrine is fully equipped with darts and kisses.”

 

The wild-living father of gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson killed himself at his Aspen home on February 20, 2005. One year later, a cabal of five calling themselves the Glorious Leaders of the Underground Movement (GLUM) created a shrine to Thompson somewhere off the trails at Snowmass. The clump of trees contains an American flag, photos, bullets, a mirror-encrusted stuffed lizard and booze. The stash is replenished yearly on the anniversary of his death.

 

“This is my shrine for Kat Bjelland. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, I’m 21 and I think it’s flawless.”

 

“I wouldn’t really call this a shrine… it’s more of a mural documenting my obsession with having sex with Beyonce. Now I’m a freshman in college and I’ve learned how to tone down my obsession from obnoxious to enthusiastic.”

 

“This is my altar for the Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It was my favorite book from the series, and I was so obsessed with it that I had to, like, honor it every night. I added the candles because it’s a total cliche that needed to be included to represent the fire from the title. I’m the biggest fanatic so it was only a matter of time until I did something like this. My classmate even told me once, “You love those books so much! You should seriously make an altar for them and pray to them.” I had to embarrassingly confess that I already had one.”

 

“I like making shrines to dead people. David Bowie died recently so I decided it’s his turn.”

 

“I made a shrine for Frida Kahlo, the amazing Mexican artist. My favorite quote of Frida’s is, “[Andre Breton and the European surrealists] are so damn ‘intellectual’ and rotten that I can’t stand them anymore…I would rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas than have anything to do with those ‘artistic’ bitches of Paris.” That quote is also written on my shrine.”

 

The grieving father of a teenager killed in a horrific head-on crash has been hit by the Bedroom Tax on his dead son’s empty room. Terry Fannon was left heartbroken when motorcyclist Thomas Hodson Fannon, 18, died after colliding with quad biker in October. But his pain was made worse when he found out his benefits had been slashed because his son’s room is now ‘spare’, the Manchester Evening News reports. The room at his home in Denton, Tameside, remains untouched following the death of his son after he was hit by Sam Edge, 20, who was last week jailed for causing death by dangerous driving. With Tom’s name on the wall and photographs of his beloved son on display, Terry has kept the bedroom just as it was – a shrine to his lost boy.

 

 

“This is my Leo shrine from middle school. At the height of this obsession, my mom brought home a magazine with a recent picture of Leo and he was fat! I immediately burst into tears and cried all through dinner. I even wrote “Leo” in a skull and crossbones with my chow mein noodles. It’s important to note that none of this was ironic and I hysterically cried into my pillow until about four the next morning.”

 

Taped up like a teenage girl tapes her favorite musician’s or actor’s magazine photos were pages and pages of one man: Ahmad Shah Massoud. The most revered mujahideen, Massoud was the leader of the resistance to the Taliban.

 

“I made a secret shrine to some girls at my school that I dream of giving roofies to and fucking. Don’t worry, I won’t do it. But I took a picture of me gently caressing the pictures to make you feel uneasy.”

 

“A holy man in a sacred place.”

 

“For all katycats around the world dedicated to katy. we are all infinity katycats!”

 

 

“Being the insane-foaming-at-the-mouth-own-ever-album-know-every-word-crying-at-every-concert fan that I am for Ms. Britney Jean Spears, I decided to show you my Britney youtube shrine. This is probably one of my favorite things I’ve done creatively. I knew, especially around 2007, that being a Britney fan wasn’t cool anymore, but I just stuck with her. Sure, she’s lost a bit of her luster, but so have I!”

 

“A Black Tent Temple is an enclosed physical space – usually a tent-like or cave-like space – that is consciously designed to facilitate spiritual incubation work and honour endarkenment. There are many ways to define endarkenment, but the one I use most often is “a clearing and strengthening of inner vision, and grounding it in the Earth through an alchemical reckoning with the sacred dark.” The Black Tent Temple is inspired, in part, by my passionate love for dark ambient music as a facilitator of mysticism and inner journeys. It is also born of the intense grief and loss I suffered when my 14-year marriage ended in 2007. Incubation work, for me, includes not just the quiet, motionless lying down for long periods of time that Kingsley describes so brilliantly in his book, but also tea meditations, grief work, ritual dance work (especially veiled lamentation dances for Earth grief), and devotional offerings to the dark divine and the dead – all accompanied by dark ambient music. For the Black Tent Temple space I maintain, which of necessity must be kept within the confines of my very small studio live/work space, I installed two sets of black curtains to introduce a sense of separation between the temple space and the spaces I use for sleeping, grooming, etc. When I do incubation work (including sessions in the psychomanteum or mirror gazing room), I draw the curtains closed to mark the boundaries of the space. For everyday activities, I simply leave the curtains open.”

 

Lounging back in his Birmingham home Terry Rooke proudly shows off his massive collection of memorabilia of his favourite celebrity – Holly Marie Combs, star of cult US TV show Charmed. The 44-year-old, from Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, says he developed a boyhood crush on the then teenage actress in 1985 after he saw her in Walls of Glass at the cinema. And his instant attraction developed into a life-long admiration for the star. Now every wall and surface of his one bedroom 17th floor home in Birmingham City Council’s Holbrook Tower is adorned with images of his idol and the supernatural series Charmed.

 

“Nicki Minaj made one miracle: she was born.”

 

“I had quite the Sonic Youth obsession, starting in 6th grade or so. It bordered on unhealthy–I kept a journal full of letters to Thurston (only HE could understand my pain!), convinced my parents to take me to an SY show in the middle of a family vacation, and held birthday parties for Thurston every year, where all my friends were required to wear SY T-shirts. I took these photos when I was 16 and decided it was time to “move on.” (The Cure was SO GOOD! I had just discovered them!)”

 

Shrine to a dead dog

 

Shrine to literature

 

 

“Heath Ledger is important to me. Ever since high school I’ve dedicated my art to him. There was devastation when he died. To ease the pain, I read, talked, and thought only about him for quite some time. I became too obsessed with him, so I decided to stop watching his movies and looking up pictures of him on the internet for a year. In late 2011 I returned to thinking about him. In a weird way, I think he’s my angel. The place I live in right now has a sign which reads “Heath.” I was out of a job for two years and, as soon as I recognized the sign outside, I got an interview and, in time, a job. Also, I was watching a TV show, but it blacked out so I found The Dark Knight to watch instead. As soon as I changed it to The Dark Knight, my water, which was placed in the middle of the table where there was no possible way for it to spill, fell to the ground. A crow follows me around at the bus stop, too, and nears my feet each time. Little events have made me believe he’s out there. I also made a prayer. I’m not a religious person, but I feel some sort of spiritual lift when I think about him. I start each prayer with, “I am the starfish, I am the jellyfish, I am the leaves, I am the trees.” At the thrift store, I found a figurine book, so I put my own little words in it. I keep it inside my heart-shaped box.”

 

“Madonna has influenced my artwork, my style, basically everything. I don’t worship any other musician like this and she’s really old so it’s kind of weird. There is so much I could say about her, I could go on and on forever. My boyfriend even told me it was pathetic that I worship her so much.”

 

“This is the shrine for Kiss that I had when I was a teenager. It took me close to a year to complete it and it stayed up for close to three years in total. This was all before I had even heard them.”

 

“It’s not great quality, but this is my cheap version of a shrine of my dream school, the University of Chicago. I made it with all of the postcards and viewbooks they’ve sent me.”

 

A man hiking in New York earlier this week, stumbled upon what appeared to be an eerie shrine to missing people. “Look what these … are,” Rankin said in the video as he showed the missing person photos. “These are all different … people. This is Utah, Florida; they are all different… every single one. What I wanna know is, if these were “Halloween party” decorations like they’re saying, why have they been hanging there for weeks or months. Because it was plainly obvious that the stuff had been there for quite a while, and not set up recently. No, this is some evil, evil shit.”

 

 

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan has a legion of fans all over the world, but not many will be able to beat Vishal Singh’s obsession with the star. The 38-year-old Indian businessman has plastered every square inch of his house with Khan’s pictures and spent his honeymoon waiting outside the actor’s house in Mumbai, hoping to catch a glimpse of his idol. “I will do anything that will make Shah Rukh Khan happy,” Singh, who runs a homeopathic medicine business in Lucknow, told Reuters.

 

“My uncle made this when he was my age. I always thought my aunt made it. When I found out my uncle made it, it freaked me out. I threw up.”

 

“Here is a shrine I made to Sofia Coppola, my idol. I wanted to pay homage to all her movies and I also wanted to celebrate her cheek-kiss of Matt Dillon in Rumble Fish–I’ll be forever jealous.”

 

 

“Here is a pretty shoddy shot of my shrine to The Virgin Suicides. It’s still kinda under construction, one of those things I started months ago and will never really finish. I also have a massive 27X40 movie poster that I couldn’t quite figure out how to get in the shot.”

 

 

“This is my Robbie Williams shrine. It’s not as expansive as it could be because then I’d feel weird having people come visit.”

 

“This is my shrine (or Fryine) in honor of comedian, writer, presenter, documentarian, and British national treasure Stephen Fry. He has also championed gay rights, mental health, and intellectual enlightenment. Man is brilliant. I basically took pictures from shows he has written or starred in, stuck them to the inside of my cupboard door with sticky tape, put a few beads up using thumbtacks and mounted a little box which holds a candle nicely. (Though I am no longer allowed to light the candle, as my mother informs me we have no insurance to cover shrines.) The ticket stub is from his talk at the Sydney Opera House. My greatest desire is that I might meet him before either of us dies.”

 

 

“I was going to have a big write up about my Jonas Brothers shrine and how I bet Nick makes the most of his nights, but I live in Christchurch and we just had some more earthquakes so I’m not really in the right place to write that.”

 

Police have identified the teenager struck and killed by a car on St. James Avenue early Saturday morning as Taylor Street resident Zamir Sanders. On Monday morning, balloons adorned a shrine to Sanders at the accident site that carried tributes from friends and family.

 

“It’s modest, but I love it.”

 

“I made this shrine to the wall next to my bed. I love that wall.”

 

“A shrine for Hole and Courtney Love. Sniffle.”

 

“I set up a bit of a Coleman stove shrine in a spare bedroom, and find myself relaxing in there looking at ’em.”

 

“My shrine is located in the “Den of Gram,” a back room in our house that also serves as a bar/office. My shrine is in the corner, on top of the bar, and covers several layers of shelves and walls. A large poster of Gram dominates the shrine; it is surrounded by smaller photos in jeweled frames, several statues of angels and cherubs, a glitter lamp and other decorative lighting, and mementos brought back from my “pilGramages,” including souvenirs and items from important locations in Gram’s life. Strings of colored beads and crystals form an intricate web above the shrine. I modeled my Gram nicho after the traditional Hispanic nichos, which resemble “shadow boxes,” and represent a saint or religious figure (or could even depict a departed celebrity or family member). In my nicho, I placed Gram’s photo, covered the inside with glitter and embellishments, and placed natural items found at Cap Rock, Joshua Tree, where Gram’s road manager attempted to cremate him after stealing his body from the airport. Photos do not accurately depict my shrine; it must be experienced in person to capture its essence and its beauty.”

 

“Although my shrine might be worth $100K, it’s not monetary value that’s motivated all these years – it’s a mere passion and love for Batman. And I’ve passed this love down on to my kids. My daughter Kaylaigh has turned her bedroom into a Marilyn Munroe shrine while my son Dylan’s is a shrine to the rock band Kiss.”

 

“The bust of Friedrich Nietzsche may be nowhere in sight, but this is a shrine to him and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album.”

 

“This is a shrine my sister made me for x-mas–a pocket shrine to my favorite actor and mega-sexy man, Alan Rickman! It’s in a cassette tape box so I take it on trips. I hope you love it as much as I treasure it!”

 

“I have six rooms downstairs that I call my Star Trek themed church. Right now my favourite room is the Federation room – and I sleep in the Klingon Ambassador quarters. I feel like I’m a survivor, and I’ve proved anyone with mental disabilities can become anything they want in life. People can’t believe I’ve changed my house three times in 29 years now this is a dream house for a person that loves Star Trek. Some people think I’m crazy for destroying my house like this, but generally people are just darn surprised.”

 

 

“I made this portable shrine to Morrissey and cats for my best friend this Christmas because a) she really loves cats b) we REALLY love Morrissey and c) I wanted an excuse to print out 58 close-ups of Morrissey’s nipple. Yes, that is indeed what those round dots are. Inside the box, I put a framed picture of Morrissey with a cat carefully sellotaped on his hand (balls to you, Photoshop) and a smaller box with a “How To Marry Morrissey” kit inside. I also filled it with my tears of joy. She loved it, as she very well should. WE ALL KNOW THIS IS REALLY A SHRINE TO HIS NIPPLES.”

 

“My girlfriend made a shrine of herself next to my bed so that I wouldn’t have to miss her when she isn’t with me. She said that if I ever missed her to just look at the pictures and tickets on the wall and remember the good times we always have and to know that she isn’t really that far away.”

 

 

“Here is my shrine that I made my freshman year at an all-girls boarding school. I called it my Wall of Man.”

 

 

“This is the combined talent of mine and my sister’s shrine-making skills. The shrine on the far right is one that I made for her for Christmas, dedicated to Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix. After months of hearing about how incredible My Own Private Idaho is, I decided that River needed to be honored for his greatness. The middle shrine is one I made to Alexander McQueen, whose designs changed my entire outlook on fashion. The left shrine is my sister’s, paying homage to her favorite poets and writers, with the amazing Rimbaud rightfully in the center. I absolutely love being able to express my obsessions in the form of shrining! (Also, we’ve found that those fake candles really complete the look!)”

 

Police who were trying to arrest a teenager in Florida were shocked when they accidentally uncovered this bizarre satanic shrine hidden in her parents’ mobile home.

 

 

“As it would be weird and most likely illegal for me to marry the dead James Dean, I decided I would have to worship him instead.”

 

 

“Crystal Castles are my favorite band. I reserved a small nightstand in my room just for them. I adorned it with fake roses, their albums, candles, and random things like pins and rubber skeletons. I made the picture frame. I saw them live twice. You can see my Coachella wristband and the venue ticket. I also made the “Alice Glass” bracelet. She’s my personal goddess.”

 

The Japanese visit this shrine to worship breasts.

 

 

“I worship singer-songwriter Conor Oberst! He has been my idol since I was 15 (I am 18 presently). My favorite of his bands by far is Bright Eyes. He has changed my life, and he has made me have an interest in music that I never ha before listening to his words. Music is powerful and his music made me realize it. This is why he is my idol!!!!!”

 

“Diego Maradona, in you I believe, you inspire me and every single word you say has a lot of meaning. You are a legend and legends live forever, you are a hero from a fairytale, but you exist.”

 

“This is my Carrie Bradshaw shoe shrine.”

 

“This is my bedroom. I call it my Self-Esteem Shrine. All those things on my walls are notes I wrote telling myself how awesome I am. It really helps.”

 

“The music of Arcade Fire has affected my life more profoundly than any other artistic or cultural experience. This shrine is a small token of my appreciation for what these incredible people have done for me.”

 

There was a massive hanging tampon (compete with heart-shaped lollipops attached to its string) attached to a Justin Bieber shrine, which featured Bieber wallpaper and a massive sculpted bust of the Bieb’s face (great attention to detail on Bieber’s updated spiky hair).

 

“This is my “Voodoo Shrine,” the altar of my “Voodoo Religion.” Its content varies from artifacts found near the River Thames to my Sylvanian Families–and Damien Hirst wall paper. To be honest, my Voodoo Religion is just an excuse to burn candles. But my shrine does have “spiritual” satisfaction: staring at my “patron saint” Alex Turner’s lovely face. Telling people “I’m Voodoo and I have a shrine” is always a good way of getting the boys in my class to shut up.”

 

Shrine for teenager Lewis McPherson on Sixth Ave at Warradale, where he was shot dead on New Year’s Eve.

 

“It began in 2010 when my ex-boyfriend came home with a pack of condoms. There was something about the smell. After we finished sex, I asked him if I could get the condom from him. He then replied if I was nasty, I said why I’m nasty then? I did keep it, but throughout our relationship hit rock bottom because of my fetish for used condoms. I remember I had a party at home. Some friends of mine had drunk some alcohol, so they ended up in my bedroom. That made me happy. I went in to my bedroom for a little while and asked if they used a condom. They did, so I said they could just put the condom on my nightstand, saying I could throw them away for them. But they didn’t listen. My boyfriend broke up with me a week after the party. I get more and more condoms all the time. It is the best feeling in the world. I feel so happy when I go to the mailbox. People were sending used condoms to me. It’s like Christmas every day for me. When I go out on the street, I am known as condom-Tonje, it’s not very nice. I am a perfectly normal human like everyone else. My father has many friends who send used condoms to me in envelopes. Otherwise, I have a lot of sex myself, with people I do not know. ne day I’m going to clear 10,000, that I look forward to.”

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Gilda? The Smiths? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yeah, if I hadn’t been vegan/vegetarian since I was 15, I wonder if I would have made that post. Hm. My grandmother was a taxidermist by profession, and I grew up with a house full of her works, since she tended to give us taxidermied animals as Xmas/b’day presents, so my eyes grew very used to the sight of such things. Psychotherapy! Why not? It’s expensive, no? I just did old fashioned, basic therapy, which was expensive enough. No, Zac and I only work with non-actors. We don’t want any training. We have worked with performers who were in acting school, like the main performer in ‘PGL’, but he/they weren’t locked into those techniques yet. And, no, we don’t want to work with recognisable actors, for sure. It’s important that the people in our films are a clean slate and can’t be seen as anyone but the characters they’re playing. It’s really temperate here bordering on almost cool at the moment, so I’m good. I hope your skies are being kind. ** Martin, Hi. We’ve been in touch, and thank you for your understanding. ** _Black_Acrylic, Ah, ha! Interesting. I never saw that meme, but, yeah, it’s the spitting image. Thank you, thank you, I’ll go look for your email as soon as I’m done here. Great, exciting! ** Bill, Thanks, man. I don’t know that book and I’ll hunt for it. As I told Tosh, my grandmother was a taxidermist, so I’ve seen a bunch of related books over the years, but they were mostly ‘how to’ books which were, well, mostly disturbing. ** Nightcrawler, Hi. Yeah like I just said to _B_A, I didn’t know that meme strangely. If you think you feel old now, just wait, ha ha. ** Nightcrawler, Hi, T! It’s strange that those works don’t make me feel queasy considering my near lifelong vegetarianism, but, yeah, my taxidermist grandmother must’ve numbed me. Yes, he goes by Robin Kid now, I guess because he’s probably not a kid anymore? I’m good, thanks. Gearing up to make the new film mostly, and busy/relieved. Our heatwave, which was … oh my god … seems to have bitten the dust too, although you can’t trust the weather anymore, that’s for sure. So great that your new book is taking shape. You must have entered the ‘yes, this will happen’ phase, which is maybe the best part of the whole book-writing shebang? Oh, and you’re reading at that Infinity Land fest thing. Cool, wish I could be there, but I think I’ll be in LA doing film stuff. Take care bud. ** Steve Erickson, TV must seem very simple and primitive next to Youtube, so you’re probably okay. Makes sense: the raga connection. Vaguely apropos, I was just reading yesterday that the great 60s guitarist Mike Bloomfield was obsessed with ragas and they heavily informed his playing and compositions, whereupon I went back and listened to his kind of masterpiece — Butterfield Blues Band’s ‘East-West’ — and, sure enough, there it was. Apparently, he’s also the person who turned The Beatles onto raga. December, yikes. Well, do whatever’s necessary to get there untrammelled. ** Robert, Hi. Yeah, I get that, but I said a few times up above, my house was full of taxidermied animals when I was growing up, so I guess I’m immune to the gross and depressing effect. To some degree. Well, Zac and I only work with non-actors, so the casting call stuff doesn’t really work for us. In the case of the new film, a friend of mine who’s very connected in LA is scouting interesting people she knows or knows about who seem possibly right for particular roles and asking if they’d be into being in a film, and, if they’re tentatively interested, she has them make an intro video of themselves, which we watch to decide who’s intriguing enough to meet with in person when we go to LA. It’s really just finding people who have a lot of charisma in the ways the characters need, and who are willing and capable of having their real personalities altered and fine-tuned by us. It was kind of the same with our last film. For our first film we had a guy do what’s called ‘wild casting’. He basically went to clubs and parties and things late at night and approached interesting looking guys and asked if they’d consider auditioning. That time we ended up with a cast that was about 70% guys who were fashion models, I don’t know why. I love that sentence! Long winded, overly complicated sentences are a bit like cocaine to me. Thank you! ** Okay. I took a stroll through the graveyard of my old, dead blog and found today’s post which I was always rather fond of and pressed it back into service for you, and I hope you’re glad. See you tomorrow.