When someone can do a blog that's both "Adults Only" and mega-watt trash-art yet tasteful as in not "venom est"-type A, then you have to subscribe instantly. And that site would be the amazing Temple of Schlock.
The Maciste Brothers' site, Destructible Man, is bizarrely focused--but not to the exclusion of other things-- on the use of dummies in films. It shocks in the best possible way because the more the site delves into dummies being killed in film, the more your own life seems to slip into a twilight land of zombies and fleeting shadows of para-dimensional entities. Somewhere out there, we're the dummies, Mike. The dummy, man, it was us... all the time.
Each site manages to conjure that hard to duplicate experience of being a child and kind of afraid/fascinated by the newspaper ads for drive-ins and adult theaters back before video. The sizzle not the steak was how David Friedman famously put it. Now the kids all get steaks just by clicking a button, so just hearing about and seeing posters of the sizzle is no longer the giddy charge of spook show jouissance it used to be. And that's sad because as Lacan points out in his discussion of the objet petit a, the more grounded and happy individual is the one who realizes that it's the sizzle not the steak that matters in life, the sickly thrill of Xmas eve dies in the morning, so if you don't want to be sad simply never open your presents! The Macistes and Temple of Schlock are here to bring the sizzle back. In their hands movies are dangerous once more, even if the only ones who really get killed... are dummies. VIVA MACISTE! They are both also very good for celebrating noted 1970s cinematographer B-days and obits. Stick around and learn sompin bout pretty pitchers... of hot legged hussies in boots of Spanish leather and straight blonde hair.
Erich, we humbly thank you for honoring us honoring ourselves. It's a tingle to see Dave Friedman and Lacan cozied up against each other in the same sentence and make sense.
ReplyDeleteYes, Erich, a splendid job! And all that talk about sizzling steak -- man, you had me convinced it was going to end as a an advertisement for Peter Luger!
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