One of the joys of being self-employed in a seasonal profession is that I can take the time to seek out the movie titles that are lurking in the back of my mind. And so it is that this afternoon I'm watching One Night Stand, directed by Mike Figgis. I saw this movie when it came out over ten years ago, so so maybe it's me and the frame of mind that I find myself in, but the amount of sexual tension in the movie is staggering...it's all that I can do to watch the movie in pieces, which is perhaps the downside of re-watching movies after a long time.
Or maybe it's how Figgis deals with sexuality. He's also the director of Leaving Las Vegas, which lent legitimacy to Nicholas Cage (at least for a while) and should have launched Elizabeth Shue (but didn't, really). Other well known films he's directed include Stormy Monday and Internal Affairs.
Check the rest of his oeuvre on imdb.com.
And now, back to our film.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
St. Crispin's Day
Yesterday was St. Crispin's Day, a/k/a The Feast of Saint Crispian. Like everything in my life, there's a backstory.
The Battle of Agincourt was fought on that date, when the British, greatly outnumbered and without much cavalry, defeated the French in a decisive battle of whatever was was then being fought. The battle is made immortal in Shakespeare's Henry V, in a speech by Henry on the battlefield, a speech that includes the words "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers." In the most recent cinematic version, the words are spoken by Kenneth Branagh, in a stirring call to arms.
The music, by Patrick Doyle, is exquisite, and it never fails to perk me up when I'm down, or life me higher when I'm up, one of several pieces that always grabs at my heart, like the Mendelssohn Octet. It's so good that it's been hijacked and serves on numerous movie trailers.
The speech can be seen on youtube in any number of different versions, all featuring Branagh, with the music playing behind the famous speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM
The Battle of Agincourt was fought on that date, when the British, greatly outnumbered and without much cavalry, defeated the French in a decisive battle of whatever was was then being fought. The battle is made immortal in Shakespeare's Henry V, in a speech by Henry on the battlefield, a speech that includes the words "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers." In the most recent cinematic version, the words are spoken by Kenneth Branagh, in a stirring call to arms.
The music, by Patrick Doyle, is exquisite, and it never fails to perk me up when I'm down, or life me higher when I'm up, one of several pieces that always grabs at my heart, like the Mendelssohn Octet. It's so good that it's been hijacked and serves on numerous movie trailers.
The speech can be seen on youtube in any number of different versions, all featuring Branagh, with the music playing behind the famous speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM
Monday, October 25, 2010
Not Enough 16
If you need to catch up, or to remind yourself where I left off in the story of the ebb and flow of my life with Her, click on http://swordfishsuite.blogspot.com/2010/01/not-enough-15.html and perhaps read back in the sequential posts before it.
The taxi pulled up at the back of a nondescript warehouse, with an abandoned loading dock and a wooden door that stretched ten feet high and perhaps fifteen feed wide, with a black wrought iron circular door handle in the middle of the door, waist high. Debra picked up the door handle and dropped it just once, as someone inside opened up a much smaller Judas-gate that allowed us to enter the building. I understood then that she had been here before, and wondered what we were getting into, as we stepped over the door stile and walked into a dimly lit foyer, a bit crowded with about 50-60 people, the men outnumbering the women by almost three to one. I could see that most of the people there wore black, as Debra did, many of the women dressed in ultra-tight clothing, necklines plunging to reveal breasts either encumbered or unencumbered, some skirts slit on the side to reveal thigh highs or full stockings and garter belts. The men were mostly just dressed in black shirts and pants.
We drifted together towards one of the couches arrayed near the walls, acting for the first time in a long time as a couple, each of us hesitant and a bit scared by the new environment. As my eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, I could make out the people on the couches, some couples sitting side by side, others with the woman sitting on the man's lap. One couch had two men sandwiching a woman, her DVF-style wrap dress opened just a bit between her breasts, each of the men reaching across the fondle a breast, one man having pulled the tit out of the bra, rolling the nipple between his first three fingers. My heart raced and my pulse accelerated, gaping at them and yet not wanting to stare. Debra's breath quickened also, her mouth open slightly, her eyes starting to glaze over.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Amalia approaching, wearing black pants and a silk tunic buttoned to the next, her hair short and combed close to her skull. Debra saw her at the same time, and reflexively assumed the position that she had been taught, her arms behind her back, each hand holding the opposite elbow, her head inclined down as she averted her gaze. I could see that she was further surrendering herself to the moment and to the surrounding before her.
"Ah, you've finally gotten here," she said. "Let me explain how this works. Alice has been here several times before, but always as someone who watched others. Isn't that right, dear?", and Debra was quick to nod her head several times, never once daring to look up. "And tonight that's just what you're going to do---watch. It's what you're really good at, isn't it, what you really like to do, right?
"Alice, on the other hand, has decided to join in and play with us."
And my heart sank, because I knew and I didn't know what that meant.
The taxi pulled up at the back of a nondescript warehouse, with an abandoned loading dock and a wooden door that stretched ten feet high and perhaps fifteen feed wide, with a black wrought iron circular door handle in the middle of the door, waist high. Debra picked up the door handle and dropped it just once, as someone inside opened up a much smaller Judas-gate that allowed us to enter the building. I understood then that she had been here before, and wondered what we were getting into, as we stepped over the door stile and walked into a dimly lit foyer, a bit crowded with about 50-60 people, the men outnumbering the women by almost three to one. I could see that most of the people there wore black, as Debra did, many of the women dressed in ultra-tight clothing, necklines plunging to reveal breasts either encumbered or unencumbered, some skirts slit on the side to reveal thigh highs or full stockings and garter belts. The men were mostly just dressed in black shirts and pants.
We drifted together towards one of the couches arrayed near the walls, acting for the first time in a long time as a couple, each of us hesitant and a bit scared by the new environment. As my eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, I could make out the people on the couches, some couples sitting side by side, others with the woman sitting on the man's lap. One couch had two men sandwiching a woman, her DVF-style wrap dress opened just a bit between her breasts, each of the men reaching across the fondle a breast, one man having pulled the tit out of the bra, rolling the nipple between his first three fingers. My heart raced and my pulse accelerated, gaping at them and yet not wanting to stare. Debra's breath quickened also, her mouth open slightly, her eyes starting to glaze over.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Amalia approaching, wearing black pants and a silk tunic buttoned to the next, her hair short and combed close to her skull. Debra saw her at the same time, and reflexively assumed the position that she had been taught, her arms behind her back, each hand holding the opposite elbow, her head inclined down as she averted her gaze. I could see that she was further surrendering herself to the moment and to the surrounding before her.
"Ah, you've finally gotten here," she said. "Let me explain how this works. Alice has been here several times before, but always as someone who watched others. Isn't that right, dear?", and Debra was quick to nod her head several times, never once daring to look up. "And tonight that's just what you're going to do---watch. It's what you're really good at, isn't it, what you really like to do, right?
"Alice, on the other hand, has decided to join in and play with us."
And my heart sank, because I knew and I didn't know what that meant.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Almost Cut My Hair
This past week, my good friend Viviane asked me out to the Pleasure Salon, as she always does. The Salon is a convocation of likeminded sex positive people that meets the first Wednesday of every month at a bar in NYC called The Happy Ending. Over the last few years, I've gone once or twice, usually with the specific intent of meeting up with sex bloggers that I've been in contact with. Large group social gatherings are usually not my forte, and this one was, I'm sad to say, no exception.
Viviane, who is a heavy hitter in this milieu, introduced me to tons of people who she thought I should know or meet, and my terminal shyness took over once again, as I became a wallflower and watcher, the latter being what I really like to do the most. There was birthday cake for a woman hitting a major milestone, and forty spanks for her from anyone that wanted to participate. And I just watched, content for the most part to be the voyeur once again.
Everyone wears a name tag of sorts with their screen name or blog name or something like that, and Mistress Lynx started to chat me up about my name, a pretty woman with a kind and winning smile. I wound up gassing on ad infinitum about where the name came from (a closely held secret with obscure origins) and realized that most of my references were way past her age group, as I tried to explain to her who Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were, and so I faded back into the wall once again. I did listen to a guy next to me ask a girl if it was the first time there for her, one of the oldest opening lines in the book, but strangely, in that environment perhaps, worked wonderfully well for both of them.
But the whole evening made me realize once again that when I talk to people I have to be more interested in them and what they have to say, and not to talk about what my friend The Lawyer labels his favorite topic, himself, and that it wasn't necessary for me to play match that anecdote with everyone that I spoke with.
Oh, and the title of this post? Comes from a song writen by David Crosby and recorded long long ago by Crosby, Stills and Nash---I almost ended this blog last week, wrote a final post and saved it, planning to edit and post over this weekend. But events have conspired against that, and I'll continue along, perhaps (and hopefully) posting more frequently. I want to go back to telling the story of Not Enough, I want to say things here that can't be said anywhere else, I want to write about my fascinations and obsessions.
Viviane, who is a heavy hitter in this milieu, introduced me to tons of people who she thought I should know or meet, and my terminal shyness took over once again, as I became a wallflower and watcher, the latter being what I really like to do the most. There was birthday cake for a woman hitting a major milestone, and forty spanks for her from anyone that wanted to participate. And I just watched, content for the most part to be the voyeur once again.
Everyone wears a name tag of sorts with their screen name or blog name or something like that, and Mistress Lynx started to chat me up about my name, a pretty woman with a kind and winning smile. I wound up gassing on ad infinitum about where the name came from (a closely held secret with obscure origins) and realized that most of my references were way past her age group, as I tried to explain to her who Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were, and so I faded back into the wall once again. I did listen to a guy next to me ask a girl if it was the first time there for her, one of the oldest opening lines in the book, but strangely, in that environment perhaps, worked wonderfully well for both of them.
But the whole evening made me realize once again that when I talk to people I have to be more interested in them and what they have to say, and not to talk about what my friend The Lawyer labels his favorite topic, himself, and that it wasn't necessary for me to play match that anecdote with everyone that I spoke with.
Oh, and the title of this post? Comes from a song writen by David Crosby and recorded long long ago by Crosby, Stills and Nash---I almost ended this blog last week, wrote a final post and saved it, planning to edit and post over this weekend. But events have conspired against that, and I'll continue along, perhaps (and hopefully) posting more frequently. I want to go back to telling the story of Not Enough, I want to say things here that can't be said anywhere else, I want to write about my fascinations and obsessions.
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