Visual pleasures

[imomus]

From left to right, and from top to bottom:

1. Street Peeper has started showing Tokyo snaps. This Comme-des-Garcons-wearing person is Yama from Tokyo Bopper staff. They publish very merry clothes pictures daily in a blog called Merry Daily.

2. This "boy's day" fish enhances any environment you put it in, I've discovered. Bought from Goko, a Japanese restaurant in Berlin Mitte, for ten euros.



3. Alin Huma has chopped a copy of the Pillowbook of Shonagon Sei in half, thereby affording me a surprising bolt of visual pleasure.

4. The Comme Un Garcon blog -- set in Japan, and written in Italian -- puts everything it treats and discourses of into a line-drawing of a cubic rectangle. This week they have treated and discoursed upon the yukata.

5. Smiley has published Fairy Doll 43. Spilly black hair and parted lips -- could anything better illustrate what Eno says here about the joys of capitulation?

6. Hibisanpo means walking around, and the author of this Flickr page of the same name has been walking around the boardwalks and beaches of Fire Island. Atlantic austerity meets homosexual refinement, with a net gain in visual pleasure.

7. 16 Japanese women pleasure as many Japanese men in an orgiastic entertainment set in a ryokan party room with bright fluorescent lighting. The result is not unlike the first Boards of Canada sleeve.

8. I've been watching lots of Kenji Mizoguchi films over the past few days. This is the original -- and lovely -- poster for Ugetsu Monogatari: Tales Of The Pale And Silvery Moon After The Rain.

Comments

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Wow, you finally gave in and posted porn on Click Opera!

I clicked on the link and it kind of freaked me out a bit-- mostly because the ads on the side feature Japanese women with breast implants. It caught me by surprise because I have never seen that before!

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

And I can't see the picture to the Boards of Canada sleeve. Is it just me or does anyone have the same problem?

[flying-squid.livejournal.com]

I have the same problem, so it's not just me!

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

I figured out the problem! He forgot the "s" in front of the 2591.jpg!

!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm so, so sorry for this (I'm spamming your blog :/)

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

(http://tinypic.com)

[akabe.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you could share that moment.

i had to test a new guillotine and that was basically the only stack of paper i could sacrifice. the satori-like moment aside it actually turned out to be a quite nice objet so i'm holding on to it.

[(Anonymous)]

baka oyaji

(stupid old man)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Fans of Metzger-style destructo-art might enjoy this video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6506612623795791142) of Mai Ueda and others destroying Michael Portnoy's piano. He was evicted from his Rivington Street flat and had to dump the piano, so it's an action more about NY real estate than NY art.

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

hey momus,

over at dennis cooper 's blog a fellow blogger posted a beyond extentive guide to japanese porn:


http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wow, "Water Tank Restriction Incident"! Dennis Cooper blogs where angels fear to tread!

But my intention with today's entry was slightly different -- to demolish the compartmentalization between sex and other pleasures. An entry like that one on Dennis' blog collects sex-only things and makes a list -- in linguistic terms, a paradigm. I wanted to show visual sexual pleasure here as part of a syntagm; on the same order of pleasure as looking at lovely scenery or admiring a neat drawing or a yukata. And likely to be enjoyed in a syntagmatic sequence with them, not separately, in "a sequence of pleasures".

I'm against obscenity, and pleasure which resides principally in a sense of the obscenity of things -- basically, the idea of orgasm which depends on a feeling of "Ooh, The Police / Mummy / Daddy / My Wife / My Boss would be furious if they could see me now!"

I think obscenity is created by the compartmentalization of sexual pleasures, their separation from other pleasures (whether for legal reasons or just cultural ones, encoded in embarrassment). Obscenity results from destroying the organic relation of sex to other pleasures -- it's an obsessional, secretive and furtive over-attention to the transgressive dimension of the sexual. Obscenity is created by taboo and by compartmentalization. I wanted to de-compartmentalize. This has been a public service announcement!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Paradigms and syntagms (http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem03.html) without tears.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I was reading extracts from The Pillow Book a few days ago, incidently. I really should buy it.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Do you know much Naruse? There was a season of his films on at the NFI on the Southbank, recently. I only managed to catch one of them, unfortunately, but it was a good one and made me want to watch more. I wondered, because the season was billed as follows:

In Japan, Mikio Naruse is regarded as a cinematic master, to rank alongside Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Ozu. In the UK his work is largely unknown...

Sure enough, I hadn't heard of him. Having visited Paris a couple of times recently, though, I kind of feel like 'in the UK his work is largely unknown' is like saying, 'on Pluto his work is largely unknown'. It seems like the UK is truly even less aware of Japanese culture than the rest of the Anglosphere (and, of course, than parts of the real world, such as Paris), and therefore must surely qualify as the least Japan-aware country on the planet.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever seen a Naruse film. But there was a season (http://www.shomingeki.de/Naruse.html) of them on at Berlin art screen Arsenale in April.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I noticed at least one other Naruse season, in Canada or somewhere - he must be doing the rounds.

I'm not really sure how to describe his work. It's not quite as reflective as Ozu, and not as epic as Kurosawa or Mizoguchi can be, at least, based on the one Naruse film I saw. I'm trying to think of some positive statement by which I can define it. I suppose it seemed very natural and immediate, like breathing in the era in question (Pre-war), almost as if it were now. It felt a bit like Japanese kitchen-sink. The film I saw was Horoki, and I was prompted to go out and buy the book from which it took its title, by Hayashi Fumiko, whose life the film portrayed.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Hibisanpo Flikr page is fascinating. Brings Hockney to mind, as well as New England luminist landscapes. "Atlantic austerity and homosexual refinement" is an apt description.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

She's (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hibisanpo/506754913/) happily taken (http://jeffhoefs.com/) and so am I, but Hibisanpo is one of the most lovely people I've ever met in my life. Visually so talented.

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

Momus,

Although I very much value your point about not segregating sexual pleasure from the rest of life, I too was confused and disgusted when I clicked on "orgiastic entertainment" and the first image I saw was a young Japanese woman with ridiculously enormous breast implants. If this isn't "mommy" conveniently crossed with "little girl", I don't know what is. And I suppose, having had a child, I feel that "orgiastic entertainment" is removed already from real life, fetishizes itself.

I have such a love/hate relationship with what you show. The last click opera entry praises animals' lack of electricity use, then I get this big-boob lady shoved in my face. Then the old switcheroo as Ugetsu Monogatari is mentioned.

I know you've always been big into pervery so I don't know why I'm so dismayed today. But when I see a bunch of women sucking cock for a film, it makes me want to throw up in the middle of my slow life.

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

Hibisanpo is my new hero! Cardiac blue, green, iridescence, green, NY Compost program, yay yay yay. Better than Hockney, I say! Where's the homosexual angle, btw? Am I missing something?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's just because she recently visited Fire Island, which is a famous gay resort.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I obviously don't endorse everything on links I provide. Perhaps I should get all corporate-defensive and say that!

I particularly don't like artificial breast-enhancement, for what it's worth.

[dmt81.livejournal.com]

Ugetsu is truly bewitching, no pun intended.

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