There's Something About Mary

What the heck is the mother of Jesus doing at the Limelight? Well, this pic was snapped circa-1999, so she sure as heck isn’t looking for the latest LeSportsac or nibbling on “mini wedding gateaux made of, yes, candy” at the former Episcopal church’s recent incarnation as a mall. Oh, sorry, they’re calling it a marketplace.

Can we just go back to 1999, when the building on the corner of 20th & 6th was still an old-school (through admittedly drug-peddling) nightclub? That’s not really Mary, but yours truly, posing with a red-tailed boa constrictor named Girlsnake (if you look closely, you can see her laced through my fingers). FYI, she put herself there, it’s not like I tied her or anything…Could you tie a snake in a knot anyway? Talk about an exercise in futility, like trying to stop the world from becoming one big store.

Anyway, I was posing as Mary as part of my friend Michael Cerchiai’s (sometimes Tweaka Turner) art installation. I stood all reverent like that for an hour, which actually flew by. I heard people debating about whether or not I was real or not. “Look at the feet, though,” they said. “They’re too white.”

And, “Ewwww, a snake.”

Alas, I no longer have Girlsnake, or that dress, and Mike has up and moved to San Francisco anyway, so we won’t be doing a repeat performance. Sometimes you just can’t go back.

Music to say your Hail Marys by
Sunday Morning, The Velvet Underground
Sunday morning=church. Limelight=church. Limelight=opening party hosted by Andy Warhol in 1983. Velvets=hosted by Andy Warhol in 1969.

I Believe, The Buzzcocks
Apparently I missed the whole point of this song the first 500 times I listened to it. I like it better now.

Whole Lotta Snakin’ Goin’ On

100% recycled headline alert! I originally used this for an article on rattlesnake roundups, but is it stealing if you take something from yourself? I guess you could undermine your confidence or get high on your own supply, but headlines….Hmmm…. I’d say yes since it’s hard to really own a word. (Oh wait, that’s what trademarks are all about. D’oh!)

Anyway, this post was originally inspired by a recent viewing of Snakes on a Plane. The movie was confusing to me because I couldn’t figure out if we were expected to suspend our belief and be all scared, or laugh because the snakes were really funny. Yes, they were computer-generated but they had charisma! I read on Wikipedia that “the film gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fan bases…In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting.” So…someone made a calculated decision to present it as you see it now, presumably to give the people what they wanted. Which makes me even more confused, because why would they want that? I wish I understood the Snakes on a Plane-likers better.

Snakes can’t do user surveys and focus groups, and it’s just as well. Once a snake starts to strike, that’s it. He smells potential prey, which elicits a feeding response. He follows it through, he takes it as it comes, there’s no turning back, there’s no stopping to rewrite the ending. I think it’s like there’s a bunch of sequential actions that get triggered and it’s like a house of cards…(if that’s not the case, I apologize for simplifying science and stuff.)

How the heck did we get from snakes to user surveys? Marketing! We’re being manipulated! I know it’s all calculated! If I could only find solace and safety in that, I’d find total satisfaction just being a consumer…as in, tell me what I need and I’ll buy it…Don’t get me wrong, I like finding tacky Siamese cat-patterned pants on eBay just as much (more!) as the next person…I just get confused by all the varieties of M&Ms, ya know?

And snakes, well, they don’t even like chocolate.

Music to help you find your own truth (and booty)
Lost in the Supermarket, The Clash
- I quoted this song in an essay I wrote for Marxist Philosophy. Bless you, Professor Despalatovic, for not kicking my pretentious a**.

Baby Got Back, Sir Mix-A-Lot
- We used to dance to this in class all the time, until someone actually listened to the lyrics and complained. My anaconda don’t want none…

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like HISSmas!

Somewhere in my house lies an alternate take from this Christmas card photo shoot from like 10 years ago. It’s a snake nativity scene, featuring Mary and Joseph figurines I got at the 99 cents store with Butter the boa constrictor as baby Jesus.

It was way less offensive (that’s not really the word I mean tho…I want the one that’s disrespect plus entitlement plus too much knowledge…ah, irreverent!) than it sounds, if only because I didn’t intend it to be antireligious but rather pro-snake. It’d probably offend some people, and I don’t want to go trashing Jesus, for cripes’ sake. So maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t find it.

Anyway, my original point was…look at this cute snake in this here photo! One of my coworkers couldn’t look at this pic (“This just creeps me out,” she sez), so I had to say a few words in defense of these so elegantly turned-out beings:

1) Snakes, or at least boas, are so sporty! Look at the racing stripes down B’s face, and his bicycle seat-shaped head. Love it! And you can’t really see it in this photo, but the lil’ nostrils and bright eyes give him such a sweet, earnest look. No foolin’!

2) Slimy? Blimey! Snakes are this lovely combination of dry and slick, like water if it weren’t liquid. (How’s that for a mindf**k?)

3) I love their spine-liness. What a movin’, groovin’ lesson in the importance of being flexible in life! And they’re such perfect examples of economy of movement, which my awesome Pilates teacher Dallas is so hot on.

4) Still a mystery to me! I think it’s really hard for always-stuck-in-our-heads humans to tune into the reptilian mind. I bet cobra pose is the door that takes you there, but that’s one of those poses that leaves me lost at sea. I can physically do it, sure, but I know I’m missing the real meat of it. (I hate that phrase. The juice of it, then.)

P.S. I don’t currently have any snakes of my own, and don’t think I ever could. It doesn’t seem right, for me, to keep them in captivity. Note I said “FOR ME.” But what do I know? It could vary from individual to individual. A friend who can communicate telepathically with animals talked to a Gaboon viper at a zoo who knew he was gorgeous and enjoyed being looked at and taking it easy.