You Should Be Into This: 5 for 5

PERSON: J.D. Salinger

Has to be J.D.Salinger, doesn’t it. I mean lets look at it step by step:

a) Famed reclusive author dies – This the dream tag line to anyone’s life.

b) Wrote the controversial and influential bestseller Catcher in the Rye – Which means he not only presupposed the youth culture of the next 40 years but continues to do so at the rate of 250,000 copies sold per year and a total of approximately 65 million sold.

c) Hasn’t written a book in 45 years – Which makes him the epitome of the antithesis of sellout! He even turned down countless movie offers for Catcher including one from Samuel Goldwyn, not really a done thing.

d) Hasn’t given an interview since 1980 – In fact the only thing he has done is sue the doochebag who tried to publish a sequel to his book.

Essentially the man wrote a book that has captured the attention and imagination of generations of people that lived in its time and followed it. This seemingly straight forward narrative of a few hundred pages has had one of the single greatest influences on western literature, art and culture in the past 60 years even if he didn’t mean it to, or you have never heard of it. And once he found that this fame was not at all enjoyable, he simply and with dignity withdrew. He was, to reference his most famous character Holden Caulfield term, not a phony.

If you have not read Catcher in the Rye, please, please be into it and if all of this doesn’t interest you perhaps the following will:

a) It had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the U.S and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools.

b) It has 237 appearances of the word “goddam” in the novel, along with 58 of “bastard,” 31 of “Chrissake” and 6 of “fuck.” Not bad for 1951

c) Catcher in the Rye is mentioned in defence as reasons for their actions by the assasins of both JFK and John Lennon.

d) Apparently, still to this day you are listed on a special database for borrowing it from a library, like Mein Kampf.

BOOK.

Green Porno. Good name, right? Not at that all misleading either. Famed Model-slash-actress-slash-artist-slash-writer Isabella Rossellini, has put pen to paper for a number of television shorts on the Sundance Channel called Green Porno. The short segments (about 1 minute each) are written, hosted and acted out by Rossellini and take the audience inside the sexuality of mother nature herself. In addition to writing for Green Porno the series, Rossellini also penned a book to accompany the third season. The book is a multimedia experiment, and contains a companion DVD, both of which serve as additional information for the series’ third season. Take a look… funny… informative… entirely original… makes you wonder what being in a David Lynch film will do to a person.

– Holy shit this is so good! You have to watch it, God I love Snails! How sexy is she! You should be into Green Porno…

FILM.

David Lynch, in general. Yes in part on his connection to the aforementioned author but also because MGM can’t get enough of him at the moment so I have been rekindling of late, and it feels so good. I understand the criticism of Lynch’s style and I would not try and convince anyone who had a closed mind about him, but for those of you who have a Lynchian predisposition get back into him! I mean Hopper in Blue Velvet??! Dafoe in Wild at Heart??! If you’ve sort of lost touch with David (fair enough his Transcendental Meditation does leave me pretty cold) please go back a couple years and find Inland Empire, genius I think, twice the film Mulholland Drive is, certainly not for the faint hearted but worth the attention you need to give it, so be into to it and the Rabbits, oh the Rabbits! I’m putting it on right now.

ITEM: You should be into these Beach Towels.

Not just any beach towel and you mightn’t want to even take it to the beach, you might just prefer to hang it your wall, but they certainly are fluffy and surprisingly absorbent, which is also nice. The towels were created by Works on Whatever and have used the art of Jeff Koons, Yoshitomo Nara, Julian Schnabel, and Cindy Sherman to name a few. You can get them in Auckland at Design 55 and in Melbourne at Third Draw Down or online at Worksonwhatever.com

MUSIC.

This is the song I have been listening to most of recent. You can decide if you should be into it. Its Broken Social Scene (side note, they are very cool to the point they even make Toronto seem cool)…

It’s all gonna break
Its all gonna break.
when i was a kid, you fucked me in the ass
but i took my pen to paper and i passed
you know i love the shit cause the shit it tastes so good,
i got pastures waiting in the woods……… its all gonna break treat me like a sign, sounds like so/oh well
i know times like these are the hell
and when you do the tricks, the tricks look so good
i got buried rumors waiting in the woods,
and they try to climb awake
and call me over,
skies they rape and skies are sober.
minds they fake and minds rolled over
it’s good, it’s good, it’s good.

i know your dying
i know it’s true
i know theirs seven thousand things you rather be and rather do,
and i know……..that you fuck what you love
and you love what you fuck.

i’ll keep them out girl, i’ll keep it true
i’ll do anything inside the skin of you
cause i know that the sound of your heart
is a god i can trust,
like a man,
not a boy
i don’t love i just fight with the violence in ourselves its all gonna break and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
keep it coming
their is no lie to save your life
keep it coming
this is the lie to save your life why are you always fucking ghosts
why are you always fucking ghosts
why……… it’s been such a long
life that we trust your heart is a whore
and love is just lust. you want what you can’t
and you can’t cause of fear we’ve got to get
out of here why are you always……… its been and it settles down and fights to love. its all gonna break.