Maxima and minima (3/19/95)
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I hadn’t thought of it previously, but it now occurs to me that that projectile-vomit trick made famous by young Linda Blair in
The Exorcist may have practical application in everyday life, particularly if you spend much of your time in the University personnel office trying to fill out employment applications. Bad enough that my mind should go totally blank for halfanhour over a question like What was the fifth-from-last job I held, but, then, to come back to the desk at the conclusion of the exercise, hand the completed atrocity over to the imperfectly-programmed bimbette who presides over these follies, and then discover that I’m not qualified [for instance] to do exactly what I’m doing at the moment — ah well. At moments like this you’d like to be able to spew chunks on command.
Tutoring does seem a possibility, though I can’t picture this as a steady income; there are, again, positions for instructors at the college-board cram schools [the Princeton Review, e.g.] — Unfortunately though these last are, of course, easily impressed by perfect scores on the GREs, they still want to see a resume; and they most certainly do not want to be presented with the evidence that test scores and employability have no correlation.
No doubt the truth was supposed to make us free; but that was on another planet, the one from which we were kidnapped in infancy. Here only lying as loudly and rapidly as possible will keep us out of the breadline. — Accordingly: I downloaded a few dozen sample resumes, the better to generalize from examples. And I’ll piece something together. Hopefully it will be plausible. But it certainly will not be accurate.
Pardon me if I conceal my enthusiasm. But I might have been happier on that other planet.
Meanwhile I continue to brood upon the mysterious appeal of the Bs. — Perhaps it’s simply that the movies represent a dialectic of Art and Sleaze, and the dramatic tension between the two poles is most effectively accentuated when the conflicting tendencies are carried to [preferably ridiculous] extremes.
Or maybe it’s just those babes. — Favorite B girls:
[1] Eszther Balint. Save for a walkon in
Shadows and Fog, she has appeared, as best I can determine, in only three films:
Stranger Than Paradise [the first feature by Jim Jarmusch];
Bail Jumper [a guy and a girl on the run — tornadoes — floods — a plague of locusts — their car is struck by a meteorite — finally a tidal wave destroys New York City]; and
The Linguini Incident [as the bosom buddy of Rosanna Arquette.] But with credits like these, she can retire.
[2] Elizabeth Kaitan. The blonde cavegirl in
Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity; star of such classics as
Assault of the Killer Bimbos and
Roller Blade Warriors: Taken By Force. Kabong.
[3] Mathilda May. In principle a serious actress, by virtue, e.g., of her presence in a Werner Herzog flick. But too beautiful, really, to be credible as such. — I direct your attention to
Lifeforce , Tobe Hooper’s magnum opus about naked vampires from outer space. — Bring your own refreshments. And be prepared to change your shorts.
[4] Brinke Stevens. Also in
Slave Girls. She now has her own website, her own comic book, her own video anthology [
Shock Cinema], and at this rate will probably be editing her own journal before we know it. — If so, I’m planning a submission.
[5] Victoria Vetri. Playmate of the Year in 1968 and subsequent star of
Invasion of the Bee Girls and
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. They don’t make them like they used to.
[6] Monique Gabrielle. Amusing cameos in
Amazon Women on the Moon and
The Return of the Swamp Thing; the female lead in
Deathstalker II. Maybe they do make them like they used to
[7] Sybil Danning. Because she’s there.
[8] Edina Ronay. Entirely for one flick, the classic 1967 version of
Prehistoric Women. [The title that defines a genre.]
[9] Barbara Steele. The greatest modern scream queen. Not merely the star of such memorable classics as
Black Sunday and
The Pit and the Pendulum, but also, weird but true, a major presence in
8 1/2 and
La Dolce Vita.
[10] Shannon Tweed. If only for the classic
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.
Now I’d better hurry up and turn this machine off, before someone discovers I’m using it without the appropriate skill codes.
Incidentally Miss Wonderbra’s name is Angela, and she needs a calculus tutor....
____________Frog princess (2/8/95)
