Rosenbush Cafe

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” - Salvador Dali

eXisTenTiaLNihLisT Graphic Language and Sexual Themes, darkest humor, Metempsychosis

Who shall take themselves too seriously, believing their importance in the Celestial long range plans of the Universe, shant wait for the end too soon it cometh and taketh them away with rapidity. Cool whipped into a frenzy of denial and spoon-fed to gargantuan mouths the size of the Black Hole at the Centre of Thy Universe to feed the inter-galactic furnace of Hell Half Past 9 Greenwich Mean Time on a Sunny Sunday in August.

Oh how the Multiple Linguistic Galactic Whirligig has no need for humanoid expressions; nothing better defines how insignificant carbon-based life forms are when evaluated by Gamma Ray Bursts of Intellectual Silicone Beings whose intellectual capacity is comparable to the human brain versus a deceased cockroach’s severed antenna in the stomach of ants. Such is a desperate attempt to explore mental capacities so grand that the puny human mind vaporizes under the pressure of deep thoughts while the cockroaches talk nineteen to the dozen and continue surviving, patiently waiting for another ice age or surreptitiously stowing away on board space ships off planet earth, in search of insectoid intelligence off the planet earth.

Only man would combine his cock with a roach because he is pre-occupied with his sexual organs. Our cocks should be teleported from the nether regions to the tops of foreheads, like grotesque dunce hats; oh how delightful the cock-headed man trying to disguise his arousal when all can see his confusion.

While SETI searches for advanced civilizations off planet, exploration for intelligent life here has diminished. War, racial, gender and religious hatred, risible programming on television, the ether, between cigarette burns in movie reels, on dusty bookshelves and in the decadent halls of power only proves unequivocally that brainpower is eroding like the earth’s crust beneath the unenlightened minds.

Cosmic Thoughts

Mereological, Metaphysical, Epistemological, Moral Nilhism through glistening galaxies of myriad possibilities other than the usual bullshit the populace are generally led to believe without questioning and oh how most of them do not question anything of substance.

You know the expression: mereological nihilism?

Get the fuck out of here and take your entire insensitive attitude with you and dive unto the rocks below.

No more space for futility in my universe, mother truckers. Down shift and pass me because I am neither slowing down nor speeding up to change lanes from your inane ponderings on philosophy. Viewpoints are only constructive if the view indeed has a point, other than the one atop the head of man’s flaccid member’s only mentality.

Μετεμψύχωσις: for all you faithful to multilingualism and not the irrational lot who believe English is the only language on Planet Earth know that the Greek into English translation in its rough form is “transmigration of the soul.” Naturally, those who do not speak or read Greek are pissed and are even more irate that without intellect or a dictionary does not under transmigration either. While you’re still pissed head to the S page and see if you actually have a “soul.”

Get headaches trying to cogitate Latin; “Oh, that’s a language?” My father lived in an epoch where everyone took four years of Latin and it started in high school, not college. When someone says it’s a dead language it is only because they are themselves dead. I surmise only archeologists and linguists even study Hieroglyphics in this era. Multilingualism is not dying; however, comprehension long ago was buried in unmarked graves besides multitudes of forgotten hearts and still skeletal remnants fortunately return to the loam and cultivate future flowers of dead goddesses.

Aaah, freedoms of will, expression and thought still is better than a week long orgasm. Afterglow is brief; freedom in the mind is forever, darling. With freedom of thought you can consider mentally a week long orgasm, which would be more fun than all that god damned ooooooooooooooh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah vocalizing that frightens the neighbors enough to dial 911 for the sex police to come – heh, heh – and take your nymphomaniac asses to Cell Block C.

So as to not intentionally confuse those whose conversion in this astral plane where born again is convoluted messianic dreams of reinsertion into the shallow plasma pool. There is a conception of being born again that is generally ignored by religious zealots when they reflect on their conversion of born again-ism that will only confuse those of us who prefer to be born once and accept the consequences.

By now, anyone who knows anything about this writer has learned he lives in the Bible belt and it is worn tighter than the nooses once used by lynch mobs.

I put down the 1941 straight razor and decided beardless preferable to lifeless and fancied metempsychosis over blow fly vessel.

I am at last coming ashore on a secluded beach with a dissimilar scheme of the thematic scene of my remaining life cycle wherein I am devoting more time to writing and less to camaraderie. As a bombastic outsider I am a newly cultivated field of blooming roses, but none these worlds has even seen, or likely to ever see again. I have undervalued myself habitually and finality endangered my improvements to a level that was frightening.

My long overdue sentient death and rebirth as a exquisitely beautiful and deadly floral arrangement was glorious. Finality was Healthier Than Expected.

Illuminate, ruminate, reviving fate
Exhausted of color of late
And shattered like a china plate
Under an earthquake of insecurity’s weight
Water above the bridge
Sans perishables in the fridge
Cupboard is barren a smidge

I really didn’t try to off myself and I haven’t been without a beard in over thirty years; however, as far as metaphors for momentary depression and the unexpected leaping feline interrupting tears and angst go, it challenged me to look beyond the ugliness of my own mirror image into the bright light of profoundly positive possibilities of prescience.

Lumière translates, in English, as light, and brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (1862-1954) and Louis Jean (1864-1848), born in Besançon, France, would light up early cinema with a significant impact.

Their father, Claude-Antoine Lumière (1840–1911), operated a photographic firm, where the brothers worked, and after his retirement began making films. They were responsible for several historic patents, including film perforations (originally implemented by Emile Reynaud), allowing film to move through projectors; Louis took the dry-plate process, for still photography, and made major improvements leading towards moving images.

The license for the their film camera known as the cinematograph, was originally attibuted to its creator French inventor Léon Bouly in February 12, 1892, but was purchased by the brothers after Bouly was unable to pay for the patent for the Cinématographe Léon Bouly and lost it to Auguste and Louis.

The Lumière’s first film was Sortie de l’usine Lumière de Lyon (1894). In this collection of ten short films, the subject matter ranges from employees exiting the Lumière factories in Lyon to a train arriving at La Ciotat, a baby eating and a bit of slapstick humor involving a sprinkler. These selections, like last weeks’ from Edison, came from the 1994 Blackhawk Films DVD, “Landmarks of Early Film” (1886-1913) which is still available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble and a must for any collector of serious cinema.

While watching my copy again, in preparation for this series on early cinema, I was constantly in awe by the simple silent beauty of early movies and how genius from the human mind, of these pioneers, took still photographic images and, through the creation of new technologies transported us into a new dimension. Everything we enjoy about today’s movie experience was made possible by these innovative and, unfortunately, often under-appreciated or forgotten, inventors.

The next time you are sitting in a darkened theater, awaiting the feature presentation, take a moment to pay homage to these pioneers and how thay took brief glimpses of reality and merged it with imagination to create an entirely new art form.

Lumière’s films, like Edison’s, looked at everyday life and ordinary experiences. Today’s jaded audiences would probably be bored at the simple joys of early cinema and that is naturally a shame because it is easy to fantasize about the pioneering days when each new image was something never seen before as captured on moving film. Many take for granted, in contemporary cinema, that in the beginning the images of people walking, eating, pulling pranks on one another and enjoying themselves were profound experiences when viewed on film for the very first time.

Another early classic of the silent era is Luis Buñuel’s 1930 L’Âge d’Or (Age of Gold) and his second film following 1929’s Un Chien Andalou.

L’Âge d’Or (1930), attacks organized religion and society and like, many future films by the celebrated Spanish director, was banned in most parts of the world. At the original screening, it so enraged audience members that some of them went through the lobby and destroyed Dadaist art works, on display by Salvador Dalí (who scripted d’Or with the director), Joan Miró, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy.

The 62-minute silent subtitled collection of interlinked vignettes offered everything from a documentary on desert scorpions to the sight of the hero throwing, from an upstairs window, a donkey, plow, feather pillow and archbishop!

The film opens with a scene of two lovers writhing in mud during a ceremony to commemorate the founding of the Eternal City of Rome. The film is an eye-opening experience containing just about every surrealist symbol possible and among the cast are fellow Dadaist artists Max Ernst and Paul Eluard.

Not for everyone but for lovers of the Dadaist art movement it will be more enjoyable, especially seeing the many surreal tropes that will become reoccurring leitmotifs throughout Buñuel’s filmography, including: religious iconography subverted, lavish dinner parties where nothing goes as planned and the fetishistic desires of men.

While editing past copy, removing faulty links and reposting photographs that had disappeared I came across this jewel from July 19, 2007, when I was experiencing waking nightmares with a programmer and my former ether partner.

I am no longer involved with either party and my blog is in a far better location in the universe having accepted the challenge of following a singular dream of my own Café Manifesto. Today, I express myself without criticism from a purported intellectual who couldn’t fathom Dadaist founder André Breton’s “Dada is anti-art” aestheticism.

With threats he was going to delete my blog if I didn’t prove to him I could write an essay and pay him $30, this friend since 1994, became an enemy.

Rather than take the Dadaist route I have gone down the Deconstructionist path and embraced my own existential nilhism, Cubism, Expressionism and anything ending in “ism.”

Nearly a year later, thanks to Tala, Kalliope Amorphous, Steven, Mambo and a large number or felines, the Café is still in the ether. Not bad for a blog that was destined to disappear in six months, which would have been May, 2007.

Tippy Van Hesling relaxes after prolonged meow

Tippi Van Hesling was instrumental in getting the site back online with incessant yowling brought on by far too much caffeine and primo nip, he kept me awake and working! Site back up after changes in codes and necessary upgrades. Site is being revised this weekend to replace improper characters and symbols. Naturally all of the problems were caused by a programmer who was addicted to crack and not particularly intelligent before the drugs took control of his tiny brain. He has since joined the Republican Party where he feels at home. Meanwhile, my partner in the business has promised to help but you can imagine he didn’t if I am enlisting the aid of a feline.

Hypnagogique Enters the Realm of Movies

Retrospective by Henry B. Rosenbush

SPOILER ALERT: Throughout this text I offer pertinent information about not only the feature presentation, but a mini-retrospective of other Buñuel films that may ruin the cinematic experience for anyone who has not seen the films. If you’d prefer to watch the film first and formulate your own opinions watch it first and then read the text.

I offered a personal retrospective of Un Chien Andalou on March 6, 2008 and have re-posted it here, while removing it from the earlier date so as to not have duplication. For avant-garde purists it is my observations and opinions and was originally just text without the actual film presented. Luis Buñuel Portolés was born February 22, 1900 in Calanda, Teruel, Aragón, Spain and died July 29, 1983 in Mexico City, Mexico and in honor of his recent birth date I have chosen to inaugurate the Rosenbush Cafe Midnight Movies series with his film, which is presented at the end of the retrospective, with a trailer for his 1972 Best Foreign Film ‘Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie” (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) and a few other surprises.

Luis Buñuel’s collaboration with painter Salvador Dali on Un Chien Andalou or The Andalusian Dog (B/W-Silent-1929; 16:08) is still a potent piece of cinematic surrealism eighty one years later.

An exchange of dreams between Dali and Buñuel, this landmark film is considered the first motion picture produced entirely within the Surrealist Movement. Although it begins with the innocent “Il etait une fois…” (“Once Upon a Time”) it is far from a fairy tale. With a perfect score, including Richard Wagner’s Prelude and Isolde’s Death, and original music track Buñuel prepared in 1960 based on the soundtrack from the original premiere, the seemingly random imagery is disturbing, amusing, wicked and thought-provoking simultaneously, even if the creator’s own predilections differ from that of its intended audience.

As a writer who embraces the drowsy entrance into the dream state, known as hypnagogique (désigne l’état de conscience en début du sommeil et au moment du réveil) which precede REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep, I understand the significance it provides not only authors and poets but painters, photographers and film makers because if one does not immediately make detailed notations of the imagery before falling into the actual dreams they are lost. By the time we reach S-Sleep (slow–wave sleep or NREM or Non-REM), which is the deepest, and although not always, a dreamless state, the earlier hypnagogic period is lost forever. This period is characterized by delta waves and a low level of autonomic physiological activity.

The hypnagogique state produces startling imagery, and in my case and of those of other people who have shared the experience, often graphic sexual and violence scenes, unconnected, with resplendent colors, auditory hallucinations and non sequitur verbal communications. Anyone who has almost fallen asleep and abruptly awakened to they are drooling on their pillows because they “heard” a voice they are convinced emanated from nearby, even if they are alone, has unexpectedly interrupted hypnagogique. In interviews, Canadian director David Cronenberg has admitted to awakening and making notes of this state of mind that later became scenarios in his films.

Our visualizations are distorted and if we can remember what we have seen while it may be disconcerting it is immeasurably useful for artistry. For a brilliant example of how these images can manifest themselves into art I recommend Kalliope Amorphous Hypnagogia

With this explanation of dreams and its illogicality one can almost over hear the conversations between Buñuel and Dali as they collaborate on the story.

Anyone who has seen it will immediately have a different response to the woman’s eye being slit open, by a cigarette-smoking, straight razor-wielding Dali, while editing with juxtaposition of the moon while clouds drift over the sphere, clearly representing a clean, although still graphic, slicing of the eyeball. Hands fondling a woman’s breasts through her blouse as the material slowly fades to show her partially nude, ants crawling from a hole in a man’s hand, a man dragging a piano, two Bishops and two rotting asses, and the sight of a woman’s armpit hair disappearing to reappear as a man’s beard are a few scenes that once seen are never forgotten!

The showing in Paris, in a private theater, drew artists like Cocteau and Pablo Picasso to its premiere. Buñuel stood behind the screen manually playing records on an old phonograph to accompany the film. His son tells that his father had pockets full of stones that, had the film reaction been less than his anticipation, he would have “stoned the audience.” Luckily, the success left the stones unused.

Transflux Films released the DVD version in December, 2004 and it as is definitive as one is likely to find. The original full screen Aspect Ration of 1.33:1 is intact and certainly makes earlier releases primitive by comparison. To be sure, there are still issues with the visual and sound qualities (audio is in Dolby Digital); however, this may be the best available print in existence, although that is a debatable topic, but having viewed it several times, in various formats, it is better than the edited PBS version I saw with annoying black bars censoring some of what must have been determined too salacious or violent for the audience.

The DVD has extras including an audio commentary by surrealism expert Stephen Barber, an epilogue with the director and co writer, a 16 minute essential interview and documentary from son, Juan-Luis Buñuel wherein we learn that Buñuel (who was studying agricultural engineering in Madrid), Dali and poet Frederico Garcia Lorca met and became lifelong friends. It is interesting to note that these three men were surrealists in Spain before hearing about the Paris Surreal Movement. The stories he shares are a wonderful insight into how these inseparable friends each influenced the other.

At the University of Southern Mississippi, around 1973, it was shown in a crudely duped 16mm format that was truly primitive. There were numerous walkouts from students who either were repulsed or did not “get it.” When it ended there were only a handful of us left, jaws a gaped at what we had seen, but I was thrilled.

My mother purchased a Curtis Mathis top-loading video recorder, in 1983, while I was working in New Smyrna Beach, Florida as a newspaper city reporter. Without a girl friend or any male friends, I was instantly infatuated with the possibilities of both recording and purchasing videos. My date nights were spent alone watching videos. As the years past and the DVD replaced the VHS format, much as CDs led to the end of vinyl (although in recent years there has been a resurgence in albums) I began collecting them as well and my collection grew to an insanely high number in the thousands (DVD and VHS) with emphasis on foreign, silent, documentaries, avant-garde and naturally, domestic films.

I was scanning my collection recently to decide what to sell or keep and I was forced to admit the inescapable fact that my collected works were as esoteric as my vast album library. While not boasting to being the only collector of the arcane, I realized how much I truly enjoyed searching for, and finding, unexpected pleasures especially since these were in the pre-internet days and locating catalogues or companies specializing in the offbeat was as challenging as seeing the films themselves.

Today, through the power of the ether, the Internet offers virtually anything you can imagine and there are finally enough movie rental-purchase sites to find documentaries on surrealism, Dadaism, Max Ernst, Dali, M. C. Escher, et al.

Early in the videocassette age I purchased an Avant-garde collection, in 1985, with other masterpieces including, Buñuel’s L’Âge d’Or (1930) that served as an introduction to this genre. This was at a time when the video libraries were supremely limited especially in the areas of art and documentaries.

Although many were OOP (Out of Print) as the audience grew so did the market; documentaries on Max Ernst, Dali, M.C. Escher and Germany-Dada became available and immediately added to my ever-growing collection. The Germany-Dada documentary is an outstanding piece of historical and hysterical exploration into the movements and with the constant onomatopoeia of “Dadadadadadadadadadadada…’ fuels a desire to learn more about all the participants.

Un Chien Andalou defied logic because there was none and Dali and Buñuel worked well together as they combined ideas that would soon become the genus of the film. One scene with a woman and man has many interpretations and they are all false; the film is a dream “totally irrational.” Imagine today’s film critics’ elucidations about this segment; the woman’s fear of man who wants to love or dominate her but he cannot reach her as he is held back by a piano - he is being stopped by his art, but what of the two dead donkeys, which may represent death? The two priests can be interpreted as religion stopping him from reaching her.

André Breton, the French poet, essayist and one of the founders, with Paul Eluard, of the Surrealist movement, explains: “…the simplest surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly…” Breton’s manifestoes of

Surrealism are the most important theoretical statements of this movement:

Ma Femme à la chevelure de feu de bois
Aux pensées d’eclairs de chaleur
A la taille de sablier
Ma femme à la taille de loutre entre les dents du tigre
Ma femme à la bouche de cocarde et de bouquet d’étoiles de dernière grandeur
Aux dents d’empreintes de souris blanche sur la terre blanche
A la langue d’ambre et de verre frottés
Ma femme à la langue d’hostie poignardée
A la langue de poupée qui ouvre et ferme les yeux
A la langue de pierre incroyable (…)

‘Ma Femme à la Chevelure de Feu de Bois’

After various quarrels with the Dadaist group he joined in 1916, Breton moved towards Surrealism.

“Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the road.” With Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, Breton founded the Littérature and in MANIFESTE DU SURRÉALISME (1924), Breton defined Surrealism as:

“pure psychic automatism, by which an attempt is made to express, either verbally, in writing or in any other manner, the true functioning of thought. The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by reason, excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.’

In the Second Manifesto he further stated that surrealists strive to attain a “mental vantage-point (point de l’esprit) from which life and death, the real and the imaginary, past and future, communicable and incommunicable, high and low, will no longer be perceived as contradictions.”

Buñuel understood that the surrealism in Un Chien Andalou was made to shock as it revealed images that no one in the world had ever seen. My experience at USM with the walkouts should not be surprising; the eye slit shot is in the very beginning and those disturbed by it obviously were not interested in seeing anything else. This was the era of recreational drugs and naturally many in the audience were stoned and perhaps this was the wrong venue for it, but the few of us who remained were touched by the wonderful audacity Buñuel and Dali projected.

Buñuel’s career would finally net him an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1972 with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie but all of his films contained the surreal, black humor and elegant decadence. His first feature film, L’Âge d’Or was banned by high ranking members of the Catholic Church due to its perceived sacrilegious content. His films often presented uncompromising looks at poverty, squalor, ignorance and anti-Catholicism.

If Un Chien Andalou seems an uncomfortable place to start viewing his films, I suggest the following films:

The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

One of his most episodic films, Phantom’s stories are linked together in such a way that one is never certain what happens next. Favorite scenes: a “missing girl” helps police find her; a possible child molester shows young girls pictures that are described as horrible and when we see them they are of landscapes and criticized not for the sexual perversity we were led to believe but through the compositions; and at a formerly dressed affair everyone sits around the table on individual toilets, rather than chairs and occasionally excuse themselves to private bathroom-style cubicles where they eat their meals alone! Only in this surreal world could defecating and eating be reversed and although it sounds grotesque is actually both humorous and profound.

That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

Two actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) portray the same character, Conchita; the Spanish actor Fernando Rey was dubbed by French star, Michel Piccoli while the two women are dubbed by a third - how’s that for surreal? Conchita is a hot and cold 19 year old former chambermaid with whom Mathieu (Rey) is obsessed. The manipulative femme, although played by the two actresses is accepted on screen as a single character. When I first saw it I was unable to identify with anyone and actually appreciated the subversive ending that while may seem today as nilhistic and downbeat was refreshing in 1977. Terrorist bombings figure prominently throughout the scenario and especially in the climax.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

The Oscar winner skewers the conventions of society and is as wicked as anything imaginable as a group of high society couples attempt continuously and unsuccessfully to enjoy a dinner party. There are dreams within the group, dealing with interrupted meals and even a realization the friends are all part of a stage play! There are plenty of perfect examples in the script, written by J written by Jean-Claude Carrière in collaboration with Buñuel and the surrealism is, as expected, contradictory but what makes the film work is that all the characters accept every scenario which includes intertwining of individual dreams, terrorists from the Republic of Miranda (fictitious) and a reoccurring scene of the six major characters walking silently down a country road towards a mysterious destination echoes the Ingmar Bergman esthetics of “The Seventh Seal.”

Belle de Jour (1967)

Re-issued in 1994, where I saw it in an empty theater in Birmingham, Catherine Deneuve stars as a bored newlywed who turns to sexual depravity, without her husband aware. It starts with her character kidnapped, tied to a tree and gang-raped, but it was a daydream. The film offers two possible endings, and much like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) where she played a virgin attracted and repulsed by sex, leading to a pair of murders while she is left alone in her sister’s London flat, afforded the talented and beautiful French actress two particular films that make a great, albeit disturbing, Double Feature.

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

As a child, I had a huge crush on Jeanne Moreau (Mademoiselle, 1966; The Bride Wore Black, 1968), who stars here as the aforementioned Chambermaid, who comes to work at a Normandy estate in 1930. The family is quintessential Buñuel; the husband has a boot fetish, his daughter is frigid and her husband spends most of his time trying to bed the servants and naturally, there is a Fascist character who keeps the owner involved of the goings on. The radiant Moreau commands the screen as her observations of the decadence surrounding her poignant and profound.

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Another candidate for Double Feature viewing with Discreet, this film involves a group and a dinner party; however, after the banquet, they find the servants gone and for a never explained reason cannot leave although they are not locked in but are convinced they are stranded. They degenerate into savagery; hiding bodies of dead guests, axing a water pipe for water, even slaughtering and eating a sheep that was part of post-party entertainment. It is a savage satire with plenty of the film maker’s quixotic dry wit.

Felix The Cat - Monkeys with Magic. - More bloopers are a click away

Cast of Un Chien Andalou
Simone Mareuil: Young girl (as Simonne Mareuil)
Pierre Batcheff: Man (as Pierre Batchef)
Luis Buñuel: Man in Prolog (uncredited)
Salvador Dalí: Seminarist (uncredited)
Robert Hommet: Young Man (uncredited)
Marval: Seminarist (uncredited)
Fano Messan: Hermaphrodite (uncredited)
Jaume Miravitlles: Fat Seminarist (uncredited)

Directed, Produced, Edited and Scored by Luis Buñuel; Cinematography by Albert Duvergerand Jimmy Berliet (uncredited); Art Direction by Pierre Schild (uncredited)

Luis Buñuel Filmography

Un chien andalou An Andalusian Dog 1929 France French 16 min Written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
L’Âge d’or The Golden Age 1930 France French 60 min Written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan Land Without Bread 1933 Spain French 30 min Documentary/mockumentary.
Gran Casino Magnificent Casino 1947 Mexico Spanish 92 min
El Gran Calavera The Great Madcap 1949 Mexico Spanish 92 min
Los olvidados The Forgotten 1950 Mexico Spanish 85 min
Susana The Devil and the Flesh 1951 Mexico Spanish 86 min
La hija del engaño The Daughter of Deceit 1951 Mexico Spanish 78 min
Subida al cielo Ascent to Heaven (Mexican Bus Ride) 1952 Mexico Spanish 85 min
Una mujer sin amor A Woman Without Love 1952 Mexico Spanish 85 min
El bruto The Brute 1953 Mexico Spanish 81 min
Él This Strange Passion aka Torments 1953 Mexico Spanish 92 min
La ilusión viaja en tranvía Illusion Travels by Streetcar 1954 Mexico Spanish 82 min
Abismos de pasión aka Cumbres Borrascosas Wuthering Heights 1954 Mexico Spanish 91 min
Robinson Crusoe 1954 Mexico English 90 min
Ensayo de un crimen Rehearsal for a Crime aka The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz 1955 Mexico Spanish 89 min
El río y la muerte The River and the Death 1955 Mexico Spanish 91 min
Cela s’appelle l’aurore That is the Dawn 1956 Italy/France French 102 min
La mort en ce jardin Death in the Garden 1956 France/Mexico French 104 min
Nazarín 1959 Mexico Spanish 94 min
La fièvre monte à El Pao Fever Rises in El Pao aka Republic of Sin 1959 France/Mexico French 109 min
The Young One 1960 Mexico/USA English 96 min
Viridiana 1961 Mexico/Spain Spanish 90 min
El ángel exterminador The Exterminating Angel 1962 Mexico Spanish 95 min
Le journal d’une femme de chambre The Diary of a Chambermaid 1964 France/Italy French 98 min
Simón del desierto Simon of the Desert 1965 Mexico Spanish 45 min
Belle de jour 1967 France/Italy French 101 min
La Voie Lactée The Milky Way 1969 France/Italy French 105 min
Tristana 1970 France/Italy/Spain Spanish 105 min
Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 France/Italy/Spain French 102 min
Le fantôme de la liberté The Phantom of Liberty 1974 Italy/France French 104 min
Cet obscur objet du désir That Obscure Object of Desire 1977 France/Spain French 105 min

Next Saturday Night: Georges Méliès 1902 Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To The Moon). French black and white silent science fiction film; loosely based on From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.

Surreptitious Prosaic Mosaic from the Dali-Ernst Collection

Dali-Ernst, avant-garde photographer and graphic artist, has experimented with textual designs for years before joining the Milo Institute for Feline Well-Being as an Dadaist Artiste last spring. Dali-Ernst’s research into alternate universes started in 1999 when he experienced an Epiphany after ingesting a large amount of Peruvian Nip. In 2008, he was diagnosed with feline AIDS and began working in earnest to complete his collection of “Portraitures Semaine de Felines” and here is one of his latest works: “Surreptitious Prosaic Mosaic” the signature work featuring Henny Ben Tassus as what he has called his “sun worshipping dark star.” The ten photos are currently on display at the MIFW-B Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Yonge Street. While tripping on mushrooms in 2004, D-E watched a double feature of Richard Kelly’s “Donnie Darko” and James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” and in the feverish nightmarish aftermate combined the liquid T2 effects with the Darko rabbit eyes to turn Talia Biscuits into “Liquid Feline: Darko’s Cat The Talia Terminator.”

Liquid Feline

Although recently involved in some artistic differences with other neighborhood catists, Uncle Wally, Rusty Mola and Graystone Van De Meer, Dali-Ernst has continued to work on his latest exhibits, “Lexicon of Yowl Town” and “Ecouter et Parler” and expects to complete both by March.

Dali-Ernst Self Portrait

Ill for most of 2008, D-E continued working with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcats and completed his controversial “Cat Paws: Prowling the Wild Side,” (September - October, 2008) featuring lesbian and gay felines in provocative art, which was displayed at the San Francisco Gallery of Gay Pussycat Art. Banned by the Catholic Bishopric of California, Feline Blasphemy Division:
“for egregious gay-themed feline fornication and a predonderance of pussy licking,” one hundred thousand cats protested by despoiling Catholic Iconography throughout the Bay Area. Remonstration was so utterly successful that three of the largest Catholic Churches had to be closed due to the smell of urine and “tomkat perfume” and Bishop Bigotus Wickedness allowed the exhibit to continue; however, in a radical move, D-E, pulled his exhibit two days later and gave away all donations to the Castro Animal Shelter to find homes for victims of feline AIDS.

Said Dali-Ernst of the Catholic’s anti-gay attacks: “Now I know how Mapplethorpe felt. Many of the offended Bishops and Priests were actually jealous that cats can lick themselves without guilt and that the thought of two male cats dry humping was somehow more heinous than the pedophile priests who were not punished by the Pope or the church. Hypocrites generally piss me off and I am proud to say that thanks to my many fans the smell of cat urine is so pungent in many confessionals and on ‘pews’ (meow, mew purr) that worshipers still faint.”

According to a gay feline rights activist, who was quoted on the promise of anonymity: “Mayor Gavin Newsome was heard to say, privately to D-E, ‘the smell reached all the way to heaven.’ We never intended to hurt Dal’s artistry, but he worked so dilligently to help all afflicted with AIDS, that we had to make a stand against bigotry that transcends the animal kingdom. Humans and animals are suffering through cruelty, abuse, neglect and indifference and if we do not come together collectively the toll will indeed, like the smell, reach heaven and angels will be plummeting to earth like bolts of Zeus’ lightning to strike down the wicked and innocent as well. The time is right for revolution and we have a billion supporters waiting to raise their tail’s in protest. Will their human sisters and brothers be willing to do likewise? Time will answer that question and we can only hope before it’s too late to save all races.”

Maine Coon “El Chupa-Milo,” died at age 12 from complications of feline AIDS in 2006, and was the inspiration of the MIFW-B, started in November, 2007 by his partner, Simone de bon de Bont, in honor of his fallen lover cat. The non-profit organization continues today with bureaus in Alabama, the Carolinas, Rhode Island, Maine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Texas and Nevada and promotes “all manner of feline assistance, support and love,” according to press cat, Talia B.