The Most Compelling Woman in Brooklyn
When I first saw Anya Sapozhnikova she stood atop stilts that lifted her body above a massive crowd. Her skin tight costume showed off a gymnasts body, tight and toned. Her physique drew admiring gazes from men and women who crammed into the Brooklyn loft that night for a party thrown by rabble-rousing activist turned event promoter Will Etundi, a name known throughout the underground events scene, though the New York twenty-somethings who dabble in alt-parties are more likely to recognize his brand, The Danger.
Circa fall 2006, Anya could be counted on to perform at nearly every The Danger party, but I’d never seen her before “The Carnival of Illusion,” held October 26, 2008 at Third Ward. I paid my $10 at the door, cracked open an oversized can of Tecate purchased beforehand at a Bushwick bodega, and saw Anya rising up on the far side of the massive space, looking like an Amazonian goddess, a role she once played for Dos Equis on an international publicity tour.
I’d finished a second oversized Tecate before I drummed up the courage to talk to her. I weaved my way through several hundred gyrating hipsters, leaned up against a makeshift plywood bar, and hesitated. How does one strike up a conversation with a beautiful woman when your head only rises to the level of her shins? Luckily she contorted her legs such that we could talk for a couple minutes. Too quickly for my taste, however, she got called away by an event promised on the party invitation: “The brash brass of the Hungry March Band will storm the main floor with all the heat and lust that funk and bass drums inevitably inspire,” it said. “Along for the ride will be the Society of the Spectacle: a massive puppet and lewd stilt feat of beauty and integrity.”
A feat of beauty and integrity is a pretty succinct description of Anya, whose friendship I’ve since enjoyed. She is a magnetic personality, her days and nights spent furiously pursuing one project after another, all of them trying to add something special to the city where she resides. The latest and best to date is a Lady Circus production called “Cirque Du Quoi?!?“ I saw it Friday night just before its last known performance, though I expect that it’ll re-emerge on a bigger stage before long. Held in The House of Yes, a singular group house slash professional quality performance space, the Lady Circus and FUCT comedy troupe combined elements of Vaudeville, acrobatics, ballet, cabaret, and flourishes I’ve seen nowhere else to impressive effect. “See what happens when a circus troupe of lovely ladies committed to a life of glamour and spectacle meets a comedy troupe dedicated to constant humiliation in the name of fun,” an advertisement noted. “Expect the unexpected as we totally destroy all that is sacred about the circus.”
I attended with my friend Deepa, a New York City lawyer who represents low-income clients in disputes with their landlords. Due to traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge, we arrived just as the show began. This forced us to stand behind the last row of seats for the duration, a discomfort mitigated by the fact that our $20 admission tickets included all we could drink Colt 45 malt liquor: “It works every time.” But even absent the beer buzz (or the equivalent from the carbon friendly margaritas on offer, blended by a furiously peddling bartender atop a converted exercise bike), a couple hours on our feet would’ve been well worth it. I’ll refrain from describing particular parts of the R rated and decidedly successful show, as I think that it is best seen going in fresh and enjoying the elements of surprise. (Should it re-emerge, as I suspect, would be attendees should know to expect nudity, profanity, and vulgar comedy, though the show is somehow goodhearted if not wholesome in spirit.)
What interests me more is Anya’s development as an entertainer and a force on the underground arts scene. These days, she’s on stilts less often, and tends to perform dangling from a piece of silk (or this NSFW chain). The New York Times ably describes the effect (see the accompanying video to get a sense of the Brooklyn scene parties I’m describing):
A slender young woman hung 30 feet in the air, coiling her body around two pieces of black silk that were attached to the rafters. A crowd watching below screamed as she unraveled herself and started falling toward them and then gasped with relief as she came to a stop just above their heads.
The woman, Anya Sapozhnikova, was performing her aerial circus act, but this was not Cirque du Soleil, and there was no big top. Instead, it was a warehouse party in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
While the notion of circus performers is largely associated with major productions like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Coney Island sideshows, a new generation of performers is taking the circus arts to unexpected places. Fire eaters, stilt walkers, aerialists and sword swallowers are among those showing off their skills at parties, concerts, clubs and in the streets and in parks.
“It’s more exciting when you don’t expect to see circus arts; it makes it dangerous” said Claire de Luxe, a stilt walker, fire dancer and member of Lady Circus, the troupe that performed on a recent Saturday night at the Bushwick warehouse.
Audience members, who paid $15 to see the circus acts, were also treated to live bands and disc jockeys. “I’m having a good time, drinking a beer, listening to some music, and out of nowhere this girl is falling a few feet from death,” said Enrique Ruiz, 30, a plumber from Brooklyn. “It was amazing.”
The Times story gives this account of Anya’s start in performance: “Ms. Sapozhnikova was a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology three years ago when, coming home from a party one night, she was handed a business card for a company of stilt walkers. Curious, she called the number and was soon taking lessons in her apartment. She started taking her own stilts to parties and was soon hired to perform at a Lower East Side club. She decided about two years ago to organize her own group and started recruiting members through the Internet.”
This description is accurate as far as it goes, but like all brief accounts of people who’ve made successes of themselves, it elides all the toil, risk and daring it takes to make it. Some weeks after I met Anya at that Brooklyn loft party, I visited her at the apartment where she lived at the time, a basement in Bed Stuy, one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn, which she and a roommate transformed from utter squalor into an exceptionally enjoyable space. There were racks of salvaged fabric, sewing machines, quirky furniture plucked from garbage bins and curb sides, a cupboard full of mugs and glasses, no two the same, and a thick pipe running the length of the ceiling.
The night I visited, Anya arrived after a stilt gig in Manhattan, which is to say that she worked for several hours dancing on stilts, took them off and packed them into a duffel bag, climbed atop a bicycle, hoisted her heavy cargo over a shoulder, and rode several miles to her apartment. I’d brought some beer along. She had a half bottle of Vodka on hand, no mixers. Rather than crash on the couch with a drink, however, she spent an hour working on a costume with her friend, Kay Burke, and then walked over beneath the ceiling pipe, threw a piece of fabric over it, and hoisted herself up with her arms.
“I think I’m going to learn aerial,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She proceeded to explain that though it would require a ton of practice hours—particularly for someone cobbling together a living as a freelance performer, and already exhausted at the end of every day—she had “some ideas” about good things that could result. In hindsight, I’m struck by how much she sounded like an investor in a startup that evening, which is, of course, exactly what she was. By the time she finished her first drink she’d collapsed on the couch against my shoulder, exhausted after being up for 18 hours. It is the only occasion I’ve seen Anya in less than a state of maximum energy.
In subsequent months and years, Anya has systematically achieved everything she’s set out to do. Even as she transformed herself from a beginning aerial performer to a mediocre one to a polished, elegant acrobat — the kind of stage personality that everyone in the audience can’t help either being awed by or falling in love with or envying — she set out to secure that most precious commodity for New York City performers, sufficient space to thrown one’s own parties and host one’s own performances. Anyone who has so much as found a New York City apartment is awed that at 20 years old Anya managed to swing a 5 figure real estate deal to rent perhaps 4,000 square feet of squalor — cat droppings everywhere, among other things — and organize enough friends and rented tow-away dumpsters to transform it into a destination party spot.
And it burned down, taking most of her possessions. I’d moved to DC when I got that e-mail. My $10 an hour intern job didn’t allow me to contribute any more than a pittance to the resurrect-The-House-of-Yes fund. What a pleasure to return after a year and change, walk into the new House of Yes, survey a space better than the last incarnation, and be dazzled by an exceptional performance wherein Anya’s skills were better than I’ve ever seen them, and something for anyone to behold.
Should any promoter, agent, reviewer, or giver of genius grants stumble across this post, be advised that whatever Anya Sapozhnikova does next, you’d do well to pay attention. Her work ethic, generous spirit, charisma and aesthetic sense are an inspiration to all of us who’ve had the pleasure of following her rise over the last several years. And should I become aware of future performances, I’ll look forward to posting the details so that I can better share them with you all.
So, NYC hipsters are into circus acts? That’s the latest thing in cutting edge circles?
I guess it’s just all been done before.
At this rate, the 21st Century will turn out to be the most boring century culturally since the 10th.
— Steve Sailer · Jun 7, 11:46 PM · #
Not just circus acts, Steve. Circus acts featuring black people.
RE: cat shit
Every other success NYC story I know about is built on top of some sort of accumen or luck with real estate; and every other NYC real estate success story I know of involve cat shit or some other deprivation that no sane person would begin to dream of enduring anywhere else in the US.
I don’t say this to take anything away from Ms. Sapozhnikova, I’m sure she’s every bit as delightful as you say she is, Conor. But holey cow, this city will kick your ass, and the best way to kick back is to get your digs sorted out.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 7, 11:52 PM · #
Steve, she appears to make many people happy. You? AICN is calling, they require your unique, bracing brand of “meh”.
— HA! · Jun 8, 12:33 AM · #
AICN? I’ll see your “meh” and raise you a “wha?”
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 12:56 AM · #
http://www.aintitcool.com/
Where the movies of tommorow suck today.
— HA! · Jun 8, 01:22 AM · #
Oh yeah, them. One of the advantages of having your digs squared away is you don’t have to give a shit what people like Steve or AICN think about what you do.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 01:36 AM · #
Digs squared away? I think I know what you mean…but not really. Please illuminate this particular blind spot.
— HA! · Jun 8, 04:42 AM · #
Digs = housing situation
I don’t know where you live, but if you’re not from New York it’s almost impossible to image what a huge factor living space and working space is. A small advantage in either, or especially both makes almost anything else possible.
Conversely, if your situation is typical, (a tiny space, inconveniently located at a huge expense) your existence in New York, no matter what your talent and ambition, is reduced to little more than treading water.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 08:16 AM · #
Thanks Tony.Is that formula true for those who aren’t self employed? At a company to company level, has this led to calcification at the top?
— HA! · Jun 8, 02:38 PM · #
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking, so I’ll answer in the form of a list. If you meet someone in New York who is doing something groovy, absent a trust fund, odds are 50/50 at least that they:
a) Have some sort of rent controlled, rent stabilized digs.
2) Have done/is doing something outlandish by the standards of any other American city (ie. cat shit, nightly fights between hookers with razors, sharing a small 2BR at the age of 38.)
It’s a tough town and not for the faint of heart or the proud. Used to smell a lot worse and was a lot more dangerous, but it was more fun.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 02:56 PM · #
So smaller, more vital ventures only really get a chance when large, real estate hogging institutions fall appart, because of their own size based clumsiness?…oh,wait…shit. Which is to say, we currently seem to have the worst of both worlds.
— HA! · Jun 8, 04:58 PM · #
Wow, I love hearing about people supporting pwoplw in their dreams like this. I have been helped like that, and have helped others as well.
Funny thing is: there os no end to how much there is to grow into..
Hallelujah!
Thanks for the article..
I am going to see about reblogging it.
Ines Q COmpton
— Ines Q Compton · Jun 8, 05:11 PM · #
“Which is to say, we currently seem to have the worst of both worlds.”
Please forgive me if the following sounds like I’m talking down to you. I don’t mean it that way.
My guess is that you are a young person, semi-adrift in New York, going reading about phenoms like dear Ms. Sapozhnikova, and thinking, “Holee Cat Shit! How will I ever get foothold on this god forsaken rocks?”
We the fact is, you probably won’t. Most people go home. Most people can’t hack it.
But that’s good news!
New York rewards the stupidly stubborn. Not everyone can be a phenom, but anyone can be stubbornly stupid, simply though an act of will.
Look around me and you will know I speak the truth. It’s everyone you know who’s had any sort of success in New York stubborn, and stupid, and stubbornly stupid. You know I am speaking the truth!
So take heart! Just commit yourself to being stubborn, and stupid, and stubbornly stupid for the next five or ten years and everything will turn out fine.
Really! I’m not kidding. Say it with me! Stubborn. Stupid. Stubborn. Stupid. Breathe in, Breathe out Stubborn, Stupid!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 05:30 PM · #
No offense taken, though wrong on a few of the details. I am young, but very far from New York.My self delusional confidence persists. I have nothing but admiration for Anya, particuarly her effort, which is why I was so put off by Sailers shitting on her. He can’t really be blamed though, as he is a ginger, and so he hasn’t a soul. Pity. My last comment was mostly a tangent. I’ve worked for several large companies recently, who are too large to ever be hurt, and have almost no incentive to be efficient on the micro level. No sense of self preservation, really, which I must say suprised me, as I am very young. We seem to be stuck between a true free market, and an ordered game,which has produced a very weak soup.
P.S. Everyone’s a hipster now, apparently.
— HA! · Jun 8, 06:15 PM · #
“.My self delusional confidence persists.”
What I wouldn’t give to have that back! Delusional confidence is wasted on the young!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 06:27 PM · #
You don’t understand, man! I loVE her!
— HA! · Jun 8, 06:47 PM · #
Shall I make everyone else forget about poor Mr. Sailer? Here goes:
So some half-naked strumpet twirls from a chain and that sends the “conservative” writer into paroxisms of joy? It doesn’t surprise me that Tony likes it, but Conor? I thought better of you. Looks like we’ve got one more hipster. What kind of hair gel do you use?
The frustrating thing is that this really has all been done before, in fin de siecle Paris and Weimar Berlin. This is just “Cabaret” with more props. Thanks for fiddling while the country burns, New Yorkers.
Or maybe I’m just feeling contrarian tonight.
— Ethan · Jun 9, 04:07 AM · #
It wasn’t new back during the turn of the century, either. Men like Barnum just changed the format and scale, and so it appears has Anya and others.
Apparently, you and Steve are upset that she hasn’t invented an entirely new artform. I can understand. Perhaps you were looking forward to three dimensional chess? Hmmm? I was hoping jetpack, but, oh well.
At least you can critizize something you’ve never seen for not being something you’ve never seen, at anytime of the night, for anyone to see, from thousands of miles away. Progress marches on.
— HA! · Jun 9, 04:54 AM · #
I saw the Youtube video of the chain performance, and the New York Times video that Conor says is representative of the scene. Now, if those aren’t representative, then that’s Conor’s fault. If they are, then I stand by my comments concerning the hypersexualization and overall decadence of the performance and the venue, and its resonance with fin de siecle and Weimar cultural expressions.
I find the idea that a circus is now the new hip New York thing, just because it’s tarted up and pitched toward adults with “loft parties” and ironically lousy beer (all-you-can-drink Colt 45? Canned Tecate? That’s what the cool kids are drinking nowadays?), to be contemptible.
I like circuses. They can be an excellent medium of performance, and I don’t want to denigrate Ms. Sapozhnikova’s considerable acrobatic talents. It’s her performance style and the larger milieu that I criticize. I don’t wish she would invent a new artform. I just wish she wouldn’t prostitute an artform to a bunch of chump hipsters.
And yes, I say that from my high-and-mighty Midwestern seat, thousands of miles away — or almost exactly 1,000 miles away, to be precise. And not a foot closer, thank you.
— Ethan · Jun 9, 07:36 AM · #
RE: Hypersexual
The venue is a mating-grounds for young adults. If there is not a more appropriate venue for a hypersexualized performance
RE: Tecate
I used to spend a fair amount of time with fishermen in Baja California. They all drank Tecate. When asked why, they said, “Lots of beers taste good cold, Tecate taste good warm.”
RE: Prostiute
Why the eagerness to be so cruel, Ethan. Did you see something you liked? Did you feel something you’d like to feel again?
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 10:51 AM · #
It wasn’t new back during the turn of the century, either. Men like barnum just changed the format and scale, and so it appears has Anya and others.
Apparently, you and Steve are upset that she hasn’t invented an entirely new artform. I can understand. Perhaps you were looking forward to Three Dimensional Chess? Hmmm? I was hoping for a jetpack myself, but, oh well.
At least you can critizize something you’ve never seen for not being something you’ve never seen, at anytime of the night, for anyone to see, from thousands of miles away. Progress marches on.
P.S.
“The frustrating thing is that this really has all been done before, in fin de siecle Paris and Weimar Berlin. This is just “Cabaret” with more props. Thanks for fiddling while the country burns, New Yorkers.”, is a wildley hipster-like thing to say. Skinny jeans cutting off your circulation?
— HA! · Jun 9, 12:11 PM · #
Tony: There is no proper venue for a hypersexualized performance.
More significantly, isn’t my reaction a sign of the success of her performance, from your point of view? It’s try to epater les bourgeois, after all, and it’s succeeding. If a Midwestern religious conservative weren’t horrified by this, wouldn’t you feel disappointed? So what’s the problem?
HA!: So historical criticism from a traditionalist aesthetic perspective is hipster, now? If only! I’d buy my skinny jeans today! As it is, I think I’ll stick with my pleated chinos and J.C. Penny polo shirts for now.
I like how, for both of you, baiting has replaced any logical refutation. I don’t see any of you actually cogently trying to defend the aesthetic merits of the performance and venues in question, which Conor has at least attempted.
The question is: Is it, or is it not, redolent of cultural decadence? Present to me an argument that it is not, and I may very well be convinced.
— Ethan C. · Jun 9, 07:02 PM · #
“More significantly, isn’t my reaction a sign of the success of her performance, from your point of view? It’s try to epater les bourgeois, after all, and it’s succeeding. If a Midwestern religious conservative weren’t horrified by this, wouldn’t you feel disappointed? So what’s the problem?”
Um, no, not at all. I like art that makes people feel good. And since that’s what Conor described, I’m willing to give the performer in question the benefit of the doubt, even though if I were to judge from the clips, I don’t see anything special, and not because I find the performance is insufficiently transgressive.
What I’m trying to sort out is why you, from 1,000 miles away, are in such a hurry to feel bad.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 07:29 PM · #
Oh, I had missed this bit:
“So some half-naked strumpet twirls from a chain and that sends the “conservative” writer into paroxisms of joy? It doesn’t surprise me that Tony likes it, but Conor? I thought better of you. Looks like we’ve got one more hipster. What kind of hair gel do you use?”
Not surprised I like it? Reading back I see no such assertions on my part, only a deferral to Conor. What he was describing didn’t seem like very much fun to me, but clearly it was a lot of fun for him, and the bit about the real estate offered a jumping in point for something that I’m a little preachy about: the need for artists to secure their financial future if they hope to have any sort of artistic freedom over the long haul.
You seem to be making some perhaps understandable but utterly wrong headed assumption about what I like or don’t like on the basis that I make films about love and sex that feature people who are in love having sex. But if you think it follows from that that I think a girl in tight clothes swinging from a chain to a 20 year-old industrial pop song is a priori wonderful… well if you think that I’m not quite sure what I have to say to that except I’d be very surprised if you’ve seen my films, or even take the time to search out and watch the clips that are available at YouTube or on our website.
I’m homebody, Ethan. I don’t go to clubs at all now, and very little in the past. It’s not my scene. I like to sail and surf and drink beer and play with my kids and fuck my wife. I like to spend time on the internet because it lets me meet people who see the world in a very different way from how I see it. Well actually that’s nearly everyone I meet, but on the internet I’m able to converse candidly in a way that simply isn’t appropriate in everyday life.
Now when I say “inappropriate” I don’t mean it in a “There is no proper venue for a hypersexualized performance.” way. I mean it more in the “In everyday life people mostly just want to go about their business” kind of way. In everyday life sharing opinions and asking opinions isn’t a way to get a long with people. We meet and greet with pleasantries and platitudes, and I actually like that very much; the simple joy of human contact without worrying whether or not the person I’m talking to worships the right god the right way or uses the right brand of tooth paste or can only get off when his wife does him orally.
But thankfully everyday life isn’t the only venue, because a steady diet of pleasantries and platitude wouldn’t be very interesting, would it. Sometimes I want something with a little more give and take. I’ve got some ideas that I actually think are pretty interesting, interesting enough that I’ve more or less committed my professional and creative life, plus a big chunk of my personal life to creating realizations of those idea so that other people can experience them, and yes, even judge them.
And isn’t that what you’re here for, Ethan. A little provocation, a little acknowledgement, and maybe even a pleasantry and platitude here and there?
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 07:59 PM · #
I regret my final statement about Paris,Berlin, and the scourge of skinny jeans. It was a cheap shot,and it was irrelevent to the point you were trying to make. As you can see, I thought the post didn’t go through, and tacked that last part on in my re-post. Lesson for the kids.
We read the article differently. I saw it as the story of a plucky girl who turns herself into a cirus performer via hard work and determination. You read the article and watched the videos and saw yet another sign of cultural and sexual nihilism.
My main problem with your posts and Steve’s , as I first understood them, was the lack of charity.I now understand that you don’t scorn her innovation or her efforts, but what you see a her and her audiances intentions. And of course, teh sex.
However,your perception still seems less than charitable to me. That she must have done it to provoke the squares. That no-one at those parties would actually enjoy acrobatics, but would only enjoy the idea that someone else would, some detestable rube. Someone like you, who does enjoy the circus for what it is, without that needless crap. I must admit I didn’t watch the video till the latter comments. From the way you were talking, I expected a depraved daisy chain of swinging vaginas, nipples, and tounges. I expected to have shuffle my feet,“Mumble, mummble, it is a bit much, but…”. It’s strumpitude was quite minimal. I suppose we have chalk some of that down to various personal differences, but in the scheme of things, I thought it was suggestive at best. You can follow that kind of stuff all the way back to belly dancing and the like. Was it really worse than a fan dance you might have seen in Las Vegas, 50 years ago? If you were going after, say, VH-1, I could back you, but this…hmmm.This post is way too long, but if you want to talk about cultural decadence and indicaters of collapse, I’d welcome it.
— HA! · Jun 9, 08:32 PM · #
Ethan,
As you may have noticed, I included no links to video of the circus performance — there isn’t any video online as far as I know — but I can assure you that it is very different from the chain clip that I linked. In fact, part of what impresses me about Anya is how much she’s progressed as a performer in a very short period of time.
It is all well and good for you to weigh in on the aesthetics of the performances in the videos, but you’ve insufficient evidence to decide on the merits of the circus performance that I VERY much enjoyed, given that you haven’t seen it and I didn’t even describe it — and you’re on even less solid ground presuming to judge the performers’ character. In fact, the judgment you render, and the language you use to do it, are quite incorrect.
As for whether any of this is culturally decadent, I guess it depends on how you define your terms — elements are definitely sexually charged by design, but no more so than the average R-rated move two decades ago. In any case, I obviously don’t think its effect is to harm society in any way.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 9, 08:38 PM · #
RE: Culture Decadance
This clip is okay for YouTube
This clip is not okay for YouTube, but the rest of the clip on this page are just fine.
And these clips of people being murdered are okay too
I have a hard time understanding the value of our society as expressed in these various editorial decisions made by YouTube, except in as much as I understand them as a product of the “fund-raising opportunity culture” that James and Matt were talking about on Blogheads. If you want to talk about decadence, that’s the place to start.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 08:52 PM · #
More fund-raising culture
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 10:27 PM · #
Perhaps you’re right that my posts were not in a very charitable spirit. I was indeed only working off of the videos. Perhaps, Conor, you ought to have been more clear that the links you provided were not quite what you were defending, but I shouldn’t judge that error too harshly.
So I’ll take back all the mean things I said about Ms. Sapozhnikova and her compatriots. And sorry for using the term “prostituting”, with all its connotations given my criticism of the clip’s sexualism. I should have just said, “selling out”, and I take that back as well.
But I won’t take back anything I said about the parties at which they perform, as depicted by Conor and the New York Times article to which he linked, though I will confess that I might be a bit biased against New York partygoers, and partygoers in general, especially those that think free Colt 45 is supercool. That’s the main thing that reminds me of Weimar. Perhaps it’s worth enduring a “loft party” to see a circus, but that’d better be a heck of a show.
Tony Comstock, I suppose this debate would be better conducted elsewhere (as I’ve withdrawn my sexual criticism), but I’ve had close enough contact with pornography addiction to have discovered that there isn’t a significant difference between the sort of thing you produce (I have looked at your site) and other forms of it. It’s like the difference between powder cocaine and crack: same stuff, different target market. I’m sorry that I falsely presumed that you’d automatically like this.
— Ethan C. · Jun 9, 10:46 PM · #
Ethan, you are aware that the entire porn addiction/erototoxin nonsense was junk science cooked up in the hopes of a tobacco law-suit style settlement, and folks like the Lighted Candle Foundation dropped it like a hot potato when it turned out the targets of their hoped for law suit didn’t have any money? You know that, right? More of that decadent fund-raising culture.
If you or who ever it is you know can’t express themselves in a way that is comfortable and consonant with your or their values, don’t blame the camera. They’re not magic.
Sex might be, but that’s a good thing.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 11:00 PM · #
Ethan,
I’m afraid I don’t understand — young people finding free beer super cool reminds you of the Weimar Republic? I mean, I suppose. But doesn’t finding free beer cool remind you of every society with young people in it? Or at least every Western society of that sort?
Anyhow, it certainly isn’t just an NYC thing.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 9, 11:40 PM · #
Tony, I must not have been sufficiently explicit. Try your argument out on someone besides a recovering porn addict.
Conor, it’s not the freeness, it’s the ironic lousiness. Are people really going for the Colt 45 because they like it, or is it because they think it’s funny? Either way, they forfeit my aesthetic respect. But if it’s so normal that it isn’t distinctive, why did you mention it in your description of the party?
— Ethan · Jun 9, 11:48 PM · #
Sexy girl dancing/dangling from chain + free beer + cat shit = Weimar Republic
Film of two people in love talking about how much they love each other and making love = powdered cocaine
Video of two people paid to have sex having sex = crack cocaine
Pleated chinos + J.C. Penny polo shirts = ???
— Tony Comstock · Jun 9, 11:52 PM · #
Ethan,
My last was made before I read our last. I am very sorry to hear that visual depictions of nudity/sexuality/whatever are so fraught for you, so fraught that you would characterize the way that you feel about them as “addiction”, and I don’t mean to make light of your feelings.
I would respectfully ask you to consider that I have used the very same cameras that I use to make my sex films (not to mention the very same eyes) to make films that included graphic footage of murder and miserable, disease ridden death, and no one has ever suggested that either my cameras, or my eyes somehow create depictions of those atrocities that is physically harmful to view.
In fact, just the opposite has been suggested, that through my camera, through my eye, I have the power to transform human misery into something humane and uplifting. It has even been suggested, and more than once, that this “power” that I have is proof positive of God acting through me.
It is deeply wounding to me when you suggest that something less savory is happening when I make films about love and sex.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 12:12 AM · #
Pleated chinos + J.C. Penny polo shirts = Midwestern bourgeois street cred.
And, as I said before, it isn’t
“Sexy girl dancing/dangling from chain + free beer + cat shit = Weimar Republic”
It’s
Loft party + self-consciously sexed up performance art (though, again, maybe not in this particular case) + ho, ho, free Colt 45, isn’t it ironic? = Weimar Republic
— Ethan C. · Jun 10, 12:18 AM · #
I’m sorry that you feel wounded, Tony, but that doesn’t make my view false. My opinion on pornography has nothing to do with the economics of it or the reasons behind it, but only on the actual depiction of the sexual act, and the effect that depiction has upon the soul. Paying for sex certainly devalues it, but so does viewing it, no matter what the motivations are of the people being viewed. The simulated sex that one might see in a Hollywood movie is no different in this respect than the actual sex of hardcore porn, and neither is the voluntary sex that you film.
I wouldn’t mind having this argument in good faith with you (ideally elsewhere), but some of the things on your website trouble me. If you’re not a pornographer, Tony, then why were you reviewed in Penthouse Magazine? Why is Tera Patrick a fan of yours? Why were you mentioned in an article entitled “The New Pornographers” in Time Out New York? And, most importantly, why do you mention all these things on your own website?
I understand that you’re trying to do something different from typical porn, and I accept that your motivations are noble. But the fact is that you are still creating pornography, just in such a manner that you can argue that you’re doing something different.
But, again, I don’t consider this comment thread a proper venue.
— Ethan C. · Jun 10, 12:36 AM · #
Ethan,
Respectfully, are there other human experience that are devalued by being viewed? Kissing? Child birth? Death? Or only just sex?
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 12:49 AM · #
And to lighten the mood!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 12:52 AM · #
I come back, and everyones trying to be reasonable, and sharing, and having emotions…makes me sick. I came here to be angry!
Punchs hat
— HA! · Jun 10, 01:08 AM · #
Don’t worry, HA!. I’m still plenty angry, and nothing you or Ethan says (one way or the other) is going to change that.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 02:12 AM · #
Sex is a special case, because it’s a type of the divine relationship to the human. It’s holy. It’s therefore hidden, just like certain other holy acts are hidden, such as the sacrifices in the Holy of Holies in the Mosaic Covenant. The filming or viewing of sex is therefore profane, in the technical religious sense of the word. But, really, it’s a rather involved argument, which is why I said this isn’t the proper venue.
— Ethan C. · Jun 10, 04:04 AM · #
That fine Ethan. I regard sex as a special case as well, but I simply don’t believe the camera has the power to debase it; and in fact, I regard the idea that it does as profoundly offensive, and to a depth I’m not sure you could ever fully understand. I hope you regard my convictions as no less deeply held, and no less worthy of protection as your own. I’m sure if you do, we can both live our lives without stepping on each other’s toes too often.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 11:23 AM · #
Wait!? Your angry at ME, Tony? I thought we were angry together! That makes me angry! Thanks!
Punchs Hat Again
— HA! · Jun 10, 05:22 PM · #
I thought I had made it abundantly clear through my various and numerous comments here at TAS (not to mention all across the internet) that I’m pretty much angry at everyone and everything all of the time. Don’t take it personally.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 05:41 PM · #