"Smiling up from a dozen photographs...

...the Girl with the Zeiss Ikon Eyes."¹

...he realized that the glasses were surgically inset, sealing her sockets. The silver lenses seemed to grow from smooth pale skin above her cheekbones, framed by dark hair cut in a rough shag. The fingers curled around the fletcher were slender, white, tipped with polished burgundy...

- "How do you cry, Molly? I see your eyes are walled away. I'm curious."

"I don't cry, much."

- "But how would you cry, if someone made you cry?"

"I spit," she said. "The ducts are routed back into my mouth."

- "Then you've already learned an important lesson, for one so young."²

Download the songs: AFX - Crying in Your Face | Gary Numan - M.E. | Vangelis - End Titles from 'Blade Runner'

Buy the albums: AFX - Chosen Lords | Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle | Vangelis - Blade Runner Soundtrack

Read the cyberpunk: 1. Burning Chrome (1982) 2. Neuromancer (1984)

so i wrote a fifteen-page paper about frank sinatra last semester.

it only had to be eight pages long.



a note to the males in their twenties who are doing it all wrong -

first of all, you probably look like you need a good, thorough scrubbing. i mean really, hipster boys. i see you, and i think that you probably smell bad. oftentimes, you do. i realize that it’s very taxing thinking all those thoughts and reading halfway through jack kerouac books and listening to all the new bands a moment before anyone else does, but please. i beg you. grow up and take a fucking shower. because the ‘grubby eight-year-old back from playing dodgeball and poking dead animals with a stick’ look is not doing it for me.

secondly, you probably scoff at my love for frank sinatra. or you say, noncommittally, ‘oh, yeah, he’s cool’ and then move on.

*sigh*

let me tell you about frank sinatra. he was a terrible, fantastic, brutish, repugnant, dreamy man. when he found out that woody allen had taken naked photos of ex-wife mia farrow’s adopted daughter, he called mia and offered to have the mob break woody’s legs. i think that’s the most frightening, darling thing i’ve ever heard. he’s no casper milquetoast. but he’ll sulk, damnit, when he’s sad. he’s a bouncing bundle of contradictions that all add up to one hell of a man. the kind of guy, to paraphrase lois griffin, that you hate until he’s inside of you.

he has chunks of guys bigger than you in his stool.

and there’s a reason they called him ‘the voice’. it’s because his voice was liquid hot molten lava oozing sex.

so much so that it can still make the female portion of a college classroom *swoon*. which i learned during the presentation of my unnecessarily long academic love letter, when i played a video of him singing.

swooning, buddy boy. honest to god *swooning*. there were smiles that got so wide it looked like the bearers were tearing up. i heard sighs and uncomfortable giggles. a girl fanned herself.

do you see how stupid you are? do you see the kind of opportunity you’re missing out on?

here. take this loofah and this shirt without stains or holes. go wash up (don’t forget under the nails) and change. when you get back, i want you to pay attention to the following songs from sinatra’s years at capitol records. because you want to be like the dear friend i thought of continually when rereading my paper today. (he gets laid a lot.)



i’ve got a crush on you
the intro is saccharine. it’s true. but in the song, his voice deepens gorgeously, like it’s wearing glasses and gently lowering you onto a bed. his voice can talk nice to your folks, but sticks its hand in your sweater once you’re beyond the porch lights. his voice smells like cookies and sneaking out of your bedroom window at two in the morning. and you like it.


i’m a fool to want you
if this doesn’t produce a deep and profound ache within your being, you are a communist robot from hell. and you’ve never been in love with someone you continually forgive for breaking your little heart.


i’ve got you under my skin
this song is not about sex. it doesn’t mention anyone’s cock, it doesn’t request that you shake that thang, and it doesn’t have a chorus that consists mostly of the word ‘skeet’.

the pacing is that of a heartbeat. most of the song is a delicious, confident, steady build. wow. this instrumentation really knows what it’s doing. we’ve never felt like this before. and frank is so in control. here it comes. oh, here it comes. the trombone solo. oh god, the trombone solo…oh….god…oh! but the instrumentation has pulled back a bit. and we were *so close*. we can barely stand it. but oh! oh, here comes frank again. it’s building faster now, more intense. oh, he’s in our ears, he’s pushing us forward, he’s in control but just barely and yes! frank absolutely *howls* as he bends the words over his knee! we’re right there with him for the rest of the verse! yes! yes! oh, god, yes! spank those fucking horn cues!

and then it comes back down suddenly. where are we? what just happened? oh, frank. frank. his voice slinky and calm again, cradling us for just a moment before he tells us he has to get up early to sing another song. he should really get going. but we should do this again sometime soon.

um.

yeah.


Buy the album: frank sinatra: the capitol years box set