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In Memoriam

  • Memories of Theresa
  • Play Theresa Duncan's Video Games Free Online
    Rhizome has preserved Theresa Duncan's visionary video games and they are now available to be played for free at http://archive.rhizome.org/theresa-duncan-cdroms/
  • Chop Suey
    "Developed in 1994 and published the following year, Chop Suey was a cunning piece of multimedia edutainment, suited just as well to grown-ups — smirking hipsters and punk rockers, probably — as it was to the prescribed “girls 7 to 12” crowd. But it wasn’t a computer game. It was something else: a loosely-strung system of vignettes; a psychedelic exercise in “let’s-pretend”; a daydream in which the mundanity of small town Ohio collides with the interior lives of its two young protagonists." Jenn Frank
  • Smarty
    Smarty was Theresa's second award winning video. This is a film version used to demonstrate the game for potential distributors. Art direction by Jeremy Blake
  • Theresa Duncan's The History of Glamour
    The History of Glamour “In the film, the main character is looking for an identity, and glamour becomes for her a potent form of self-expression. She finds it very liberating, because she’s from a small town. But by the end of the story, glamour becomes limiting, then imprisoning, so she becomes a writer, chooses grammar over glamour.” Theresa Duncan on The History of Glamour in Salon. ~ The History of Glamour, is a music-based animated film, it aired at The New York Video Festival, The Women Make Waves International Women's Film Festival, The Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Montreal Film Festival, the Channel Hopping Festival in Austria and was selected for inclusion in The Whitney Biennial 2000. Glamour also aired on Channel 4 in the UK, on Canal + in France, and in Japan. * ~Writer and Director Theresa Duncan; Art Director Jeremy Blake; Art work by Jeremy Blake and Karen Kilimnick; animation by Eric Dyer.
  • Memorial Film
    This film was shown at a memorial for Theresa in New York, December 2007. A special thanks to Wilbur King for the use of clips from his film “Charlotte Goes Swimming” and Raymond Doherty, editor.
  • In a Land of 90's Barbieland Wreckage Chop Suey Got Everything Right
  • Memories Of Theresa Tumblr
  • The Lovely Theresa by Baron Von Luxxury
  • Eric Dyer

Worthy of Mention

  • Spoon -

    Spoon: Girls Can Tell
    This is a great, understated album that merits repeated plays. Spoon have made a literate, rocking, breakthrough record that occupies a funny place--the songs are not unconventional, per se, yet they're somehow really special. Girls Can Tell displays the emotional resonance and big rock power of, say, Thin Lizzy and Mott the Hoople; the sonically referential, indie-rock smarts of a band like Versus; and amazing hooks that recall Colin Blunstone of the Zombies. Like Jennyanykind, Moviola, and the Lilys, this Austin, Texas, trio has chosen to work on perfecting their craft without paying much heed to mainstream or trends. In spite of (but mostly because of) wrenching breakup-centered lyrical material delivered in a very real, matter-of-fact way, Girls Can Tell is one of those life-affirming pop albums you know you'll return to in years to come. --Mike McGonigal (*****)

Books

  • Michael Hardt: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

    Michael Hardt: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire
    Empire (2000)—the surprise hit that made its term for U.S global hegemony stick and presciently set the agenda for post–9/11 political theory on the left—was written by this same somewhat unlikely duo: Hardt, an American political scientist at Duke University, and Negri, a former Italian parliament member and political exile, trained political scientist and sometime inmate of Rome's Rebibbia prison. This book follows up on Empire's promise of imagining a full-blown global democracy. Though the authors admit that they can't provide the final means for bringing that entity about (or the forms for maintaining it), the book is rich in ideas and agitational ends. The "multitude" is Hardt and Negri's term for the earth's six billion increasingly networked citizens, an enormous potential force for "the destruction of sovereignty in favor of democracy." The middle section on the nature of that multitude is bookended by two others. The first describes the situation in which the multitude finds itself: "permanent war." The last grounds demands for and historical precursors of global democracy. Written for activists to provide a solid goal (with digressions into history and theory) toward which protest actions might move, this timely book brings together myriad loose strands of far left thinking with clarity, measured reasoning and humor, major accomplishments in and of themselves. (****)

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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

"On One Occasion, I Smoked A Flower"

Datura_inoxia_smDatura flowers grow up and down my street, they are the main ingredient of my current favorite perfume. These flowers are also known as "Angel's Trumpets" and "Hell's Bells." They are pollinated nocturnally by hawk moths.

From the Enyclopedia of Hallucinogens:

"The belladonna alkaloids, of which the Datura flower are a part, are so terrifying and incapacitating - the physical effects often so unpleasant, and the loss of contact with ordinary reality so complete - that they are used only with great caution and rarely for pleasure."

The Datura flower as a drug has been mainly used throughout the Middle Ages by sorcerers, shamen, poisoners, and oddly, pimps:

"Datura flowers were commonly sold for their aphrodisiac qualities all over central and southern Europe. They had the reputation of breaking down any resistance to sexual approaches. Pimps in particular knew how to use the herb to their own best advantage. An indignant German writer aptly documents this common use of Datura, which he describes as: 'a tool of brothel-keepers, wicked seducers of girls, depraved courtesans and shameless lechers."

One blog I frequent is devoted to recounting experiences with unusual drugs. A recent entry described the odd and terrifying experience of smoking the Datura flower. During the high, which can last for over a week, the writer talked to plants and had extremely realistic three-dimensional hallucinations.

I keep Datura Noir, nocturnal perfume it is, decanted in a bisque owl bottle my boyfriend bought me in Germany. It sits alone in its decanter on my fireplace mantel, separated from all the "nice" perfumes by several rooms.


Wednesday, July 20, 2005 in Perfume |

Comments

Flora

I have just discovered your perfume reviews - wow! You have a way of capturing the moment and the feel of a fragrance. Such a fearless way of expressing the impressions you get from each one!

Just three weeks ago I finally found Serge Lutens perfumes after much anticipation, and my first purchase was Datura Noir. It is the only perfume I have ever known that really smells like the night, most especially a night filled with the decadent fragrance of my evening garden, filled with nicotiana, white trumpet lilies and sometimes even Datura when I am lucky enough to get it to bloom. Underneath the sweetness of the perfume lurks the swampy danger which I recognized immediately.

I wore it with some trepidation, concerned that others would find it to be too much. No worries; one friend was so smitten with it that I decanted an atomizer of it for her. Now I feel a little daring when I wear it, like I have secret no one else knows.

Posted by: Flora | Monday, January 23, 2006 at 01:22 AM

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