F. Virtue Brings A Hypnotic, Vogue-Drenched Video For "As of Forever"
Wigstock Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary with Wigstock: The Cruise
After 20 years Wigstock founders Lady Bunny (who also emcee'd the event) and artist Scott Lifshutz, decided to take a break from being the Billy Rose and Fanny Brice of the gender illusionist set and ended the festival in 2005.
This Sunday, just in time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Wigstock's birth (and 10 years since the last installment) Bunny and Lifshutz are throwing Wigstock: The Cruise. Yes, Wigstock is hitting the high seas of the East River and will be featuring some Wigstock classics like Linda Simpson, Sweetie, Duelling Bankheads, HRH Princess Diandra and more. Even better? A buffet supper will be served. For more info and tickets go here. Below, enjoy some of Lifshutz and Bunny's favorite Wigstock photos from over the years.
Chicago Drill Supergroup W.W.A. Run Circles Around The OGs In "Straight Outta Chicago"
Chicago Drill Supergroup W.W.A. Run Circles Around The OGs In "Straight Outta Chicago"
10 Kick-Ass Girl Gang Movies
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
In my church of cinema, there aren't many directors I pray to like Russ Meyers. With his big-busted babes, mock violence and nasty dialogue, his movies make your head explode. This is one of his greatest. Starring the fabulous Tura Satana as Varla, the vicious lesbian leader of a hot rod-driving girl posse with a preference for skin-tight black (and plenty of cleavage), the film features she and her two stripper friends (Lori Williams & Haji) holed up in the desert trying to find an old hermit's cache of gold. Full of frugging, karate fighting, and dazzling double entendres, it never ceases to amaze.
The Violent Years (1956)
Paula Parkins (Jean Morehead) is the innocent-looking teen daughter of a prominent newspaperman, but secretly the leader of a group of pistol-whipping gals who rob filling stations, abduct and rape men, and smash up schoolrooms for a Communist organization. "These aren't kids, these are morons!" says the sheriff. This riotous black and white wonder written by bad movie master Edward D. Wood Jr. (Plan 9 From Outer Space) ends with the dying Jean giving illegitimate birth in a prison hospital ward croaking out her final words, and, philosophy of life: "So what!"
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970)
The third of an enjoyable Japanese delinquent bad girl trilogy stars Meiko Kaji as Mako, the black hatted, surly, leader of a group of ruthless schoolgirls "The Alleycats," who get their kicks fighting, mugging men and dancing to rock and roll. They get in a beef with a racist rival gang "The Eagles" (run by an impotent, mustached, sunglass-wearing, creep called The Baron) when one of the girls starts dating a "half breed." It all ends in a violent confrontation with Molotov cocktails in Coca Cola bottles and a shotgun finale. With psychedelic colors, great fashion, and entertaining interludes of an all-girl pop band called Golden Half, this film by Yasuharu Hasebe really rocks.
Switchblade Sisters (1975)
Director Jack Hill was the king of female action flicks -- especially his work with the legendary Pam Grier in Coffy, Foxy Brown and The Big Bird Cage. But this is a trash masterpiece. Joanne Nail plays Maggie, the new member of "The Dagger Debs" led by the badass Lace (played by Robbie Lee, who snarls through her teeth throughout the whole film). But jealous Patch (Monica Gayle) is out to frame Maggie, which leads to an all out war with a rival gang. Customized tanks, the Black Panthers, and machine guns all play a part of the insane finale of this grindhouse great.
The Female Bunch (1971)
Schlock filmmaker Al Adamson has forever fascinated me -- and not just because the director was killed by his contractor and buried in cement in his Jacuzzi. His movies were bad in fabulously entertaining ways. From the inadvertently hilarious Dracula vs. Frankenstein to Satan's Sadists, his movies frequently defy description. And he often starred his leading lady in real life, the buxom and glamorous Regina Carrol. In this movie Carrol (sporting big blonde hair) plays a go-go dancer who is part of a secret man-hating society in Utah. They all look like showgirls and are involved in the drug trade. They also ride horseback to trap, brand and execute their male enemies. A few sequences were shot at Spahn Ranch in California while Charles Manson and his merry band were there. "They treat their horses better than their men!" screamed the ads.
Olga's House Of Shame (1964)
The best of the notorious "Olga" films, directed by Joseph P. Mawra in the early 60s. Olga (the wonderful Audrey Campbell) is the sadistic leader of a crime syndicate involved in prostitution, narcotics and jewel smuggling. She recruits girls and brings them to what looks like an abandoned sawmill to punish them mercilessly until they shape up. Lots of whipping, electrocution and a hilarious voice-over describing the action with deadpan weirdness.
The Doll Squad(1973)
Director Ted. V. Mikels is a real character. A burly Ernest Hemingway type, he lived in a castle in L.A. with seven "castle ladies" and directed some memorably loony films like The Corpse Grinders, The Worm Eaters and Astro-Zombies. This film, a definite model for Charlie's Angels, is about an all-girl team of bodacious assassins hired by the CIA to combat rocket saboteurs. Tura Satana (of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! fame) stars as one of the gun-toting dames.
Teenage Doll (1957)
Teenage Doll is a bizarre, little-known 1957 Roger Corman film starring June Kenney as a pretty blonde teen who accidentally pushes a member of the "Black Widows" off a roof and spends the night trying to escape from the vengeful girl gang. It includes surreal touches like the heroine's weird mom (Dorothy Neumann), a birdlike elderly woman who wears little-girl dresses and pigtails, and a scene where the heroine finds her sister sitting in the dark eating a cardboard box.
Andy Warhol's Bad (1977)
A wildly underrated pitch-black comedy from the Andy Warhol gang, directed by long-time Factory associate Jed Johnson. The divine Carroll Baker ("Baby Doll") stars as Hazel, running a beauty salon out of her Queens house but making extra cash from sending out a group of morally bankrupt women to commit paid "hits" like throwing an unwanted baby out of a window, crushing the legs of a man in his auto shop, setting a fire in a movie theater and even stabbing a dog. Perry King is the dim but hot drifter and new member of the household. Susan Tyrrell is pitifully hilarious as the dowdy daughter-in-law living there. Standouts include the deadpan, sardonically funny, Geraldine and Maria Smith and the unforgettable Brigid Berlin. This warped wonder seriously needs to be re-discovered.
Spring Breakers (2012)
We've come a long way from Where the Boys Are with this demented, fabulous, Harmony Korine film about a bunch of female college students who commit armed robbery to fund their Spring Break vacation. Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Faith (Selena Gomez), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) keep up their string of lawless terror when they get to Florida, hooking up with a colorful drug dealer named Alien (a funny James Franco) who has cornrows and gold-plated teeth. It's Girls Gone Wild with string bikinis and machine guns and Korine's hallucinatory use of color creates a wild head-trip of a film.
Premiere: Palehound Battles The Burden Of Beauty In "Healthier Folk"
Friday Superlatives: The Best, Worst And Weirdest Of The Week
Best analogy in a porn ad: Pornhub just released a commercial comparing its premium subscription service to Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, which the "king of cheese"'s consortium called "offensive for our producers and their work." So much for trying to give a compliment. -- Suzannah Weiss
Fox News viewers had no issue w/ Megyn Kelly for at least 12 months until she asked Trump tough questions. #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/cm8GzaYgkC
-- Izzy Galvez (@iglvzx) August 7, 2015Best Fast-Food Creation Myth: One punctuation-less tweet from One Direction's Liam Payne was apparently all it took to bring back Burger King's cult Chicken Fries, seeing as how he allegedly caused a surge in social media mentions by (most likely) forgetting to specify he ate both chicken and fries. -- Sandra Song
I'm so fulllllll!!! Think I just ate my body weight in chicken fries and sides owwwwww
-- Liam (@Real_Liam_Payne) May 31, 2014
Best Tribute on a Speedboat: The death of beloved veteran Brooklyn rapper Sean Price has prompted an outpouring of support and remembrance, but none quite like this video posted by the elusive MF DOOM, in which the rapper appears to be almost literally sailing off into the sunset. -- Eric Thurm
Best New Activity for NYC Stoners: Riding the adorable, otherworldly new SeaGlass Carousel that opens to the public August 20th at Battery Park. So many colors, so many shimmering rays of light.....so many huge 12-foot-fish fish to loom over you while you're tripping the undersea light fantastic. Actually, maybe this is a bad idea. Watch the Times'rhapsodic video above.--Elizabeth Thompson
Best Writing on Kim Kardashian and Contouring, Ever:Arabelle Sicardi's Racked.com piece"I Attended a 50-Step Contouring Class With Kim Kardashan West." Sicardi sat-in on a dizzying, $300 Kardashian "makeup masterclass" with longtime KKW makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic, who practiced his technique on our favorite cover girl in front of a room of eager pupils. Per Sicardi, Kardashian-West's multi-mascara, multi-concealer, multi-multi-multi-step beauty process is born not from mere vanity but, "out of necessity from the lack of chill around her, and in desire to be the best at what she does: being a celebrity version of Any (Beautiful) Girl, a sweet woman of the cellulose. A living, celebrity, cyborg ghost -- her video game self is as real and as malleable as her human body, she curates both selves with a certain amount of freedom and control." Read the whole excellent thing here. --Elizabeth Thompson
Worst Political Attempt at "Getting" the Internet: Hillary Clinton's campaign attempted to use "cool" things like "emojis" to talk about a very serious issue -- student loan debt, asking people on social media to respond by describing their feelins in "3 emojis or less." It was pretty tone-deaf on multiple levels, but especially because the campaign didn't ask respondents to use based emoji, which is maybe why Clinton lost Lil B's crucial endorsement. -- E.T.
How does your student loan debt make you feel?
Tell us in 3 emojis or less.
-- Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 12, 2015
Least Bad Response to the Sesame Street-HBO News: Most of the jokes about Sesame Street moving to HBO are bad, but generally good Twitter account @Seinfeld2000's was great because it managed to both mock the hackiness of the other jokes while conjuring up gross imagery about Grover. Congrats, everyone. -- E.T.imagen if sesame street on HBO?
Elmo rob barksdale stash house
Daenerys ride Big Bird
Grover give hannah horvath HPV
Count on True Blood
-- Seinfeld Current Day (@Seinfeld2000) August 13, 2015
Sweetest Reaction to Obama's Vacation Playlist: Will Sheff of Okkervil River, whose "Down Down the Deep River" appears on Obama's playlist, is really excited about the whole thing. He told Paper: "The news about the President's playlist has made for a crazy day. Back when I was a broke video store employee trying to pressure my friends into coming out to my Monday night bar gig, I certainly never dreamed that the President of the United States would have my song in his ears at some point later in my life. Not only because that wasn't on my radar at all but because the world was different then -- there was still money in CDs, streaming services didn't exist, "indie rock" still felt like a mostly invisible micro-genre, and the President was supposed to stay at semi-remove from pop culture. We live in a different world now, of course. I have no idea how "Down Down the Deep River" found its way to the President. If I were being cynical I'd suspect there's someone whose job it is to shoot some jams his way. If I wanted to pay myself on the back about it I'd suspect that he likes the groove and the keyboard hook and he appreciates that there's a more complicated narrative on top. The fact that he chose that particular song has been kind of personally validating because it's one of my favorites - so much so that I've spent the last two years writing and directing an elaborate, expensive movie version of the film that we're just now setting up some screenings for. Maybe I should send him a DVD?"That's really sweet. Congrats, Will. -- E.T.
Azealia Banks Is Right; That Wax Figure Of Nicki Minaj Is Peak Shade
Wow, they finally give nicki minaj a wax figure and it's a statue of her bent over on all fours...... White people yo....
-- AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) August 12, 2015
As much as that woman has accomplished, they had to put her on all fours... Why not standing up with a mic in her hand ???
-- AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) August 12, 2015
Martha Stewart's most iconic moment was when she went to jail but they didn't put her wax figure in a jail uniform... Come on y'all...
-- AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) August 12, 2015
All ppl are gonna do is go up to that statue and take pictures shoving their crotch in her face and putting their crotch on her butt
-- AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) August 12, 2015
I would complain and ask for a do-over. That's such underhanded shade
-- AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) August 12, 2015
[h/tFader]
Disclosure Drops The Video For Their Silky-Smooth Kwabs-Aided Single "Willing & Able"
RADIO #1XTRA at 8pm: 'WILLING AND ABLE' | @mistajam | @disclosure | Me.
(I'm being shameless because I bloody love this song)
-- KWABS (@Kwabs) August 13, 2015
Check Out "Slumlord," the New Single From Neon Indian
Openings and Closing and Overused Metaphors: Everything We Saw and Heard at Last Night's Art Events
Three flights up in a studio building in the strangely barron neighborhood on the cusp of Soho and Tribeca, a Chicago gallery known for it's plucky curation and eccentric artists celebrated its move to New York City. Queer Thoughts gallery, or QT, used to reside in the apartment of directors Luis Miguel Bendaña and Sam Lipp, is used to packing punch into a small space. Their first show, titled The End of Violent Crime, explores the possibility of a world without violence with a collection of mostly violent video, sound, sculpture, photography and collage. On each end of the tiny room, speakers projected two songs, "The Most Wanted Song" and "The Most Unwanted Song," a sound installation by Komar & Melamid with neuroscientist Dave Soldier that takes statistics of the population's favorite and least favorite sounds and compiles them into one song to represent. Darja Bajagić's small collaged images of horror movie proportions (some even using fake blood) dressed the walls while Patricia L. Boyd's video of a man's hands disabling car parts. With so many people, unwanted sounds and blood splatters, it was an overwhelming introduction for the transplant gallery, but hopefully a wanted new voice in the art world.
With every opening comes a closing, and unfortunately, with the takeover of a new Restoration Hardware coming to the Meatpacking district, it was the end of a surprisingly long run for the endearingly tiny vestibule turned gallery 55 Gansevoort. Creator Ellie Rines welcomed friends, artists, lovers, and onlookers to celebrate the life of the quirky space around a installation of large rotating wooden sculpture by artist Rachel Foullon. An ice cream truck, serving drippy cones to the masses, blasted a sad song mix by Rines that had the crowd singing together. People spilled onto the cobblestone street, confusing the hords of tourists in a neighborhood that was always a strange fit for such a delightfully strange space. It won't be the end of 55 Gansevoort, which will eventually find a new home but keep its name, but the night signified a change we all knew was coming. But as the seasons change and the leaves turn and we all get ready for the tidal wave of September openings, we try to appreciate the things we have while we have them, and not sing "Turn, Turn, Turn" too loudly under our breaths.
We're Looking for Interns!
Web Editorial
We're looking for a fast learner and an equally fast, clean writer who understands and is excited about the type of stories Paper readers are interested in. Transcription experience is a huge plus, since web interns will be responsible for assisting with research and transcription on web stories in addition to pitching and writing their own blog posts. Let us know you're hyped about Paper -- send a few paragraphs about why you think you'd be a good fit for us, a resume, and clips to Eric Thurm at erict@papermag.com.
Public Relations
We're looking for a savvy, plugged in individual to assist with helping promote Paper content and events to other outlets. The PR intern should have strong writing skills, familiarity drafting and sending pitch emails, and a strong knowledge of other digital media outlets.
Please send a resume and brief cover letter to Kaisa Talaga at kaisat@papermag.com.
Business Development
The Business Development team is looking for organized, creative thinkers with an interest in learning about brands' marketing initiatives and how they can fit in with PAPER. Ideal applicants are punctual, enthusiastic and proactive self-starters with good problem-solving and trouble-shooting skills who will bring positive vibes to the team -- bad 'tudes need not apply.
Please send a resume and brief cover letter to Kate Sculley at kates@papermag.com.
Social Media
Requirements:
-An inherent interest in pop culture -- you should have a borderline unhealthy obsession with fashion, music, film, tv, or art. Or all of those things!
-You should be on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Tumblr is a big plus.
-You should be a strong writer. We're more impressed by feeds that are well-written, witty and and engaging than ones that have tons and tons of followers.
- A strong appreciation for aesthetics.
- An obvious familiarity with Paper's social channels, website and magazine and a strong grasp on the Paper voice and sensibility
Responsibilities:
- Help monitor and track social behavior on all channels.
- Help gather data for weekly traffic reports
- Review analytics and identify notable activity and trends
- Present findings and strategies in editorial meetings
- Gather images from our archives for Instagram and Pinterest.
Please send a couple of paragraphs about yourself and why you're a good fit for this job along with a list of websites and social feeds you love, a link to your applicable social media channels and a resume to Elizabeth Thompson at elizabetht@papermag.com.
Events, Promotion and Fashion
We're looking for savvy, quick-learning folks to help out with everything from events to photo shoots. Enthusiasm and a flexible attitude are a must, a love of dogs is a plus (we usually have 2-3 scampering around the office).
Please send a resume and brief cover letter to Kelly Govekar at kellyg@papermag.com.
Obama's Vacation Playlist is Proof He's Finally Stopped Caring
Today, the administration published a Spotify playlist of what Obama will be listening to on vacation. It includes a lot of good, classic dad choices (you can't really fault the inclusion of The Isley Brothers, Miles Davis, or Joni Mitchell), decent rap songs that your dad definitely listens to if he's into rap (Reflection Eternal, Mos Def), and a couple of softer newer artists that your cool dad definitely likes (Florence + The Machine).
Due to popular request, here are my vacation playlists: http://t.co/uer5sIl4Vkhttp://t.co/zHEekHvQBr What's your favorite summer song?
-- President Obama (@POTUS) August 14, 2015
However, there are some... gross choices. Coldplay, Mr. President? The Lumineers?Wow. If these trends keep up, the President Obama of December 2016, completely out of shits to give, will just up and admit that he loves Nickelback or Ed Sheeran or something.
Taylor Fish, Nicki Pepe and Jackie Chan: WTF Are These Celebrity Fortune Reposts
This is a Beyoncé pepe. it only appears once in 44,444 memes. this a very rare pepe. RT in 44 secs or bad luck. pic.twitter.com/SouHaw5nag
-- Beyoncé Reactions (@ReactionBeyonce) July 8, 2015
All of the Penises You Missed In Your Favorite Movies
H Sister Brand "& Other Stories" Launches First All-Transgender Campaign
Taken By A Photograph
The Sunday Funnies
This baby tortoise's snack game is chill as hell. [TastefullyOffensive]
No one! [Mlkshk]
Portrait of everyone's weekend as a young pug. [Mlkshk]
Sounds about right. [AfternoonSnoozeButton]
Peak tiny teefs. The omega tiny teefs. [LaughterKey]
The Nomi Malone of kooky flight attendants gives an amazing flight safety instructions routine. [TastefullyOffensive]
The HORRRRRRRROr. [LaughterKey]
It's a very simple question: How big are your apples collections? Jesus.[FYouNoFMe]
5 months! [Mlkshk]
A man tortures his sister with endless lip synching on a 7-hour car ride and it's the best. [TastefullyOffensive]
Swag. [LaughterKey]
Our new DJ name. [FYouNoFMe]
One of the most effective anti-piracy ads you will ever see. [FYouNoFMe]
Übermensch af, dawg! [Mlkshk]