A New Blog

I've started a new blog. You can read it by clicking HERE. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?

Today marks the debut of "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?," a text-and-photo essay about the adult movie industry and the recession.

Originally, I wrote it for a publication, but I subsequently pulled it. When no other publication expressed an interest in publishing it, I decided to self-publish it.

The site was designed and illustrated by the talented Chris Bishop, who created the infamous Barack Obama Riding a Unicorn T-Shirt.

"In this canon, the real subject is not human sexuality but humanity itself. The products that Jim produces are videotaped vivisections, studies in which homo sapiens lie upon the operating table, the director is the doctor, the camera is the scalpel, and the only question worth asking is, How far will we go if we are pushed to our limits?"

"They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?"

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"Bold and ambitious." -- Boing Boing

"Brilliant." -- Warren Ellis

"Ms. Breslin has changed the way I think about the business of making pornography." -- Metafilter

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3/1/10: 1,000,000+ page views.

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True/Slant: "Dirty DIY: Self Publishing A Treatise On Porn Valley, USA"

Break

I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while. If you would like to follow my activities, you can do so by way of my Twitter.

Home

Artist Molly Peck bid on and won my Significant Object story. This is a photo of the Significant Object at its new home. If stories are children looking for adoption, this one has a happy ending.

The First Line

At 12:01 p.m., Special Agent Xerxes Xavier Jr., 34, begins to rise from behind his cluttered desk in his cramped and overcrowded office inside the J. Edgar Hoover Building at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, pushing the metal chair away from himself, and the green vinyl seat cushion lets out a thin hisssss! from the depression that he has left behind.

-- the first line of my novel, Nothing Is Real but the Girl

The Story Behind the Story

If you've read this blog before, you know that I wrote a story for Significant Objects. Created by my friend Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, the project seeks to find out exactly how we construct value. Writers, such as the one whose words you are reading now, are asked if they're interested in participating. If they agree, they are given a series of objects from which to choose. Then, they are asked to write an in-the-neighborhood-of-500-words story about the object they have chosen. A made up story. The stories and photos of each object are uploaded to the Significant Objects site and posted to eBay, where people can bid on the objects and the stories. Potential bidders are informed the object's story is made up, so no one will be confused about what is going on here, and instead everyone can sit around and consider: What does it all mean?

Now that my Significant Objects process is done--the pin I chose, which reads, "All American Official Necking Team," and a copy of the story that I wrote about it sold to the delightful Molly Peck for a whopping $36.88--I thought that I would write a little bit about my experience, the writer's experience, or, at least, this writer's experience of the project.

I loved the idea the minute I read Rob's email. I thought it sounded delightful, fanciful, and a bit ridiculous. And all of those are wonderful things. I agreed not long after, as I recall. Maybe a week or two later, I got another note from Rob, saying that there were some hidden-behind-a-password items up on the site from which I could choose my object. Honestly, I don't remember what the other items were. I think the Fred Flinstone Pez dispenser that Zulkey chose was among them, but I knew what I wanted instantly. The All-American Official Necking Team Pin. At first glance, I think I took it as real, subconsciously. I didn't stop to think: Oh, a necking team! How silly! I took it at face value, so to speak. I wondered if it was a "plant"--well, of course the woman with a habit of writing about, well, certain things would choose the Necking Team Pin--but I think that was me projecting a story about my relationship to the object--that we were meant to be--onto the object itself.

Rob said I had a week or two, I think, to write the story. I think it was "due" on a Monday, and I believe I wrote it on a Saturday afternoon. I think I was either bored and looking for something to do, or I was stressed and looking for a way to distract myself. (Those are two of my three main gears: bored and stressed. The third is overwhelmed. Generally, "calm" is not an option in the universe inside my head.) I think it took me an hour to write the story. I'm pretty sure that is correct. In fact, I think it took me about 25 minutes to write the story, and then I spent another 20 minutes fiddling with it, editing it, and then I was done. I think I sent it off to Rob after that, but I may have waited a day or two.

What was different about this writing process was that I was keenly aware that while I was writing it, if I made it "good," perhaps it would be "worth more," ie it would get more money at auction. While as a freelance journalist and fiction writer, I write for money all the time, this was different. Maybe it is a bit hard to describe? It brought my competitive nature to the fore. Much of the time, I do not like being a writer because it is so passive. At least, that's how I experience it. The part of the writing process that I prefer is the being in the world part, the jumping off the diving board head-first part, the running into the burning building because you just have to know what's going on in there part. That's the fun part. And, it's the dangerous part, too. But, for me, that part is more the writing part than the act of writing itself.

Coincidentally, I happened to be guestblogging on the wonderful Boing Boing when the piece went up and the auction went live. Perhaps that explains why something with an original value of 50 cents, I believe it was bought at a garage sale, ended up being bought for $36.88. Perhaps it was the story, so compelling!, the writer would like to imagine. Perhaps it was the link from Boing Boing. One thing is for sure. Mr. Walker and I and Miss Peck can theorize all we want, but we will never truly know.

I like the pin and the story, together, like a marriage. Not long after I spotted the pin, I began to gestate what I wanted to write about it. For some reason that I can no longer recall, I had pulled my father's class ring from Brooklyn Preparatory out of a drawer, and it was sitting on my desk. So, my father, who died in 1996, at the dark hands of a surprise heart attack, was very much on my mind, as he always is. And a piece of his history was there, on my desk. Like a piece of my memory. Or a piece of him. Like a fractal.

My favorite part of the story is the end. Because it's about life, and it's about death, and how we cling with both hands to the former, yet we cannot help but crane our necks in a vain attempt to make out the latter somewhere looming on the horizon that lies before us.

In any case, thank you to Molly, Rob, Joshua, and everyone else who bid on the object. And its significance. The project continues here.

The Photographic Process

I took these photographs of adult film actress Tori Black on April 10, 2009, between 3:26:18 PST and 3:28:27 PST in Canoga Park, California.

The final choice was #6. People seem to respond positively to the juxtaposition of Tori and the faces on the wall next to her in it. None of the images are altered by cropping or adjusting levels. The only adjustment made is size for uploading.

Looking back on these photos, there is something about #8 that catches my eye. I think it is the curve of her spine. But it isn't quite right.

While putting together this mini-photo essay on Boing Boing, I realized I didn't have a single, direct shot of Tori's face. She is extremely pretty, and I regret that I didn't take care to shoot a simple, straightforward portrait of her.

I like the photos of her at the mirror for several reasons, including the fact that the mirror is very "Hollywood," and this is the "Other Hollywood." In reality, they are one and the same.

Mano-a-Mano

For the last couple weeks, I was guestblogging on Boing Boing, which was awesome and terrific and great. Thank you so much to Xeni for inviting me, and thank you to Cory, Pesco, and Mark for allowing me to join in the fun. It was my second time, and it really is such a great time. When you do it, you find out how free and loose and interesting the entire process is, and for anyone who spends a large amount of their time obeying rules and is perhaps someone who is more inclined towards breaking rules than bowing to them, to be set free is truly a wonderful thing.

During my tenure there, I posted about the Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir fight. I had been pretty excited about the fight since it was announced lo' I don't know how long ago. I take a keen but casual interest in MMA. Why? I don't know. I'm sure lots of people have lots of ideas about how it's not really a sport, and it's like the WWE, and it's nothing but glorified bar fighting or some such thing. In my opinion, whatever that's worth, it isn't. I can see how it would appear to be that way from the outside, but those characterizations simply aren't true. I think it's compelling and brutal and sort of, well, beautiful ugly. If you know what I mean by that, you get it. If you don't, you don't.

I've been interested in Lesnar for some time now, for a few different reasons. He's part man and part cartoon. He's not just big, he's huge. He's a freak, of sorts. I identify with that. I'm 6'1", and when I was a kid, I would go to the doctor, and the doctor would hold up a chart that showed where all the other kids were in terms of height, and then to show me where I fit in, the doctor would point at a space above the page. Sometimes, freaks of nature are real.

I shifted a character in my novel-in-progress to approximate him. And I was really looking forward to the fight. And I was pretty interested in seeing Mir getting his face pounded in after all the smack he had been talking. The fight may have not been the greatest fight ever--Lesnar's main technique seemed to amount to smooshing Mir--but it wasn't bad. In case you missed it, Lesnar won.

When I posted on Boing Boing about it, I was surprised by the comments. People were disgusted by it: by the sport, by the photo, by the spectacle. At one point, someone referred to me as "scum." Many asserted that this was not a wonderful thing. This one came the closest as to why I posted it:

Maybe Susannah was trying for a meta reference to the opposite of pr0n? Instead of two (or more) people trying to explore each other's bodies, MMA is two people trying their best to deconstruct each others bodies. Both can use the adjective pounding to equal effect as well...

Mostly, it was about the photograph. It is a brilliant photograph that tells the story of the fight, what happens when you say one thing and another happens in the ring, what goes down when you stop talking and something else takes over.

What He Said

You know when Rick James says: "Cocaine is a hell of a drug"?

That's how this week was.

It was a hell of a week.

Oh, the Valley

I put together a mini-photo essay about the Valley on Boing Boing.

I took these photos on the set of an adult movie in the San Fernando Valley this April. It was April 10th, to be exact. Which is my birthday. Why I was on the set of an adult movie on my birthday is another story altogether. The story of my life.

Read it.

Bid Now on My Significant Object

Bidding is nearing a close on my entry to the Significant Objects project. Read more about the project here.

Each writer, Rob explained, would choose from a variety of "junk" objects bought by the curators at garage sales and thrift stores. A smiling mug. A Sanka ashtray. A JFK bust. Then, we would write a short story about the object. Whatever we liked. A fiction.

Read my story and see my object here.

I reached my hand into the drawer, withdrew it, and looked at what lay in my palm. “ALL AMERICAN OFFICIAL NECKING TEAM,” the pin read. It was hard to reconcile the words with my father. At this point, he had been dead for nearly 15 years.

Place your bid here. As of this writing, there's only 13h 16m left.

Random Emails That I Have Recently Received

Here are some emails that I have gotten as of late. You send them. I publish them.

Regarding "Letters from Johns":

I know the blog is now closed, but I just wanted to say that its something that really touched me. I've been on the Internet pretty much since its been around and it seems so rare to find actual, touching stories like those that are on there. I've always felt like the Internet could be something that would bring people together. Yet it seems so rare.

Its 2am and I found myself clicking page, after page, after page. So many of the stories I could relate to. Everything from religion to rejection. I guess its like all the stories you imagine men might tell, but you never hear about.

I'm not sure why you decided to do the project, but I just wanted to say that I'm glad you did. There are so many times in my life recently that I feel like I'm abnormal and that I'm never going to find friends or that special someone. Then I read all of these stories and realize that yet once again these people are all around me. But yet I still don't know how to find or communicate with them.

Reading all of it doesn't really make me feel changed or anything like that. But it touched me in a way that made me want to reach out to whom-ever decided to put all those stories together and share them with the world. Which was obviously you. So thank you. I'd say 'keep doing it' but you already seem like one of those people who will. For that, I'm sure there are many of us out here who are grateful. Even if its only in very small ways.

Thank you

[Redacted]

Regarding the Boing Boing post that I wrote about Frank Mir v. Brock Lesnar:

Ms. Breslin, 

While I have quite enjoyed most of your posts on BoingBoing, I have to say that I am very disappointed that you posted the results of the most recent UFC fight.

Despite the debate that raged on whether it was a "wonderful" post or not, I have to say that, as an expatriate who cannot watch the fights on PPV or tape delay, you have effectively ruined two of the biggest cards of the night for me. I had successfully avoided most websites where the results might possibly have been posted and BoingBoing was the absolutely last place I would have expected to see them.  Even if you don't much care for sports or big sporting events, in the future, please try to avoid posting the results online.

[Redacted]

Regarding--well, nothing. This guy I don't know sends me random emails sometimes that I publish. This is the latest. The subject header: "This is not a lame way to ask for a phone number."

I was drunk. It's almost impossible to me to be completely sincere when I'm not and if the subject is my own emotions, that adds up a little more difficulties to the situation. Anyway, I was really drunk and alone, trying to say something that was -besides my own difficulties- hard to say, but I had to say it anyway! So, there was no one who I thought it could get what I wanted to say the way I was trying to put it. So I thought in two persons: One it was you, the other was an old friend who I haven't seen in years. I called her. She spoke a sincere and effusive "Hello! How have you been?" and then I said -half drunk, half more drunk-: "We people don't speak the same language. I'm not talking about english, spanish, russian, etc. I mean when we talk to each other we don't mean the same things even if we use the same words. Everybody has a different language even for the simplest words like 'worried' or 'angry', we mean totally different things when we -try to- speak. So, I believe we get confused. We believe we understand each other because part of our languages are similar and in that exact point we can imagine we understand each other, but we don't. The truth is that we don't...", then she said: "Okay... go on...". So I continued: "The thing for which I'm calling you is because I've always felt that you and I we speak a very similar language and I've never said this before but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about". She stood in silence for a few seconds and said "I get it, I know what you mean. Are you ok? Are you drunk?". I said "Yes and I'm sorry about that, but I thought this would be interesting for you to hear and I needed to say it before I get worst". She said "Ok, don't worry it's ok, I get to thinking many many things about me and my own stuff, I wish you get over whatever you are going through, I send you a big hug and a kiss". I said "Ok, me too, see you then, bye". And I got to sleep.

That was more then a week ago and today I visited your flickr and your blog and I remembered you were the other person I wanted to say this. I'm not drunk this time but now I'm much better than that day and for my own surprise I remember every word I said when I made that drunk-call. So, this is not a lame way to ask for your phone number, but I thought you might wanted to read it.

Para ser sincero, no tengo ni la menor idea de porqué te uso para hablar conmigo mismo; me sorprende tal vez más a mi que a ti. En fin, hay cosas que no tienen explicación. Gracias por leerme y por dejar que a veces hasta mi voz se asome entre tus posts.

[Redacted]

Xeni says the last part means:

"To be sincere, I don't have the slightest idea what use you'd have in talking to me. It surprises me possibly more than it does you. In the end, though, there are things that do not have an explanation. Thank you for reading me and for allowing my voice to appear within your blog posts from time to time."

Image via This isn't happiness.

The Best of the Worst

There are a few things that have been popular on this site over the last year or so. Since Boing Boing traffic, where I continue to guestblog this week, continues to pound the site, I thought I would point you to them.

"To the Max":

Watching Little's work is less like watching a porn movie than it is akin to witnessing a vivisection. On the screen, Hardcore bends over the female bodies before him, sometimes with speculum in hand, as if attempting to get at something within her at which he can never quite get, and so to which he is doomed to return, his methods more and more hardcore.

"My New American Apparel Ad":

If you haven't noticed it already, I've got a new American Apparel ad up on the site. The model is adult film star turned star of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming call girl movie "The Girlfriend Experience" Sasha Grey. Won't you welcome Sasha?

"The 2 Girls 1 Cup Defense":

To wit, Isaacs trades in shock videos, including fecal-themed features like "Laurie's Toilet Show" and "Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7" and bestiality videos like "Gang Bang Horse (Pony Sex Game)."

There you have it. Porn, smut, and shit. This is my ouevre.

Buy Me Now

Is this a significant object? I wrote a story about this pin as part of a project. Now, you can win the story and the pin on eBay.

A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should -- according to our hypothesis -- acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!

Read all about it here. Relatedly, I got a mention on The New Yorker website, which was kind of awesome.

Interview with Sarah May Scott

Over on the mothership that is Boing Boing, where I am guestblogging, I interviewed Sarah May Scott.

SB: Are you a cyborg?

SS: I am not a cyborg, but I am getting closer and closer to being a terminator. My back is already full of titanium, and I've got a radio-controlled device in my abdomen that feeds medication into my spinal canal. If the trials go well, I hope to get my chance at being the female Hardiman with the ReWalk system. You can start calling me Ripley when that happens.

Read it.

Holla at Ya' Boing Boing

My gracious, there are a lot of Boing Boing readers coming through here. A bit like coming home to find someone riffling through your underwear drawer! Thank the Lord I threw out those granny panties.

Anyway.

I am sure none of you know who I am. I mean, I don't even know who I am. I am a writer. Sometimes, I write journalism -- or should I say "journalism." There are links to some stories that I've written in the sidebar on your left, on the pressing issues of our times like ... well, I can't remember. But I'm sure they're important.

I also take photos, but I'm not very good at it. At some point during my all-too-brief Boing Boing tenure, I will post some of them. Hopefully, you will like them. Or not! Either way, I'll never know. Thankfully.

These days, I'm pretty into twittering, which is probably the dumbest self-description I've ever committed to the ether, but there you have it.

I'm working on a novel set in the adult movie industry. I try not to talk about it, because working on it is, well, ah, eh ... Yeah. So.

I'm tall, moody, and dislike humidity with a religious fervor.

Consider yourself educated.

Boing [Updated]

Yeah, hey! So, welcome if you are coming here from Boing Boing, where I am guestblogging.

This is my blog. Also, I write articles. You can find some of them around here. And I take photos. And I also have a Twitter. If I weren't so lazy, I'd link to some of those, but they're in the sidebars, you know?

Today on Boing Boing, I blogged about the e-wasteland, a Michael Jackson memorial apartment, and Ron Jeremy.

I don't know what else to say other than: "Hi!"

And, today was a better day than yesterday.

Update: I wrote a few more Boing Boing posts for today because I could not stop myself: $ma$h the Wall $treeter$! and hawt couture.

Guestblogging on Boing Boing Starts Tomorrow!

The last week has kind of sucked balls, but tomorrow I'll be starting my second guestblogging stint on Boing Boing. Regarding this matter, I would say that I am very excited, wonderful delighted, and truly happy.

Guestblogging on Boing Boing is one of the most fun things I've ever done because a) you get to do whatever you want, b) it allows you to focus on the wonderful things, and c) no one shouts at you.

Thank you to the incomparably awesome Xeni Jardin for inviting me and to Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder, and David Pescovitz for allowing me to run around in their front yard waving my hands and screaming and making a mess.

I'll be checking in here daily with various related affairs.

Boiiing.

Do You See What I See?

Here are some photos I've taken since the beginning of the year. There are more here. Have a happy 4th!

Portrait of the Artist with an Octopus

Night before last, I received an email from Molly Peck, a New York-based artist. The subject header read, "Susannah Breslin is happy," which definitely got my attention, as I am having a hell of a week.

In any case, there was an image attached to it, the one you see here, which is a painting that Molly made. The source material is here, and, yes, that's me. Molly, whom I didn't really know previously, had painted my portrait. Her email read: "I paint people who inspire me. Thank you for that."

I adore it. I think it's a scream. I especially love the small octopus that has entwined itself around my right wrist. Best of all, it's on its way to me. I can't wait to get it.

If you would like to see more of Molly's wonderful work, you can find her online here and here, and you can even commission her to do your portrait, or a portrait of someone else, or a portrait of your dog on Etsy for a very reasonable price.

Molly's wonderful bio:

I stopped painting shortly after college, because a boy I was dating made me feel bad about it.

Ten years later, I met a boy who made me want to paint again. Once I started painting again, he made me feel so happy about it that I did not want to stop.

I really love to paint people's faces... portraits, I guess. I fall a little bit in love with each person I paint while I am working on the piece... spending so much time intimately scrutinizing someone's features is pretty romantic. Don't worry, though-- it's not love in a creepy way, and it passes once I'm finished.

I have noticed lately that every single painting demands to be painted differently. I feel like I have to re-learn the entire process every time.

Thank you, Molly!