Due to a mix-up, Matt and I ended up seeing the 1970 arthouse sexploitation film, L’Eden et après last night.

The film was an hour and a half. It felt over two hours. Two women walked out; the old guy in front of us scoffed loudly as soon as the lights came back.

On the way home – we didn’t stay for director-writer Alain Robbe-Grillet’s L’Immortelle (which we originally came to see) even though the ticket office gave me free admission to the 9:20 pm showing – Matt asked me how I would sum up L’Eden et après in two sentences.

After much thought, my answer was something like this:

Mullet girl runs around without pants, sticks her hands into buckets of gelatinous goo, gets her shirt ripped strategically by oppressive creepy Middle Eastern types, and never, ever finds the bottom half of her outfit.

Of course, I am simplifying the movie.

This was one of those films that, if they had it on DVD (the theatre literature said they didn’t), I would screen it for friends for a laughfest. My apologies to Robbe-Grillet, who passed away only recently. But I do think your film is on par with Manos, Alain.

Until L’Eden et après comes out in living room-presentable format, here are some stills I collected from around the internet so I can share this film with you:

Above is actress Catherine Jourdan as Violette with the Stranger (Pierre Zimmer), planning out her illicit tryst. You can see the shirt dress she wears for the rest of the film. Thanks to camera angles, her butt is just covered in this image.

This postcard ends up being rather important – or not – in the film. Because in the end, nothing was at it seemed. How cliche.

So, after a troubling pseudo-white slavery kidnapping, Jourdan’s mulleted heroine escapes to the desert, almost dies, and is saved by her doppelganger. Only this girl looks like a freakish Irish elf. The elf wears Jourdan’s shirt dress, plus she owns a further supply of the same shirt. You can see in this image that, to post-millennial eyes, the shirt dress makes the wearer appear to be missing her pants.

What’s missing so far from the film? Why a fake lesbian scene! With your mysterious benefactor-doppelganger!

Leaving Jourdan’s hapless Violette, here we have huge pubes woman. You can’t see it in this photo; the woman has the darkest, bushiest pubic triangle I have ever seen. I’ve seen some hairy 70s porn before, yet there was a little something extra hairy about this woman. Perhaps they pasted a black teddy bear hamster pelt to augment her pubic hair, or perhaps it was an entire live hamster. Her crotch certainly lives up to the rodent idea of the beaver.

If you’re feeling inspired, here’s a four-minute scene from the beginning of Violette’s Tunisian journey while she is still in France, with foreshadowing of the later adventures. Obviously, you shouldn’t be watching at work:

Aha! My master plan is now complete. With the master of the house now out of the way, I can finally take over her domain and use it for my own nefarious purposes.

If you thought you’d seen me before, you would be right. It is I, FG Maktaaq, mad scientist extraordinaire, extraordinary scientist madinaire, and all around scientific guy.

An unfortunate infinitely recursive taxidermy accident left me unable to speak with you for so long my dear minions (let’s just say, if you aim to preserve the carcass of a snake eating its own tail, you might never finish), but fortunately for me a recursively taxidermied mongoose arrived on the scene just in time such that the mongoose eating its own tail could have already consumed the snake which was already eating its own tail, freeing me up for more important endeavors. (I can only weep for the fate of whoever originally prepared the mongoose, as it’s unlikely he or she survived the affair.)

And what could be more important than stuffing an ouroboros?

That, dear minions, is where you come in.

World domination through tainted belly button lint?

Breeding a master race of hamster mercenaries to secretly climb the legs and gnaw off the underpants of every significant world leader?

Publicizing a lifelong vaccine for hiccups which has the insidious retrograde side-effect of instilling in the person a permanent phobia of upside down glasses of water, spoons of sugar, holding one’s breath, and most importantly, a paralysing fear of being scared by random strangers?

Ah, I can only rub my hands together in eager anticipation of what you can suggest.

And if that blogger wanders back around here, perhaps she can be the first victim.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Evil cackle!

So folks, what will it be?

Monica Hamburg, who is quite an amusing blogger, often writes about the curious comments she receives on the streets of Vancouver. Today, she wrote about an alcoholic who warned her, “Take laundry seriously!”

On the streets of Vancouver, one often runs into activists, whether they are egg-throwing anti-abortionists, Tibetan-supporting dreadlocked granola munchers, pro-pay increase nurses or brain-hankering zombies. Of course, Monica assumed this was a pro-laundry movement.

However, a commenter suggested a different analysis of the alcoholic’s warning:

Perhaps she was missing a comma. Like, “Take laundry, seriously!” Perhaps you should be stealing people’s undies.

This laundry talks reminds me of a joke that only I, as a quarter-Russian, can tell:

A panty company studied the international underwear habits of women across Europe.

A company rep asked an English woman how often she changed her underwear.

“Why, every day,” she said.

The company rep also asked a French woman how often she changed her underwear.

“Never,” she said. “I don’t wear panties.”

The company rep then sought out a Russian woman to ask her how often she changed her underwear.

“Twelve times,” answered the Russian woman.

“Twelve times?” asked the company rep in amazement.

“Yes, twelve times: January, February, March, April, May….”

The Japanese recognize Moomins for their cuteness. The Finns presumably see their bleak lives reflected in the dangers that haunt Moominvalley’s winter nights. I read the Moomins as a child because they were the only books that celebrated mysterious heroes about which the other characters could only speculate.

The Moomins being so lovable, who can hate them?

The Germans, that’s who.

Until I remembered my German.

Has anyone else noticed that lately, the internet has been getting lonely?

So many good bloggers are deserting the place. The ones that are left behind are running out of things to say. Or, they are just commenting on the latest gadgets and blogging conferences and metablogging conferences and conferences to plan metablogging conferences.

Blogging has become a way to sell ad space, to impress people, or, I dread this the most, to brand oneself. Yeah. I’m unique. Like everyone else.

Little. Yellow. Different. published a conversation on the origins of the demise of blogging:

1. There are too many of us now. In a pool of 20 million, a blogger’s voice is diluted. Not like the good old days when there were a mere 2000.

2. If a blogger does have an audience, he or she needs to keep them happy. Flagrant airing of opinions might alienate them and reduce readership.

3. It’s the age of mega-blogs. Personal blogs will just have to wait for a meteor to crash to the earth, fill the atmosphere with clouds of dust, bring down the climate, and kill off the dinosaurs so that small furry creatures can evolve in peace.

4. Personal blogs are brands.

Little. Yellow. Different. goes on say that he no longer wants his personal experiences archived online. Plus, there’s the whole thing about living in the moment.

My friend MaikoPunk gave up blogging recently for other reasons, namely that blogging is getting in the way of more serious writing – writing that pays the bills and gets more credibility.

A few years ago, Neil Gaiman I believe it was, quit blogging because blogging got in the way of his more serious writing. He suddenly reappeared one day, saying something like, well, there is something I get out of blogging. Maybe he still blogs, maybe he doesn’t again. He’s quite accessible as a writer, whereas so many decent bloggers who quit…are just gone.

Though my RSS feed has over 200 blogs, I only regularly read five of them. About once or twice a year, I remember that I have a burning interest in abandoned rusting tea kettles. Yet, these specialist blogs are taking over: my collection of personal blogs, which I read because I like the people and want to see what’s happening in their lives, shrinks every month.

I do maintain a dead bloggers folder on my RSS feed. All the dead blogs go there. One day, when one of them stirs, I will be ready to read their blogs.

As for myself, I have bored or alienated all but a few loyal friends. My stats are depressing: during the last month, I had 2000 visitors, in August 2007, I have 12,000 visitors. In addition, there are many personal things I cannot or will not write on my blog.

I’ve thought about coming up with a schtick, a niche where I can dole out my expertise and gain some measure of internet popularity.

What’s the point? I have a dozen hobbies, I read widely, I go through phases of learning about xyz then switch to abc. Five million blogs already do photos better than I ever can or aspire. I’ll leave real illustrators to show off their art and real connoisseurs to document every meal. I am not even sure if I will stick with my museum career any more, so I cannot specialize professionally either. Nor do I have a hamster in the household anymore, so my slim claim to internet fame is gone there too.

About two years ago, when I first realized I’ll never be anyone in this internet pond, my first reaction was to delete my blog and purge all mentions of Maktaaq from the internet. I still believe that I am not at all relevant to anyone. In fact, in real life, I have almost no friends and my life is just the mere cycle of sleep, eat, work. There is no point at all in me writing. I have nothing original to say nor can I even write my thoughts in a fresh way.

Only about every five posts or so do I get comments. The commenters are always the same five people.

I keep writing to practice writing. I also keep writing because, even though only five people comment, at least someone is reading. If these five feel compelled enough to give me any feedback, I am that much less alone in the world.