Mirror Mirror On the Wall

Or Four...On the Floor

I may have mentioned something in passing at some point about my affinity for a certain pop star whose name rhymes with "Split We Beers" (hmm, I may have just coined the name of a future budget brewery)...have I mentioned this? (Hint for those readers just joining Adonis Complex: Yes. I have. Several times. .) Well, as I was brainstorming a theme for today's post I realized I've done several three-fer posts but few, if any, posts of foursomes. Perhaps tellingly, I also realized once I'd selected today's quadrilateral theme that while photos of three good looking semi-nude men are relatively plentiful in my collection, photographic foursomes are strangely far more difficult to come by. It's not quantity, because I have tons of group shots with more than four guys, so I wonder why. Perhaps four falls in that little no-man's land of sexual fantasy between the threesome (a staple of the adventurous sexual mind, especially in males, throughout history) and the all-out orgy (a staple of HBO dramas set in ancient Rome and Stanley Kubrick films starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman). I guess four just isn't as risque or prevalent in the fantasy repertory (being a close multiple of two, I suppose a foursome has an annoying tendency to lapse into an often awkward side-by-side 1-0n-1 thing, which kind of defeats the purpose...unless the wrong people are paired up).


Still, the best part of Britney Spears' (there you go, for those bafflingly still unable to parse that preschool-level clue above) recent single "3," IMHO, is the end of the oh-so-Britney bridge, after Brit claims with mock innocence the way only she can that "what we do is innocent" and assures her lover that if he prefers some 1-on-1 lovin' she's more than willing to oblige: "let's just do it you and me," she says sweetly. Except she's not done, adding a few bars later "...or three..." and then, almost as an afterthought in the seconds before the final chorus returns, she adds gamely, "...or four...on the floor." At that moment in the somewhat maligned music video, the largely dead expression the blond starlet has worn since her marriage and return to white trashdom suddenly flickers with an almost infinitesimal smirk, a split second where her eyes connect and spark with the knowing mixture of innocence and sexuality that made Britney an icon unlike any other beyond her music. I love that moment, because it's the first time since the fall of the Spears that I have seen an indication that there's still a trace of the old Brit in there behind the dead eyes, beneath the anti-depressants, below the sadness, beyond the conservatorship. It may never again show itself the way it once did, but by golly if it isn't reassuring to see, even for a moment, that there's still a crazy, overprotected, outrageous, freakshow slave 4 u in there somewhere.

Jacketeers

My middle school had letterman's jackets. They were not earned in the same way that their high school equivalents usually are, but rather through a complex and semi-secret accumulation of points (for participation in sports and other extracurricular activities, leadership roles, and academics, and so forth) and those who were chosen to wear the black and red jackets became a somewhat elite group (as elite as a group can be in a middle school with about 150 students over three grades) known as the Jacketeers. You know, kind of like the Mouseketeers of the Mickey Mouse Club (by which I mean the club of Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands - mmm, Tommy Sands...*Homer Simpson-esque drooling* - as opposed to Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Justin Timberlake/Ryan Gosling/Keri Russell. Yes, all five of them were in the new version). I was just imagining how a different style of Jacketeers might look, Adonis Complex-style. I'm quite pleased with it, as it turns out.




And look, Michael Radon (above)!

Purple Reign

In the early days of theatrical performance as we know it today, namely the second half of the sixteenth century and mostly located in and around London, actors were in some ways far removed from those of today - particularly in their societal and political reputation as among the most vulgar of professions - and in other ways not so different, particularly in the sort of awed celebrity-like way thousands of people would crowd into a theatre to see several men walking around wearing clothing that would often get them thrown in prison if worn off stage. It was essentially illegal to dress above one's status, with actors performing a play (at the time a very new concept) enjoying the only begrudging loophole, which is maybe one reason so many plays of the Elizabethan/Jacobean era center around royalty. The color purple has been a symbol of royalty and/or wealth since the Roman empire, and it was all but forbidden in clothing even well into the Renaissance for the public.

In case you missed the story behind this week's World of Color theme.

Blue Men, Grouped

I just want to point out that I could have taken the easy route and gone with a bunch of guys in jeans, but I felt that would be somehow cheating.

In case you missed the story behind this week's World of Color theme.

How Green Was My Valley

In case you missed the story behind this week's World of Color theme.

We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

Useless trivia for the day: while the Fab Four provided their own singing voices, the speaking voices of the animated characters of Paul, John, Ringo and George in the 1966 Beatles film Yellow Submarine were actually done by entirely different actors (the one playing George was arrested midway through recording sessions for deserting the British army, so George is actually played by three different people in the film). Who knew?


In case you missed the story behind this week's World of Color theme.

Orange Colored Guy

As I said yesterday, since I'm a huge Disney geek, in honor of the upcoming new water and light show Disney's World of Color at Disney's California Adventure park Adonis Complex celebrates the wonderful world of color this week. Yesterday the rainbow started with some red hotties, so that means...

What, you think a rare color like orange is gonna stop me? Psh. Think again.