Photo by Francesco Carrozzini
I’m not much in the habit of checking out gay-male-oriented fashion-driven quarterly magazines published on almost anachronistically thick paper stock, but I did do a double take on discovering a discarded Summer ’09 copy of VMan and learning upon casual perusal that it contained a short profile of Sasha Grey. The pictures by Francesco Carrozzini, which capture Sasha’s face in a way no other photographer, I think, has bothered to of late, were grabbers, but I have to admit that my snide bone was thoroughly tickled by profile author Jesse Ashlock’s not actually unmoving intimations of intellectual attainment in his lede paragraph:
“It is difficult to describe how it feels to gaze at living human beings whom you’ve seen perform in hard-core porn,” wrote the late David Foster Wallace in a 1998 essay about the Adult Video News Awards, informally known at the Oscars of porn. It’s also difficult to describe what it’s like to hear a voice on the telephone which you’ve previously heard making such statements as “I’m a dirty whore” (and worse)—and moreover, to have a pleasant, courteous conversation with that voice. The voice’s owner is Sasha Grey, 21…
Regular readers of this blog will understand that what tickled my snide bone was the fact that Ms. Sasha Grey has not only enjoyed (if that’s what you want to call it) a professional relationship with Mr. Richard Filth, a character in the article cited by Mr. Ashlock, but has also endured a similar if not identical professional relationship with the initial editor of the essay cited. Interesting how this stuff goes around. But great pictures of Sasha, in any event.
That is indeed a pretty cool picture.
I find Ms. Grey to be kinda fascinating on a few different levels, which I could probably delineate at length if I had more mental stamina right now. I really hope she succeeds at what she’s up to, whatever that turns out to be. Seems like good people.
I hadn’t seen that Wallace essay, but it gets at how I felt upon meeting Traci Lords a couple of years ago at one of those showbiz collectors’ shows. I went there mostly to meet Dwayne “Dobie Gillis” Hickman and to get Kevin “Hercules” Sorbo’s autographed pic for my girlfriend. But my buddy wanted his pic taken with Traci, so I obliged him. She was very nice, but as I shook her hand I couldn’t help but think “That hand has, um, been around.”
Glenn, please tell me you did not say your my bone (snide or otherwise) was thoroughly tickled. Please tell me you did not say that not once, but twice. Please tell me I misread that. Thanks.
Tess: Honest, I am so Candide-pure that I wasn’t even aware of the terrible entendre I was committing. But now that you mention it, yech.
I am so proud of my son for having thought up the article in the first place to balance out the tone of the otherwise (gay)fashion magazine. He told me when he proposed it and I thought it was indeed a totally original and somewhat attention getting idea. Absolutely ultra cool. Smooth move Jesse!