WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON

SJ Chambers and K.A. Laity on music, movies and more that make them swim in a sea of desire.

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S.J. Chambers’s Sexy Frisson…

"I Put A Spell On You," written by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, performed by Natacha Atlas. Screamin' Jay Hawkins was the Don Juan of Soul. He wrote this song as a voodoo chant to bring back a wandering girlfriend. The result was a song that is hypnotic and stirring. Until Natacha Atlas covered it, only Screamin' Jay could perform the incantation.

With her trademark fusion of North African and Arabic rhythms with electronica, she revamps this old swoon song with an almost sinister intensity. While Hawkin's original is more commanding and demanding, Atlas' wailing, sweet voice is seductive and intoxicating. If you want to put a spell on someone, grab THE BEST OF NATACHA ATLAS. It couldn't hurt to have the original on hand either. After all Hawkin's fathered 75 children. Now, that's something even Lord Byron can't boast.

K.A. Laity…

Asked to compile an “Erotic List” by our fearless leader, I decided to just turn on the brain spigot and see what flowed. In no order and with surprisingly little thought, I spewed the following which I’ll try to explain but not apologize for (however singular the turns). As the now notorious Woody Allen once said (and he apparently knows) “The heart wants what the heart wants,” and the rest of the body seems to follow that dictate most of the time.

The first thing that came to mind is the way my husband makes me laugh and how he dances like a monkeh. Two of the reasons we got married (add that giant-sized brain of his, too)—best of all, he’s secure enough to know it’s no reflection on him that I am helpless before my adoration of the gorgeous Johnny Depp (sexiest? CRY BABY? CHOCOLAT? PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN? Let me watch ‘em all again and try to decide). Not to mention my weakness for British comedians and rock stars; there’s just something about those smart, funny, pale and (mostly) skinny guys. So that makes me fatally weak for Peter Cook’s dewy eyes and sharp mind, Johnny Rotten’s fuck you snarl, John Lennon’s aching voice especially on “You’ve Got to Hide your Love Away,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” “Across the Universe” and “Don’t let me Down,” all the Beatles in both A HARD DAY’S NIGHT and HELP (ah, but more so George in the latter because he’s just so funny), Pete Townshend in 1975 in that blue T-shirt and all of his PSYCHODERELICT, Vic Reeves especially in glasses with bleached and rumpled hair, and Dylan Moran in BLACK BOOKS or Alan Moore declaiming a ritual. Then there’s Shane MacGowan’s voice and words, perhaps most of all on “Rainy Night in Soho” but then again, what about “Donegal Express” or “The Broad Majestic Shannon”? Anything at all by the shambolic genius whose sweat I have been fortunate enough to feel on my face. I guess, though “Rainy Night” gets me every time:

I took shelter from a shower
And I stepped into your arms
On a rainy night in Soho
The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows
You told me all your joys
Whatever happened to that old song
To all those little girls and boys?

This fondness for skinny Brit boys goes into the past too, encompassing the imaginative power of Marlowe’s words especially in DOCTOR FAUSTUS (but what about the utter glee of THE JEW OF MALTA) and every word of Shakespeare’s TEMPEST, though among the best are Ariel’s song, “Where the bee sucks there suck I…on the bat’s back I do fly,” and Trinculo’s line (perhaps my favorite in all of the bard’s work), “I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster!” Then there are passages in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED of such opulence of food and feeling that one longs to wallow in them—which would no doubt disappoint Evelyn Waugh who really hoped it would convert pagans like me into Catholics. But then he ought not to have written plummy passages like this:

“On a sheep cropped knoll, under a clump of elms, we ate the strawberries and drank the wine.... we lit fat, turkish cigarettes and lay on our backs, Sebastian’s eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile.....the sweet scent of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us and the fumes of the sweet, golden wine seemed to lift us a fingers breadth above the earth and hold us suspended. ‘Just the place to bury a crock of gold,’ Sebastian said. ‘I should like to bury something precious in every place that I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.’

What else? Lawrence Kasdan’s absolutely steamy BODY HEAT which still lingers in a dark corner of my imagination (cued by the sound of the brass on the soundtrack). Etta James singing anything. AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”—yeah, really. Every year at the big medieval congress, the DJ always plays it at the Saturday night dance, and I always hit the dance floor as soon as it starts. I dunno, it’s some leftover relic of teen years, years that were infinitely improved by my discovery of Anaïs Nin’s DELTA OF VENUS, because there’s nothing worse for the budding sexuality of a young girl than the incompetence of teenage boys. Nin taught me everything I needed to know to sing along with the late Patty Donahue of the Waitresses, “I know what boys like, I know what guys want.” More importantly, it helped me learn what I liked. Better than any feminist manual, her book showed me the wealth of sexual experience from the mundane to the bizarre with beauty and passion.

Even I’m kind of surprised how utterly eclectic my tastes can be, ranging from Madonna’s IMMACULATE COLLECTION to Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” and “Shades” and “Blah-Blah-Blah” to Kurt Vonnegut’s despairing laughter on the page, perhaps most particularly with poor Kilgore Trout, his feet encased in plastic sludge, running after his maker begging him to “Make me young!” at the end of BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. I adore Melinda Gebbie’s art for the Peter Pan sequences of LOST GIRLS because of my seemingly bottomless Pan fixation (which includes Jason Isaacs as best Hook ever). Speaking of weird, the lovely fun in the pages of John Willie’s BIZARRE collection is always a thrill. More recently there’s the kiss between John Barrowman and James Marsters in the season 2 opener of TORCHWOOD, although the reunion kiss from BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN beats it all to hell. I get into a really hot drum circle where the music seems to flow forever and the rhythms fill your skin. I love the way any library copy of ULYSSES opens right to Molly Bloom’s monologue that wonderfully sensuous stream of consciousness musing on attraction blooming and what about Kate Bush’s SENSUAL WORLD, which really captures the feel of Molly’s musings despite being denied the chance to set Joyce’s words to music as she had hoped. Any Jane Austen book or film (even the bad adaptations) suits me and then there’s Brigit Lin and Leslie Cheung at their most gorgeous in THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR 1 & 2, plus Bruce Campbell in all the EVIL DEAD films or Michael Wincott’s voice (especially in DEADMAN where there’s not only Johnny Depp too, but Wincott’s character is hilarious). Who but the most churlish could not love SECRETARY or Tilda Swinton in most anything, although she’s especially feral in the otherwise lamentable CONSTANTINE. Speaking of which, Storm Constantine’s Wraetthu books and the Grigori trilogy are sexy as hell…

And, and, and—time to stop. Time to get some good champagne, the very finest chocolate, whisper a few words of suggestion to my husband and retire for some private research…

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