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Beauty Talk & Monsters (Semiotext
Masha Tupitsyn's Beauty Talk & Monsters is a debut collection of stories told through the movies. Equally influenced by Brian De Palma and Kathy Acker, Tupitsyn revisits the ruins of a childhood and youth nurtured on the fringe of the glittering lower Manhattan art world and the Atlantic haven of Provincetown in the 1980s. Moving fluidly through space, time, and a range of cinematic frameworks, Tupitsyn cuts through the cynical glamour and illusion of Hollywood to a soft, secret heart.Her narrator, a female loner and traveler, is caught in the maelstrom of films and images, where life is experienced through the eye of a camera lens and seen through the light on the screen. In a precise and elegant style, Beauty Talk & Monsters embraces and confronts a lineage of familiar myths and on- and off-screen cinematic excess in order to challenge the silver screen's century of power over our dreams and ideals. Intimate and intellectual, Tupitsyn's stories play with the cinema's most popular icons and images.
247 pages, Paperback
First published June 25, 2007
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409 people want to read
About the author
Masha Tupitsyn
21 books92 followersMASHA TUPITSYN is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of the forthcoming 2-part study, Time Tells, (Hard Wait Press, 2023), Like Someone In Love: An Addendum to Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (ZerO Books, 2011), Beauty Talk & Monsters, a collection of film-based stories (Semiotext(e) Press, 2007),
Picture Cycle
(Semiotexte/MIT, 2019), and co-editor of the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights, 2009).
In 2015, she made the 24-hour film, Love Sounds, an audio-essay and history of love in English-speaking cinema, which concluded an immaterial trilogy. The film was accompanied by a catalogue, published in 2015 by Penny-Ante Editions, and has been exhibited and screened in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Tarot Diaries , 2016, is an audio essay, diary, and mixtape about fate and future in late capitalism.
In 2017, she started her ongoing durational film series, DECADES. So far, she has completed two installments, the 1970s and the 1980s . DECADES composes a history of cinematic sound and score for each 20th century decade. The next installment will be the 1990s.
Her newest films are BULK COLLECTION and the ongoing music series The Musicians .
Her writing on film, feminism, culture, and art has been featured in numerous anthologies, journals, and art catalogues such as Bookforum, Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, BOMB, LitHub, Fence, Frieze, The New Inquiry, Berfrois, IndieWire, The White Review, Fireflies,The Rumpus, Performa 11, and Pace Gallery. She has taught film, media, literature, and gender studies at The New School, Pratt, and NYU.
Her new series of books, Time Tells, will be published by Hard Wait Press in November, 2022.
Her introduction to Paul Schrader's First Reformed will be published by Archway Editions/Simon & Schuster in 2023.
In 2015, she made the 24-hour film, Love Sounds, an audio-essay and history of love in English-speaking cinema, which concluded an immaterial trilogy. The film was accompanied by a catalogue, published in 2015 by Penny-Ante Editions, and has been exhibited and screened in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Tarot Diaries , 2016, is an audio essay, diary, and mixtape about fate and future in late capitalism.
In 2017, she started her ongoing durational film series, DECADES. So far, she has completed two installments, the 1970s and the 1980s . DECADES composes a history of cinematic sound and score for each 20th century decade. The next installment will be the 1990s.
Her newest films are BULK COLLECTION and the ongoing music series The Musicians .
Her writing on film, feminism, culture, and art has been featured in numerous anthologies, journals, and art catalogues such as Bookforum, Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, BOMB, LitHub, Fence, Frieze, The New Inquiry, Berfrois, IndieWire, The White Review, Fireflies,The Rumpus, Performa 11, and Pace Gallery. She has taught film, media, literature, and gender studies at The New School, Pratt, and NYU.
Her new series of books, Time Tells, will be published by Hard Wait Press in November, 2022.
Her introduction to Paul Schrader's First Reformed will be published by Archway Editions/Simon & Schuster in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 18, 2012
Masha Tupitsyn writes:
I don’t fuck him because promiscuity, in the larger cultural sense, really fucking bores me.
and:
My porno is my fear of being upstaged by everyone. My porno is how I scan the past and look into it all the time.
[As well as many other brilliant things in this beautiful, compelling book.]
I don’t fuck him because promiscuity, in the larger cultural sense, really fucking bores me.
and:
My porno is my fear of being upstaged by everyone. My porno is how I scan the past and look into it all the time.
[As well as many other brilliant things in this beautiful, compelling book.]
December 2, 2007
Masha Tupitsyn gets behind the veil and puts words to what we have been unable to articulate about our strange, intimate relationship to the movies. It is a moving collection, at once poignant and calming, the pleasure of a sad song. It is also incredibly intelligent, leaving one thinking about reality in a profoundly different way.
October 20, 2018
This collection of stories was so unique – the storytelling is done through the framework of movies. Throughout different periods of her life, the female narrator explores how movies, the actors, Hollywood, and common cinematic tropes and fables all have something to teach us about our lives and dreams and desires. It's autofiction meets film review meets cultural critique. Tupitsyn sees everything through the perspective of her film obsession - the stories where she explores her relationships, both romantic ones with her lovers, and platonic ones with other females, are her best.
"M thought most guys weren't interested in that kind of range. Even 25-year-old guys. And she was all range. M was, if you find a way to get to me, I am all these different things and I won't just be one, or one or the other for You. L said it was only a matter of time before guys realized that, and left her behind for a woman like M. Blew out of L like an old ghost town. L was the legend that movies and books and guys construct about what would set them free, what they'd like to have, or at least get them going on their horse. L was the facade of desire. But really what would set them free is a woman who sets herself free. M's mother, a feminist, said men really want that, but aren’t prepared to deal with it yet and don’t know how. They're not enlightened enough yet. In this case 'Yet' was really a historical and political term. M flinches; it was a bitter pill to swallow."
Tupitsyn's writing is visceral and intellectual. At times, the stories can be a bit opaque and attention drifts, but the stories where she narrates the experiences of being a woman are so powerful and self-aware, it redeems her. My favorite stories were "Metablondes", "Kleptomania", and "Reading is a Nightmare".
"M thought most guys weren't interested in that kind of range. Even 25-year-old guys. And she was all range. M was, if you find a way to get to me, I am all these different things and I won't just be one, or one or the other for You. L said it was only a matter of time before guys realized that, and left her behind for a woman like M. Blew out of L like an old ghost town. L was the legend that movies and books and guys construct about what would set them free, what they'd like to have, or at least get them going on their horse. L was the facade of desire. But really what would set them free is a woman who sets herself free. M's mother, a feminist, said men really want that, but aren’t prepared to deal with it yet and don’t know how. They're not enlightened enough yet. In this case 'Yet' was really a historical and political term. M flinches; it was a bitter pill to swallow."
Tupitsyn's writing is visceral and intellectual. At times, the stories can be a bit opaque and attention drifts, but the stories where she narrates the experiences of being a woman are so powerful and self-aware, it redeems her. My favorite stories were "Metablondes", "Kleptomania", and "Reading is a Nightmare".
August 4, 2018
2.5 stars
My favourite stories from this collection were:
Diegesis (World of a Fiction)
Kleptomania
Cinematic Synchronicity
A Note on Why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Houses (Or the Uncanny Glows in the Dark)
Actress
My favourite stories from this collection were:
Diegesis (World of a Fiction)
Kleptomania
Cinematic Synchronicity
A Note on Why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Houses (Or the Uncanny Glows in the Dark)
Actress
July 1, 2020
Visionary
June 10, 2024
enjoyed it more than i expected bc i am not the intended audience (i do not watch movies). metablondes is ny bait but its great. last three stories are also kickass.
December 12, 2007
"Maybe horror films gradually disappeared because horror no longer needs a separate category, thought Carrie. Nicole Kidman made Carrie just as tense when she thought about all the blood Nicole had lost to look the way she looked in The Stepford Wives, compared to the way she looked in Days of Thunder. A feral garden, now a sewing kit."
I loved these stories drenched in film obsession. She is pissed about things that I am pissed about, which is one of my favorite qualities in a writer. For example, the belovedness of Jack Nicholson, when he's a disgusting assaulter of prostitutes. That anger about this should show up in fiction makes me super happy. Tupitsyn is worthy of the constant Kathy Acker comparisons.
I loved these stories drenched in film obsession. She is pissed about things that I am pissed about, which is one of my favorite qualities in a writer. For example, the belovedness of Jack Nicholson, when he's a disgusting assaulter of prostitutes. That anger about this should show up in fiction makes me super happy. Tupitsyn is worthy of the constant Kathy Acker comparisons.
January 5, 2008
I've never encountered a book like this. A story unfolds through the eyes of a girl, only her eyes are always on the silver screen. Somehow the result manages to weave fiction and film review together seamlessly... it becomes part story, part consolidated "classic films" critique; and what's most interesting to me is the way that the latter only brings out the emotional aspect of the book - the character's brave longing - rather than veers away from it. Lovely.
May 6, 2008
Evocative to the max. I had the pleasure of editing her reading for KQED, but, unfortunately, never got to meet her. My fiction professor saw me reading this book and said she had met Masha in New York so I asked, "What is she like?" and all she said was "She's beautiful" and I laughed 'cause a. I never asked what she looked like and b. Masha would have a field day with that response. I didn't have to ask my professor if she had read the book to know that she hadn't, but I asked anyway.
April 30, 2020
Amazingly intense book. Very New York, very fast. How to be a woman in the movies. How to travel. How to completely destroy a man's ego. Empowering book for those who lose themselves. Desperately candid, very blunt. I don't need men to live vibes. Helped me to look at love less timidly. It's not a one and done affair, it's turbulent, or it can be if that's what you want.
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October 26, 2008I gave up on this one.
Read
August 24, 2008Here's my review on Bookslut:
http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2007_...
http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2007_...
June 20, 2009
Brilliant blade-work prose weaving interpersonal recall and imagination with pungent cinematic references.
November 6, 2015
not great
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews