white / shining / silver / studs / with their nose / in / flames

Well, of all the official online synopses of all the Hot Docs movies, the one for Zoo has got to have the grabbiest opening sentence by a longshot:

In July 2005, a group of “zoophiles” living in the shadow of Washington's Mt. Rainier were brought to national attention when a Seattle family man died of a perforated colon after engaging in intercourse with an Arabian stallion.

Ordered my Hot Docs tickets last week and did indeed sign up for the one about The Love That Dare Not Snort Its Name. (Also one about Warhol’s Factory, one about the space program, and one about the font Helvetica, all of which I suppose will be interesting in their own way even if nobody’s screwing an animal in any of them.)

Still can’t get enough of YouTube, so here’s Patti Smith doing that great horse song “Land” on TV in the 1970s. This song (like the whole album, Horses) was a real touchstone for me when I was young, and unlike other touchstones of my youth (R.E.M., say), it still fills me with fire & awe.

And it’s startling how much she looks like Mick Jagger.