Yes, it’s another Profiles, perfectly timed to ruin your holiday! Why count on family to do that? Sometimes they disappoint us by failing to disappoint us. That’s why we’re here; like Andy Kaufman, we never fail to bring the pathetic and painful misunderstanding of what humor is!
This week we have Massimiliano (the one on the right,) who’s not a model per se, or per anybody, really, but instead a director of photography, here displaying his disdain over a fan engaging in ‘chimping’ – don’t ask us why we relate to this so much. Massimiliano (his friends call him “Yano,” or at least he thinks they do,) is one of those pompous photographers, quick to talk about the techniques of the masters and offer derision to anyone who uses on-camera flash, but then again, he often indulges in that shaky ‘found footage’ method and thinks shooting on an iPhone is avant garde (and even uses the phrase “avant garde,” and you can hear the italics.) He spends more on camera equipment than most people do on streaming services, which makes for a damn expensive set of cookie cutters – there’s so much matte black in his ‘studio’ that it has an event horizon. When the photos taken with his Leicas don’t garner acclaim, he puts this down to Philistines that cannot appreciate yet another B&W photo of a woman smoking in a darkened café – he thinks ‘trite’ is a beverage. Massimiliano has no plans for retirement, reckoning that all of the most appreciated artists died penniless, so he’s looking forward to cat food. Nonetheless, he secretly dreams about finding a way to make selling out seem ironic or edgy, and hopes that someday, someone will insist on giving him lots of money for his creations, forcing him to acquiesce to remain polite, though there have been no signs of this being imminent (receiving large sums of money or his being polite.) He likes to pepper his conversations with phrases like, “As balky as an Arriflex,” but no one ever bites. Massimiliano’s favorite aroma that exists only in candles is sandalwood.
Join us next week because now it’s just a challenge to see where the actual limits are – of what, we won’t say.