Sam Shepard is TooMuchSexy

People are always sending me photos of Sam Shepard -- partly because they know my ongoing fascination -- partly in an attempt to replace the newspaper clipping I had on my bulletin board for years (and lost somewhere in an office move). It was him and Jessica Lange at Derby. It was an unusually good four-color closeup from the Sunday Herald Leader. They both look impossibly elegant (anyone who's been to Derby understands the meaning of "impossibly" there), gazing out at the track. She's laughing and he's leaning in and saying something to her as he gestures toward something out of the frame -- baring his wrist a little as he reaches; leaving his watch exposed very slightly, and yet, somehow, so explicitly that it's almost, but not quite, vulgar.

So every time someone sends me a picture of him, I hope it'll be that one, and it never is.

But I like this picture too -- though it took me a while to track down the source. It's from a coffee-table book by photographer Sam Taylor-Wood called Men Crying.

Personally, I don't cry...and I don't generally care for people who do...especially men. Sorry if that's sexist. I get that from my Uncles, who tolerate very little behavior they consider stereotypically feminine and who insist to this day "inability to change a tire = homosexuality." But I do like this photo, and a few of the others. (I would never have given it a second glance at the bookstore, cause the cover just looks like some chick crying.)

It took me a while to track down the book because the photo initially just seemed to originate with some blog called "Too Much Sexy," which now appears to be defunct. Now it's going to be the title I use for My List. Sometimes I also call this List The Right Stuff.

It will also be ok by me if Bluebelle wants to use it to refer to Alan Rickman. Or if Jupiter would like to use it to describe Matt Damon.