It’s always such an interesting term to me. Mostly because I am not. I am, in no uncertain term, a classic OTHER hating homosexual. This really is kind of strange, because I am not really a hate-y person, as a rule.
It has been commented upon by scores of friends that I let people get away with incredible amounts of truly horrendous things. A Mormon mother disowning her son because he is gay? I understand that it doesn’t mesh with her world-view. It’s not that she is a bad mother, it’s just that her being a good mother means she has a splendid chance to seriously fuck up her kid, but that doesn’t mean it makes her a bad person.An older man being afraid and therefore abusive to his timid foreign neighbor? He’s not a bad person, he is just scared, and fear makes us do strange things. He’s not a bad person either. Priests who refuse to marry same-sex couples? Fine by me, nobody should force a religion in a different direction then it wants to go. Using that as a reason for gay-bashing and discrimination of course is also wrong, because really nobody should be forced into a direction they don’t want to go.
So effectively I don’t blame people for their world-view, and I certainly would not hate anybody very swiftly either. Hate is destructive, and without any object to aim it at effectively it will destroy what is near, which is in almost all cases of my personal peeves me, and since I don’t want to be destroyed, I avoid large scale hate. But I don’t avoid large scale annoyance paired with the vocabulary of hate. In a way I sometimes think of myself as the Hannibal Lecter of annoyance. I wouldn’t really sauté somebody’s liver with nice Chianti just because they are bad violinists, but I will consider the option and then discuss how I would prepare a better dish with it. (wrap in bacon, flash fry and serve with a cool but fruity white)Effectively this means on the whole I am about as dangerous as a cricket, but sound very aggressive and hate filled. Besides, Crickets get up peoples noses.
But there are instances that really fire up my mostly dormant capacity for pure, unadulterated, screw-of-his-head-and-gleefully-drink-from-the-blood-spouting-stump hatred. Strangely enough, a large percentage of my classic a-little-more-than-pet peeves seem to tie rather beautifully into both my classicly stereotypes sexuality and my well known position as a know it all, pedantic gay man. As a rule, this gets me typified as “So Gay” and as a rule, this stereotyping is “So Wrong”.
I dislike flamingly queer people as a rule not because “they exhibit something I cannot accept inside myself” but because being flamingly queer is just plain annoying in its own right. NOBODY likes a squadron of teased-haired, badly mascara wearing guys in tank-tops strutting around like they have the best tits EVAH warbling around them while they are trying to enjoy an end-of-the-work-week-soft drink. So they effectively exhibit something I know lies inside myself (everybody has an inner queen) but cannot abide ANYWHERE apart from a good pride parade or a venue suited for queening. Of course, voicing this opinion as a straight men will get you called a homophobe, as a gay man it’s self hating. In my mind it would get you pegged as a well thinking human being.
I dislike people who ride their cards in the “saddest stories” poker-game of life to their very, very end. Yes, maybe your parents died, maybe you lost a sister, maybe your husband committed suicide. These things happen, and they are horrible. I’ve not had a wonderfully stabilizing child- and young adulthood, and nine times out of ten I can royal flush the sad pairs of these stories if it really comes down to it. But I dislike dwelling on it because it makes you a victim of circumstance. I had bad things happen to me, but whenever somebody in a conversation starts going “you wouldn’t say that if you knew that I …” I just really, really want to smash their head in. Whenever I say things to this extent in mixed company about not dwelling on situations of the past, learning and moving on without becoming a victim of circumstance I get roughly three reactions. The main one is usually good. “yes, good point”. The second one runs along the lines of “you gay people are always so strident” (no kidding). The third? “You wouldn’t say that if you knew how it felt to…” *cue batman montage of POW and WHACK*
I really, really dislike it if people are rude or inconsiderate towards wait-staff and store-clerks. These people are just doing their job, and as such do not deserve it to have you snapping your fingers, warbling “helllooohhooo” or otherwise making a nuisance of yourself. If you do this at my table or within direct conversational space thereof, I WILL ask you to please, please behave. On more than one occasion I was greeted in this request with a knowing wink and a comment along the lines of “I understand, I won’t stand in your way to get to this nice waiter” NO! NO! BAD RESTARANT PATRON, NO! This is not a cruising thing, this is a basic decent human being thing. Being excessively polite after this is just taking the piss, NOT making up for it.
For these and other reasons I have been called a CSHH. Which is blatantly wrong. I am not a CSHH. I barely hate anybody, let alone me. I am a classic humanity disliking person. As such, I am imminently suited for an online community, I say, where my hate as well as it’s more tender counterpart is fuelled on such a constant basis my aura has recently been sold of to sit on top of a tall building to alert planes.
Grtz,
K.
PS. This blog was posted as it appears here also on my journal on the site OkCupid.com, part of my ongoing attempt to get more readers on here, and fuel my fragile ego. If you found this through my journal, please browse some other entries, most are better than this one ;)
Friday, December 14, 2007
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Style: Prestige, predilection, provenance.
Apocryphal history has a Japanese connoisseur of kimono commenting on the fact that no more than 50 years ago, one could show him a picture of a woman in kimono, standing in a hotel lobby with her face away from the camera, and he would be able to estimate to an astounding degree her age, social status, family heritage, her husbands profession and the season and time of day the picture was taken. This is a far cry from the European fashionist(a) that can from a picture of a women roughly ascribe her to a certain decade (That’s eighties) but then again, there are experts that can attribute sartorial appropriations to incredibly specific measurements in time (that is so 5 minutes ago). But that said, apart from the intricately elegant closed system of Japanese culture, very few systems of fashion or style can base snobbism on the complexity of their rules.
Once upon a time, in a town far away, a cotton manufacturer stumbled on the fact that when cotton is bathed in a bath of caustic soda, and then bathed again in acid, it becomes long, lustrous and a lot more durable. The birth of mercerized cotton might not interest a great amount of people in our current hustle-and-bustle “I-don’t-care-what-it-is-as-long-as-it’s-stylish” world, but widely available cotton certainly has improved over the years. And not only cotton, materials, patterns and logistical solutions have evolved in quality and availability to an extent that there is no longer anything like different markets in clothing, and everything is, in theory, available anywhere.
Not even very long ago, and certainly for Europeans not very far away, what you wore and how it was worn was for a great deal based on two very simple variables of the human condition: Where are you from, and how much do you make when you are there?
Certain local patterns in weaving, embroidery, fabrics and colour were not copied, or very faintly copied, at any great distance from the town of their origin, and as a result, the standard man or woman in the street could be absolutely identified as being on the right street simply by the cut, colour and quality (I so craved a third “c”, but condition just doesn’t cut it, compunctiously) of their clothes. Only the rich or traveled wore materials or styles markedly different from their local counterparts to an identifiable extent.
A stylish lady in the 1800’s might deck herself out in Antwerp Lace or adopt a penchant for a particular style of bohemian embroidery, but these style-choices would seem crude compared to today’s possibilities of refinement. That said, today’s choices would seems indefinable to her, and to an extent too fiddly for absolute comprehension. And again, the possibility of refinement on offer today does in no way mean that people are more refined, and (regretfully) it certainly doesn’t mean people put more care and attention into their apparel as our ante-generational-friend.
Examples of this one still finds, if so interested, in the names and descriptions of clothing and material. Egyptian cotton, Irish Linen and Belgian lace or French embroidery might no longer hold as much captivating information as they did in days of yore, and certainly not as much information nowadays as Dior, Zegna or Chloe, but they certainly tell us a lot about their origins and ambitions.
Fashion-, or better yet style-, wise, the world has not gotten any bigger than it was in days past. In fact, it has gotten a lot smaller, and a whole lot easier to travel around. International trade agreements on fabrics, the world-wide availability of information and the multi-national identity of designers and stores ensure together that the cotton t-shirt I buy in my local store differs in no material way from the t-shirt my American pals buy in their local emporium, which in itself does not differ immensely from the one bought by my moscowegian counterpart in Russia.
A shame? Yes, in some cases. I certainly lament the fact it is nigh useless to travel to London for the fashion because the fashion in London is the same as it is here in Amsterdam (except for the Thomas Pink stores, off course, which are still a good reason to get on a plane), but at the same time the availability of many styles and materials makes it possible for me to look my best in whatever situation (or markedly less “my best” but I can’t blame the clothes for that).
But when it comes to status, clothing has lost a good deal of it’s impact in the apparent eye of the beholder, and only those detail- and label-minded among us will see on first glance what status and/or position your clothing is supposed to project. Where clothing used to make the man all in its own right, nowadays the perception of clothing by others goes a lot farther in determining the make of a man.
Where in days past a different style or material would set you apart as wealthy, or a fashionist(a), today anybody with enough determination to save up for it can deck him- or herself out in Vuitton-styled atrocities, or Chanel based bad choices, and if one is lacking this determination or funding, one can buy generic look-a-likes in the closest low street store. To a certain extent this is a logical by-product of the circle of faddish live (which really does move us all) where high end avant-garde designs are turned into prêt-a-porter concepts and then through generic easiness into bargain basement grabability. Anything that is worn enough will be watered down and copied, and so on ad infinitum. And ad nauseam, in some cases, off course.
So what is one to do if one wants to set oneself apart from the general population, but without the option of taking a train to Berlin for their spring ideas or sending your tailor to Florence for their needlework? Well, those options are off course still open, only much less useful nowadays. Vintage-clothing is always an option, but then again, it can all of a sudden become tres hip, and then where are you?
That said, it is only bad to be avant-garde if it turns out there is no garde, so a little bit of dare and originality is absolutely not frowned upon by the writer of this little piece. And if the followers never appear, simply discard and try again. Nobody achieved elegance and refinement first of without stumbling headlong in the wall of faux pas at their first tries.
Grtz,
Kevin
Once upon a time, in a town far away, a cotton manufacturer stumbled on the fact that when cotton is bathed in a bath of caustic soda, and then bathed again in acid, it becomes long, lustrous and a lot more durable. The birth of mercerized cotton might not interest a great amount of people in our current hustle-and-bustle “I-don’t-care-what-it-is-as-long-as-it’s-stylish” world, but widely available cotton certainly has improved over the years. And not only cotton, materials, patterns and logistical solutions have evolved in quality and availability to an extent that there is no longer anything like different markets in clothing, and everything is, in theory, available anywhere.
Not even very long ago, and certainly for Europeans not very far away, what you wore and how it was worn was for a great deal based on two very simple variables of the human condition: Where are you from, and how much do you make when you are there?
Certain local patterns in weaving, embroidery, fabrics and colour were not copied, or very faintly copied, at any great distance from the town of their origin, and as a result, the standard man or woman in the street could be absolutely identified as being on the right street simply by the cut, colour and quality (I so craved a third “c”, but condition just doesn’t cut it, compunctiously) of their clothes. Only the rich or traveled wore materials or styles markedly different from their local counterparts to an identifiable extent.
A stylish lady in the 1800’s might deck herself out in Antwerp Lace or adopt a penchant for a particular style of bohemian embroidery, but these style-choices would seem crude compared to today’s possibilities of refinement. That said, today’s choices would seems indefinable to her, and to an extent too fiddly for absolute comprehension. And again, the possibility of refinement on offer today does in no way mean that people are more refined, and (regretfully) it certainly doesn’t mean people put more care and attention into their apparel as our ante-generational-friend.
Examples of this one still finds, if so interested, in the names and descriptions of clothing and material. Egyptian cotton, Irish Linen and Belgian lace or French embroidery might no longer hold as much captivating information as they did in days of yore, and certainly not as much information nowadays as Dior, Zegna or Chloe, but they certainly tell us a lot about their origins and ambitions.
Fashion-, or better yet style-, wise, the world has not gotten any bigger than it was in days past. In fact, it has gotten a lot smaller, and a whole lot easier to travel around. International trade agreements on fabrics, the world-wide availability of information and the multi-national identity of designers and stores ensure together that the cotton t-shirt I buy in my local store differs in no material way from the t-shirt my American pals buy in their local emporium, which in itself does not differ immensely from the one bought by my moscowegian counterpart in Russia.
A shame? Yes, in some cases. I certainly lament the fact it is nigh useless to travel to London for the fashion because the fashion in London is the same as it is here in Amsterdam (except for the Thomas Pink stores, off course, which are still a good reason to get on a plane), but at the same time the availability of many styles and materials makes it possible for me to look my best in whatever situation (or markedly less “my best” but I can’t blame the clothes for that).
But when it comes to status, clothing has lost a good deal of it’s impact in the apparent eye of the beholder, and only those detail- and label-minded among us will see on first glance what status and/or position your clothing is supposed to project. Where clothing used to make the man all in its own right, nowadays the perception of clothing by others goes a lot farther in determining the make of a man.
Where in days past a different style or material would set you apart as wealthy, or a fashionist(a), today anybody with enough determination to save up for it can deck him- or herself out in Vuitton-styled atrocities, or Chanel based bad choices, and if one is lacking this determination or funding, one can buy generic look-a-likes in the closest low street store. To a certain extent this is a logical by-product of the circle of faddish live (which really does move us all) where high end avant-garde designs are turned into prêt-a-porter concepts and then through generic easiness into bargain basement grabability. Anything that is worn enough will be watered down and copied, and so on ad infinitum. And ad nauseam, in some cases, off course.
So what is one to do if one wants to set oneself apart from the general population, but without the option of taking a train to Berlin for their spring ideas or sending your tailor to Florence for their needlework? Well, those options are off course still open, only much less useful nowadays. Vintage-clothing is always an option, but then again, it can all of a sudden become tres hip, and then where are you?
That said, it is only bad to be avant-garde if it turns out there is no garde, so a little bit of dare and originality is absolutely not frowned upon by the writer of this little piece. And if the followers never appear, simply discard and try again. Nobody achieved elegance and refinement first of without stumbling headlong in the wall of faux pas at their first tries.
Grtz,
Kevin
Friday, November 23, 2007
With Anthony Hopkins as the 8th dwarf: Freaky.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a massive fan of the fantasy movie-genre, and as such I am more than willing to cut even the worst of the genre some slack for simply being what they are. Also, as a good gay man, I am not at all opposed to the current spate of action-ish movies that show reasonably buff men in reasonably little outfits, but the line needs be drawn somewhere.
Quite literally drawn, in the case of Beowulf, the latest Gaiman-penned screenplay to hit the silver screen in Holland. This fully CGI’d movie butchering and then raping one of the oldest surviving English stories has truly taken the cake with regards to just over the top application of available techniques and moral values.
There is an idea in animation and animatronics that is called the “uncanny valley”, coming from the idea that the more like a person something looks, the more we feel affiliated with them. In other words, the emotional response to something that looks like a human is more positive than something that does not look human. Up to a point. It turns out that when something comes close to looking human but quite clearly isn’t, we feel negative or uncomfortable towards them, but then as soon as they are less and less distinguishable from humans, we are fine with them as well. In short, the more something is clearly trying to look human, but isn’t, we find it uncanny, and if it is simply looking human, we find it acceptable. Apparently this is the reason people have averse reactions to clowns and zombies, because they kind of look human, but then again not.
Anyway, the problem with CGI-humans is that they never quite look human, for all the progress we have made in the field of hair and water as has been evidenced by the whole Shrek-line of movies, it is still all but impossible to reliably mimic the myriad of small muscle movements and suchlike that make a human really human. Thus CGI-Humans always look slightly, well, dead. And a full movie of slightly, well, dead humans just doesn’t really do It for me. After all, I loved Shaun of the Dead, but it did give me nightmares.
Beowulf, however, will not. Even though for most of its running time it wallowed in the shallow end of the uncanny valley, it had enough moments of reasonably pretty imagery to keep me from totally becoming freaked out. But just barely. That said; a good deal of the reasons I did not allow my willies to shiver me out of the theater is because I could barely keep my eyes of the screen. Not because it was so good, it was not, but because I kept wondering what horrible thing they were going to do to the story next.
The original story is very easy to surmise; Grendel kills people in hall, Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel’s mother kills people in hall, Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother, Dragon attacks somewhere else, Beowulf kills dragon, but dies himself as well. Thus. 1700 lines of ye olde English masculine bovine excrement, but that’s just about the extent of it.
It is also, just about, the net result of this movie, only not quite.
Grendel, as the quintessential aggrieved neighbour, is a slightly to very grotesque thing, rotten skin all over, massive stature, and missing at least one ear and a cheek, but with an enourmous, and enourmously sensitive, eardrum. He goes berserk every time the king holds feasts in his hall and rather than banging a broomstick or posting a snide note on the communal message board, he just starts banging heads and chewing the communal messenger. Now if I were king, I’d move. But I’m not, and the king that is doesn’t. It’s rather sad, really, as Grendel really does have quite a good point, he is just a little overeager.
Anyways, enter B(eowulf), who as a rule has a tendency to slay or fight just about anything. He goes into the hall, falls madly in love with the zombie queen (CGI again) and decides he wants to have a piece of her graphically enhanced (meh) flesh, and the treasury of the kingdom. He sets his men to feasting while he strips, and when Grendel arrives, they fight, and B tears of the arm of the complaining interruption.
Yes. Strips. B, being brawny and MASSIVELY well bodied, apparently prefers to fight naked. Sure, he comes with all these reasons about how it’s only fair, and that if the enemy is unarmed and unprotected so should he be, but that doesn’t really explain why he starts undressing at the drop of a hat before having seen the enemy, or if there even is an enemy. Crickee, even in front of a fully clothed and well-axe-hung Frysian he starts undressing. Apparently the man like being nekkid. No skin of my back, as said, he has a good body, but the enourmous amount of candles, arms, knees, tables, balustrades, donkeys, lobsters, sea-monsters, dragon-scales, water, pointy helmets and otherwise items of a non-disclosing nature do get a little bit absurd very swiftly. Ah well, we do get CGI bum, and that did very much not suffer from any uncanniness.
Anyways, Grendel dead, Grendel’s mom, played by Angelina Jolie who looks like she is very much enjoying herself being all computer generated, comes to complain the next night. Violence apparently being genetic, she appears to B in a dream while she slaughters and hangs his men in the feast-hall by way of complaining. A slight overreaction maybe, but I know if anyone hurts my family I’m willing to write a VERY terse note so I suppose it all works out the same.
B follows her into her cave-lair, the woman is a water-demon, and naked as he is (again) she decides to not fight him but offer him the world if he just sleeps with her. Because she is Angelina Jolie, and the only woman in the time-period in heels (heels that apparently are a part of her body, by the way) B off course agrees, is made king of the land, and lives happily being fought by every other monster and his mother, but surviving on and on.
So far, apart from the not-fighting-but-fucking, the story follows reasonably closely the original story, and as such I have not spoilt too much of the happenings in this movie, while still expressing most of the things I really did not like to much about it or find absurd. Because it is slated to be one of the mayor movies of the winter season, I will not go on and spoil any more.
It is an entertaining move, but really, its crap, funny crap, entertaining crap, crap nonetheless. The main problem is that there is no acting whatsoever that is well picked up by the computer puppets, something I hoped I would look past after a while, but never quite did. I could not escape the idea that if they’d have just done a real life movie, it would have been better.
Stripes at 00110 “If my neighbour complains again, I’m ripping her arm off”
Grtz,
Kevin
Quite literally drawn, in the case of Beowulf, the latest Gaiman-penned screenplay to hit the silver screen in Holland. This fully CGI’d movie butchering and then raping one of the oldest surviving English stories has truly taken the cake with regards to just over the top application of available techniques and moral values.
There is an idea in animation and animatronics that is called the “uncanny valley”, coming from the idea that the more like a person something looks, the more we feel affiliated with them. In other words, the emotional response to something that looks like a human is more positive than something that does not look human. Up to a point. It turns out that when something comes close to looking human but quite clearly isn’t, we feel negative or uncomfortable towards them, but then as soon as they are less and less distinguishable from humans, we are fine with them as well. In short, the more something is clearly trying to look human, but isn’t, we find it uncanny, and if it is simply looking human, we find it acceptable. Apparently this is the reason people have averse reactions to clowns and zombies, because they kind of look human, but then again not.
Anyway, the problem with CGI-humans is that they never quite look human, for all the progress we have made in the field of hair and water as has been evidenced by the whole Shrek-line of movies, it is still all but impossible to reliably mimic the myriad of small muscle movements and suchlike that make a human really human. Thus CGI-Humans always look slightly, well, dead. And a full movie of slightly, well, dead humans just doesn’t really do It for me. After all, I loved Shaun of the Dead, but it did give me nightmares.
Beowulf, however, will not. Even though for most of its running time it wallowed in the shallow end of the uncanny valley, it had enough moments of reasonably pretty imagery to keep me from totally becoming freaked out. But just barely. That said; a good deal of the reasons I did not allow my willies to shiver me out of the theater is because I could barely keep my eyes of the screen. Not because it was so good, it was not, but because I kept wondering what horrible thing they were going to do to the story next.
The original story is very easy to surmise; Grendel kills people in hall, Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel’s mother kills people in hall, Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother, Dragon attacks somewhere else, Beowulf kills dragon, but dies himself as well. Thus. 1700 lines of ye olde English masculine bovine excrement, but that’s just about the extent of it.
It is also, just about, the net result of this movie, only not quite.
Grendel, as the quintessential aggrieved neighbour, is a slightly to very grotesque thing, rotten skin all over, massive stature, and missing at least one ear and a cheek, but with an enourmous, and enourmously sensitive, eardrum. He goes berserk every time the king holds feasts in his hall and rather than banging a broomstick or posting a snide note on the communal message board, he just starts banging heads and chewing the communal messenger. Now if I were king, I’d move. But I’m not, and the king that is doesn’t. It’s rather sad, really, as Grendel really does have quite a good point, he is just a little overeager.
Anyways, enter B(eowulf), who as a rule has a tendency to slay or fight just about anything. He goes into the hall, falls madly in love with the zombie queen (CGI again) and decides he wants to have a piece of her graphically enhanced (meh) flesh, and the treasury of the kingdom. He sets his men to feasting while he strips, and when Grendel arrives, they fight, and B tears of the arm of the complaining interruption.
Yes. Strips. B, being brawny and MASSIVELY well bodied, apparently prefers to fight naked. Sure, he comes with all these reasons about how it’s only fair, and that if the enemy is unarmed and unprotected so should he be, but that doesn’t really explain why he starts undressing at the drop of a hat before having seen the enemy, or if there even is an enemy. Crickee, even in front of a fully clothed and well-axe-hung Frysian he starts undressing. Apparently the man like being nekkid. No skin of my back, as said, he has a good body, but the enourmous amount of candles, arms, knees, tables, balustrades, donkeys, lobsters, sea-monsters, dragon-scales, water, pointy helmets and otherwise items of a non-disclosing nature do get a little bit absurd very swiftly. Ah well, we do get CGI bum, and that did very much not suffer from any uncanniness.
Anyways, Grendel dead, Grendel’s mom, played by Angelina Jolie who looks like she is very much enjoying herself being all computer generated, comes to complain the next night. Violence apparently being genetic, she appears to B in a dream while she slaughters and hangs his men in the feast-hall by way of complaining. A slight overreaction maybe, but I know if anyone hurts my family I’m willing to write a VERY terse note so I suppose it all works out the same.
B follows her into her cave-lair, the woman is a water-demon, and naked as he is (again) she decides to not fight him but offer him the world if he just sleeps with her. Because she is Angelina Jolie, and the only woman in the time-period in heels (heels that apparently are a part of her body, by the way) B off course agrees, is made king of the land, and lives happily being fought by every other monster and his mother, but surviving on and on.
So far, apart from the not-fighting-but-fucking, the story follows reasonably closely the original story, and as such I have not spoilt too much of the happenings in this movie, while still expressing most of the things I really did not like to much about it or find absurd. Because it is slated to be one of the mayor movies of the winter season, I will not go on and spoil any more.
It is an entertaining move, but really, its crap, funny crap, entertaining crap, crap nonetheless. The main problem is that there is no acting whatsoever that is well picked up by the computer puppets, something I hoped I would look past after a while, but never quite did. I could not escape the idea that if they’d have just done a real life movie, it would have been better.
Stripes at 00110 “If my neighbour complains again, I’m ripping her arm off”
Grtz,
Kevin
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
EXACTLY
It says something about a movie if the best thing you can say about it is that it is, at least, aptly titled. I realize I’ve said about “the Fountain” that it was aptly titled, and I still stand by that, but the aptness of “the Fountain” can hold no candle to the aptness of “Superbad”, the truly horrendous piece of regurgitated swill I almost forced myself to sit through yesterday.
And I ask myself now; “Why do I do these things to myself?”, why am I so stubborn in leaving a movie theater that I force myself to watch the interminable boredom of “Cashback”, why do I suffer the badly acted thinly veiled morality play that is “SawIII”, why, why, why?
Why? Because I am a movie-masochist. I secretly like nothing better than watching a bad movie for the slight chance of seeing cute people badly acting their way out of a paper bag. That’s why. That’s why I sat through “Cashback”, and “Saw”. Not that my efforts were rewarded or anything, but I live in hope that one day, out of the blue, the next Josh Duhamel will accidentally strip of in American Pie 65 and I can see I at least saw him naked in his first ever movie when he is a big star.
This did not happen, or had any faint hope of happening, during “Superbad” yesterday. Other things that didn’t happen during this truly terrible movie (or at least the 45 minutes I sat through before Housemate evoked the safety-word of movie-leavage) were: Something even remotely funny for those not humor-deprived since birth, the wolverine-vs-freddy style sla(sh/y)ing of that truly annoying and shite-ugly fat kid, the moment the “friends” of the fat kid finally told him to shut the bleeding fuck up and other thigns I really would like to have seen.
Ok, I am being a bit unfair, we did see fat kid’s throat being slit by a security guard, something that pleased me enough to whoop a little mid-movie, but that turned out to be a scene from fat kid’s imagination, something that pulled a well-meant “CRAP!!” from my toyed-with emotional psyche.
Ok, sorry, “Superbad”, movie about three guys, all nerdy, almost all acceptably nerdy for a standard high-school-movie, on their quest for pussy and suchlike, as one has now come to expect from high-school-movies. The three guys: Fat Kid (FK) who seems to be the leader of this little group of misfits but is more than likely just the guy the others hang around with just so people will spit on other people. Nerdy guy (NG) the classic nerd. Glasses, dark hair, pasty. Nerdlike, and therefore to my mind slightly endearing, but massively overshadowed by the sad fact he is friends with FK. And Average Guy (AG) who doesn’t really stand out in either direction, could be cute, could be ugly, but is nothing really. Dresses in brown.
After the initial set-up and introduction of this threesome, the movie tells us basically three things: They are all after girls, they are all idiots, and they should all die. So far, so same as every other high-school movie ever. Not exactly the same, as this movie sucks, whereas most HSM’s do have a certain charm to them. This one does not. From the first moment to the moment where I walked out, with the exception of the times FK was not on screen and the moment his throat was slashed, all it was was pure and simple crap.
Crap. Fucking crap. Effing crap. Rotten-corpse-of-Douglas-Adams flinging crap. No sign or show of any form of humor, charm or elegance in it’s execution, no power behind it’s convictions, no pure and simple movie magic in it’s make and pedigree.
I am certain the acting, however, was flawless. The three K’s did their very best, and did put down two reasonably believable characters and one truly atrocious one. But good acting of bad characters does not make a movie fun to watch. That said, the rest of the theatre was in stitches with every unnecessary “fuck” and every over the top allusion to the character’s rampant latent homosexuality, so it is possible the jokes just passed straight over my head (pun intended).
Is this it? Is this where we are headed? At least the “Naked Gun” movies had some planning in their badness. “Police Academy” lost it after a while but started smart enough through their bad jokes. “Revenge of the Nerds” had charm, “American Pie” was in places really, truly funny. But now we are getting these movies that seem only intend on being disgusting, stupid or demeaning, and if they can at all manage it, they go for all three of those. I thought I’d seen y worst movie with “Date Movie”, and I was wrong.
The worst part is that this movie is praised critically and through box office acclaim, it is “the next big thing” and the actors are lauded and feted around Hollywood. WHY? WHY in the name of all that is good and beautiful in the world WHY are we celebrating the type of jokes that special kid in the back of the class used to make until he was put into remedial teaching?
Honestly people, saying fuck fifteen times in a row is NOT funny. Showing an 8-year old drawing dicks is NOT funny, even though some of the dicks absolutely were. Watching a woman drink from a fat of her own fat is NOT funny. All these things, however, are happening in movies RIGHT NOW and there are audiences the world over that are laughing their retarded heads off watching this execrable garbage.
Can’t we get back to a world where humor was not based on excrement? I understand Mel Brooks’ statement that tragedy is when I cut my finger, and comedy is when you fall into an open sewer, but really, there is a massive difference between schadenfreude and filth.
Ah well, I am rerunning my episodes of the office to get the taste of FK out of my brain, then to go on to some actually funny things that don’t make me cringe.
Stripes at 00100, by now a well-known combination.
Grtz,
Kevin
And I ask myself now; “Why do I do these things to myself?”, why am I so stubborn in leaving a movie theater that I force myself to watch the interminable boredom of “Cashback”, why do I suffer the badly acted thinly veiled morality play that is “SawIII”, why, why, why?
Why? Because I am a movie-masochist. I secretly like nothing better than watching a bad movie for the slight chance of seeing cute people badly acting their way out of a paper bag. That’s why. That’s why I sat through “Cashback”, and “Saw”. Not that my efforts were rewarded or anything, but I live in hope that one day, out of the blue, the next Josh Duhamel will accidentally strip of in American Pie 65 and I can see I at least saw him naked in his first ever movie when he is a big star.
This did not happen, or had any faint hope of happening, during “Superbad” yesterday. Other things that didn’t happen during this truly terrible movie (or at least the 45 minutes I sat through before Housemate evoked the safety-word of movie-leavage) were: Something even remotely funny for those not humor-deprived since birth, the wolverine-vs-freddy style sla(sh/y)ing of that truly annoying and shite-ugly fat kid, the moment the “friends” of the fat kid finally told him to shut the bleeding fuck up and other thigns I really would like to have seen.
Ok, I am being a bit unfair, we did see fat kid’s throat being slit by a security guard, something that pleased me enough to whoop a little mid-movie, but that turned out to be a scene from fat kid’s imagination, something that pulled a well-meant “CRAP!!” from my toyed-with emotional psyche.
Ok, sorry, “Superbad”, movie about three guys, all nerdy, almost all acceptably nerdy for a standard high-school-movie, on their quest for pussy and suchlike, as one has now come to expect from high-school-movies. The three guys: Fat Kid (FK) who seems to be the leader of this little group of misfits but is more than likely just the guy the others hang around with just so people will spit on other people. Nerdy guy (NG) the classic nerd. Glasses, dark hair, pasty. Nerdlike, and therefore to my mind slightly endearing, but massively overshadowed by the sad fact he is friends with FK. And Average Guy (AG) who doesn’t really stand out in either direction, could be cute, could be ugly, but is nothing really. Dresses in brown.
After the initial set-up and introduction of this threesome, the movie tells us basically three things: They are all after girls, they are all idiots, and they should all die. So far, so same as every other high-school movie ever. Not exactly the same, as this movie sucks, whereas most HSM’s do have a certain charm to them. This one does not. From the first moment to the moment where I walked out, with the exception of the times FK was not on screen and the moment his throat was slashed, all it was was pure and simple crap.
Crap. Fucking crap. Effing crap. Rotten-corpse-of-Douglas-Adams flinging crap. No sign or show of any form of humor, charm or elegance in it’s execution, no power behind it’s convictions, no pure and simple movie magic in it’s make and pedigree.
I am certain the acting, however, was flawless. The three K’s did their very best, and did put down two reasonably believable characters and one truly atrocious one. But good acting of bad characters does not make a movie fun to watch. That said, the rest of the theatre was in stitches with every unnecessary “fuck” and every over the top allusion to the character’s rampant latent homosexuality, so it is possible the jokes just passed straight over my head (pun intended).
Is this it? Is this where we are headed? At least the “Naked Gun” movies had some planning in their badness. “Police Academy” lost it after a while but started smart enough through their bad jokes. “Revenge of the Nerds” had charm, “American Pie” was in places really, truly funny. But now we are getting these movies that seem only intend on being disgusting, stupid or demeaning, and if they can at all manage it, they go for all three of those. I thought I’d seen y worst movie with “Date Movie”, and I was wrong.
The worst part is that this movie is praised critically and through box office acclaim, it is “the next big thing” and the actors are lauded and feted around Hollywood. WHY? WHY in the name of all that is good and beautiful in the world WHY are we celebrating the type of jokes that special kid in the back of the class used to make until he was put into remedial teaching?
Honestly people, saying fuck fifteen times in a row is NOT funny. Showing an 8-year old drawing dicks is NOT funny, even though some of the dicks absolutely were. Watching a woman drink from a fat of her own fat is NOT funny. All these things, however, are happening in movies RIGHT NOW and there are audiences the world over that are laughing their retarded heads off watching this execrable garbage.
Can’t we get back to a world where humor was not based on excrement? I understand Mel Brooks’ statement that tragedy is when I cut my finger, and comedy is when you fall into an open sewer, but really, there is a massive difference between schadenfreude and filth.
Ah well, I am rerunning my episodes of the office to get the taste of FK out of my brain, then to go on to some actually funny things that don’t make me cringe.
Stripes at 00100, by now a well-known combination.
Grtz,
Kevin
Thursday, November 15, 2007
30 Days of Night
Well, what to say… I like vampire films. In fact, with the possible exception of vampire bats when applied to my own specific hairdo, I roughly like vampire-everything.
Vampires, as a psychological archetype or an evolutionary mental exercise, are massively interesting creatures. And every vampire novel or movie sets up its own vampire back-story, and ideas behind it. Part of the charm of watching a vampire movie for me is figuring out how they stack up to other vampires, given what we are told in any story.
Dracula was able to walk in daylight according to Bram Stoker, but Bela Lugosi would have burned horribly in the same situation. The Hunger's Miriam and John Blaylock had no problem with daylight either, and lacked fangs as well, but drank blood nonetheless, with the aid of a little knife secreted in a necklace. (An idea re-used in the badly homoerotic The Brotherhood) The Hunger, by the way, also has the strange distinction of being a very elegant movie about two people who are clearly and undoubtedly vampires, yet the word “vampire” is never used or seemingly considered.
That said, almost all vampire movies or novels have to exist in an internal universe where-in there exist no other vampire movies or novels, but there is an abundance of arcane text about same, because, as a rule, vampires target fringe groups, for the tasty drug-laced blood and the lack of uproar over a couple of missing people, yet nobody ever immediately jumps to the conclusion of undead fangy stalkage.
Now I know vampire fan-dom is a little more widespread among my circle of friends than some other groups of people, but I know that as soon as the sucked-dry corpses of urban outdoorsmen start showing up under Amsterdam’s bridges with two puncture marks on their necks, the first thing somebody will say would be: “euh, maybe it’s a vampire” as a joke if not the first sketchy lines on a psychological profile.
But no, vampires are always the last possible refuge of the well-thinking character, and then only after we have seen several instances of turning to dust, glowing red eyes, massive fangs, and turning into bats/wolfs or otherwise creepy animals.
Of course, I realize movies would sell a lot less well if they consisted of one victim, a victim’s friend who says “people, it’s a vampire”, other potential victims stocking up on garlic, crucifixes and the like, and a defeated vampire scuttling off into the moonset within the first five minutes of filming, and thus there has to be a certain tension, a moment of discovery, and somewhat of a hunt to allow for all the product placement that a modern movie needs to stay alive. This is also one of the reasons why vampire ideas keep changing with every new movie and every new book, because if established vampire-detergent always works, there is no tension.
Still, there’d be more tension than there was in 30 Days of Night, the first of two vampire movies to hit Dutch cinemas in the coming period. Now I am not expecting particularly much of the second one, but it has to be better than this exercise in dual sided stupidity.
Some spoilers ahead, by the way.
The idea of a vampire troupe hounding a small town waaay up North is not a bad one in its own right, and as such a good premise for a vampire movie. The town Barrow, setting of this little piece, apparently has no sun for a set period every year, during which most of the town moves to sunnier (or sunny, at all) climes elsewhere, and only a skeleton crew of law-officers and suchlike maintaining vigil in the dark of sunless days. So far, so good. During this period, the vampires decide attack and obliterate the town. Good plan, no light to burn the lily-white skin, reduced visuals for the human meatsicles, all nice and ready for the pickings.
So what’s wrong? Well, stupidity is wrong, for one. And ugly vampires, also wrong (but slightly forgivable). And more stupidity.
These vampires are smart enough o hatch a plan like this, are incredibly fast, know how humans work well enough to set bait and try to trap them into coming out, but no when in the thirty days except for the absolute last day do they start setting fire to possible hiding places.
Foolish things.
Once more it is proven it is a good thing I personally am not an undead scourge on human society, cause y’all’d’be fucked.
If it were me leading an intrepid band of undead explorers, the first thing I do is take as many humans out as possible, as is done in the movie as well, good. Then, during the first night, when the remaining humans have gone to ground hiding, I start setting fire to the houses. This will mean that any humans left inside will run out pretty swiftly, ready for the taking.
Considering the fact that there are only a couple of hundred houses in town, to about 25 vampires, this ensures that the whole town will be burned to the ground, bled dry and fed upon within about 4 days of the given 30 days of darkness. Given the fact we are told over the course of the movie that there are about 4 or 5 more towns nearby that are also completely dark, this means you can be back on your sun-blocked boat before day 25 and undo your belt for a good bloody burp.
But no, Vamps decide to wait with the burning until day 30. Why? No idea. Meanwhile they barely get to eat, and they also spectacularly fail to find about 30 hiding survivors. Vampire idiots.
Do the humans do better? Well, yes, but a) barely and b) only because of the aforementioned vampire stupidity. If you are fighting a vampire, and it is conclusively shown that only beheading will work, would you not start beheading them? I would. But no. You’d apparently continue trying to bring them down by pillow-fighting them, snowballing them, trying unsuccessfully to burn them, whatever. So they have to hide out on someone’s attic, with no food or water, and they still manage to not only survive, but come out looking chipper and in some cases remarkably well-shaven.
And don’t start up about the fact they can melt snow for drinking water. True as that may be, it takes MASSIVE amounts of snow for even a little bit of useful water, and considering there are about 9 people there, this would be a 24 hour job, that nobody is doing. Also, there just plain isn’t enough snow to do this without being noticed by anything paying attention.
There are a lot of moments in this movie that are just plain stupid, or barely understandable. Does this make 30 Days of Night a bad movie? In my opinion: yes. Was it an enjoyable-for its stupidity-movie? In my opinion, yes again. It is worthy of seeing for two real reasons: 1) the movie’s premise is well thought up and executed, if a little bit shaky, and 2) the sheer pleasure of picking it apart. The tension is build well in some rare spots, but mostly underdone by the obvious attempts at sorry comic relief.
Stripes at 11110, for 30.
Grtz,
Kevin
Vampires, as a psychological archetype or an evolutionary mental exercise, are massively interesting creatures. And every vampire novel or movie sets up its own vampire back-story, and ideas behind it. Part of the charm of watching a vampire movie for me is figuring out how they stack up to other vampires, given what we are told in any story.
Dracula was able to walk in daylight according to Bram Stoker, but Bela Lugosi would have burned horribly in the same situation. The Hunger's Miriam and John Blaylock had no problem with daylight either, and lacked fangs as well, but drank blood nonetheless, with the aid of a little knife secreted in a necklace. (An idea re-used in the badly homoerotic The Brotherhood) The Hunger, by the way, also has the strange distinction of being a very elegant movie about two people who are clearly and undoubtedly vampires, yet the word “vampire” is never used or seemingly considered.
That said, almost all vampire movies or novels have to exist in an internal universe where-in there exist no other vampire movies or novels, but there is an abundance of arcane text about same, because, as a rule, vampires target fringe groups, for the tasty drug-laced blood and the lack of uproar over a couple of missing people, yet nobody ever immediately jumps to the conclusion of undead fangy stalkage.
Now I know vampire fan-dom is a little more widespread among my circle of friends than some other groups of people, but I know that as soon as the sucked-dry corpses of urban outdoorsmen start showing up under Amsterdam’s bridges with two puncture marks on their necks, the first thing somebody will say would be: “euh, maybe it’s a vampire” as a joke if not the first sketchy lines on a psychological profile.
But no, vampires are always the last possible refuge of the well-thinking character, and then only after we have seen several instances of turning to dust, glowing red eyes, massive fangs, and turning into bats/wolfs or otherwise creepy animals.
Of course, I realize movies would sell a lot less well if they consisted of one victim, a victim’s friend who says “people, it’s a vampire”, other potential victims stocking up on garlic, crucifixes and the like, and a defeated vampire scuttling off into the moonset within the first five minutes of filming, and thus there has to be a certain tension, a moment of discovery, and somewhat of a hunt to allow for all the product placement that a modern movie needs to stay alive. This is also one of the reasons why vampire ideas keep changing with every new movie and every new book, because if established vampire-detergent always works, there is no tension.
Still, there’d be more tension than there was in 30 Days of Night, the first of two vampire movies to hit Dutch cinemas in the coming period. Now I am not expecting particularly much of the second one, but it has to be better than this exercise in dual sided stupidity.
Some spoilers ahead, by the way.
The idea of a vampire troupe hounding a small town waaay up North is not a bad one in its own right, and as such a good premise for a vampire movie. The town Barrow, setting of this little piece, apparently has no sun for a set period every year, during which most of the town moves to sunnier (or sunny, at all) climes elsewhere, and only a skeleton crew of law-officers and suchlike maintaining vigil in the dark of sunless days. So far, so good. During this period, the vampires decide attack and obliterate the town. Good plan, no light to burn the lily-white skin, reduced visuals for the human meatsicles, all nice and ready for the pickings.
So what’s wrong? Well, stupidity is wrong, for one. And ugly vampires, also wrong (but slightly forgivable). And more stupidity.
These vampires are smart enough o hatch a plan like this, are incredibly fast, know how humans work well enough to set bait and try to trap them into coming out, but no when in the thirty days except for the absolute last day do they start setting fire to possible hiding places.
Foolish things.
Once more it is proven it is a good thing I personally am not an undead scourge on human society, cause y’all’d’be fucked.
If it were me leading an intrepid band of undead explorers, the first thing I do is take as many humans out as possible, as is done in the movie as well, good. Then, during the first night, when the remaining humans have gone to ground hiding, I start setting fire to the houses. This will mean that any humans left inside will run out pretty swiftly, ready for the taking.
Considering the fact that there are only a couple of hundred houses in town, to about 25 vampires, this ensures that the whole town will be burned to the ground, bled dry and fed upon within about 4 days of the given 30 days of darkness. Given the fact we are told over the course of the movie that there are about 4 or 5 more towns nearby that are also completely dark, this means you can be back on your sun-blocked boat before day 25 and undo your belt for a good bloody burp.
But no, Vamps decide to wait with the burning until day 30. Why? No idea. Meanwhile they barely get to eat, and they also spectacularly fail to find about 30 hiding survivors. Vampire idiots.
Do the humans do better? Well, yes, but a) barely and b) only because of the aforementioned vampire stupidity. If you are fighting a vampire, and it is conclusively shown that only beheading will work, would you not start beheading them? I would. But no. You’d apparently continue trying to bring them down by pillow-fighting them, snowballing them, trying unsuccessfully to burn them, whatever. So they have to hide out on someone’s attic, with no food or water, and they still manage to not only survive, but come out looking chipper and in some cases remarkably well-shaven.
And don’t start up about the fact they can melt snow for drinking water. True as that may be, it takes MASSIVE amounts of snow for even a little bit of useful water, and considering there are about 9 people there, this would be a 24 hour job, that nobody is doing. Also, there just plain isn’t enough snow to do this without being noticed by anything paying attention.
There are a lot of moments in this movie that are just plain stupid, or barely understandable. Does this make 30 Days of Night a bad movie? In my opinion: yes. Was it an enjoyable-for its stupidity-movie? In my opinion, yes again. It is worthy of seeing for two real reasons: 1) the movie’s premise is well thought up and executed, if a little bit shaky, and 2) the sheer pleasure of picking it apart. The tension is build well in some rare spots, but mostly underdone by the obvious attempts at sorry comic relief.
Stripes at 11110, for 30.
Grtz,
Kevin
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Looking for a career.
Having left school at the tender age of 17 after being fully bullied for about 12 years straight, I cannot say I am worse of than I should be. In fact, I am very well of. I have Boyfriend, whom I love and who loves me, I have good friends, an ok family-life, and a beautiful house to live in, owned by aforementioned Boyfriend.
For me, the only thing currently lacking is a good/great career. For me not the wealth of wealth attracts me, but the possibility to do something I love doing, and to do it for a living. I have been writing this little blog for over two years now, to practically no success whatsoever but with great enjoyment, and it has been a good way to refine and grow into a reasonable writing style (to my mind, that is), I have written columns for company magazines, and even some reviews for a now defunct Fantasy magazine, and I think I consider myself good enough to “do something” in the field of creative, or not so creative writing.
As to this end, I have started writing to a couple of magazines today, linking to this blog, and asking around for a reasonable step to take to get into writing on a structured plan. I am slowly working on some short stories, trying to get some ideas for a lengthy novel, but at the moment the slightly journalistic bend of columns and suchlike draw me more than anything else.
So if there is anybody on my blog who likes it enough to return every now and then, and I do realize I have made that difficult with the slightly erratic frequency of my blogging, please point some people towards me. I need a working network right now, and I am not getting there as yet. And if one of my regulars know of a way into columns or suchlike, please let me know, either through the blog or through kevin.linnekamp@gmail.com
I am very willing to take any writing opportunity tossed into my lap, money at the moment is less of an issue than just getting read and known.
Thanks for your attention,
Stripes at 00001, “shameless pleading”
Kevin
For me, the only thing currently lacking is a good/great career. For me not the wealth of wealth attracts me, but the possibility to do something I love doing, and to do it for a living. I have been writing this little blog for over two years now, to practically no success whatsoever but with great enjoyment, and it has been a good way to refine and grow into a reasonable writing style (to my mind, that is), I have written columns for company magazines, and even some reviews for a now defunct Fantasy magazine, and I think I consider myself good enough to “do something” in the field of creative, or not so creative writing.
As to this end, I have started writing to a couple of magazines today, linking to this blog, and asking around for a reasonable step to take to get into writing on a structured plan. I am slowly working on some short stories, trying to get some ideas for a lengthy novel, but at the moment the slightly journalistic bend of columns and suchlike draw me more than anything else.
So if there is anybody on my blog who likes it enough to return every now and then, and I do realize I have made that difficult with the slightly erratic frequency of my blogging, please point some people towards me. I need a working network right now, and I am not getting there as yet. And if one of my regulars know of a way into columns or suchlike, please let me know, either through the blog or through kevin.linnekamp@gmail.com
I am very willing to take any writing opportunity tossed into my lap, money at the moment is less of an issue than just getting read and known.
Thanks for your attention,
Stripes at 00001, “shameless pleading”
Kevin
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Spirituality: Introduction
Alternative religion has long been a hobby and interest of mine, never growing far beyond the usual breathing exercises and the occasional drawing of the Tarot for friends and acquaintances. But being very low key does not mean I have no interest or compulsion to up my involvement in religion and spirituality.
Ever since the death of my grandfather the question “What happens after?” has kept me in good philosophical and emotional curiosity, and as an avid purchaser of books I can say that my own personal library on religion and the occult can rival a good sized town’s version of same. As a result, I can hold my own in most discussion about the topics of reincarnation, ghosts, and mythical beings.
Because I also believe no subjects lacks connections with all other subjects, it is not strange for me to draw Maslow’s pyramid of personal growth in a discussion about the regenerative propensities of the common, garden variety Hydra, and I can say my bibliophilia has not helped last weekends moving of house.
Luckily, Boyfriend has kindly decided to give (well, rent) me one room for my own personal use, and making it an absolute fire hazard is going to be one of those personal uses.
Also, since I am trying to be rather more active on the blogging part of my life, I will strive to set up what I hope will become a series of short essays on a number of topics pertaining to the subject of alternative religion. They will be labeled “Spirituality” and they will contain my own personal experiences with the subject, but also theories and efforts by a multitude of other researchers in this very wide and interesting field.
For all those uncaring of this particular part of the proceedings, best not to read anything labeled “Spirituality” then, right?
For now, grtz, and stripes at “almost Halloween”
Kevin
Ever since the death of my grandfather the question “What happens after?” has kept me in good philosophical and emotional curiosity, and as an avid purchaser of books I can say that my own personal library on religion and the occult can rival a good sized town’s version of same. As a result, I can hold my own in most discussion about the topics of reincarnation, ghosts, and mythical beings.
Because I also believe no subjects lacks connections with all other subjects, it is not strange for me to draw Maslow’s pyramid of personal growth in a discussion about the regenerative propensities of the common, garden variety Hydra, and I can say my bibliophilia has not helped last weekends moving of house.
Luckily, Boyfriend has kindly decided to give (well, rent) me one room for my own personal use, and making it an absolute fire hazard is going to be one of those personal uses.
Also, since I am trying to be rather more active on the blogging part of my life, I will strive to set up what I hope will become a series of short essays on a number of topics pertaining to the subject of alternative religion. They will be labeled “Spirituality” and they will contain my own personal experiences with the subject, but also theories and efforts by a multitude of other researchers in this very wide and interesting field.
For all those uncaring of this particular part of the proceedings, best not to read anything labeled “Spirituality” then, right?
For now, grtz, and stripes at “almost Halloween”
Kevin
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Style: Hats
Aah yes, the hat. The ever present symbol of the extremes of society. Class, elegance, hoodlums, they all have their hatty counterparts, and they all rely heavily on certain assumptions when it comes to head coverage.
Now, being sadly left over when the hat-abilities were handed out, I’ve never become a complete master of the hat. I do not have a good hat-face, and as such don’t wear them. The only thing ever looked remotely ok on my was a very, very bright blue Wallace & Grommet baseball cap, and as I am fast moving away from 25 years of age, this is not the decision I should be sticking with.
I can say this about hats, though, and I need to give Boyfriend his due for inspiring part of the upcoming rant-ette.
Why, in name of all that is good and beautiful in the world, why, when so much can be said and alluded, so much beauty and sophistication can be hinted at with a hat, do some people insist on choosing a hat so badly fitted that it looks at best like a bucket on a pumpkin?
Not a day goes by but that I have to be faced with somebody in a too small baseball cap, fully laced up in the back if possible as well, balanced in such a way that the bill protrudes scant millimeters past their forehead with the bulk and bubble of the cap sticking several inches out from the top of their head. And every time it is all I can do to stop myself from removing said hat, enlarging the head-space several hundred yards, and plonking it back so that it actually touches skin on more than the lower brim of the piece.
If that would fail, maybe to remove some of the skull of the wearer, as they are not quite making good use of it as it is anyways.
Seriously people, do we have no mirrors, or do we just refuse to self-reflect?
A pillbox hat on a woman can look instantly stylish, a wide brim harks of society, and a veil has mystery and distance. Men can go for the classic fedora, or a panama for that swanky feel of colonial times, and both sexes can easily go for the fun sportyness of a baseball cap. Hell, even beanies have their skater-charm.
As said, I can’t quite go on and on about hats, don’t know much about hatstory, but as with all clothing, size matters, and choosing the wrong one will rarely make you look smooth and well put together. It will make you look like a dork.
Now, being sadly left over when the hat-abilities were handed out, I’ve never become a complete master of the hat. I do not have a good hat-face, and as such don’t wear them. The only thing ever looked remotely ok on my was a very, very bright blue Wallace & Grommet baseball cap, and as I am fast moving away from 25 years of age, this is not the decision I should be sticking with.
I can say this about hats, though, and I need to give Boyfriend his due for inspiring part of the upcoming rant-ette.
Why, in name of all that is good and beautiful in the world, why, when so much can be said and alluded, so much beauty and sophistication can be hinted at with a hat, do some people insist on choosing a hat so badly fitted that it looks at best like a bucket on a pumpkin?
Not a day goes by but that I have to be faced with somebody in a too small baseball cap, fully laced up in the back if possible as well, balanced in such a way that the bill protrudes scant millimeters past their forehead with the bulk and bubble of the cap sticking several inches out from the top of their head. And every time it is all I can do to stop myself from removing said hat, enlarging the head-space several hundred yards, and plonking it back so that it actually touches skin on more than the lower brim of the piece.
If that would fail, maybe to remove some of the skull of the wearer, as they are not quite making good use of it as it is anyways.
Seriously people, do we have no mirrors, or do we just refuse to self-reflect?
A pillbox hat on a woman can look instantly stylish, a wide brim harks of society, and a veil has mystery and distance. Men can go for the classic fedora, or a panama for that swanky feel of colonial times, and both sexes can easily go for the fun sportyness of a baseball cap. Hell, even beanies have their skater-charm.
As said, I can’t quite go on and on about hats, don’t know much about hatstory, but as with all clothing, size matters, and choosing the wrong one will rarely make you look smooth and well put together. It will make you look like a dork.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Just Wick It
Well, quite. I do understand that there is a time and a place for horrible puns, and that the time and place might not be anywhere on the Monday morning, but hey, it’s been made, so we are all going to live with it, ok?
This weekend Boyfriend and I have FINALLY gone to London to see Wicked, the musical about the live of the Wicked Witch of the West, before she became such. Well, we’ve been to London before, but never to see this show in particular, and I am happy that we did.
The show, based on the book of the same name, tells of the green-skinned Elphaba, destined to be the enemy of all of the Land of Oz, of Wizard of OZ fame. And it does this well. Events from the well known WoO are seen from a completely different perspective, showing what has always been believed as true and right to maybe not be so very true and decidedly bendy.
There isn’t much I can tell about the show or the book without giving a lot away, so I choose in stead to harp a little bit about the things I didn’t really like. (Some change of the regular norm that will be ey?)
For one, the two main actresses, one of which (pun intended) had a very impressive voice, seemed to never really get into their role. This might seem a bit unfair to say, after all, the original cast of the show was known for their, and had excellently matched voices, and it is hard to take over a role in any way, but these two, though they certainly didn’t just phone it in, seemed to be faxing with a little bit of listlessness.
As an example, there is a famous anecdote about the original Glinda launching herself onto a set piece so violently she bounce doff on the other end, to much joy of the audience. This will never happen here, because, well, the cast seemed to just not care all that much.
That said; we might’ve just caught them at a bad night, as the show is certainly set up well, and they didn’t look the type to bring of lackadaisical performances as a rule.
I did enjoy the show quite a bit, I like the alternative to settled history it provides, I can remember WoO (although Boyfriend couldn’t) and I can enjoy anything with at lest a few snappy tunes. But I did not enjoy it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. I can almost safely say that nobody enjoyed it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. They were holding hands all through the first act, excited and happy to be there (handholding can be a sign of rampant lesbianism or musical enthusiasm, the theatre arts defy gaydar) and they laughed loudly at anything that happened.
And when I say loudly, I mean that when I took the plane back to Holland a day later we had some turbulence from the sound waves of their laughter having been bounced of the Alps and coming back towards England.
That, and they were, quite clearly, stupid. Granted, everybody gets a little stupid when watching a musical, it is the distraction of glitter that does that, but these two were really really stupid. Boyfriend at one point during one of the heavily foreshadowing opening songs nudged me and pointed out the obvious foreshadowing. I did the same thing just after the intermission. The two behind us pointed out EVERYTHING. “Yes, because she is EVIL!!!” “It’s so obvious she is GOOD!!” “There is a tree right THERE!!!!” Everything was a surprise to them, and EVERYTHING was exciting.
And then, just before they moved up in the intermission to cleverly apprehend some empty seats a couple of rows in front, one of them turned to the other and said the one line I will be repeating until the day I die: “I am so excited, my heart is literally beating IN MY CHEST!!!”
Yes, well, quite. So is mine. So is, in fact, the heart of almost everybody I know.
All joking and harping aside, the show is very entertaining, the music is in places absolutely beautiful, and it casts a very well thought through new light on childhood memories. I would advise anyone to go and see this, or at least get the soundtrack.
Stripes at “heart is in chest, all systems normal”
Grtz,
Kevin
This weekend Boyfriend and I have FINALLY gone to London to see Wicked, the musical about the live of the Wicked Witch of the West, before she became such. Well, we’ve been to London before, but never to see this show in particular, and I am happy that we did.
The show, based on the book of the same name, tells of the green-skinned Elphaba, destined to be the enemy of all of the Land of Oz, of Wizard of OZ fame. And it does this well. Events from the well known WoO are seen from a completely different perspective, showing what has always been believed as true and right to maybe not be so very true and decidedly bendy.
There isn’t much I can tell about the show or the book without giving a lot away, so I choose in stead to harp a little bit about the things I didn’t really like. (Some change of the regular norm that will be ey?)
For one, the two main actresses, one of which (pun intended) had a very impressive voice, seemed to never really get into their role. This might seem a bit unfair to say, after all, the original cast of the show was known for their, and had excellently matched voices, and it is hard to take over a role in any way, but these two, though they certainly didn’t just phone it in, seemed to be faxing with a little bit of listlessness.
As an example, there is a famous anecdote about the original Glinda launching herself onto a set piece so violently she bounce doff on the other end, to much joy of the audience. This will never happen here, because, well, the cast seemed to just not care all that much.
That said; we might’ve just caught them at a bad night, as the show is certainly set up well, and they didn’t look the type to bring of lackadaisical performances as a rule.
I did enjoy the show quite a bit, I like the alternative to settled history it provides, I can remember WoO (although Boyfriend couldn’t) and I can enjoy anything with at lest a few snappy tunes. But I did not enjoy it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. I can almost safely say that nobody enjoyed it as much as the two ladies sitting behind us. They were holding hands all through the first act, excited and happy to be there (handholding can be a sign of rampant lesbianism or musical enthusiasm, the theatre arts defy gaydar) and they laughed loudly at anything that happened.
And when I say loudly, I mean that when I took the plane back to Holland a day later we had some turbulence from the sound waves of their laughter having been bounced of the Alps and coming back towards England.
That, and they were, quite clearly, stupid. Granted, everybody gets a little stupid when watching a musical, it is the distraction of glitter that does that, but these two were really really stupid. Boyfriend at one point during one of the heavily foreshadowing opening songs nudged me and pointed out the obvious foreshadowing. I did the same thing just after the intermission. The two behind us pointed out EVERYTHING. “Yes, because she is EVIL!!!” “It’s so obvious she is GOOD!!” “There is a tree right THERE!!!!” Everything was a surprise to them, and EVERYTHING was exciting.
And then, just before they moved up in the intermission to cleverly apprehend some empty seats a couple of rows in front, one of them turned to the other and said the one line I will be repeating until the day I die: “I am so excited, my heart is literally beating IN MY CHEST!!!”
Yes, well, quite. So is mine. So is, in fact, the heart of almost everybody I know.
All joking and harping aside, the show is very entertaining, the music is in places absolutely beautiful, and it casts a very well thought through new light on childhood memories. I would advise anyone to go and see this, or at least get the soundtrack.
Stripes at “heart is in chest, all systems normal”
Grtz,
Kevin
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tell me why… (2)
Because I ran out of steam a little halfway through my blog yesterday, thus cutting it a little shorter than I usually would’ve, I decided to cheat and name some things that happened today as a reason to hate yesterday.
I’d not advise anyone to do temporal displaced hating, as it can get quite tricky, but for the connoisseur it is one of the three most preferred types of hating.
First off, the guy who wears my shoes (GwwmS, or Gwooms) works in my office, and was wearing them today AGAIN. As I am slowly but surely turning into a male Imelda Marcos, I have started to dislike wearing the same pair twice in a row, depending off course on circumstances. (I am sporting a new pair of Adidas again today; man it is nice to be sample-sized) But Gwooms was not only wearing my shoes again, he was wearing exactly the same outfit, AGAIN. And he hardly looks like he guy who’d be able to get a one-night stand if he’d tried well disguised, oozing rohypnol and sporting several different strengths of chloroform on his shawl.
Gwooms’ shawl, by the way, is one of those checkered frilly tea-towel type things one associates with the lesser washed class of terrorist, if Boyfriend were to reply to this blog as well he’d probably have something to say about it.
Anyways, I know I am a great promoter of the “outfit” style of dressing, where a particular piece would most likely be joined with very definite other pieces, so that at least he’s doing correct. You just shouldn’t do it twice in a row. Especially not when wearing my shoes.
Gwooms still far in the future, I was on the bus this morning. As I get the bus about a stop after the central bus-stop in my little town, there is usually the option of nabbing a seat, which I usually do, as it makes reading that much easier. So as well this morning, no worries. Then, a small, slightly fattish (dimension wise she was a tad bit more spherical than the Willendorf-statue) woman cam on the bus, and stood next to me, then proceeding to take of clothes and dislodge bags, and putting them all, along with her dripping wet umbrella, in the luggage netting above my waterproof head and not at all waterproof book.
Now, this is very wrong for two (2) reasons. First (1st), one should never put anything dripping above a reading Kevin, lest one is willing to carry ones ears back home in ones hat. I did not deliver the smack down of whoopass on this woman because, well, we were on a bus, and I was wearing light colored clothes, and fat people stain like all hell. I should know, I am one.
Second (2nd), even though I know that the luggage shelves are there for our convenience, it is not really common to actually use them. It was even downright odd to see them used at all, especially the way this woman used them. After stationing herself next to my left elbow she proceeded to take of layer after layer after layer of clothing, one more horrendously colored than the last, and piling them onto their less recently discarded counterparts. She was doing this from about 50cm away, though, meaning she had to lean across me, the person next to her, and the person behind me to get her preferred amount of color coded annoyance out among the masses.
Twenty seconds after having stripped down to a simply revolting piece of material that could have been a shift, a tent, or a muumuu, she noticed her stop coming up, and started to do the whole thing in reverse, donning clothing left right and center so as to be fully dressed when she arrived at her bus stop just 3 stops later. All in all, she could have easily walked it, mine is a small town, and the bus curves around it so that the space between where she got on to the bus and where she got of was about half the traveled distance, and would’ve taken all of three minutes to walk, and three and a half to roll.
Strange, strange fat woman.
Grtz,
K.
I’d not advise anyone to do temporal displaced hating, as it can get quite tricky, but for the connoisseur it is one of the three most preferred types of hating.
First off, the guy who wears my shoes (GwwmS, or Gwooms) works in my office, and was wearing them today AGAIN. As I am slowly but surely turning into a male Imelda Marcos, I have started to dislike wearing the same pair twice in a row, depending off course on circumstances. (I am sporting a new pair of Adidas again today; man it is nice to be sample-sized) But Gwooms was not only wearing my shoes again, he was wearing exactly the same outfit, AGAIN. And he hardly looks like he guy who’d be able to get a one-night stand if he’d tried well disguised, oozing rohypnol and sporting several different strengths of chloroform on his shawl.
Gwooms’ shawl, by the way, is one of those checkered frilly tea-towel type things one associates with the lesser washed class of terrorist, if Boyfriend were to reply to this blog as well he’d probably have something to say about it.
Anyways, I know I am a great promoter of the “outfit” style of dressing, where a particular piece would most likely be joined with very definite other pieces, so that at least he’s doing correct. You just shouldn’t do it twice in a row. Especially not when wearing my shoes.
Gwooms still far in the future, I was on the bus this morning. As I get the bus about a stop after the central bus-stop in my little town, there is usually the option of nabbing a seat, which I usually do, as it makes reading that much easier. So as well this morning, no worries. Then, a small, slightly fattish (dimension wise she was a tad bit more spherical than the Willendorf-statue) woman cam on the bus, and stood next to me, then proceeding to take of clothes and dislodge bags, and putting them all, along with her dripping wet umbrella, in the luggage netting above my waterproof head and not at all waterproof book.
Now, this is very wrong for two (2) reasons. First (1st), one should never put anything dripping above a reading Kevin, lest one is willing to carry ones ears back home in ones hat. I did not deliver the smack down of whoopass on this woman because, well, we were on a bus, and I was wearing light colored clothes, and fat people stain like all hell. I should know, I am one.
Second (2nd), even though I know that the luggage shelves are there for our convenience, it is not really common to actually use them. It was even downright odd to see them used at all, especially the way this woman used them. After stationing herself next to my left elbow she proceeded to take of layer after layer after layer of clothing, one more horrendously colored than the last, and piling them onto their less recently discarded counterparts. She was doing this from about 50cm away, though, meaning she had to lean across me, the person next to her, and the person behind me to get her preferred amount of color coded annoyance out among the masses.
Twenty seconds after having stripped down to a simply revolting piece of material that could have been a shift, a tent, or a muumuu, she noticed her stop coming up, and started to do the whole thing in reverse, donning clothing left right and center so as to be fully dressed when she arrived at her bus stop just 3 stops later. All in all, she could have easily walked it, mine is a small town, and the bus curves around it so that the space between where she got on to the bus and where she got of was about half the traveled distance, and would’ve taken all of three minutes to walk, and three and a half to roll.
Strange, strange fat woman.
Grtz,
K.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Tell me why…
First off, I really do hate myself now. It’s Monday, and this blog is about this Monday and the few little reasons why I am not the happiest of Kevins on this particular Monday. Well, I am saying that wrong, actually, I am a reasonably happy Kevin, but also a cranky one. Because it is Monday and assorted other reasons yet to be touched upon in this blog.
So my title today, obviously, is an allusion to the well known song asking why certain people don’t like Mondays. And I hate that. Not because I don’t like the song, because I do actually like the song, but because it is a song often hummed/sung/tapped out on tables by people who simply don’t like Mondays. And, since very few of those people would open fire on a grade school, most of those people have no business doing whatever it is they are doing to this song.
And since I don’t actually intend to open fire on a grade school myself, I really shouldn’t either. But I did. Hypocrisy, thy name is Kevin.
That said, I would’ve gladly opened fire on a number of people, not least the fuckwad that set my alarm for 6.45 this morning (me), so I do have some right to the allusion.
Anyways, those who know me know that I am more or less non-secretly a person who thinks happiness in life is for me and practically nobody else. Those people whose happiness is not a thorn in my side are a small and personally (by me) selected group of individuals who I deem worthy, by virtue of any number of factors, to be deserving of some happiness themselves. For all other people, happiness just seems... well, wrong.
And never as wrong as when they seem to be getting their happiness from something I get my happiness from.
This morning, walking from Tram™ to Job™ I noticed someone wearing my sneakers. Well, not really, as mine were at that point safely at home, resting in my closet, but the same model converse high-tops in black with red piping and stitching. Now, I understand that they do not wait for me to sell these things to people, nor do they take them off the shelves as soon as I have slotted my bankcard through the little machine, so I am prepared to sometimes see things I have in my closet on other people as well. But it has been happening a little bit too often lately, and the annoyance here is cumulative.
Shoes make me happy, therefore I assume shoes make this other person happy, and he is getting his happiness from MY shoes (well, sorta) Thus, he needs some shooting. But then, it was a Monday morning and my aim isn’t remarkably good with pretend rifles as it is so I decided to let it pass, and just fervently hope he’d run into something big and preferably cement-filled on his way to his Job™
Also, this time it wasn’t as bad as when I’d be actually wearing the things myself, but thanks to Boyfriend’s Adidas-employed connections, I am toting a pair of new and rather cool dark blue Adicolor sneakers, so I am a little more forgiving in my deadwishings today.
Moving on into work, I am about knee-deep in idiot-drool by now, and quite frankly, considering my spiffy new shoes, it is not a place I want to be. Idiot drool doesn’t really stain, but it does get tacky pretty swiftly.
But enough for now, just a little rant to break up the style-sections. I’ll try to keep updating reasonably often.
No longer having stripes,
Grtz,
Kevin
So my title today, obviously, is an allusion to the well known song asking why certain people don’t like Mondays. And I hate that. Not because I don’t like the song, because I do actually like the song, but because it is a song often hummed/sung/tapped out on tables by people who simply don’t like Mondays. And, since very few of those people would open fire on a grade school, most of those people have no business doing whatever it is they are doing to this song.
And since I don’t actually intend to open fire on a grade school myself, I really shouldn’t either. But I did. Hypocrisy, thy name is Kevin.
That said, I would’ve gladly opened fire on a number of people, not least the fuckwad that set my alarm for 6.45 this morning (me), so I do have some right to the allusion.
Anyways, those who know me know that I am more or less non-secretly a person who thinks happiness in life is for me and practically nobody else. Those people whose happiness is not a thorn in my side are a small and personally (by me) selected group of individuals who I deem worthy, by virtue of any number of factors, to be deserving of some happiness themselves. For all other people, happiness just seems... well, wrong.
And never as wrong as when they seem to be getting their happiness from something I get my happiness from.
This morning, walking from Tram™ to Job™ I noticed someone wearing my sneakers. Well, not really, as mine were at that point safely at home, resting in my closet, but the same model converse high-tops in black with red piping and stitching. Now, I understand that they do not wait for me to sell these things to people, nor do they take them off the shelves as soon as I have slotted my bankcard through the little machine, so I am prepared to sometimes see things I have in my closet on other people as well. But it has been happening a little bit too often lately, and the annoyance here is cumulative.
Shoes make me happy, therefore I assume shoes make this other person happy, and he is getting his happiness from MY shoes (well, sorta) Thus, he needs some shooting. But then, it was a Monday morning and my aim isn’t remarkably good with pretend rifles as it is so I decided to let it pass, and just fervently hope he’d run into something big and preferably cement-filled on his way to his Job™
Also, this time it wasn’t as bad as when I’d be actually wearing the things myself, but thanks to Boyfriend’s Adidas-employed connections, I am toting a pair of new and rather cool dark blue Adicolor sneakers, so I am a little more forgiving in my deadwishings today.
Moving on into work, I am about knee-deep in idiot-drool by now, and quite frankly, considering my spiffy new shoes, it is not a place I want to be. Idiot drool doesn’t really stain, but it does get tacky pretty swiftly.
But enough for now, just a little rant to break up the style-sections. I’ll try to keep updating reasonably often.
No longer having stripes,
Grtz,
Kevin
Friday, September 21, 2007
Style: Gender Inequality
When looking around oneself in any given high-street or shopping arcade, or even online, in magazines and on the ever-present billboards, one can’t escape noticing that men are getting rather a raw-deal, fashion wise. And we do, actually. Where women have a wide array of clothes to choose from when it comes to style, feel and intent, men can basically opt for about three or four choices, and that’s it. This has not always been the case, of course, men used to be as ranging in their attire as women, but, having been dubbed in some interminable past as the more robust and steadfast of the sexes, we have now been corralled in a very narrow realm of acceptability.
A swift comparison:
Women -Men
The little black dress -Suit (Black)
A little red dress -Suit (Black or Charcoal)
“his” shirt and jeans -Your own shirt and jeans
This wonderful silk blouse with
a simply DIVINE pencil skirt and my
new dark leather boots -Your own (nice) shirt and jeans
Efficient pant-suit in charcoal -Suit (Black or Navy)
Skirt and jacket -Suit (Black)
Cocktail-dress -Suit
Evening-gown -Suit (Maybe tails)
Wedding dress -Suit (Maybe tails or morning)
Granny pants -Boxer or brief
Thong -Boxer or brief
Baby doll -Boxer or brief
Garter belt, stockings, bodice -Boxer or brief (but nice ones)
See a pattern developing here? As a rule, women can walk into a shop and basically buy the same outfit umpteen times in slightly different colors and materials and have a number of different outfits for any mood or occasion, where men walk into a store, buy basically one outfit, and thus have one outfit. But he’ll have five copies of that one outfit.
I believe that this is the reason why men and women cannot shop together. Quite simply it is amazing for any man bred in the last half of this century to see why it is so difficult to pick the “right” items of clothing, mostly because whenever he went shopping there were only a few basic things to choose from. So he gets impatient, she gets annoyed, and it’ll be a cold night in bed tonight...
Two things need to be mentioned here;
1) New appreciation of men’s fashion and grooming has made sure that the availability of different items for the well dressed man (or the badly dressed one, as the case may be) has gone up quite a bit. Thus, the classical bored-with-shopping man will gradually die out a little, and is to an extent a stereotype that many modern men will not identify with at all.
2) Even though the above is an exaggeration it is not a terribly big one, men do have less choice and options as far as clothing is concerned as women. To a certain extent, the difference is academic, as there is still far more than enough to choose from for us, off course, but just less than there is for them. Also, categorizing for men is a dangerous thing to draw conclusions from, as one suit is not another and different cuts and materials have wildly different effects. That said, the same applies for women’s clothing, and the difference remains.
Obviously, the shape of the human body has shifted a little in the last 10000 years or so, but unless one subscribes too literally to Plato, the general number of appendages and suchlike hasn’t changed in any but the more unfortunate cases. Thus, women having the choice of pants and skirts, and men only having pants, limiting our respective options by about half.
Is this mean? No, not really. Is it by times unfair? Yes, absolutely. Is it avoidable? No, not unless the man-skirt gains a little more acceptance, and apart from certain subcultures I am not really seeing that happen anytime soon.
But men do have their options.
I prefer to think of clothing as a sort of blank canvas. Everybody wears clothing and everybody dos it differently, and an individual choice of material, style and color can make a lot form a very basic set. One can think of clothing as a uniform with the option to customize, and nothing shows off individualities as well as a uniform.
There is a tendency among writers to tackle “classic” subjects. The Ghost story, the Vampire story, the Romantic Comedy. Because these are almost archetypical styles, and roughly follow a set of rules and lines within the story, it is a very familiar place to be for the reader. But writers use these typical subjects to show of their own styles and turns, and the devil as well as the divine is really in the details here. And so could, and should, clothing be used.
Boyfriend, lovely man as he is, has a certain personal style in his clothing. He likes cufflinks over buttons, prefers a well cut suit over a flashy one, and has an apparent lifelong desire to own a few well tailored bankers’ shirts. The one with the colored body but white collars and cuffs. A commendable desire, I say, not only because I think he looks good in a suit, but also because a well-cut, classical suit with a well chosen shirt really is a point where it is almost impossible to go wrong.
That said, I do think he is a little too conservative in his attire, and most of our shopping expeditions can be scripted as a good half hour of me badgering him to get out of the mold a little bit, until he gets angry, and we get something about 10% away from his initial idea and onto my preferred result. As a rule, a pleasant exercise in clashing taste with an almost 100% success rate in general goodlookingness of Boyfriend.
As can be seen from the above, I have a completely different idea about formal wear, and have a tendency to be a little less traditional. I go for the bolder ties, contrasting colors and patterns, and have a tendency to be a little more ostentatiously dressed. I think it looks good, and I have been told thus enough times to have a confirmed opinion here.
What I am trying to say here is that we are both wearing a suit, might even both be wearing a suit of the same cut and color, but the way it’s been worn, and what it’s been worn with, can differ dramatically. A bright shirt or tie is a marked difference from a demure one, and different shoes or belts can do a lot as well.
Providing one remains reasonable, but with a personal flourish, it is very easy to adapt the uniform of a suit to an expression of individuality.
But it is, regretfully, easy to go wrong here as well. As a rule, patterns should either match all over, or clash all over. So a striped suit with a striped shirt and a striped tie is ok, if a little staid, but a striped-striped-dotted look will make you look like the tie you wanted to wear was eaten by the dog. Then again, striped-dotted-tartan is a choice, and with the right colors can look very well put together.
A swift comparison:
Women -Men
The little black dress -Suit (Black)
A little red dress -Suit (Black or Charcoal)
“his” shirt and jeans -Your own shirt and jeans
This wonderful silk blouse with
a simply DIVINE pencil skirt and my
new dark leather boots -Your own (nice) shirt and jeans
Efficient pant-suit in charcoal -Suit (Black or Navy)
Skirt and jacket -Suit (Black)
Cocktail-dress -Suit
Evening-gown -Suit (Maybe tails)
Wedding dress -Suit (Maybe tails or morning)
Granny pants -Boxer or brief
Thong -Boxer or brief
Baby doll -Boxer or brief
Garter belt, stockings, bodice -Boxer or brief (but nice ones)
See a pattern developing here? As a rule, women can walk into a shop and basically buy the same outfit umpteen times in slightly different colors and materials and have a number of different outfits for any mood or occasion, where men walk into a store, buy basically one outfit, and thus have one outfit. But he’ll have five copies of that one outfit.
I believe that this is the reason why men and women cannot shop together. Quite simply it is amazing for any man bred in the last half of this century to see why it is so difficult to pick the “right” items of clothing, mostly because whenever he went shopping there were only a few basic things to choose from. So he gets impatient, she gets annoyed, and it’ll be a cold night in bed tonight...
Two things need to be mentioned here;
1) New appreciation of men’s fashion and grooming has made sure that the availability of different items for the well dressed man (or the badly dressed one, as the case may be) has gone up quite a bit. Thus, the classical bored-with-shopping man will gradually die out a little, and is to an extent a stereotype that many modern men will not identify with at all.
2) Even though the above is an exaggeration it is not a terribly big one, men do have less choice and options as far as clothing is concerned as women. To a certain extent, the difference is academic, as there is still far more than enough to choose from for us, off course, but just less than there is for them. Also, categorizing for men is a dangerous thing to draw conclusions from, as one suit is not another and different cuts and materials have wildly different effects. That said, the same applies for women’s clothing, and the difference remains.
Obviously, the shape of the human body has shifted a little in the last 10000 years or so, but unless one subscribes too literally to Plato, the general number of appendages and suchlike hasn’t changed in any but the more unfortunate cases. Thus, women having the choice of pants and skirts, and men only having pants, limiting our respective options by about half.
Is this mean? No, not really. Is it by times unfair? Yes, absolutely. Is it avoidable? No, not unless the man-skirt gains a little more acceptance, and apart from certain subcultures I am not really seeing that happen anytime soon.
But men do have their options.
I prefer to think of clothing as a sort of blank canvas. Everybody wears clothing and everybody dos it differently, and an individual choice of material, style and color can make a lot form a very basic set. One can think of clothing as a uniform with the option to customize, and nothing shows off individualities as well as a uniform.
There is a tendency among writers to tackle “classic” subjects. The Ghost story, the Vampire story, the Romantic Comedy. Because these are almost archetypical styles, and roughly follow a set of rules and lines within the story, it is a very familiar place to be for the reader. But writers use these typical subjects to show of their own styles and turns, and the devil as well as the divine is really in the details here. And so could, and should, clothing be used.
Boyfriend, lovely man as he is, has a certain personal style in his clothing. He likes cufflinks over buttons, prefers a well cut suit over a flashy one, and has an apparent lifelong desire to own a few well tailored bankers’ shirts. The one with the colored body but white collars and cuffs. A commendable desire, I say, not only because I think he looks good in a suit, but also because a well-cut, classical suit with a well chosen shirt really is a point where it is almost impossible to go wrong.
That said, I do think he is a little too conservative in his attire, and most of our shopping expeditions can be scripted as a good half hour of me badgering him to get out of the mold a little bit, until he gets angry, and we get something about 10% away from his initial idea and onto my preferred result. As a rule, a pleasant exercise in clashing taste with an almost 100% success rate in general goodlookingness of Boyfriend.
As can be seen from the above, I have a completely different idea about formal wear, and have a tendency to be a little less traditional. I go for the bolder ties, contrasting colors and patterns, and have a tendency to be a little more ostentatiously dressed. I think it looks good, and I have been told thus enough times to have a confirmed opinion here.
What I am trying to say here is that we are both wearing a suit, might even both be wearing a suit of the same cut and color, but the way it’s been worn, and what it’s been worn with, can differ dramatically. A bright shirt or tie is a marked difference from a demure one, and different shoes or belts can do a lot as well.
Providing one remains reasonable, but with a personal flourish, it is very easy to adapt the uniform of a suit to an expression of individuality.
But it is, regretfully, easy to go wrong here as well. As a rule, patterns should either match all over, or clash all over. So a striped suit with a striped shirt and a striped tie is ok, if a little staid, but a striped-striped-dotted look will make you look like the tie you wanted to wear was eaten by the dog. Then again, striped-dotted-tartan is a choice, and with the right colors can look very well put together.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Style: Happenings, too much or not enough
Another slightly more general message from the more stylistically inclined parts of my personality, this time of an oft made mistake in dressing and adorning ones’ self: stuff.
Yes, stuff, that’s the technical term for all the things that are happening on or in your outfit. Accessories, colors, prints, they all add up to a busy or sedate look, depending on choices. They also add up to a look that suits you to a tee, or a look that you should not consider even if you know everybody around you is or will shortly be blind.
So how does one explain succinctly when or how something in or on an outfit is something that “happens” instead of just a part of the base outfit? Good question, and not easy to answer. Well, actually, it is. Anything that is NOT the base color or cut of your outfit, hair or skin is “something happening”. Yes, skin and hair as well, no outfit is an outfit without someone in it, and just because it works on someone else does not mean it works on you, so you should always consider what you look like yourself before considering what you look like in a particular piece or set of clothes.
But as far as happenings go, consider this to include, but not exclusively mean, earrings, prints, tassels, streaks, belts, shoes, socks, bracelets, necklaces, glitter, feathers and so on ad infinitum.
As a swift illustration, a few outfits, one with almost nothing happening, one with a lot happening:
In these two outfits it is easy to see which of the two has more happening to it than the other. The first outfit has simple lines, few decorations, and few distractions from the base of the outfit. I counted on first sight the three points highlighted, the sleeves, the beadwork on the bodice, and the beads and feathers on the train.
The second outfit immediately strikes as a lot busier, and not for nothing either, six items of distraction noted on the first look, to wit: the grey blazer to offset the black and green, the bow on that blazer, the long stole, the green shirt, the bag, and the pattern on the skirt in contrasting colors.
Which is better? Neither, depending on what you want to achieve. More stylish? Again, neither. There is no hard and fast rule what to wear where, after all. These two outfits are both very stylish, if in completely different ways.
Now for somewhat of a test. Two more pictures:
Which of these two has more happening?
Neither? Roughly correct. Both have a number of details and points that distract from the general outfit. The red outfit has the cap, the collar, the gloves, the wide cut of the pants, the epaulettes, the make up and the sown in crease of the lapel, where the colorful flapper has her shoes, her make-up, the hair, the fur, the coat-pattern, the hair-decoration and the large patterning on the dress to accentuate what she is wearing.
But how to decide when you have too much happening to an outfit? Well, a reasonable rule of thumb would appear gestaltlike from the above two pictures. To my mind, the red outfit has exactly the right amount of things done to the basic cut of her outfit, although she could stand to lose the hat, whereas the flapper has a riot of distractions, and it takes a good measure of woman to not be lost between all the contrasts and attention grabbers. Thus, it would almost be safe to say that contrast is the key here. If we look at the above two pictures again, and rate the distractions, according to contrast, then the red outfit suddenly has no distractions, as none contrast with the outfit itself, whereas the flapper has almost no distractions that don’t contrast at all.
One or two things that offset an outfit, like a belt or a pocket handkerchief, can look very stylish, but if it becomes impossible to see what the outfit was all about in the first place, style is often thrown right out the window. It has been said that one should create an outfit, stand in front of a mirror and remove the first thing that catches ones eye, and this is a good rule to live by, as it would nine times out of ten be the thing that contrasts most sharply with the rest of the outfit. Adding an extra piece so you have something to safely remove would be considered cheating, by the way, and cheating is rarely a recipe for style. No one really likes looking like they have just thrown something together in the morning, and nobody really has to.
Yes, stuff, that’s the technical term for all the things that are happening on or in your outfit. Accessories, colors, prints, they all add up to a busy or sedate look, depending on choices. They also add up to a look that suits you to a tee, or a look that you should not consider even if you know everybody around you is or will shortly be blind.
So how does one explain succinctly when or how something in or on an outfit is something that “happens” instead of just a part of the base outfit? Good question, and not easy to answer. Well, actually, it is. Anything that is NOT the base color or cut of your outfit, hair or skin is “something happening”. Yes, skin and hair as well, no outfit is an outfit without someone in it, and just because it works on someone else does not mean it works on you, so you should always consider what you look like yourself before considering what you look like in a particular piece or set of clothes.
But as far as happenings go, consider this to include, but not exclusively mean, earrings, prints, tassels, streaks, belts, shoes, socks, bracelets, necklaces, glitter, feathers and so on ad infinitum.
As a swift illustration, a few outfits, one with almost nothing happening, one with a lot happening:
In these two outfits it is easy to see which of the two has more happening to it than the other. The first outfit has simple lines, few decorations, and few distractions from the base of the outfit. I counted on first sight the three points highlighted, the sleeves, the beadwork on the bodice, and the beads and feathers on the train.The second outfit immediately strikes as a lot busier, and not for nothing either, six items of distraction noted on the first look, to wit: the grey blazer to offset the black and green, the bow on that blazer, the long stole, the green shirt, the bag, and the pattern on the skirt in contrasting colors.
Which is better? Neither, depending on what you want to achieve. More stylish? Again, neither. There is no hard and fast rule what to wear where, after all. These two outfits are both very stylish, if in completely different ways.
Now for somewhat of a test. Two more pictures:
Which of these two has more happening?Neither? Roughly correct. Both have a number of details and points that distract from the general outfit. The red outfit has the cap, the collar, the gloves, the wide cut of the pants, the epaulettes, the make up and the sown in crease of the lapel, where the colorful flapper has her shoes, her make-up, the hair, the fur, the coat-pattern, the hair-decoration and the large patterning on the dress to accentuate what she is wearing.
But how to decide when you have too much happening to an outfit? Well, a reasonable rule of thumb would appear gestaltlike from the above two pictures. To my mind, the red outfit has exactly the right amount of things done to the basic cut of her outfit, although she could stand to lose the hat, whereas the flapper has a riot of distractions, and it takes a good measure of woman to not be lost between all the contrasts and attention grabbers. Thus, it would almost be safe to say that contrast is the key here. If we look at the above two pictures again, and rate the distractions, according to contrast, then the red outfit suddenly has no distractions, as none contrast with the outfit itself, whereas the flapper has almost no distractions that don’t contrast at all.
One or two things that offset an outfit, like a belt or a pocket handkerchief, can look very stylish, but if it becomes impossible to see what the outfit was all about in the first place, style is often thrown right out the window. It has been said that one should create an outfit, stand in front of a mirror and remove the first thing that catches ones eye, and this is a good rule to live by, as it would nine times out of ten be the thing that contrasts most sharply with the rest of the outfit. Adding an extra piece so you have something to safely remove would be considered cheating, by the way, and cheating is rarely a recipe for style. No one really likes looking like they have just thrown something together in the morning, and nobody really has to.
Alternatively, if you stand in front of your mirror and notice that nothing catches your eye, you might be in danger of looking dull. And there is no style in dullness either. But then one has to find items that work well with an already chosen outfit, and that isn’t easy. Men, we have the positive side that almost all jewelry marketed for us will look good on most outfits; simple bracelets or necklaces will easily get you from Jeans-and-t-shirt to metrosexual. Women have it a little less easy, and are tempted to go overboard where men remain too bland.
A simple cut, easy line with little in the way of distraction can be helped by a brooch or a reasonably sparkly necklace, or even by putting a little extra time in hair and make-up, using your outfit merely as a frame for a pretty face.
To end this thing, men, everything above applies to us as well as to the women, just because examples in female fashion are easier to give does not mean we get a fee ride here. To illustrate, I am leaving you with two pictures of current men’s fashion, both with roughly the same amount of happenings, but not quite with the same effect.
A simple cut, easy line with little in the way of distraction can be helped by a brooch or a reasonably sparkly necklace, or even by putting a little extra time in hair and make-up, using your outfit merely as a frame for a pretty face.
To end this thing, men, everything above applies to us as well as to the women, just because examples in female fashion are easier to give does not mean we get a fee ride here. To illustrate, I am leaving you with two pictures of current men’s fashion, both with roughly the same amount of happenings, but not quite with the same effect.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Style: General Comments
Because any reasonable Style section in any reasonable magazine is going to repeat itself over and over again anyways like a hamster reading out the brand of his spinnywheelthing, mine should not be a real exception to that rule. However, to make my own life and yours as a reader a little bit more interesting and in the long run rewarding, I am going to pre-empt the whole repetition thing by going into some base values of what style is and should be, so I can just allude to the main points later on and safely assume everybody will know what I am talking about. Or wrongly assume everybody knows what I am talking about. Same difference.
Style vs. Fashion
Style is not the same as fashion, although sometimes they do overlap quite a bit. It is entirely possible to be imminently stylish but not at all fashionable, and vice versa. The first, however, is far more likely. It has been said (by me, often) that style is what stays after fashion goes away, and up to a certain level, this is true, providing one takes a very long view of fashion, say a good 1000 years or so. As a rule, style is intricately personal, and uses what is available, where fashion is group-based, and creates availability.
Common sense
Common sense is one of the mayor points in both creating and having (a) style, and both are almost impossible to achieve without it. Obviously, those completely devoid of common sense but still striving for style can hire a stylist, but that would be a sensible thing to do, thus negating the lack of common sense again.
Applying common sense to appearance and wardrobe is actually surprisingly easy to advice, but very hard to do, judging from the amount of utter crap that still lingers despondently unworn on several of the shelves in my own wardrobe.
I will not give a hard and fast line on this topic, as I hope to brush against it often in these bits and most of this column will be heavily based on what I deem common sense anyway.
Size, or “the fact that it fits you does not mean it’s your size”
This particular subject is going to get its own blog, obviously, but bears saying something now. There really is very little more detrimental to looking good than picking a wrong size for your body. This goes both ways; as dressing in things that are too small can be as detracting from your looks as dressing in too over-sized a fabrication. Depressingly enough, a great deal of people have no idea what size they should be wearing, and thus wear things they really should not even have looked at in the first place. As a hint, anything that pushes your body into a shape it does not usually have is probably too small for you, and anything that does not show the shape your body usually has stands a good change of being too big. Neither is flattering in theory, and most certainly neither is stylish. One is almost always best of with things that skim one’s contours but leave some room to move comfortably.
Comfort
As style is dependent not only on you and your body, but also on your environment and personal situation, giving advice concerning comfort is difficult. Slack pants and a big t-shirt certainly are comfortable, but not in a large social gathering, and they certainly won’t make you feel more comfortable in the wrong company. That said; well-cut boot-cuts, good shoes and a fitted shirt can be less easy to move around in, but make you feel a lot more on top of the situation mostly.
All things being equal, however, you will look good in what feels good, and what feels good will show itself when you think for a little bit about the situations you are likely to encounter.
Vibe
A conversation with Boyfriend a little while ago about the way people dress actually prompted this series of solipsistic extravaganza, and most importantly, the fact that a lot of people miss the plank completely when it concerns what they want to show with the way they dress and what it actually shows.
A good example here is the classic comb-over, which generations of men think as shown a full head of hear where it more correctly points out the fact that there actually is no full head of hair. A woman dressing a little too brightly and too small thinking it shows she has a youthful outlook on life stands a better chance of showing not just her real age but going several years over when viewed from outside her own head.
To a certain extent, it is unavoidable that even the most careful planning and attention to detail might sometimes miss its objective, but the likelihood of this situation decreases massively when one puts some effort into staying within the lines of ones ability.
All in all, I have started this Style-section of my blog to put into words my own thoughts on the subject, but also because I have been asked in the past to get some ideas on paper about this. It is in no way meant as a style guide or some such, although I personally think it could become one over time. For now, it is just a showcase for me of mistakes I have seen made and can illustrate, and the wonderful things one sees and can share. And it is all about sharing, off course.
Style vs. Fashion
Style is not the same as fashion, although sometimes they do overlap quite a bit. It is entirely possible to be imminently stylish but not at all fashionable, and vice versa. The first, however, is far more likely. It has been said (by me, often) that style is what stays after fashion goes away, and up to a certain level, this is true, providing one takes a very long view of fashion, say a good 1000 years or so. As a rule, style is intricately personal, and uses what is available, where fashion is group-based, and creates availability.
Common sense
Common sense is one of the mayor points in both creating and having (a) style, and both are almost impossible to achieve without it. Obviously, those completely devoid of common sense but still striving for style can hire a stylist, but that would be a sensible thing to do, thus negating the lack of common sense again.
Applying common sense to appearance and wardrobe is actually surprisingly easy to advice, but very hard to do, judging from the amount of utter crap that still lingers despondently unworn on several of the shelves in my own wardrobe.
I will not give a hard and fast line on this topic, as I hope to brush against it often in these bits and most of this column will be heavily based on what I deem common sense anyway.
Size, or “the fact that it fits you does not mean it’s your size”
This particular subject is going to get its own blog, obviously, but bears saying something now. There really is very little more detrimental to looking good than picking a wrong size for your body. This goes both ways; as dressing in things that are too small can be as detracting from your looks as dressing in too over-sized a fabrication. Depressingly enough, a great deal of people have no idea what size they should be wearing, and thus wear things they really should not even have looked at in the first place. As a hint, anything that pushes your body into a shape it does not usually have is probably too small for you, and anything that does not show the shape your body usually has stands a good change of being too big. Neither is flattering in theory, and most certainly neither is stylish. One is almost always best of with things that skim one’s contours but leave some room to move comfortably.
Comfort
As style is dependent not only on you and your body, but also on your environment and personal situation, giving advice concerning comfort is difficult. Slack pants and a big t-shirt certainly are comfortable, but not in a large social gathering, and they certainly won’t make you feel more comfortable in the wrong company. That said; well-cut boot-cuts, good shoes and a fitted shirt can be less easy to move around in, but make you feel a lot more on top of the situation mostly.
All things being equal, however, you will look good in what feels good, and what feels good will show itself when you think for a little bit about the situations you are likely to encounter.
Vibe
A conversation with Boyfriend a little while ago about the way people dress actually prompted this series of solipsistic extravaganza, and most importantly, the fact that a lot of people miss the plank completely when it concerns what they want to show with the way they dress and what it actually shows.
A good example here is the classic comb-over, which generations of men think as shown a full head of hear where it more correctly points out the fact that there actually is no full head of hair. A woman dressing a little too brightly and too small thinking it shows she has a youthful outlook on life stands a better chance of showing not just her real age but going several years over when viewed from outside her own head.
To a certain extent, it is unavoidable that even the most careful planning and attention to detail might sometimes miss its objective, but the likelihood of this situation decreases massively when one puts some effort into staying within the lines of ones ability.
All in all, I have started this Style-section of my blog to put into words my own thoughts on the subject, but also because I have been asked in the past to get some ideas on paper about this. It is in no way meant as a style guide or some such, although I personally think it could become one over time. For now, it is just a showcase for me of mistakes I have seen made and can illustrate, and the wonderful things one sees and can share. And it is all about sharing, off course.
Fashion!
Well… fashion… fashion… style, maybe. And even if that, MY ideas of style, which might not always match with other’s ideas of same. Having had some small schooling in the field of fashion, and a long abiding interest in the field of style, and having made my own good measure of momentous fuck-ups, I believe I have acquired at my young age a good eye for “what looks good” and what doesn’t, and a reasonable ability to match things from that first category to the people around me and myself.
I think my greatest fabfashionmoment was when M, a friend who shall remain an initial for this scriptorial, asked me to join her on a shopping trip, for shits and giggles. We arrived at a large clothing store where we swiftly dived into the stacks, pulling out a lot of things we thought looked ok, among which a pair of dusty green linen pants and a brightly printed purple top. Well, I thought it looked nice, she didn’t. Didn’t, until she came out of the changing rooms (some pressure was applied) and completely loved the outfit. She was actually commented upon it several times, and called me very excitedly when she saw a tv-presenter dressed in exactly the same outfit. I was very happy then, and am so still.
So I think I have a reasonable eye for the gross lines of style, and as such am going to create a number of blogs on that and directly related topics, starting of with the one directly after this one, which should be published later today. As a title and category for these, I will try to create an easy to reach label. Most likely: Style:[topic]
Feedback will be, as always, greatly appreciated.
I think my greatest fabfashionmoment was when M, a friend who shall remain an initial for this scriptorial, asked me to join her on a shopping trip, for shits and giggles. We arrived at a large clothing store where we swiftly dived into the stacks, pulling out a lot of things we thought looked ok, among which a pair of dusty green linen pants and a brightly printed purple top. Well, I thought it looked nice, she didn’t. Didn’t, until she came out of the changing rooms (some pressure was applied) and completely loved the outfit. She was actually commented upon it several times, and called me very excitedly when she saw a tv-presenter dressed in exactly the same outfit. I was very happy then, and am so still.
So I think I have a reasonable eye for the gross lines of style, and as such am going to create a number of blogs on that and directly related topics, starting of with the one directly after this one, which should be published later today. As a title and category for these, I will try to create an easy to reach label. Most likely: Style:[topic]
Feedback will be, as always, greatly appreciated.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Back is I
Hello Possums.
It’s been a while since my last blog, and I have to apologise. As idle hands are the devil’s playground, these particular hands have been a small swing and a bouncy chicken for the last six or so weeks, both with regards to the actual day-job and the blogging addendum to said day-job.
Basically, I have been looking for work, and because boredom leads to inactivity for me, I have also not been blogging. Not been doing an enormous amount of anything, actually. Well, Boyfriend has purchased quite a large storage devise, and the paperwork concerning mortgages and suchlike has kept us both busy translating and then fighting over the translations for a few days, and Housemates return from the US and the thus added social options of seemingly endless picture viewing-parties have accounted for about 600 years of my time as well, but really, there is no excuse, I have been a bad blogger.
But now I have a job again, and thus I need my belletristic reprieve from the hazards of a customer-facing profession. Also, in my time of idleness I have been able to watch a number of movies and suchlike, and I might have something to say about things.
Those things, however, will have to wait for now, as this is simply a message to let every single one of my readers (5 people, still) know that I am both back and in good enough mental and physical help to start blogging again.
Stripes at 00010 “we apologise for the gap in delivery”
Kevin.
It’s been a while since my last blog, and I have to apologise. As idle hands are the devil’s playground, these particular hands have been a small swing and a bouncy chicken for the last six or so weeks, both with regards to the actual day-job and the blogging addendum to said day-job.
Basically, I have been looking for work, and because boredom leads to inactivity for me, I have also not been blogging. Not been doing an enormous amount of anything, actually. Well, Boyfriend has purchased quite a large storage devise, and the paperwork concerning mortgages and suchlike has kept us both busy translating and then fighting over the translations for a few days, and Housemates return from the US and the thus added social options of seemingly endless picture viewing-parties have accounted for about 600 years of my time as well, but really, there is no excuse, I have been a bad blogger.
But now I have a job again, and thus I need my belletristic reprieve from the hazards of a customer-facing profession. Also, in my time of idleness I have been able to watch a number of movies and suchlike, and I might have something to say about things.
Those things, however, will have to wait for now, as this is simply a message to let every single one of my readers (5 people, still) know that I am both back and in good enough mental and physical help to start blogging again.
Stripes at 00010 “we apologise for the gap in delivery”
Kevin.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Snobism, zombies and the loss of emotional speed,
I consider myself a snob. Not too the extent that I believe I am better than anybody else, but to the extent that I have trouble understanding or really believing that anybody can lack having experienced what I have experienced and still call themselves a cultured human being. Thus, if someone expresses to me the fact they believe they are a cultured human being, I immediately assume they will have seen every movie I have ever seen, listened to every song I have ever listened to, and eaten the same food in the same restaurants I have eaten them in. Not only that, but I take for granted that they have taken the same thing from all these experiences I have taken from them. The basic result of this is the situation where I will start quoting and rehashing and suchlike, and when I am met with the customary blank stare of my conversational partner, who almost inevitably never really paid that much attention to the dress worn by the second interviewee in a movie they didn’t really like five years ago, I immediately assume this conversational partner is full of shit and not worth talking to. Snobbery, thy name is Kevin.
This is not to say I only do or see those things I consider high-browed, as can be evidenced by the massive amount of people who saw me trying to masticate a hotdog last Saturday, while simultaneously trying to hide the evidence of doing so with all the verve of an elephant trying to hide in a mouse-hole.
In light of my ongoing quest to never miss a culturally important development in the realms of schlock-horror and bad exploitation, I have done something yesterday I have not often done before and more than likely never will do again. I have sat through what was effectively a zombie movie. And I despise zombie-movies. Why? They give me nightmares.
But as soon as the silver sneak screen yesterday flashed the opening credits of “Planet Terror”, Robert Rodriguez ‘ contribution to the double feature escapade set up by him and Quentin Tarantino, two things happened:
1) Boyfriend assured me that he would protect me from the zombies
2) I remembered that even though I hate Zombies I do love Rose McGowan, and the idea of her with a gun for a leg did it for me, in a completely platonic move way
So we stayed, and watched, and retched. Yes, retched. Without giving away even a single quark of the plot, this movie has gore. Good, fun, wholesome gore. Gore that befits the set-up of a seventies flashback really, which is the general idea behind the Grindhouse-double feature, the other half of which consists of Tarantino’s “Death Proof” which also has plenty of gore, even though it lacks somewhat in the zombie department.
Because for me it is almost impossible to talk about a movie without spoiling it like a tomato left out in the sun, I want to talk about the double feature idea itself, and more specifically about the moment where both movies lose some of their speed. And I am going to do this after this short introductory interlude that will seem to have nothing to do with the plot of this blog so far.
There is an meme running rampant in the mind of the horror aficionado that one should never “open the door”, for what I can imagine behind the door will always be infinitely more frightening than what is going to actually be behind the door. Suggestion, swift flashes and shadows hinting at the monster are more effective in many ways than the actual image of a slobbering pile of well animated plastic. Thus the build up to the reveal of what is behind the door should be a slow and subtle process, reminiscent of the best works of H.P. Lovecraft and Alfred Hitchcock. If the monster is shown to soon, the tension leaves swiftly to be replaced with scared little jumps whenever it appears suddenly again. That said, the monster should at some point be seen and explained, or there is no emotional investment in surviving the horror, which, after all, is not absolutely there.
To my mind the current spate of wet-little-ghostly-kids-in-long-hallways-style J-horror flaunts the rule above like there is no tomorrow, often staging a good part of the action after we have had a graphic and lengthy close-up of whatever is animating the little kid in all her glorious wetness. To me this means I am full of tension for about half an hour into the movie until we see the tentacle puppet master and then I sit there for an hour more thinking “Bah”.
I have started describing this as Emotional Speed vs Actual Speed, where ES is the swiftness of the emotions inside me and AS is the speed of what is actually happening in the movie. As long as I am investing in the development of the movie in my mind, the ES is quite high, but it is likely to happen during character build up and development, which means AS is usually low. Then, when shit hits the proverbial fan, the ES goes down and the AS starts up, with ES running steadily along in the background because I know these people now and want them to survive. Or die horribly if I find them truly annoying, which happens often.
The two “Grindhouse” movies lack nothing in AS, but quite a bit of ES. Strangely enough, and much as I would like to deny it, the Tarantino flick moves along at a pleasant to a swift pace in both cases for the first half, leaving a little of in the second one as far as ES is concerned, but in an entertaining and rewarding way, I would almost say. “Planet terror” Started of swiftly, stayed swift, and used characters and situations so darned swift in set up and movement it was almost impossible to invest emotionally. The few characters that were set up calmly and nicely instilled nothing so much as a “good on her” feeling in myself and Boyfriend, and the rest of the movie just invited to be torn apart.
All in all, choosing between the two is not something I would do, personally. They are enjoyable in their own right and work well together. If you are however looking for the better movie, see “Death Proof”. Not because it is excellent, but because I spent some time after the movie talking about it with people, dissecting it to some extent and wondering about it’s inner workings. With “Planet Terror” all I said was “That was gross, and I hope I don’t get nightmares”. Which I didn’t, by the way.
Well, it is late now, and I need my beauty sleep,
Till next time, stripes at “any nightmare free zombie is a good zombie”
Kevin
This is not to say I only do or see those things I consider high-browed, as can be evidenced by the massive amount of people who saw me trying to masticate a hotdog last Saturday, while simultaneously trying to hide the evidence of doing so with all the verve of an elephant trying to hide in a mouse-hole.
In light of my ongoing quest to never miss a culturally important development in the realms of schlock-horror and bad exploitation, I have done something yesterday I have not often done before and more than likely never will do again. I have sat through what was effectively a zombie movie. And I despise zombie-movies. Why? They give me nightmares.
But as soon as the silver sneak screen yesterday flashed the opening credits of “Planet Terror”, Robert Rodriguez ‘ contribution to the double feature escapade set up by him and Quentin Tarantino, two things happened:
1) Boyfriend assured me that he would protect me from the zombies
2) I remembered that even though I hate Zombies I do love Rose McGowan, and the idea of her with a gun for a leg did it for me, in a completely platonic move way
So we stayed, and watched, and retched. Yes, retched. Without giving away even a single quark of the plot, this movie has gore. Good, fun, wholesome gore. Gore that befits the set-up of a seventies flashback really, which is the general idea behind the Grindhouse-double feature, the other half of which consists of Tarantino’s “Death Proof” which also has plenty of gore, even though it lacks somewhat in the zombie department.
Because for me it is almost impossible to talk about a movie without spoiling it like a tomato left out in the sun, I want to talk about the double feature idea itself, and more specifically about the moment where both movies lose some of their speed. And I am going to do this after this short introductory interlude that will seem to have nothing to do with the plot of this blog so far.
There is an meme running rampant in the mind of the horror aficionado that one should never “open the door”, for what I can imagine behind the door will always be infinitely more frightening than what is going to actually be behind the door. Suggestion, swift flashes and shadows hinting at the monster are more effective in many ways than the actual image of a slobbering pile of well animated plastic. Thus the build up to the reveal of what is behind the door should be a slow and subtle process, reminiscent of the best works of H.P. Lovecraft and Alfred Hitchcock. If the monster is shown to soon, the tension leaves swiftly to be replaced with scared little jumps whenever it appears suddenly again. That said, the monster should at some point be seen and explained, or there is no emotional investment in surviving the horror, which, after all, is not absolutely there.
To my mind the current spate of wet-little-ghostly-kids-in-long-hallways-style J-horror flaunts the rule above like there is no tomorrow, often staging a good part of the action after we have had a graphic and lengthy close-up of whatever is animating the little kid in all her glorious wetness. To me this means I am full of tension for about half an hour into the movie until we see the tentacle puppet master and then I sit there for an hour more thinking “Bah”.
I have started describing this as Emotional Speed vs Actual Speed, where ES is the swiftness of the emotions inside me and AS is the speed of what is actually happening in the movie. As long as I am investing in the development of the movie in my mind, the ES is quite high, but it is likely to happen during character build up and development, which means AS is usually low. Then, when shit hits the proverbial fan, the ES goes down and the AS starts up, with ES running steadily along in the background because I know these people now and want them to survive. Or die horribly if I find them truly annoying, which happens often.
The two “Grindhouse” movies lack nothing in AS, but quite a bit of ES. Strangely enough, and much as I would like to deny it, the Tarantino flick moves along at a pleasant to a swift pace in both cases for the first half, leaving a little of in the second one as far as ES is concerned, but in an entertaining and rewarding way, I would almost say. “Planet terror” Started of swiftly, stayed swift, and used characters and situations so darned swift in set up and movement it was almost impossible to invest emotionally. The few characters that were set up calmly and nicely instilled nothing so much as a “good on her” feeling in myself and Boyfriend, and the rest of the movie just invited to be torn apart.
All in all, choosing between the two is not something I would do, personally. They are enjoyable in their own right and work well together. If you are however looking for the better movie, see “Death Proof”. Not because it is excellent, but because I spent some time after the movie talking about it with people, dissecting it to some extent and wondering about it’s inner workings. With “Planet Terror” all I said was “That was gross, and I hope I don’t get nightmares”. Which I didn’t, by the way.
Well, it is late now, and I need my beauty sleep,
Till next time, stripes at “any nightmare free zombie is a good zombie”
Kevin
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Look of Love
If the book of love is long and boring, the look of love is rarely so. This morning I had the dubious pleasure of being spectator of a missed match as profound as was I watching Dr. Zhivago. I was honestly tempted to start whistling Laura’s theme, but couldn’t think of the melody.
I take the bus in the morning, and due to issues with my normal buslines, I know have to take a bus in between my normal busses. Getting into this blasted second bus that I usually share with an assortment of drooling idiots and human flotsam (that last category I consider myself a proud member of, but not at 8 in the morning (because I am hardly human at that time (if ever))) this morning my beauty appreciating eye noticed a blond young man with absurdly blue eyes. This was as may be, and not really interesting as I have my own beautiful man at home and little need of blue eyed men on busses, so I launched myself into the fray of finding the least droolcovered seats and took out my book.
I noticed at the next stop that BEB (Blue Eyed Blond) was roughly in my line of sight. I also noticed that he was sort of immediately in the line of sight of a dark haired boy that had just entered the bus. This was a fact that was not missed by DHB (Dark Haired Boy) as he was basically rooted at the spot.
It was seriously beautiful to see. This new boy obviously immediately infatuated with BEB, but since this last was looking out of the window DHB could do little more but standing there with brown eyes melting over the object of his sudden affection.
Checking himself he turned round, at which precise moment BEB looked around as well, caught DHB in profile and the same situation basically happened in reverse.
BEB looked at DHB’ back and profile as a drowning man looking at a lifeboat, and with the recognizable hopelessness that comes with complete and utter love and the uncertainty of how to achieve it.
For the remainder of the bustrip these two managed to continue not looking at each other with a precision that would have put teams of synchronized swimmers to shame. When one turned, the other looked, and they were constantly split-seconds from noticing the other mirroring their grownng despair. Had but one looked a second longer they would’ve really seen each other, and who knows what would have happened. Every romantic fibre in my body screamed at life’s dishonesty at keeping these two apart, and at the same time all those fibres rejoiced at the idea that this type of drama hasn’t left the lives we lead today.
I hope they met up at the last stop and exchanged shy smiles and glances, they looked like they would have been a very nice couple, but in my head it is inevitable that they met up, and are already well on their way to their first cup of coffee.
It was like watching a really sweet romantic movie, frustrating, gladdening, uplifting. Now I am at work, waiting to go home and have my own lovey moments with the guy that luckily for me DID look the right way at the right moment, and has been looking that way a good many times after that.
For now, stripes at “follow your heart”,
Kevin
I take the bus in the morning, and due to issues with my normal buslines, I know have to take a bus in between my normal busses. Getting into this blasted second bus that I usually share with an assortment of drooling idiots and human flotsam (that last category I consider myself a proud member of, but not at 8 in the morning (because I am hardly human at that time (if ever))) this morning my beauty appreciating eye noticed a blond young man with absurdly blue eyes. This was as may be, and not really interesting as I have my own beautiful man at home and little need of blue eyed men on busses, so I launched myself into the fray of finding the least droolcovered seats and took out my book.
I noticed at the next stop that BEB (Blue Eyed Blond) was roughly in my line of sight. I also noticed that he was sort of immediately in the line of sight of a dark haired boy that had just entered the bus. This was a fact that was not missed by DHB (Dark Haired Boy) as he was basically rooted at the spot.
It was seriously beautiful to see. This new boy obviously immediately infatuated with BEB, but since this last was looking out of the window DHB could do little more but standing there with brown eyes melting over the object of his sudden affection.
Checking himself he turned round, at which precise moment BEB looked around as well, caught DHB in profile and the same situation basically happened in reverse.
BEB looked at DHB’ back and profile as a drowning man looking at a lifeboat, and with the recognizable hopelessness that comes with complete and utter love and the uncertainty of how to achieve it.
For the remainder of the bustrip these two managed to continue not looking at each other with a precision that would have put teams of synchronized swimmers to shame. When one turned, the other looked, and they were constantly split-seconds from noticing the other mirroring their grownng despair. Had but one looked a second longer they would’ve really seen each other, and who knows what would have happened. Every romantic fibre in my body screamed at life’s dishonesty at keeping these two apart, and at the same time all those fibres rejoiced at the idea that this type of drama hasn’t left the lives we lead today.
I hope they met up at the last stop and exchanged shy smiles and glances, they looked like they would have been a very nice couple, but in my head it is inevitable that they met up, and are already well on their way to their first cup of coffee.
It was like watching a really sweet romantic movie, frustrating, gladdening, uplifting. Now I am at work, waiting to go home and have my own lovey moments with the guy that luckily for me DID look the right way at the right moment, and has been looking that way a good many times after that.
For now, stripes at “follow your heart”,
Kevin
Monday, June 18, 2007
A rare restaurant review.
Umoja, meaning “unity” in Swahili but apparently “slow and rude” in almost any other language, is the name of a restaurant that Boyfriend had passed and noticed a few times on his way to the station, and he wanted to try it and see if it was as good as it looked.
So, when we were invited by Ms O, a friend of Boyfriends’ to spend a night eatin’ and boozin’ in Amsterdam, he decided to prompt this culinary interest and guided us through its doors for the first try-out of this remarkable restaurant.
First, and last, if I have anything to say about it.
Truth be told, this restaurant really does look great. Very stylish, very clean, and very comfortable. This comfort quickly evaporated when we sat down at the table, as the hip-looking chairs had really understood the idea behind looking “design” and were about as comfortable as spending the night on a banister. That said, we had one of the few higher, 4 person tables, the other tables were low, and set up to seat two, and looked more comfortable.
After having sat down for a while, actually quite a long while, we got our first round of drinks. Since there were three of us, we asked if the 4th couvert could be taken away as well, which is only easier, and since I still do not drink anything alcoholic, I asked if my wineglasses could be taken away as well. The reaction to all this was the first time I felt like just leaving, as my question was met as was I a 3-year old sitting at the grown-ups table. For a second I had to check Ms O and Boyfriends face to be sure I had asked if my wineglasses could be taken away, as it was entirely possible I had asked the waiter to take the monster from under my bed, judging from his response.
Things did not quite improve from there on in. Our waitresses consisted of two people, a tallish man (TM) and a short woman (SW). It was tallish man that had already relocated me to the kiddies table by virtue as approach, so I was obviously more kindly disposed to short woman. SW at one point suddenly appeared beside my right arm with enough suddenness to completely freak me out, which is also always a good basis for a friendly relationship.
Anyway, about half an hour after ordering our drinks, we actually got to see them, and the tone was set for the evening. The tone, and the speed. The speed being “slow”.
We opted to go for the “surprise of the chef” 4 course meal, and it lasted for 4 hours. Which was, quite simply, too long.
Not that the food was bad, it was absolutely acceptable food, reasonable quality, and prepared with quite some care. A shame that it did not rise above the standard of a home-cooked meal in terms of quality or inventiveness.
But really, the speed which was garnered for almost everything, or better, the lack thereof, was what truly turned me off this restaurant. It is all nice and well doing a surprise menu, but of the 4 courses plus amuse bouche and bread, only the main course was actually warm, the rest being salads and carpaccios, which need not take more than 15 minutes. The fact that every course had about 40 minutes till the next one was absurd. It started to be a race against the loss of topics of conversation after a while, and in a group that has me and Boyfriend this is not a common occurrence.
At some point the wine that Ms O had ordered smelled and tasted suspiciously of cork. Not a good thing in wine, this taste, and it was sent back. After the customary “while” a new glass was brought, with an insulting little ditty about how he had decided to open a new bottle, just for her. Well, yes, and the fact that the last bottle had been fungussaly spoiled, duckweed.
The absolute coup de grace for this restaurants’ chances of revisiting was the asking for the bill. Well, not the asking, but the delivery. It came about 20 minutes after we asked (reasonable) and we were then left alone for almost half an hour (unacceptable). After a while, boyfriend walked to the back of the restaurant, he was going to pay with his bankcard anyway and the machines to do so are usually around the register.
Boyfriend came back swiftly, had apparently been ordered back to his chair and told to wait until they came by with their little machine. This is obviously just not done, he is there, the machine is there, let the man pay, I say.
But well, back he went, and after about 20 more minutes, he decided to try again.
This time he was again told that he needed to stay in his seat, as they were serving desserts, and off course he understood (no).
At least the little mobile PINthing followed him to the table this time, we paid the absurdly overpriced bill, WITH the cost of the spoiled wine on it as well, and left the restaurant, deciding to never eat there again, and the resolution to be more assertive in restaurants from now on, as I had wanted to leave after the first snubbing and should've.
I hope all who read this decide the same on the restaurants part, and remember that we pay these people to have a good time in their places, and as such can expect a return on our investment.
Stripes at “never again”
Kevin.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Yes, but is it Art?
Last Sunday, Housemate, Boyfriend and I were up and about at the ungodly hour of 3a.m. to participate in a large scaled installation piece in the centre of Amsterdam. The reasonably well-known artist Spencer Tunick had chosen the background of an inner-city parking garage to stage about 1500 people and create his idea about an artful installation.
The word that wasn’t used anywhere in that last little paragraph but that paradoxically was used in our house and almost all conversations and news-items about the installation was “naked”.
And naked we had to be, we three and ALL the other 1500 people participating. This takes some mental adjusting. Nobody in our house has any real issues body-wise, it comes from being well attractive and all that, but still, there is a good difference between not minding if a towel slips in front of the significant other and just stepping out of your clothes in front of not only 1500 strangers but also every cabdriver in town that happens to pass the parking garage. The fact it is to my knowledge the only 24-hour shop in the vicinity only served to make the situation a tad more interesting.
Anyways, in town by three, in the garage by half past three, and the waiting began. First all the people signing in, then the waiting for the photographer and volunteers.
I think it was about 5 in the morning, dawn already breaking across the country, when we finally had a remarkably convoluted explanation of what we were supposed to do. But really, convoluted. I think we had about 25 minutes of explanation for the in total 5 different configurations, and they were not explained in a nice “first we do this, then this, then we go there, and do this” sort of way, but more like a high school kid improvising his show-and-tell bit.
At one point the man actually went “And then for the second part, I am going to select 17 people, and I will give you all slips of paper, and that will tell you what to do for the fourth part, but I might select more than 17, like if I want to have two groups, but then it might be for the second installation, so it could be that these 30 people need me to tell them to wait, and they should, because, well, after the first I need all the men downstairs.” Euh…. Right. Next year, make a plan and get someone who can actually string words together in a cohesive sentence to explain it to the peeps.
After all this less than perfect explanation, we were counted off in groups, more or less pushed towards our locations at the edge of the building, told to find a spot, and to disrobe on command.
And then the nerves obviously start kicking in. I am not really a naked person, by nature. In fact, I think I am, of the three in the house, the least naked as a rule. Housemate has a tendency to dry up after a shower in front of her compute, Boyfriend spends time naked whenever he is in a bedroom. I prefer to be shirtless but boxered, so to speak. But I had signed up for this thing, so naked I had to get.
And I did, and it was surprisingly easy at that. The fact everybody is to conscious of themselves to really pay attention to other people helped, obviously, and the direct and somewhat expected anonymity of being just a little pink blob in a sea of little pink blobs.
Naked and well, we went through the least interesting part of the day, the actual shooting. Well, least interesting, we had to perch on small folding chairs on the edge of a 6 story high car-park, and lean out somewhat across the ledge of the building. It was precarious to say the least, and damn uncomfortable to say somewhat more.
Pictures made, we went back inside, put some clothes on, went to the second location, disrobed and went through the whole positioning again, which basically ended the day for Boyfriend and me.
Housemate was sort of selected to participate in another installation, a tremendously cool one, so we decided to hang around and see if she was “used” by the artist. As it turned out, she wasn’t, but it was still cool to sort of see the inner workings of a creative mind be expressed through the use of other people’s bodies.
After a reasonable breakfast, Housemate went home, Boyfriend and I went to catch a couple of movies, aided by copious amounts of energy drinks to keep us awake. I ended the weekend with a slight red bull addiction, which is thankfully receding already.
So far for the actual events of the situation, now on to the observations.
Was it art? Well, yes and no. Art is totally subjective, and as such can’t really be judged, and there certainly were some very interesting images created by the combination of skin and concrete.
But really, the nudity is somewhat juvenile in my opinion, and it has already been done. Installations like these aren’t shocking or really confrontational anymore, and therefore lose a little bit of their poignancy.
Is this a problem for me? No. Tunick is a revered artist at the moment and the chance to participate in a project like this is not something that should be waved away just because it looks like a student prank gone demon-boil. But the artist’s idea that he’ll be doing this till he is 90 years old to me sounds like a bold claim, after all, being a one joke puppy never really served anybody well since the villagers of the alpine town had decided that they now understood how the elephants were a smart plan.
Nudity, though natural and functional and sometimes even beautiful, really has no place in a parking garage or petrol station. For one thing, grime gets literally everywhere, and is difficult to dislodge.
Nudity, though natural and functional and sometimes even beautiful, is not ALWAYS beautiful. And it is certainly not beautiful when a group of naked men are asked to kneel down and the man in front of you takes a step backwards before he kneels giving the term “brown-nosing” and all too literal feel. I was barely missed, and happily so.
The chance to ogle was off course taken up by almost everybody, some a little more surreptitious then others, but I know for a fact there was one small Asian gentlemen that was constantly about 2 inches away from being decked by Boyfriend, something much appreciated by myself, as I had no glasses on and could not really see that well who was impinging on my honour. I did decide the diminutive lech was after Boyfriend, but he disagrees.
All in all, a good experience, very interesting, and something that just “needs to be done” but not something I’d swiftly do again without knowing what the installation would be well in advance. I have no problem with the nudity, I do have some issues with the lack of organisation.
Anyways, the project is called Dream Amsterdam, and the website lives at http://www.dreamamsterdam.nl The pictures will be displayed on the streets of Amsterdam from the end of June onward.
For now,
Stripes at “yeah my shoes are somewhere in my bag, over there, with the rest of my clothes”
Kevin
The word that wasn’t used anywhere in that last little paragraph but that paradoxically was used in our house and almost all conversations and news-items about the installation was “naked”.
And naked we had to be, we three and ALL the other 1500 people participating. This takes some mental adjusting. Nobody in our house has any real issues body-wise, it comes from being well attractive and all that, but still, there is a good difference between not minding if a towel slips in front of the significant other and just stepping out of your clothes in front of not only 1500 strangers but also every cabdriver in town that happens to pass the parking garage. The fact it is to my knowledge the only 24-hour shop in the vicinity only served to make the situation a tad more interesting.
Anyways, in town by three, in the garage by half past three, and the waiting began. First all the people signing in, then the waiting for the photographer and volunteers.
I think it was about 5 in the morning, dawn already breaking across the country, when we finally had a remarkably convoluted explanation of what we were supposed to do. But really, convoluted. I think we had about 25 minutes of explanation for the in total 5 different configurations, and they were not explained in a nice “first we do this, then this, then we go there, and do this” sort of way, but more like a high school kid improvising his show-and-tell bit.
At one point the man actually went “And then for the second part, I am going to select 17 people, and I will give you all slips of paper, and that will tell you what to do for the fourth part, but I might select more than 17, like if I want to have two groups, but then it might be for the second installation, so it could be that these 30 people need me to tell them to wait, and they should, because, well, after the first I need all the men downstairs.” Euh…. Right. Next year, make a plan and get someone who can actually string words together in a cohesive sentence to explain it to the peeps.
After all this less than perfect explanation, we were counted off in groups, more or less pushed towards our locations at the edge of the building, told to find a spot, and to disrobe on command.
And then the nerves obviously start kicking in. I am not really a naked person, by nature. In fact, I think I am, of the three in the house, the least naked as a rule. Housemate has a tendency to dry up after a shower in front of her compute, Boyfriend spends time naked whenever he is in a bedroom. I prefer to be shirtless but boxered, so to speak. But I had signed up for this thing, so naked I had to get.
And I did, and it was surprisingly easy at that. The fact everybody is to conscious of themselves to really pay attention to other people helped, obviously, and the direct and somewhat expected anonymity of being just a little pink blob in a sea of little pink blobs.
Naked and well, we went through the least interesting part of the day, the actual shooting. Well, least interesting, we had to perch on small folding chairs on the edge of a 6 story high car-park, and lean out somewhat across the ledge of the building. It was precarious to say the least, and damn uncomfortable to say somewhat more.
Pictures made, we went back inside, put some clothes on, went to the second location, disrobed and went through the whole positioning again, which basically ended the day for Boyfriend and me.
Housemate was sort of selected to participate in another installation, a tremendously cool one, so we decided to hang around and see if she was “used” by the artist. As it turned out, she wasn’t, but it was still cool to sort of see the inner workings of a creative mind be expressed through the use of other people’s bodies.
After a reasonable breakfast, Housemate went home, Boyfriend and I went to catch a couple of movies, aided by copious amounts of energy drinks to keep us awake. I ended the weekend with a slight red bull addiction, which is thankfully receding already.
So far for the actual events of the situation, now on to the observations.
Was it art? Well, yes and no. Art is totally subjective, and as such can’t really be judged, and there certainly were some very interesting images created by the combination of skin and concrete.
But really, the nudity is somewhat juvenile in my opinion, and it has already been done. Installations like these aren’t shocking or really confrontational anymore, and therefore lose a little bit of their poignancy.
Is this a problem for me? No. Tunick is a revered artist at the moment and the chance to participate in a project like this is not something that should be waved away just because it looks like a student prank gone demon-boil. But the artist’s idea that he’ll be doing this till he is 90 years old to me sounds like a bold claim, after all, being a one joke puppy never really served anybody well since the villagers of the alpine town had decided that they now understood how the elephants were a smart plan.
Nudity, though natural and functional and sometimes even beautiful, really has no place in a parking garage or petrol station. For one thing, grime gets literally everywhere, and is difficult to dislodge.
Nudity, though natural and functional and sometimes even beautiful, is not ALWAYS beautiful. And it is certainly not beautiful when a group of naked men are asked to kneel down and the man in front of you takes a step backwards before he kneels giving the term “brown-nosing” and all too literal feel. I was barely missed, and happily so.
The chance to ogle was off course taken up by almost everybody, some a little more surreptitious then others, but I know for a fact there was one small Asian gentlemen that was constantly about 2 inches away from being decked by Boyfriend, something much appreciated by myself, as I had no glasses on and could not really see that well who was impinging on my honour. I did decide the diminutive lech was after Boyfriend, but he disagrees.
All in all, a good experience, very interesting, and something that just “needs to be done” but not something I’d swiftly do again without knowing what the installation would be well in advance. I have no problem with the nudity, I do have some issues with the lack of organisation.
Anyways, the project is called Dream Amsterdam, and the website lives at http://www.dreamamsterdam.nl The pictures will be displayed on the streets of Amsterdam from the end of June onward.
For now,
Stripes at “yeah my shoes are somewhere in my bag, over there, with the rest of my clothes”
Kevin
Thursday, May 24, 2007
On Birds, and the trust we put in them.
Having been in a less than light mood lately, I have started to re-read parts of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Not because in good goth fashion he holds my dire souls twixt the measures of his verses’ pincered grip, but because when one is in existential dread it is always good to realise the melodrama of ones actions, thus to negate them into self mockery and therefore good humour. After all, when one feels whiney and wallowing, what better to do than to root out someone who is even more versed and mired in the melancholic mood that permeates the occasional week?
Well, one can crawl into the embrace of one’s lovely boyfriend and watch sappy movies until the mood improves, but my lovely boyfriend is far away from me at the moment and this option was therefore not open for me, and watching sappy movies alone in a mood like that is a recipe for disaster only eclipsed by the horror of country music while in the presence of a warm bath and razor blades.
Mood thus through literature abated, I started thinking about a theme touched upon in EAP and other works of writing and mythology, specifically, the bird that perches in a book-lined study atop a bust of some Greek personage, intoning that single word of anguish to a grief-ridden narrator. And even more specifically still, about the mental state of someone who would put the wellbeing of his mind and soul into the uncaring talons and opinions of a feathered and beaked opponent.
Not that he is in bad company, this nameless narrator shouting at the blackened shadow above his study’s entrance.
Odin, the managing director god of the Norse pantheon was aided by two ravens who embodied thought and memory and who traversed the earth each day as his eyes and ears, reporting back to him each night.
The earlier versions of the Cinderella tales have the ghost of the protagonist’s mother personified by a small bird denouncing the stepsisters and stepmother as treacherous creatures set on bending the world to their desires.
Athena, goddess of wisdom, was accompanied by an owl, symbol of contemplation and dread calm.
In many tales, birds are, if not the harbingers of step sisterly betrayal, at least messengers for a world beyond our own, to be reached only through the medium of air. Obvious symbolism, air being the element of the mind, where fire and water belong to heart and soul, and earth to the material body. Thus, air, being the mind and the reason within it, would obviously bring forth those that judge or guide without heart, weightless retainers to a force above our own ability to deal with it.
Such a shame that the more factual nature of birds never factors into the approximating of divinity. Because birds are, well, vicious and stupid, to say the least.
If I was to put my mental and emotional state in the talons, beaks, paws or otherwise of any non-antropomorph being, I would certainly never pick the one species of animal that does little else but peck disheartenedly at the occasional dropped French frie in some godforsaken square in almost all big cities or makes it a habit to pound itself to death at any and all available pane of glass.
Granted, dropped French fries and panes of glass were not overabundantly represented in the classical worlds, but I find it hard to believe the birds have only gotten stupid in the years since the inventions of these things. After all, would evolution alone not have delivered us birds of remarkable intelligence and eloquence, if they have divine beings and motherly guides to start out from?
In the specific case of the studiously ensconced narrator the decision is easily understandable. He laments the loss of his love, is in a grey and dark mood, and having found an advisor that only answers with one word and one word alone starts asking questions where that one word promises only the worst of outcomes, giving him the chance to beat himself to death on the cliffs of his overpowering grief. Something I am sure we have all at some point in time have desired doing, after all, humanity is no stranger to wallowing in a bit of self pity.
But Noah had no need of such mood-enforcing exercises when he loosened not one but three birds from his famous boating experiment to find a good place to land. Sure, he had little at his disposal to be fair, but logic dictates that if there is enough of a landmass nearby to allow olive branches to be beakily plucked from it then surely mere time or a better, human, lookout would have proven to be as effective as the birds.
That said, it is almost astoundingly likely that the man was just getting tired of having build an ark with all his might and heart and faith and now watching it being crapped continuously on by anything with a metabolism and had just decided to get rid of anything he could not easily reach to kick, and considered it sheer luck that one of them happened to come back with digestible resources. The likelihood that an excellent recipe for dove smothered in olive oil has been invented at the spot.
Why? Why birds? Ok, easily answered, the link to air-symbolism is easily put down. But still, why? Birds are evil, annoying creatures with small brains in little heads that hold no more truth in their evil sodden souls than a drunk beggar railing at leather coats on the streets of Amsterdam holds the wisdom of the world in her bottle.
I just don’t get it, really, but perhaps this is because I have somewhat of an aversion to birds, but all I can think of thinking about Athena’s owl is the drycleaning costs of having something only able to poop processed mouse on ones’ shoulder.
Which, I think, is a bit of a shame.
For now, I will continue my avian ruminations, perhaps to be taken up at another stage.
Stripes at 11101, three birds in hand, one in bush,
Kevin.
For the turnout of this little blog I have relied heavily on the assumption that all my readers few of you as there are, are familiar with a specific work of poetry. This work or the one word that lies at it’s centre has not been named explicitly. For all those who request further information, please let me know.
Well, one can crawl into the embrace of one’s lovely boyfriend and watch sappy movies until the mood improves, but my lovely boyfriend is far away from me at the moment and this option was therefore not open for me, and watching sappy movies alone in a mood like that is a recipe for disaster only eclipsed by the horror of country music while in the presence of a warm bath and razor blades.
Mood thus through literature abated, I started thinking about a theme touched upon in EAP and other works of writing and mythology, specifically, the bird that perches in a book-lined study atop a bust of some Greek personage, intoning that single word of anguish to a grief-ridden narrator. And even more specifically still, about the mental state of someone who would put the wellbeing of his mind and soul into the uncaring talons and opinions of a feathered and beaked opponent.
Not that he is in bad company, this nameless narrator shouting at the blackened shadow above his study’s entrance.
Odin, the managing director god of the Norse pantheon was aided by two ravens who embodied thought and memory and who traversed the earth each day as his eyes and ears, reporting back to him each night.
The earlier versions of the Cinderella tales have the ghost of the protagonist’s mother personified by a small bird denouncing the stepsisters and stepmother as treacherous creatures set on bending the world to their desires.
Athena, goddess of wisdom, was accompanied by an owl, symbol of contemplation and dread calm.
In many tales, birds are, if not the harbingers of step sisterly betrayal, at least messengers for a world beyond our own, to be reached only through the medium of air. Obvious symbolism, air being the element of the mind, where fire and water belong to heart and soul, and earth to the material body. Thus, air, being the mind and the reason within it, would obviously bring forth those that judge or guide without heart, weightless retainers to a force above our own ability to deal with it.
Such a shame that the more factual nature of birds never factors into the approximating of divinity. Because birds are, well, vicious and stupid, to say the least.
If I was to put my mental and emotional state in the talons, beaks, paws or otherwise of any non-antropomorph being, I would certainly never pick the one species of animal that does little else but peck disheartenedly at the occasional dropped French frie in some godforsaken square in almost all big cities or makes it a habit to pound itself to death at any and all available pane of glass.
Granted, dropped French fries and panes of glass were not overabundantly represented in the classical worlds, but I find it hard to believe the birds have only gotten stupid in the years since the inventions of these things. After all, would evolution alone not have delivered us birds of remarkable intelligence and eloquence, if they have divine beings and motherly guides to start out from?
In the specific case of the studiously ensconced narrator the decision is easily understandable. He laments the loss of his love, is in a grey and dark mood, and having found an advisor that only answers with one word and one word alone starts asking questions where that one word promises only the worst of outcomes, giving him the chance to beat himself to death on the cliffs of his overpowering grief. Something I am sure we have all at some point in time have desired doing, after all, humanity is no stranger to wallowing in a bit of self pity.
But Noah had no need of such mood-enforcing exercises when he loosened not one but three birds from his famous boating experiment to find a good place to land. Sure, he had little at his disposal to be fair, but logic dictates that if there is enough of a landmass nearby to allow olive branches to be beakily plucked from it then surely mere time or a better, human, lookout would have proven to be as effective as the birds.
That said, it is almost astoundingly likely that the man was just getting tired of having build an ark with all his might and heart and faith and now watching it being crapped continuously on by anything with a metabolism and had just decided to get rid of anything he could not easily reach to kick, and considered it sheer luck that one of them happened to come back with digestible resources. The likelihood that an excellent recipe for dove smothered in olive oil has been invented at the spot.
Why? Why birds? Ok, easily answered, the link to air-symbolism is easily put down. But still, why? Birds are evil, annoying creatures with small brains in little heads that hold no more truth in their evil sodden souls than a drunk beggar railing at leather coats on the streets of Amsterdam holds the wisdom of the world in her bottle.
I just don’t get it, really, but perhaps this is because I have somewhat of an aversion to birds, but all I can think of thinking about Athena’s owl is the drycleaning costs of having something only able to poop processed mouse on ones’ shoulder.
Which, I think, is a bit of a shame.
For now, I will continue my avian ruminations, perhaps to be taken up at another stage.
Stripes at 11101, three birds in hand, one in bush,
Kevin.
For the turnout of this little blog I have relied heavily on the assumption that all my readers few of you as there are, are familiar with a specific work of poetry. This work or the one word that lies at it’s centre has not been named explicitly. For all those who request further information, please let me know.
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