"The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion, but cosmetics are easier to buy."
—Yves Saint Laurent
Announcements
If you're new to this blog, then read our guides to the basics: Skin (Part I), Skin (Part II), The Supernatural, Color Theory I, Color Theory II, Eyes, and Brushes.
Also, check out the blogsale.
Contents
Favored
Art Tattler
the glamourai
The Non-Blonde
Perfume Shrine
Lisa Eldridge
Garance Doré
Smitten Kitchen
Into The Gloss
Grain de Musc
Lacquerized
Res Pulchrae
Drivel About Frivol The Selfish Seamstress
Killer Colours
Bois de Jasmin Glossed In Translation
Jak and Jil
Toto Kaelo
Worship at the House of Blues
I Smell Therefore I Am
Food Wishes
The Natural Haven
Messy Wands
1000 Fragrances
Moving Image Source
Wondegondigo
The Emperor's Old Clothes
M. Guerlain
Colin's Beauty Pages
Barney's jewelry department
Parfümrien
loodie loodie loodie
The Straight Dope
Sea of Shoes
London Makeup Girl
Sakecat's Scent Project
Asian Models
Ratzilla Cosme
Smart Skincare
Illustrated Obscurity
A.V. Club
Tom & Lorenzo: Mad Style
Eiderdown Press
Beauty and the Bullshit
La Garçonne Flame Warriors Everyday Beauty
Fashion Gone Rogue
Now Smell This
Dempeaux
Fashionista
The Cut
A Fevered Dictation
Nathan Branch
101 Cookbooks
That part at the end, when the chip breaks and the guy just scoops the whole thing up with his fingers... that kills me.
You may have noticed that we at Ars Aromatica are not ones to scoff at obsessive attention to detail. Both perfection and truth to life require it. But perfection I am skeptical of, because it implies a frozen state with room for neither entropy nor growth. What is more marvelous is the imperfection of the familiar, but cast in ever-changing lights to both lift us out of the dreariness of existence and awaken anew in us a love for the humble details that usually escape our notice.
In contrast to the finesse of many animated works today, "Fresh Guacamole" is clumsy, substituting materials for other materials that don't resemble each other at all. And yet the conceit not only works, but breathes, for no matter how gorgeous the execution*, it cannot approach the texture that comes from embracing imperfection—indeed, lovingly recreating it.
*I consider this movie overrated for this exact reason. I do not dislike all CG movies, as I consider Ratatouille the rare film that exhibits both soul and astonishing polish in its execution. You, dear reader, may have different opinions.
Labels: animation, culture notes, PES
3/11/2013 [5]
Light: Installations by Bruce Munro at Longwood GardensFor the last four decades, they have been makers of Alltagsmusik ("everyday music"), dedicated to expressing the "quotidian landscape of a Mass Culture age" (Frieze Magazine). The style which they pioneered -- electronic music -- spawned techno, disco, house, synth pop, drum and bass, hip hop, and myriad genres: folk music of the man-machine world. The inescapable auditory patterns forming the soundtrack of our digital present. More than any other band, according to Tom Ewing at Pitchfork, "they...catch in music what interaction with machines really feels like -- sometimes glorious, sometimes lonely and frightening, occasionally very funny."
One of their most popular singles is "Computer Love" (Computer World, 1981):
another lonely nightA tender and wistful love song between a lonely protagonist and the computer which he is dependent upon for a "data date", this track about human longing at the organic/technical interface, with its completely synthesised instrumentation and 8 bit samples of consumer electronics, gets reinterpreted through the wood-and-resin prism of violin, viola and cello by the Balanescu Quartet in their 1992 album Possessed.
stare at the tv screen
i don't know what to do
i need a rendezvous
The Balanescu Quartet, "Computer Love" (Possessed, 1992)
Stripped of the alienation of synthesisers, the elegance and lyricism of the song become highlighted in the string quartet version, whilst retained are the achingly beautiful melodies, the precision of its staccato rhythms and the complex, layered counterpoint that characterises minimalism. The lively tonality of strings replace the gleaming warm/chilly alchemical textures of the original (surging, pounding, beeping, dissolving), coming at the same organic/robotic divide from a different angle. Then, as the song gradually progresses, harmonies shifting in and out of phase, twisting and transmuting in an endless web of connectivity, there is the undeniable joy of hearing a violin mimicking a slide down an electronic keyboard or the rapid bleeps and pings of a calculator.
Passion is still muted, the humour no less dry, but agitation and effort, more easily expressed on a stringed instrument, are an audible presence. A duet between singer and electronic keyboard in the Kraftwerk version, an exchange as much about intangible connection as it is about loneliness, loses some of its whimsicalness by becoming a pas de deux of violin and viola, the two voices no longer separated by a real/analog divide, but reflections of each other.
Yet even as this breach is overcome, the stirrings of desire are sharper, more desperate. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that everything seems sadder on the violin, just as the simple sounds of the early decades of personalised computing cannot help but convey a sense of hope and naivety.
"It's like a drug to human ears. It can cure, it can crush. It can raise someone up, it can send one crumbling to the ground. A note to stir any hidden feeling in the core of our being."
- Laura Teodora Radulescu on YouTube, comment to the Balanescu Quartet's "Computer Love"
In fact, to my ears, by removing one reflecting glass (or perhaps by adding one) between the robotic and the real, the Balanescu Quartet's "Computer Love" is even more terrifying lovely than the original. It is easy to see how this music - with its catchy melodies, pristine and calming - could be adapted to more ominous effect; the moments that flutter and swoop like silvery birdsong, appropriated to set a soft, nostalgic gloss over every conceivable product of postmodern life: test-tube crops, a sparklingly efficient and impersonal train network, the mechanical slaughter of farm animals, a Sony notepad or digital TV.
"Trust me", it says, like the soothing, almost (but not quite) human female voices speaking corporate slogans on television ads. Eerie, but mesmerising. "You already know me. You can trust me."
Where the Kraftwerk original is about the experience of technology displacing real, tangible interaction in daily life, the Balanescu Quartet's cover of "Computer Love" seems to capture something more disturbing: how deeply and fundamentally radical technology is woven into the fabric of our daily experience, so that even as we sometimes feel a tingle of wrongness, of something being a little "off", we are often unable to see through to their ultimately foreign nature. And this subterfuge is not "natural", not empty of human purposefulness. The anthropomorphising is not spontaneously done at the user end.
The means of production, the way objects are designed and packaged and marketed, are not devoid of consideration. There is a human hand on the strings, a human mind that directs it. If Kraftwerk's message is: "Machines are doing this to Us", the message of the Balancescu Quartet's "Computer Love" is: "We are doing this to ourselves."
Labels: balanescu quartet, culture notes, kraftwerk
1/08/2013 [6]
WHAT EVERY WOMAN SHOULD CARRY
My mother gave me the prayer to Saint Theresa.
I added a used tube ticket, kleenex,
several Polo mints (furry), a tampon, pesetas,
a florin. Not wishing to be presumptuous,
not trusting you either, a pack of 3.
I have a pen. There is space for my guardian
angel, she has to fold her wings. Passport.
A key. Anguish, at what I said/didn't say
when once you needed/didn't need me. Anadin.
A credit card. His face the last time,
my impatience, my useless youth.
That empty sack, my heart. A box of matches.
MAURA DOOLEY
Listen to Maura Dooley reading the poem; view my own poem inspired by it in the comments
Photographer: Lachlan Bailey for Vogue UK
Model: Arizona Muse
My mother gave me the prayer to Saint Theresa.
I added a used tube ticket, kleenex,
several Polo mints (furry), a tampon, pesetas,
a florin. Not wishing to be presumptuous,
not trusting you either, a pack of 3.
I have a pen. There is space for my guardian
angel, she has to fold her wings. Passport.
A key. Anguish, at what I said/didn't say
when once you needed/didn't need me. Anadin.
A credit card. His face the last time,
my impatience, my useless youth.
That empty sack, my heart. A box of matches.
MAURA DOOLEY
Listen to Maura Dooley reading the poem; view my own poem inspired by it in the comments
Photographer: Lachlan Bailey for Vogue UK
Model: Arizona Muse
Labels: arizona muse, culture notes, lachlan bailey, maura dooley
2/01/2012 [11]
Sydney, August 2006
From one of my very first sessions with Melissa, shot on film and hand-developed. Mid-morning, sleep-deprived, I was wearing typical weekend gear: soft jeans, a t-shirt from AMUNC 2006, a light jacket to ward off the outdoor winter chill. Melissa's assignment from her teachers called for honesty, a set of portraits that could reveal the character of the subject, and so I presented my barest, truest and most curmudgeonly face to the world.
Between shots, I was sipping my first coffee of the day from a steaming Deadwood crew mug that I'd won off an internet competition, and I imagined myself trading insults with Charlie Utter, sharing tots of whiskey with Calamity Jane, before we all rode off on new (and smelly) adventures in the Black Hills. Yet even that is partly play-acting; the black scarf-beanie, which seems to suck in all the light from the picture, was not merely covering my unwashed and messy hair, but seemed to hint at a shyness, a willingness to disappear that cut against my direct gaze and tough-gal exterior.
* * *
Sydney, August 2009
The year before Wolf, my family's German Shepherd, passed away, he was going deaf, half-blind, and contending daily with pain in his hips, yet still the sweetest and most intelligent of creatures. There are few human beings toward whom I hold the depth of unreserved affection that I give my dogs, and fewer still that I am comfortable with demonstrating that affection with. The love of dogs is uncomplicated, undemanding, incapable of dishonesty; the love of adults anything but.
* * *
Hunter Valley, December 2010
Right after Christmas, six months after I had finished my MPolEc and started working full-time, Melissa, a friend visiting from Germany, and I went on a day-trip to the local wine region, about 2.5 hours drive away from Sydney. We lunched outdoors, sitting on benches and lying on giant beanbags strewn across the lawn. The aggressive asexuality of my early twenties had mellowed somewhat. I was relaxed, slightly buzzed from wine tastings, enjoying my first real holiday in over a year.
I wore a minimalist echo of the outfit from 2006: black skinny jeans (UNIQLO), a grey linen t-shirt with a slouchy fit (Country Road), black Converse, and sunglasses (Jac + Jack). The difference now being that I was wearing the clothes, the clothes weren't wearing me.
All photographs were taken by Melissa Graf.
Labels: culture notes
12/11/2011 [6]
THE DOOR IS OPEN
No, I don't want to tame you,
you'd lose your animal charm.
Your wiliness and nervousness
excite me,
they belong to your exotic breed.
You can't escape me
because the door is always open.
You can't betray me
because I don't demand fidelity.
Give me your hand,
we'll dance
through the laughing darkness.
With sacred bells
on our arms and legs,
the movement of the dance
as supple as ancient Arabic writing,
our hair singing
like a Greek chorus.
Elemental bliss
organised into a mystery play.
Only just domesticated,
like you.
ANNA SWIR
Translated from the Polish by Grazyna Baran and Margaret Marshment
No, I don't want to tame you,
you'd lose your animal charm.
Your wiliness and nervousness
excite me,
they belong to your exotic breed.
You can't escape me
because the door is always open.
You can't betray me
because I don't demand fidelity.
Give me your hand,
we'll dance
through the laughing darkness.
With sacred bells
on our arms and legs,
the movement of the dance
as supple as ancient Arabic writing,
our hair singing
like a Greek chorus.
Elemental bliss
organised into a mystery play.
Only just domesticated,
like you.
ANNA SWIR
Translated from the Polish by Grazyna Baran and Margaret Marshment
Labels: anna swir, culture notes
12/03/2011 [8]
1920s advertisement for Three Pagodas Brand Cosmetics Company
Suppression, of course, only breeds rebellion. My mother and father never repeated the platitude that "appearances do not matter." Instead, the message they imparted to me, their only child, was that - as a woman and a Chinese woman at that - I would inevitably be judged by how I looked. The least I could do was take control and use it to my own advantage. Mercenary and cynical, perhaps, but pragmatic above all else. Want to dress to impress or instill confidence, to appear younger or more mature, to tell the world that you're a free radical - there are ways and means.
To bloggers for whom beauty is a passion and an art, it might seem tasteless to give voice to the underlying notion that beauty is also functional, particularly in cases of societies that are highly stratified. Yet what magazine copy and fashion advertisements tip-toe around is this very concept - better to be clear-eyed than blindly steered.
The way I conceive of make-up is as an element of style, not to be scrutinised or evaluated in isolation from general grooming, dress, and deportment. Because I take joy in what is aesthetically pleasing, it is all as much for my own benefit as to ease the myriad social interactions that most of us necessarily engage in on a day to day basis. Though the precise semiotics of taste are complex and ever-evolving, it is impossible to deny that image is power. At the same time, it is worth remembering not to take it all too seriously - as Dain says, "It's only make-up", after all.
How to use the power of the image, to enjoy it as a medium of self-expression, without becoming a victim of it, is every individual's balancing act.
A large part of what I love about perfume is that there is something very personal, and a little selfish and defiant about scent. The codes are less normalised than with make-up, more esoteric. You don't have to look at yourself for every minute of the day, but your own scent is something that stays with you, and if other people don't like it - if, for example, they take askance to you wearing Bandit loudly and proudly in their close vicinity - well, then they can stand a little further away.
Image credit: Old Orient Museum
Labels: culture notes, robert piguet
8/17/2011 [4]
Just a quick video, to show you some of what I love this little city I've moved to:
The damp streets, the brightly painted houses, the low-budget indie charm. There are other places like Halifax, but nowhere is quite the same.
Labels: culture notes
1/14/2011 [0]
I recently rediscovered this video and was excited to do so. I am a bit of a Sophie Ellis-Bextor fan - her music's okay, her face slays me - and I was as enthralled watching it this time around as the first. This video is stunning, so beautifully shot and framed, at one and the same time evoking both Vogue Italia and, essentially, every single weepy, melodramatic, girly fantasy of love gone wrong. A bit indulgent in its sweeping photography, maybe, but even in that it's divinely overwrought.
Labels: culture notes, music, sophie ellis-bextor
5/24/2010 [2]
Ginger Rogers in costume for Swing Time (1936). Just look at all those perfect seams.
As I've mentioned before, I love Fred and Ginger, which is why I was so tickled to read "Style Wars: Ginger vs. Marlene" from Peter at Male Pattern Boldness. I'm not familiar with Ginger Rogers' work after 1939, with the exception of the "reunion" picture The Barkleys of Broadway, which I disliked. Peter uses the perfect word — "shellacked" — to describe the look Ginger developed in the '40s: that stiffness appeared in her dancing too.
But in those movies from the '30s, Ginger is always the pretty girl next door, a little smart-talking, a little vulnerable, a little no-nonsense, drawn into a fantasy world of perfect romance, Big White Sets and outfits that need never nod at practicality.
(I fear this video will be pulled, but enjoy it while it's here.)
Labels: culture notes, film, fred astaire, ginger rogers
2/24/2010 [1]
Barefoot Contessa speaks to that part of me that, in college, was enamored with all things American upper-middle class. At the time, I wanted to live expensively and well in Manhattan in what would essentially be an extended episode of the now-defunct The Isaac Mizrahi Show. Though not set in Manhattan, it is this rarefied experience of life that is explored in Barefoot Contessa, which follows Ina Garten as she pares down French cuisine and the best of American upper-middle class fare into recipes that can easily be reproduced at home. Set in the East Hamptons and Paris, this show follows the Food Network formula of luscious cinematagraphy, an easy, engaging pace, and friendly, informative host to invite viewers into the world of culinary arts. Barefoot Contessa is among my favorites of the Food Network lineup because Ina consistently features vegetarian dishes, truly pares down recipes to make them as simple and efficient as possible, and is a very warm, low-key host. She seems the type of person that, were you to attend her party, you'd leave feeling relaxed, warm, and well-fed.
Here's the thing about Barefoot Contessa: it can be really, really boring. The same things that make the show so comforting - Ina's laidback demeanor, the unhurried pace, the general lack of pretention - can also make it move at a glacial speed when Ina's preparing uninteresting dishes. So why keep watching? Because ultimately, the comfort the show offers doesn't come so much from the host or the food or the enjoyment of the show itself, but from it's secret subtext: money. This show is all about money, even moreso than most other Food Network offerings. Money is everywhere, from the fact that Ina owns residences in two exceedingly expensive locations to the warm, soft lighting to the expensively understated kitchen to the offerings themselves. As likeable as the show is, the best part of it is how its money smooths everything over. Ina's garden always looks immaculate, her guests have refined tastes, and everything runs smoothly and on time, therefore, no worries. It's really this idea of a world where money can buy time, peace, and a hassle-free existence that has me hooked on this show, just as when I previously wanted to live life as a guest on Isaac Mizrahi's show. Obviously, money cannot buy happiness or love, but it can make life considerably simpler. Having the money to afford the time and materials to invest in your hobbies, as well as in materials that consistently work well, must eliminate at least some of the hassles in life. Likewise, not having to worry about money and instead spending your time doing the things you want to do in life seems like a pretty fulfilling way to live. Of course, I couldn't tell you if that's how Ina Garten actually lives, and I am pretty sure Isaac Mizrahi doesn't get to enjoy that existence all the time. Still, it's nice to watch the illusion of it, and so I continue to watch Barefoot Contessa and wish I was in her kitchen, surrounded by gadgets I'd never use but still enjoy just for knowing that everything - in that kitchen, in that house, at my disposal - was there to make my life easier and more pleasureable.
Labels: barefoot contessa, culture notes
1/05/2010 [1]
My family was an immigrant family, and consequentially, we marked such holidays as Thanksgiving or Christmas with minimal ceremony, if any, at the same time we had little occasion to celebrate Korean holidays, cut off from the "Motherland" as we were.
Which is a rambling way to say that turkey and gatherings, the traditional accoutrements associated with the winter holidays, were for me supplanted by TV marathons, there being little else to do on long stretches of blank days off. Therefore, most holidays are, to me, associated with one television series or another, especially since I rarely watch TV otherwise.
Thanksgiving: Hourglass
Probably every Korean over a certain age has seen Hourglass: indeed, such was it's popularity that, for the first time in possibly the history of urban life, people were hightailing it to home as soon as work let out just to catch the latest episode (it can be said that Hourglass nearly ruined pubs nationwide).
The storyline follows the lives of three young people from their youth in the late seventies and early eighties—at the height of a military dictatorship and a large-scale, mostly student-led countermovement, all the more furious for the persecution it suffered—to middle age in the turmoil of modernization, globalization, and political restructuring of the early nineties. Go Hyun-Jung's feisty revolutionary—later doing a complete about-face to follow in her father's footsteps as a casino mogul—is arguably the show's center, around whom the three main male characters seem to orbit. (On a totally unrelated note, I was often compared to Go Hyun-Jung's character when I was a little girl, both in terms of looks and personality.)
The trajectory of their lives shadow the history of Korea itself, coming to maturity as Korea "grows up" and develops its presence in the modern world. As such, Hourglass was the first network television show to directly deal with politically loaded topics such as the Gwangju massacre, kidnappings and torturing of dissidents, suppression of free speech and press, and other abuses of civil rights that the then-government would have swept under the rug. Such a history makes ripe fodder for melodrama, but Hourglass is the first of its kind to combine socially relevant criticism and much-needed reflection with good storytelling—following the success of Hourglass, 7080 history has been downgraded to cliché in Korean drama, which attests to the lasting influence of this show. Which brings me to...
Summer Vacation: Friend, Our Legend
Americans are said to "root for the underdog"; in contrast, Koreans are underdogs. Maybe this is why Friend, Our Legend, the "hero" of which is an underdog like no other, feels so quintessentially Korean to me. Based on Friend, a hugely popular movie from the nineties, it follows Han Dongsoo from boyhood, as he comes of age under the stunting influences of prejudice, poverty, and the distant threat of political corruption and turmoil looming like a thunderhead in the background, to adulthood. His only comfort in such a bleak world is his best friend Joonsuk, and it is the vagaries and complexities of their relationship that the show focuses on. Ironically, Dongsoo's friends are no help to him, even proving to be a destabilizing influence in his life. It's a true tragedy that Dongsoo is helped on his way to a painful death by the strife of his relationship with his closest friend. There is no help or consolation in Dongsoo's life, whos as "unlucky a bastard" as they come.
Train Scene
Dongsoo: In the movies, they just jump straight down onto trains, from this height, you know?
Joongho: Yeah, but that's movies. You try that in real life, and you're gone, just like *that*.
Dongsoo: Would someone really die?
Joonsuk: [spits] Oh I dunno. Just the unlucky bastards.
Dongsoo: Unlucky bastards? Why, then I guess I'd die.
Joonsuk: You're not gonna die.
Dongsoo: Wanna bet?
Timeline and theme-wise, Friend follows in the footsteps of Hourglass, but it is more than just an Hourglass clone, for while Hourglass dealt mainly with the effects of large-scale historical movements on individuals, Friend focuses on the interplay of human relations within a certain historical context. This makes the latter series a more complex variation on the same theme, which is befitting, considering that the time gap between the the two series is 15 years.
Spring Break: Neon Genesis Evangelion
How's a little bit of psychobabble, scattered with references to the Bible as well as to obscure biology?
Neon Genesis Evangelion is most often seen through a lens of psychology, and yes, such a dysfunctional cast and a background so obviously Freudian, with religious overtones, = in its set-up (giant robots called "Eva", referred to with feminine pronouns, who house child pilots encased in phallic pods, and which go berserk in moments when the safety of their "children" is threatened, usually by equally monstrous "Angels"... and a Saturnian father figure seeming to control the strings in the background) make fertile ground indeed for shrinks to play in.
However, I personally like to interpret the themes of Evangelion from a biological angle. (Typical med student...) At the beginning, the angels are seen as heavenly destroyers, immortal and almost divine in their capacity for destruction, or alternately, lean and flawless fighting machines not too different from the robotic Evas. Slowly however, it is revealed that both the Angels and the Evas are not only mortal, but very much flesh-and-blood beings, not too different from humans themselves. Their final goal is survival, pure and simple, which in Evangelion is abstracted and conceptualized as "Instrumentality," a beatific state reserved for one species alone... correlating to the biological principle that the equilibrium between species sharing an ecological niche is unstable, that one must drive all the others to extinction in order to survive. Similarly, the angels and the human race are all competitors in the race to achieve instrumentality, which means eternal survival, which is only a step away from immortality.
The beauty of the biological view is that despite being a scientific concept, it meshes seamlessly with the psychological and religious themes of NGE: the garden of Eden, the trees of knowledge and life, salvation, separation from the mother figure and the lifelong yearning to reunite with some higher meaning.
Of course, my interpretation is only one of many. But that's why I like Evangelion so much: it offers a potent brain kick, and every time I watch it again I get something new out of it.
Childhood: The Magic School Bus
And lastly, my fondness for this one reveals all too clearly the fact that I am a child of the nineties. As may be inferred from my description of Evangelion above, I am a dyed-in-the-wool nerd. When I was little, I used to dream—both literally and figuratively—about being in Miss Frizzle's class, sharing sandwiches with dorky Arnold, trading lame jokes with Carlos, going head-to-head with resident bookie Dorothy, and in general, exploring the wonderful world of science with the rest of the gang. Explorations such as these:
How appetizing.
Labels: 7080, culture notes, go hyun-jung, neon genesis evangelion, the magic school bus
11/22/2009 [1]
This particular group post has been difficult for me to write because there have been so many shows that I really, really love. I struggled with narrowing the field until I started thinking about what type of shows I love. Current favorites include Dog the Bounty Hunter, Food Network Challenge and, as always, America's Next Top Model (I was on both Team Nicole and Team Laura). It cannot be said that my taste in television, or in much of anything, is classically "good." Rather than suffer the readers through the parade of eccentricity and manic energy I regularly flip to, I've chosen to highlight five shows that fall somewhere between "good" and "moderately okay."
MORAL OREL
This show is not for everyone. A tough opening sell, to be sure, but broad audience appeal does not come to mind when talking about Moral Orel. Set in Moralton, the "exact center" of the United States, Moral Orel follows the adventures of Orel Puppington as he navigates the world of conservative Christianity, slowly learning what being a Christian, and an adult, is all about. The show's main thematic content concerns the hypocrisy, religious and secular fundamentalism, and misuse and abuse of dogma ingrained in American culture. Satire and earnest questioning aside, the beating heart of the show is the raw emotion lurking beneath Moralton's actions, and it is raw stuff, indeed. I have very rarely seen the level of emotional depth and honesty displayed on Moral Orel, both in real life and in broadcast television. Moral Orel uses the mechanism of humor to guide viewers to and through the fundamental, emotional truths of the show, going deeper and darker with each successive season. It is this quality of the show that makes Moral Orel an engaging experience. In fact, the first time I watched the show, I was so disturbed, confused, and invested in what happened next that I immediately Googled it and learned as much as I could. It is really an exceptional show, both in quality and content. Don't be surprised if you finish an episode much quieter, more thoughtful, and more introverted than when you started it. I highly recommend it, but I'll say it again - this kind of content isn't for everyone.
LOVESPRING INTERNATIONAL
I am possibly the only person in this country who's ever seen this show, and I know I'm the only person who's watched every episode. Lovespring International takes place at a dating agency, following the disastrous attempts of the employees to keep the company, and their own lives, afloat. It's one of the many improv shows that have popped up, and this is possibly why I like this show so well. The actors are given the ability to take their characters' foibles and pathos to dire, extreme levels, as well the room to display genuine chemistry, no matter how poisonous or unhealthy. As a result, the show has an energy and immediateness that heavily scripted shows rarely have, and the actors have the room to more fully and deeply explore their characters' flaws than is the norm. The show is hilarious. It is also, sadly, cancelled, but videos can be found at Lifetime.
QVC
QVC beauty presentations are some of my favorite shows to watch. This stems from the days when I only had basic cable and my viewing choices were QVC, the TV Guide channel, and both Catholic and Baptist programming. The clear choice was QVC. It was a dark seven years.
QVC offers presentations on an extensive selection of high-end beauty brands, including Oscar Blandi, YSL, Philosophy, Smashbox, and most recently, NARS. Presentations generally last between one and three hours and give ample opportunity to get a good idea of a line's general range of products, as well as the chance to see items from brands that do not have widespread distribution (Lucy B., Dalton, Darac, etc.) Obviously, testing products yourself is the best way to go. Television simply cannot account for differences in skin tone, texture, and particular sensitivities. However, I find there is nothing more relaxing than sitting back and listening to the drone of hosts and pr reps shilling products while watching women apply eyeliner and look pretty. QVC beauty presentations don't require thought, interaction, or action of any kind, and really, sometimes that's what you need. At the end of a long day - and I have had many long, hard days recently - sometimes all you want is to hear the warm tone of the television, see pretty pictures, and zone out, and this provides the perfect opportunity to do just that.
RENO 911!
Reno 911! is easily one of my favorite shows of all time. Set in Reno, Nevada, the mock-documentary follows Reno's finest as they fumble every investigation, routine task, and breath they engage in. There are so many, many reasons I love this show, the first and foremost being it's cinematography. Joe Kessler films "Reno" (really, Los Angeles Metro) crisply, throwing all the things I love most about the West into the forefront - the expansive skies that go on forever, the space, the flatness. I am also quite fond of how the show's "boobery" (Dangle's quote, not mine), both intentional and otherwise. There are a lot of mistakes that happen on camera. The actors laugh and break character, and I like that those parts are left in. The show already has an intentionally informal feel, and these mistakes only add to that, leaving the viewer feeling part of a loose gathering of people bumbling along and having a great time. Parodoxically, the best thing about the show is the actors' commitment to character. I have never seen actors more committed to their characters, even keeping in mind the greats (De Niro, Blanchett, etc.) Unlike in scripted shows, in which character arcs are precisely prescribed and circumstances are specifically situational, Reno 911! throws its actors and their characters into a variety of situations and leaves them to their devices. Rather than filling in blanks with contrived dialogue, situations, and storylines we've all grown to loathe, the actors fill them with the characters themselves in all their flaws and frailties. The characters may not be deep, but we get to know them as regular people, just as we'd know our coworkers and friends. Travis Bickle may bring you glory, but I've learned more about acting from this show than I have anywhere else.
THE COSBY SHOW
No matter what else is on TV, I will almost always choose an episode of The Cosby Show over the other offerings. The Cosby Show provides some great memories (25 years of them), and the show is such a part of the American vernacular and cultural history that it's ageless. Yes, it clearly takes place in the 80s, but the specifics of the show are timeless events that happen to individuals and families every day, and I find it incredibly comforting to watch a show in which people like each other, treat each other more or less well, and in which everything is stable and going to be okay. So much of television currently relies on shock value, unstable relationships and settings, and the fear of things quickly falling apart that it's nice to watch something that will not stress me out, worry me, or overly tax my adrenal glands.
Beyond acting as a virtual security blanket, The Cosby Show is really, really funny. I take genuine enjoyment out of seeing Cliff laugh at his kids, Vanessa snoop around, and everything Cockroach. There is nothing harsh about the show or its humor, and while critics have consistently cited this as unrealistic, I would point to it as a truism: comedy doesn't have to be cynical, edgy, or angry to be funny. It has to be true, and there's as much truth to be found in a family - the foundational relationship in most people's lives - as there is in pathos and insecurity. In fact, there's more truth (and comedy) observed in The Cosby Show than in the million iterations of hip cynicism, glib soundbites, and personal insecurity masked as worldweariness that generally make up Comedy Central. The truth is that where there are five kids, there is chaos, misunderstanding, and frustration, and this is the stuff of comedy - pathos. The Cosby Show explores it well through the relationships between functionally healthy adults and children, and it's this point that separates this show from the examples above. As with life, so as in television, where is something completely stabilizing and calming about being in the company of capable people. So I turn on The Cosby Show for a good laugh and for enjoyment, and I turn it on so I can see the examples of solid, grounded people that can seem so rare to find in real life.
Labels: culture notes, lovespring international, moral orel, qvc, reno 911, the cosby show
11/21/2009 [2]
Like Dain, I don't own a television; I watch TV on my computer, mostly through streaming video. Honestly, I don't miss having a TV except on very rare occasions; while it's nice to be able to see every tiny detail of a shot, it doesn't feel necessary with most shows, and streaming video has improved greatly in the last few years.
It's a cliché to say this, but I love The Wire. It's the most engrossing, painful show I've ever watched. It's rightly compared to a novel in which each season is a chapter; the stories are nominally separate, but they build on and enrich each other. It rewards multiple viewings; I re-watched the second season, set at the Baltimore docks, after moving to Halifax, and being able to look out my window and see Halifax Harbour enriched the experience. The show goes a bit off the rails in the truncated fifth season, but the first four seasons are gorgeous, complex, beautifully written and acted, worthy of all the hype.
Breaking Bad helps with my Wire withdrawal. Where The Wire is largely about entrenched drug empires, Breaking Bad is about the process of forming a drug empire, and about the slow, fascinating descent of an initially innocuous-seeming Walter White (Bryan Cranston). One begins the show sympathizing with Walter, and by the end of the second season one is horrified by him, wondering whether this monstrous human being was created by circumstance, or merely revealed by it. Besides The Wire, few other shows have haunted me so much, or for so long.
The third season of Mad Men recently wrapped up, leaving me bereft. Mad Men isn't a perfect show -- it tends to be a little on the nose -- but you can't beat the visuals: the sets, the costumes, the makeup. Mad Men portrays a pre-feminist reality in which sexual harassment, unequal pay, philandering husbands and a hundred other little indignities are widely tolerated. This gives it an unsavoury appeal to a certain number of people; however, at bottom I believe it's a deeply feminist show. I have a seemingly unpopular affection for Betty Draper, pictured here; she's truly awful on a number of levels, but the writing and January Jones' acting combine to create a sense of a woman who was groomed from babyhood to be a dependent housewife and mother, and who is heartbreakingly ill-suited for that role.
And while I love a whole lot of half-hour comedies -- Clone High, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, the British and American versions of The Office, Futurama, and the first several seasons of Roseanne, just for starters -- I can't finish this post without a shout-out to the Halifax-made Trailer Park Boys. This show takes several episodes to warm up to, but after that, it's hilarious: the skeezy ingenuity of the leads, the absurd situations, the parodic yet still oddly effective sweetness. I try to watch the Christmas special every year.
Labels: breaking bad, culture notes, mad men, the wire, trailer park boys
11/21/2009 [0]
I wanted to give you guys one final playlist that gives you a better idea of who I am. It's easy to get caught up in the rhetoric of blog, and I always find it more interesting to get an idea of the people behind the writing. So here goes.
The following is a playlist of songs that have had some meaning in my life, no matter how marginal. If you're interested, I've included a short description of why each song is included underneath the playlist. If you're not, skip down to the video below. Sometimes, it takes more than words....
1) I really enjoy Arabic music, and this song is one of my favorites.
2) This is my idea of perfect music - dramatic, emotional, artsy. I am eagerly awaiting more such music from Adam.
3) I was a huge Buffy fan, albeit lately. I don't think I really got into the show until the last three seasons, just to spend the next couple of years catching up on what I'd missed. I love this song, and I love Spike in the end. Something about peroxide blonde and evil that gets me going.
4) I discovered an ABBA tape in my father's office when I was seventeen. I was lovestruck at the time and must have listened to it nearly every day for a year. In fact, I listened to that tape so much that I wore it out and have even had three replacement CDs in the aftermath. There is such joy to be had in really earnestly cheesy pop, and this song is my favorite from Abba's greatest hits.
5) One of my two absolute favorite songs. It reminds me that redemption is possible.
6) When I lived in Scandinavia, this song was a big hit. Good memories, plus I think it's beautiful.
7) My other favorite song. It's just a beautiful song about drug addiction.
15) Also in Scandinavia, I found this tape (mind you, all tape references occured in or after 1999) that had a recording of "Billie Jean." Like the ABBA tape, I listened to this endlessly. I love how the chorus builds and swells, and I'm pretty sure there's no way to dance to this song and not look cool.
And now for a song that needs more than words to do it justice:
I tell you, I really don't take a lot of joy in irony, passive-aggressive humor, polite conversation, etc., reason being I don't find there's a lot of joy in those things. They're just convenient ways to maintain the status quo. The real joys are in little gems like this that snap you out of your day and trade in a high budget for a hit of giddiness, awe, and fascination. As much as I enjoy my art rock and pretentious little music videos, it isn't thought or wisdom or a good conversation that makes my day. I really only feel alive when I'm laughing, and there's no greater gift I've experienced that to be able to share simple, unadulterated joy with others, even if only through a tv screen.
Perhaps unrelated, I have to work out a way to affix moveable plastic arms to my back, because this is what I want to go as for Halloween.
Labels: culture notes, music
10/05/2009 [2]
As a belated response to Dain's 90s playlist, I wanted to create my own playlist of songs I enjoyed from the decade. The 90s are the first decade I was old enough to fully appreciate and remember; as a result, I spent the majority of this decade thinking the 90s were the only right way to go. Well, this is true and it isn't. The 90s certainly brought about the cultural relevance of rap, the rise of Radiohead, and Nirvana Unplugged. They also brought about Haddaway, Aqua, and boy-pop. The music gods, sometimes so generous, they give until it hurts.
Below is a pretty accurate list of what we were all listening. It's mostly in chronological order, though there might be discrepancies, as I compiled it from memory. I also gave some thought to arranging like a CD, and hopefully it has the variations in mood that any good CD has. Enjoy.
Labels: culture notes, music
9/28/2009 [0]
I've recently gotten in the mood to compile a playlist. I came up with several ideas, including playlists for the 90s, personal favorites (both of which you're likely to see soon), and a playlist that turns femme rock (Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, Uh Huh Her, PJ Harvey, etc.) on its head. I cannot stand femme rock, but I quite like songs I would consider the male counterparts, hence this playlist. Note that I took the idea of femme rock more seriously than its actual contents. Not every song hits the nail on the head, but the liberties I took in creating this list ("I Heard It Through the Grapevine" reinvisioned as riot grrl breakup song; Sting and Jason Castro's voices as demonstrations of male vulnerability) make for a far more interesting list than mere replicas of the originals. As for the last song, I just needed something whimsical to break up all the misery. I hope you enjoy this list as much as I enjoyed making it.
Labels: culture notes, music
8/25/2009 [0]
I was pleased to read this recent interview with Louise Wilson on Cathy Horyn's On the Runway blog. I enjoy Cathy's interviews, and I found this interview particularly engaging as it touched on cultural themes that are very personally familiar, primarily the enormous amount of cultural stagnation we are facing:
"Did the industry plan that everyone would travel to the same countries, that everyone would have disposable means of income, that everybody would be quite bland? I recently interviewed someone coming to the MA program and they said the last film they had seen was “Valkyrie,” with Tom Cruise. I said, “You’re joking, aren’t you?” ...There are immensely talented people around but I feel huge vortexes of them are sucked into this mediocre world where nobody criticizes and it’s all terribly politically correct." [cite]
Despite the unprecedented level of access our culture at large now has to information, communication, material goods, and luxury replicas, I don't think it's making us any smarter, more critical, more thoughtful, or more imaginative. Instead, we're facing the Tumblr effect, in which all information gets virtually posted and re-posted without end, both in the sense that it never stops being posted and in that the information never reaches a culmination. Really cool pictures of audacious styling, inspiring quotes, viral videos - it's all shared endlessly. But what do people do with it? This is my question. I don't see a real response to various media or a progression of ideas. I only see replication of the idea, literally (that cool picture on every blog) and passively (one hundred different people on one hundred different days taking the same photo of a tea set with the light bouncing off the saucer). I never see any real action take place - a rebellion against stylized realism, an incisive satire of "edgy" fashion, anything that doesn't feed directly into the trends, thoughts, and assumptions of our times.
Years ago, Marc Jacobs gave an interview in which he shared that the role of designer was drastically different from even a generation before. In addition to designing, there was so much information the designer was expected to know, so much culture the designer had to engage in. Designers were now expected to read the same books as everyone else, keep up with pop culture, basically maintain the same references. At the time, I thought these very notions were ridiculous and the observations were mere complaints, the symptom of some anxiety. And I was right, though I didn't realize the anxiety was both cultural and personal. At times when less and less seems stable and controllable, when self-definitions crumble, the notion of safety in numbers can appeal, and I think it's this conceit that's partly responsible for the navalgazing the culture at large is currently engaged in. We may not know what it is to be American anymore or what the future will bring, but by God, we can all know and share in our experiences with the Kardashians/Rihanna/Octomom. Maybe no one looks good in Margiela's shredded jeans because they're ugly, but they're cool, so we'll all wear them. It boils down to safety, and it's all the more vicious and virulent a notion of safety not just because it's ultimately based in fear, but, more potently, because we're choosing to do it to ourselves.
I am not part of the fashion industry, but I enjoy reading my favorite fashion/style blogs daily. It has become a chore. I'm only an amateur, and yet it seems there's so much information you need to know just to keep up and be relevant. It's a daunting task just to keep up and nearly completely absorbing to get ahead, and this isn't even a description of skill, merely of retaining information. I cannot imagine the intense amount of pressure I'd feel if I were in the field, or the boredom, because all the information's the same. In a culture in which knowing and demonstrating the right information determines safety/competence/relevance, information itself quickly stagnates and discernment takes a vacation. It's less important to dress oneself well and appropriately for one's body type and lifestyle than it is to keep up and do as the Romans, a fact Wilson speaks to when she mentions the decline of style. As much technological innovation we have now and sheer possibility, never before witnessed, to create our own movements, speak for ourselves, and express our individual potentials, the effort is wasted on perfectionism and bleating to the beat of one collective drum. And while sharing the same information is crucial to a culture's survival - this is how culture gets transmitted - so is updating that information and infusing it with new life. Otherwise, you have a closed system in which nothing can get in or out. And as any systems analyst can tell you, without the exchange of (in this case) information, systems will fail.
"It might be very good for fashion if fashion goes out of fashion, and maybe nothing does happen for awhile and a few companies shut down. When the light turns away that’s when the new work will be done." [cite]
Labels: culture notes
7/16/2009 [1]
You can always find some way to justify absolutely anything.
DORKY GAMES
I'm competent at most things, the lone exception being perhaps video games. I play most of them like suicide missions, the only exception being Pokémon and Oregon Trail. Part of it has to do with horrible eye-virtual-hand coordination, another part of it has to do with getting freaked out about getting my characters killed (I refused to play Word Munchers as a kid because I found the process of maneuvering the little muncher guy around all those murderous troggles much too stressful). And I flat-out refuse to be in the same room when a zombie game is being played. I always tell myself that time spent playing video games is time wasted (like I don't waste time as it is!), which is true to a degree, though there is a distinct reek of sour grapes here.
The only games I'm able to play are the really simple ones, the ones that don't involve the deaths of humanoid figures or cute little creatures. I recently got over an addiction to Minesweeper and Tetris. I've now moved onto Spider Solitaire: it's so repetitive and very soothing in a mind-numbing sort of way... I'm sure that if it weren't for that little arachnid icon on my desktop tempting every time I turn on the computer, I would have better grades.
WIKIPEDIA
I've been something of an information junkie all my life, and one of my favorite things to do was to sit in the library digging through the encyclopedia. Now, in the internet age, Wikipedia provides all the access to (often esoteric) information that so thrills me, but in a clickable computerized format without any of the difficulty one encounters with bound volumes. You're reading an article about Byron, then you click a series of links that somehow incorporates Alan Turing and Monty Python, and ended up with the motif of harmful sensation (I've actually clicked on these exact links in this same order, though I've omitted some of the articles I passed by on the way... bonus points to anyone who can figure out which ones fit in the blank spaces)... you could follow these rabbit trails of associative thought forever, and it gobbles up my time like nothing. It's all there: biographies of famous people whose personal lives I really have no business being so interested in, pseudoscientific theories, and even an extensive section about um... unorthodox sexual practices.
Besides having wasted more time than I care to admit, I must also confess to having done much of my research for papers on Wikipedia (though only as a starting point; I make a point of filling the bibliography with "legitimate" sources which I usually haven't read as fully as I should have), which everyone in the academic community sneers at because of its open-source format. This strikes me as a somewhat prejudiced and unfair assumption to make: enough visitors look at the sites each day so that vandalism, mistaken reporting, and even factual errors are usually corrected pretty promptly. And most of the content is actually quite accurate and free of errors, as the articles are usually written by geeks who make it their personal business to be knowledgeable.
WASTING HOT WATER
I love hot showers and baths. I love to just stand there, for no reason at all, and feel the hot water pour over my head, which is why I always take so long in the bathroom (once my mom actually came in to check if I hadn't drowned). I waste a lot of water this way.
SHOUJO MANGA / ANIME
I don't mind being pegged as a nerd, which is why I don't consider my affection for Slayers, Inu-Yasha, and Evangelion to be "guilty pleasures." However, there's something about "shoujo" (aimed at a female audience) manga that makes me shy away from reading the stuff in public. Unlike the relentlessly cheerful, consumerism-thinly-disguised-as-feminist, simultaneously earnest and brain-dead chick-lit churned out for the American market, shoujo manga seem to incorporate considerable doses of masochism with their fluff: feminist statements, you will not find here. Homosexuality both male and female (the former as a female version of male fantasies about lesbians, the latter usually portrayed with codependent intensity), incest, situations that may be construed as bondage, and relationships between young girls and suspiciously older men, and cross-dressing are all common elements of the genre. It's not the sexual content that's disturbing however—it's rarely more than hinted at, nothing explicit occurs—but the use of inequality and violence as the basis for sexual identity. To a feminist's mind, it's somewhat dangerous material... which you can't tear your eyes away from.
My personal favorite of the manga/anime genre is Shoujo Kakumei Utena, a mind-fuck dressed in candy-coated rose petals, twisted sexual politics disguised as an archetypical fairy tale disguised as a gothic romance disguised as an innocent schoolgirl genre story. The eponymous character, who as a little girl was so impressed by the kindness of a young prince she met that she is determined follow in his footsteps and become a prince rather than a princess, is drawn into a series of surreal duels for the hand of a classmate, the "princess" of the story. What makes Utena so disturbing and yet so profound is its own awareness of the politics behind its sexual content: few others in the "shoujo" genre seem to be made with a conscious thought to any deeper meaning behind their histrionics.
Photo of "Coney Island Whitefish" by David Goldes.*
DISPOSABLE PLASTICS
It's recently become "cool" to be "green." Yet, for all the hype environmentalist movements today get (as young as I am, I still remember the days when "global warming" was considered an urban myth), few people think about its deeper ramifications any more than they did ten, twenty years ago. Yes, ethanol burns cleaner, but the effort involved in producing it generates more pollution than burning it saves, and the resulting increase in demand for grains will drive up basic food prices high enough to provoke effective famines worldwide. Easy solutions to immediate problems will not do: eventually, we must confront the hard truth and acknowledge that our civilization is not sustainable as it is and we must either become extinct as a race or suffer a sea change to occur in our mode of living. Petroleum, in particular, is not only used to fuel cars: plastics are derived from petroleum, and as any scientist will tell you, technology and medicine in their current forms cannot exist without abundant access to plastics, the versatility of which cannot be matched by any natural material.
Predictably, this also means that we find plenty of frivolous ways to abuse this increasingly precious resource in our everyday lives. Like popping bubble wrap. (For that matter, making bubble wrap in the first place.)
*Yeah, I know they're usually made from latex, but it's actually increasingly common to make them from polyurethane these days, in order to accommodate (pun intended) those with latex allergies.
And how do I know this?
Wikipedia.
Labels: animation, culture notes, environmentalism, shoujo kakumei utena
6/06/2009 [6]
CANADIAN CONTENT
The Canadian government requires that a certain portion of radio and TV broadcasts be given over to Canadian content, which means that over the years Canadians have had to listen to a lot of Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Feist, Barenaked Ladies, etc. And then there are the less, um, internationally viable Canadian acts:
I hear this song and I'm instantly seven again. (It is still playing in drugstore aisles and waiting rooms across the country, by the way.) I think this might actually be the worst music video I've ever seen, but perhaps I'm just overwhelmed by the mullets.
It's tough to determine which Canadian content is truly a "guilty pleasure", by the way. The original Degrassi Junior High (I have not seen the remake, it looks far too clean and zit-free) was ever so earnest and kitschy, but if Kevin Smith vouches for it, can it really be "guilty"? Probably not.
WHINY BRITPOP
How about some puppy dog eyes and vaguely yearning lyrics? You know you want it.
Seriously, how douchey is this? And yet.
CHICK FLICKS
I admit, I am a sucker for any movie with a makeover in it.
My current favourite in the girly fluff genre is Enchanted. Liking Enchanted isn't such a sin against taste; it's cute, if wildly illogical, and Amy Adams is superb in it — hers is one of those performances that turn a one-star movie into a three-star movie. No, what makes this a guilty pleasure is the ball of mush I turn into when watching this scene:
What can I say? The inner twelve-year-old dies hard. I swear, that kind of over-orchestrated, synth-heavy Disney music is designed to produce a Pavlovian response in women my age. Or, um, maybe just me.
JUNK FOOD
I don't drink pop (soda, Coke, whatever you call it) because I find it far too sweet, but other than that, bring it on. I have a special fondness for things involving cheese: poutine, pizza, garlic fingers (imagine a plain cheese pizza with garlic butter in place of tomato sauce), Kraft Dinner. Oh, Kraft Dinner.During exams I pretty much subsisted on Twizzlers and gummi bears. It helps to gnaw on something.
KARAOKE
Including, oh yes, Rock Band. (Guitar Hero is also acceptable, but in my opinion, Rock Band is a better game.) I recently figured out how to handle the little orange button on the toy guitar: I think this gave me only slightly less pleasure than graduating from law school. I was in an auditioned children's choir when I was a kid and never quite got over it, mentally or vocally (I still sing like a little girl). I get very excited when I score over 95% on Expert vocals.
Toronto has karaoke boxes (noree-bang?) in its Korean neighbourhoods; a former boyfriend and I have spent numerous hours embarrassing ourselves in them.
TAROT
Reading tarot cards (which I do rarely, and not well) invariably tells us what we already know, but sometimes this is helpful. Also, the images are beautiful.
OWNING WAY TOO MUCH LIPSTICK
Self-explanatory.
Labels: culture notes, music, rock band
6/05/2009 [7]
VALLEY GIRL
I once told a co-worker I had Britney Spear's greatest hits CD. She told me that's something I probably shouldn't tell a lot of people. Therein is the truth of the phrase "guilty pleasures" - they're pleasures other people think you should feel guilty for. As for me, I feel no guilt about enjoying Britney Spears's bubble-gum pop or anything else on this list, although I have to admit it's kind of embarrassing looking up Britney Spears picture on your work break.
TRUSTAFARIAN
I went out with a guy once who showed up thirty minutes late and ten minutes in told me that he and I were like thesis and anti-thesis, and that basically, he didn't have to ask me any more questions about me because he already knew the answer would be the opposite of whatever he said. He's still single.
Among the other pearls of wisdom he gifted me with that night, he told me he could "just kind of tell" I was a hippie kid "because I was wearing Chucks." I don't know what Converse has to do with peace and recycling, but hippie kid pegged. One of the few holdovers left from my progressive middle school experience is an enduring love of reggae, and this particular blend of reggae and hip-hop is right up my alley. Plus, I used to fly through Schipol frequently when I lived in Scandinavia, so the video helps reduce homesickness.
TWEAKER
What Not To Wear is not a highly innovative show, either in terms of the makeover format or in terms of individual episodes. Once you've seen one episode, you've seen them all. Also, I am not sure that all the "tough love" doled out by Clinton and Stacey is so much constructive as it is their abuse of their public forum to passive-aggressively bitch. However, there has not been one episode that the end didn't (mostly) justify the means. I get real pleasure from seeing the light come on in the makeover victim's eyes as he (or she) finally gets it - that his cartoonish style has really just been a front, that the sartorial buffoonery has been less a stylistic choice and more a diversion or a hiding place, and that it is actually okay to come out of that shell and look good. I don't know how long these revelations stick with these people. I don't even know if they ever fully take root in them (or care). I am really just deeply and completely satisfied with that moment of "aha" and can more or less take the rest of the show just for that moment.
MEAN GIRL
I've never been a Michelle Trachtenburg fan, but I love her in Gossip Girl. She's the perfect villain - terrible to her victims, but you love to watch her strike. Ultimately, Gossip Girl's real pleasures are not really in the clothes or the styling, but in the perverse pleasure in seeing people dish it out, over and over again. Although the show started out chronicling the (now) good girl, Gossip Girl has become a celebration of mean kids, whether they're girls or boys, and the intelligence, pent-up anger, and lack of suitable releases that turns them into the monsters they are. It's just as thrilling to hear their witty, (sometimes) snappy dialogue as it is to see them assert themselves as King and Queen Bees and knock their opponents down. Most thrilling of all is enjoying the sense of vindication that comes with watching them unsuccessfully stalk their prey, finally reveal them to be the villains they are, and skillfully knock them down to the peg where they belong. These might not be cheerful or healthy role models, but watching the mechanics of how they operate is an enervating way to spend a Monday evening.
CHEER UP, EMO KID
Much as I enjoy Love Story as a kind of time machine, the great joy I get out of it is its sincerity. There is an earnestness in Love Story that isn't present in contemporary films, and dopey and sappy as the movie is, it's that uncomplicated earnestness that hits me like a knife in the gut at the movie's end. Unlike modern films, which insist on promoting "realism" by showing every little difficulty/PC "difference"/moment of self-consciousness in the characters' worlds, Love Story has two dilemmas. That's it. The rest of the movie is just about love, and as simple as that concept seems, try selling it right now. So even though there are cheesy snow angel sequences and one of the worst quotes of all time, in the end, I always end up crying because of the simple, pure truths behind the story: Death hurts. Make the most of your time, because it's all that you get with your loved ones. Love is worth it.
Labels: britney spears, culture notes, gossip girl, love story, music, what not to wear, ziggi
6/05/2009 [2]
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