Mar 5, 2010
"I have a spiritual guide, not a therapist but someone who in my mind is connected with a higher being, and he helps me a lot. What I like about him is that he doesn't speak to me like I am a normal person. He understands that I have an eccentric way of life and personality. And he also understands that I am famous, and I appreciate that. He tells me that I no longer serve my life in the normal way that people serve their life, that I must serve the greater good in my service to the universe. And for me, it's my fans. I only serve my fans." Don't you think it's kind of creepy when you refer to yourself in the third person? "No. Not if you're an artist, it's not. I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don't live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans. And that way, I have to think about not what is best for my vagina but what is best for my fans and for me artistically." — Lady Gaga in an interview with T Magazine.
OH NO!!!!!!!!
I like the bit about "a spiritual guide, not a therapist," but then....
Are we only two kinds: famous artists with fans and un*famous non-artists who put their vaginas first? Tell me tell me.
OH NO!!!!!!!!
I like the bit about "a spiritual guide, not a therapist," but then....
Are we only two kinds: famous artists with fans and un*famous non-artists who put their vaginas first? Tell me tell me.
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 3, 2010
Verses
Burning Our Ouija Board
Jennifer - Oakwood, Illinois - Summer 1984
I wanted to share with you an occurrence that convinced me that there is more to this world than what we can see. I was merely seven years old growing up in a typical turn of the century home in the Midwest. I can recall many happenings that made me fearful. Being a small child, that is typical. It was not until I began having very odd occurrences like someone rubbing my back when I was lying in bed half asleep, turning and expecting mom, only to find no one was there! Oftentimes when I would be lying in bed there were odd noises in the kitchen when no one was up. Scary as some of those encounters were, nothing could have prepared me for what happened one summer evening.
It was a beautiful sunny evening. At that time, only one of my brothers stilled lived at home, and he was gone for the day. My parents were in the garage playing ping-pong with friends and visiting. I had been outside playing and went in to retrieve any young girls favorite -- Barbies! I had brought a few out with me and went back in a few moments later to get some wardrobe changes. I walked into my room like I had just prior, and as I flipped the light on I was astounded! My room was ransacked! Certainly my room was not perfectly clean, but things were in disarray. I mean totally turned over. A desk was flipped and the typewriter which did not work (did not have type writer ribbon) had been strategically placed in the entrance way -- oddly enough it had a typed paper sticking up from it. In shock and looking at my room, I bent to get read the paper. It read "I hate my brother, Timmy," which was my brother who I greatly missed and had recently moved out. I stood there only a moment and was overcome by a very odd feeling. I ran out to get mom. She was visiting a friend and was having no part of my frantic behavior. Finally after insisting, she did come into the house with me only minutes later. As we arrived at my room I came around the hall corner and saw the light was off -- knowing I had not turned it off -- then to my utter disbelief, the room was not in the condition I found it moments before. Things were "back to normal."
I was crying and shocked and expressed to mom what happened. She honestly did not know what to think and chalked it up to my imagination. I was terrified for months and it seems the activity was more aggressive at night at that point. I recall having very spooky, vivid dreams of a man attacking me in my room and standing there over me. I awoke night after night in screams with either mom running to me or vice versa. Little to my knowledge, being young, mom was trying to protect me. She withheld a lot of odd activity that had been taking place. She had been hearing voices calling her at night and she too was feeling threatened by the activity occurring. She kept her fears to herself.
Well, by chance one day her evangelist sister had dropped by town unexpectedly. She stopped by our home to find the house open but empty. She came in and was immediately overcome by an evil feeling. She felt very ill and left quickly before we arrived. Later she came and expressed to mom how she felt. She returned one day and felt compelled to enter my bedroom. There was a game closet in my room which held many games and among them was a Ouija board. As soon as my aunt saw this she knew that was the source of her anxiety. (I will add that, I personally being only seven had played with this game a few times as it was in my room, unaware that it was a tool to contact the other side.)
My aunt began praying and took the board outdoors. We had a burn barrel and she and mom started a fire. They placed the board in once the fire was burning well. The board would not burn, nor would it even char. The fire went out, again and again! About that time, I returned home from school and there they were around the fire… they did not explain to me why they were burning stuff when I questioned them. I knew it was odd that my aunt would be concerned that the fire would not burn. I was sent in the house. Later, I mean hours later, they were still at it. Finally, my uncle, a preacher, arrived. By that time my dad had come home for the day, too. He was about to put diesel fuel on it to try to burn it but, my uncle approached. He stood there, praying as did mom and my aunt. Next thing you know, the board more or less burst into a fire ball and was disintegrated before their eyes! Once I was older and made aware of what had actually taken place, I knew that the source of the disturbances began when I had gotten out the Ouija board! Come to find out -- this Ouija board mom and dad had purchased 20 years before and had been told some devastating news which some had come true, others had nearly (loss of a cousin), but many prayers went up. Mom vowed never to "play" again after what they encountered. Apparently, leaving it in the closet was not the best idea. The good news is God is bigger than the boogie man. Please be leery -- Ouija boards can lead to many hazards! Since then, I have had many odd occurrences and am well aware that there is another realm that we cannot see; both good and evil.
----above from www.ghostvillage.com/encounters
Jennifer - Oakwood, Illinois - Summer 1984
I wanted to share with you an occurrence that convinced me that there is more to this world than what we can see. I was merely seven years old growing up in a typical turn of the century home in the Midwest. I can recall many happenings that made me fearful. Being a small child, that is typical. It was not until I began having very odd occurrences like someone rubbing my back when I was lying in bed half asleep, turning and expecting mom, only to find no one was there! Oftentimes when I would be lying in bed there were odd noises in the kitchen when no one was up. Scary as some of those encounters were, nothing could have prepared me for what happened one summer evening.
It was a beautiful sunny evening. At that time, only one of my brothers stilled lived at home, and he was gone for the day. My parents were in the garage playing ping-pong with friends and visiting. I had been outside playing and went in to retrieve any young girls favorite -- Barbies! I had brought a few out with me and went back in a few moments later to get some wardrobe changes. I walked into my room like I had just prior, and as I flipped the light on I was astounded! My room was ransacked! Certainly my room was not perfectly clean, but things were in disarray. I mean totally turned over. A desk was flipped and the typewriter which did not work (did not have type writer ribbon) had been strategically placed in the entrance way -- oddly enough it had a typed paper sticking up from it. In shock and looking at my room, I bent to get read the paper. It read "I hate my brother, Timmy," which was my brother who I greatly missed and had recently moved out. I stood there only a moment and was overcome by a very odd feeling. I ran out to get mom. She was visiting a friend and was having no part of my frantic behavior. Finally after insisting, she did come into the house with me only minutes later. As we arrived at my room I came around the hall corner and saw the light was off -- knowing I had not turned it off -- then to my utter disbelief, the room was not in the condition I found it moments before. Things were "back to normal."
I was crying and shocked and expressed to mom what happened. She honestly did not know what to think and chalked it up to my imagination. I was terrified for months and it seems the activity was more aggressive at night at that point. I recall having very spooky, vivid dreams of a man attacking me in my room and standing there over me. I awoke night after night in screams with either mom running to me or vice versa. Little to my knowledge, being young, mom was trying to protect me. She withheld a lot of odd activity that had been taking place. She had been hearing voices calling her at night and she too was feeling threatened by the activity occurring. She kept her fears to herself.
Well, by chance one day her evangelist sister had dropped by town unexpectedly. She stopped by our home to find the house open but empty. She came in and was immediately overcome by an evil feeling. She felt very ill and left quickly before we arrived. Later she came and expressed to mom how she felt. She returned one day and felt compelled to enter my bedroom. There was a game closet in my room which held many games and among them was a Ouija board. As soon as my aunt saw this she knew that was the source of her anxiety. (I will add that, I personally being only seven had played with this game a few times as it was in my room, unaware that it was a tool to contact the other side.)
My aunt began praying and took the board outdoors. We had a burn barrel and she and mom started a fire. They placed the board in once the fire was burning well. The board would not burn, nor would it even char. The fire went out, again and again! About that time, I returned home from school and there they were around the fire… they did not explain to me why they were burning stuff when I questioned them. I knew it was odd that my aunt would be concerned that the fire would not burn. I was sent in the house. Later, I mean hours later, they were still at it. Finally, my uncle, a preacher, arrived. By that time my dad had come home for the day, too. He was about to put diesel fuel on it to try to burn it but, my uncle approached. He stood there, praying as did mom and my aunt. Next thing you know, the board more or less burst into a fire ball and was disintegrated before their eyes! Once I was older and made aware of what had actually taken place, I knew that the source of the disturbances began when I had gotten out the Ouija board! Come to find out -- this Ouija board mom and dad had purchased 20 years before and had been told some devastating news which some had come true, others had nearly (loss of a cousin), but many prayers went up. Mom vowed never to "play" again after what they encountered. Apparently, leaving it in the closet was not the best idea. The good news is God is bigger than the boogie man. Please be leery -- Ouija boards can lead to many hazards! Since then, I have had many odd occurrences and am well aware that there is another realm that we cannot see; both good and evil.
----above from www.ghostvillage.com/encounters
Mar 2, 2010
I've been sitting on a couple of post.ideas: Jennifer Lopez's event dressing, 2002-present; Beyoncé's use of the word "it" in reference to ladies/herself, "check on it," "put a ring on it"; Tom Ford in New Mexico.
This addendum to a previous post seems most pressing though (and less research-oriented and now that I've typed those three gists I'll probably never get around to realizing them anyway...).
When I wrote about Tavi Gevinson last week (or the one before that?), I didn't feel great. I felt worse when I pushed through/out those paragraphs on Lady Gaga.
I've never been deft at (capital P)Philosophy, asking 'why,' or charting others' courses, questions, answers. I have a way of wearing a blithe, religious cloud. How I ignore people I know in restaurants, drop classes, wake up and board a train. That's not really it it's that....
my first and last degree of inquiry are
our emotional life and cultural life and how to read events, phenomena through them.
I always thought, "There's enough over and on top, enough that's decorative or enough that's mystical, narrative or good to eat or funny or tragic. I'll never need to note the mechanics of things, draw out workable theorems, order." I liked Venn diagrams for jokes.
And it still holds. But I've begun to wonder, with the tremor of faith-crisis:
"Why do we criticize?"
The answer, for me, I think, lies in emotional life and cultural life, no deeper (if there is a deeper depth?); so maybe the line of inquiry isn't so shattering and strange after all, doesn't demand new and better Philosophical discipline?
Except that it's a nervous and looming question, a schmaltz-ily general one too. It sounds like Philosophy.*
I've never been deft at (capital P)Philosophy, asking 'why,' or charting others' courses, questions, answers. I have a way of wearing a blithe, religious cloud. How I ignore people I know in restaurants, drop classes, wake up and board a train. That's not really it it's that....
my first and last degree of inquiry are
our emotional life and cultural life and how to read events, phenomena through them.
I always thought, "There's enough over and on top, enough that's decorative or enough that's mystical, narrative or good to eat or funny or tragic. I'll never need to note the mechanics of things, draw out workable theorems, order." I liked Venn diagrams for jokes.
And it still holds. But I've begun to wonder, with the tremor of faith-crisis:
"Why do we criticize?"
The answer, for me, I think, lies in emotional life and cultural life, no deeper (if there is a deeper depth?); so maybe the line of inquiry isn't so shattering and strange after all, doesn't demand new and better Philosophical discipline?
Except that it's a nervous and looming question, a schmaltz-ily general one too. It sounds like Philosophy.*
I probably criticized Tavi, because I'm afraid of her, also because I feel not-unrelated to her.
I'm turning 25 in April and I'm spooked. I was 23 (not 22) when I graduated art school in May 2008, but it doesn't really matter either way. Time has both seeped costively and run away from me since. It hasn't felt like much has happened/is happening, or not much more than a sealing in and a series of limits met and an actual grinding of the days (even on weekends). Pillow has called this period an 'adolescence,' but worse (smarter). Social life is confusing, but also boring. One seems to not know what one can do, should do, what one is capable of. I suppose I do a lot that nobody knows about. I feel secret. But it's not...sexy? I feel like I'm turning into a character in a play or a novel about work and morality. I feel like I am missing the boat--several boats, several a day. I feel like there's a gamer and sunnier self I ought to be and am not being, that that self might be successful, while I am not. Success is a great issue.
******
I'm turning 25 in April and I'm spooked. I was 23 (not 22) when I graduated art school in May 2008, but it doesn't really matter either way. Time has both seeped costively and run away from me since. It hasn't felt like much has happened/is happening, or not much more than a sealing in and a series of limits met and an actual grinding of the days (even on weekends). Pillow has called this period an 'adolescence,' but worse (smarter). Social life is confusing, but also boring. One seems to not know what one can do, should do, what one is capable of. I suppose I do a lot that nobody knows about. I feel secret. But it's not...sexy? I feel like I'm turning into a character in a play or a novel about work and morality. I feel like I am missing the boat--several boats, several a day. I feel like there's a gamer and sunnier self I ought to be and am not being, that that self might be successful, while I am not. Success is a great issue.
******
As you read (I, me, to me, for me, in a personal way), when I blog, I'm talking about myself. So perhaps none of what I've posted to A&P is actual (capital C)Criticism; I don't pretend distance. But does "distance," "critical distance" even exist?
I don't know what it's like for other people, but I'm full of prejudices. Not necessarily ugly ones, but I see how I see and nobody else does, just so.
******
A kind of blundering stagnation must be somewhat normal for 24to25 year-olds. I think. But--and forgive me because I haven't mentioned it in a long time--the Recession, the Job Crisis.
Tavi Gevinson sends me into slow panic,
seeds a ranging fear that ours is a Lost Generation professionally,
that as we plod and pluck and try to do regular things
(pay rent, give Thanks),
babies, bona fide children, are jumping queue with adorable YouTube videos and creditcredit, audiences, opportunities, attention, co-opting relevance every minute.
This kind of paranoia is dumb and dangerous and lazy.
But I thought I might get honest about the whole thing. And source, as I write, some balance and wisdom and will (We have will!).
Over the weekend, I watched The September Issue, which was great. The film's position chronologically is perfect, the total footage taken during the publication of 2007's Fall volume, the largest (ad-sales-iest) in Conde Nast's history. I imagine 2008's was the real era-ender, arriving a week or so before the Banks failed and publishing doom got writ bolder and bolder and luxury got universally depressing, ghostly. But this view in/of 2007, Manhattan in summer, a place I was
a season-off college student lolling around, eating, drinking and crying about my boyfriend with
**dramatic irony in hindsight**
no idea what was going to happen, how credit was so thin and impossible, how I'd break-up and get my bubble burst too, and how maybe, nothing would really happen, the system would fry.
It's beautiful. Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington, the English, female leads (as the men seem to pose [Talley] and bluster [Testino] and worry [Newhouse]), are beautiful. Anna is an economist. Grace is an artist. They both go to work everyday. There's a lot happening (like, how incredible that Anna's house looks the way it does), but this thread of DAILY WORKING LIFE--how life is long and how the very start of employment eventually recedes with a ribbon of labor--is the stuff.
Even Tavi, with her crazy-precocious success, will have to show up, over and over; she'll have to have a 20s and a 30s and a 40s and a 50s. I will too. One's career is never actually a matter of sublimation...
And maybe (Oh G-d), we(I) can learn something from Tavi and her currently forming generation.
The power and sense of possibility they draw from the Internet, the way it makes them feel capable of participation, or at least, publication with/into the large World is exciting.
We'll need to feel their hope and thrill and luck
if we're ever to make it through our long lives of work.
*In general here, I'm afraid I don't make it so clear what the meanings of "religious cloud" and "Philosophy" and "faith-crisis" are. I don't really know.
I don't know what it's like for other people, but I'm full of prejudices. Not necessarily ugly ones, but I see how I see and nobody else does, just so.
******
A kind of blundering stagnation must be somewhat normal for 24to25 year-olds. I think. But--and forgive me because I haven't mentioned it in a long time--the Recession, the Job Crisis.
Tavi Gevinson sends me into slow panic,
seeds a ranging fear that ours is a Lost Generation professionally,
that as we plod and pluck and try to do regular things
(pay rent, give Thanks),
babies, bona fide children, are jumping queue with adorable YouTube videos and creditcredit, audiences, opportunities, attention, co-opting relevance every minute.
This kind of paranoia is dumb and dangerous and lazy.
But I thought I might get honest about the whole thing. And source, as I write, some balance and wisdom and will (We have will!).
Over the weekend, I watched The September Issue, which was great. The film's position chronologically is perfect, the total footage taken during the publication of 2007's Fall volume, the largest (ad-sales-iest) in Conde Nast's history. I imagine 2008's was the real era-ender, arriving a week or so before the Banks failed and publishing doom got writ bolder and bolder and luxury got universally depressing, ghostly. But this view in/of 2007, Manhattan in summer, a place I was
a season-off college student lolling around, eating, drinking and crying about my boyfriend with
**dramatic irony in hindsight**
no idea what was going to happen, how credit was so thin and impossible, how I'd break-up and get my bubble burst too, and how maybe, nothing would really happen, the system would fry.
It's beautiful. Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington, the English, female leads (as the men seem to pose [Talley] and bluster [Testino] and worry [Newhouse]), are beautiful. Anna is an economist. Grace is an artist. They both go to work everyday. There's a lot happening (like, how incredible that Anna's house looks the way it does), but this thread of DAILY WORKING LIFE--how life is long and how the very start of employment eventually recedes with a ribbon of labor--is the stuff.
Even Tavi, with her crazy-precocious success, will have to show up, over and over; she'll have to have a 20s and a 30s and a 40s and a 50s. I will too. One's career is never actually a matter of sublimation...
And maybe (Oh G-d), we(I) can learn something from Tavi and her currently forming generation.
The power and sense of possibility they draw from the Internet, the way it makes them feel capable of participation, or at least, publication with/into the large World is exciting.
We'll need to feel their hope and thrill and luck
if we're ever to make it through our long lives of work.
*In general here, I'm afraid I don't make it so clear what the meanings of "religious cloud" and "Philosophy" and "faith-crisis" are. I don't really know.
Mar 1, 2010
verses
'July'
Ted Berrigan
Lady, she has been my friend for some years sketches, I haven’t explained Actually of horror subject to neither of our laws intimate incantations under the sheets tried nothing a quivery sort of fellow hurts my forehead this shower No thought for your life and casual abductors in books I cant stand if it die. The life range examination as I am a cowboy it is unless it isnt and you imaginary scenes soot years of writing this most of it movies I cant stand a particular buttressing of the body. Olive green color. Let’s take a sentimental journey. Dont forget to bleed. I have. Many days writing the same work into itself the appearance of a role but How dark for some forty years Irish brogue rolls toward sister mother shunted aside that’s the penalty of time or of space Certainly not a place. So we come together in this bed. Later glee (lie) now pills (no lie) The End. Bugles call no snow to the powderhouse the library abductors, woe unto you also ye lawyers! No. Not reminded, I go (revealed) (No Smoking In This Room)
from Angel Hair 4, Winter 1967–68
Ted Berrigan
Lady, she has been my friend for some years sketches, I haven’t explained Actually of horror subject to neither of our laws intimate incantations under the sheets tried nothing a quivery sort of fellow hurts my forehead this shower No thought for your life and casual abductors in books I cant stand if it die. The life range examination as I am a cowboy it is unless it isnt and you imaginary scenes soot years of writing this most of it movies I cant stand a particular buttressing of the body. Olive green color. Let’s take a sentimental journey. Dont forget to bleed. I have. Many days writing the same work into itself the appearance of a role but How dark for some forty years Irish brogue rolls toward sister mother shunted aside that’s the penalty of time or of space Certainly not a place. So we come together in this bed. Later glee (lie) now pills (no lie) The End. Bugles call no snow to the powderhouse the library abductors, woe unto you also ye lawyers! No. Not reminded, I go (revealed) (No Smoking In This Room)
from Angel Hair 4, Winter 1967–68
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