Death, menstruation & dreaming June 21, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Misc., Personal.Tags: death, DMT, dreaming, menstruation
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I’ve been doing a lot of “active learning” lately on the concept of menstrual huts, and how they were used as communal places for women to share their dreams and intuitions. When I’d first heard about them, in passing from a friend of mine years ago, she implied that girls and women were sent to these huts because their tribes believed they were “polluted” or “dirty” in some way, but when I did some research on the subject myself, I found out that this wasn’t always the case. Often, especially in more primitive cultures, the huts were considered to be positive place where women could rest and reflect during menses. In some cultures, the dreams girls and women had during their menses were considered particularly important and prophetical to their tribes.
Women outside a menstrual hut. Photograph from Lessa (1966)
It’s equal parts sad and mystical that there is still so little we understand about menstruation, particularly psychologically, hundreds and hundreds of years later. I’ve always felt sort of detached from my periods as a feminine event. I never struggled with guilt or feelings that it was dirty, but I’ve never felt a swell of feminine pride or rage where it’s concerned either. Like most things tied into my gender/sexuality, I spent most of my more formative years being completely ambivalent toward it and still am, for the most part. For a greater chunk of my life, my fertility was nothing but a vague cloud that hung over me disproportionately.
I began puberty very early and reached it’s pinnacle (menstruation) when I was just 9 years old. This affected the development of my reproductive system, (“stunting” was the world a gyno used once) to such a degree that my periods were never regular- light when they came at all. One of my ovaries is also much smaller than the other as a result of my early development, and so it was always unclear whether I would be capable of carrying a child to term at all. I suppose this allowed (or maybe forced) me to detach myself from the event of menstruation. It was something that came and went, not of any particular important aside from brief joy at not being pregnant falling away into passing annoyance.
But since I had my son (whose gestation set right a lot of the wayward hormones that had kept me just outside of having “correct” sexual physiology for so long), I’ve had to confront my menstrual cycle in an entirely new way. Is this what womanhood feels like? I’ve started to get terrible, terrible migraines the week of and the week after my period. They’ve also been kicking my ass into short but excruciating depressions- “take to your bed” kinds of depressions all tied up in a beautiful bow of paranoia. I wonder if this onset of psychological trauma is somehow tied into the lack of time, introspection and respect I’ve given the more unknowable side of my (now “proper”) menstrual cycle? Would I suffer as much if I was able to go away during these times, to be with other women in a similar state, communing and prophesying our dreams?
The chemical in your brain that some folks theorize creates the dream state, DMT, is also believed by some scientists to be the chemical your brain releases right before you die. It’s also available as a recreational drug, which I’ve tried and actually didn’t enjoy. I had what I call a “Nikki Sixx moment” one night in Oregon, which I won’t even get into here, where I feel I truly came close to death and can vouch (now that I’ve ingested DMT recreationally) that the experience was identical. If the human body releases the same chemical during dreaming that it does moments before “death,” is dreaming a form of dying? Or, likewise, is dying a form of dreaming?
“Each month women go through a cycle very similar to (the Moon’s). We ‘die’ at menstruation; a part of us that hasn’t come to fruition or conceived dies off and is released.” – Felicity Oswell
If this line of logic is followed, menstruation bring us closer to the “feeling” of death. Is that why so many women struggle (with depression, fatigue, rage, extreme emotional sensitivity, insomnia, migraines) during their menses? Similarly to my near death experience, the onset of my monthly migraines (complete with aura) also remind me of the beginnings of a DMT trip. Could this also explain the emotional changes and deep melancholy girls go through during the onsent of puberty, changes so severe that Denis Diderot once wrote of women “You all die at 15″?
It’s not hard to see, then, why the dreams of menstruating women were once considered to be so prophetical, and somehow closer to a unknown spiritual layer than others’. Menstruation IS a form of monthly death, and for some reason I never considered the spiritual ramifications of that until very recently. If dreaming is connected somehow to the act of dying (or vice versa) then it does follow easily that dreams which occur during a mass monthly cycle of life/death would be particularly other worldly and, well, non-”living” in nature. How much damage have we done to ourselves, psychologically, by forcing ourselves to “act normal” during our periods, going to work, wearing tight jeans, going to the gym and whatnot? Are we smothering something fundamental in doing so?
I’m going to approach my period next month completely differently, I think. I might even take a vacation by myself and head down to the water with a dream journal in my hands. I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes down.
How The Raincoats Saved My Teenaged Life May 2, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Music, Nostalgia, Punk/Alternative.2 comments
When I was in my early teens, I was really into Nirvana. I mean really, really. A friend of mine in 8th grade had traded me his copies of “Nevermind” and “In Utero” for my copies of Green Day’s “Dookie” and “Nimrod,” and I literally never looked back. Sometimes when I really think about the sheer amount of Nirvana I listened to, it kind of blows my mind. What ended up being most important about my superfandom, however, was that they were a springboard for me into almost all of the music I listen to now, in one way or another. Through Nirvana I discovered the Pixies, the Gits, Daniel Johnston, Bikini Kill (and riot grrrl in general), Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, and so many others. Through those bands, I discovered more and etc etc. My debt to Nirvana, and their persistence at insisting that their fans listen to music that was better than theirs, is seriously deep. Particularly because, thanks to them, I discovered the Raincoats, who literally saved my teenage life.
From the liner notes of Incesticide, I read about Kurt Cobain going shopping in the London rain for Raincoats records and meeting Ana Da Silva in the process, so I went to the record store the next day to buy one of their albums. It’s so much easier to discover new music now, via the internet; prior to it, it required a remarkable amount of leg work and trial and error. There was an amazing record store at a townie strip mall that was walking distance from my house then, called Waves, that had a massive used cd section. The used music there was so cheap ($2-$3 each) that I regularly went in and just bought a handful of random, interesting looking CDs at a time on a whim. Waves (now closed, and mourned by me for years) is also where I bought my first Smiths, PJ Harvey, Pixies, Bikini Kill & Belle and Sebastian records. It was such a formidable influence on me that I remember everything about the place. I can smell the moldy wood paneling now, sigh.
The guy who worked there was much older than me, in a band I’d seen at local all ages shows, and had a giant green mohawk. When I placed “The Kitchen Tapes” down on the counter he gave me a strange look. He asked me where I heard of the Raincoats and I just shrugged and said nothing, horrifyingly intimidated by him. We had several of these exchanges, actually, since I was always in the store. At the time, of course, I thought he was judging me. Checking out was my least favorite part of the Waves experience, solely because of his constant inquiries into my purchases.
(Years later, when a friend of mine took me to a party at the house he shared with his other band members, he actually remembered me. He was not judging me at all, by the way, and was nowhere near as pretentious as I always thought. I dressed like a bag lady and so looked a lot younger than I was, leading him to believe I was much younger than 14, which apparently freaked him out.)
When I got “The Kitchen Tapes” home, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I didn’t know anything about the Raincoats. I didn’t know what sort of music they made, or that they were an all female band. I was just incurably curious and open minded, excited to hear something new.
When “No One’s Little Girl” started, I was immediately gobsmacked by how DIFFERENT it was from everything I’d heard up until then. The vocal whips and whoops, the screeching out of tune violin, the bare minimalism of it, the lyrics: “I’m no one’s little girl, oh no I’m not / I’m not gonna be ’cause I don’t wanna be / I never shall be in your family tree.” I was 14 years old. One of my best friends at the time was a burgeoning punk who was heavy into bands like The Business and Stiff Little Fingers (and is now a feared Derby Dame in Boston), so I thought punk music was oi’s and boys and noise- the Raincoats changed everything. I was enlightened in such a way that I felt different immediately. In an online review I recently read for “The Kitchen Tapes,” someone wrote “I mean, if you don’t buy this CD you will never know how far you could have gone in life.” And honestly- truth.
I recently started really, really thinking about the Raincoats’ effect on my adolescent life while working on a box set of mixes for my friend Joanna. Five CDs, each about an hour long, each made up of music made by female artists in different eras starting from 1900. The last CD is punk/alternative, including the likes of Patti Smith, The Dolly Mixture, X-Ray Spex, Bratmobile, The Scissor Girls, The Slits, Heavens To Betsy, The Cramps, etc. And I realized that out of all of those incredibly influential artists, The Raincoats were the ones that spoke to me first, and resonated with me the most.
The Raincoats didn’t set forth to be masters of their “craft” by writing technically mind blowing songs, but they didn’t focus on making as much chaotic noise as possible, either. They banged on instruments until they made sounds they liked and worked around that to create their unique sound, which seemed revolutionary to me. They’d never sexualized their act the way Hole, Veruca Salt, or other girl/girl fronted bands visible in my life at the time did. They went on stage in oversized vests, baggy sweaters with holes in them and greasy hair. This idea of just doing it (your way) because you fucking want to, and not giving a shit whether people thought you were good/talented/sexy/relevant/aggressive enough, put a spring in my step. I applied the Raincoat’s apparent musical philosophy to a LOT of things in my life throughout my adolescence, and that attitude might be all that got me through it.
The Raincoats have remained an odd sort of mainstay in my life, and you could easily say that my taste has grown, specifically, around them. Most of the bands I like on first listen sound like them. They are the only band I listened to at 14 that I still love with the same sort of fervor I did at the start. A friend of mine and I have a private joke wherein we quote that terrible “Ten Things I Hate About You” movie by saying “They’re good, but they’re no Raincoats” when listening to any new band. And it’s true, too! It is. Anyone starting a new band should start by acknowledging that they will never be the Raincoats and then go from there.
If I could give every girl a Raincoats record for their 13th birthday, I so completely would.
Venus Rx 2009 post: My Ineffectsexuality March 20, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Personal, Sexuality.3 comments
Let me throw some understatements at you. Sexuality is complicated. Attraction is relative. Sex complicates everything. These statements are fundamentally true for everyone, but it seems like everyone has their own reasons why, doesn’t it? Here are mine.
From the early days of my first beginning to date, I found that while I could be both romantically and sexually enticed, I was never actually physically attracted to anyone. A person’s attractiveness very rarely plays any sort of key role in igniting any kind of carnality in me unless it stands completely alone, with no other contributing factors. In rare instances where I am simultaneously attracted to and emotionally stimulated by someone, the sexual urges are so obsessive and consuming that I basically cease to be myself. That sounds sort of scary now, writing it out like that. But it’s true; the two relationships I’ve had where I felt like I embarrassed myself the most were also the only two I had with people I was both physically and emotionally attracted to. This does not make me sad. Apart from amazing memories of the rush of lust, those two meant the least to me in the long run. “Attractiveness” is so overrated and means so little to me in the context of connection (in fact, I feel it prevents connection somewhat) that I’d honestly rather avoid it all together, thank you very much.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that any of the loves in my life were *ever* unattractive, I suppose, only that their physical appearance meant so little to me that I never developed an opinion on it. If anything, over time I’d tend to get little crushes on parts of their bodies only- moles, bellies, ankles, the spot underneath an ear, etc. Any romanticle emotion that I’ve felt for anyone was awakened, every time, by curiosity concerning their personality as opposed to anything resembling actual physical attraction. They were strange little creatures, each and every one; a passionate and eccentric lot, each in their own way. If you know me, and we’ve discussed my past relationships, I’m sure you wish you had a dollar for every time I rationalized a mistake by saying “I’d just never met anyone like them before.”
For this reason, I also don’t know where I stand on the orientation spectrum. I am no more or less attracted to any gender because I’m no more or less attracted in general. If everyone in the world was just a walking soul with no physical body, I think I’d feel much more comfortable. It is slightly more common for me to find women attractive than men, although attractive women tend to turn me into a mush of putz. Tara Jane O’Neil once rendered me so speechless and terrified just by being in the same room as me that I literally could not move my body from the couch I was sitting on. And she was on the other side of the room, having nothing to do with me. As you can imagine, I have not dated many women as a result, in spite of my best efforts. There’s also been issues over my ambivalent sexuality where dating women is concerned; that is to say, it’s made women uncomfortable. Tugging on a lady your kissing on’s sleeve and saying “check out the legs on that guy” does not instill confidence, in case you were curious. Throw my taste for sexy-time gender bending and crossdressing into the mix and there are just so many nails in that coffin that it might never be opened.
As you can imagine, I’ve had my best luck in attempting to find people who somehow straddle several sides of the many, varying gender fences. To put it VERY(too) simply: boys who look like girls and girls who look like boys, but even then I run into a lot of problems via my inability to develop feelings regarding the physical appeal of others. It’s hard for me to pantomime anything, includng attraction. I’ve made a lot of people feel ugly and unappreciated as a result, although that’s not my intention. I’m in touch with my own aesthetic ideas (that is, I have no problems applying them to myself). So why, then, is it nearly impossible for me to acknowledge another person’s attractiveness? Why does it feel like I have to really TRY to have an opinion, as if it doesn’t occur naturally in me like everyone else? Why can’t folks just be comforted by my being so sexually excited by their talents and brains? Where do I fit in to the world of people? Maybe I just don’t meet enough people “like me” to realize how common these feelings really are , but it does tend to make me feel rather isolated a lot of the time. Although I can relate to them most, I’m clearly not asexual; but I wouldn’t classify myself as hetero/homo/bi or even pansexual either. I’m kind of just. You know. Ineffectsexual, I guess. Freud would have a field day with me.
It’s so rare for me to be both mentally and physically attracted to anyone that when it happens, it’s an exciting revelation every time. As I mentioned before, it has the tendency to overwhelm me and thus is dangerous to my self control (which I highly prize). As a result, I typically only allow myself to develop “crushes” on people I can assure myself that I will never know or ever be in close proximity with. I am currently attracted to one human being on all of the planet Earth, and to lighten this entry up a bit I’m going to talk about him. The one hottie slot I seem to have is currently (and has been for a long while) occupied by married, balding Of Montreal front-man Kevin “I’m so sick of sucking the dick of this cruel, cruel city” Barnes.
I always was aware of Of Montreal’s existence. I dated a boy when I was 18 who played me “Cherry Peel” and sold me. Since then, I’ve had cds and discussions and even opinions on their Outback Steakhouse commercial long before I discovered (after seeing them live in 2007, on OM’s “Gender Mutiny” tour- the night my son was conceived; no shock there) that I was actually ATTRACTED to Kevin Barnes. If you’re somehow unfamiliar, Barnes’ last incarnation is an alter ego named Georgie Fruit, whom he claims is a 40 year old black transperson who’s had several sexual reassignment surgeries to change him from a man to a woman, a woman to a man, and back again. He wears dolly makeup, fishnets & lamé, and is infamous for performing nude or nearly nude. If everyone in the world walked around looking like Barnes does when he performs, my life would be a lot easier. I mean, I saw the man perform in his short shorts, drank a few gin & tonics and then went home and made a baby. What the hell IS that?
Oh Kevin. Please continue to get even balder, marrieder and sexier in neckerchiefs. The reinforcement of my being a warm blooded earthling depends on it.
Stories from a failed milltown’s high school, pt. 1 March 3, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Nostalgia.add a comment
Halls of my high school, when I was a student
As is true for most folks, high school was a truly bizarre blur for me. Particularly during my freshman and sophomore years, I experimented impulsively with my identity and had several, completely segregated groups of friends who each belonged to vastly different subcultures. I wasn’t “popular” by any real definition of the word, but I wasn’t shy and knew a lot of people. I remember most of them fondly, although I haven’t maintained any of my high school friendships save one.
me & a friend, 1996
One of the groups I managed to successfully infiltrate for a while was that of my town’s resident “freaks,” a group of three boys (Derek, Steve, & Mike*). The youngest in the group, Derek, was a year older than me. A friend of mine had a boyfriend (for a week or so) who knew him and I ended up talking to him at school one day as a result- the rest is history. Although infamous for being “goths,” they insisted they were actually “industrial” and listened to bands like NIN, Front Line Assembly, and KMFDM. For some reason I feel like that paints a pretty clear picture. This was pre-Columbine times, but Derek, Steve & Mike were my high school’s own trenchoat mafia in almost every way.
Like most high school outcasts, they were funny, intelligent and a blast to be around. They’d call me up and we’d all go bowling and to the movies. We also did a LOT of aimless driving. M had an ancient conversion van with a loveseat in the back instead of regular seats, which is where we spent most of our time, and where most of my memories of them take place.
My favorite of the group was Steve, who was a senior when I was a freshman. Tall, gawky, and sickly, he was eerily calm and nonchalant at all times in spite of being mercilessly bullied at school. I once witnessed a bunch of guys shoving him into the small space between two clusters of lockers, pretending to punch him over and over just to see him flinch. He had a thyroid condition which caused his hands to tremor uncontrollably, and long, gnarled, spidery fingers. I spent countless long, long nights talking to him online and he opened my mind up to a lot of truly strange, macabre ideas. I idealized him as this untouchable lone wolf, and had a massive, “secret” crush on him for a long time. I’d venture to say pretty much no one was as “unpopular” at Steve was, back then, although it seemed like he went out of his way to instigate confrontations a lot of the time.
There are a lot of things I still remember about him, which is odd because we weren’t friends for terribly long, and I don’t have very many memories left from high school in general. He obviously made an impression on me, since I can still clearly recall a handful of intimate, sensory things about him like the way his hair and his long coat smelled when I hugged him (dirt and pert plus), and the sound of his laugh (loud, slightly croaky). It’s weird what the mind holds on to.
Journalism class, sophomore year
At this period in my life, I was very into not showing my body- ever. Events leading up to high school had affected me pretty deeply, so I retreated into xxl band tshirts and ridiculously baggy jeans to hide my breasts and hips. One day the three of them dragged me into a Hot Topic, back in the mid 90s when Hot Topic’s angle was satanic and gothy, and talked me into trying on a dress. Mike wanted to buy it for some girl he’d been making out with, and he asked me to try it on to see what it looked like. I still remember the dress exactly, even- it was a dark magenta satin sleeveless slip dress underneath this black lace overlay of long sleeves and a skirt that extended a few inches over the bottom of the under-dress. When I creeped out of the dressing room wearing the dress and my giant combat boots from the Army/Navy store, slightly scared and with my legs unshaven, they were so amazingly un-creepy, non-judgmental and supportive about it. They told me how nice I looked in clothes that actually fit me, but didn’t make me feel bad about going back to who I was comfortable being afterwards. It’s sounds kind of stupid, I guess, to be so touched by a little nothing like that. But my experiences with men (vis a vis my body) up until that point had been so strange and uncomfortable that when they reacted to me in a supportive way, as my friends and nothing more, I felt truly beautiful for the first time in a long time. I was struggling internally with a lot at the time (my sexuality, my self perception) that it was overwhelmingly important to me to be not just unattractive, but almost genderless. Steve said to me after, putting his hand on my shoulder, “Dont worry, your secret is safe with us.” And it was, and I knew it.
I seriously loved those boys.
in Mike’s van, 1996
Things got sticky, though, after I started my relationship with the boy who would end up being my first long-term boyfriend, C, at the end of my sophomore year. They were all strangely protective of me, in what I’d always interpreted as a brother/sister way but I realize now was much more complicated than that. None of them ever had very many friends, never mind girl friends, and no one was ever very nice to them. I’d hung out with them publicly, unabashedly, in spite of their being so unvalued by everyone else. I’d embraced them excitedly in the hallways in front of all of my other friends, completely non-judgmentally. They were “my boys” for a long time, and knew it. My commitment to another male, particularly a moderately accepted one, was so much of a betrayal in their eyes that our friendships never recovered. Steve, in particular, was truly brutal to me (which was just his nature, I guess), and that brutality culminated in an epic verbal showdown. He called me all sorts of names, accused me of being “just like everyone else,” and when it was all over he walked away and I never saw him again. I’ve managed to find him (via internet creepiness) several times, but can never bring myself to contact him. It seems like as he’s gotten older- he’s 30 now- he’s just gotten even darker, more bitter, and more cruel. It doesn’t stop me from wishing things had been different, of course, but they aren’t. I feel sad for him, and I can vividly imagine just how angry that would make him.
But I still have this fond memory of the lot of us driving around in the van, listening to music and driving around in the snow. It didn’t have a cd player, so all the music we listened to came in the form of Mike’s mix tapes played on a boombox, and “Space Dye Vest” by Dream Theater came on. We’d been having a pretty amazing, quintessentially adolescent night of mall ratting and trouble causing, and Derek immediately insisted that someone turn the song off. I piped up that I’d never heard it before and asked what it was about. “This is the kind of song that can ruin a night like this,” was all he said, but Steve refused to turn it off. He would have these bright moments of joy, you know, very rarely, that gave a kind of hint into what he must have been like before life got to him. He turned the song up instead of turning it off, and began moving his twitching, shaky fingers in the air along with the piano line. We were sitting in the back of the van together with Mike & Derek up front, and he leaned over, smiled widely and said (only loudly enough for me to hear over the loud music), “This is my favorite song.”
It seems like so long ago, and I guess it really was.
*Not real names, clearly.
Women of Contemporary Classical Surrealism February 25, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Art, Classical Surrealism.1 comment so far
My interest in art is pretty vast, although I don’t really know or talk with many “art people.” I have no formal education aside from a mandatory and horrendously boring Art History class I took once, and it’s for this reason that I find myself holding back a lot of my commentary on art in general. My interest in art is purely intrinsic, sort of from the outside looking in, since I don’t create it myself. (That’s slowly changing, as my interest in collage grows, but nonetheless:)
Keep that in mind while I admit that I was initially unfairly skeptical of modern surrealism; mostly I blame Mark Ryden for that. Not just because I’m more and more bored every day by constant renderings (in all forms of art, particularly photography- but that’s a whole other entry) of adorable, big eyed waifs, but also because his paintings remind me of a Lisa Frank trapper keeper I had in 2nd grade. And I guess I’m just hyper-sensitive to how truly honest (or dishonest) art feels to me when I see it, particularly contemporary art. So many of our current subcultures are inherently tied into surrealism in some way (steampunk, for example) that I suppose it’s natural surrealist art would be flooded with insincere, Ryden-esque renditions of itself.
But when I was recently exposed to the beautiful nightmare that is Laurie Lipton’s art (see image below), it inspired me to do a little more research into modern surrealism, particularly as it’s approached by women.
“Lies & Inconstancies” Pencil on paper, 45 x 37.5 cm, 2002
Here are a handful of my personal favorites from the many amazing artists I found, most of which turned out to be of the classical surrealism variety. A majority of the artists sell prints on their websites, so check out the links if you’re interested. All of these images were posted here without permission (but on my own server!), so if you’re an artist or represent a gallery and want me to remove them, just email me.
“The Happy Whore of Babylon and the Antichrist
(True Love on the Eve of the Apocalypse)“
12″ x 16″, oil on panel, 2008
All of her work is good, but it’s Baade’s most recent series, “Intemperance” that most impressed me. On her website, she states her inspiration for “Intemperance” is themes “pressed to extremes… self-destruction, sororicide, substance abuse, promiscuity, the perils of dating, and states of metaphoric futility and pain.” Although her images could easily be describes as alarming and even grotesque at times, her use of color adds an entire other, almost story-book like element to it. The painting above “The Happy Whore of Babylon and the Antichrist (True Love on the Eve of the Apocalypse)” captured my imagination similarly to how a really good book does. The image starts the story in your mind, and almost immediately you visualize your own version of the beginning and end. It made me want to write a short story, honestly.
“Wolves In St. Marks Cathedral” | Oil & Tempera, The Mische Technique
Marlin, interestingly enough, still has the guts to do religious paintings. I was raised in an Irish-Catholic environment for the first part of my life (and even taught Sunday school for a year in high school), and Catholic imagery has always appealed to me as a result, regardless of my current (non)relationship with the church. There’s a certain dark magic to Catholicism that is difficult to explain to people who’ve never experienced it; the art, rituals and mythology are curious, fascinating and mesmerizing.
So imagine my surprise to see Marlin’s depictions of the Joyful & Glorious Mysteries (the five Sorrowful mysteries are forthcoming), typically meditated on while praying the rosary. Even her paintings which are not outrightly religious have religious elements to them; cathedrals make appearances often. Her work reaches to many varying points of spirituality, including astrology and the tarot. Even apart from that, her attention to detail is uncanny. I feel like I could examine these paintings for hours if they were right in front of me, and I really wish they were.
“Self Portrait” | Oil & Egg Tempura on panel, 35″ x 42″, 2005
Von Foerster’s current series, “Waldkammer,” capture my attention immediately because of my fascination with cabinets of curiosities. Wunderkammern, as they are also referred to, are collections of “wonders” such as taxidermy, religious relics, minerals, bones, etc arranged and kept in a decorative cabinet. I’ve always wanted one of my own, and still plan to create one someday (although I’ve been told this would permanently scar my son, I disagree). In “Waldkammer,” Von Foerster creates her own interpretation of wunderkammern by sometimes painting the cabinets in the shapes of women, with the drawers and cubbies crafted into them filled with exotic, colorful animal life.
Beyond “Waldkammer,” the entire body of Von Foerster’s work really impressed and fascinated me. The painting above, “Self Portrait” (larger image here) was probably my favorite. The wooden frame in the painting is not a rendering, the painting was actually placed in the frame as a part of the larger scope of it. I feel like I could talk about what this painting says to me for hours, although I’m sure Von Foerster’s intention may have been something else entirely.
Formerly a political artist, in an interview with The Sentimentalist magazine, Von Foerster said, “… I’m trying to learn how to make something beautiful, and the “message” therein is usually far subtler than my earlier agitprop. I haven’t lost my ideals. I think beauty affects people in important ways. Attempting to create beauty in contemporary American culture, where aesthetic needs, human needs, are always given a back seat to profit and the bottom line, is meaningful”
“Complicated Shadows” | Oil on photo printed canvas, 40″ x 60″
Taillefer’s work might just be my favorite of the bunch, possibly because we share a macabre fascination with the Marquis De Sade and the idea of trans-humanism both. She seems to be most well known for designing “Dralion” for the Cirque du Soleil early in her career as an artist, but I’d never heard of her until a few days ago.
While it seems like the major theme of her work is the marriage of humanity and mechanism (the living things in her paintings are always infused with non-living elements), my favorites of her paintings feature pregnant women with translucent breasts and bellies exposing different variations of fullness. In “Auto Erotic Immolation,” the depicted woman is pregnant with plecostomus (in my fish tank as a kid, I called them suckerfish). In “Complicated Shadows” (above), the curious, bizarre fetus the depicted carries is her punishment for sinful indulgence. In “Venus Envy” the fetus is surrounded by eggs and fish. In “Introspection,” an entirely robotic woman looks down at the human child in her womb as if she has no idea what to think about or do with it. Having experienced pregnancy myself, during which I regularly had panic attacks when I thought too hard on the idea of my consciousness no longer being the sole occupant of my body, these paintings in particular really touched me. And by touched I mean made me feel scared, liberated, and guilty all at the same time.
I’m constantly itchy for anything new and wonderful so (as usual) any further recommendations, art related or otherwise, are always greatly appreciated.
Pais Dinogad, the Oldest Surviving Celtic Lullabye February 20, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Celtic, History, Music, World.add a comment
As some of you know, half of my family (the maternal one) is very, very Irish. The paternal half is an Mayflower Heinz 57 mix of lots of things, but everyone on my mother’s side is not only 100% Irish, but also all from the same place in Ireland: the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry. As you can imagine, growing up around them was a rich experience that left a nice cultural imprint on my totally American ass- I might write about it more someday (even though it’s weirdly emotional for me to do so). But I only bring it up now to explain why my son has a CD of Celtic lullabies that I play for him nearly every time he sleeps.
Dingle in the 1960’s
While I was growing up, my mother and grandparents sang lots of traditional Irish songs with me, my brother and our cousins. I took Irish step lessons for years and can still break it down on command (not that well, of course, although I used to have a little performance dress like those). I ‘ve been known to break into “I’m a Rambler, I’m a Gambler” when drinking. For years and years I heard nothing but the Clancy Brothers’ Chrtistmas album during Christmas dinner. One of my very favorite songs growing up was (the horrendously graphic) “Four Green Fields,” and video exists of me singing it while tap dancing up and down my grandparents’ driveway. I could go on, but you probably get the gist. So it naturally follows that I associate childhood in general with Irish music, hence the Celtic lullabies. I wasn’t disappointed, the CD is beautiful. I don’t think Quinn is either; apart from Vashti Bunyan’s “Just Another Diamond Day”, there isn’t any other album that puts him to sleep faster.
There was one song on the CD in particular, though, that really got inside my head. Every time it played while Quinn slept it put a little bit of a spell on me, and I found myself singing it when I was alone. It was called “Pais Dinogad” (Pice De-NO-gad) and the CD said it was traditional Welsh, which explains why I’d never heard of it until now. I don’t speak Welsh (obviously?), so the only thing I could take from the lyrics initially was that there was a period of slow counting. The song eventually got to me so much that I decided to investigate it further, and it turned out the little spell it was putting on me made a lot of sense. It’s not only kind of a mysterious song in general, but it’s also 1500 years old.
“Pais Dinogad,” translated to English as “Dinogad’s Smock,” was apparently penned sometime in or before the 6th century, when a woman wrote the song down in the margins of an old book. It’s unclear whether or not she’s the original composer, but her transcribing of the song is certainly the only reason it’s survived. The song’s lyrics (sung in a dead language called Cumbric, a precursor to ancient Welsh) are a mother recounting to her son his father’s hunting prowess. Translations vary, since no one living speaks original Cumbric anymore and there are many Cumbric words that no one knows the meanings of, but this one sounds closest to the one on Quinn’s CD.
Dinogad’s smock is speckled, speckled,
It was made from the pelts of martens.
`Wee! Wee!’ Whistling.
We call, they call, the eight in chains:One two three four five six seven eight
One two three four five six seven eightWhen your father went out to hunt -
A spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand -
He called on his lively dogs,
`Giff! Gaff! Take, take! Fetch, fetch!’
He killed fish from his coracle
Like the lion killing small animals.
When your father went to the mountains
He would bring back a roebuck, a boar, a stag,
A speckled grouse from the mountain,
And a fish from the Derwennydd falls.
At whatever your father aimed his spear -
Be it a boar, wild cat, or a lynx -
None would escape but that had strong wings.Dinogad’s smock is speckled, speckled,
It was made from the pelts of martens.
`Wee! Wee!’ Whistling.
We call, they call, the eight in chains:One two three four five six seven eight
One two three four five six seven eight
And for you language buffs out there: In addition to being the oldest surviving Celtic lullabye and one of the oldest known Welsh texts, the lyrics also suggested that the lynx, long thought to have been extinct in Wales way, way before the 6th century, still existed then. The word “llewyn,” which is found in the song, had no immediate meaning in known Cumbric. It was originally interpreted as a secondary word for “fox” by Cumbric scholars, until one in particular insisted it specifically referred to the lynx in spite of what was believed about their extinction. Carbon dating on lynx bones that were done to disprove this theory showed that it was actually correct- the “llewyn” thrived in Wales possibly 700 years after it was thought to be extinct. This linguistic discovery has lead other scholars of the Cumbric language to believe that many of the other words they don’t have direct meanings for might be the names of animals long thought to be extinct as well, since those words would have gone out of use in Cumbric when the animals DID become extinct, long before the language’s demise. Interesting stuff! Written language is fucking magical. I’m always continually entertained by how much we think we know when we actually know basically nothing.
Of course I had to follow this fantasy through to the end, so I started looking for information on what it was LIKE in 6th century Wales- the very beginning of the Dark Ages. I desperately needed a picture to put along with the melody, so Quinn and I sat down at the computer and did some historical investigation.
In the 6th century:
- The Earth’s total population was roughly 300 million people, 1 million of which lived in Constantinople.
- King Arthur was either still living or had just recently died.
- The Roman Empire had just recently fallen.
- The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born.
- The Bubonic Plague had it’s first pandemic, it’s prominence aided by:
- A global “nuclear” winter that caused widespread crop failure and starvation, believed to have been caused when a comet (sized at only a half a kilometer across) exploded in the earth’s atmosphere, and blocked out the sun with soot and ash for five years.
- Toilet paper was used for the first time.
I suppose that explains why the song, meant to be a child’s lullaby, is so dreary, and also why it’s in past tense. Is Dinogad’s father dead? Is it impossible for him to hunt now because EVERYTHING LIVING IS DEAD? Who knows. My brother and I (and our Cap moons) had a discussion once about whether or not there was really any period of history we’d actually enjoy living in, and after much deliberation I decided that there was NOT. Even if I were a noble man in Constantinople, the 6th Century would still be way scarier and oppressive than I really care to experience.
Wales (and the entire Celtic nation) was still a pretty primitive place in the 6th century, however; very Lord of the Rings, just with more Jesus. The narrator of “Pais Dinogad” was most likely of some sort of nobility or upper class, though, since the song references their having slaves (“the eight in chains”) to do their sheep herding (that slow counting, allegedly, is spoken in a way used specifically for sheep herding). So whatever leisure and luxuries 6th Century Wales DID have, I’m sure Dinogad and his mother were around for at least some of it, so:
In 6th Century Wales:
* A poetry & music competition, called Eisteddfod, took place twice a year and was first documented to have taken place in the 500’s. Spectators would sit for two stretches of four hours (with an intermission feast) listening to apprentice poets and musicians compete against each other for a seat of honor in the households of noblemen; so basically, Welsh Idol. Apparently it’s still being held, but is somewhat like a renaissance fair now.
Eisteddfod, 2004
* The church of St. Cwyfan (known locally as The Church In the Sea), was first built at the end of the 6th Century, but has been rebuilt several times since. It’s the only structure in the middle of a tiny island in Wales and is only accessible during low tide. Apparently it was just wired with electricity for the first time in June of 2008, and you can get married there now (if you are rich).
Church of St. Cwyfan from above
* The most populated area then was a Kingdom called Gwynedd, which is now a county in Wales by the same name. Like my maternal grandparents’ Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, Gwynedd remained pretty sparce and primitive until 10 or so years ago, when rich folks from England looking for pastroal retirement started driving the housing prices up with their summer homes. Since then, most of the locals have been driven from the area by poverty and hardly anyone even speaks Welsh there anymore. That famous acid house DJ, Sasha, apparently grew up in Gwynedd. I wonder what Dinogad would have thought of acid house? Especially considering:
* A famous bard named Taliesin was the best entertainment Wales had to offer in the 6th century- not just singing poetry, but allegedly telling the future with it. A peasant orphan, he was adopted by a nobleman because of his extraordinary talent. Apparently, when he was 13, he sang/prophesized the death of the King of Gwynedd by yellow fever and then it actually happened. 12 of his poems still exist, and most of them are mythological/spooky in nature. Why he wasn’t killed almost immediately, considering this was the dark ages- I honestly have no idea.
Page from “The Book of Taliesin”
Okay, history geekery is officially concluded for the day. I’ll be singing my son to sleep with a creepy, depressed lullaby written in a dead language, if anyone needs me.
“Every Woman Has a Story Like this;” What *Is* Female Desire? February 3, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Feminism, Politics.2 comments
A few days ago I stumbled across a poem called “Bike Ride With Older Boys” by Laura Kasiscke, telling the tale of a time when (at 13 years old) a group of older teenage boys asked her to join them on a “private” bike ride which she then, intuitively, stood them up for. It’s just okay, as poems go, but it’s theme struck me as being very universal. The first thing I thought after reading it was, “I bet every woman has a story like this.”
Around the same time this poem materialized in my reality, a group of my friends over on Tumblr were discussing the recent NYT article, “What Is Female Desire?” In the article, recent research was presented which shows a “startling” discrepancy between women BEING turned on and KNOWING they are turned on, among other things. It’s been causing all sorts of controversy in feminist circles, and I typically avoid adding my voice to internet “armchair outrage,” but I feel like “Bike Ride With Older Boys” and “What Is Female Desire?” are intrinsically connected in a way that no one is saying. At what point does a girl, who learns early through experience to fear men, become a woman? At what point does her terror become desire? Does it ever, really?
I have three stories (warning: could be triggers), and then a bit more discussion.
1.) When I was a little girl, around 7 or 8, my friend T and I were riding our bikes around our neighborhood and “discovered” a section of undeveloped land a few blocks away that was surrounded by tree growth so thick that you couldn’t see into it from the street. When we tunneled through the trees a few feet, we came to a clearing where some trees had been cut down to make room for a fully functional rope swing. There was a section of wooden fence, long abandoned and connected to nothing, that was covered in all sorts of occult graffiti (pentagrams, upside down crosses, etc). It had a magical quality for us, as you can imagine, and we spent a greater part of the summer going there every day to hide out and play. We pretended we were forest dwelling witches, creating elaborate “spells” and rituals to perform there; words to chant while swinging a certain number of times on the swing, etc. We went almost every day for a month during the summer, for hours at a time, living in a fantasy world.
One day while we were playing, three older boys we didn’t know came into the clearing. They sort of hovered three or four feet away from us for a few minutes, whispering to each other while they watched us. As per our personalities, T wanted to leave immediately but I was indignant at first. “We were here first, we don’t have to leave!” I insisted, but as she grew more and more frantic I started to share her concern. We began gathering our things to leave, more and more hectically, but as we began to exit the biggest of the three boys stood in our way.
“You don’t have to leave!” I remember him saying, and he smiled at us. “We’ll play with you guys.” The other two boys were snickering, watching us. I suddenly became aware of the fact that nobody could see us from the road.
“Nah, it’s time for us to go home anyway.” I said, trying to seem cool, as T hid behind me saying nothing.
“No, stick around. We’ll push you guys on the swing.” He insisted, stepping closer to us. The minute he stepped forward, I grabbed T’s hand and we took off running, and didn’t stop running for blocks, until we were back on our street. We left our bikes behind and everything. We just ran and ran, not looking back. My brother went back and got our bikes later- we never told our parents what happened.
Since then, that area of trees has been cleared completely, and almost every time I drive by it I think about what happened there. For all I know they were just fucking with us. For all I know, they just thought it was funny that they made us uncomfortable and didn’t have anything else in mind but being intimidating shitheads. But the danger and fear I felt that day was so real, I haven’t ever forgotten it. I’d honestly felt like I was running for my life.
2.) I went through puberty and developed very early. I first menstruated when I was nine years old, and was 5′3 in a 32B bra by the time I was in 5th grade. I wasn’t any different from any other kid my age, but suddenly because I had a mature body I was also something else. I was “desirable,” “fuckable,” and therefore suddenly subject to the male gaze everywhere I went. But aside from scattered, uncomfortable incidents, I had so far managed to hold on to feeling like a little girl- until this one day.
My grade school held a haunted house every year that everyone in town could attend. It was a big deal, actually, almost every one went, although I’ve heard they no longer do it. They had a “scary” upstairs for teenagers/adults and a “fantasy” downstairs for kids, and the money they made went toward field trips and school supplies. I was hovering somewhere between 11 and 12 years old, although I can’t remember specifically. I was supposed to meet a friend and her family there in one of two school parking lots, and my mother dropped me off in the one my friend and I had agreed on. Only they weren’t there. This was WAY before cell phones (unless you were Zack Morris), so I started walking toward the second parking lot by myself, in the dark, figuring they would be there instead.
It was a warm October. I was dressed as a bat, in a black leotard, black tights and my tap shoes, with a pair of bat ears and wings that blinked green. As I walked across the parking lot, a group of at least 5 (quite possibly more) teenage boys sitting on the hood of a parked car called out to me as I walked by. “Hey baby!”, “Come here!”, possibly not realizing (I hope) how old I really was in the dark- only seeing my body in tight clothing and interpreting that as an invitation. I ignored them, of course, and kept walking, but then they got off of the hood and began to shout at me. Their voices got more and more aggressive as I continued walking. “FUCK YOU, BITCH!” one of them yelled, “Turn the fuck around!”, yelled another. Then it escalated to threats: “Don’t MAKE me turn you around myself, bitch!” I was sobbing hysterically and shaking all over. In an instant I became hyper-aware of my body, what I was wearing on my body, and what that “meant.” I wasn’t even trying to get to the second parking lot anymore, only to the crowds of people waiting in line at the Haunted House. I finally broke into a run, but I was shaky on my tap shoes and it felt like the parking lot went on forever. I could hear them all laughing at my panic, but didn’t stop running. When I finally reached the school, I ran in the front door and into the well lit cafeteria, where a bunch of volunteers were doling out punch and cookies. I threw my arms around the first woman I saw, sobbing and not letting go.
3.) Just weeks before I started high school, when I was just newly 14 years old, I attended a “woo hoo, high school!” party at my then best friend’s house. Our mutual friend M was dating a high school junior (about to be a senior) named J, whom she brought along. We all knew who he was- he was loud and hilarious, in a band, and fancied himself an aspiring movie director. We all felt really cool just being in his company, never doubting for a second his motivations for dating an 8th grader.
Unlike a lot of my friends then, I’d grown up with a lot of boys of various ages and always had guy friends, so men were no mystery to me. I wasn’t coy and shy around them at all, so J and I hit it off right away. We both had an abrasive sense of humor and liked the Deftones. I was certainly flirting with him, albeit in an innocent way- punching him in the arm playfully, things like that.
At the time, I was just starting to internalize the fact that I was attracted to women as well as men. I’d had a full blown crush on a girl the school year prior, which I’d confided to only a few of my closest friends. At one point, everyone went upstairs to eat and I stayed in the basement with J & M. M & I sat on the couch and J got up, turned the lights down. When he came back, he immediately launched into telling me that M had told him I liked girls, but he didn’t believe me. He told me lots of girls pretended to be bi because it made them popular, and that he knew I was just trying to get attention. I was thrown off, for a lot of reasons, and got really defensive. He told me to prove it by kissing M. I did. It was an uncomfortable, thin lip kiss. “Oh god, come ON!” I remember him saying, waving his hand dismissively. “You know what I think? I think we should get in my car right now and get a room at the Days Inn. Then you can REALLY prove it to me.”
I looked to M, who I’d been friends with for the entirety of middle school, to see how she was reacting, and she was only nodding her head at me in encouragement. “I don’t know…” I trailed, hoping someone would come downstairs.
My memory of what happened next is kind of fuzzy, but I remember M putting her body on top of me and kissing me all over my face, around my mouth, awkwardly. When I pushed her away, J (who was a tall, husky guy) got on top of both of us, pinning me to the couch. He put his mouth on mine and forced his tongue in, drowning out my protests. It was disgusting- his mouth was wet, his smell was overwhelming, I could feel his erection on my leg and his hands were all over me. Just grabbing- not sensually, just grabbing at parts of my body. I was struggling like crazy, and when he took his tongue out of my mouth to kiss M, I started shouting for help. It was at this point that he made a diminutive, shaming “tsk” noise and pushed me out from underneath him on to the floor. When I got to my feet and ran upstairs, he jumped up and followed right behind me.
I went into the bathroom first, I don’t know why. I ran passed all my friends and locked the bathroom door behind me, splashing water on my face again and again. I don’t know how much time passed before I came out again, but I’m sure you can guess what happened once I did. By the time I rejoined my friends to tell them what happened, an alternate story had already been told- one where I’d “thrown myself” at J, right in front of M (who was now crying), and when J rejected my advances I “got hysterical” and ran upstairs.
Beyond not believing my side of what happened, everyone was mad at me. Only one other girl, not even my “best friend” who’d thrown the party, felt any sympathy for me at all. The rest of them called me names, said they couldn’t believe what “I’d done to M,” and even asked me to leave the party. It was a clusterfuck- I was so confused, upset and indignant. I ended up having to walk home. As I was leaving, J caught my eye and smirked at me.
When school started a few weeks later, I was officially a whore.
In one of the ongoing debates about “What Is Female Desire?”, Jill @ Feministe made that point that, in our culture, a woman’s body is perceived as sex itself. When most people (regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, except for homosexual men), see a naked or nearly naked woman, they immediately think “sex.”
“How about the fact that women grow up in a society that is centered on men’s experiences and lives? That the female body is used as a representation of sex itself, whereas (hetero) men’s experiences and understandings of sex dominate our cultural narrative? To go back to an old feminist gem, men watch; women watch themselves being watched.”
If you’re going to attempt to pigeon hole what female desire is, and wonder aloud why our bodies seem to become disconnected from our minds, it’s a travesty to ignore our stories- every woman I’ve discussed this with has stories like mine. Every grown woman was once a young girl who had a sexual role assigned to her. Regardless of what that role was (“desirable” or “undesirable,” “virgin” or “whore,” etc) it was handed to us by outside forces and there was no escaping from it.
What choice did we have? It’s possible for an adolescent boy to make a choice not to be regarded sexually or to be sexualized by others. Steps can be taken to BE those things if they wish, but the choice to put it off and ignore it until they’re ready is also available to them. Pubescent girls don’t have that choice. The day our bodies develop (sometimes even before then), we’re categorized, judged, shouted after, and approached- whether it’s done “positively” or “negatively” (as perceived by the do-er) is completely inconsequential. It doesn’t seem that many people consider that, particularly as it relates to “womanly desire,” and I don’t understand why.
Is it really so much of a stretch to believe that the reason puberty and adolescence is so damaging for so many women is the same reason that Chiver’s research found “a large gap between women’s self identified arousal and their physiological, actual arousal”? We are forced to come to terms with other people’s perception of our sexuality whenever society decides we must, whether we’re mentally ready to do so or not. If our sexuality becomes the property of others before we ever have the time to own it for ourselves, why is it such a god damned surprise to find that many of us never do?
Smoke – “What is the sound of the queer southern blues?” January 30, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in 90s, Blues, Music.add a comment
I’ve never been a Tom Waits fan- flog me, if you must. I feel that it’s 100% appropriate that I mention the absence of love for Waits before explaining the intense feelings that are developing inside me for the music of Smoke (fronted by the late, enigmatic Benjamin Smoke, who died from AIDS related complications in 1999), because there are vocal similarities between the two. Smoke names Waits and Patti Smith as it’s two main influences, which are obvious but also of no consequence. Despite: oh sweet jesus, am I loving Smoke. I have literally been snowed in, sitting out this god-awful Mercury retrograde, listening to nothing but Smoke for days. How has this wonderment managed, for so long, to stay so completely off my radar?
photo by Michael Ackerman
The first Smoke song I listened to, “Clean, White Bed,” was SO EXQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL that I felt punched. It’s been quite a while since a song has affected me in that way- knocked my wind clean out. It was so beautiful that I was kind of scared of it. And I guess that’s actually a pretty good way to describe Smoke to someone who hasn’t heard them. It’s so beautiful that it will unnerve you. You can hear some tracks here.
While I don’t think it can be argued that Benjamin (aka Miss Opal Foxx)’s voice plays an overwhelmingly powerful part in making this music as fucking incredible as it is, there are elements of slide guitar, banjo, clarinet, cello and coronet as well. And you know, typical me, the lyrics are what really get me here. These lyrics. Everybody, these LYRICS! Mostly they’re love songs, I suppose, albiet difficult ones. There’s a lot of disillusionment, idealization and self destruction going on, lots of angry love for cruel men. But also this fog of perpetual otherness and self disdain hangs over every song, which might be what makes each one so truly heartwrenching. Benjamin had incredible hardship in his short life, including alcoholism, drug addiction, and the AIDS virus, which are struggles I can’t even begin to compare to my own. But this music still touches on something that I think is in a lot of us- I know it’s in me, which might be another reason why Smoke is slightly difficult for me to listen to. I listen to a lot of melancholy music, I always have, but something about the way these emotions are just laid out there, bare, is still somehow shocking and effective.
I feel like I’ve been writing this forever. It’s been hours and I only have two paragraphs, both of which I’m slightly embarassed to have written. Is that a statement in and of itself? What I’m trying to say is that I think this band is important, this music is important. I’ve been waiting a long, long time for a band to come around to change my life again, and I think I may have found it. There are two albums and one 7″, all out of print, so download with impunity. And please do, seriously.
There’s also a documentary about Benjamin Smoke’s life (also out of print), which I haven’t seen yet but ordered for a kind of embarrassing amount of money on Amazon. This is the trailer, if interested:
Konono N°1 January 11, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Electronic, Music, World.add a comment
In 2005, back when we were still hiding away in dark parking garages together with our music and our drugs, the always amazing Renee blew my mind by playing me “Congotronics,” a CD by the 12 member Congo Kinshasa (formerly Zaire) collective who call themselves Konono N°1. If you’ve never heard of them, Konono N°1 got together nearly 30 years ago to make Zombo ritual music. The collective’s founder, likembé master Mawangu Mingiedi, wanted to amplify his instruments so that they could be heard over the noise of the city streets. As a result of a complete lack of money to import them, the collective built their amps, and some of their percussion, themselves from car parts salvaged in a local junkyard (a microphone carved from wood and fitted with parts of an alternator, for example) and sang into megaphones. The (originally unwanted) distortion their DIY setup produced resulted in a seriously mind-blowing sound: sonic, loud, distorted, visceral, experimental, electronic Bazombo trance music. Even if you’ve never, ever, before in your life been even remotely interested in world music (shame on you), Konono N°1 will be your exception.
percussion set-up
There are a lot of reasons why Konono N°1 is awesome, and I’m a little overwhelmed trying to think of ways to describe them all because something tells me that I don’t really need to. The music honestly speaks for itself. If, up until now, you thought making “DIY music” meant sitting alone in your parent’s basement playing your guitar badly in to a four track, you’re in for a very (very) humbling experience here. This music is so universally appealing that it seems to appeal to just about everyone. I found raving reviews on music blogs that span just about every genre. Even jazz folks apparently love Konono N°1, and jazz folks hate everything.
microphone & mixing board
The first track off of Congotronics, “Lufuala Ndonga,” is the one to check out if you want to try before you buy. It’s about 10 minutes long and if you play it the way it was intended to be heard- that is, LOUDLY- it crawls into your subconscious. It seems kind of alarmist of me to say this, but this band will change the way you listen to music.
In doing research for this write-up, I discovered that Konono N°1 did the percussion for “Earth Intruders” off of Bjork’s album Volta, which is so obvious in hindsight. Apparently they also toured with her, which must have been absolutely incredible to see. If anyone out there witnessed this first hand and can write me a long, detailed description of it that I can live vicariously through, please, please, please email me.
Taxidermy as art, now and then January 6, 2009
Posted by aerialcircus in Art, taxidermy.add a comment
In the early 2000’s, my boyfriend at the time and I got someone else’s Easter card in the mail. After going door to door in our apartment complex looking for the mysterious intended, we came to the conclusion that he’d once lived in our apartment and his grandmother (whom the card ended up being from) wasn’t aware that he’d moved. The card had a $10 bill in it, so we decided to spend it on a Grandma approved activity and took the bus down to the Rochester Museum & Science Center. The RMSC, which is partially a children’s science museum, also has a ginormous collection of slightly depressing local treasures which timeline the rise, peak, and downfall of the once great city of Rochester, NY.
the good ol’ days of Roch
There were a lot of amazing things there: a display of the contents of a long forgotten time capsule that was found during renovations of the Rochester town hall, very old newspapers advertising slave auctions and selling tapeworms to high society ladies as weight loss remedies, a giant mastodon skeleton living in a glass cage decorated with oddly macabre stickers of a mastodons doing things like skateboarding and rollerblading. But my favorite exhibit, and the one that solidified my massive (and somewhat contradictory) love for taxidermy, was an almost disturbingly thorough collection of taxidermy animals found hidden in the attic of a rich, nearly a hundred year old Rochester eccentric who had recently died. His family donated the animals to the museum, who displayed them almost as they had been found, hung up and placed every which way in a Victorian-style room.
It was slightly controversial. The collection was very, very old and the previous owner had been a very rich man. He’d purchased the animals, some of which were antiques even at the time he was bought them, from all over the world. Some of the animals displayed had since become endangered or extinct. At least one animal there (a bird of some kind, I believe) was the only known tangible evidence of a species which had died out, since it became extinct before the advent of photography. The image that sticks out most in my mind is that of an enormous sea turtle, big enough to reach from the ceiling to the middle of the tall museum walls, hanging darkly in the dimly lit display room. It was all so beautiful and disturbing at the same time that it set up camp in my imagination. Although most people consider it to be creepy or in poor taste, there’s an absolutely amazing explanation of the metaphorical significance of taxidermy as sculpture here, if you’re interested in another point of view.
Anthropomorphic taxidermy is the practice of taking an animal preserved through taxidermy and endowing it somehow with human characteristics. For example, a taxidermy fox might be dressed in Edwardian royal clothing and dancing. A man named Hermann Ploucquet, the taxidermist of the royal museum in Germany, began making anthropomorphic taxidermy sculptures for Queen Victoria in the 1800’s, essentially inventing the genre.
Ploucquet’s “Kittens At Tea”
150 years later, sculptural/art taxidermy is still going strong, although it takes on a different form and function. For example, a woman from New Zealand, Lisa Black, does what she calls steampunk taxidermy: taking gadgets and gears and inserting them into taxidermied animals (or, as she says, “fixing” them). It’s a bit more difficult to stomach than Ploucquet’s whimsical little animal cabinets, but it’s tremendously interesting, for me, in the context of human engineering. If we can plug ourselves full of implants, metal bones and pacemakers, claiming to be “fixed” without batting an eye, why is doing the same to an animal shocking or frightening to us? If we willingly and excitedly invest millions of our dollars into researching technological improvements for our bodies, why do we assume that animals won’t also be affected by the inventions which might possibly result?
Lisa Black’s “Fixed Deer”
Alternately, an excellent example of art that includes elements of sculptural taxidermy without the use of actual animals was work displayed at Banksy’s Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grille in Greenwich village, NY (the display closed on October 31st of this past year). Banksy is a British street artist most well known for his socially critical graffiti & graffiti related art (particularly his work done around immediate post-Katrina New Orleans which included shadow images of children flying hurricane debris in the air as if kites), so the Pet Store & Grille is somewhat of a departure. However you choose to interpret it (I have my own ideas, but won’t masturbate speculate here), it’s a fascinating installation. A fur coat purrs and swings it’s tail as it lounges in a tree, fish sticks swim in fish bowls, rabbits apply garish makeup while gazing into mirrors, chicken nuggets drink from fast food containers of BBQ sauce, and hot dogs squirm in their buns under heat lamps as if they were lizards.
Disgusting? Interesting? The reality of both?
