Dispatches from a second story bedroom

I just love love.

I listened to the new M.I.A. and I gotta say, "the medium is the message" and that message is, bigotry is bad? Really. Nuanced. Moreover it takes graphic images and 9 minutes of my time to get such a boneheaded concept across. I don't want to hate what you're doing, it's just overwhelmed by such an obvious metaphor that I can't see past.

I generally resent things that are inexplicably popular. I don't have to like them I just have to understand why other people like them so I don't feel so crazy when I'm out in the world with those people. It sucks looking around and seeing a bunch of assholes who don't think about the things they like. It makes it so much easier to leave the house understanding the populist viewpoint. It's like knowing krav maga, I can rest easy in the dark alleys of societal whims. I don't agree with racist Teabaggers but I get that they're old (if not in actual age then with their espousing of beliefs of old dudes which is the same thing) and white and scared of everything that isn't them. I know how to duck and evade idiots but when idiots are your peers, then things get difficult. 

It might be like "Come to Daddy" but what was that about exactly? Pervasive lad culture? The progressing nanny state in Britain? Who knows, but more importantly, you the viewer are left to decide the meaning for yourself. This is the distinction between art and journalism.  

I'm of an age where I do not need to be provoked into critical thought by musicians or actors. I just want to tune the fuck out and enjoy myself if I'm taking time to watch your music video, don't get all freshman poly-sci on my ass. This Gambian dude just does the Blossom running man for 5 minutes and I can't wait to see where he does it next.  More importantly it represents new music that doesn't challenge me like a fucking Suicide sample drowned out by ambient video noise so I don't even know what I'm listening to. It just sounds like innocuous mid-80s synth. Innocuous seeming at first, but it's been in my head for days. I couldn't even hum two bars of M.I.A.'s "Born Free" with a gun pointed at my head like a cranky red-headed stepchild. Irony! 

Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride, nobody gonna slow me down, oh no. I got to keep on movin'! Enjoy!

Have Love Will Travel

Hey, this documentary is amaze-balls. It's just the thing to watch after all that holiday bullshit. It four hours of proof that we're sheep taught to want things we don't need and justify it for the ego boost it provides. It's makes my brain say "no shit Sherlock," but then there's that lasting nagging dread in my stomach that makes me assess every latte purchase like it was the last 3 bucks in the entire world. If every purchase was put up to that amount of scrutiny then I'd never buy anything. Although it's hard not to feel like you're playing into some giant manipulation for even wanting the latte in the first place even before viewing this. It's too long for anyone to actually sit there and watch it like I did but it puts all the hype about Mad Men in perspective. Mad Men came 40 years too late and wasn't nearly as groundbreaking as we are led to believe by Mr. Weiner. Edward Bernays was Don Draper without the panty-dropper charm. He was molding the public's perception of everything from presidential candidates to soap as early as 1917. Gross. On a similar tip, Dan Ariely wrote a book called Predictably Irrational a couple of years ago about how consumer decisions are made. (It's a quick read, I read it on a plane ride.) This documentary worked in tandem with the book by explaining how the consumer is manipulated and how the consumer in turn manipulates the market with emotionally unpredictable reactions.  I recommend both but I know that you will do neither because there is shit to be bought and photographed for pure pleasurable blogissism!

The documentary faultily credits the hippie movement with being immune to consumer culture but boomers always do that, they always pat themselves on the back for everything they've ever done or not done, whatever the case may be. Keep sucking your own cocks you big bunch of assholes, I can't wait for you all to die.

the soul of wit

I haven't seen such a succinct pop spin on a current political issue in quite a while.

Click to view images from what's going on in Iran.


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Keep your laws off my body.

I really had the intention of making this primarily a place to put my musings on fashion with a capital F but I can't even seem to browse through the A/W '09 collections because it's still cold out and I'm still stoked on spring finally getting here and losing a layer of fat/clothing as is my yearly drill. I get that there's a cycle and in these hard economic times and it takes perhaps even more time and planning and forethought to get a collection ready for sale. Still, my brain says, "that's totally boring and I don't care how much effort it takes, I want warm weather clothes and I don't want the ones I looked at back in August either." Sorry whoever I loved back in 2008, I'm onto the next.

I honestly believe that this economic crisis is real but it has unexpectedly reawakened long dormant ethics about what you need and how you should buy. My whole DIY high school jones has come back in the most wicked full-force way.  Most of the things I'd ever want I have enough talent and ability to make myself but the current climate has given me a push to finally do it and invest time in that particular labour of love instead of the momentary thrill of purchase.  If I spent even a third of the amount of time I spend web browsing and actual window shopping... I lament all the pieces I could have already made. I could have relined that vintage faux fur Edie Sedgwick coat I bought two weeks ago. I could have replaced the buttons and undercollar by now but instead I keep looking for things on the internet that are poor imitations of the thing I already have that is less than 10 hours from being an amazing wardrobe staple. I feel like Dorothy when she looks around and realizes that all the things she ever wanted were right there at home.

 I've started thinking seriously about sustainability and China and most of all about how much individual want there is in each person and how a "blog" (that word is loathesome) is a never ending quest for new shit and not always in a good way. I feel like the only way I can effect real change is if I make it with my own little two hands. Repurposing vintage is how it's happening for the moment. I know that new textiles are still predominantly made in China and I do love a print above most things but I'm positive that I've made a step in the right direction and it's not always a question of cold turkeying the things you love but trying to make your peace with how the world is run and blaze your own path through all the nonsense.

Rather than somehow trying  to justify purchasing some 400 dollar thing I can make myself I'd rather feel pride and satisfaction of true ownership when I wear it instead of just whatever that feeling is when you wear something expensive. I hate overt labels. I like iconic, classic things but growing up in the 90s imprinted very deeply on me that labels were lame. I spent my teenage years in Northwest and saw/moved with that whole generational shift. I've met Calvin Johnson. All that shit leaves its mark. It's not a bad way to live, and it conforms more honestly to who I am than trying to imagine that I'll ever be the kind of girl who wants to become so involved in high fashion that I lose perspective on all the other shit I care about.

Style isn't just a choice of appearance but of personal and political ethics. As Bay Garnett and Kira Jolliffe once said, "Having style is political. Right on!"