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ten reasons to work in props

July 3rd 2008 01:37











quote of the day

“When Walser first put on his make-up, he looked in the mirror and did not recognize himself. As he contemplated the stranger peering interrogatively back at him out of the glass, he felt the beginnings of a vertiginous sense of freedom … he experienced the freedom that lies behind the mask, within dissimulation, the freedom to juggle with being, and, indeed, with the language which is vital to our being, that lies at the heart of burlesque.”

(from Angela Carter’s Nights At The Circus)

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The inaugural venue for the first Biennale of Sydney in 1973, the Sydney Opera House has accommodated thousands of diverse performers since it opened - but never before has it been taken over by a forest.

For 24 hours only (Midday July 9 - midday July 10), French artist Pierre Huyghe will envision the iconic edifice as a post-apocalyptic ruin, some time in the future, with the Concert Hall housing a vision of unexpected new life emerging out of the destruction and decay.

Trees will spew off the stage and across the stalls and circles. A ghostly, dawn-like glow will replace the usual theatrical light and colour, and fog will hover low over the floor. By the entrance at the top of the hall will be a valley obscured by clouds. A lone figure will walk through the trees, singing, and audiences will be invited to navigate the in-between reality, with no specified direction or path to take…

Since the early 1990’s, Huyghe’s experimental films, installations, and public events have innovatively explored the intersections between reality and fantasy, and this strange, living, passing installation is a unique highlight of the Sydney Biennale.


Entry to A Forest of Lines is free and will be in sessions (check www.bos2008.com for session times). Expect queues.



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a tribute to the bloomer

April 13th 2008 00:39
The Dame bends over, whips up her crinolines; she has three pairs of knee-length bloomers, which she wears according to mood.

One pair of bloomers is made out of the Union Jack, for the sake of patriotism.

The second pait of bloomers is quartered red and black in the memory of Utopia.

The third and vastest pair of bloomers is scarlet, with a target on the seat, centred on the asshole, and this pair is wholly dedicated to obscenity.


(from Angela Carter’s In Pantoland)



It was not so long ago that wearing bloomers, those loose pants gathered near the knee, was a radical move.

Bloomers were invented by and named after Amelia Bloomer, an early American suffragette and social reformer who founded and edited the feminist publication Lily (1849–55). She interests me, not least because my name is also Amelia, my surname is Groom (not far from her's) and my middle name is Lily! My parents say they had never heard of her when they named me.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century gender roles were being drastically reformed and, insignificant as it might sound, women started to ride bikes. The bicycle gives autonomy and mobility, and thus was a threat to the patriarchy, which needed women to stay in their defined place, both figuratively and physically. The feminist and civil rights leader, Susan B. Anthony, is quoted as saying "the bicycle had done more to emancipate women then anything else in the world."

Amelia started wearing bloomers for practicality, especially for cycling. It was necessary to cast off the constricting and uncomfortable clothing styles that had covered women's bodies for centuries, but it was no easy task. Amelia, and other women who took to bloomers, were ridiculed and abused in the street.

Here she is in a controversially "short" dress.



Quote of the day:

“I disliked East Hampton. The cloud of monotony and uniformity which hang over the new, neat mansions, the impeccable lawns, the dustless garden furniture. The men and women at the beach, all in one dimension without any magnetism to bring them together. Zombies of civilization, in elegant dresses with dead eyes. Static.”

(Anain Nin)



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the case for writing letters

April 12th 2008 09:25
write letters. everyone loves the post. i can't believe stamps only cost 50 cents! envelopes are great. don't let them become redundant. letter boxes are great too, as are letter writing paper sets. see this sample friendly letter or take inspiration from one of these lovely ladies. write letters!









Quote of the day:

“Dr Dee would like, for a mate to this mermaid, to keep in a cage, if alive, or, if dead, in a stoppered bottle, an angel.”

(from Angela Carter’s Alice in Prague or The Curious Room)





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happy leap day everybody

February 29th 2008 03:04
photograph by loretta lux

Make the most of this free extra day. Thanks to the 29th of February the calendar stays in synch - without it your birthday would end up falling on a day that wasn’t your birthday...

It’s also the only day of the year that women are permitted to make marriage proposals, apparently. It is said that in a 1288 law passed by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), fines were levied if a woman’s leap day proposal was refused by the man. These ranged from a kiss to £1 to a silk gown, in order to soften the blow for the rejected woman.

Hmm.

And now for today’s quote...

“I felt as though I owned the whole world. And little wonder, because at no time are we ever in such complete possession of our journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy wih preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it. This is what makes travel so utterly fruitless”

(from Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima)





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THE END IS IN SIGHT

February 23rd 2008 01:11



quote of the day:

“That silence is more profound after noise still wants the confirmation of science. But that loneliness is more apparent directly after one has been made love to, many women would take their oath.”

(Virginia Woolf)


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modest christian apparel

February 22nd 2008 06:45
foxy ladies!












just last year when i was only seven
and now i'm almost eight as you can see
you came home at a quarter past eleven
fell down underneath our christmas tree
mumma smiled and looked outside the window
she told me son, you better go upstairs
then you laughed and hollered merry christmas
i turned around and saw my mumma's tears
please daddy, don't get drunk this christmas
i don't wanna see my mumma cry

(John Denver)




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radical fashion at dog

February 22nd 2008 05:21

Gas masks. Ex-American Army clothes. Life jackets. Tutus. Helmets. Victorian corsetry and bonnets. Dominatrix gear. All this and more can be found at Dog in Tokyo's Harajuku, and they encourage wearing it all together.

Harajuku remains the favourite playground for cool kids in Tokyo. Everyone there is about seeing and being seen and this culture of voyeurism transforms all into their fantasy identities.

The most eccentric and brave fashion of all comes out of an easily-overlooked doorway between two shops, which leads down a narrow stairwell to a tiny, smoky and dim cave of treasure. This unsigned shop is the height of fantasy where anything is possible and escape from the mundane is guaranteed.

Dog is full of new and used sculptural avant-garde creations and people travel from all around to see not only the clothes but the motley crew of staff, who are mostly graduates or students from Tokyo’s legendary fashion school, Vatan Design Institute.

Skirts are made out of vintage parachutes, shoes are customised with paint or affixing crystals and little toys, and candle wax is used to sculpt skulls and skeletal structures into cotton shirts and dresses.

Other experimental specialties include sneakers made into sandals with pieces cut out, and boarboro (‘messed up’) knitwear, involving skillful unraveling and re-arranging of old sweaters.

Besides customised and re-made second-hand and antique clothes, they also sell used fashion from the staff’s favourite avant-garde designers, such as Martin Margiela, Bernhard Willhelm, Ann Demeulemeester, Vivienne Westwood and Dries Van Noten.

The styles at Dog epitomise Harajuku’s signature DIY sensibility and combining of high with low, old with new, east with west. Clothes are their own objets d’art, a way to explore new possibilities and embody optimism and escape in an intensely conformist culture.

On the mezzanine level are beautiful antique shoes in immaculate condition – but watch out for the pipes coming out of the too-low ceiling. Some nights the basement space is turned into a nightclub or live music venue, with Kai Satake, the owner, occasionally performing with his band. The sounds are cutting-edge, raw, loud, and occasionally offensive, just like the clothes.

Dog
Trinity Bldg
2-23-3 Jingumae
Shibuya-ku
03-3746-8110




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Maya Deren

January 29th 2008 02:51

Here’s another woman I recently fell in love with. Choreographer, dancer, poet, film theorist, photographer, writer and avant-garde film-maker Maya Deren. See her movies.

Born Eleanora, she changed her name to Maya in reference to the Hindu word for all reality being an illusion. Despite being friends with Andre Breton and other surrealist artists, she denied any connection to the surrealist movement or its aesthetic aims. She said she was concerned with “that point of contact between the unreal and the real”, not with the incredibility of the unreal. When she tired of making avant-garde cinema in New York the Ukraine-born beauty went to Haiti and worked on a book and haunting documentary of Haitian Voodoo, Divine Horsemen: the Living Gods of Haiti. She participated in the Voodoo rituals and adopted the religion.

But that’s enough. I didn’t really enjoy writing about Claude Cahun’s life, I just wanted to look at her pictures. Analysis can kill the magic. Here are some words on that from Anaïs Nin, the French erotic writer who was friends with Maya Deren when they both lived in Manhattan’s East Village (she appears in some of Maya’s films):


“I developed this vision which sees before facts, the better to find sensations and divinations... It is possible I avoided learning the names of composers and their music the better to close my eyes and listen to the mystery of all music as an ocean. It may be I never learned the dates in history in order to reach the essence of timelessness. It may be I never learned geography the better to map my own routes and discover my own lands. The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unknown was my science and progress.”





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Under This Mask, Another Mask

January 29th 2008 02:39

For Claude Cahun fantasy was a valid aspect of self-presentation, and she could be whatever she wanted. The notion that the mask hides a ‘true’ self implies that there is a stable, essential identity foundation, but Claude said “under this mask, another mask – I will never finish lifting up all the faces.” The roles we take on can be discarded and replaced by others, as easily as a mask can be changed.


















“I am in training don't kiss me” (Claude Cahun)




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