Vultures + Persimmons
by angeliska on November 26, 2010
Yesterday afternoon, we made the journey over hill and dale on the first
of our familial holiday pilgrimages. I hear all the time complaints about
the lack of seasons in Texas, and our pitiful lack of autumn – untrue, I say!
The oaks are wearing russet cloaks, the sumacs scarlet, and the fields
are molten gold with fat hillocks of hay. It is indescribably lovely.
Having just witnessed the glory of a flaming October in Vermont, I can
admit it’s true that we are less majestic, less postcard-worthy, though
there is a peculiar magic in these hills and groves that I adore. Maybe
it’s my fondness for jolie-laide, for things that aren’t unapproachably
perfect – the crooked teeth in the landscape, the broken noses of
cruddy clapboard houses along desolate highways. It’s a hard-won
beauty. You have to squint, look closely, and be willing to wander
in creek-bottoms and over barbed wire fences sometimes to find it.
You have to be willing to get your hands dirty – but when you do,
it’s that much sweeter for it. Beauty that comes too easy makes me
skittish. It dazzles me, and I just gape like a filthy child at a shiny shop
window. It’s hard for me to feel like I have a place in all of that, I guess.
Like kissing someone so outrageously gorgeous that you can hardly
believe they even exist on the same planet as you. I revel in imperfections
and anomalies. They make me feel at more at home, somehow.
You see strange things hurl past you at high speeds on those backroads.
Faded signs whose obsolete messages you still struggle to make out,
beautiful abandoned houses, and dead trees that read as sculpture against
the big sky – black-limbed and bony, reaching up in agony with hundreds
of twisted wooden witch-fingers. I wish all the time that I could just bring them
all home with me to hang blue-bottles from. There’s got to be a way to do that.
I saw an old black limousine with bashed in windows parked in the middle of
a tawny cornfield. It looked like a lost still from The Reflecting Skin, and made
me think again of some of my favorite films that take place in the weird liminal
space that is a fallow field. They are all tied together in my mind – that one,
and Tideland, and also Malick’s Days of Heaven and Badlands. All favorite
films of mine, and all masterpieces of wrongness set in tall yellow grass
with decrepit old houses. A lot can happen in the terrifying wide open of
a prairie. That grass can whisper to you of terrible things. All of those films
come from this place, I think:
Turkey buzzards overhead as Amethyst Deceivers played (our traveling
soundtrack was nearly exclusively Coil, both before and more poignantly,
after we learned of dear Unkle Sleazy’s passing…) I saw a giant carrion
bird gleefully gnawing on a smear of roadkill while listening to these lyrics:
Pay your respects to the vultures / for they are your future
I felt happy remembering that – that we are all one day fine feasts
for vultures and worms. I love the completeness of these cycles.
I wish less was wasted – time, material, energy. I wish sky-burial
could happen in Texas as well as Tibet. I’m happy that Sleazy’s
shell will be treated in accordance with his wishes in Thailand.
It is my dream that one day, we will all be able to complete that
cycle with our bodies, and feed something else with what we
leave behind. Our systems for dealing with death, and our grief
and burial rituals severely need massive restructuring, and soon.
Thanksgiving feast for a lone butterfly…
…and also for me!
I love how persimmon trees look festooned with bright ornaments on cold days.
Despite what might seem like morose maunderings, my Thanksgiving was
remarkably sweet and filled with good company, and much comfort and joy.
I am extremely blessed to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice,
with two amazing families – (both my own, and Colin’s) and to be
able to enjoy caffè corretto alla grappa and discussions about nuclear
physics in the parlour with Colin’s papa, and stay up until 3am talking
about everything under the sun with his mama. They are so lovely.
My own folks also just blow me away with their strength and positivity –
my dad’s dealing with chemotherapy right now, and he’s been taking
it all in stride and maintaining his jovial nature. Send him a good wish,
won’t you? He’d be very grateful to you. I am so thankful to be a part
of such good families, and to be surrounded by so many amazing
friends. I love my life. I am so glad I chose it, and that I get to share it.
Thank you for reading, thank you for being a part of it. Goodnight!
Related posts:
Huexoloti Honey
Russet + Bone
Lone Grove Lullaby
Eulogies for Sleazy:
From Coilhouse – So Long, Sleazy
From John Coulthart – Peter Christopherson, 1955–2010
New Orleans Hallowe'en
by angeliska on November 18, 2010
Before too much time escapes through my glass, I must give you
a little peepshow into the depraved and delightful scene that was
our New Orleans Hallowe’en. It was actually a shockingly mellow
night, aside from the total shitshow that was Frenchmen Street,
where hordes of rat-like zombies swarmed around canisters
of nitrous, falling over in the street clutching their balloons.
We split quick to avoid having a crowd-induced heart attack
and escape all the slurring dudes asking “So, what are you
supposed to be?” which is my least favorite question ever.
Figure it out, fool! I get sad when people refuse to use their
eyeparts and their brainparts, and instead want to have every
single thing immediately explained to them. I find it to be a
really bizarre reaction. When I encounter something new,
different or interesting, I tend to take a little time to check it out,
explore, and come to my own conclusions before I start asking
a bunch of questions. It’s not just about this particular series of
instances – it’s something I notice often. Maybe it’s the immediacy
of information, whatwith google and all? People seem to have
lost their interest in the hunt, in the journey. Do you find that to be so?
Anyway – Halloween! It was a very chill, family-style night on St. Claude
Avenue, sort of aimlessly hobnobbing with old pals who of course had
the best costumes anyway. In retrospect, perhaps we ought to have
headed deeper into the Quarter or wandered further afield, but my
headdress was heavy, and it was nice just to be surrounded by people
I love and hadn’t seen for far too long. What did you do for Hallowe’en?
Pandora as Icarus, golden boy, cinder-scarred and eschar pink.
Colin made this incredible mask in a few hours, using random stuff
he grabbed from the hardware store. Yes, he is a terrifying genius!
Aluminum sheet, bristle-brushes, round vents and yaki pony came together
to form this seriously brutal bionic dinosaur predator creature. So bad-ass!
At some point over the last year, I had this vision of a Buffalo Ghost
Warrior Woman, and I wanted to make her real. There’s a little Japanese
kabuki, and Mononoke thrown in there for good measure, and though I
never thought to get a picture of it, there was a carved mask with the face
of an old man on the back of my foxfur headdress. Two-face. Oni. Demon
who steals scalps and eyes. The ghost who defends the memory of thousands
of slaughtered buffalo, left to rot on the prairie. She who avenges the native
people pushed off their land, killed like dogs in the dirt. All that, and sassy
fringe boots. I made the wig that day, and it was alarmingly weighty and warm!
I found the most perfect vintage buckskin dress ever, which fit me perfectly,
and feels amazing to wear. It’s the kind of garment that makes one think
seriously about wearing nothing but buckskin always and forever. If only!
I loved these guys the most. They were so impeccable with their perfect
faces, and perfect church-lady hats. Creepster twins, who are you?
Delaney Flytrap! How perfect is she? Very.
Yeah, so meat as clothing is so done and whatever, but hello!
It takes balls, man. This kid looked great. It was a good look for him, right?
Corinne Patrice Loperfido + her perfect boob(s) suit!
Miss O. – Mantis Queen
Nina Carolina!
Buttonface!
Miss Calamity
Gummi Medusa
Jean Wilson – Black Crow
Miss Angie – Prances With Coyotes
Critter bite at the end of the night!
Full set of Hallowe’en photographic depravity right here:
New Orleans Hallowe’en 2010
Tail of the Yak
by angeliska on November 14, 2010
There is a very special place, tucked away in the blossom-bedecked
avenues of Berkeley, California – a little boutique where you must
ring the bell to gain admittance, where you will find yourself surrounded
by the most wondrous, most delectable, most glorious treasures imaginable.
Tail of the Yak is one of my most favorite places on earth. It’s a bit
like walking inside an enchanted cake – or, what it might be like
if you could shop inside my brain. It’s probably a very good thing
I live so far away from it, because I’d likely bankrupt myself there
five times over – their stock is constantly changing, and yet it
always seems to be just what I want. Alice Erb and Lauren
McIntosh are the owners, both very magical women, who have
made it their mission to create a little piece of heaven, populated
by gentle-faced saints in paper dresses, cooing doves, and very
exquisite taxidermy. They travel to the far corners of the globe,
collecting the most wonderful goods and curious objects.
I was cursing myself for not picking up one of these clever white journals!
My red moleskine wandered off somewhere, and I’ve been lost without
a daily planner. I like these because they are not dated (you can fill in
your own, and start any time.) I prefer that, as I have my own unique
sense of chronology. Also, I am saddened by piles of unsold and obsolete
planners and calendars half-way through the year. Unfilled, unfulfilled.
I did indulge in this perfume from Ortigia (Fico d’India)
though I’m sad I couldn’t afford the get the black amber also.
Alas! I’ve been craving a good dark amber perfume, and that
one really blew my whistle. Maybe they’ll still carry it when I
make my way back there. Fingers crossed. Oh, restraint and regret!
The angel of fine papers watches over, protecting from ink-spills + silverfish.
Is this not the most majestic chandelier? I would like to marry it,
if I were also a chandlier, or perhaps if I were a jellyfish. Either, really.
Joss papers from China for luck, burning and art-making.
Explosions of paper flowers everywhere! Like fireworks, hana-bi.
Magic cicada ink! I had to buy three, because they were so amazing.
I also went a little crazy with the Maison Bouche chocolate bars, as you can see.
In my defense, some are meant for gifting… Probably! It’s hard not to gobble them
all. I got Tilleul, Absinthe, Violette, and Pain d’Epice. I’m also such a sucker for
pretty packaging – they use shimmery metallic papers and colored foils. Le sigh!
My darling Miss Dana Sherwood inspecting the jewels. Tail of the Yak
has the most splendid selection of jewelry – Victorian mourning, Georgian
rose-cut diamonds, Edwardian intaglios, Bohemian garnets… In other words,
every thing I’d like to have a strapping collection of, one day. Marvelousness.
Oh, the agony of not being able to buy every single thing…
Also, my crown is very, very heavy. O dolorosa!
Lauren McIntosh also makes wonderful paintings, and has the most
exquisite calligraphy hand. I’d love to take classes with her one day.
Here’s a nice peek into her world: Studio Visit: Lauren McIntosh
Also, here’s another look around from Poppytalk,
and some glimpses from my last trip out that way:
The Barbary Coast
I recommend a pilgrimage:
Tail of the Yak
2632 Ashby Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 841-9891
Magic Windows #19
by angeliska on November 9, 2010
“I alight at Esplanade in a smell of roasting coffee and creosote
and walk up Royal Street. The lower Quarter is the best part.
The ironwork on the balconies sags like rotten lace. Little French
cottages hide behind high walls. Through deep sweating carriage-
ways one catches glimpses of courtyards gone to jungle.”
– Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
The Moviegoer was recommended to me by my friend Mr. Whittier, quite a while ago.
It wasn’t sparked by our shared love for New Orleans (where the book is set), but
by a conversation about “how travel is as wonderful as it is terrible”
– he sent me the following quote:
“Not in a thousand years could I explain it to Uncle Jules, but it is no small thing
for me to make a trip, travel hundreds of miles across the country by night to a
strange place and come out where there is a different smell in the air and people
have a different way of sticking themselves into the world. It is a small thing to him,
but not to me. It is nothing to him to close his eyes in New Orleans and wake up in
San Francisco and think the same thoughts on Telegraph Hill that he thought on
Carondelet Street. Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit-presence
of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man but never leave him alone, how, if a
man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risk he takes,
he may find himself No One and Nowhere. Great day in the morning! What will it mean
to go mosying down Michigan Avenue in the neighborhood of five million strangers,
each shooting out his own personal ray? How can I deal with five million personal rays?”
Oh man, have I been feeling this lately. More than ever before. It’s a strange feeling.
I once loved it, and perhaps I will again – the sense of anonymity, of being a stranger
in a strange land. It makes me want to return to China, or go anywhere where the
language is totally incomprehensible, where I am an alien. Maybe it’s the oddness
of coming back to so many familiar places, and finding them changed. New Orleans
is mine, and not mine. She’s the lover you come back to, sadly, wistfully – finding her
worse for wear, touching old scars, grazing new wounds, evidences of bizarre
reconstructive surgeries. There are other people in her bed, resting their heads
on the pillow you embroidered your initials on, and they look at you blankly,
thinking you a new visitor, a tourist. It’s very discomfiting sensation.
This weird building on Upper Decatur has windows made from red mirrors.
Very creepy. The fern hanging in the atrium kind of looks
like a severed head, if you squint just right. ‘Twas the season.
Somebody got their head punted into this French door,
right across the street. Or maybe they punched it.
There are parts of the Upper Quarter and CBD that have a weird
magical, unknowable quality about them. Maybe it’s because I
rarely had reason to go up there, or would find myself on the street
at odd hours – but it seemed to me that the buildings would rearrange
themselves secretly at night, forming confusing configurations, mazes
for the unwary wanderer. Anywhere that was once bustling, but has long
stood deserted has that feeling for me. Haunted, and perhaps sentient.
This is one of my favorite things in New Orleans. I want to drink one very badly.
Oh, how I long for a little gingerbread cottage, festooned with morning glories like this one!
This was a very good street in the Bywater. I forget which one it was, but the people who
live on it are very lucky. My friend Bunny lives in the house to which these sweet wheels
belong. There are cypress trees, and it’s very quiet and peaceful. The shade is unusual.
Mossy cobblestone banquette, interrupted by cypress roots.
Wouldn’t you like this to be your front door? I wouldn’t mind.
Oh and, I didn’t realize until I was halfway through The Moviegoer that
Walker Percy was the man responsible for A Confederacy of Dunces finally
seeing the light of day! Bless his name! The story of how it all came to be is
as ironic and tragic and funny as the brilliant novel that almost moldered
in total obscurity. Reading books about New Orleans that really and truly
capture the essence of the place, the heavy air, the strange characters,
the accents, the fragrances both sweet and foul – well, for anyone that’s
lived and loved there, it’s like coming home. Do you know what it means…?
Spookhouse Honey
by angeliska on October 28, 2010
I’ll be in New Orleans for Halloween and Day of the Dead,
so here’s a little more honey to keep you busy until I get back!
Hope you all have a beautiful Witches’ New Year!
Jack Mord from The Thanatos Archive found this gem in a box of photos
he picked up at a garage sale. Best score ever? It’s pretty amazing.
✷ NOW THIS IS GOTHIC
This is the best tumblr ever made. It has magic powers.
Makes me wanna buy a can of hairspray and go to town!
✷ This article on Witch House from Pitchfork has some nice tracks:
Ghosts in the Machine
and sort of related, is this great article from Zed Equals Zee
on bands like GL▲SS †33†H, ℑ⊇◊⊆ℜ and ///▲▲▲\\\
going intentionally under the radar with their ungoogle-able monikers:
How to disappear (almost) completely
✷ Morbid Anatomy
Is another one of my favorite sources for the macabre and marvelous,
run by the lovely Joanna Ebenstein, your go-to girl if you want to know
more about death, burial, murder, memento mori et cetera! Hooray!
✷ Omar Doom’s Halloween Mix 2010 is making me pretty happy.
✷ Human Hearts Found in California Cemetery
A Worker Found Half Buried Jars Containing Human Hearts with Photos Attached
✷ Package with cow tongue puts kink in morning trains
✷ Sacrifice to Ogun Slows Down Austin MetroRail
Package with cow tongue puts kink in morning trains
✷ Dissolving your earthly remains will protect the Earth
Aquamation Station!
✷ It’s Calling For Me Through The Trees…
Dear Chadling at Mon Petit Fantome never ceases to delight and inspire.
I am in love with these photos here took of his fog-laden bayou backyard.
His gorgeous new silhouettes are to die for as well! He’s a demon with those scissors!
✷ Illustrations by Harry Clarke for a 1925 edition of Goethe’s Faust
from A Journey Round My Skull
and his brilliant illustrations for
Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination
(via John Coulthart, with thanks)
✷ Dance, Witch. – from the Pineal Eye
“Mary Wigman’s 1914 Hexentanz (Witch Dance) might rival The Exoricist’s
spider walk scene in terms of creepiness, but the German Expressionist dancer
is usually cited for influencing creatures like Murnau’s Count Orlok in Nosferatu.”
✷ Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops
Organza and taffeta and tulle, oh my!
Photographer Tim Walker takes haute couture
(and more) to a wonderfully wicked place.
I want to live in this fashion spread forever.
✷ The Ghost – By Elizabeth Gilbert
This article is ten years old, but totally worth revisiting. I have a weird connection
with Hank Williams, and Hank III because of that, but I won’t go into it just now.
✷ I adore After Dark In The Playing Fields, a fantastic blog from
On The Borderland & Ghoul Next Door.
Here are some goodies I’ve enjoyed from them lately:
Shrieks From Above and Other Improbable Difficulties.
Beautiful and curious gravestone iconography:
All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to Look So Grave
Part I.
Part II.
Ghoul Next Door’s A Chilling Chosen Few:
12 Cinematic favourites for Haunting Halloween viewing
✷ Liane from Enhabiten wrote about black bouses, a while back –
the comments about Duane the Dentist’s black houses in Olympia are pretty funny,
if taken with several grains of salt. A bunch of my friends have lived in those black
houses. I think it’s a great project. Unfortunately painting your house black in our
southern climate is pretty untenable. Maybe the interior walls instead?
✷ Miss Anna Dorfman aka. Doorsixteen
makes black walls with black trim awfully enticing.
The Watcher in the Woods! Holy moly. I watched this recently, thinking I had
never seen it – but I realized halfway through that actually I saw part of it when
I was little, and it totally haunted me for years. The scene in the funhouse made
it all come back to me, and the pungent memory I’ve carried for so long of the
ruined abbey, the mysterious wind, the calling ghost. The alternative ending
is completely out of control, also – do watch it! Your mind will be destroyed.
The J.B. Blunk Residency
by angeliska on October 26, 2010
Back in September, when I was visiting San Francisco, I had the opportunity to experience
a very magical place, high up in the green hills of Inverness: The J.B. Blunk Residency, which
is sort of a secluded zen fairy cabin-haven for craftsfolk and artists, and all sorts of interesting
people. We had the luck to be there for a delightful evening barbeque, and a tour of the house
and grounds from J.B. Blunk’s lovely and charming daughter, Miss Mariah Nielsen.
She is deer-like and top-knotted, and has that “effortlessly elegant” thing down pat in sandals
and a abstract print silk shift. She grew up there, wild and rambling among the pines and white
breakers of Inverness, in that magical house filled with good reading, and the coziest nooks.
She has made it her mission to preserve her father’s legacy, and honor his wish to share his
home with artists, so that it might serve as muse. Just visiting there flooded me with inspiration,
so I imagine a two-month residency would be an incredible opportunity to make new work,
undisturbed by noise or distraction. Any of you artists who have or are pursuing an MA or MFA,
might want to look into applying – it’s a magical place, that engenders magical work.
“The J.B. Blunk Residency offers a home, studio and outdoor clearings for work.
The home and studio, built by J.B. Blunk in 1959, with salvaged materials, suggest
a certain lifestyle that is independent, sustainable and closely connected to the landscape.
Because of J.B.’s profound connection to the surrounding environment the hope
is that the residency program will foster work inspired by the site.”
The view of Bishop Pine Nature Preserve in Inverness, California.
This is what you see from the bedroom window. Can you imagine
waking up to that every morning? It is just unbelievably perfect.
J.B. (James Blain) Blunk, 1926 – 2002
“I began making wood sculpture in 1962.
I knew how to use a chain saw and it was
one of those things. One day you just start.”
— J.B. Blunk
“Since he had no training in joinery and owned few tools, Blunk carved his furniture from oversized
pieces of redwood and cypress with a chainsaw, finishing them with an angular grinder and chisel.
His interest in texturing the wood, rather than polishing it to a high sheen, may have had it’s roots
in the rough, complex stoneware surfaces typical of the Bizen ware Blunk made in Japan.”
– Glenn Adamson
There are stone collections and cairns everywhere you look. Rocks with power, natural sculptures.
“It is hard to know where to place Blunk as a craftsman. Though he has achieved his primary success
as a woodworker, he has also created an extensive body of work in clay, carved stone and cast bronze
and has even made jewelry and weavings. Furthermore, he tends to blur the categories of furniture and
non-functional sculpture as if they weren’t there.”
– Glenn Adamson
The light pulls are all these clever little sculptures that you tug on to turn on or off. Form and function,
and art as everyday useful objects. He infused his aesthetic and sense of humor into everything around him.
It’s there in the bathroom sink, in every aspect of the architecture of his home. Seamless, and somehow – holy.
It’s that tongue-in-cheek playfulness that peeks out at you from shadowy corners. Woodcarving is rough – an earth art,
and it’s no surprise that you see raw sexuality there. It reminds me of African carvings, sacred renditions of genitalia,
our origin points. Also, of the fun Shinto emblems of giant phalluses and other parts – those aspects of life that are
everyday, but mysterious. It’s a good juxtaposition to find next to the somber zen stillness, those earthy curved forms.
Mark Dion and Mariah, contemplating the view.
Mariah, Dana and a blue ghost.
Everywhere on the sides of the road up there, you see these slim pink lilies called “Naked Ladies”.
A house-elf sea-goblin hanging around in the workshop.
J.B. Blunk exhibition at Blum + Poe
Fecal Face – N&P: Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill
Full set of my photos are up on Flickr here: J.B. Blunk Residency
Mädchen Honey
by angeliska on October 22, 2010
Souvenirs du passé (1930) by John W. Russell – from artinconnu
✶ My new favorite blog: Art Inconnu – what a wonderful source of inspiration! There is so much here
that I’ve never seen before, and my eyes just drink it in. It’s crazy how much brilliant work just falls by the wayside.
“Collected here are works by artists who are forgotten, under appreciated, or little known to the mainstream.
There is incredible quality to be found out there beyond the big name artists in the big shows, whether it is
one exceptional painting, one area of an artists oeuvre, or an entire career worth re-examining. The focus
here is primarily painting by 19th and 20th century artists but everything is fair game.”
✶ On that note, here’s a fabulous archive of Magic Lantern slides,
one of the many things I try not to collect, but cannot help acquiring.
✶ R.I.P. Ari Up! (17 January 1962 – 20 October 2010)
From Coilhouse – Ari Up (Goodbye, True Warrior)
✶ These etsy treasury lists curated by Miss BloodMilk are to die for!
So, so many good treats there! I want every bit of it.
✶ If I weren’t already planning to be in New Orleans for Day of The Dead and Halloween,
I’d be going to RECSPEC’s killer Lost Boys themed party: Get Lost.
I’d dress as Star and Sax Man’s bastard love-child maybe, and bring chinese take-out.
✶ Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption
I have to say that I really adore bacon, salami and yes – hot dogs! I am usually really careful about
always getting nitrite and nitrate free versions of those, but after reading this, I am even more freaked
by the idea of processed meat products. We’ve been eating mostly bison from Thunder Heart Bison,
whose motto is: Texas Grass-Fed – Raised With Respect. They are the only bison ranch in the United
States to meet the stringent requirements of the Animal Welfare Institute. They are wonderful.
✶ Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate
“There is no humane slaughter requirement for the staggering number of wild fish caught and killed at sea”
Both of these articles are very sad and sobering, because while I really love eating animal and fish protein,
(my body really loves it too) I know how horrible the industries are for the earth. Heartbreaking.
✶ Red Light Properties, by Dan Goldman is “a tropical-horror series about a Miami-based realty office
specializing in placing foreclosure victims into “previously-haunted homes”, and it is thoroughly enjoyable
and absorbing. Thanks to Tor, you can read it all online!
✶ Louise Brooks’ private journals to be revealed
I cannot wait for this! Louise was such an incredibly intelligent woman,
and a fantastic writer. I’ve read her autobiography, and several biographies,
and highly recommend delving into her fascinating world to anyone who loves
flappers, dancers, and sad, strong, sexy women. She is the ultimate icon.
✶ Yes, so I succumbed a little while ago to finally watching Mad Men, and of
course I’m now totally hooked. I love the writing, the characters, the details.
They really get it right. I’m tearing through the third season now, and then
what will I do? This great piece is quite a bit ahead of me, but makes me
very curious to see what’s ahead for Miss B. Yes, television sucks, and
I’m still glad that I don’t have one (I’m patient!), but if it gets people really
talking, and writing, and thinking – well, I’m glad. I think the period dramas
are especially good, both for my anachronistic tendencies, and because
they illustrate events and aspects of our history that many might otherwise overlook.
Yep. Also it gives my mind something to do while I stick tiny labels onto obscure objects.
No-One’s Ever On Your Side: Betty Draper Francis Still Needs Your Love
✶ Sometimes, I have to stop and just goggle in wonder at how
amazing Kate Bush is. I remember in middle school my friend
Colleen made me a mix tape of her favorite Kate Bush songs,
and it kind of changed my life. She could also do a really rad
impression of Running Up That Hill that I always tried to get
her to do on the bus. Where are you, Colleen? I hope you’re well!
I’ve pulled down my lace and the chintz.
Oh, do you know you have the face of a genius?
I’ll send your love to Zeus.
Oh, by the time you read this,
I’ll be well in touch.
The song is based on an old folk song called “The Ballad Of Lizzie Wan”:
“The heroine is pregnant with her brother’s child. Her brother murders her.
He tries to pass off the blood as some animal he had killed — his grayhound,
his falcon, his horse — but in the end must admit that he murdered her.
He sets sail in a ship, never to return.”
Two of my favorite things (Kate’s Never Be Mine and Malick’s Days of Heaven)
put together to great effect. If you’ve never seen Days of Heaven, you must. I adore
Terrence Malick, and this film is just so gorgeous. Also, Linda Manz (the mom from
Gummo!) is in it as a young girl, and she’s amazing. Hop to it, kittens!
Magic Windows #18
by angeliska on October 18, 2010
A perfect lady. White hair and red roses please me more than I can say.
This is a real thing that exists somewhere, this rabbit. He’s almost four feet tall.
Can you handle it? Real rabbit fur, and composition. I wish he was mine.
Oh Gaga. This shoot from Vanity Fair a month or two ago had some really good
moments. Mainly this one, which I apparently liked enough to take a detail shot
on my phone camera. Good for note-taking, that. I really can’t get over how much
this reminds me of Katie-Jane Garside, Daisy Chainsaw era. Am I wrong? No!
My jewelry teacher plays this in the studio fairly often. I love the album cover.
Early Fleetwood Mac is really straight up Brit-hippie blues, and it’s good to listen
to while you hammer tiny bits of silver. I love the image of a Black Magic woman,
which has more to do with sort of a 70’s glam witchling who shops at Biba, dabbles
in the occult and wears dark glitter nail polish than any actual nefarious rituals or
bad shit. I remember getting dressed for a party one Halloween, and flipping the
the Santana LP over and over. This is what happens when your parents protect
you from mainstream rock music of the era in which you grew up. They were more
into Kitty Wells and Jimmie Rodgers at the time, or Sandy Denny and whatnot.
My mother would probably be horrified by my forays into that verboten world,
but I like it all. There’s something about coming to music fresh. So much of my
favorite music has definitely been influenced by what my parents listened to,
which was always extremely eclectic – and I’m so grateful for that. But that also
means that when I listen to something like Led Zeppelin now, I’m hearing it free
of context. It’s completely new to me. I was talking to some of my friends who were
home-schooled lately, or friends who grew up without television about their first
experiences of mainstream tropes. It’s fascinating, that feeling of exploring things
that many might find very basic givens of our pop-culture saturated planet. Odd.
Snapped these from the fabulous Thierry Mugler book at the library. Time to renew
my library card so I can pore over this! Absurd that I let it lapse for so long, really.
I don’t need to own every single book, right? I can give them back. Right. Also,
this is really my idea of what fashion should be. I wish I looked like this every day.
It’s so Gustave Moreau! Symbolist couture. More chimeras please! I tire of minimalism.
Look at these scales! Such detail. Genius! I’d kill to see it in person. (Or wear it!)
Red lips, beetle wings, favorite scarf. As close as I come to a uniform?
We grew this enormous pomegranate! It’s not quite ripe yet – I can’t wait to devour it.
Carnival of Saints + Souls
by angeliska on October 5, 2010
I’ve been making art again, lately – all for gallery shows, and with that
comes the pressure, the deadlines, that actually gets me motivated to
create something. I miss having time just to sketch, or doodle, or make
art that isn’t destined for a gift, or for a show, but it’s a start – this whip!
I like making things with a purpose. I suppose I’m very pragmatic that
way, but it feels good to have a goal. My mind needs that line to get the
flow going, I suppose. When it’s flowing, it feels so right. Here’s to more
of that, eh? My next project is a piece for The Multispecies Salon 3: SWARM
show this November, also in New Orleans. I’m almost done with that one!
I made two pieces for the Carnival of Saints + Souls, an exhibit
of doll-art and photography curated by my dear friend Miss Christy
Kane. It was held at Poet’s Gallery on Magazine St. in New Orleans.
I was delighted to show pieces with the following fine ladies:
Jennybird Alcantara
Loopy Boopy
Dame Darcy
Sheri DeBow
Christy Kane
Pandora Gastelum
Miss Oblivious
Liz McGrath
Molly McGuire
Angela Raney
Darla Teagarden
Lateefah Wright
I knew I wanted to do a piece honoring Nita + Zita as patron twin-saints
of New Orleans, and of dancers, costumers and immigrants. I knew at
once that I had to turn them into paper dolls, and luckily the piece came
together basically as I had imagined it, with much help from my sweetheart
in the carpentry department (though I did get very handy with the puzzle
saw and sandpaper!) The main trick was trying to paint it in their distinctive
folk-art style, without worrying that it might just look like I didn’t know how
to paint. That’s the hard thing about making art specifically for shows: the
embedded audience, with their imagined opinions. Unfortunately, I have
a bit of a tree-falls-in-the-woods complex, and most things I’m interested
in doing involve some sort of audience. It’s just the way I’m wired, I reckon,
but I don’t do many projects just for my own pleasure. It’s all about the
interactive experience for me – case in point, this Gazette! So, on that
note – thank you for being here, for experiencing this with me, for reading,
for looking. I think about you more than you might know, and I don’t think
that’s a bad thing. Back to Nita + Zita, though: you can take their little outfits
off the tiny hangers and dress them! My inner seven year old was thrilled.
My second piece was a bit more cathartic, as I’ve been experiencing
some pretty intense dental trauma this year. Maybe I’ll write about it
at some point, but for now I’ll just create patron saints to help me through
it. Reading about Saint Apollonia on Lady Lavona’s Cabinet of Curiosities
made me think of it – I knew immediately that I needed to create an icon
to house the pain and distress of having super-involved dental work done,
and to perhaps, through the act of making, offer some succor. I think she did.
“Saint Apollonia was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in
Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the
persecution of Decius. According to legend, her torture included
having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason,
she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering
from toothache or other dental problems.”
– from Wikipedia
I was so happy to find that I already had everything I needed to make her come
to life already in my possession: marbles, a broken porcelain doll, hanks of human
hair, red thread, teeth molds and color model teeth to make her halo/crown, and then
the perfect fragment of old lace to make her skirt from. Love it when things come together
like that, don’t you? It also feels good to take old things and pull them into new forms.
I so, so wish I could’ve attended the opening party! Alas, it was the same night as Tranarchy!
Miss Angie Raney made this incredible spread of delectables – aren’t they incredible? Want!
(Photo by Christy Kane)
Oh! I almost forgot to mention, but I had the pleasure of interviewing Miss Melora Creager
for Coilhouse recently! Christy Kane took some beautiful portraits to accompany the piece.
So, between travel, art-making, Tranarchy and a dozen other projects, I’ve had my hands quite
full! Hoping for a bit of a lull at some point, so that I might catch my breath, and even recount
more of my San Franciscan adventures, but we shall see what the cards hold for my autumn!
Melora Creager: Sweet Sister Temperance
Total Tranarchy!
by angeliska on October 5, 2010
Well, my darlings – I must say that I could not be more pleased with Tranarchy’s
inaugural outing! The energy all night was truly lovely, and it made me so happy
to see so many people excited about dressing up, dancing, the cool weather,
and each other. We had a big line-up of marvelously fun performances, several
of which were debuts! I was so proud to see such an amazing and diverse
community of beautiful freaks get together and make this thing happen.
We got a lovely write-up from sweet Jimmie D in The Austin Chronicle’s
Gay Place Blog that made my heart sing: Tranarchists Unite and Take Over
No matter what I do, I can’t seem to quit my thing with hot pink and silver.
I think it’s my inner seven year old that needs to express some kind of
Jem fantasy. My inner drag queen just needs to glue a whole lotta stuff
to my face. It’s odd how right it always feels – how implausibly comfortable.
This fella makes me so happy! Isn’t his outfit stellar?
Anthony Fuller was ever so elegant blue and stunned us all with a
very moving rendition of Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, which he
dedicated to all the boys that took their lives this month after being
bullied to the point of despair. Wanna do something to help?
Check this out: Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” Movement
One of my very favorite people in the world: Aaron Flynn!
Beautiful Tranarchy Go-go dancer, Lernard Grigsby
Two of my dear ladies, Miss Raven (who performs as Mizarre) + Al!
Tomcat Grimalkin + Rima Hyena
Miz Chlamydia Burns + the queen Coco Coquette herself, Allyson Garro
Jimmie D and the fringe-bearded wonders of Kings + Things
dazzled us with their version of “All I Care About” from Chicago.
How I love a good fan dance!
The troupe also did an adorable version of Leslie and the Ly’s “Craft Talk”
that had everyone dancing, cackling and covered in glitter and yarn!
2 Left Feet is my new favorite dance explosion! They ejaculate feathers.
Sym Prole as Merci Killingspree, paint-huffing advocate for elegant ladies everywhere.
DJ Chicken Kiev + DJ Chainsaw Hamwell kept the dance-floor packed all night long!
Mizarre’s performance completely blew me away. I’ve never seen such an
effective and arresting half-man/half-woman act. It was simultaneously
arousing and very disturbing. She makes a very frightening partial man!
The song she performed to was Big Black’s “Bad Penny” – it was perfect.
♡ My full set of photos from Tranarchy on flickr!
♡ Austin360’s Tranarchy Gallery
♡ Devaki Knowles has the best photobooths in the land, shooting
on both digital and beautiful vintage polaroids. Love her:
Fun Loving Photos
Can’t wait for the next one!
