1/24/14

HOLY DIGIT

So the new COMME des GARÇONS HOMME PLUS collection was shown last week.





What do we think? The gnomic phrase Kawakubo provided to describe the collection, through lovely hubby Adrian Joffe, was "Holy Suit". Or was that "Holey Suit"? Another journalist had it as "Holy Jacket".






Indeed, the constant cutaways fuel one's rampant speculation about the homophonery. Holy or Holey? The holes in the shoes are kind of a bummer. Overall though, it's cute right? I kind of felt like this collection doesn't have anything for me, nothing I want. Since I never wear suits, for a number of reasons. But as usual, there's some stuff to break down here as well. I admire the big bright flouncy shirts and boxy shorts (I always do). I like the wide-legged floppy and sexy pants. I just don't get down with suit jackets. But maybe I ought to. These ones are plainly beautiful, I like the cutouts for pockets. I like the idea of a holy suit, a kind of magical outfit, a holy grail or something. I'm trying to unpack it.

One thing I saw and definitely immediately wanted was the SWEATERS!





Right? These are awesome. There's a fantastic interview with Adrian Joffe in the Financial Times providing scant and scintillating details about his life and work alongside Kawakubo-san. Among the handful of anodyne and lovely details imparted (“One of Rei’s favourite words is ‘common sense’") is when Joffe is describing their decision to locate the new Dover Street Market NY in Kipps Bay; "Rei always says that we can’t copy ourselves.”

And yet, these sweaters do seem sort of classic CdG, no?



This is a "lace" sweater from 1982. Our beloved legendary fashion gourmand Suzy Menkes referred to these sweaters at the time as "Swiss cheese sweaters". In her Times review of the Fall 2014 HP show, she misremembers them as "Gruyère cheese sweaters".



As the story goes for the 1982 collection, Kawakubo sneaked into the factory to fuck up the automatic knitting machines, loosening screws until the machines started to produce the perfectly-deconstructed sweaters she envisioned. I don't know if that's true, doubtlessly CdG's production is extensive enough that they don't need to resort to that kind of experimentation anymore. Whatever the case, I want one of those nasty sweaters.

I once had a lovely Homme Plus sweater from the mid-90s which I loved very much, but it started to get eaten by moths. It was not as lovely an effect as the intentionally-holed sweaters. I should have thrown it out as soon as I noticed, but I didn't throw it out-- I hid it in the back of my closet. And then the moths proceeded to eat through every wool thing I own, including a lovely CdG Homme jacket I had to pay an insane amount to have repaired, and my beloved pair of black wool BLACK CdG drop crotch pants. What's more, I also immediately stained my BLACK pants by sitting on wet oil paint during a studio visit with an artist. SO: I'm saving up for one of these nasty sweaters, but I'm also saving up for a new pair of BLACK CdG drop crotch pants, hopefully in somewhat less appetizing boiled polyester. If anyone would like to buy these for me, please do. My point is: if I had one of those HolEy sweaters, I wouldn't care if moths ate it, because it would sort of fit with the look, anyway.

It's sort of the type of thing that you could make yourself, but not really. Of course those holes aren't accidentally or randomly produced. I'm certain there's a very detailed pattern. They retain the basic shape and weight of knitted sweaters-- it's designed, henney.

But so okay, let's talk about the other elephant in the room, The hair. The hair-faces. The coiling hair-masks by (who else?) Julien d'Ys.


She wants the d'Ys. Julien d'Ys nutz. 

So, when I saw these I immediately thought of Cthulhu, HP Lovecraft's modern apocalyptic beast-god with tentacled face. I obviously thought Kawakubo was a big sci-fi fan, kind of a steampunk nerd, archaic occultist. The Cthulhu association reminds me of this new song by none other than Brīīī, his debut jam, in fact, a slow-burning anthem or surrender titled "Cthulhu Take The Wheel":



Isn't that a pretty song? Aren't you excited for his record to come out? Aren't you excited for his amazing LIVE SHOW?! I want to be the opening act, I do. Kawakubo should have used this song as her runway music. You know what else would have been a great song for this collection's runway show (which had sort of lacklustre music, if you ask me)? Another great song for this runway show would have been B0DYH1GH's own "H0LY D1G1T":


In which Perfect Little Daniel finds herself perched way up high on that "God Is A Number" trip, only with the devil. I think? I never know what she's singing about. 

Anyways, I'm thinking Cthulhu when I see those hairfaces, but as is so often the case, my initial guess was way off base. Julien d'Ys said that the hair-face-tentacles were, in fact meant to represent Ganesha.



You know, that old queen. The god of wisdom and intellect. That is sort of fitting. That makes more sense. So, then, "holy" indeed. The homophone must be a joke. It has to be. I bet Kawakubo probably only told d'Ys "Holy Suit" and so he went with something Holy. Just a guess.

And in fact I guess I see that-- a radiant costume; religious robes. In the 1980s, the gnarled hole sweaters were about deconstruction. That they were called "Lace" is no accident (I think that was a theme of the collection? Am I mistaken?). These new hole sweaters are something else; they are immaculate and also porous. They look almost like wounds, like stigmata? Or as if the suit was magickal enough to be somehow transparent, see-through. The effect of layering collars onto long coats is both attractive and repulsive. It's regal, but it's also kind of creepy. God-wear. Ghost-wear.

There are many many stories about Ganesha and the various aspects of his iconography. My favorite story if Ganesha is that he's missing one of his tusks because he ripped it off and threw it at the moon. Because the moon was laughing at him.

Last week also saw the Fall collection from COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT. I'm glad that Style has started covering the show, it is, as they note, a huge part of CdG's menswear business. To my mind, the SHIRT collection is much more widely sold, at least in the US. The line started in the 1988 with a focus on (what else?) shirts, but eventually branched out. My understanding was that it's a little younger, more basic, trendier and supposedly cheaper. These days that's not always the case. Back in 1988 there was apparently a totally separate SHIRT shop in New York, where shirts topped out at $210, which would be a real bargain by today's standards.

Anyway, I love SHIRT. It's where, as Style is smart to note, where CdG collaborates the most with other brands and artists. For their Fall 2014 collection, they collaborated with Tokyo-based French artist, set designer and illustrator Nicolas Buffe. Which is fantastic. I like the sort of woo-woo sentimentality of the hand-drawn designs worked into the zany objectivism of SHIRT's normal look.



But I'm also more interested in the weird CdG experimental stuff too. Like here, they added circular hems to where the shirt buttons: Elsewhere, the shapes are twisted or patched or deconstructed. Kawakubo claims to think of mens wardrobe as being one of fundamental basics: shirt, pants, jacket. But within those fairly broad categories, the actual components of those pieces do get reinterpreted fairly freely. I didn't see many jackets in the SHIRT collection, but the pants included the now-classic drop-crotch ones I need to replace, and the shirts are perfectly serviceable, perfectly batty. You could wear them just as easily to a nightclub as an office, at a gallery opening or a wedding. I want to collect them all.










I'm obsessed, I want it all.




1/16/14

2 PERVERSE 2B INNOCENT

Some thoughts on the new Fall 2014 Menswear collections. I'm saving my thoughts on CdG until I see the show tomorrow.





Rick Owens followed the gorgeous "grit faces" of the step teams in his S/S 14 women's show with a bunch of unknown meeskite white boys in durags.



Walter van Beirendonck responds to Chanel's pre-Fall racist headdress kerfluffle, which was so charmingly articulated by boy genius Sean at *fruitpunch. Walt van B also shows some cute, post-Globalization future-Orientalist frills of his own:



Meanwhile, Jil Sander in very sad state of affairs, with this being the first collection after the departure of Jiline. I hope she and wifey are not sick. One note of optimism is of course the shiny pants. Who doesn't love shiny pants? They're true POWER BOTTOMS.





A bit macabre, no? I just copped a pristine Uniqlo +J blazer on sheBay for like $12, so I feel like I got my Jil fix. PS remember how she used to show up at the NYC Uniqlo to style customers the day the collection would drop? I think I've talked about that before. How cute, right? All good wishes for Miss Jil Sander.

Prada latest 1970s romp was obviously gorgeous. Miuccia described the vibe as, "More naive, but too perverse to be innocent." Of course.








I saw an article once that talked about how Miuccia seems to be this weird mix of adult and child. Like she wears miniskirts and sits on the floor with the children at a dinner party, but drinks and smokes, but has a weird sense of humor. I can't find it now, can someone help me? God love Prada's obsession with secondary colors, with bad shag carpeting colors. I'm always down.




Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby. Meh. Great. Fine. The "Fathers" thing falls kind of flat for me. We all like dads. Single dads. Stay-at-home dads. I am a little skeptical of the punk rocker who stitches a patch with the word "FATHERS" onto his jacket. Even if he is wearing those fetching rubber space boots.





Yohji Yamamoto showed some great, totally cockamamie clothes today too:





Attractive, inaccessible, and yet somehow familiar. I know this guy. Who is he? Where have I seen him? I feel like I've waited in line behind this guy to get into the theater. These are clothes for guys who work as Registrars in museums, or who co-own a small art gallery. These are clothes for guys who do not have kids, or even spend much time around kids. These are clothes for men who have traveled, but probably don't walk more than 3 or 4 blocks at a time these days. These are clothes for men who travel quite a bit but hate hotels. How should I say it? Needlessly indulgent. Not exactly realistic as clothing. Utterly gorgeous. I want everything. I want that lifestyle, of the unworker. The kind of job where you ostensibly make money, but not through a salary. These clothes will be paid for by royalty checks, honorariums, trusts. Goals, etc.

New York's most celebrated current dark-shape-draping wunderkind Alexander Wang showed a mens collection, but it was boring (to me, sorry) so forget it. She also announced that she'll show her Womens Fall collection in (gasp!) Brooklyn. Just think! To ask editors to cross the East River? "Unheard of." Scandalous! He should choose an even more remote location. Like Detroit. Everyone's always saying New York is over. So Alexander Wang, if you want to really blow everyone's mind, show your collection in Detroit. Lord knows they could use the local economy there. Transfer the workshops to Detroit. He should choose an even more remote location, like Mars. Now that's fashion. Can't you see the Suzy Menkes headline now? "LIGHT YEARS ahead of its time..."

Coming Thoughts

O God. SO MANY THINGS COMING UP! I'm doing shows tomorrow night, Saturday night and Sunday night. And then a bunch the next week too. YOU CAN SEE ALL MY JANUARY SHOWS ON MY E-BLAST. Which you can subscribe to too.

The first one, the special super-soon event, is TOMORROW FRIDAY 1/17/14. B0DYH1GH will play a special $FREE set of new songs at Strange Loop Gallery, 27 Orchard St. Please come!

So much to do and think about.

Dear heart Jamie Sterns's list of Things That Need to Die in 2014 was so inspiring. I guess I've had this kicking around in the back of my head for a little while. Yesterday I thought of a list of some controversial opinions of my own.

LIST OF THINGS I HAVE UNPOPULAR OPINIONS ABOUT AND CAN’T REALLY SPEAK CRITICALLY OF ONLINE OR IN REAL LIFE:

1. JESSICA LANGE

It used to be that you couldn't say anything bad about Madonna to gay people or they'd go nuts. Then it became about Lady G**a, you couldn't say anything bad about her or they'd go nuts. Now it's about Jessica Langue. Few of these 'mos gave half a fuck before American Horror Story. Let's just say that I'm more team First Wife. First Wives Club. Okay? Dig yr own hole.

2. SODASTREAM

First of all: I don't have anything against carbonation in general, nor seltzer in particular. I think whoopee cushions are uniformly hilarious and I like that aspect of the Sodastream. What I don't like or have unpopular opinions about is the Boycott of Israel and how Sodastream is but one thing to boycott, but also people don't even know about or observe the boycott, but also it's an important can of worms, I feel like, to open, sometimes.

3. GAY MARRIAGE (still!)

If you want to get married that's great and that's great for you and I probably am happy for you. But being able to get married doesn't make it much safer for queer or trans people in this or any country. The theory that it leads to some amorphous acceptance is dubious. I don't think that what's best for the upper class goose is necessarily best for the rest of the gander.

4. GAY ARTISTS THAT DON’T WANT TO BE CALLED GAY ARTISTS

I get that people don't want their work to be limited. I get that people don't want to experience homophobia. I get that people want to be able to "not worry" about being queer. You know what? Too bad. You have to worry about it. I have basically no sympathy for people who struggle to come out. For many of us, the ability to "pass", to ever have a conversation about our artwork or our lives without mentioning our FLAMING QUEERNESS, was precluded from the jump. If you don't want people to talk about your artwork in the context of homosexuality-- don't be gay. Don't be an out gay. Don't make work that's in any way informed by or about queerness, okay?

5. BEING ANTI-INTELLECTUAL

As in, I think I might be anti-intellectual? More and more frequently, I find myself feeling that there's a basic assumption of secondary education or some knowledge of philosophy or something, when I'm at a punk show or art opening. There's a thing of self-understood intellectuals conflating their "intelligence" with their social class. It's icky! The unsaid sentiment is that at least we're not the proletariat. At least we're not Midwestern. At least we're not overweight. At least we're not uneducated. I think probably there are more fantastic people who are uneducated, overweight, Midwestern, who have MUCH more interesting and important things to say, than there are stuffy New Yorker "intellectuals." Any conversation, movement, aesthetic or vibe that doesn't explicitly include working class or uneducated or poor people (or, fuck it, I indentify this way-- stupid people), is bunk, to me, these days.

6. MONOTHEISM

I'm not saying your God is bullshit. I'm saying all Gods are bullshit. I agree with Beyoncé that God is Real, y'know, to an extent.



But only in the most abstract sense. There is no benevolent great white father. There is also no malevolent, cruelly opaque evil figurehead who is "testing" or "torturing" us. I don't normally encounter people who talk about their personal relationship with God, but I do encounter people who seem to assume that the world shares their viewpoint: that everything will work out. That wanting it bad enough means you get what you want. That you get what you deserve, etc. That there is someone there looking out for you. That when you need it, help and grace are always there for you. Wake up, kids, your breakfast is getting cold. 


Okay, end rant.

I know someone who knows someone who is in a girl scout troop. This means that I have a conenction to buy fucking GIRL SCOUT COOKIES.



Okay so I love the Girl Scouts. Their cookies are notoriously hard to get. Maybe it just seems that way to me? Here in NYC I never see them for sale anywhere, you have to order them from a troop member. I often make the joke that out where I live, given my lifestyle, it would be easier for me to buy illegal drugs than girl scout cookies. No one likes that joke. I'm always thrilled to get Girl Scout Cookies, even though they're not part of my new 2014 Spring Crash Diet. I also just like saying Girl Scout Cookies. That's a good DJ name. I feel like I am a girl scout cookie, in a way too. I give it out once a year, with advance notice, etc. Also this song:

1/14/14

Boody



They were playing the morning radio at the gym. The radio ads were so depressing. Chewing gum for the guys, waxing for the girls. To freshen your breath, "so you can have close conversations in the elevator, and no one will ask what you had for lunch... yesterday!". To remove all of your hair "...so you're not like, 'Hi, unsuspecting cute guy, I'm about to make your worst fantasies come true!'" The people on the radio, the songs on the radio, the radio is paid for by companies who want you to know that your body is disgusting. They know you know. They want you to know that you can fix it, though.

1/8/14

New Town



From my piece "NEW FRIDAY" the forthcoming compilation VACZINE edited by Mr. Walter Cessna:

"COMING UP NEXT we have New Girl. New Girl Friday. An entirely New Friday. There is no pattern or order for it. New unpredictability. New chaos. New paycheck.

New bodies. New tastes. New desires. New sexual positions. It’s like finding a whole new way of fucking. New hole. Have you ever tried to cum just from touching your nipples? It’s weird."

Feeling optimistic this morning! Optimistic and also scared. Like I've just discovered my super powers and I'm trying to be cautious. I haven't, though, just discovered any kind of powers. I was talking with my friend over the weekend about Courtney Love. I had just seen The Punk Singer, which was AMAZING, and there was a tiny bit in the movie about Courtney Love. My friend and I were talking about how we loved her records in high school, and how weird it is, as an adult, to be a Courtney Love fan. Do you remember this early Chris Crocker video?:



This is from 2007. But it does feel like that, in a way, that being a Courtney Love fan is sometimes something you have to defend, but it's sort of indefensible. The point is, I know she's Courtney Love but when I saw her give that talk a couple years ago, at the Guggenheim, loosely related to Maurizio Cattelan's thing, she described her career, her life, everything, as "WAR!". I think her talk was titled "EVERYTHING IS WAR" or "THIS IS WAR" and it was projected on a screen behind her while she talked for a while about her art dealer, the watercolors she makes on the toilet, her famous Hollywood friends, etc.

I feel a little bit like War. Maybe war's a bad way of putting it.



Feeling enterprising. Feeling like, I know, I know I know I what I have to do. I have to let myself be a little bit more right about some things and little bit less negative about other things. Whatever.

Hey I had this idea, which was to sing that song "New Town" by the Slits in this new show I'm making, MAPPLETHORPE. It's such a great song:



But then I realized that I can't do that song. Not right now, probably not ever. Because of that shooting in Connecticut. I'm not exactly complaining, but it's weird. I bet I could sing it in Europe. But there it'd be different, since the Slits were kind of European. You know how I realized I couldn't use the song, was that I was in the studio fucking around, and I sort of hear there were people working in the studios next to and below me. I knew, abstractly, that if people were walking by where I was, they could hear me. But I suppose I forgot. I was trying to learn the words to "New Town" and I kept trying to do that part where Ari's voice rises and she says "Neeeeeeeeew Tooooooown!" and I realized that I hear footsteps around the studio door, like people were trying to listen in, which was weird. I thought: "What? What is so weird about screaming the words new town over and over again?" So frustrating! Such a classic dumb blonde moment.

But so I'm thinking a lot about newness. I'm thinking about New-ness AGAIN. Once my friend Jeffery got totally obsessed with the word "nascency", which, if you think about it is a beautiful concept and a lovely word to boot.

Today I resolve to fight really hard for what is good. I have some good meetings tonight and then I have band practice. I just ate a good healthy breakfast and everything is off to a good start.

1/5/14

NY QUEER PERFORMANCE ART GAME SHERRY FRASER

I suppose I'm a little sorry for the tone of that last post. I meant to post more in to show that I'm not sore or sad but then I thought, you know, let's be honest. I feel a lot better now, though. For a bunch of reasons I'll get into later.

Have a bunch of thoughts this morning and trying to get them all down:

- I want a koi pond. If not one of my own, then I want to go to one. I love them.




- Sometimes I feel sad about aging, about my face changing. But one nice thing about aging, I guess (to the extent that I'm aging) is that I think it'll make me less attractive to pedophiles. Or, if we're uncomfortable leveling that label to gay guys who like to fuck kids, use your own name. I've been tormented by these creeps for most of my gay life, even before. We're told that this is normal, right. That this is what the Ancient Greeks did. The Ancient Greeks kept many different kind of slaves for sex and labor and torture, young gay men were just one kind. Last night someone told me I looked fabulous, which was nice, and then told me about a friend of ours (who is our age, nearly or older than 30) who's been sexting with a 19 year-old college student at our alma matter. I was like Why? Why bother? Why would you want to be sexting with a 19 year old? I guess having sex with someone with a smaller or tighter body is cool if that's what you're into, but the endless sexting? Who has time for it. Yes, see my crows feet. See my chipped teeth. My age spots. See the subtle knuckle-wrinkles. See, when you cut me, my multitude of finely-drawn rings. So many! I'm too told for this shit.

- I was talking with an artist friend whose work I really like yesterday about this thing of being our age, our generation. I am from a kind of lost generation. A generation that SHOULD be lost. A losing generation. I'm just about the age Amy Winehouse would have been. I wanted to know everybody and myself among them and I did, I found a lot of awful shit out about myself and a lot of awful shit out about everyone else, too. The things that matter, the things we all have in common: they're not all good things. The things that keep us together, the little niceties, the politesse-- these are not the things that matter.



- So I had this dream when I was in California. In the dream I was pregnant. I wasn't showing yet, but I knew I was pregnant. I lived in a bad neighborhood. It was basically the Oakland neighborhood where I had been hanging out. In the dream, there were teenage boys playing that Knockout Game outside my house, and I was worried that they'd attack me and kill my baby. So I thought: I can't tell anyone that I'm pregnant, because then they'll kill the baby. But also: I can't not tell anyone I'm pregnant either, because I am, and I need to protect the baby. In the dream I was very tense because I didn't know a good place to give birth, and I didn't think people would believe me that I'm pregnant. After doing some thinking and some talking with my Analyst, I'm pretty comfortable with the classic reading of a pregnancy dream: that there's some kind of unfulfilled desire or creative potential being protected or buried or not acknowledged. That SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT. I need to find a place to give birth. I need to admit to myself that as much as I would like to be nothing. As much as I profess to be nothing (and I mean it), I might not be. In order to save my own life I need to actually get down with the idea that I'm not nothing, that I have something. Maybe. Somewhere. To contribute.

- Listening to Mecca Normal all morning. I'm going to the studio later to work on my show. I'm tempted to not bring my computer, but I guess I ought to, since it'll be easier to work that way.

- What else. I bought myself some cologne. CdG 888. The shopgirl gave me a bunch of candy with it:



I gave the candy to my friend because he was home sick and I've had enough chocolate. 888 smells like gold, the idea is "if gold had a smell". I used to not like the way it smells. I thought it was too feminine or too 80s or something (even though it's from 2007). Something was weird about it. But then a few years ago I went to a dinner party/cabaret performance at Bradley and Coco's house, and he was wearing it and being a hostess and I thought it smelled good. And so I wanted something warm for the winter. My look for this winter (/ the fall) has been black and blue. Maybe you've noticed. My look for the Summer is gonna be Snakes, I think. Snakes for the Summer.



I know that's not a very Summer-y song, but that look, I think, is what I want to go for. I want to buy these expensive MMM shoes that are on sale for (relatively) cheap, but I keep thinking: "What if I used the money from one big purchase to buy so many other small things I actually need?" OH-- the other thing about the Snakes for Summer look is traveling, going on vacation. If I do that (which I probably won't), it'll be Snakes on a Plane. I need new slippers. I want to wear nice new comfortable slippers and sit next to a coy pond. Draped in snakes. This Summer!

- Oh gosh, Summer. It seems so far away. Could not be further away. But it's getting closer. I had some pretty nice news yesterday about this summer. Something exciting is gonna happen. Sometimes it's so nice to have something to look forward to. Some nice plans. I can't get into it yet, but sometimes nice things happen and you have to be like, not like "I DESERVE THIS!" but sort of like "I deserve to let myself be happy about this nice thing that happened." So I'm doing that, a little bit.

- Still can't stop with the Snakes for Summer thing.



The first Two Ton Boa EP is kind of my favorite thing but I love everything Sherry Fraser's ever done. I remember in high school I found on GEMM a copy of their demo cd (which was Sherry playing with Rachel Carns and Radio Sloan) and it blew my mind. That song, "Two Ton Boa", is so pretty. I really identify with Sherry Fraser. With, like, the narrative that she's talked about in how she makes work in and out of her life. I want to be like-- okay this sounds snobby. Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, I've had the conversation with people about "How famous would you one day like to be." I don't bring it up, usually other people do because they are saying that they want to win an Oscar, to be on MTV, whatever. And I usually don't know how famous I want to be. I want to be as famous as Sherry Fraser. Like, if Olympia music was the Queer Performance Art scene, I want to be (comparably) as obliquely genius and prescient as Sherry Fraser. Two Ton Boa typified a really weird strain of West Coast feminist art and music for me, in the early aughts. Bands like The Need, Veronica Lipgloss, Subtonix, Glass Candy (at first), Erase Errata, Mocket, whatever. They all kind of had this weird goth, nervous thing. It was before steampunk or electroclash or any specific nostalgia. It was this weird dark thing. And Two Ton Boa, I always felt, seemed like they kind of got it right, better, deeper and earlier? I don't know. Just geeking out, I guess. I wore your love like a two ton diamond boa.