SMOKE (VAPOR) & MIRRORS

back when the news broke onto buzzfeed my high school collectively uncurled their juul-clenching fists for a brief moment's reflection: does it really make sense that this is "better for you" than weed? or does it fundamentally violate our eternal undisputed millenial qualifier of healthiness: organic-ness?

and look at how "NEWS"-- in a different (serif!) font, no less-- has been conveniently added to the trusty buzzfeed logo to affirm its status. what's next VICE becoming legit and producing important, respectable journalism? i miss the good old days when their all-star team churned out classics like "Inside The Horrible Life of Amsterdam's Wealthiest But Most Irritating PCP-Addicted Child Porn Star" or "We Found The Most Emo Farmer in the Himalayas and Gave Him Peyote" or "5 Guys With Moderate Erectile Dysfunction Reveal The Most Upsetting Porn They've Accidentally Stumbled Across, But High". I'm kind of joking but
also

Joseph G. Allen:
Who invited him?
And doesn't he have any cheese
or grapes on that paper plate?

mostly
not.

anyway, as per usual, the old foagies at the New York Times have finally caught up to this juul & e-cig pandemonium and published a thorough review of this troubling information. already in the 4th paragraph, valiant knight and oddly-insincere-gay-man-at-your-wedding Joseph G. Allen is exposing the scandalous corruption of previous e-cig journalism, citing shady conflicts of interest and asserting himself as the Mueller of e-cig tyranny. maybe this article will at last prompt the men who wear those long coat-tailed blazers and stand outside cafes to finally relinquish their cig pens and vape canisters. maybe.

happy passover, in other news. we're good family friends with my rabbi, and while i'm sure he didn't know i was redwinedrunk after 1 glass, he still exercised great patience in leading my vertigo-plagued body through the Modern-Day Seder. AS IT TURNS OUT we have similar issues w/ passover and its situational irony:

DID YOU KNOW? in the 18th century, American Jews would wax mournful of their ancient days enslaved, until the slaves they kept downstairs took too long to bring up the parsley, which is when we'd yell and demand and then thank God for our newly-instated Whiteness. yes, jews owned slaves! "off-white" has been used to describe the Jewish-American experience (i prefer "egg-shell," or "creme") throughout the 20th-century, but now? (a lot of this is discussed in this book i'd like to read but haven't bought, ironically due its price tag & my jewishness.)
my family accepted our certificate of whiteness with honors, and stamped it with beautiful symbolism when my great-grandfather changed his name from Weisman to White.

have a nice day!!!!! dont forget to drink water!!!!!!! i often feel like the gravity is shifting in parts of my body, or that my center of balance is being drawn upwards as if by a large magnet, when i am not drinking enough water. it is psychosomatic i am sure (i am not chronically dehydrated or anything, just hugely neurotic) but it reminds me of internals sands that indicate what i need!! so it is important to nourish and re-nourish, even if it is only a gesture.

browser dj set 3.04.18

browser djing is the technique invented by me and soon-to-be-former art teacher Bill Simos in which the dj must only use their browser opened to mostly non-streaming sites (no spotify web player / grooveshark / bandcamp, soundcloud is fine for some reason) to engineer a creative, cohesive, and engaging dj set. its blurs the line between musique-concrete, middle-schooler girl talk, & post-internet hyper-referentiality. its really serious.
here's my set, with overlays / fade-ins noted for your feeble attempts at recreating the swift elegance and mastery with which i led the empty art room (+ sporadic appearances of mr simos) through the waves of sound:

1. start things off w/ a chopped-and-screwed version of Teardrop w a lurching beat to provide a stable ground
2. at 0:52 add goat sounds as some scintillating rhythmic interplay
3. at about 1:20 into teardrop some tonal tension and atmosphere w/ police sirens
4. ride it out, let it play, and then SMASH IN this driving filter tune
5. NOTE: keep this pretty racist website open to drop troubling and brash soundbites on the downbeats every so often.
6. as that amps up, bring in the opening guitar twang of Can You Get To That by funkadelic, which i've cordially looped for you:
7. let that play on its own for a little. ride it out. occasionally, threaten to bring in... the second verse of NIN's Perfect Drug, but don't ever fully integrate. just dangle it there.
8. eventually, bring in this video of a news report in a florida bridge collapsing
9. and when the man begins to choke back tears, add both fireworks and Wandering Star. at this point you are set. let all 3 videos play & admire your set.
10. when wandering star ends you'll have 9 hours and 56 minutes left of fireworks, which is the perfect comedown for a set of such intensity.

picture me in my element going rogue, from this very set (NOTE: the edm drop is for advanced browser djs only!!! there is a reason it has been omitted from the above instructions!!!!)

wood hooks and bird bells

here in evanston where the air is damp and rich in the march months, and the smell of mcdonalds curls around warm gentle gusts of spring, we will for a fleeting moment catch a small bird frantically twitching its acorn head before rapidly penetrating a tree like a little drill, with an intensity that i would dare to call erotic if it not for the bestiality witch-hunt that the recent oscar win has spurred.

these birds are gorgeous and so potent with frenetic energy it can also give you a migraine if you're not careful. there is a boy (?) in my art class who wears camouflage baseball caps and glasses with the geriatric strap who reads and draws and talks incessantly about local birds, and he's more suited to writing about this than i am, but these Downy woodpeckers, as they are called, deserve a spotlight.

they are petite fellas who work a mile a minute. i've found that searching any term on eBay is a great way to discover surprising facets of your topic, objects in orbit of whatever you're searching bound by practical usage, aspects of your topic that you wouldn't find on wikipedia or a quick google search. ultimately you get a more intimate and personal understanding of your given topic. for example, i would never fully comprehend just how illegible governmental scripts could be were I to have simply wikipedia'd Ronald Reagan. instead, i found the 1981 inauguration invitation. 

did you know that gargoyle-like decoy owls are used to deter woodpeckers from your trees?

soggy art class all-american bird boy would never get the opportunity to buy this for $18 on ebay just by reading those silly books.

on amazon.com you can also find more psychedelic decoy owls for your conservative, silent-generation-era woodpeckers. 

SPEAKING OF POLITICS!!!!!!!

read bell hooks's criticism on potentially life-altering documentary Paris is Burning.

first of all, i should clarify that in case you've forgotten i'm an 18 yr old white girl in evanston.

so my stance here isn't particularly crucial to feminist discourse. i'm also a huge bell hooks fan.

however: this essay is Plain Silly as Fuck.

we already know she has some grandmotherly tendencies. but i mostly chalk those up to her fundamental opinion that any violence, or depiction of violence, is unproductive. but this dignified standard can reach some dangerously respectability-like requests, like for the oppressed to thoughtfully reject the media of the oppressor— in a nonviolent and measured, but also no-bullshit and constructive way.

but go after Paris is Burning?????? come on!!!!!!

for bell hooks to ask homeless black trans women with no proper education to construct their own "alternative femininity" that exists entirely on their own terms without any tethers to whiteness demonstrates that she's missing the point... these people are recycling and reclaiming the values they have been taught. they are not given any "alternative femininities" to expand upon— yes, it's a nightmare but american pop culture does in fact revolve around icons of whiteness. this group fights for their identity every day. to scorn a disenfranchised group for modeling themselves after this, yearning for this sense of glamour and power (however fallacious and destructive it may be) is silly. they've been robbed of their identity. they can't attend your new school lectures.

whatever ms. hooks. i still love you.

recently i've been faced with the task of pressing the past 4 years of my life into small glimmering diamonds of meaning, which involves condensing my dense formative years into a concise and refined sequence of sweet memories, lifelong lessons, and spotify playlists... the door is shutting behind me! how awful!
to think this period of my life will soon be eternally locked & reopened only by nostalgic trips back home & hazy familiar scents is deeply distressing. and to be able to imagine what i once thought it would mean to be as old as i now am, back in freshman year, feverish visions of a rugged asher chewing on long winding blunts like twizzlers, swigging a 40 and then angrily spitting it out for some reason, a dull gray noon sky painting the alley behind the suburban, oddly well-kept 7/11 in monochrome, my tinny earbuds leaking slow distorted trap like a thin stream of smoke. i am haunted by this future that never arrived, and in its place leaves a pink and flustered whiny asher sneaking down at 1 am for a handful of pretzels that will only make me more nauseous! where did i go wrong???

this haplessness is everywhere: recently the school's been making frustratingly competent decisions like weakening the wi-fi in the bathrooms or adjusting their anti-marijuana posters to finally make sense effectively rendering them ridicule-free which was once the sole source of comfort in the day

not to mention my music taste is accelerating thru middle-agedom? the magnolia soundtrack recently hit me hard on my way to work, which feels like a grim premonition of a potential downfall into the pit of seattle-lesbian identity, which is something i never would've thought i was capable of

but life is full of surprises.
for example: both curious george AND winnie the pooh were addicts??

no stranger to manic behavior he was....

must our anthropomorphized animals be plagued by dependency???? even arthur has some obsessive compulsivee tendencies re: diligence.....

piano tone

zika delka del

the only thing more pisces than the ludicrous quincy jones interviews is tunde adebimpe posting about them on his instagram, and the only thing more pisces than tunde adebimpe posting about them on his instagram is me posting about that on my blogspot.

perfectoplasm (pt iii)

the final chapter in the saga: my buddy violet appearing to emit ectoplasm

1930s bathysphere (for early marine biology) and 18th century illustrations

respectoplasm

compare these (potentially pseudo-) early20th century depictions of ectoplasm...

with this in 2009 depiction:

thoughts:
1. the luminous cgi of after effects cs6 and a questionable budget sure is dazzling and viscerally upsetting in a different more nauseating way, but does not reach the gorgeous photomontages of yesteryore.
2. in writing this i almost referred to Haunting in Connecticut as a "b-movie", because it's a second- or third-tier horror movie without a huge following and little critical praise. but upon investigating this term, i discovered that Haunting in Connecticut falls under zero found categorizations of "b-movie."

This curiously-thorough wikipedia article argues essentially that the b-movie transformed into a certain vein of art house: the 90s indie films that felt particularly informed by exploitation films and cannibalized pop culture, ie most.
And a generous NYT article sheds light on the OnDemand free movies that you scroll past and mentally filter out. This "new B-movie" occupies more-or-less the same space that the b-movies of the 80s once did, with technological variations. he's churning out self-deprecating money-makers that mimic large blockbusters but are self-aware enough to capitalize on the tongue-in-cheek campiness and shlock of OG B-movies.

so what the fuck am i talking about?

i'm talking about another grade of horror films. ubiquity horror movies (U-grade films). you've seen their gothic billboards on the subway or in some empty lot, you maybe hear some kid talking about how they shit their pants, and then they forever are erased from the collective consciousness. films that cost a lot, make a lot, and then are erased and sent into imdb oblivion. films like The Unborn, Blood Creek, Horsemen. films that all feature former (sometimes current!) A-list actors (Gary Oldman, Michael Fassbender, Dennis Quaid), have enormous budgets, and often, enormous worldwide grosses. a lot of these are compiled on this awesome self-defeating list. and it feels distinctly 21st century. these films reliably come from smaller companies like Blumhouse Productions or Gold Circle Films, which were both tellingly formed in the year 2000. and then they're picked up by massive distribution companies, like Lionsgate or Focus or Universal. this is when they become U-grade. what's crucial to remember is that these aren't commercial flops. trusty NYT exposes just how well these films do. often they make more than they cost. from an explanatory article on the bookkeeping behind such oddities:

."..There’s so much more money out there than there used to be five years ago for filmed stories, 100,000, 200,000, which is good news..."

mostly these exist on DVDs now, so you can probably order in bulk on ebay. these artists deserve it.

this is the second time i've posted about this in the past 2 days... what does this mean for my spiritual alignment? or filmmaking aspirations?

the amazing world of ghosts (1978)

cum dumpster

happy new year!
i was thinking about the phrase "cum dumpster" and how unspeakably awful it is... it's like the worst combination of words, even phonetically, and each amplifies the other in feedback loop of disaster... because, ok, "dumpster" has that nearly onomatopoetic garbage-bag impact in the first half, the latter half evokes some horrible 90s videogame character. and then of course "cum" is already balancing precariously on the edge of nightmare-worddom, occasionally relieved of its horror only by the alternate spelling oft found in feminist poetry which is "come", which can be actually really sensual and beautiful if used elegantly. but "cum" as the commoner knows it is no good. "cum dumpster". @dictionary.com, got a new phrase of the day for you
as senior year treads onward ive been finding myself assigning work for myself... it's like reverse senioritis. the blog's back, and now i feel mysteriously obligated to compose informal research papers with all the satisfaction of academia but also the liberation of being able to (knowledgeably) shit all over the place uninhibited about whatever i want. plus my art's been steady lacking so i have to soothe my self-esteem with some other endeavor before i crumble to bits.
also
you guys see the ad for online acting lessons from Dame Helen Mirren filmed in the void?

she sits on an expensive (and expansive) oriental rug on the floor of the abyss and describes her experiences seeing plays as "cataclysmic". wow! words like "cataclysmic"? and that's only the preview? sign me UP!!!!!!!

those eyes keep on staring

merry christmas! i was in a 5 guys in lincolnwood (isnt it nice?) and heard the Paul McCartney christmas song.  i'd rather you listen to this in full before reading, because you deserve to have your own experience with this track independent from my grinchy analysis.
done? great.
i'll be honest, it was shocking to hear this song. and shockingly fitting for Five Guys, an establishment which has really capitalized off of the eerie, vaguely hauntological aesthetic of sanitized 50s diner, with red&white geometry, flourescent lights, and a reliable "worst of the late 70s" playlist.
"Wonderful Christmas Time" has the emotional affect of a wikihow illustration. that tried-&-true McCartney cheer wearing thin like a polyethylene sheet, the repeated listing of christmas essentials and then reaffirmation of "that's enough" as if consoling a loved one from an inadequate Christmas experience, the weird looped sleigh bells that remain jarring throughout the entire song, somehow hitting the worst possible sonic frequencies, the  warped plasticine synths... all that mechanized manic detachment falls so squarely into uncanny valley  you would think it was designed to soundtrack a 80s b-movie horror film where mannequins overtake a Macy's. man. post-70s McCartney is so depressing. at least Ringo succumbed to his inevitable irrelevance and remained content with his "goofball" image. Paul's steadfast earnestness became terrifying so quick. god damn.
anyway, remember this image?

i feel like this was THE image of 2007. it smells so strongly of the yahoo search engine. i was initially going to make this my blog background but decided against it because i want people to pay attention to the words i write, not the hotties behind. figured it would ultimately be akin to background pornhub advertisements except the advertisements are better than the actual porn itself.... but really how come everyone knows this pic? how did it gain that much traction on the internet? why can't i stop yahoo-searching for it?* why have i wasted ink cartridge after ink cartridge printing hundreds of copies of this shit out at the Evanston public library?

*you think that yahoo didnt catch on because it's harder to make into a verb than "google"? "yahooing" "binging" it doesn't roll so smooth like "googling" does.

is this the greatest album OF ALL TIME!?!?!

and why come the other version of it i found on youtube looks like a snuff film?

the onion is on their a-game with mass shooting-based humor, which admittedly is a pretty narrow field i imagine

https://www.theonion.com/americans-hopeful-this-will-be-last-mass-shooting-befor-1819580359

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527

does this seem fair

check out how panera bread has appropriated the aesthetics of 20th century egyptian artist hamed nada for their casually omnicultural, quasi-familiar cafe coziness:

tell me you DIDNT mentally superimpose this on a warm panera wall!!

paired with irresistible miles davis? u bet i'll buy that mac&cheese