011

Tomorrow, or rather today, I'm leaving for Berlin just for this weekend. My film camera's lens is unfortunately broken (does anyone know what to do about stuck blades in a lens?), so alas I won't be capturing photos that way. However, I'm starting to update my photography blog again which can be found here.

In other news, my friend Bijan who recently graduated from Yale is starting a new summer project called Tarry Magazine. Submit written work (prose or poetry) or visual/audio work here. The theme of the month is "Getting Drunk" (in the Baudelarian sense, not the fratty sense; though I do think Baudelaire would know how to get down at a frat party if he had to as he was all about drinking and doing drugs and getting women--maybe someone should submit an illustration of Baudelaire drinking some Natty Light and wearing nantucket red).

There's so much to write about, especially I hope after my trip to Berlin (this is my first time going and probably my last trip outside of Paris before I head to San Francisco in less than two weeks!).

So watch this space

009

carefree white girls
(Or: What you're talking about when you're talking about style)

from left to right: Poppy Develigne, Candice Swanpoel, Kirsten Dunst, Keri Russell

all sporting looks that I find lovely and would wear in a heartbeat

About a week ago one of my good friends from high school Yunyi sent me the link to this tumblr called carefree white girl. The tumblr was meant to call attention to the "deification of white womanhood" in popular culture. Yunyi and I both had a good laugh that someone was clever enough to come up with such a tumblr, but when our conversation moved elsewhere I sorta forgot about it.

But sometimes when you're paying attention, you start to connect the dots between recurring themes that pop up in your life. I feel like I've lived the past twenty-one years vaguely skimming such themes on the surface-- the fashion magazines I peruse, the movies I watch, and the people I see on TV-- all proliferate the same notion of beauty, but I hadn't really been paying attention. Indeed, the scariest part is that even though I consider myself an open-minded person, even though I am a person of color--a hyphenated American-- I am so inundated by notions of this one standard of beauty that it's difficult at times for me to question my own notions of what I consider beautiful and how easily they conform to this said standard.

For example, I've started to write some pieces for my school's fashion and lifestyle website modachicago.com. As I was brainstorming ideas for what to write about next I thought it would be cool to do a weekly or bi-monthly post on the fashion inspiration I derive from movies, more particularly stills that are taken from movies. Because I mean sometimes when I'm watching a film everything comes together--soundtrack, scenery, style--that makes me want to extract that particular moment and transfer it to my own life.

So I started to compile a list of movies I could include in these posts. I started with Sofia Coppola because each of her movies has such a singular, cohesive aesthetic: The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation. And then I thought about how much I loved the cinematography and costume design for Joe Wright's films with Keira Knightley: Pride & Prejudice, Atonement. Then An Education with Carey Mulligan, The Graduate for more of the 60s style echoed in An Education. The list started to grow and then I started to look for film stills from each of the movies to make my blog post.

The Coppola Girls

Kirsten Dunst in the 2006 September issue of Vogue with a look

inspired by her role as the title character in Marie Antoinette

Scarlett Johansson in the 2003 film Lost in Translation playing

a role as the ultimate Lonely Girl opposite Bill Murray

A younger Dunst in the dreamy Virgin Suicides that has all the 

best of late 90s aesthetic

Keira Knightley in Atonement

Carey Mulligan in An Education

I then started to notice a theme that was so evident once I realized it, that it seemed almost sinister--wrong-- that I hadn't noticed it before: every single one of the looks that I had in mind all featured a beautiful white woman sporting looks that beautiful white women wear.

This blew me away. It seriously did. Because the thing is I knew this on an intellectual level--I had read about this, talked about this, understood the joke behind the "carefree white woman" tumblr but I had never really noticed how I perpetuated this idea, that I was implicated in this vicious cycle as well.

A couple minutes later, for various reasons, a) I'm a millennial with an attention that spans all of 2 minutes b) I was so freaked out by my realization that I needed to distract myself, I found myself watching a TEDtalk, funnily enough, of the model Cameron Russell. Her talk was entitled Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model. and she ended up talking about this very same phenomenon. I think it's worth it for everyone to watch the video for himself or herself, but Russell essentially gives the answers to questions she is repeatedly asked: "how did you become a model?" "could I become a model?" etc.

Her answer to the first question? The genetic jackpot and legacy. What she means by the second thing is that for hundred of years now--essentially since our country's inception and even before with the European influence carried over by the, well, Europeans--our culture has constantly perpetuated the idea that the white woman is the standard of beauty. And over the past decades, it has narrowed down to a construction that is even more specific: a skinny young white woman with a symmetrical face, flawless complexion, and shiny hair.

This is not to say that there is something wrong with Carey Mulligan or Sofia Coppola or the fashion of white women (and men) in the 1960s or any of that. There is only something wrong when these figures and these modes of style are the dominant ideals of beauty and style (think about the whole media frenzy after the release of Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst being shot by Annie Leibovitz for September 2006 issue of Vogue putting French 18th century style back on the map. Or, the mayhem surrounding Keira Knightley's stunning emerald green gown in Atonement. I can't think of one non-white actress getting as much buzz playing a role that doesn't fit into this European or western-centric notion of what is fashionable). It starts to become problematic when I can barely count the number of non-white women I view as style icons on one hand (Solange Knowles, Liu Wen, Daul Kim, Janelle Monáe) and it becomes even more problematic when I realize that none of these women have the same influence in the mass media as their white counterparts (of course, I have agency over who I decide to view as influential or not, but how much do I really?).

It's obviously difficult to uproot one's entire notions of what is beautiful or what is stylish or chic or fashionable in one fell swoop. However, the intersection of these seemingly disparate moments in my life has forced me to think about my personal conceptions of all these construction and to question how my own perceptions of myself and my sense of style are shaped by mass media representations...

008

Recess: School's Out

Initially I started this blog in order to talk about fashion in a critical way. However now it is starting to (d)evolve into a free-for-all of my thoughts on poetry or television or mass culture or whatever I happen to be fixated on at this particular moment (that is to say, staying up until 5 am reading or watching everything pertaining to this one thing; last week it was The Bling Ring and all the people behind that. I ended up watching over and over a clip of Alexis Neiers, who is played by Emma Watson in the new Sofia Coppola movie, wigging out on Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales. You can watch the morbidly
hilarious clip here).

And last night... I stayed up till five in the morning watching the TV Show Recess.

I feel it's a shared experience by everyone in late teenhood and early adulthood to turn back to childhood favorites--movies, TV shows, books--with new eyes, as we have inevitably matured and grown up and learned some things about the world since taking these things in next to the glass of milk and cookies our parents used to set out for us on the table. Actually, it would kind of be a lie to say that my mom gazed protectively over me as I watched T.J. Detweiler and the crew get into shenanigans that played out and resolved in 10 minutes time, as she rarely ever let me watch TV. I would catch up on the show during the odd early morning playings on Saturdays or Sundays when she was at work, wishing I could be as carefree and savvy and adventurous as the gang at Third Street Elementary School. Either way, it was such a pleasant surprise to find that this show I had loved so much in childhood lived up to my expectations even now.

Rife with cultural references (though not on the same level as The Simpsons, obviously), the show portrays elementary school kids as equal--if not better--than the principal adult characters. The gang-- T.J. Detweiler (clearly the leader and the one who is always scheming up a new plan; despite his mischievous behavior he nonetheless tries to be kind to his peers, well, besides the Ashleys, but we all like sticking it to the one percent), Spinelli (there are many important female characters on the show but she is the most brazen, the one who gives the least of a fuck, and in a great way), Gretchen Grundler (the other girl in the gang who plays out the role of a sweet, well-intentioned nerd/genius), Mikey Blumberg (perhaps my favorite character because he is just so obliviously sweet), Vince LaSalle (the ambitious and popular athlete), and finally Gus Griswald (tiny, dorky, confused)--set up a classic hero versus anti-hero opposition to the adults in the School, namely Principal Prickly and the recess guard Miss Muriel Finster.

While Prickly and Finster (aren't they great names?) use dictatorial techniques to keep the kids in check, assert power, or to even manipulate the workings of the school for personal gain, Detweiler and crew are always subversive and smart enough to do what's best for the elementary school as a whole.

For example, in one of the creepier episodes called "Schoolworld" --it should be noted that Third Street Elementary is a such a great microcosmic look of the power structures at play in the "real world" as you have your elites (The Ashleys), your monarch (King Bob, who has authority but generally doesn't come up in most of the episodes), your gang of "savages" who don't play (literally) by the rules (the Kindergartners--one of my favorite elements), and the guy who represents shady, backdoor dealings  (Hustler Kid)--in this episode Principal Prickly buys a crazy computing system SAL 3000 so that the machine can control every aspect of the student's lives and he can (presumably) kick back, relax, and take credit for all of SAL 3000's work in order to look good to the district superintendents.

And while initially the gang is taken by Sal 3000's seemingly endless knowledge and helpfulness--it changes the water temperature at the drinking fountain to suit Mikey's taste, it lets out the kids early for recess--they start to suspect the machine's ulterior motives to take over the entire school when it starts lashing out passive aggressively on the students (Mikey can't drink any more from the water fountain because he's taken up his "allotted" amount, Swinger Girl can no longer swing higher on the swing set because it's not in line with district policy ("but I'm a professional!" she yells). So it is the gang, not Prickly or Finster, who start to see Sal for what it really is, and it is the gang who ultimately takes matters into their own hands (this compared to the naivete and powerlessness of the adults: Principal Prickly is eventually usurped and the teachers all get locked into a room when Sal uses Prickly's voice to call them into a meeting and fire them all).

Principal Prickly being fired by Sal. I like how while his profile looks menacing, the man reflected in the red glow of Sal 3000  looks confused and powerless. Yeah, I just did some visual analysis on this cartoon TV show.

Things go down after Sal 3000 insults Gretchen, the only one in the group who continued to defend the machine even after it did some shadyass things. The best part is Gretchen doesn't even get hurt that this piece of technology she adored has insulted her.  She knows what's up and that Sal is wrong (she is a smart gal) and then spearheads the movement to shut Sal down.

So anyway, life came back full circle last night as I rediscovered my love for this show and stayed up till five 5 am watching a bunch of episodes and eating Oreo's (seriously not making this up, though I didn't have milk). There are so many solid episodes: the one in which Spinelli is unwittingly entered into a beauty pageant by the Ashleys but ends up proving that originality is better than conformity ("The Beauty Pageant"); one in which T.J. proves himself to be a loyal friend to both the Pale Kids in the basement as well as Menlo, the kid who rats everyone out ("Lord of the Nerds" and "Some Friend" respectively). 

It's great looking back on these formative aspects of my childhood and realizing now that the show wasn't dumbed down just because the audience happened to be kids. Case in point with the character Miss Grotkey, the kind, granola teacher who seems to be one of the only capable  adults in the school. She also keeps it real:

007

To You

I haven't been posting as much on this blog as of late because life and school have caught up with me--as in, I've been on the sidelines pondering both life and school, otherwise not doing much at all in my attempt to make sense of leaving Paris in less than a month.

Just as this time last year leaving for Paris seemed like a vast unknown abyss, coming back home after a year of staking temporary claim in Europe seems so much more infinitely terrifying but in a different way. Perhaps I'll write a reflective post(s?) on all that I have seen and learn here for a different time, but I stumbled upon a poem by Walt Whitman yesterday that has been making me think of friendships both good and bad, the ones that have stayed and the ones that have faded away. A poem that I otherwise would have taken years to find (when would I pick up a book of poetry and read it for what it is?)--or never would have found at all--one stanza of it was posted by someone I follow on tumblr (currently my favorite function of tumblr is kind of scrolling through in this half tuned-in half checked-out manner, culling material by liking things and then re-discovering it weeks or months later--a great informal way to be better tuned in to one's tastes, and even, I dare-say, one's psychology. But more on that later).

"To You", a part of the Whitman's anthology Leaves of Grass, is the third poem in the chapter/book "Birds of Passage."

The second stanza:


Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
  I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
  I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

My first reading of the poem was colored I think by a strong personal narrative of romance--I had completely disregarded the first word "Whoever" and instead focused right in on the part after this subordinate clause (read: the rest of the stanza). It spoke to me so poignantly of this feeling--however based in reality or not--of painful longing, of wanting to express love or passion in a way that bursts at the seams. But then when I read it again, I felt a little embarrassed that I had disregarded what Whitman was really saying--something universal, all-encompassing. Now I read it as "Whoever you are..."as in, it does not matter who you are--stranger, acquaintance, friend, lover-- I give you all this love, in a celebration of human life.

And again, in the infinite interpretations one could have of this one short stanza of this poem, I can turn back to a more personal reading pertaining to one person and his or her many selves ("Whoever you are"--whatever self you choose to be in this moment, or in this particular part of your life). And it is in this last analysis that I think of the the evolutions of friendship, how there is both beauty and difficulty in sticking with friends during certain periods of growth and change. The two sides of the coin: friends with whom I can share anything and everything--my deepest fears and the worst parts of myself; alternatively, those friends with whom after years of trying and trying and seeking and seeking, you (as in I) realize that there are fundamental differences so large perhaps I would be better off not trying and seeking anymore.

Every year, despite the fact that I don't reflect on it in a more chronological and organized way, I learn more about myself, the person I want to be, the people I want to surround myself with. Life never offers finalities (only Death can do that). But it's hard, still, to not want certain finalities as to what is good or bad, that is to say what is worth holding onto in life and what is better off being let go. There are so many people in this world who I want to "be my poem" but at the same time forces or structures outside of my control--social, economic, political--seem to prohibit that.

It is a paradox of open and closed.

-----

Read the rest of the poem here.