Film Muse: Electric Earth

A lot of times I dance so fast that I become what's around me. It's like food for me, I like, absorb that energy, absorb the information. It's like I eat it. That's the only now I get. 

 That's the only now I get. 

 That's the only now I get.

After writing my "Stillness" post I couldn't quite get it out of my own head. If you haven't read that post I probably just sounded incredibly narcissistic (go read it here and then come back). Regardless, I still needed to understand why I felt so drawn to those images and those moments I described- beyond noting that they had a certain "stillness" to them.

What makes stillness?

I'd recently been studying Doug Aitken's work and felt like I was on the edge of dissecting this unnameable concept. Then, a mini epiphany occurred when I saw one of Aitken's short films called Electric Earth (1999). 

(link to short film - don't tell the cyber police)

Doug Aitken is a multimedia artist now parked in Venice/L.A. He has done some really cool multi-projection installations like Migration and Sleep Walkers (Tilda Swinton literally on the MOMA building). He has a really beautiful method of showing human consumption, everyday habits, and the energy that is still left behind after them. He thoughtfully breaks down patterns, nostalgia, and forgotten places instead of leaving them at surface level consumption. Stylistically, I saw a bit of Gregg Araki (and maybe a little Kubrick) in this particular film. I say that because Araki often searches for some type of raw truth in his works by taking back the scope and sharing a more existential perspective which I think is worth pondering on. 

Electric Earth is a short film about a man who doesn't have much of a pull except a drive for dancing. He finds his purpose in the broken down molecules of life: a bottle cap spinning in circles on the cement, the pulsing motion of a washing machine, and the jamming of a dollar bill in a Coke machine. "That's the only now I get" he says. The places and things he finds inspiration in seem desolate and void of recent human contact. It seems like flickering neon lights and pixels are the only objects that keep him company.

I noticed that these places were almost all self serving, literally and metaphorically: the laundry-mat, car wash station, convenience store, vending machine. They are the everyday spaces that we all monotonously use and abuse until they become out of date, vacated, torn down, and replaced. It is only when we don't occupy or use these spaces that they suddenly appear strange and off balance ("stillness").

Why is it that we always deem a man-made place "alive" and "normal" if it is occupied by numerous humans themselves? Like when you visit a strip mall along an old highway. It's usually seems so dumpy and hollow that you can't even imagine spending more than 20 minutes there, let alone fathom how a couple people spend their lives there working alone. Why does it feel so foreign and askew?

And then why are there those who are so attracted to these nebulous feelings (raises hand)? Why do we find such spirituality in these places, such nostalgia for something that we've never experienced?

This film answers it. The feelings of fascination, of nostalgia, and melancholiness comes from the untraceable energy of life itself.  

It's like at the end of The Virgin Suicides when you see the deserted house that once occupied the Lisbon family. It seems so cold, yet still full of unexplainable ghostly energy.  The carpet, the paint on the walls, they are still vibrating with life even though every explainable sign of it seems to be gone.

I think we feel this way because we are tapping into something more universal than we are taught. I can't even explain it correctly here because it's not in our language (or way of thinking) to comprehend it smoothly. This character in Electric Earth has transcended the typical way of experiencing life. 

Everything has frequencies running through it, but it isn't until we are gone (or when our presence is removed) that we actually mourn it. I mean, think about it: we build these grand places and memories only to leave them behind and then reminisce about them- as if our presence could only bring them back to life.  I mean, how narrow minded is it to think that just because our human presence leaves something that it becomes a dead object? A dead memory? A dead path and end to it's purpose? 

Or like when Jessica Lange's character in American Horror Story: Murder House (S01E6) is explaining to the supernatural to Violet:

"You're a smart girl! How can you be so arrogant to think that there is only one reality that you're able to see?"

I suppose this feeling of "stillness" I've been trying to get at is more than what I thought it would ever be. Trust me when I say I don't want to be an existentialist, nor do I want you to view this as a negative confrontation of life. Yet when discussing the roots of "nostalgia" and "stillness", we have to start to think that maybe these feelings are so ghostly because life itself  keeps going on in ways that we can't understand when we aren't present. It's more than just a "soft grunge" or "retro" photo you reblog on Tumblr. These places, pictures, and video leave energy and influence in the universe. We shouldn't mourn them, we should learn from them. I guess I'm starting to learn that every action and object we create serves a purpose and lives on in ways that we will never completely understand. 

-Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion

(no, I have not had a recent acid trip)

Stillness

There is approximately one time out of the year that completely throws your vibe off:

Spring Break.

If you're a college student, it starts the Friday you get out. Suddenly the halls become a bit quieter, the streets become eerily deserted, and you can finally think for the first time in weeks. But this period of time is completely different than winter break or summer break - because you know that it only lasts a week. You aren't going home to eggnog and cookies or riding your bike to your summer job. If you're staying where you are, it's completely unsettling.  

Most of my friends got a Greyhound ticket back home, a few on grander adventures, but I stayed here. It was mostly grey, a balmy 30 degrees out, but it gave me time to reflect on life. It's almost scary, how accustomed you become to driving yourself into the ground. Not just with school work, but just with the modes of everyday life. The stillness you happen upon over spring break doesn't quite put you at ease, it just offers you a new perspective. 

(Spring Breakers dir. Harmony Korine)

Over break I was fascinated with this feeling of stillness. I started to remember the times I felt it while watching certain movies.  For example Spring Breakers directed by Harmony Korine. People shit on this movie all of the time (for good and bad reasons), but I think a big reason why I connected to this film so much was the entity of stillness that was captured by Korine. You got the sense of the desperation that comes along with realizing how slow life is when you aren't preoccupied with things. Those fixed frame shots of the empty dorms spoke to my freakin soul. You realize that these places you are so accustomed to are merely shells that are occupied for nine months out of the year. I also realized how essential Cliff Martinez and Skrillex were to this film. They composed the most delicate and omniscient soundtrack music (Park Smoke) that makes you feel so damn melancholy. 

(Adventureland dir. Greg Mottola) 

Then there was that one scene from the end of Adventureland (2009) directed by Greg Mottola (see Film Muse here). It's a short scene, but ethereal nonetheless. The movie is about this rich college kid who decides to get a dumpy summer job at a local amusement park in 1987. The whole movie glows with that certain alliance you create with your coworkers. You know, the "Us vs. The World" type of thing. But this scene just got to me. Their summer job is over and now they have nothing to do really except shoot fireworks on top of a hill. It's all grey outside. It's too still. 

(The Virgin Suicides dir. Sofia Coppola)

Getting progressively sadder, you have The Virgin Suicides (1999) directed by Sofia Coppola. I picked up Jeffrey Eugenides' book over break, hoping to gain some nostalgia from when I first read it. I forgot how beautiful it was, I couldn't fathom it. The book itself is the epitome of ever lasting stillness, exaggerated memories of the Lisbon sisters and open ended questions. I sat around for a good whole day perplexed as to how Coppola captured it all so well. One of the last scenes of the movie shows the house of the Lisbon family. It's vacated and so lonely. Everything is draped in a cool hue of blue, the walls painted plainly. Carpet stains line the floor, even though signs of life left it long ago. It also reminded me of the Spring Breakers dorm shots, how home is just a structure that you live in until you don't.

The Virgin Suicides has best soundtrack of all time, too. AIR beautifully accompanies the hollow feelings of the film, the soundtrack itself deserves a whole other blogpost:
Empty House - by AIR

(Kurt Cobain's aunt in Kurt & Courtney dir. Nick Broomfield)

Then this. This scene I wrote about in my Film Muse of Kurt & Courtney (1998) (see Film Muse here). The film is a documentary surrounding the life of Kurt Cobain. The whole movie is a total downer - if you're into that kind of stuff. What got me was that one of their main interviewees was Kurt Cobain's aunt who still lives in the same house that Kurt used to jam out in as a toddler. She shares old recordings of him singing Beatles songs. She plays the stereo with a huge smile (cross quilt hanging proudly in the background) but still manages to look so goddamn sad. You can tell she is a nice Christian lady who occasionally whips out an acoustic guitar at campfires, but something is eternally off. Like she is still deeply missing Kurt after all of these years, replaying old memories, even though she looks fine and happy in her denim on denim ensemble. 

Well damn. This got a whole lot deeper than I intended it to. But I think it's important to dwell on these moments. I wouldn't have thought about all of this stuff if I went on a trip to Hawaii-kiki. Anyways, I suppose I should study for my midterm tomorrow. Happy Spring Break. 

Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion

Film Muse: Tropico

Hello Film Muse readers, today I'm going to be writing about Lana Del Rey's newly released short film Tropico directed by Anthony Mandler. I heard about this project back in the summer and was really pumped to see their vision. And it was sort of amazing. 

As many of you know, I'm a fan of Lana Del Rey. Although she is a frequent perpetrator of cultural appropriation (a different post), I couldn't help but being in awe of her work. When I first saw her come into the music scene, I was skeptical. I tried to find every excuse to discredit her work and her authenticity. Who does this woman think she is? Her use of stolen archive footage, making herself into seemingly docile characters and declaring her abusive relationship with Americana stunned me. She was everything I shouldn't of been and yet I couldn't ignore the passion I felt for her work. 

Then I realized that she was the first artist that embodied the same idea of nostalgia I and other millennia's fantasize about in our present era. The yearning to feel wanted, the lure of manic love, and the notion of cultural voidness that we desperately try escape in our mundane lives. Lana expressed all of the emotion I felt in a curated aesthetic that spoke to my soul. I've owned up to it, the good and the bad. Lana Del Rey is one of the greatest poets of our generation. 

(one of my favorite shots, Marilyn screaming as "Eve" bites into the apple)

In Tropico, the viewer goes on a musical narrative journey through three of Lana's interconnected songs ("Body Electric"| "Gods and Monsters' | "Bel-Air"). I was mostly excited about "Body Electric", a song in which Lana beautifully mentions her motifs/idols. Lana has no shame in glamorizing and molding her life after Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Jesus, and Monica Lewinsky (to name a few). I wonder if she read John Waters' novel "Role Models" for artistic inspiration.

I think the symbolic nature of Lana's character being cast out of the Garden of Eden into present day American hell is so powerful. This is the first time that I felt Lana really showed the pain of her character's oppression AS WELL as putting the spotlight on the perpetrators. This has been a motif of Lana's for a long time, but for some reason the transition of innocence packs more of a punch in Tropico.  

The two lovers bask in a beautiful paradise before sin slams them down to the lowest of American lows, podunk strip clubs and buzzing Kwik-E-Marts. Condemned Adam, wannabe masculine John Wayne cowboy, rings up junk food while Eve gets the worst of it (how fitting) by relying on her sexuality for a living. What did they (she) do to deserve such hell? The display of perversion on Earth is overwhelming in "Gods and Monsters"/the following businessmen scene. 

"Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from the woman. The womb, the tits, nipples, breast milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love looks, love perturbations and rising...Oh I say, these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul. Oh, I say now, these are the soul." - Whitman (?)* (Tropico)

I can't even touch the monologue above. It's too beautiful to break down.  

" 

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz..." -Howl by Allen Ginsberg (excerpt in Tropico)

"And so, being created in his likeness, and being banished for being too much like him, we were cast out. And the Garden of Eden transformed into the Garden of Evil.  Los Angeles, the city of angels. The land of gods and monsters, the in between rehlm where only the choices made from your freewill will decide your soul's final fate. Some poets called it the entrance to the underworld, but on some summer nights it could feel like paradise. Paradise lost. " - Lana Del Rey (Tropico)

"Just remember, I'm always there for ya" - John Wayne (Tropico) 

The film comes together in the end by the sinners metaphorically being baptized after paying for their sins. John Wayne's "America: Why I Love Her" is the last monologue we hear:

"Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies, way up high?

 Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky? ...

You ask me why I love her? I've a million reasons why. 

My beautiful America, beneath God's wide, wide sky".

I personally see it in this way: with all of the perversions of America, of life, there is still so much beauty to experience. 

Nostalgia? Our glamorization of the past, of things that we want to make beautiful, things that we want to cherish, even if we haven't  experienced them ourselves. Maybe it's not such a bad thing - glamorizing nostalgia - if it helps you get through life. We are lost, we need guidance. We need to know that there is beauty, that it wont always be this way. 

Presently, my brain is trying to stop me from wrapping this post up. It's something I still have to think about and linger on. Either way, I wanted to share my thoughts with you all out there right away. Sorry for the weird abrupt ending. 

-Lauren Rose

Curbside Fashion

Surviving High School 101

High School. 

To be honest, I don't remember much of it. 

(My friend Nyala and I, senior year)

I remember being insecure with my weight, making AWESOME friends that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and then keeping other friends that just let me be my boring-film-nerd self. I remember having the worst math teachers (except for maybe one) and somehow passing each class I endured. I remember car rides with boys that I probably shouldn't have been with and I remember trying so hard to make my high school experience be like Dazed and Confused, even though it would never come close. 

But I made it out, even if I chose to block out some of the non-movie-worthy parts. I morphed into a semi-confident girl who then morphed into a HEADSTRONG FEMALE via college who makes mistakes but is totally an a-okay person at the end of the day.

With that being said, I brought back some tips I gave about surviving high school from an old blog of mine- for those who still have to deal with it. Here we go: 

1. Find friends: Sounds easy, but sometimes it's not. You might not find Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants type friends, but be open to everyone - especially your first year.  Even if you don't find best friends, its nice to have people to be with on the weekends, to learn from them, to goof around. Introduce them to your interests. They just might like the same things as you.  If you can't find friends, lone wolf it.  It might suck, but you will get through it. 

2. Find a hobby: It can be a sport, painting, filmmaking, Youtube, WHATEVER! It doesn't even have to be a school related hobby. Having a hobby to preoccupy you is the best thing you can do, especially if you don't have many friends. I had to take an art class for a credit at my school and I found that I loved hanging out in the art room because the people were open minded and easy going (code for: GOOD VIBES).  With the help of some awesome teachers I did drawing and sculpture, eventually winning a national award for one of my pieces. Who knew that joining an art class for a measly credit would open a new world of understanding art, as well as understanding people? 

3. Actually study for your ACTs/SATs: Yes, society is messed up for judging you on your ability to take a test - but it's happening. Top colleges will hardly look at your applications if you don't meet a certain score.  As much as it makes me want to rip my hair out, PLEASE STUDY FOR THOSE STUPID TESTS. Even if you don't want to go to college, take them anyways as a backup. Take the tests early, and study for them as hard as it might be. If you don't do well, make up for it (see next tip).

4. Do good things: Volunteer, get a job, participate in things outside of school, etc.  Especially if you are a bad test taker (like me), having these things on your application will give you a great advantage over others. Make a resume, as daunting as the task might be! Don't be afraid to recognize all of the good things you've done. You will feel like an accomplished bad ass if you just do good things. 

5. Don't be an asshole: Do I need to say anything else? We all know those people who need some bad karma, or better yet, a punch to the face. Don't be those people. Be tolerant, don't make fun of the quiet ones, and don't act like a 5 year old. Enough said.

(Okay, not enough said. Obviously, traditional bullies suck. But what's even worse is when your own friend becomes a bully by emotionally manipulating you. DO NOT MESS UP A PERSON'S PSYCHE because you want to feel better. Just don't. )

6. Don't date for the sake of dating: You'll see that creepy senior eye your best friend, or your best friend might even hook up with a nasty frat-boy-to-be just to lose her V-card. Don't get me wrong - it's their body, their choices, etc - but it has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. The pressure of dating is huge in high school, but don't give into it if you aren't ready. Exploring your sexuality and having a good time is AWESOME, but if it doesn't feel right: don't do it.  I'm serious. Have you ever seen Never Been Kissed??? There IS a happy ending. Sometimes just not in high school.

7. Be smart: High school has always been a huge cliché for drinking and doing drugs. I say do what you want to do, but be smart. Take it easy on the red cups, DON'T drink and drive, and be with people that you trust. If you ever feel like you were taken advantage of - tell your friends. Heck, tell your TEACHER. You don't want people to get away with that type of bullshit for the rest of their lives. High school is a time to experiment, but remember to realize that in the real world - drinking and drugs are not everything. 

So there you go.
And as a special treat for all of you awesome weirdos out there, here is some 1990's cinematic GOLD. It's called "Dirty Girls", a documentary about teenage outcasts in a typical "All American" high school that I discovered last winter. Apparently they filmed a follow up documentary, when are we going to see it guys?

 LASTLY, I will bid you farewell with some tough words that you might not like. You know those people who say high school was the best time in their life? I'm going to explain that to you. And no, it's not the "they peaked to early" speech. 

You are young. When you reach 18 and your parents stop sheltering some of you, you are going to have to deal with things like bills, loans, apartment searching, careers, and LIFE. The reason why so many people look back at high school with nostalgia is because high school is a time when you don't have too many "real world" responsibilities. With that being said - you have to deal with a lot of other shit like hormones, heart breaks, and dillweed teachers.

So what. You don't like your life in high school? Make it an art project. Cherish each day, and realize that if it's a shitty day - your life will be IMMENSELY better once you get out of there. 

Keep it cool, 

Lauren Rose

CurbsideFashion