Frankly it's Frankenstein

Today the agenda is a continuation of the 'aesthetic cosmetic' theme, with less of a tangerine twist than my last colorful contribution. For this entry, let us say, I prefer to refer to the potential consequences of the face and body-perfect obsession of the familial now. Observations would suggest that from the extensive multi-media to the everyday salon trip, we are fast becoming consumed by the joker-smiling, snipped and trimmed superficial age. The plump injected lips spouting the 'perfected pout' is today a given. Alas,the botox-brow frozen to an infinite state of surprise is a common place must have. We may now purchase wrinkle smoothers, fillers and all manner of facial grouting tools to rebuild, reconstruct and erase, for now, the unthinkable suggestion of age. One questions, in all this beautifying madness, who the very being may be that hides, resides and masquerades behind the man-made sutured walls of such a mask. The deceivingly perfect exterior of such a face, hence, a product of a society that evaluates much these days on face value, continues to partake in the unreliable and somewhat disjointed painful race to achieve the youngest look.

So to question this miraculous youth fluid extraordinaire i.e snake venom, (which, for those of you who do not know is the ace-base of Botox). Surely this frightful 'tox-in face' (or otherwise paralysis inducer), is a tad unreliable as a cosmetic procedure. Further, to staple one's brows and wear a look emulous of a 'Ronald McDonaldesque' arch is positively none other than a very dubious suggestive look of happy.

Of course, amidst many of the questions we should not ask, lurks the burning desire to know how the rest of the body 'fits' in? With an ever-youthful fixed face what is to become of the 'failing to comply neck' propping up the plastic happy smile? What of the aged parts of covered flesh suffering the gravitational pull? The once pert body mode passing over to the other side can surely not be patched up with all of the artifice above? If so this sounds frightfully expensive.

A good friend of mine echoed a similar viewpoint in relation to the ambivalent advantages of beauty, plasticity and the body. For example, should you happen, perchance to find yourself stumbling googly-eyed towards a display of aesthetic cosmetic appeal; say the poutier pout, the surgeon-smoothe face , the ample chest, the generally younger looking Type, how do you respond when not just the clothing drops in the bedroom? Does Mary Shelley's Frankenstein sound familiar I wonder...and yes whether woman/man has, once again, made a monster? One arguably may recognize the faint undertones of similar issues raised by Victor at the beginning of chapter 5 in Shelley's novel as he abhors/ observes his creation:

"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate this wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I endeavoured to form? [...] limbs were in proportion, and I had selected [...] features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! [The] hair was of lustrous black, and flowing; [...] teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with [...] watery eyes [...] and straight black lips".

A New Year is the Future Still Orange?

Of course it is a New Year, yes undoubtedly. All the signifiers tell me so. It has snowed, the numbers on the top right have altered to 2010/ twenty ten; yes pronounced like that I note by those in the swinging know. Sounds rather Americanized in my view. Regardless of that undeniable numerical change, call it procrastination, writer's malaise (or any other term that would sufficiently describe absence of entry), there are things that I still have to execute from my little black book regarding 2009. Those of you that know me well, few I hasten to add, will be aware of my avid need to scribble, capture and consider 'the way of things'. A blissfully vague term I know, but wholly convenient. This woolly term, one understands, encapsulates all manners of observation. Given that there are a selection of choice topics to discuss from dated leafs of the late year, the following additions will be consumed with 'past musts'; to explain, I must write about them before they become simply pasts or too passe.

Teenage Dream - Tangerine Cream

I take my inspiration for the given title from the everyday street-scene; possible pretty young things smothered with the aesthetic slick. In short, a look of 'ever-glow orange' is fast becoming ingrained as the acceptable norm within contemporary culture and its streaky band of female youths. Albeit not a direct reference to Edgar Froese and the 1967 German electronic group, the band's namesake seemed to be a recurrent theme in my mind whilst sighting this hegemonic cosmetic wave. I wave not. Sad is the need to daub, lose complexions or clarity of individuality. Sadder still seems the inescapable dilemma for those who simply cannot go out without facial bottled orange. So one, this one, observes a surreal layered on sense of security, and perhaps a more sinister understanding of what 'lipstick, powder and paint' now evokes. For those teens who can afford the time, expense and skin scare the 'spray tan' or cancer booth may accompany the 'ever-glow' look. The orange-faced Oompa Loompa's in the more Deppian version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory thus stand to look less like Wonkers than the young girls entrenched in this blanket beauty faux pas. The compulsory coiffure, straighten and spray further enhanced by lashes that emulate a look of 'dead-leg tarantula' accompanied by 'the glow' surely wards off rather than rewards with the admiring eye of other. Perhaps the message portrayed by this image should thus read " back off should you dare to catch a glimpse of something natural!"Should the future foetal scan be child equipped with mascara wand in hand preparing to be seen looking 'the look' at the premiere, the birth? Does the tan become an imperative spray to accompany deodorant? Or does one simply look at our consumerist culture as a blind, oblivious happy contender of the ridiculous? Arguable, peppered with pity for the young impressionables on one hand, and a good dose of Lacanian 'Lack' on the other.

Red is the colour

Yes, beautiful, sumptuous, glorious RED! Music to my eyes, edible to my taste and no I do not have the tendencies of a vampire. Arguable my head screams as I take a sly look to the right and spy Let The Right One In- Lindqvist's reinvention of the vampire novel, which is of course fabulous and not just for its cover smudge of red... erm...do we detect fetish here? Rewind. Back to colour appreciation/adoration. 

Take a stab for instance, not at the jugular but at the mysterious 'deep secret' red rose. A favorite of mine with as much finger-beckoning persuasion as a certain, rather distinctive, Joanne Harris' Chocolat that too was able to effortlessly unlock, unleash and appease the wildest desires through acute sensitivity of the the senses. Rather like for Patrick Suskind's scent-compelled protagonist Grenouille, one swift inhalation of these deepest rose-red packed petals propels the inquisitive sniffer to some utopian wisp of a white moment, upward and beyond the roof top of the mind. This panegyric rant however is not 'the story of a murderer', perfume creator or chocolatier, but rather Grenouille, it is merely an appreciation of heaven- scent red things ; ). Red for me yes arguably invokes levels of indescribable pleasure...fortunately for many unlike he, I do not wish to preserve it via a glass bottle ; ). 

Another fine example of 'red love', (remember I coined that), as I pay homage to a decade-long love affair that I have pleasured myself with. Re-the endless army of glossy black and bar code white boxes containing the infamous Chanel 'Rouge-Noir' nail polish. If you had not guessed, I unpaid, do solemnly declare that this product oozes rich red gorgeousness, (should I sign that?). Polish, as opposed to varnish because, quite frankly, some words are of course linguistically superior to others. Further the colour is a glorious deadly dark shade of red, deep-secret-like provocative, evocative and a professional must for those who prefer to purr with 'polished' sexuality as opposed to varnished, woody and well... average. Oh detect the snobbery.

I continue to praise now the i-Pod of love whose red slender body never fails to stimulate me away from the life mundane. For example, it is somewhat difficult to suppress a smile when the shopping episode; top end boredom task, is pleasantly blurred by a booming symphony of sounds that do not comply with the task in hand. Can you imagine how trolley rage dissipates on listening to James Horner's 'A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics'(A Beautiful Mind), or alternatively The Cult's 'She sells Sanctuary' on looking upon yet another grizzled expression at the empty banana box. Red clearly is pleasure in my life, even through the very lenses that view this font, framed in yes red, beautiful red as is my other trusty steed to the left, the Chambers dictionary, of course. 

So lets fly with some of Chambers' best, red-haired, red-handed, red-heat, red-herring, red-letter, red-light, red-tape, (I prefer rope for that definition), red-alert. .... Thank-you Chambers, as opposed to Parker who would prefer pink. To further, with my thoughts this time which incidentally are not in any particular order for those of the analytical nature. Red is the colour of:

 Danger, hearts, seduction, love, fire, passion, blush, blood, sex, must-have lips, talons to match, indeed the lust and all that defies the nullified signifiers of dust and is not just for... 

VALENTINES ; )  X         

Work Without Hope

The title line and poem composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge on the 21st February, 1827, yes admittedly give or take twelve days, seems appropriate. 'Work Without Hope', for so many faces that carry the burden of the 'now' life as opposed to Coleridge's 'then', and further, that bear the weight and welt of the 'mind for'gd manacles' of Blake's London, today exist in folds. Centuries later, what 'state' of hope are we in? In a history repeating itself feeling...what's new? Be at liberty to play with the terminology as you wish, I tend to sense drawing from observation, that things are not good. Smiles now seem few, regardless of context/backdrop in a temperature, as of late, to match the ice-cold stark faces that I see through window panes of coffee houses, bars, and even the 'happy' park which is NOT a derivative of a happy 'M' experience. Thank goodness, (and whoever coined that phrase?), that the wagging dogs whose rubber balls, now with trendy long saliva free handles, are blissfully unaware.






On this particular occasion I tried to seek comfort in a glimpse, or ambitiously two, of sunshine that slid and teased in and out of a looming grey mass. Still I walked on, flaneurian style in the park, ever the idealist in hope that there was more than this mood so scarily and all too often reflected in eyes that searched for mine. Trust Coleridge, (more word play if you like), to reflect something else rather prophetic...






'All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair-


The bees are stirring-birds on the wing-


And Winter slumbering in the open air,


Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!


And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,


Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.






...and as the closing lines of the poem read...






'Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,


And hope without an object cannot live'.






Coleridge's 'Hope without'... I draw not merely from the masses seen but also had witnessed in the eyes of those close to me. Clearly unable to 'see' hope (oxymoron?), to suffer this space of abject object, downtrodden and detached from smiles and dreams is all too Blake/ black. Stand back.






It did, if you are wondering, of course rain, and rain, and rain hard, and harder still. Consumed by this heavy 'down' pour of life, weather and apparent wither of all hope to a 'consumed for now maybe' or 'swallowed near potentially', my message is that sinking is NOT an option. Tomorrow... just maybe the sun will shine with a blinding light that requires you to wear shades, not stand in it.

Heaven is a snack pot not a D.J

Why is heaven equated with food? Not necessarily the chosen theme for today but perhaps more of a rude invasion of thought space via the mass consumerist box of wires and 'leads' that we call television. Poison surely rather than heaven. How can it be that this object shrink-wrapped in foil, neatly packaged, one-person sized snack pot can possibly come close to that mythical place called heaven? The tub is white and the crackers resemble something like that which is placed on the tongue in a ceremonial church process. Obviously the mango chutney cannot be placed in the same process, but could it be perceived that there is a cunning linkage to that blindingly illuminated utopian space... up there... with this white-potted, purr inducing tongue sized treat? 

This is not a natural edible wonder of 'nature' like that large, obviously red shiny apple of Eden-which of course is natural. It is a product posited in a space pot without the optional extra vitamin capsule like the space men have. In effect this pot holds as much authenticity and 'real' promise of a heavenly experience, (note lower case h), as the Turkish Delight ads that hatched out of the 70's that wrapped ruby-like gelatine in chocolate and called it a mysteriously seductive must have, (actually that was me before I get taken to court).

Like the big golden-arched 'M' that relentlessly riddles the globe, the 'H' in food is of course a big fat 'M' for myth. No, this is not a lesson or rant on the correct use of upper case, it is me laughing at the duping techniques employed in every screen ad we are insidiously encouraged to watch.

So I the chocolate, we are led to believe is heaven, I the low fat, light snack am heaven, in fact I am whatever the manufacturer called me this time, is heaven "cos they said so!"  

I too then can become an angelic, halo-emblazoned, marcel waved creature if I choose to indulge this virtual out-of-body blissful promise. Eat and be redeemed. I laugh out loud as I type this and want to scream "you must be out of your mind if you believe that!"   

Tomorrow, maybe I shall resume with the original topic in hand, without the TV blurb babbling in the backround...  

Today I am the glass. Looking inside and through.  Shatterable, potentially shattered thanks to much confusion, yes ambivalent, and too much that permits me to feel, only, as fixed as the slippage of the late, quite possibly last snow. Like my snow man named 'wistful' I melt and slide in and out, like the dialectics of 'inside and outside' described so well by Gaston Bachelard. Are you unable to attain a centre? Me too, and my snowman. For those of you unfamiliar with Bachelard's work, let me tell you, The Poetics of Space is a truly great read, the quotations, one can establish only too well at work within oneself. They are rich and plentiful in this greedily genius text, how I wish we were on first name terms. Where is the centre and is it achievable in this chaotic space we/I now occupy? Should I leave that question open she wonders... yes! I am not in the clutches of any university now! So clearly not entirely dissolved yet I shall leave you with a favorite quote or two to digest, ingest or do whatever you like with...   

'but what a spiral man's being represents. And what a number of invertible dynamisms there are in this spiral! One no longer knows right away whether one is running toward the centre or escaping'. p 214

'Outside and inside form a dialectic of division, the obvious geometry of which binds us as soon as we bring into play in metaphorical domains. It has the sharpness of the dialectic of yes and no, which decides everyhting. [...] In this " horrible inside-outside hell" of unuttered words and unfulfilled intentions, within oneself, being is slowly digesting its nothingness [...the] hum of [...] being continues both in time and in space. In vain it gathers its remaining strength. It has become the backwash of the expired being'. p 217

There's something about snow...

Today I have delighted in the rare flutter and sway of the imperfectly formed, yet most beautiful feather-like snow flakes that have littered the sky, and thus my window frame. Do we therefore anticipate a break of all darkened grey things by this white, clean world, I wish she thinks...or do we say to this snowy blanket "too late you've missed the Christmas tinkle of Santa's sleigh bells".

White as snow, a cliche ridden barrage of terminology erupts, almost unwillingly, laugh, on one hand, it can mean an array of things as we all know. A signifier, yes of cleansing perhaps some unwanted 'black' spots in life's events. A tale like Tim Burton's Edward Scissor Hands and the snow fall at the end of the movie which marks change, potentially, we think for 'good', and yet those of us that know and love the film well witness a far from happier ending. Black spot covered, short-term, to resurface when the short-term 'white' fix has melted. Bah humbug Ed should have said, the trajectory of white as purer or better is dead. 

But of course there is good in this white signifier, yes, lets pay some lip-service to this rare and glorious substance. Snow is indeed aesthetically very pleasing to the eye, everything appears to be brighter, somehow more clarified in this crisp, breath-evident air. There are after all snowballs a plenty and children willing, yes willing to play 'outside' as opposed to 'inside' a screen, or three. Cherried, flushed cheeks emblazoned upon youth I have today witnessed, as opposed to sallow pale, faces that bear those all too familiar hollowed eyes that dart in defiance at the mere suggestion of 'why do'nt you play outside'. 

So, I have sampled fun, tears from stinging hard objects, and observed snow balls that clearly should have been carved into rounded men with rooty carrotian noses, not mutated into huge spherical harming objects. Shhh.. Back to soft, I have heard much laughter, peels of screams and seen littlest clean footprints in the snow. How refreshing, even quenching in a far too long spell of dry desert-driven grey days.