what to pair with the new EMA album

For two weeks, all I listened to was Erika M. Anderson's (EMA's) new album, Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions, 2011). It made me have powerful anxiety feelings, and let it be known on this blog that I kind of love when art gives me anxiety feelings. I won't go into full album review mode here, because it's already been said very well. But what I will do is tell you the things I did together with listening to these songs to produce my own heebie-jeebie cocktail (if you are already an anxiety-prone person please do not take this prescription).

• Induce a feeling of fear. I make myself scared all the time, and it is very animal to do this -- horses startle themselves, when they get bored. What makes you feel afraid? Maybe think about water. It is imperative that you are ready to feel afraid. Past Life Martyred Saints is an emotionally charged album, but its charge doesn't live on the top, it's not full-on rage like the nineties (for which we are all so nostalgic lately). It is a simmering undercurrent like a terrible lake monster. Are you not afraid of the näkki? Seriously think about being afraid of these things; they can and will snatch you up if you get too close to the murky, unreflecting water. That is the first step. The second part is to add a few grains of sea salt to the water you drink first thing in the morning. This is actually helpful for water absorption, and might make you feel closer to the element. But it will also make the water taste weird, like Evian water, like minerals. It will give you a weird feeling like you maybe shouldn't be drinking the water. Only a few grains. You don't want it to be salty, just a little bit weird.


• Read Kathryn Harrison's book The Kiss. You might remember the reviews of this book: a completely straightforward, troubling telling of the author's sexual relationship with her father. The EMA album has nothing to do with incest, but the language of the two works almost melds together. I happened to be reading the book at the same time and was affected by the narrators' immense body horror and the presence of the emotionally abusive other in both. Harrison's narrator, suffering tremendously in the stifling wrongness of the affair, grows to loathe her bodily self and dabbles in anorexia; Anderson's narrator, too, fixates on abuse, as in the nauseating, cracked-voice refrain "I wish that every time he touched me left a mark".


• Watch the X-Files episodes "Ascension" and "One Breath" (season 2). This is the arc where Dana Scully is kidnapped by self-proclaimed UFO abductee Duane Barry. Listening to the UFO-influenced track "The Gray Ship" in between these episodes has a thrilling effect. NPR described it as an "unlikely leap of faith" when the instrumentation drops out; if you have ever watched the X-Files, you will know this is perfect.

If this worked for you as it did for me, the result is going to be really a really unsteady sublime head-cut-off feeling, a mixture of the chills and sadness and disgust and thrill. And a profound gratefulness that you have a normal life and you can look at your lover or pet or houseplant and go "Hey. We're both here." And even if you don't do these things, listen to the album. It's that good.

alexander mcqueen, and covering women's faces

Visiting the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the Met today made me feel strange. The walk through the show was captivating; I lost my friends quickly and whenever we did run into each other in the crowd, nobody said anything. The lighting was mostly dark, and the mannequins were either wooden headless ones (in the beginning) or tall, white humanoids with their heads and faces covered. The head coverings and treatments were all done by the same person, hairstylist and McQueen collaborator Guido Palau.

To me it is a little bit visceral to see a woman's shape with the head and face entirely covered. It is a trope common in fashion because it is so total, so complete, so literally head-to-toe. It is a political statement, too. (Remember this Fever Ray appearance?) And we've seen it all over, from McQueen himself to this high-movement fringe bodysuit designed by my friend Viktor. The face is a locus of all the senses, and to cover the senses isolates the wearer, seals her off. It made me feel so uncomfortable to see the faces and heads of all the mannequins covered in leather, metal, horsehair.

So by the time I emerged from this sensory overload, I had that funny feeling. I know that McQueen was very feminist, into women and women's power; he was obsessed with the feminine shape and embellished it to frightening and powerful extremes (huge hips and huge shoulders with terrifyingly clean lines). I also know that the focus of a fashion exhibition is the clothes, not the bodies that inhabit the clothes. But in this video you can see some of the mannequins with their faces; this repeated image juxtaposed with the ethereally draped, windswept Kate Moss hologram has a weirdly emotional effect on me.

facebook as antique courtship ritual

Traditionally, love matters were public; courtship took place in the eye of the community, and relationships were business arrangements conducted in agreement for the best outcome for all parties involved. (Except the ladies, in most cultures and cases. But I am referring here to familial arrangement, for the "best.")

Then, sometime around the age of chivalry, romantic love -- as a private notion and indeed as a notion at all -- rooted itself into the human mind. Since that time, courtship has toed the line between public and private, romantic and business-oriented, with a significant modern turn towards the private and romantic in the twentieth century.

Enter Facebook. I am very interested in Facebook's role in this. We add our families, friends, and social networks, give them access to our photo archives and updates, publish our relationship statuses, and post pictures of our new significant others, waiting for the "likes" and comments to roll in. It is approval-seeking and narcissistic, but more than that, if left unfiltered*, it's kind of a return to ancient, public courtship ritual. Here are a few reasons for saying so.

• The Facebook profile as a matchmaking profile for friends and family. In times of yore, the family of a marriageable young person would research the family and social strata of a candidate before approving or disapproving. Nothing has changed, except maybe the fact that research is not so heavy focused on the family now as it is on social decorum. In fact, for parents, I imagine this is the best part of Facebook. Let's say you're the savvy parent of a son or daughter of shackin' up age. Of course you're going to check up on the person-of-interest to find out if Offspring Dearest is dating a worthless Four Loko-chugging lout who posts nothing but grammatically incorrect, narcissistic rants aimed at the many petty friends who have slighted him or her, or if the child, in a remarkable moment of clarity, has latched on to a decent human who has a job title you've heard of, and who has managed to not wear a beer hat in any photos. If the former, you'll no doubt bring it up with your kiddo at some awkward point. If the latter, you may sit on in smug satisfaction at having raised a person capable of making great decisions. Or you may choose to make a gesture of goodwill toward the new person in the little one's life. Which brings me to...


• The Friend Request as public social knowledgement by friends and family. In Victorian times, courting took place under the watchful eye of the woman's parents, who had to approve the beau-in-question in an elaborate series of ritualized public calling. Nowadays, the calling card is obsolete, but the Facebook friendship is its contemporary equivalent. Now, friendship doesn't always happen, but once it does, in my experience, it is always the parents (and to an extent the rest of the family) who extends the Facebook friendship request to the daughter/son's romantic partner. My significant other's family members have slowly been adding me as their friends, and I find it a slightly nerve-racking move. In fact, I think I always leave the invites hanging in the inbox for a day or two as I consider the implications. But I always come to the conclusion that above all, the Facebook Friend Request is a public acknowledgement of legitimacy from the family -- exactly the thing that the Victorian suitor would have hoped for in the 1800s.


• The Wall Post and Photo Comments as "tokens" of love and intention. First of all, the concept of love tokens is hilarious to me, but it fits in here super well. So in the age of chivalry, gentlemen sent gloves to their intendeds. Norwegian girls would wear empty knife sheaths for suitors to fill (ouch! Metaphor!). The Facebook wall post, no matter how banal, is a public token, and with it the writer leaves a trail of intention. This is especially great and evident now with the "Show Friendship" function, which allows any interested party to examine a history of wall posts, common photos, and comments, all taken out of context except for that of linear time.

On this list, I am not even including the obvious: the roster of "Relationship Status" options that the user can choose from (this convenient research tool was one of Facebook's original intentions if The Social Network is to be believed). The public listing of relationship status is masquerading as cool modern openness ("In a Civil Union," "In an Open Relationship") but it's actually as painfully ultra-retro as wearing someone's class ring or letter jacket. Or knife for that matter.

*Yes, there are many ways to filter content for the eyes of specific viewers only. This post is not meant for the people who shrewdly guard their data. ...Also, I am not a person who shrewdly guards her data so don't consider this post paranoid, ha.

ARTS: Scandinavia, Scully, dead & naked

ATTEND: Since I'm a "real live Finnish person," next week I'm doing a reading at this event of Nordic multimedia madness, and you ought to come. I'm incorporating a touch of audio, which is a first for me, and there will also be a few other surprises. It's at Brooklyn Fire Proof, an excellent cafe/bar/space in Bushwick, at 8PM. The address is actually 119 Ingraham Avenue (at Porter). Click the flyer below for additional details and go here for the info-blurb. READ: You should read this post on dead women as a trope and accessory. "Once you become aware of dead girls’ being used as scenery or decoration, you see them everywhere — all of these young women’s bodies, laid out in expressions of terror and relief, one shoe off, with unfocused eyes and a pancake-makeup pallor." Media gynonecrophilia reminds me of Twin Peaks, which I've recently watched. Half of the first episode is people dramatically, privately reacting to the death of a beautiful girl. (It's the most poetical topic, after all.) I guess reacting to this show seems timely. Tavi Gevinson has a post on about the aesthetics of the show.
Also speaking a little about death & looks, read Kate Durbin's post at Delirious Hem, as a response to the issue of Oprah's O Magazine where the big O dressed poets in couture and then shot them in awkward, possibly campy poses. (This is my opinion, at least.) Anyway, lots of people had lots of opinions about the feature. Kate's post is decidedly Not Safe For Work, as it features bodyparts and glitter galore.
THINK: How obviously influenced by Scully is Cate Blanchett's character in Hanna? Like a crueller, more smug Dana, I'd say. Dana Scully's expression was always great on the X-Files. Not smug, not full of schadenfreude, not even disinterested whenever Mulder showed up ranting like a looney about aliens this or poltergeists that. Can you tell the difference between the above photos? Gillian Anderson just had skeptical down, and it's so great to watch. I want to be able to make this expression.
SEE: This British television program called Pulling that's streaming on Netflix. If you like black comedies that have you laughing uproariously even when everyone is miserable, then please watch this. And speaking of cruel and smug, the Karen character (played by Tanya Franks, in the front) is absolutely brilliant. I guess maybe this post is almost wholly about redheads?And so what anyway. Redheads are fuckin' cool.