My Illustrative Life

Going offline for the weekend (due to both a pain in my touch-pad hand and my gentleman coming for a visit), which will give YOU a few days to think about spending money to support concept-based music. Because if I was flush, I would - but I’m not, so you can be my surrogates.

Abney Park

They make music, they have a look, they have a whole parallel reality.

Buy them for me, buy them for you, whichever.

Today I am wearing “mom jeans”. Ugh, saying “mom” feels so wrong to me. I AM ENGLISH! ENGLIIIISH!

The jeans of my mother, again. I forgot about them! And that they turned out to fit me pretty well! I don’t need to buy new work trousers, after all! I already have the means to teach the new generation about how to dress like a 1970s Tokusatsu secret identity.

The pictures are all effects-ed up because I couldn’t find the camera, so sister took these with the “polaroid” “app” on her magical future-phone.

Plus, as promised: some pictures from the Morris dancing in the town I was in a couple of weeks a go. Gosh I enjoy traditional Britain. We are a culture of tie-on costumes, arcane dancing, effigies and scary masks as much as any other, and (considered as a whole) we have not lost the dance-to-death spirit as much as our more toffish reputations suggest.

The face of the hobby horse:

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

I have a ton of story-seeds using Morris Men like pop culture uses ninjas.

ETA: Video!

Wise words from a decent dude. You seem pretty great, Jay Smooth.

You seem like a fugitive rapist, Polanski.

This is the secret handshake, internet. Let us sort the msties from the chaff.

You see, Ironside really likes chili. He feels it is “the only food fit for man”, because it has all the right nutrients! So, chief.. what’s your recipe? What goes IN this amazing chili? We’re all dying to hear.

The first picture was referenced, the rest were referenced from the first or from memory.

OK OK I’ll give you this one for free! Because I like y’all.

Pictures from the weekend:

I told y’all I spent today (off sick) learning to draw Raymond Burr. He has a really particular face! As you can see in that last picture. This for the sake of an Ironside/MST3k comic, which you shall see later. If you tune in.

Needing to save my workshirts for work only, I have taken to wearing these oversized “peasant shirts” in the heat and just tying them up until they stop annoying me with their bigness. It’’s pretty comfy I guess, and disguises my belly button - if you can’t see it, you can’t be sure I’m not a clone. It’s less structured than I am used to or quite comfortable with; good for being in fields or on run-down farms or cooking a la Like Water for Chocolate but not for being in company, really. The skirt, also, is shorter and breezier than usual.. a little less secure than ideal. This is the kind of thing I need to say to myself curse it all, I have no inorganic responsibilities today before I can wear it.

Yesterday I was a jailbird, today I am the fuzz. American fuzz, anyway. Highway police? Or something? Do they (you?) say “the fuzz” there? Well I am, because then I get to be the “peach fuzz”. Because of the colour of my shirt. My beloved said, before I doctored the picture, that I looked like I had been raised to kill by Jean Reno. But I only loose my bullets if the crims shoot first, man.

For comparison, please see Nicholas Cage in the beginning of this review. Then watch the rest, because it is funny.

You’re welcome.

(No I didn’t have it tied in a knot when I was at work)

Wikipedia says that the claim to ‘care’ is sarcastic, and then it quotes Chuck Mosley as saying Well, ah Roddy wrote all the things that he cared about and I just wrote the part that says, “it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it” ’cause I figured that’s just the feeling I got, which sounds the opposite of sarcastic to me.

But when I listen to this song, I just take it straight because it’s how it always sounded to me. I care a lot. This song is the sound of me, having been in charge of twenty-one four and five year olds who just don’t care to be nice to each other, or to listen to me, or to be safe, or to take turns at needing a grown-up because I CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE - thinking it is fucking hard to set a consistent good example. But since I only have them for an hour and twenty minutes every day there is really no excuse for letting things slide, letting them off from bullying and endangering and exclusion and disrespect and all the worst things about current society’s interpersonal relations.

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and I care a lot.

Here’s a Mike Patton-led version, because.. why not? I like them both.

Nuns vs bikers with good hair and neckerchiefs, in a battle of words, in the sixties, with an audience of boarding school girls. On a road trip.

That’s my kind of movie, baby! Dig it!

Soooo here is my “me”, from the Scott Pilgrim avatar creator(thanks for the tip, King!). It’s actually not at all bad! No glasses, and not quite enough hair (there were no solid fringes), but! Mix up the three following real-me photos, and what do you get? Pretty sure I have worn this formation at some point. And if I haven’t yet, I will.

Whaddaya think? Bruce?

I show you this because though I haven’t read the Scott Pilgrim comix (yet) (I’ve seen scans, it’s honestly not quite my kind of alley, bookwise) I think the film looks pretty interesting. And definitely the kind of movie that should be encouraged! It looks more fun and honest-hearted than most of the Big Two comic movies, f’rex. I like how.. semi-crappy it looks? And a romantic interest/leading lady with hair that an on-the-street Average can achieve (as long as she has the texture for it) is a big plus. Trailer:

So there you go. This movie has the IllusClaire nod of considered approval. Go see it; demand funk the music* instead of funk the smell.

*Not implying that there will be funk in this movie

All of these are worth a watch, but my favourites are extrapolated upon below.

Suzi Quatro: I love how self-conscious-butch she always is (I can relate), whilst also seeming like a huge lady badass. You go, Leather Tuscadero!

Brooke Shields: as a concept piece, this is tops. Lipstick horse on mirror — bareback riding white horse through countryside. A+

Sean Connery: Sean Connery. Car. Sean Connery. Car. What??

Rod Stewart: I never thought Rod Stewart was doing it on purpose before. But now I think he’s kind of funny.

La Toya Jackson: WACKY!!

Sean Ono Lennon: adorable

Harrison Ford: This is your most likable role to me, Harrison Ford

Charlie Sheen: What are you doing on the set of a CITV game show, Charlie Sheen? Or did you find your way into Escape from Jupiter? Why? And to sell shoes?

Yup! I’m wearing the same as yesterday. Sue me!

I didn’t really feel like dressing in something new just to sit and puzzle over tailoring my CV for the job I have my eye firmly on (please cross your fingers for me!). But that worked out for the best, because after finishing that up I needed a change of scene so I went and picked flowers. Which I’ve been looking forward to since I first spied this skirt - the pocket are so perfect for meadow-wandering! Don’t you think?

Please, enjoy these flowers as well!

After that wholesome interlude, I want to share some music with you. Which I don’t do that often, because it usually seems a bit pointless - who doesn’t know about the Misfits being awesome, or Faith No More or Cheap Trick of the Runaways or Elvis Costello or Suzi Quatro or Michael Jackson or the Pixies or Tom Waits or Kana? And when I am listening to things I don’t hear people talking about I kind of.. have nothing to say other than “this is really good, I like it” most of the time. I don’t know how to talk about music! If you read here regularly, you should know that.

But suddenly I have found a reason to talk bands with you guys!

Let’s talk Danish pop, shall we?

Of course, by that I mean “The Cartoons and Aqua were brilliant and I love them”.

I was ten when Barbie Girl came out, and eleven when Witch Doctor came out and they hit me right in the joy buttons. Even then, there was a little bit of ‘must pretend to like ironically in public’, but I asked for their albums for my birthday and christmas and I got them. At this point, my music collection was like so: Eternal; Boyzone; Spice Girls; [repeat].

They both found their way into my farm in the same way that they managed to fool most of the people most of the time (I’ll get back to that) - they wore bright colours! And had super-gimmicky prop-instrument-costumes! And they moved really fast and were exaggerated! Their videos gave me something to look at, instead of fourminutes of a bunch of guys standing on a dark stage kicking up dust and strumming soulfully. I hate boring music videos, I really do. And yeah, I genuinely like the sounds that they make - they’re unserious, and joyful, and sort of shiny-heartfelt. I like the volume and mania they have in their noise.

You may laugh, but the most important thing about these bands (once you get past the image, because I did need that to notice them) were their lyrics. I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? Ooh ee ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang.

But really. They’re both kind of filthy, if you listen. Filthier than ten-eleven year olds are used to, and filthier than you’d assume from the perky-perky toon-music and the perky-silly costumes and videos.

I’ll say right now that I have no idea if they wrote their songs or not - I know that the Cartoons mostly did/do covers. That doesn’t matter, actually.

That is enough to make me a life-long convert, to be honest. I remember listening to this song, being eleven, and thinking, “I know I am hearing a song about oral. Nobody is noticing. I know that nobody would want me to listen to a song about oral. This CD didn’t have ‘explicit content’ on it. Nobody knows. They have tricked people by looking silly.”

Again - rape? The word “rape” in a song for me, an eleven year old? It’s allowed because they are a novelty band? Mind: blown.

‘They’re talking about fucking, aren’t they”, I thought.

Even as a ten year old, you could hear the satire in “Barbie Girl”. I thought it was aces, I mean come on, it was funny! So daft, so obviously venomous, so true to life. This satire about gender roles was at number one for three weeks, here. Mattel sued, and it was dismissed. That’s fucking landmark stuff! A pop band skewers the shallow, unquestioned ‘perfect life’ dream sold mercilessly by a toy company, gets sued, and wins. Feminist victory, gone unnoticed!

I like these bands because they make me laugh with what they say, and when they aren’t making me laugh they’re making me go “awww, that’s nice!” The way that Aqua crafted most of their songs into stories (and had the videos to back them up) mattered to me, particularly as pre-bedtime listening. Fairytale castles in songs with horse-feet sound effects in. Flippin’, rigging’d airships.

And I like the technobilly echoing depth of shallow that the Cartoons give. “Who put the bomp” is one of my favourite songs. I can’t help it! It just sounds nice, and the lyrics are sweet, and, I like it! They have a double bass disguised as A CARROT, you know? Give them a chance.

First: on theme!

Harsichord-sound. Pirates. Badass princess. Narrative progression. Someone playing their own dad. HURRAY!

They went there. “Giant lizard”!

I am always pro-band who use animation in their videos. Or rather, I am always pro-using animation. That’s a wiser statement.

Click here for the Witch Doctor video. CURSE YOUR DISABLED EMBEDDING!

I’m including this one because it has the official video included; it’s one of the weaker ones, I rekkin.

Maybe all bands, really, are dirty mouthed horrors. Eh. I still love these ones. I don’t know what it is about you, Denmark! But I like it.

Soooo I just watched Iron Liz’s first video review; the Sailor Moon RPG. And I enjoyed it, and it got me a-thinkin’. Watch first, then I’ll tell you.

When I was a young teen and pre-teen, finding my way on to the internet and making it my home, I came across mention of this “Sailor Moon”. Sailor Scouts, Sailor Senshi. I saw the geocities fanpages. I saw the rudimentary and the amazingly fine cosplayers. I saw stickers and plot synopsis-es and fanart and official art. I fell in wow. One of my very first eBay purchases was a vhs tape containing the first two episodes, dubbed into english, for eight pounds. I needed it.

I’ve always lived in villages and I was always a shy kid - and I didn’t know anyone with ties to Japan or who knew what anime was. So there was no-one to help me, but I had this great big needy desire to know all about anime, in general, and to understand this country where grownups were allowed to watch cartoons omg. I wanted to master this new way of drawing (yeah.. that never happened)! I’d buy any animated vhs I could find, unless it looked too scary (Guyver) and just watch it with this weird coiled-spring feeling. Part of that was just awe at the cultural shift - acceptance of illustration and animation and speculative fiction as everyday necessities! I wanted so badly to be involved in that that. But part of it was just: Sailor Mooooon. *0*!!!

The reason I loved Sailor Moon instinctively, I think, is that looking at a character lineup you can understand that the main characters are completely normally-coded girls. Girlish girls, who are girly, like girls are ’supposed to be’ and like even girls* who don’t want to be pigeonholed as ‘just a girl’ or ‘the girl’ can (perhaps secretly) like to be sometimes, too. But they’re also the heroes of the piece, completely and unapologetically. They are who the show is about, they are the Power Team, they fight the villains. They can be like a girl and a fighting hero at the same time, absolutely.

There doesn’t have to be a girl or two on the team, which is led by boys. There doesn’t have to be The Girl who the boy team visits every now and then to get potions or clues from, or whatever. There doesn’t have to be The Girl who leads the pack of boys (I love you, Marian, but you didn’t set me up so well for taking camaraderie amongst chix seriously) Girls in fighting teams don’t have to take on ‘masculine roles’; they don’t have to wear ‘masculine clothes’; they don’t have to not have girly hair styles and they can still look tough and in control when they do. They don’t have to change personality once they suit up. Curse you, Power Rangers, curse your dishonest remix-happy ways (I don’t mean it, Power Rangers, we are still friends I need you). Being a girlish girl does not mean that you are the team mascot or the team eyeroll.

Gosh, that was a relief to see.

“Femininity can not keep ability from me”.

That’s a beautiful lesson.

*And boys, obv! But I was doing that whole “talk about yourself whilst pretending to talk about people in general so as not to be all guts everywhere” thing. Sorreee.

Pictures pinched off Wikipedia

Sometimes there are things which inspire and one admires and aspires towards somehow, without the specific desire to be/be in/be with the places, characters, wardrobes, movie. Sometimes a film will take you by surprise, and speak to you with atmosphere and colour scheme and attitude in a way that heightens your intent to do your thing your way, without actually being a film that you want to poach costume from.

Let’s learn about one such film, my fine comrades!

Let’s learn about RED SURF. A George Clooney movie with an 18 certificate, from 1990. Which according to imdb comments went straight to video!

The cover LIES, you guys! Yeah, even bargain bin dvd releases bother to photoshop their covers in an attempt to cash in on more lucrative, starry periods of their lead actors’ careers.

This is what George Clooney actually looks like in this movie:

Lulz!

The back cover was what convinced us to buy it, actually -

- the back cover’s picture of how George Clooney actually appears in the actual film. Why do they think people buy cheap-ass dvds? Either because they can’t afford expensive ones, or because they like sub-par cinema. Or both. Don’t lie to us. Don’t patronise people who know they aren’t at Blockbuster, don’t put off people who don’t want to be. That said, check out this alternate cover/poster, as well as this one (Check’em all here). What, can no-one in the world appreciate 90s grunge metal surf criminal drug choker George?

Apparently not, I guess.

So. In Red Surf. George Clooney plays Remar, man without a family, man without law, man without qualms about lying to his 90s-earnest girlfriend. He loves to play pranks like convincing his best friend his girl is cheating on him, then tricking him into thinking that they have accidentally murdered her. Fun times! Then they follow that up by going out on jet-skis (loaned from Gene Simmons, “the Doctor”) to collect drugs from the sea.

This is the apparently communal party drugs casual crime beachhouse, also home to sensitive hat-wearing girlfriend Rebecca:

(This is Rebecca, later in the movie:)

This is George Clooney/Remar feeding best buddy Atilla (actually? the movie’s real eventual hero) some delicious cocaine from his lap whilst driving. They love to weird out the squares!

Did I mention this was a movie about George Clooney, looking in no way how I imagine “George Clooney” to look? Acting the part of a leather-wearing curly hair having ex-professional surf bum large-scale drug dealer? Who is also able to get a sensible, on-the-wavelength multi-necklace wearing art-loving girl pregnant (again; implied abortion alert) and convince her that he will change and raise a family with her, through thoughtful gifts of guitars and well-timed fake promises?

Well, it is. WEIRD MOVIE.

Aaaanyway. Remar finds out Rebecca’s pregnant, and she tells him she wants to keep it. He’s all, “okay..” but when she tells him she wants to go to Portland to raise it with a friend of hers who has kids already, he starts getting protective and territorial. Promises her he’ll change, blah blah no more drugs and crime, more time for romance and kisses. She gets up for ice cream, and by the time it takes her to serve two bowls full he’s all *coffcoff*I really love drugs*coffcoffff*. Sadface.

Later, Atilla and Remar have a heart to heart about how Remar’s going to screw things up and lose lady & baby - Atilla is psyched at the thought of having a baby around - and Remar talks about how for the first year, you hope the baby won’t die, and it doesn’t, and then the second year it starts to hate you. And it hates you and hates you.. with this honest frightened bitterness. And he tells his buddy how he feels like he’s suddenly lacking control. There’s a later scene where Doc tells Remar to quit with the drug deals, and later than that Remar refuses, outright refuses with yelling and a pushfight, to take money from a deal that all his buddies planned without him with the explicit intention to set the couple & child up for a secure life. Why is it that movies with these real relationship scenes and true-person complexity get bargain binned? I have no idea what makes a “good movie”.

The whole thing keeps building - running big drug deals get you in to trouble, did you know? Well, Red Surf is here to tell you that they do. They have to fake a murder, and Remar misses doctors appointments with Rebecca, and Atilla becomes her rock (it’s really nice) and they talk about girl babies playing little league, and they have to send off one of their gangbrothers to save his life after he talks to the police. He cries! He’s the most annoying sort of character, that you just want to squash and yell SHUT UP!! at, but when he leaves his guys he cries and it’s sweet and sad. Bargain bin film. I don’t know. Then there’s more peril, and more apologising/lying to Rebecca, and the blabbermouth gets stabbed and then probably fed to wolves. The antagonist/drug partner lives in this decrepit ruined house with two guys in slacks and vests with big guns and slicked back hair, and he has a pit of wolves in his front room. Did I not mention that?

Soooo eventually Remar dies. He gets machine gunned and blown up on a jet-ski. Atilla and Rebecca set him on fire and push him out to sea for burial. But not before he tells Atilla he loves him, when Atilla is trying to convince him to let the boys do the run so he can stay safe for baby! BARGAIN BIN MOVIES. He literally says “I love you”.

Atilla doesn’t take too kindly to his friend being all killed and such so he goes off to infiltrate/murder the antagonist/partner’s (..okay, just antagonist by this point) gang. With Doc Gene Simmons, who was in ‘Nam. I really, really want a video game out of that scene. Or all of this movie. He kills them all and avoids the wolves (not everybody else does, om nom nom) and hurray, he wins!

There’s actually a very nice, assumably realistic ‘person unused to machine-gunning has to use a machine gun’ scene. Atilla wears his heat on his sleeve!

By the closing credits, Atilla and Rebecca look to be starting this super-sweet, semi-awkward, adorable take-care-of-each-other romance. He follows her to the train station as she’s leaving, bereaved, for Portland and.. it’s sooo cuuuute. I was completely satisfied by the progression of this film. My beloved and I both had that “no wai, for reals!” expression of surprised enjoyment - for £2.99, in a village shop, we’re used to expecting Jaguar Wong or “Richard Harrison IS.. a ninja“. Not an honestly watchable, variably heartfelt, fun movie. With George Clooney in a bandanna with a crack pipe.

This is my favorite George Clooney movie. Of all time.

No Rebecca, really!

All the clothes in this movie are so worn-in. they look like they’ve been walked over by the whole cast, and have sand ground in and the colours worn out. Nobody’s constrained by what they wear - comfort first, expression of wild-life values second. Honestly I’m not sure if I like it so much only for itself, or for the fact that it has such an un-George Clooneyish George Clooney. I mean, that’s a compelling element, right?

But I think a fair part of it is that it’s that 1990s grunge-metal-taste-of-hippy aesthetic that’s so present in a lot of films & shows I really love but completely divorced from the music that made the scene. This is what I know about music in the very late 80s - early 90s: Patton-era Faith No More and Primus existed (excellently). Also, people liked the bands they namecheck in Bill & Ted and Wayne’s World. THAT’S IT. I guess Nirvana happened some time around there..? I’ve made no secret of my hatred for music journalism and I find the sartorial guidelines hard to use as an entry point to the sounds because as far as I can tell there was an extreme gender divide - dudes wore baggy t-shirts and loose trousers, girls wore leather bras, spandex and hotpants. Neither of these looks have really worked for me, as yet, and for some in-brain reason that really impedes my investigation and understanding of the knots of bands and sub-genres that make up the cultural era. And that failure to break through the bubble surrounding my perception of the music scene means that I feel inauthentic approaching the dresscode with increased zeal. It’s a vicious cycle! Of ignorance!

A movie like Red Surf though, which I assume has no budget to source big soundtracks and which only broaches the question of “what do you listen to” with mostly-covered t-shirts and easy to miss flyers pasted on bedroom walls in scenes where character tension is high, doesn’t make me feel like a double outsider. I can assimilate the costume apart from the intimidating musical context.

Here’s a question that Red Surf raises for me - what’s so wrong with me that I’m suddenly not finding 90sgirl hats completely, ultimately ugly?

Wanna know a secret? I wrote this entire post saying “Lisa” instead of “Rebecca”. Yeah, she doesn’t get that much autonomy. I still have this film a ten out of ten on IMDB.

BONUS: Here’s the pretty shitty trailer! With really awful sound quality!

Ever done a workout video? I have. Just one.

The lesson here, is “always check the charity shop VHS stocks when roaming town with your romantic object”. This cost us twenty one pence, I think. That or twenty four. A difference of three pence isn’t that much.

Here’s a section of the video!

Honestly, it’s a really good tape. At one point she goes a little overboard with the “being sedentary is bad because you get fatter” rather than “being sedentary is bad because it makes you feel less vital”, but - overall it’s a really nice, Jessica Fletcher-y pro-you 50 minutes about how to feel generally better about yourself. And! Having done the full workout today, I feel.. miles better, physically. Less stiff. THAT’S EMBARRASSING I’M ONLY YOUNG.

It’s basically a series of stretches and flexes (some involving a towel or a windowsill), tips like “don’t feel guilty about doing relaxing tasks like watering flowers, wondering round the garden or sewing!” and “in the morning, rub yourself and thing positive thoughts” and “take tea! It’s nice!” (and who doesn’t love to be validated in regards to this stuff?), topped off with about ten minutes of “free movement”. Which is enormous fun. Georgia and the Ace Gang, as my sister remarked, would definitely do this tape.

How’s this dress with this overdress, then? The sweaterdress itself is too short to wear in public. It also ends just as it’s passed the exact widest part of my thighs, which looks interesting and “unflattering” in a private way. But it’s perfect to wear under the apron-thing - form-fitting so as not to distract or get too blousy, cotton to keep cool, long sleeves for contrast. Is the blocky black-grey-white too stark vs the broderie anglaise pretty-pretty?

And why do things I wear so often end up making me think “the sixties!”? Ah sweah, it’s not intentional. Or maybe even apparent to anyone but me.

Pee Ess checkout my snax! Delicious

Watching Pulse, now, BBC3 (hence “bodyhorror” tag!). I like it. I like it quite a lot. Hope it gets picked up!

Today it rained, and basically all I did was help my sister revise, reward her revision with blueberry-banana fritters and readings of Dracula, and watch Film Brain & MikeJ reviews. It’s half term!

Not wearing anything new, either, though it’s in different formation.

I also drew a really old version of Prince Valiant.

Well, why not?