Suffragettes, Cigarettes and Women Laughing Alone with Salad

Suffragette comes out in cinemas tomorrow so be sure to grab yourself something from the little feminist goodie bag: a ribbon or badge to support women’s rights in the late 19th Century…

I’m starting to question whether those marketing the film really want to stir up any kind of political activism at all. Perhaps they just want people to see the film and appreciate the history so that they too may find their own cause, find their own voice, in their own time – and not at the Leicester Square premiere as happened a few nights ago.

But one little look in the time travelling campaigner’s box o’ treats shows some stickers, one with the film’s tagline: ‘The Time is NOW’.

I’m sure what they mean is the Now back then, not Now Now.

Interesting still to see that all the merchandise reads ‘Suffragette 2015’ as not to be confused with the actual movement.

The cynic in me is starting to think that this ‘Vote Meryl Streep’ sash that I’ve been wearing has nothing to do with equality but is some PR trap that I’ve fallen into. But would a multi-million dollar industry piggy-back on an activist movement for the disenfranchised to boost profits?

I’m reminded of Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the founder of public relations. Bernays realised the potential for advertising by linking products to unconscious desires. He implemented this theory when hired by the American Tobacco Company after World War One to try and expand the market to include women. This was a problem in the 1920s as smoking was seen as improper and even immoral for women, and as such they were only permitted to smoke in the privacy of their own homes, over the stove presumably.

Bernays recognised this imbalance and so transformed cigarettes into a symbol of empowerment. He paid some beautiful women – ‘not too model-y’ – to start smoking as they walked in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York, rebranding cigarettes as Torches of Freedom. This event was reported nationwide thanks to Bernays providing his own photographers and stirring up the controversy himself. As a result, women began to smoke more freely and openly. A slow shift towards equality motivated by corporate greed and one of the first ever publicity stunts.

From the 20s to the second wave of feminism in the 60s

We like to think we have come a long way but advertising and publicity remain quite the same, still based on this model proposed by Bernays that appeals to innate and unconscious desires. And by way of feminism we have guilt chips, women laughing alone with salad and ribbons supporting the right for women to see the film about the fight for women’s rights.

October 11, 2015 0

Man O To

In an interview with the Guardian about a decade ago, Brian Eno suggested that Arabic music had the potential to feed into the mainstream and resonate globally just as Blues had in the early 60s. This hasn’t happened yet.

I have recently found myself listening to a few songs of Middle Eastern origin and thought I’d group them together here, from poetic harmonies to the reworked and dub-inflected.

Translated from Farsi: The pleasant moment of sitting in front of the door, me and you. With two figures and two faces, with one life, me and you. Joyful and careless, free from distracting myths, me and you. Me and you, without us (ego), gather because of virtu (love)

This next song comes from A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, though I’m not sure where the artist is from considering that the film and its parts are a complete mesh of North America and the Middle East, but I really enjoyed the simplicity of this track and how it was used in the film.

The film favoured style over substance but some elements of its style have stayed with me. Below is a playlist of the complete soundtrack which I have listened through a couple of times now, comprised of many songs that I would have never heard otherwise, in a style unknown to me.

Just as the song from Bollywood film Gangs of Wasseypur 2 had a lasting effect on me for being different to anything I had heard before, I’m sure I’ll listen to these tracks over and force them on my friends when given the opportunity.

October 1, 2015 0

Tech Noir

After watching Lee Hardcastle’s latest music video for a second time, the song that it accompanied had effectively crawled inside my brain and buried itself deep within my subconscious. Think I might need a RyGo style headstomp to relieve me of this earworm because as it stands I’m listening to it a few times a day.

Beginning with an apocalyptic voiceover from horror legend John Carpenter, I was reminded of the director’s own fondness for synth music and how it played a crucial role in establishing the tone of his films. There is a simplicity to the structure which is built on throughout, adding layers and emotional depth – building suspense and paranoia.

Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing creeps and induces anxiety in a much subtler way than Halloween, but there is a prominent style connecting both. My favourite theme of Carpenter’s though has to be Assault on Precinct 13. It has stayed with me from the first time I saw it when I was a youngun.

Considering Carps to have a link this retro synthwave music, I remember seeing that he is linked to Hardcastle too – offering him praise for his tribute to The Thing in ‘Thingu’: a comical and thoroughly detailed homage that utilises its own practical effects.

The claymation style and VHS theme of the music video lends a perfect aesthetic to the music, especially when lit with electric pink. The band responsible for the addictive noises are Gunship: formed from the non-Busted members of Fightstar, they released their debut album this year and have a few videos already that each provide their own visual style that mirrors the 80s nostalgia prevalent in the music.

Not particularly a fan of this genre, I cannot explain how this one track, the chorus alone, has commandeered my consciousness. That being said I am a big fan of the Drive score and soundtrack (analysed against themes of the film here) which appears to embody the same space.

Well anyways, here is a playlist that dances between some synthy tracks and some not-so that I’m listening to currently:

September 3, 2015 0

Developments

So the little one has come a long way. I’m just trying to catch up now.

He finally has some teeth that he can use in conjunction with each other. He makes sounds that closely resemble ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ though they often veer off and are aimed at things that are certainly not us. He can wave, on occasion, mimic certain noises, crawl at high speeds, ‘cruises’ along furniture and feels the need to constantly be standing up, almost unaided.

He has full agency, which means that each day I return home the lounge has transformed a little: wires are tucked away, doors are baby-proofed, everything is higher up. He mounts, climbs, and hangs off of everything he can and so now we have to be that bit more vigilant. But you can’t be there all the time.. evidently.

Today, Jackson was sitting in his high-chair outside, on the uneven ground of the garden, when he leaned a tad too far and the whole thing tipped over. He fell, hitting his head on the ground and burst into open mouth sobs. I received a call at work from a Nicole fighting tears as she drove him to the hospital’s minor injury ward as recommended by the health visitor. His quiet sobs in the background actually reassured me that he was okay.

At my first baby party last weekend I met my first lot of parents and their children. I was able to observe, Attenborough-like, each little faction and how they operated. With some you could see the physical traits shared with their offspring. But gradually you could recognise the more complex relationships, how each parent reacted to their child and vice versa. I was a little nervous at first as I’m not au fait with baby protocol. I know that if your dog runs up and starts licking another dog-owner you trust that they will tell the dog to stop, or simply embrace and enjoy it. Does this apply to babies? Do you just let them roam about, climbing and chewing people in the hopes that they will laugh and peel them off? These are the dynamics that I need to familiarise myself with and so I became quietly observant and took a lot of mental notes.

One thing I noticed was how quick some parents were to swoop in and comfort their darlings at the first sign of discomfort. It was almost as though they pre-empted their unease, or perhaps on some level, I thought, created it – justified it. My laissez faire approach to Jackson falling over at my feet must have seemed like casual neglect as a nearby grandmother rushed to pick him up, and was stopped by me declaring him fine as he struggled to pick himself back up to carry on diving about the place.

Today I couldn’t quite get him to shake it off and get over it. I didn’t want to overreact but after some thought and persuasion I thought I should be there. When I saw him, with his bruised head and swollen eye, he started laughing, unfazed. Us humans are pretty resilient it turns out.

When I was a wee nipper myself, I had me an electric quadbike. My garden led to a back wall, and against this wall before we had a chance to plant sunflowers, the soil was left in such a way that it acted as a slope up to the vertical wall. I put my thumb down and revved up the garden, over the tile border, along the slope of soil and up the wall until the whole quad rolled backward and I split my head open on the tiles. Apparently my mother, hysterical, ran with me in her arms up and down the garden. But look at me now. Just fine, if maybe a little neglectful of my own child – but then maybe it was inherited.

August 14, 2015 0

Monument

Back to work on a momentumless Monday morning. Fully rested from the weekend but always craving more. Right now I remain resentful of the bus-ride that jostles and jolts and keeps me awake. I could have caught another 10 minutes kip if it weren’t for these fucking roads. Someone should do something about that.

The bus screeches as it slows and I lift my head to meet one of Marble Arches statues, one of its many monuments. Among historical figures and battle horses stand more artistic endeavours, a little more surreal and expressive. A circus act: a man with a wide stance to accommodate the weight above him, his outstretched arm meeting the equally rigid trunk of an elephant balanced above.

This had stood out initially but you grow indifferent to even the most beautiful sunset should you sleep on the horizon – and the commute is inextricably cuffed to work. With such norms accepted it didn’t surprise me when I lifted my head that morning to see a large black figure standing taller than the double-decker’s top deck from which I viewed it: a winged feline, a deranged beast. A wild eyed, open jawed demonic cat, cutting a hole in the sky with its towering stature and razor tipped wings.

At a glance the beast was nothing more than another battle animal – something like the impressionist feral lions that decorate our most culturally significant grounds – but what caught me after a couple of seconds was it’s crazed expression. It looked as though the flesh had burnt away from its face, left frozen in a black maniacal scream.

I was left staring at this creature until the bus creeped forward once again, revealing the base of the monument – there standing a vicar with a train of suited folk behind him. Just on the outskirts a couple dozen Romanians lay unconscious in the morning sun, fallen at the feet of this behemoth as some kind of sacrifice. I am no longer tired. I am paying full attention to a world I no longer understand.

The bus pulls forward once more and reveals a little more to this already burgeoning picture – a camera crew. Okay. This grounds everything in a reality I can comprehend. Although in the coming days the monument remains and so too do the crowds collapsed below. A shrine for a Satanist religion perhaps. Only fair that all are represented I guess. I wonder where I apply to join.

May 11, 2015 0