P-5
Imagine people naked, I was told this before I went on stage in high school. Soon it became something else though. I would imagine people having sex, for me, ti took their power away. The power that they thought they had over me. Imagine them having sex, the positions they would like best, the sounds they would make the faces they would make. The person became just like everyone else. Sure I could have imagined them on the toilet or masturbating, but something about them having sex made me giggle. As a kid in high school, part o the giggling came from the thought that they probably didn’t have sex. I know better now and the giggling comes from the fact that they do have sex. It’s not a need to fuck everyone, or even want to do that, it’s just my way of reminding myself that they are not any better than me. We all have to get our rocks off sometime.
P-4
Art is an intimate act, more intimate even than sex. Art is masturbation. Art is in the bathroom, pants around your ankles, magazine in hand, praying that no one needs to use the loo. Art is in the dark, blueish green light of the computer monitor highlighting your face, door locked, hands between your legs. Art is after a bad day, laying in bed covers pulled up and trying to be very, very quiet. Art is the most intimate act. I once spoke of anothers work as visual masturbation, and it was, but so is mine and everyone elses. We are masturbators who display our mess, our climax, our orgasm. Of course there are people who video themselves masurbating as well…
My own personal religious and spiritual philosophy.
I was raised Baptist/Pagan, but aren’t most people actually raised in a mixture and don’t realize it? Being that the Christian faith incorporated so much of the pagan religion into their own dichotomy. My grandmother was the last True witch of our family. Handed down from generation to generation to keep true to the old ways of ritual, healing, and seeing, but always be sure to go to church every Sunday. I see this much like “the Monkey Experiment”
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be attacked.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not? Because as far as they know, that’s the way it’s always been done around there.
Pagans learned once the Christians were in charge that it was easier to just go to church every sunday and practice their rituals on their own time. As long as they weren’t caught everything would be alright. My family followed with this tradition, rather than become martyrs for a dying faith. By the time my grandmother was around, they didn’t know any other way, it had always been done that way. So until my grandmother on my mothers side, the tools to heal, see, and for luck were passed down from daughter to daughter. My mother decided against this. Her concern for conformity has always been stronger than anyone in the family and as such, I was unaware of the family heritage till I was 10, when my grandmother died. I took it upon myself to carry on the tradition and renounced the christian religion not long after my eleventh birthday and began studying the pagan religions. I foud that as a family we had strayed so far from our originas that we no longer held onto one set system of dieties. We had begun to incorporate diferent aspects of different religions including Jewish and Native America. Our family was a stew of different ethinicities and races as well, so it only made sense.
Through the Daughters of the family the gifts have been passed on. My mother, though willfillu ignorant to the fact, is a healer. Never have I seen, even in gardeners and farmers, anyone who can communicate with the plants quite so well. My Aunt Bet got the luck that my grandmother had. I am a see-er. I’m not trained I have no idea how to use it other than I really should learn to trust my instincts. Unfortunately I will not be passing along any teachings, other than some rituals that we have held true for many years. After investigating the conundrum of my families religious smorsgasborg, I have come to the conclusion that we are in fact al the same no matter of religion.
I’ve always caled myself a Pagan Anarchist, but there is something else there. I am not truly Pagan, unless a belief that nature and only nature is the closest thing we have to a god makes you Pagan. So I’m not sure what to call myself anymore, and I don’t need a label by any means, but here is my personal definition of my beliefs.
Everyone has their beliefs, every culture has superstitions and objects of devotion, and many have nothing in common except faith. The ability to believe in something that has no concrete proof or even the ability to prove it. This “Faith” in whatever God, Gods, Goddesses, deities, or Energy has helped people to survive insurmountable odds, great tragedies, and near death experiences. They claim their Angel saved them, or their, well, savior saved them.
I am not hear to say anyone is right or wrong, just that maybe we should look closer at ourselves rather than the religion. We are making our own Magic, prayers, dreams, devotions or whatever come true. We are the ones who are changing the events in our lives for good or for bad. I don’t mean the direct actions that we can all see. I don’t mean quitting that job or going back to school… though all good examples of aggressive change, I mean the passive changes that we make. The Buddhists call it Chi, Star wars calls it the force, new age religions call it the life force and some existentialists say that it is the web of fabric that connects everything and is everything. Most would say I’m talking about our spirituality and everyone has some kind of idea about it, no matter the religion.
“ Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and faith, a transcendent reality, or one or more deities. Spiritual matters are thus those matters regarding humankind's ultimate nature and purpose, not only as material biological organisms, but as beings with a unique relationship to that which is perceived to be beyond both time and the material world. Spirituality also implies the mind-body dichotomy, which indicates a separation between the body and soul.
As such, the spiritual is traditionally contrasted with the material, the temporal and the worldly. A perceived sense of connection forms a central defining characteristic of spirituality — connection to a metaphysical reality greater than oneself, which may include an emotional experience of religious awe and reverence, or such states as satori or nirvana. Equally importantly, spirituality relates to matters of sanity and of psychological health. Spirituality is the personal, subjective dimension of religion, particularly that which pertains to liberation or salvation (see also mysticism and esoterism) .
Spirituality as a way of life concerns itself with aligning the human will and mind with that dimension of life and the universe that is harmonious and ordered. As such spiritual disciplines (which are often part of an established religious tradition) enjoin practitioners (trainees or disciples) to cultivate those higher potentialities of the human being that are more noble and refined (wisdom and virtue). Accordingly, many spiritual traditions across diverse cultures share similar vocabulary. Terms such as the "path", the "work", the "practice" are universally applied to the ongoing discipline involved in transforming the coarser energies present in the human soul into more subtle and pleasing ones. As a spiritual practitioner one seeks to become free of the lesser egoic self (or ego) in favor of being more fully one's "true" "Self".”
Wikipedia’s definition for spirituality. I’m not talking about aligning, or devoting or separating the mind from the body. Just for a moment don’t think about your god (or gods or goddess) don’t think about what has probably been drilled into you since birth, rather, imagine our thoughts as substance, you prayers, your wishes, your spells as a liquid substance with mass. When you send them out, and every thought goes out either in a concentrated way, llike blowing a bubble from a pool of water; prayers or wishes, or in a more random way, creating ripples in the pool, like the distracted thoughts you have while driving. These bubbles and ripples of thought move around and bounce into things and travel much like sound until they hit something, become absorbed, or dissipate. If you can imagine this, you can see how this works for all people regardless of faith, religion, race or creed, you would realize that 1, we all really believe the same thing, that our thoughts have power, and 2 we only need to believe in ourselves in order to accomplish things. There may be a higher power looking down watching us, but it is obviously an apathetic one who is far too absorbed in himself to bother with us. The Muslims, many of them are cursing Americans, putting jihad's on us and meanwhile, we are using our various religions to do the same to them. These thoughts bubbles, if you will, can not effect any change because they are canceling each other out. Maybe there are more of us, maybe theirs are more vehement, but if the thoughts could simply become more about us and less about religion, the conflict was disappear.
I’m not saying we can control everything, I'm not saying we have magical powers, just that our thoughts and prayers and spells come true and happen, not because we prayed to the right god, but because they were focused and went to the right source. The saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for cause you just might get it.” it is the power of the thought but the lack of focus that causes such disasters. There is an invisible “Force” to steal directly from George Lucas, that anyone can manipulate, rather or not you are a Jedi. We can’t move things with out minds, maybe some can, but not most, but we can affect changes in out lives simply through thought.
I’m not talking about some namby-pamby self help crap. If you think hard enough that something bad will happen to someone and then it happens, there is a good chance your thoughts had something to do with that. If you pray everyday for something to happen and then it does, there's a good chance your thoughts had something to do with it. There is a reason t he self-help crap works. It empowers people to do what they are already doing in a more focused and positive way. I’m not saying be positive, I’m not saying improve yourself, I’m not saying have faith, I’m just saying look. Open your eyes and see the connections that are entwining all of us. Maybe this sounds like crazy talk, but I believe that the crazies out there have just had their blinders taken off. They can see the connections that everyone else is immune to seeing. Trying to find every fiber and filament that connects us will drive you crazy.
Jose Silva seemed close to the concepts that I see at work with his subjective education, but he ruined it by making it self-help and about the “Higher Connection” finding the “Christ Consciousness.” Imposing a religion or moral ethic onto the energy lessens it. It gives it an identity when truly it has none. It makes it “right or wrong” when what most people need to realize is that we create the rights and wrongs ourselves. We prescribe attributes to the different elements of our lives and then believe them. That is what gives them power. In Korea, writing a name in red ink is a death omen, the number 4 is unlucky because it sounds like the word death. In America we really don’t care about red ink and we think 13 is unlucky but most don’t know why. The christian church created the idea that 13 was unlucky because it was a number that was lucky in the pagan religion. 100 years later, buildings don’t have 13th floors and Japanese horror movies are confusing because the number 4 pops up all the time.
We don’t say shit or fuck or damn, because they are cursed words. Cursed by a religion, the only thing that gives the words any power is the belief that they are bad. How can a word be bad or good, it has no body, it can not hurt people unless they believe the word is bad. It is a sound, it is letter on the side of a train. The only power the words have are the ones we choose to give them. It is different everywhere you go. Different words, different numbers, different days, different colors. The belief in that culture however is so strong as to believe that it is bad or evil or unlucky that there is “proof” that people have been hurt because of the abstract concept of language and numbers. The only damage is coming from the person and the belief that it is bad and their own thoughts that give those ideas power. On the play ground a child climbing a rope or ladder is fine, perfectly happy until the mother yells for the child to get down, be careful, watch out, or they might get hurt. Suddenly the child has a fear that was not there before. An idea that very well may get him hurt, as well as the mothers thought that the child may get hurt. These two thoughts together, along with a belief in the mother are very likely to cause the child some kind of harm, be it fear and the emotional adrenaline rush that goes along with it or actual physical pain caused from falling. Unless a child is extraordinarily head strong and doesn’t listen, a parent has most likely created a belief in the child.
Our words, our thoughts, out intentions have far more power in them than we realize. We think something and it happens, we see the interconnectedness around us in coincidences and brush it off as unimportant We exist on a completely different level that we can not even see and that is controlled by our thoughts and words. We cal it by different names and assign it different characteristics but it is al the same. If we could all see the similarity of these thoughts, prayers or whatever, we would see the power we hold within ourselves to affect change simply by thought.
I don’t have a name for this, it is part Buddhist, part existential philosophy, part star wars, but it is one of the few elements that is apparent, if named differently, in every religion every where. Some philosophies call it coincidence, some say there are no coincidences, and religions usually call it prayer, and some call it positive thinking, but either way, it is apparent to me that our thoughts have power, our words are actions.
So make a wish, say a prayer, cast a spell, or put a Jihad on your enemies, either way we are all using the same substance inherent in our world and in our thoughts to affect the changes we want to see. We are using the same pool to create ripples or blow bubbles.
P-3
poetic terrorism
I do not want to be seen, I want to be heard but only through my work.
I don't want to discuss the political ramifications or possible societal conflicts of my art. I don't want to discuss what it better for the greater good. There is not greater good! The trick the the question, "What is the lesser of two evils?" is that there is no evil, no good, no evil, just nothing.
Do I care? No. I just want to do something. I am a speck of space dust aggravating the sinuses of the universe.
I am not politically unaware. I am just socially impaired. I see the problems and realize we could do more good by doing nothing. No one vote, or better yet vote for a fictional character. Make the establishment question life. make them realize that really, they too are just specks of space dust. I want people to realize that they are living in a cage, we are so much the matrix and don't even see it. The constraints put on us at birth and all through out life. this is bad, this is good, go to school, grow up get a job, get married, have kids, get old die, repeat ad nauseum.
We paint beautiful murals and sometimes controversial words and images on the sides of ugly gray trains that carry pollutants down the tracks to some factory or from some factory and you call us criminals! As you sit there in your suburban gas guzzler with the 25 ribbon magnets on it, supporting troops that are defending your rights to pollute the air with CO2 while sitting at the tracks complaining about the "vulgar graffiti" on the trains. We are doing you a favor by giving you something to look at.
I do not have pictures of my street art, I do not have records of my dances. I made statement, and I walked away. Did you get the message Ma? Were you listening Pa? No! The people that heard and were changed were the ones who didn't need it. The people who need it do not go to the places it is. We have to go to them. Invade their homes via television. Interrupt their soaps and their football games to piss them off long enough that maybe they manage to lift a finger to call someone to complain.
Do I care, no. I just want to do something. the future is screwed with or without me. With or without Ma an Pa gas guzzling lard asses. Without you.
I am still functioning as a ten year old, doing things to see what happens, hoping I don't get caught and lying if it do. I will always be that child. The one who stole porn and candy. The one who watched horror movie and read Shakespeare. I am still a wolf, a tiger, a fiend… I do not want to be a grown-up… groan-up… groin-up. I want to be raw forever, exposed nerves that cause me to twitch and jump unexpectedly. Make people look twice, make people wonder if.. maybe… there is … something… wrong…
…with me
I will document illegal activities at the places they happened and never go back. I will celebrate the insane and encourage ridiculousness whenever possible. I believe in fairies, they were the original anarchists, "What care I for human heart? Soft and spiritless as porridge! A faerie’s heart beats fierce and free." -Oona (Legend) We should all beat fierce and free, yet we sit comfortably in our cages believing the lies and shutting our eyes.
The pagans have it right celebrate what you know, sex, food, companionship, fun! Make people wake up, slip a little knowledge into their drink. Douse them with a bucket of insightfulness. bash in their heads with the truth.
We are no better, the artists who fill our work with significant meanings for the community at large and try to help others through our aesthetics. We aren't helping anyone with what we are doing, we need to make change not art, we need to open eyes, not galleries. We need to stop talking and do.
Do I care, no. I just want something to do.
P-2
Everything I say is the truth and everything I say is a lie. The thin line between honesty and lying does not reside in what we truly experienced but what we think we truly experienced. Some aspects o peoples lives are in their minds but are as real as the house next door. Why does this make it a lie? Isn’t it only bad if it is malicious? The truth can be quite painful, while the lie is soothing. Would you tell a child it wasn’t going to be ok and that they were going to die? Would it not be better to lie to them and to believe the lie yourself? I live in a world that is half not here and half not there. Sometimes I am unsure of what it is that is real? Are the monsters that come for me in the night any less real than the monsters who have come for me in the day? Are the feelings I have in my dreams less emotional? I walk about in a waking world that is half asleep and I see it all. I see things no one else sees, but are they lies just because no one else sees them? I could unravel the mysteries of the universe, but it would be useless, because it would be a lie… or would it? What is reality? Is it the conscious world, the subconscious world or the unconscious world? Why is reality so important Why is it so important that we be in one and not the other. If I have my head in the clouds and feet on the ground am I not living in two worlds that way also? The world of the ethereal and the world of man? Why is believing in fairies any more crazy than believing in a magical floating city in he sky that is paved with gold and populated by winged people? If I say I’ve seen a dragon, I’m labeled crazy, if I say I’ve seen a holy vision, I’ m pious. Where do we stop, where is the line that separates reality from fantasy, lies from the truth? There isn’t one, it is based only on what you believe, how you feel and what you have experienced, either “in real life” or “in your head.” No one can see the glow of your eternal soul and the epiphany you had to make it so any better than they can see the fairies in my backyard. We choose to believe one over the other, not because there is anymore truth to one story than their is to another, but because one lie seems less malicious and easier to swallow. But what do I know? I’m just a liar… or am I?
P-1
This country is quickly turning into nazi Germany or possibly 1984 or possible 2081, either way, it's not going in a good direction.
Bathroom breaks are illegal
injustice
think free
Almost there
A trailer for the 2081… With the way things are going, we will soon no longer have free thought.
autobiography
http://noodlenaddle.blogsome.com/2008/08/26/autobiography/
By Natalie Decarolis
8 years old and leering at pornography
in this autobiography
10 and looking at the pictures
the women half covered
their nipples were star bursts
11 at home alone in the house
making the best i could out of
scrambled images from the pay channels
12 and watching a video cassette found behind a hat box
the woman’s pubic hair was wild and she
still had her socks on
her tan legs up in the air on the exercise bench
him penetrating that wild jungle
it was exciting to look at
it made the body quiver
16 and dating men too old
alway thinking that i was the one in control
giving it away with out any knowledge of
the damage it would cause
hanging out in a store full of it
19 and in europe exploring
the men had accents and would speak
in their native tongues
it was so exhilarating
23 and in love with a man
who had the same affliction
and the same pension for writing
he would break her heart in a way
she could have never thought possible
25 in the city of brotherly love
talking to anyone that would listen
and stuck into a self made existence
breaking hearts and cutting out her own
I found this poem today and it is what I've been trying to write, but couldn't find a way to get it out. Below is my version, though not a poem. (The following work is not finished)
Jake, John, Ron and some amatuer porn
I am a sexual hypocrite. I realize this but don't know how to reconcile myself. I believe that hookers, pornographers, hustlers and strippers of both sexes have every right to do what they do. I however, have a problem with the people who pay for their services, namely men. When I encountered porn mags, found in a barn behind my neighbors house, I assumed they were for women.
Of the last 6 relationships I’ve had, all but one would have been considered illegal in some country somewhere. And the only one that was “leagal” was with the druggie IT guy who was arrested at 17 for hacking into bank accounts all over the world. I have sex with my friends. Either we start off as friends who begin having sex or we start of having sex and become friends. My friends ages fit at either end of the spectrum. Just gradution high school and ready to enter retirement… except for the stoner IT guy who is the same age as me. I have sex wth everyone. I don’t care about gender, color, age, religion, or really anything else. My soul purpose in life has been to find love. I haven’t tried to find it through sex, that was just one of the perks. Sex is a fascination for me. The way some people look at pro football players or basketball players, I look at porn stars. They are the professional atheletes of sex. Why some people don’t get this I’ll never know. Guys seem to think that their girls can do all the crazy shit they see on porns. Most women and men can not do that stuff any easier than they could make a three point shot on a professional court or hit a home run in Yankee stadium. I’m not gona say I live the fast life. Most nights I am on my computer surfing the web. When I do go out however, I make it memorable. There will almost always be an aspect of illegality to the night. Graffitti, trespassing, exhibitionism… whatever the moment brings. I don’t want to grow old and not have done anything. I don’t want to be sittig in the retirement home wishing I had a better sex story than, on my wedding night… I want a life that could be read about and found interesting. Not that my life story will ever be written, but I would like for it to be interesting none the less. Maybe the after life is a giant movie theater that shows peoples lives and the most popular ones are shown over and over. I know I wouldn’t want to sit through the life story of most of the people I know, unless they have some really deep dark secrets.
It started with porno mags, or maybe some repressed sexual encounter as a child, but I remember looking at the porno mags and thinking how great it would be to do that. The aesthetic beauty of the nude woman spoke to me from and early age, but because I was brought to the light by media influenced visions of women, I have never been happy with myself in terms of beauty. Specifically my body. Before I knew what a stripper was, I would think how great it would be to dance without clothes on. My barbies were burlesque and I had no idea that it was indeed a real profession. It was the freedom that the girls had, the ability to be that open and not care what people were saying. I've craved freedom since I was born I think, true freedom, where I can do whatever I want without the voices in my head telling me they are bad. It didn't take long before my parents realized something "wasn't quite right" with their precious little girl. A deep vein runs through me that is filled with vitriol for all things sexual or mildly pornographic. Fear of what I would become, for in their conservative southern baptist minds, I would go to hell if I followed my sinful ways. It didn't stop me from feeling more beautiful when I got a persons attention. Sex had always made me feel more beautiful, it didn't matter who the other person was, as long as they thought I was sexy. According to Vanessa one of my ex-girlfriends, that's not right. She's really not one to speak though with her long legs and smoky eyes, considering she stripped for ten years of her life. She got all the validation she needed. Who is to decide what is right or wrong. I have been over and over this topic recently. I have no problem with people who choose to be ministers, or teachers, or enlist in the military, why should they have a problem with what I do? Because the bible, the government and society tell them what's right and what's wrong. If I feel sexier because Someone finds me attractive, that is my personal mental issues. If you feel beautiful because of some great inner light, good for you. We are not the same person. D0n't read me your self-help books, I am ok with who I am. No matter if I am lying or telling the truth, in a good mood or bad, manic or depressive I am always, completely me and what helps someone else, isn't going to help me.
I realize that many girls feel pushed into the sex industry and have really bad experiences… but is there ANY job that isn't like that? I have had bad experiences as a teacher, ones that were humilating and belittling. My mother was denied advancement for years and underwent years of sexual harassment. My albeit, short, stints in the sex industry have been mostly good experiences. I know there are the crazies out there, but their also at the post office and in the classroom.
G-2
j-pop and emo, the history, the influence and a painting.
One area that I am interested in, but that I didn't mention in my study plan this semester is sub-cultures. I am an old punk, but not a true old punk. When the Ramones first formed in Queens, I hadn't even taken my first step yet, and a year later when the Sex pistols formed, I was just beginning to talk. I appreciate the true punk sound, The Ramones are one of my favorite bands, but I can not claim to be a true punk, (For fear of a real punk kicking my ass.) The continued punk sound that went undergraound for several years and then was brought back to light with Nirvana and Greenday was the scene I was a part of. By the 80's and 90's though, even the punk sound had begun to be broken into more categories with horror punk, sufer punk, skater punk, hardcore punk, straight edge and others.
So it's no wonder than Punk took seriously other direction kind of turn. For all the punks who were tires of the anger and the hardcore and the Grrrrrr mentality, Sunny Day Real Estate brought emo to the masses. Well, the masses of punks at least. It took another 15 years before emo really became mainstream.
If you mention Emo to a high school or college student now, they would probably focus more on the "image" of an emo than the music. In the beginning, the emo look was really the same look that many punks had. Thrift store clothes, because we were poor college students, shaggy haircuts, cause our friends usually cut our hair for us, cause we couldn't afford to do it, and kool-aid dye jobs, (Manic Panic was around, but unless you lived in NY, it was quite hard to find.) This really desribes most every college student in the 90's, regardless of genre.
It wasn't until a few years later that the distinction of the different genre's began to be formed. The non-conformists conformists groups as I like to call them. If you were goth, you dressed one way, emo another, punk another, etc, etc. This has continued and become so infused into the subculture society that it is a part of the main stream society and mentality now. When did this happen? when did being different become so common. It is more punk to dress in normal jeans and a t-shirt than it is to wear liberty spikes and studded leather.
In order to better understand this phenomenon, I believe we need to look closer at the history of the style rather than the music, as well as the history of cetain corporations.
Most people are sheep. This is not a criticism on society, it is a fact. Most people want to be led, they are tired, overworked, over stressed individuals who just want something easy in their lives. In this day and age with so much instant gratification around it is an epidemic. People want the easy way out and they don't want to think. Corporations know this. In 1988 Hot Topics opened in California, it was a small store that sold niche items. By 1995, Hot Topics opened a store in NY and the punk scene has been down hill ever since. Before Hot Topics punks of all categories had to work at their look. The hardcore punks bought their spiked collars from pet stores ot made them by punching spikes through leather straps, or studding them themselves. Hair dye, as mentioned earlier, was made from kool-aid and store bought bleach or hair dye kits like Clairol. Thrift store clothes were not easy to find. Many times you would see college students digging through bins of clothes that may contain shirts, pants, socks and even underwear to find that one perfect shirt. It was much easier for the general public to just go to the mall and buy their Izod and Calvin Klein.
With the mass marketing of subcultures in America it has become exceedingly easy for people to obtain a "look" that they would not have even considered ten years ago. Thus making it necessary to delineate the groups more precisely. In the 90's you would have found goths, punks, emo's and other groups sitting together sharing a cuppa. Now however, a fued has sprung up that has no place in the sub-culture world. The specific groups have not only defined their look, but their sides as well.
But what of Japan? They have many of the exact same sub-cultures? What came first the J-pop or the A-pop? Did we influence their style, only to have them exceed us in the quality and intensity or did we mearly create a shoddy representation of their style? Why do I say shoddy? The Japanese cosplayers put so much thought, work and money into their costumes they look as if they are part of a movie or music video. Granted they also only create their look one a week, where as Americans dress their part every day. Maybe it equals itself out, or maybe yet again, Americans have proven themselves to be more about quantity than quality. Mcdonalds anyone?
Cosplay in Japan usually entails turning yourself into a character from a book, manga, anime, band, movie, or TV show. There are also the visual kei cosplayers such as the goths, gothic lolitas and B-boys (The japanese version of Hip Hop) just to name a few. There are many cultural circles in japan such as the gangura, but they are not considered a sub-culture the way Emo kids in America would be. The gangura are fashionistas who dictate what should be worn, where people should shop and they are very strict about who is part of their circle. By invitation only.
One of the first "looks" in Japan after general cosplay, which has been around since the early 80's, was the goth look. The first generation goth look began in the UK, inspired by bands such as Joy Division and Souxie and the Banshees but fathered by Robert Smith of The Cure. The look died out rather quickly as the club music scene took over. In America the second generation goth scene began as the one in the UK died out. 1988, we began dressing in all black and dying our hair to match. The first insurrection died out almost competely by 1992. In Japan, the movie Vampire Hunter D was realeased in 2000, the beginning of their Gothic culture. This, The third generation universally and first generation Japanese, was a darker more danagerous goth.
Gothic sub-culture has always had a fascination with death and dark things, but the newer generation has taken this to a whole new level, with leaders like Marilyn Mansom and H.I.M. the mentality has gone from one of "dark macabre" to one of "Death and Suicide." Japanese bands like Mook, Raphael, and Caligari are the eqivalent, if not worse in some ways.
At this juncture we meet; emo, gothic and Japan. All groups have a propensity for pain and sickness. They cut themselves onlu deep enough to draw blood, they discuss openly their medical conditions and medicine taken for them and they discuss death and emotional pain. These are the happy subjects one might overhear while in a goth/emo, American or Japanese circle. The highest suicide rates are Japan in first place, and the American youth sub-cultures of Emo and Goth in second.
It is no wonder that the gothic and emo subcultures are often confused, but, for clarification purposes, they are not the same. The gothis subculture is more interested in Vampires, Witches and the Macabre. Emo's are more interested in their own personal pain.
I have fallen into both categories, as well as other. Obviously I am not Japanese, but I believe the Japanese intensity for their subcultures has had a large effect on American sub-culture. The painting I have done, is about all of these. It is gothic, emo, whatever label you want to give it. But mainly it is something that I wanted to create, not because I felt I had to or I was trying to complete and assignment. It is a painting I wanted to do for me, and that is a huge accomplishment.
1)This semester started out as an exploration into some long-held obsessions for me, mainly 2) sex related subjects, but also 3) Japanese pop culture, 4) learning to integrate my family more into my art and just generally 5) working toward becoming a better artist. 6) In the beginning it was going to be a focus on prostitutes in art, but one of the first words I used was 7) odalisque. On the very first day of research I found out that an Odalisque was not what I thought it was. Soon the obsession became about the word.
8) Odalisque is a Turkish female servant who served the harem and queens, most like a chambermaid. An odalisque would be a slave given as a gift but also many young girls would choose to be an odalisque in the hopes that they would be noticed by the sultan. If they were, they would be trained in dance, music, and sex. The sultan would only have sex with them once. If they got pregnant from that one encounter they would become a queen. Either as a member of the harem or as a queen their futures would be better with plenty of food and a place to live. Occasionally if an odalisque was extremely talented, beautiful or well liked she would become one of his wives.
During the art period that is known as Japonism, artists began the love affair with the odalisque. The most famous being La Grande Odalisque, by Ingres.
The first however was Boucher's 1743 Odalisca.
Almost 75 years before the most famous of all the Odalisques. Ingre's work has even been used in the past 50 years as inspiration for a photo shoot with actress Jullianne Moore
and in an add for lotion!
It seems that every famous artist from that time period jumped on the odalisque bandwagon. Delacriox, Fortuny, Manet, Renoir… they all had odalisques of their ow The trend seems to almost become a rite of passage and almost every artist throughout the years have one their own versions, from Picasso to Matisse. Matisse possibly painted the most odalisques paintings of all.
Matisse's Odalisques were different from everything else he painted. It was as if he took a break from his usualy style to paint the odalisques and once it was out of his system, he went back to his usual style. In Constructing Myths and Ideologies in Matisse's Odalisques Marilynn Lincoln Board speaks of Matisses obsession with the odalisque female but his abhorrence of the African/Eastern world. He would travel to find models, something not done by other artists, and bring them back to France to paint them. During the time of the Odalisque paintings Matisse left his wife and family and lived solely in hotels, surrounding himself with women that were very much like the ones in his paintings… uncomplicated, accommodating, and gone as quickly as he wanted. He painted the odalisque without any political, social or emotional information. They are all blank faced and none of the paintings peak of the destruction and turmoil going on in their home lands. He painted the odalisques for himself, because he saw the odalisque as him. As he observed them, they observed him and this new world. They were the thing he was not, he saw himself as the order and rigidity that existed as men and women as everything else. By painting the Odalisque, he allowed himself to be the other, untamed part of the world. He painted so many odalisques because it was his own way of releasing himself from the confines places on him by society.
The term odalisque became synonymous with reclining nude female and soon after with prostitute. Although when looking through the many different odalisques, you see that they are not all nude, not all reclining and in some modern cases not all female.
Even males based on Ingres
At what point did the word become so much more? When did it become an art term? And how did it become synonymous with sex when an Odalisque wasn't even considered for sexual relations in their positions. They were the lowest on the totem pole in the Turkish empires, serving the concubines and just hoping that they would be noticed one day.
The Beginning of this journey begins with male desire. In the typical mindset, especially in the male dominated days of Japonism, of women as possessions, maybe, the male artists who outnumbered the females 100 to 1 were obsessed with the idea of hordes of women to please one man. In The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History By Norma Broude, & Mary D. Garrard they state it best, "Oriental models clearly links their iconographic assumptions of sexual chauvinism to the wider political context of European Imperialism. Orientalist images were apt reflections of the myths and realities of the French colonial movements." As for the artists themselves, they "Shared not only the prevalent male sense of intellectual superiority over women but also the general European sense of intellectual superiority over the Orient." With these assumptions being made by the majority of the artists of the time it's no wonder that the Odalisque soon became a sex object. The word which to some would mean a life of servitude and to others meant a chance to rise in social staus became synonymous with sex in the west.
How did this word for a slave girl become synonymous with sex? 9) I researched and looked but I couldn't find anything. I imagined myself traveling the world researching the nature of the word and when it changed, writing a book on the history of the odalisque and publishing it. My daydreams are fun, but soon the 10) obsession over the word dissipated as I realized that it was men, 11) MEN who had changed the word. Men who had sullied the word. Western men to be precise. 12) Feminist everywhere growl.
13) In the minds of men-
14) Odalisque, A slave girl catering to the harem of the sultan. She is no one, nothing, completely unimportant. Most likely she would not only submit to any mans advances, but enjoy them as well, She is the perfect woman.
She does not exist. Not the way Western men of the 18th century want her to. 15) Through out history, western men have continually opressed their own women, robbing them of sexuality and sensualness, only to gawk and 16) fantasize over Eastern women. 17) A woman of servitude and submission. 18) A woman, who, in their minds, waits, half nude, for a man to come so she can pleasure them. 19)
1) It is no wonder odalisque has become synonymous with prostitute, The Odalisque in paintings, photography and stories does not exist. She is a figment of the western males imagination and more often than not, the odalisque in visual art is portrayed by western women. 20) (Irony?) 20a) know what I'm sayin?
The female body has always been a mystery to men. The "myth" of the clitoris or the female orgasm, the ability to withstand great pain and of course child birth. Men have always bee afraid of the power of the female body and have tried to control it, like in the Victorian era where men gave women in labor chloroform, stop it, the way men in America tried to make abortion illegal, time and again or just refuse to recognize it, as in the entire time period of the western world from the Victorian era on where men have deliberately ignored the females need for sexual pleasure. Although Men are essential in the production of life (At least their sperm is) The factory contained in the female body has been the most fearsome mysetery.
Maybe the key master is afraid the gatekeeper will begin creating without him.
Parthenogenesis is the scientific name for an animals, "virgin birth." It actually means that the female lays an egg that hatches without ever being fertilized. This has happened mainly in lizards and frogs when the male of the species dies out or there are none in the immediate area. Maybe men are afraid of human females ability to do this exact thing, I mean we already know of at least once it's happened 33)
I thought, due to the extreme lack of sex I was hacing at the time she was conceived, that Kessy, my youngest, was a clone baby. It was an ongoing joke around our house for years. Many features, so close to identical, then I noticed other part, usually hidden, toes, ears, and I knew my scientific breakthrough was gone.
21) The submissive eastern female is a reoccuring image. Today, the snime of Japan shows heroic women who often kick butt, but fall under the awe inspiring power of the mighty 22)phallus. And it is the penis, not the man, that5 seems to have the power. 23)The Femme Fatale may have already beat the crap out of a dozen gorilla sized guards with swords or guns, but if one little scrawny guy walks up without pants on she's done for.
1a) In contrast however, Western women are portrayed in an ironic dichotomy. Mothers with their children who are not seen as sex symbols, but visions of goodness, even though they have obviously had sex before. 25) (monet) Sex symbols that do not exist in any realm of reality, therefore making them completely unattainable, such as 26) Laura Croft, or sexual females who are sexual outcasts or delinquents such as works by 27) Schiele. The message that is sent here is Western women are sexual but not sexy, or sexy but not sexual or sexual and sick.
1)I find it odd, when I compare the eastern women which typically look away from the viewer or hide their face altogether, to Western women who are portrayed more often than not, facing the viewer, using eye contact and almost interacting with the viewer, that there should be such a difference.
28) Is this because we interact with the artists who create them? Is it because we are real and tangible? The same artist that create Eastern women, (Portrayed by western) and show them submissive and turning away, paint western women looking at the viewer, no matter what they are portrayed as; mothers, prostitutes, holy or sinner, western women are presented forward.
It seems to be the case, I have learned from my research, that men, Western men at least, are a dichotomy in themselves. Though in their minds, superior over their Eastern counter parts, they are also afraid of them. The African males sexual prowess, the magic of different Indian and Asian cultures, the sexual knowledge of the Hindus and the general mysticism of the entire area. They longed for the exotic woman, but fear the place they came from. Matisse himself did not enjoy his travels to acquire new models. Matisse said “Before I left everyone said, ‘How lucky you are!’, I answered ‘I would love to already be on my way back.” once home he remarked “Back home in my slippers, I have become myself again.”
I think the crux of the entire Odalisque and Japanese obsession rely upon the males need to dominate and control females and nature. Since Western women are known to them, are not s easily dominated. Therefore Western men choose to show other women at their service.
I think I’m turning Japanese- The J-Pop Phenomenon's effect on the youth of today through one online community.
The plain avatar
What you work for in Gaia
Gaia online has been around since 2003, the same time as Myspace and before Facebook. Unlike the other social communities, who focus on meeting other people and talking to those people you meet, Gaia is a little more… Japanese. The intention of Gaia is for teens, but it has become a place for the Japanese at heart. Anime styled avatars rather than actual pictures, art and poetry promotion, fishing, and a fierce love of fashion and style. The Gaia community is made up of far more Japanamation fans than just average teens. On Gaia you can buy clothes to complete the fashion that you want for your avatar. Some of the looks are orphan, goth, surfer, preppy, zombie, and tons of others. In the Gaian community people work hard to make their avatars look good. Outfits can run in the millions using Gaian gold of course. Gaia even has it's own credit cards that can be bought at Target and other stores or online, complete with the more famous anime avatars printed on them. In order to earn gold you must work diligently. The games are slightly more brainy than say space invaders including a scrabble like game, a puzzle game and of course fishing. Fishing is it's own category, it's own island in the Gaian world.
I see direct correlations between the Gaian community and the perceived Japanese culture. Some aspects of the Gaian world are the same as the Japanese, fishing is a large part of Japan. Fish and rice are the staples of their diet. Many people, especially the younger generation are interested in fashion, taking it so far as to spend all the money they make on the costumes they wear on Sundays to Harajuku Square. THis however is not the majority.
In this community are the anime/manga fanatics who believe that Japan is like the shows they watch and comics they read. It would be like a Japanese person reading x-men and thinking that everyone over here is a mutant. The perceptions of Japan by the younger generation are of a place where people speak their mind, make outrageous statements and have extreme emotional moments in public… Isn't that how Japan is?
No, according to several teens I have interviewed Japan is a place of extreme conservativeness. No one is rude, everyone is super polite and you just don't make a scene. These teens, Lorael LoveLace, Trizo, k0n1w4w4*, have lived in Japan most of their lives. There are like the Japan police on Gaia. Trying to educate and inform before people decide to hop on a plane in search of anime land. One user wote that he liked the way the schools worked which Trizo replied to with "Overcrowded classrooms, one seat for the entire day. The inability to walk around outside during your only 30 minute break?" The user did not reply back. There are so many misconceptions about Japan but I hve found that they do not only come from Anime and manga for the younger generation.
Chinese_elffi wrote "I absolutely didnt like japan's history with the chinese…I did a bit of chinese and japanese history for a school project." Crazy Jungle Man wrote "Seriously did everyone forget about pearl harbor -.- " Old wounds never heal I for some families I guess. These people however are the minority. of the thousands of posts I have scoured through and the threads I started to help me answer some questions, I have found that a huge number of Gaians have a very limited view of Japan. It is important to note that not every one on Gaia is American. It is predominantly so, but there are other cultures as well. The overwhelming reponse from everyone on Japan was usually something like "I love the music. The nightlife seems really awesome. The fashion is interesting. WOAH IN TECHNOLOGY."" I think that most Japanese people men are like, perverts though." From stfuxpleasex. The other main thing that was mentioned was the food. After talking with these kids I found that the majority of them get their information from Japan from the Gaian community, their mangas, animes, and occasional internet stumbles. A lot of people referenced the Japanese Fertitlity Holiday, Kanamara Matsuri (or the Festival of the Steel Phallus) which is an annual festival in Kawasaki.
Katie Olsen, write for Lifelounge explained it thusly "It all takes place around a phallic shrine, which was built for a local legend in which a demon hid inside a girl, forcing her to castrate two men on their wedding nights, and then a blacksmith made an iron phallus that was used to break the demon's teeth. Of course. The shrine was also a popular place for prostitutes to pray, protecting themselves against sexually transmitted disease." The festival sports several phallus shaped objects including vegetables, candy, rides (No pun intended,) and statues that are carried through the streets. Just after the beginning of April (The time of the festival) several photo's and blog were created on the festival and the sites were stumbled, digg'd, del.ci.ous'd, and pretty much every other type of internet sharing device there is. Several sites, including Tokyo Times, found they needed more bandwith do to the overwhelming interest in the photo's. Another internet share that caught the Gaians attention was that of the used underwear vending machine. It is important to note that that particular vending machine has been banned. They were in use back in the 90's but they are no longer .
Though it my seem odd (and wrong) to most Americans that there was a vending machine for used underwear (Worn by school girls) I wonder why it was banned. In the following conversation with Laharl OutPhase, i believe I may have found some of the reason behind the changes in Japan.
LO- "As for the general populous, they are a lot of accepting of homosexuality than most countries in the world. In the past, they a lot more flexible with what was consider acceptable and what wasn't, especially when it was something sexual. Back then, it wasn't uncommon to see a few topless women on the idiot box, whereas if there is so much as one tit here, everyone will be on that station's a** for months. f**k, they didn't have a ratin system for video games.
Then, American influence hit Japan, and now they are just as chicken s**t as us when it comes to television programming."
Me-So you think the American's have had as big of an impact on the Japanese as they have had on us?
LO- "No. Significantly larger.
It changed the whole country's television medium entertainment. You practically have to get on your knees and bag to keep in the heavy amounts of steam in bath scenes for some show on at 2AM instead of something that looks like the tape that police would put around a house or some other censorship image. Going from Ranma 1/2 and seeing tits to a heavily censored series made today was probably my first legitimate mindfuck in my life.
Also, Japan now has something akin to the ESRB, whereas around five years ago you could probably see a six year-old buying something as violent as Doom or Quake. Now, vieo games are getting censored to hell. In beatmania IIDX GOLD, two whole video have to be omitted because they have 2 seconds of boobs. No tits. Just the boobs.
I fucking hate how much influence America has sometimes. It's turning the world into pussies."
Her colorful language aside, I think there may be a point that applies to more than just video games. Japan has been isolated somewhat for so long, they did not suffer from the paranoia Americans seem to have of always being watched. People in Japan mind their own business and Americans, well,we don't. I believe that in the larger community of the world, that is now listening with their internet ears and watching with their web camera eyes, Japan has seen a reflection of itself that it does not like. They are a conservative bunch, but they are being billed as the opposite. Being open about sex is not a bad thing, unless your american and since we are the police of the world, it has become bad for everyone. Japan may begin to ban and hide more and more of it's behavior that we find eccentric in order to go from "Pervert Japan" to a more American Japan.
Would it help? Probably not any time soon. Japan has a reputation for sex, fashion, food, and school girls. It is how 90% of Gaians view the country and there are two million unique login's to Gaia every month. That is a pretty large populace.
- Screen names used for privacy