Friday, April 21, 2006
Mark my words: sheer black tights are back! I am seeing them everywhere on smart young things, and for once I'm not getting flashbacks to Contemporary Vocal Ensemble in high school, when we displayed our superiority to the other a capella choirs by wearing a decidedly groovy North Fitzroy-esque uniform of short black dresses, neck scarves and sheer black tights. In those days I thought Dewberry perfume from the Body Shop was the height of sophistication. Sometimes I cry for that teenage self, so convinced of her charisma, intelligence and potential. I wish I could go back in time and show her the shell of a person I have become.
But anyway, sheer black tights are back. Best part is, they are very cheaply available at the local supermarket. That's fashion.
Sorry about a bit of a silence; I couldn't think of much to say. I wanted to talk about the social ineptitude instilled by private schools, which was inspired by Ja'mie from We Can Be Heroes plus the snotty Sydney schoolboys in that late-night TV show Camp Dare, but then I couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to construct an argument good enough to preempt the inevitable smug comments about how fucked private schools and their alumni are.
Is it a truism that if you are self-aware enough to wonder if you are going crazy, you probably aren't going crazy? Today I had the sneaking feeling that my friends were doing things behind my back, coupled with simultaneous desires to run far, far away and to curl up in a ball in my room, and I know that these kind of feelings are early signs of approaching psychosis, but then a real psychotic wouldn't think like that, so I am probably just being an insufferable drama queen again.
Recently I have been feeling a fierce desire for concealment. Right now I am gripped by the desire to get about in a kabuki mask, because then I would feel much safer and more confident interacting with other people.
I found this picture via the magic of Google Image Search. And the thought of going about my daily life looking like this was so wonderfully absurd that I can't help but smile. But anyway.
In the Bakhtinian sense, masking is "a possibility of being something other than what one is," writes Efrat Tseelon in Masquerade and Identities (Routledge, 2001: 5). Masking establishes a sense of order while simultaneously disintegrating it; it belies that there is no 'true' or innate identity; and it challenges hegemonic containment of otherness. Tseelon draws distinctions between masking, disguise and masquerade: "The mask hints; disguise erases from view; masquerade overstates." (2)
In trying to devise strategies to conceal my thoughts, feelings, desires, am I fetishising them instead? Am I clinging to that which is hidden in the deluded belief that they offer access to my 'true' self? Will concealment grant me the sense of peace and order that I crave, or will it catapult me into chaos? I have no idea; I just remembered I made these notes last year and I happened to have the notebook on me.
But anyway, sheer black tights are back. Best part is, they are very cheaply available at the local supermarket. That's fashion.
Sorry about a bit of a silence; I couldn't think of much to say. I wanted to talk about the social ineptitude instilled by private schools, which was inspired by Ja'mie from We Can Be Heroes plus the snotty Sydney schoolboys in that late-night TV show Camp Dare, but then I couldn't work up enough enthusiasm to construct an argument good enough to preempt the inevitable smug comments about how fucked private schools and their alumni are.
Is it a truism that if you are self-aware enough to wonder if you are going crazy, you probably aren't going crazy? Today I had the sneaking feeling that my friends were doing things behind my back, coupled with simultaneous desires to run far, far away and to curl up in a ball in my room, and I know that these kind of feelings are early signs of approaching psychosis, but then a real psychotic wouldn't think like that, so I am probably just being an insufferable drama queen again.
Recently I have been feeling a fierce desire for concealment. Right now I am gripped by the desire to get about in a kabuki mask, because then I would feel much safer and more confident interacting with other people.
I found this picture via the magic of Google Image Search. And the thought of going about my daily life looking like this was so wonderfully absurd that I can't help but smile. But anyway.
In the Bakhtinian sense, masking is "a possibility of being something other than what one is," writes Efrat Tseelon in Masquerade and Identities (Routledge, 2001: 5). Masking establishes a sense of order while simultaneously disintegrating it; it belies that there is no 'true' or innate identity; and it challenges hegemonic containment of otherness. Tseelon draws distinctions between masking, disguise and masquerade: "The mask hints; disguise erases from view; masquerade overstates." (2)
In trying to devise strategies to conceal my thoughts, feelings, desires, am I fetishising them instead? Am I clinging to that which is hidden in the deluded belief that they offer access to my 'true' self? Will concealment grant me the sense of peace and order that I crave, or will it catapult me into chaos? I have no idea; I just remembered I made these notes last year and I happened to have the notebook on me.
