In sickness and in self(promotion)
What does it say about my writing that "i" has come loose on my keyboard?
I’ve been ill for the past four days. Not my usual woman-ill (exhausted, over it) but actually ill (tissues, intense muscle pain). Both incredibly legitimate btw and sufferable by anyone. So little has happened while I’ve been sick that I’ve stopped writing my nightly diary entry, too bored by all the boredom. It’s one of those bugs where you basically just sleep and groan. But a few things have happened on the internet, which I have spent a horrifying amount of time on during my quarantine. So I thought I’d write about my experiences of the outside world from the inside, which is just consciousness right?
Underneath you will find an interview I did about a zine I made earlier in the year, which never got published, so I’m going to post it here. The zine is available in London at Waste! (the best shop in town), Magculture, Good News and some other places, or online here.
Neo-McQueen
I have to say… I loved it. Not to compare, because comparison is the enemy of… can’t remember. But I’m so relieved that new McQueen feels genuinely couched in eccentric British counterculture, rather than the horror of the Normans Cafe New Burberry mess which fetishes London aesthetics in a way that felt mortifying. I’ve only read a bit about the new creative direction, and it did happen to be on Vogue.com (retro!) but from what I can tell, Sean Mcgirr gets how to be weird without being wacky, and is interested in the myth, grunge and glamour of Britishness. Basically it’s not “bangers and mash mate!”. Can you actually believe… lol. I dunno, I get that the runway was a bit tame, but the bones of it, bondage, restriction, violence, performance – that’s McQueen. I never stopped wearing my skull scarf btw. 2006 forever.
The Way
Speaking of the weirdness of Britain, I watched this Adam Curtis, Michael Sheen, James something 3-part show and also loved it. Some moments were a bit shticky (archive footage starts appearing on screens everywhere, and Adam Curtis is saying that’s a bad thing? Um…) but overall I thought it was brilliant. If you like: Children of Men and The World’s End, you should watch it. Watch it anyway.
Feather Duvet
I bought a 13.5 tog duck feather duvet from Argos (IT SAYS IT’S ETHICAL) just before I got sick and goodness me it’s a pleasure to groan out from under.
VICE
And finally, as I must return to sleep, VICE is dead. Clive wrote a good piece about it on the New Statesmen which made me very nostalgic. There was something about being in the office during that time which felt smart and exciting and genuinely independent. I definitely struggled finding my footing back then as the sort of designated female voice of VICE and made some mistakes, none of which I regret, but to be able to feel something, write it and people actually read it was remarkable. In those couple of years at the beginning of the New North Place office, people were actually smart and funny, the internet felt like a real, tangible place and in many ways still a subculture. Anyway, I miss it. Compared to the ad agencies I slip in and out of these days, it feels like a long-forgotten dream. But maybe that’s just me. Or youth.
Ok, here is the interview, thank you good bye <3
Tell me a bit about where the idea for the ONE PERFECT MOMENT OF PURE WANT came from, what were you thinking about and what were the themes?
The zine is about being addicted to the feeling of wanting something. It takes you through six stages of obsessive desire, and then ends with an equation that tries to answer the question posed in the title: And then what? As I get older I find that when you’re caught in states of yearning, getting the thing you want is usually the worst outcome.
Can you tell me about the story that runs throughout? What's the meaning behind it?
It’s definitely informed by my own experiences of romantic desire, and a lot of the photos are from romantic relationships I’ve had or thought about having. But it’s really less about one story, and more about trying to understand why we give so much power to the random, often unpredictable things that we fixate on. The zine could just as easily be about an object, a piece of clothing, an event. What makes something into a fantasy? We do.
How did you feel about sharing something so personal and intimate, and why did you want to?
I like how confrontational intimacy can feel, and in the context of a printed zine it reads as more intentional than impulsive (though both forms are valid). Sometimes I think the internet wants us to forget that we’re human, to always commodify our pain into something distant, or at least to fit the dimensions of acceptable forms of self-expression. I hope what I do stands in opposition to that.
Who took the photos, and what were you trying to capture? Do you have a favourite and why?
I took all the photos on an iPhone 6S, except the cover photo. I really like the ubiquity and flatness of iPhone photos. Despite it’s really personal voice, I want the zine to feel familiar, maybe a little uncanny. We like to think we’re so different but all our selfies look the same.
What do you hope people will take away from flicking through the zine?
I hope it captures a feeling that people can relate to. I also really wanted to include female nudity throughout. Male photographers are often celebrated for intimate images of sexualised women which have this really pornified vulnerability, even mockery sometimes. As a woman I wanted to present my body how it feels to live inside it, with vulnerability, violence, banality, performance, everything.
xx