This vengeful cult classic starring our beloved Vincent Price has got it all. Art Deco by way of the 70s. Clockwork orchestras. A creepy, yet relentlessly stylish assistant named Vulnavia. (Yes, I said Vulnavia.) Bats. Bees. Deadly frog masks. A killer musical score by Basil Kirchin. Rat-induced plane crashes. Unicorn impalement. (Yes, I said unicorn impalement.) And the list goes on.
Perfect Day of the Dead fare. Watch at your peril.
By the way, if anyone wants me to name my secondborn after them (my firstborn shall be called Vulnavia, natch), all they have to do is give me an original mint condition copy of this poster:
The Muse. Photo by Viona, outfit and jewelry by Elisabeth.
Elisabeth and Viona Ielegems are two sisters from Belgium with an incredible talent for fashion and photography. Golden-haired gothic princess Viona is a world-famous alt photographer who appears in many of her own images, and her younger sister Elisabeth is a fashion designer who makes gorgeous necklaces, rings, earrings and other filigree items for your inner woodland fae. Together they collaborated on the following shoot for Elisabeth’s graduation project, a series of designs revolving around different feminine archetypes. Seen above is The Muse. Click on the titles below to see more:
It’s past 1 AM, I’m munching on a buttery, cheesy bruschetta, and listening to Miss Platnum’s “Give Me the Food.” The song has an unusual theme for an R&B tune: a celebration of eating! “I like my coffee with a lot of cream, I like to eat late at night, I like scrambled eggs after a sweet dream, I like potatoes – deep fried,” sings Miss Platnum.
The Romanian-born, German-based singer laughs off dieting: “I don’t care what people say about my weight, so if you want to take me out for a date, make sure there is enough food on my plate.” In addition to the great message and fun music video, it’s just a ridiculously catchy song. Miss Platnum’s powerful voice and witty delivery instantly make their way to the heart, even if you (like me) generally don’t listen to R&B. Watch the video, after the jump. Via Gala Darling.
A confession: I might have exaggerated about the toga thing last week. While I’m still feeling the draped thing, some amount of clean lines will always appeal to me. Here’s an almost entirely Japan-acquired Z-standard outfit. The price isn’t exactly Z-standard this time but I was on vacation, dammit. On to the super-villain gear, comrades!
I love lace! I love it so much. I believe that people who wear lace tell less lies, cars with airbrushed lace patterns on them are less likely to break down, and that the first nation to put a lace pattern on its flag will come to rule the world. Here are my five favorite lace things du jour:
By the way of Mister Kris Ether, a collection of jaw-dropping Yakov Chernikov drawings. Doesn’t this one resemble a rocket, ready for takeoff? Yes, this is my future, tovarish Chernikov. Thank you.
From the funny writeup on Dark Roasted Blend: “Only too appropriate for the “Evil Empire”, the colossal palaces and Pantheons would dominate the city, squash the last vestiges of soul, and yet strangely excite in their surreal dark presence.“
For many of us there is an event, a circumstance or a series of both that altered us in a specific way, making us strange, odd, whatever you want to call it enough to seek lives less ordinary. It’s different for everyone – Nadya, for instance, was inspired in part by Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation video’s military look and overall stompiness. For there were several components and so I present you a partial list of What Made Me Weird.
My Parents
Let’s get this one out of the way. I’ll narrow this down to just a couple of things, though I have much to thank them for. They took time to expose me to theaters and museums since a very early age, despite the social state of ’80s Russia and our modest finances. I grew up surrounded by literature and read things like Spartacus and Dandelion Wine. With my parents’ busy schedules I was often left home alone to rummage through my mother’s numerous art books and my father’s hefty collection of science fiction. Soon I realized I preferred to spend time by myself, not making me the best candidate for schoolyard popularity.
As far as I’m concerned, Grace Jones was the It Girl of the 80s. Her partnerships with Jean-Paul Goude and Keith Haring yielded some of the most iconic, otherworldly images of the decade.
photo by Jean-Paul Goude
She was valorous, donning multiple personas that confronted racial and sexual stereotypes, her “jungle cat” performances lampooning primitivist readings of the black female body in much the same way Josephine Baker‘s send-ups in banana/tusk skirts had half a century earlier. She played a mean accordion, rocked a buzz cut like no other, was witty and elegant, but did not hesitate to smack a bitch when the occasion called for it.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as industrial music when I stumbled onto Janet’s Rhythm Nation 1814 film in my pre-teens, but I knew that I’d made a very important discovery. Later there would be the mix tapes and the radio shows that exposed me to my favorite music in its true form, but until then, isolated in suburbia and still learning English, Janet’s video was my first glimpse into the aesthetics of my favorite musical genre.
Having re-watched Rhythm Nation today, I have come to a very important conclusion: Janet Jackson is even more ÜBER than I initially thought. Here’s why:
The uniforms! God, the uniforms. Those gloves with the riveted metallic plates? Hot.
“We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together by our beliefs.” NSK State, anyone? Laibach, take note: Janet beat you to it by 4 years.
The entire clip takes place in a steamy factory that recalls Test Dept’s Total State Machine.
Despite the strong percussion and electronic elements, I’d be pushing it if I claimed that this awesome song was industrial. But you know what? Janet created this socially-conscious record on her terms, in the face of a record company pressuring her to only sing about love and relationships. Who knows what this could have been, had there not been that pressure at all?
Children, you already know what eating too much candy does to your teeth, but do you know what snorting it does to your brain? It turns you into a fan of Jeffree Star’s music! So stay away from the stuff. It’s lethal. Try snorting peas and carrots instead.
