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.

Hideaki Anno is still best known for Evangelion, but of no less significance is his gorgeous live action film “Ritual”. Unknown to me at the time of viewing, Ritual is based on a novel written by the female lead Ayako Fujitani – Japanese daugher of Steven Segal, and the Director is played by an actual indie director Shunji Iwai. The cinematography is absolutely jaw-dropping, and the plot is wonderful as well. While some of the film’s trailers seem to have marketed it as a horror film, this is not the case at all. Instead, Ritual explores human nuance.

After a chance meeting a jaded filmmaker finds inspiration as he documents a strange girl who dresses up in costumes, paints her face, calls every tomorrow her birthday and lives alone in a huge abandoned warehouse she’s made her world. He communicates with her through his video camera, drawn slowly into her psyche and her fantasy life. Without giving away too much, I propose you stay away from too much research and reviews, and see this film with fresh eyes, as I did.

• Official website [Japanese]
• Hideaki Anno on Wikipedia
• Ritual on Wikipedia

A few more stills and the only decent video-clip I could find, after the jump.

Anastasia by Inez van lamsweerde.

It’s Mask Day at Coilhouse! A personal favorite topic, and research at the moment. As always, you’re welcome to submit your own additions to the theme.

Navajo Mask, originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

And while we’re on the topic of self-transformation – a photo of a Navaho tribesman in a fur and leather mask, taken in 1904 by Edward S. Curtis. The Navaho typically made these masks specifically for dancing – inspiring, especially when one to feels too lazy to dress up, before a club for instance!

Kissmask, originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

From artist Jill Magid’s site: The Kissmask is designed to be worn by two women. The connecting tube isolates the womens’ mouth and nose creating a heated space between them. A microphone sewn into the connecting tube records the conversation, breathing, and kissing that occurs inside. A CD of these recordings is exhibited with the mask.

—

Is the idea of this object to satisfy heterosexual curiosity about the lesbian experience by essentially bottling its essence, or is it there to protect the moment while preserving its memory, perhaps without getting too close? I love the photos themselves – fragile and wistful. And the obstruction is, well, hot.

—

More on this and Jill’s other work here.

What’s Zo Wearing? is syndicated with permission.

Fall! Autumn!! Sort of. While I go to sleep each night wishing to wake up freezing, it hasn’t really hit LA yet. In any case, I’m dressing the part. More black, grays, browns, olive, deep purple and dark cherry tones – all on my radar when selecting dailywear stuffs. I’ve dyed my hair a deeper violet-blue, even.

Of late I’m especially fond of loosely draped items combined with fitted ones, and various combinations thereof. To be honest, half the time I just feel like wearing boots, a sheet of fabric pinned creatively, topping it off with a ridiculously priced jacket and calling it a day. I imagine popular fashion’s retro currents haven’t reached the days of alterna-togas just yet, and you’d all roast me. So here is a facsimile! Just know I’d rather be wearing a sheet.

“Before you know it, some weak-chinned chippy in a stovepipe hat and goggles will turn up on Martha Stewart’s Living to show everyone at home how to hot-glue clock gears onto their toaster oven/tea kettle/labial folds.”

Thus Meredith poignantly described the slow demise of the Steampunk aesthetic in this thread. Pictured above, an eerie and all too real display of how true her words ring, but in an industrial tone [I think?]. Below, the same concept executed well, for contrast.

[makeup: Cynthia Bachman, hair: Michael Hall, photo: glitterguru, model: Allison O]

Hear me, and hear me well – we love you, but the first person to glue cogs/clock arms/vintage keys/etc. to their face gets a raygunnin’ straight to HELL.

I work as a photography coordinator and photographer at suicidegirls.com. The fashion merecenaries among you might know I have a mostly-weekly fashion feature there called What’s Zo Wearing? [so named by a former lead editor]. I say “feature” instead of “column” because the amount of writing I do varies week to week. Occasionally I get verbose, but, more often WZW is a collection of outfit photos and tips on where to get these or similar items.

There are some hits and there certainly are some unfortunate moments, especially in retrospect of over a year, but hopefully there is something for all to dig. Coilhouse will be syndicating What’s Zo Wearing? every Sunday, 2 am Pacific.

To give you an idea of what to fear each Sunday I’ve included some of my favorite outfits behind the jump, and a few more in our Flickr stream.

An illustration from a 1974 Penthouse for the first paragraph of Crash by J.G. Ballard. If you’re somewhat depraved and not familiar with Crash, or have only seen the [excellent] Cronenberg film based on the book, I suggest you look into it.

Over the profiles of her body now poised the metallized excitements of our shared dreams of technology.

Of note:

• The Covers of Crash on Ballardian.com
• J.G. Ballard news, links, etc

???????? ??????, stuff originally uploaded by Coilhouse.

These images are from The Stone Flower, illness as directed in 1964 by legendary Alexander Ptushko, troche whose work deserves its own entry here. This is one of the many somewhat macabre folk-tales that kept me up at night long ago.

You can read it here along with tons of other such writing. An impressive English-language collection, somewhat awkward translation moments but convenient, nonetheless.