Three

This is a three parter because I have various unrelated things to say, but none of it merits an individual post (which is to say, I felt like writing them all at once).

Maggie Alderson makes me want to poke myself in the eye

I find disliking Maggie Alderson a sad state of affairs. Once upon a time I had a smidgen of respect for her, particularly for her fashion analysis related articles I would come across in various mags. I even purchased one of her books. She was a bearable part of my reading life. Now, when I occasionally think “oh, her column can’t be as awful as I think, let’s give it a whirl this week”, it results in me pulling my hair and berating myself for getting sucked in once again. I find her writing unbearable. The topics she chooses, her tone, her opinions in general keep me scratching my head at the fact that a seemingly intelligent, successful woman who I once thought worth reading on a weekly basis can continually produce such drivel.

For instance, who the fuck devotes an entire column to the evils of hand soap??? WHO? I just don’t understand. I can understand the concept of disliking hand soap, but I completely cannot understand how such dislike could turn into this thought process: “I hate hand soap, what a great idea is that for a column? I should devote 700 words to how much I think hand soap is evil”. What’s worst about the fact that she actually went through with writing the column, is that 1) that her statements about hand soap are scientifically incorrect, and 2) that she couches some of her apparent anger at the existence of hand soap in terms of faux environmental concern.

She writes some bullshit about how incredibly drying and bad for the skin that sodium laureth sulfate is (one of the main components of liquid soap). Firstly she’s getting confused between sodium lauryl sulfate (which is a known skin irritant) and laureth sulfate, which is used in even the most expensive facial cleansers because it is a gentle (and effective) cleanser. Secondly, she states hilariously stupid things like this:

[Liquid Soap] is not soap. It’s washing-up liquid made a bit more slithery and its major ingredient is that nasty sodium laureth sulphate that is so extraordinarily drying to human skin. That’s why they call it “handwash” – they can’t legally call it soap.

Hey fucktard, they can’t legally call it soap, cos yes, you genius, it isn’t fucking soap! Soap by the way, IS proven to be more drying and irritating to skin than liquid soap, which is also why you’ll often notice that baby bathing products state things like “contains no soap” and generally uses sodium laureth sulfate as a cleansing substitute.

It’s not even that she’s so blatantly wrong (on this occassion) about what’s she’s writing that I find so irritating. It’s the overall tone of the piece. At one point, she states her AMAZEMENT that a “stylish” friend of hers didn’t have a single bar of soap in her home (what did she do, become so amazed that she couldn’t see a bar of soap, she had to scour the cupboards and any related handwashing/showering/bathing stations?) . Wow… how, AMAZING. The environmental concern is also fucking annoying:

Now that raises two issues that I have big problems with. Issue one: plastic is made originally from oil and this is a bloody waste of it. Issue two: what happens to all the empty plastic bottles? They go to landfill, or at very best they get recycled, a process that involves further expenditure of energy.

Look, I’m really glad she is helping to educate the world on the how plastic is produced (and disposed) one column at a time, but is it too much to ask that such an exercise wasn’t a throw away couple of paragraphs in a greater column about liquid soap? It’s like reading a bad parody of a completely out of touch, hypocritical society matron, whose understanding of her philanthropic overtures are situated only in terms of her own privileged (and limited) experiences of hardship.

Honestly, who gets upset about liquid soap????? People who have nothing better to get upset about, that’s who. I couldn’t care less if she spent all her time writing about only the most frivolous things, I have absolutely no issue with such an endeavour- I do however take umbrage over an attempt to make these frivolous, unimportant things seem more important than they really are. I once read an article in which Alderson wrote about how she thought toilet roll holders were ugly. That within itself wouldn’t annoy me- I mean, yes they’re functional (how dare they?!), but I’ll admit they’re hardly aesthetically pleasing. I just disliked the fact that her tone implied that it was some kind of sin to have given in to toilet roll holders. It’s the tone people, the AMAZEMENT tone.

I understand that columns are generally very solipsistic. Columnists are supposed to refer to their own life experiences and opinions, and by since by nature, the pieces have to be short and sweet, they’re often frivolous in both content and tone- I understand. I just have never cared so little about a columnist’s life than Alderson’s, because somehow she has systematically made her life seem unrelatable, when really her life is no different from anyone else’s. Again, TONE. And sadly, I’ve just done an ‘Alderson’ by devoting this third of the my post to her. Sigh.

To be fair I braved reading her column this week, just for this post (see I what I endure for my blog?), and it was not as awful as the liquid soap column. Still fucking annoying, for various different reasons, but not as bad overall. See, I can be balanced and objective…

Momentary Musical Detour:

I’ve been listening to heaps of music dominated by a lot of drum and bass lately. But curiously, not actually Drum n’ Bass. I honestly don’t even know what that category denotes; ‘post rock’ is a more comprehensible music genre to me. If someone could explain it, I’d be grateful.

Anyhow, I’ve also been listening to a lot of Joy Division in the last couple of months, and I have to say, I finally sort of understand the Interpol connection now. In the past I found the analogy rather specious, particularly as it seems rather redundant to say that something sounds like something else. I always want to say, ’so what’? Music, like anything else, indeed like any other art form, relies upon a set of founding principles that are impossible to avoid no matter how avant garde or strange one is attempting to be.

Not only are there only so many notes and chords one can play, but there are only a finite number of ways for those chords (or note groupings) to be put together so that the effect is melodic and not dissonant. Plus, you start to realise that there are only a small number of ways to ‘close’ a chord progression (i.e. a song), or to ‘open’ a song into an area outside of the main 3 chords. These are the rules you’re taught when you’re learning music composition. Chuck in music genre and style, and you’ve further narrowed the possible musical outcomes of a particular band. I’m sorry, but isn’t it obvious that it’s highly likely you’re going to sound like someone else- so I still say: who gives a fuck? I also apologise if I’m talking out of my arse- my attempts at writing music (practicing for music theory exams) are limited, and my compositions were always extremely unimaginative… so what would I know?

However, back to Joy Division-Interpol: while I have come to sort of hear the similarities (and I still really don’t care), the more I listen to the two of them, the more intrigued I become over the differences in affective experiences I was have. I’ve never been particularly passionate about Interpol, but I’ve always like them. They are to my ears, pleasant to listen to, sometimes nostalgic, but mostly a ‘fun’ aural experience. In comparison, Joy Division, even at their most palatable, often irritate the hell out me. Which is not to say that I don’t love them, because I do (love them), but rather that listening to them sometimes makes me feel intensely uncomfortable. Familiarity over the years have done absolutely nothing to appease this reaction of simultaneous joy and irritation. Haha, ‘joy, division’? (that was unintentional, I promise).

So: yes, I can hear that occasionally Interpol wade heavily into the Joy Division pool, BUT, as bands they inhabit completely different spaces for me. Joy Division’s music is, if I had to categorize it, not so much depressing as unrelenting. However, Ian Curtis does every so often give you small moments and/or aspects of relief- and THAT is the space that I think Interpol inhabits. Interpol makes entire songs of relief: music that is couched in apparent monotone and darkness, which they elevate into pleasurable, near joyous experiences. Joy Division doesn’t let you escape as easily as that.

I’ve put ‘the box’ back up with a few Joy Division songs (Decades in particular I think gets as close to demonstrating Interpol’s aural similarity as you’re gonna get) and Interpol songs for you to make up your own mind. However I think it’s impossible to forget how separate they are as musical entities: both ‘valid’, ‘authentic’ music acts that deserve that their own spaces, especially insofar as ‘authenticity’ is a bullshit musical statement.

Riding the Crimson Wave

A couple of days ago I was very distinctly in the clutches of ‘that-time-of-the-month’ness, leading me to cry uncontrollably after watching a clip of women talking about how much they love their women friends, and in particular after watching one woman’s despair over losing her BFF. A sickening excerpt of the post I subsequently began to write:

I think the bottom line is that they’re so obviously outside the categories of ‘difference’, completely unconcerned with either conforming or being different from the ‘norm’. That is to say, they’re two people who understand innately what it is be themselves. I, and most people I encounter, betray who they are through more determined choices about who they want/don’t want to be/portray rather than an unqualified, unmuddied presentation of self.

Or perhaps I’m one of the few people who can see these qualities because I’ve been privileged this view of them because of our friendship? And now that I’ve written that, I guess I’d admit there are only a handful of people with whom I’m simply myself. Ugh, cliches galore today. Go away, it’s that time of the month. I honestly wrote this entire post cos I saw some stupid clips about best friends dying and it made me cry in that disgusting body heaving, snot flowing kind of way, and made me write this soppy shit. Get me a tissue already.

Ugh, it’s enough to make you puke… except, thinking about it still makes me a smidgen sad- especially because I essentially (and unintentionally) stood up two friends yesterday, hmmm- I should really call them, AND also because I haven’t seen anyone for a week. Most importantly let me say this to loved ones: DON’T YOU DARE DIE YOU ARSEHOLES, LEAVING ME BEHIND TO BE SAD AND DEVASTED.

Oh, and if you really needed proof of my menstrually influenced mood swings, I was also crying over nappy ads, running out of paw paw ointment, and a clip of some stupid show someone sent me about people wanting to become soap stars. I honestly spent ten minutes wiping my eyes after watching them enact a typical soap death scene with some of the worst acting I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch. They even included a special effect of the dead guy rising up from his ‘dead’ body, ending up standing next to the bed as a ghostly visage, and having the ’son’/'daughter’ walk through the effect and pretend to shiver. It was hilarious, and it made me bawl.
Finally, so we can end this on a happy note I continue to stare at Prada songs longingly. I don’t even need to own them, I just want to look at them. I will never get sick of this, look how beautiful they are (oh, and paired with these shoes, *swoon*):