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i believe i have made a post about this before, but a rude search of both blog archives suggests that its become a casualty of my periodic blog-wiping. (did a lot of that back in jc, oh well) Well basically i was talking, i believe, at the end of j1, about the revival of "vintage", the trend of which, as any girl who shops would know, is still very much alive.

back then i was talking about that elegant era, the roaring 20s-- since (if you remember) everyone was wearing low-waisted tent-like things and claiming they were flapper. my basic (and very fundamental) bone with that trend was not that it was being revived, which was brilliant (i bought many a classic dress then) but that its popular manifestations were so far off from its spirit as to render it grotesque. i didn't expect everyone to be donning a bob and wearing silk everywhere, but i did get very riled up at what was passing for "vintage style" on the streets. i mean, jersey dresses with pearls? ridiculous chiffon nonsense with the waistline of a paikia's pinafore? nAAAAAAAAAda.

i reiterate this frustration once again this season, with the further observance that this kind of thing is not restricted to our little island. case in point-NOW fashion, that professes to hark back to the 60s/ 70s (my fave music period- so all the more i'm sore!) allright, so tights are in. but tights with 3 layers of lace, ruching, and polka-dots? that's just BAD. where are those endearingly trashy bright colours, the charming trippy ease of big t-shirts? instead we have the trapeze dress, an abomination of tailoring, that looks like recycled umbrella fabric decorated with unidentifiable squiggles of embroidery.

also, the "festival dress"/ "maxi-dress, now, the so-called "must-have" of the season, i do like-- honestly, i think its extremely flattering. but i resent that it pretends to be part of the 60s- it might seem charming and rustic next to powersuits, but i don't think that's got anything to do with the folk festival associations they're trying to draw. sure, there will be lots of music festivals in the summer (in the uk at least) but trust me, it isnt quite the same to wear them to an indie music gig to mix around with spotty adolescent emos and screamos with scars on their wrists. commercialization is one thing- the mass-produced clothes of today using different fabrics but the same pattern (coughprimarkcough) really irk me sometimes, when they try to claim some kind of cultural heritage. just call it a "long dress", there's no fault in that-- i don't think the 60s singers would appreciate the bling-ed ostentation and factory farmed fashions that people pretend are "inspired" from them now. i think they were striving for a different inspiration altogether.

but "pretend"? do we even know we're pretending? how many people really know enough about the period to be able to rightfully claim a knowledge of its "bohemian spirit"? i don't think the great singer-activists who "inspired" these trends could have approved. all we're reviving is the shell of a movement, its mere raiments, appropriating the prettiest and most marketable elements and commercializing them. what not enough people understand is, this rings the death knell for the movement. now a whole generation of trend-chasers are going to think that to be "bohemian" all you need is a big gypsy skirt (without understanding why the gypsy skirt was adopted back then) and a wide waist belt. i have mentioned before a woodstock teeshirt in forever21, which people seem to browse through without even blinking.

being preoccupied with history, as i'm not ashamed of admitting, all this fosters an involuntary shudder in me that's beyond just a sartorial cringe. we're appropriating, aren't we? creating imagined traditions and caricaturing a past that is still within living memory. what else, then, are we going to feed our consumer god? seeing as how woodstock is now a commercially run festival, i cannot help but feel that we have entered a nihilistic new era, one devoid of all meaning save capital. nothing is sacred anymore; nothing else is safe from its hungry, oppressive arms.

mellie contemplated 5:25 PM
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i refer you to this website.
i am not wont to knock such things, especially since they're good fun and for good causes, but it has some definite implications that are pretty disturbing, i guess.

the premise for this website is a vocab game: you match words to definitions, and for every correct definition you donate 20 grains (20 grains?! wtf)(and why is the bowl a scrappy wooden one? hello culturally weighted aesthetic) of rice to a poor starving soul somewhere in the world, at the same time expanding your knowledge of weird and wonderful language. (my current highscore is 43) and i would strongly encourage everyone to have a go at this... especially before a gp exam.

but thinking about it on a different level, it is perhaps disturbing that the english language is here a prerequisite for salvation: why should anyone's appetite be determined by the rest of the world's knowledge of a very particular language? to dismiss it as a necessary by-product of globalization and convenience would be missing the point: although a lot of these words incorporate elements of scientific jargon and terminology of other cultures, it is essentially a pigeonholing process that equates salvation with the dominant discourses of worldwide uniformity.

as any student of literature (or any subject, really) who is familiar with the modernists and postmodernists should be constantly conscious of, language is never objective, however wide its franchise in the world. it carries with it strong cultural and political associations-- the implications of which, of course, vary with time and geography-- but it is essentially a tool of power and a means of enforcing hegemony. our (singapore's) own adoption of english as informal lingua franca is evidential of our neocolonial political values; suppressing local dialects and imposing a uniform administrative language is a means of suppressing minorities: it was and continually is a tool of empire. if the british empire itself is not evidence enough, one need only look to contemporary china in which 'standard' chinese blankets regional dialects; and the original 'speak mandarin' movement in singapore. or even refer to eden, where man names the animals: using language to exert his superiority over voiceless Others, defining their qualities by his own standards.

so while donating rice, 20 grains by 20 grains (what a measly amount! why not 1kg by 1kg) we must remember not to get our heads too inflated: by this act we are, indeed, doing an undeniably good deed, but by so doing we are submitting to the precepts of the site, which among them assume the discourses and impetuses of globalization and uniformity to be true, and which, as we have seen in history, often fail when applied to the specifics of different countries' and cultures' situations. we ought not to plough blindly, then, cruising along with these easy narratives of 'doing good'- they are often as commercialised and trendy as the sugar and bananas we buy without inquiring into their exploitative origins. (this awareness in myself newly coming from studying the cultural history of food... awesomest module ever!) in the context of the uni's present one world week (which is extremely reductionist) it is perhaps a good point to pause and reflect on our simplifyings and trend-folllowings: the UN's solutions to hunger and poverty are far from untainted-- its very foundations here in language itself show their contamination.

what perhaps might be a better thought-exercise is to take a etymological approach to this website (and its really fun imo, especially to a nerd like me) and examine the words for their roots. its interesting to keep in mind that english is a mestizo language, and that the roots of words we take for granted really draw from a myriad of other languages and cultures, which, with our mangled appropriations we are now attempting to bulldoze.

mellie contemplated 10:00 PM
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birds are singing at 1am; its a horrible trait of modernity that they, too, have to get up early to beat the morning traffic.

i am writing while waiting for nigel to come online; having given up trying to finish middlemarch tonight. i am struck and staggered by the sheer affirmative power of this book, which i think ought to be compulsory reading for all humanity-- instead of the trite sentimentality that pretends towards redemptive philosophies on life-- such as 'Tuesdays with Morrie,' which is really, i have no words for the pathethic-ness of that book. (which i have read, by the way, so i have full right to knock it.)

the sense of a grandeur within human nature that infuses every one of us, the affirmation that every action is understandable, every individual forgivable and pitiable-- it is a remarkable rallying-cry for kindness and warmth that is sorely needed, especially today. we don't need canned tripe or simplistic and childish 'love conquers all' nonsense-- here is a considered and realistic view of optimism, which does not simply affirm or tout pretty ideals but posits a thoroughly valid philosophy for making the world better; and which takes as its first assumption the fact that the world is far from perfect, that it is really imperfectible, and that human contact is frustratingly difficult to establish. it calls for a more thoroughly emphatic view to be held towards all people-- even the most perceptibly odious and contemptible have their private griefs, their personal tragedies, uneasy truces with conscience- that we all do share. and while in this humanistic world all people get their just desserts, they are not unmitigated by that forgiveness and human companionship which is the only quality by which redemption can come.

so then the most lowly peasant can grope his way to salvation: not through any egotistic 'self-improvement' or through any grand narratives or political ideals-- but rather through his most basic instinct for fellow-feeling, which although by nature approximate is the best approximation to action and the most exalted of all feelings.

and in this age of increasing isolation and loneliness it is perhaps apt that we look to these sages once again: if i would i could buy everyone i knew a copy of this book-- this, if any book may be rated as such, has the real, earthy, life-changing power that we perhaps have need of in this world.

mellie contemplated 9:35 AM
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i'd almost forgotten how his handwriting looked like; that first initiation to character-- on my part, at least, for whom the work of hands has always been important. so to see it again-- torn paper; too tired to read- was a jolt of sorts.

-----

there once was a love and then it turned into something else. this is the story of many and any; the essence of which is detritus. to use a cheap metaphor: fire burns and leaves behind ashes: nothing can happen without leaving marks of impact; residue.

so some things turn mellow like wine; others veer into vinegar; and yet others are consumed by ever-present decay. it would be so much easier should the human race be infected with collective amnesia: no grudges, then; no lingering longing, no slow fizzle to the death- lifting the curse of histories.

but what, too can be argued for a life of instances?

-----

and looking down on my own distracted notes i acknowledge the fond fact surreptitiously, how mine has become as his- not the same, nor still questing inwardly for some sort of renaissance or reconstruction -- only a feeble yet persistent remembering. so these traces, then. these traces.

mellie contemplated 6:18 PM
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quite a rant;

well i was walking around forever 21 the other day with ben chen and we saw this shirt that had woodstock (the snoopy character) perched on one end of a guitar, and a slogan saying 'peace, love and woodstock'. we both kind of sniggered at the irony and then bantered a bit about taking a poll to see how many people who picked up the shirt understood the reference, and how many understood the irony implicit in commercializing woodstock. (it's like having a tight trendy tee made in china by child labour, marked up by a large company with good branding, that says 'i support the hippies!' on large print. Goes well with skinny jeans.)

i think we're losing something here.
it seems to me that modern culture is referencing previous movements, whether philosophical, political, cultural, artistic or whatever-- without fully understanding their meanings, and passing them on mangled to the next um, time frame? The thing is that these concepts and works have all been fabricated with an intention; a sort of essence. there is a myriad of possible interpretations, all valid, but there are also wrong interpretations. Reading the Holocaust, for example, you can suggest millions of interpretations of the motivations of various actors and victims; you can draw morals or inspiration; you can condemn or forgive; but you can never say that it didn't happen-- as David Irving has tried.

to apply this to commercialism-- case in point: van gogh. while i think he deserves the posthumous recognition for his talent, and perhaps adopt an image as a badge of your misunderstood depth of emotion and personal pain/depression/ insert mental disease crutch here. because in van gogh there is always a sense of frustration-- he is the stereotypical starving artist, painting by compulsion to express something intense and internal in an impatient sweep on the canvas. Snap summary truncated here
well so imagine my horror when i find 'starry starry night' used in an ad for skin serums. Sure its a painting of a night sky, but its extremely dynamic, if not turbulent. there is an incredible sense of motion thorughout the painting, and the brush strokes are vigorous and far from peaceful or smooth. it's a picture of great immensity and profound beauty and power. But who would want skin like this??? it's like saying HEY COME BUY THIS ITS ACNE IN A BOTTLE! by using van gogh as such, the value of this painting is reduced to little more than just a pretty picture.

beyond the har-har-stupid-plebs value of slimming centres advertising their services with reubens, i think we are dealing with a monumental loss: made all the more so by the fact that we don't even know the value of what we are losing. i'm not arguing for taxi drivers to be able to name and date every single movement or historical event, but i'd certainly like a greater selfconsciousness and awareness. so think of me and my more-informed-than-than-thou condemnation the next time you shop 'vintage'.

mellie contemplated 2:51 AM
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IM HOOOOMEEEEEEEEEE

mellie contemplated 5:30 AM
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if anyone was wondering; yes! im still alive, and going for life drawing every week. :) im improving!

also, i am going to be home on 9 dec, and im absolutely DYING to go to the beach.. you know the drill, i'll have my old number back again; etc. so contact me and we'll go out to lazy around somewhere/shopping/thrifting/ bookhunting/ etc.

mellie contemplated 6:36 PM
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