17.05.12
This behind the scenes video of Courtney Love making art is probably better than the art itself. She’s painting in a tiara headband, of course. The exhibition, And She’s Not Even Pretty, starts on May 3rd at the Fred Torres Collaborations gallery in NYC.
After the first episode of HBO’s Girls, my boyfriend said that he wasn’t very into it. Fair enough, dude. It’s no surprise that a show called Girls is overly female centric. I recorded our conversation after we watched the 2nd episode to share with you his (and mine, I interrupt all the time) thoughts on Lena Dunham’s new show.
On subject matter
girl: What do you think of Girls?
boy: I think it’s great that there’s a show that’s talking about abortion and STDs from a female perspective–
girl: –or at all.
boy: –but at the same time, the women you know or you talk to, you’ve been talking about these kind of issues for a long time so it’s almost more like, wow, television is so behind the times with telling women’s stories. I’m not trying to sound like some crazy feminist guy here or something but none of this stuff is revolutionary, topically, but on TV we rarely see these types of stories.
girl: I think it marks a progression of societal acceptance of these topics because, yes, many women I know talk openly about abortion and STDs but that’s not always the case. With some of my friend’s it’s open and with some friend’s it’s not. It’s really shrouded in shame and it’s very personal and I guarantee you that I have friends who’ve had abortions that I don’t know about and they will likely never say anything about it. I think this stuff is revolutionary for, maybe, most women. I’m the token demographic for “Girls” because I am one of these women who would be part of an “abortion party.” Even then, I’m probably not as open as I think I am.
boy: Well maybe the type of women I know, you being the primary one, talk about these things in a blunt manner.
On catharsis
girl: Ok, so then is Girls just preaching to the choir? This show becomes part of my self-absorption because Girls is just validating exactly who I am. There’s not much that I’m being enlightened by. Do you know what I mean?
boy: What do you enjoy about the show?
girl: I’m simply validated by not being alone. A lot of the situations I can relate to and not just the situation, but the reactions to the situation. In the job interview, when Hana makes the date rape joke and it goes over terribly, I totally understood how the character would feel. To see her make a verbal mistake was cathartic for me. This show is cathartic. Do you find it cathartic?
boy: Only in the sense that people in their early to mid 20s, in this economy, are figuring out what to do–especially if you came from a creative background. Their personal lives, that’s not cathartic for me at all, but in the sense that they’re trying to make their way in the world and it’s a shitty job climate it is.
On male characters
girl: What do you think about the guys in “Girls”? There are no cool dudes so far. Even that guy who came into the bar to use the phone. I thought calling his mom in front of her was a slick move (whether it was a move or not) but then when they’re hooking up in the bathroom he’s asking her permission when she’s obviously all over him and I was like, this dude doesn’t know what’s up either. All three of the guys so far suck.
boy: The guys on the show are very weak characters–
girl: They’re like Seinfeld girlfriends.
boy: Yeah, exactly. They’re there to play a part like the Seinfeld girlfriends and I don’t, we don’t, know that much about them, nor do we have to, but they’re very weak people and certainly not likeable or memorable in any way and in a way it’s very much like typical female characters where they’re just stand-ins for types and they don’t really have any thoughts that you care about.
girl: So far we haven’t seen a man who’s kind or very respectful. Even Allison’s boyfriend…I’m convinced that there’s this respectful thing that isn’t actually respectful.
boy: He’s playing the part of respectful but he’s not really.
girl: There’s not much difference between Hannah and Allison’s boyfriends.One’s a total jerk and one’s super sensitive but the way that they’re both viewing women is self-centred. They’re not treating women like equals.
boy: These are flawed men who are not celebrated the way that other TV alpha males are celebrated, like Don Draper or Tony Soprano.
girl: It’s interesting because Judd Apatow steered things this way before in Bridesmaids. Remember? Jon Hamm’s character is comically dismissive of Kristen Wiig. That makes me think it’s more about the female character who keeps going back to this.
boy: As far as the male character type, I don’t really know any men who’ve been dismissive or disrespectful to that degree. You’d think if the guy wants to keep hooking up he wouldn’t be complete dick because he’d want to get laid the next time.
Final thoughts
girl: After the first episode you told me that you didn’t like the characters and didn’t want to spend time with them. Did that change?
boy: Yeah. That’s why I also said that I would watch the first season because I made a final judgement. The first episode I thought the dialogue was strong and I feel like it’s just getting stronger. There’s also great comedic timing.
girl: It’s intellectual without being overly stylized like Woody Allen or Walt Stillman.
boy: Interestingly, there aren’t many pop culture references which is usually an Apatow thing.
girl: It’s pretty ballsy to do abortion in the second episode. It opened up with a sex scene too. Sex scene teaser? Classic.
boy: Yeah but I think: why wouldn’t you do an abortion for the second episode?
Anastasia Radevich “This Will Destroy You” shoes
Toronto duo, some minor noise, released a demo late February on Bandcamp and it’s good. Stuck-in-your-head good–a rare feat for bedroom electronic artists. There’s something highly addictive about this lo-fi dance genre but many new artists forget that there’s a world beyond their four walls. In its worst manifestation, the music becomes masturbatory. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s some minor noise.
Between Wayne Doe’s production and Jane Void’s vocals, some minor noise strikes a balance between experimental and pop. For some reason, when listening to these tracks, I picture a seedy strip club in outer space.* It’s dark but ethereal at the same time. Exposed but from far away.
*(Feel free to use that for your first video guys! Naked except for oxygen tanks!)
To shed some light on the mysterious duo, I asked them a couple of questions. Check it out below and listen to more of their tracks here.
Which comes first, the beats or the lyrics?
JANE: They’re two separate entities. I’ll be in the midst of a situation or emotion that I want to express, and I’ll call Wayne and say, “I need a track that is sad/mad/hopeless, but that makes you want to dance/cry/break something,” and he’ll be like, “How about this one,” and it’ll just fit. We both have libraries of beats and lyrics floating around and then we mash them together when they seem to make sense.
What’s the inspiration for your lyrics?
JANE: Life. I only write when I’m feeling something strongly and sometimes I’ll pick up on what Wayne’s feeling through his beats, or just how he titles them, and try and put myself in his headspace which eerily seems to work out, so i guess we’re both pretty melancholic and insane. Also, boys or going crazy.
How do you know the song is finished?
JANE: They never seem to be….Well, we have this thing where we don’t try to restrict our creativity too much and we both think that whatever flows naturally is probably going to fit best in the end so we call them ‘our ugly children’. We just think of each song as a kid, that may or may not turn out ugly, or like, good at sports or whatever. Maybe not how you excepted or wanted them to turn out but they’re their own entity, so we let them be what they were born to be.
WAYNE: Also, when you reach that point where you have heard the song a few hundred times and you can’t tell if your edits are productive or destructive, it’s a good idea to walk away before you fuck it all up beyond repair. There will always be a new song to do better on.
What are essentials for recording?
JANE: I record in my closet. On the cheapest condenser mic I could afford. So yeah, you push the clothes aside and there’s a mic stand and a bike light. It’s handy, I can record whenever I feel inspired. For producing, Wayne uses some vintage synthesizer software and lots of effects. That’s pretty much it.
What are you listening to these days?
JANE: Not a whole lot. Mostly our own stuff, actually. I tend to get sucked into my own head when working on music, nothing else can really match how you’re feeling than something you wrote last week. Oh, “Blood of a Young Wolf” by Buck 65 is my theme song, so that at least once a week.
WAYNE: I love SBTRKT, Cults, The Drums and Washed Out. Everything I’ve heard from this French techno producer called Gessafelstein is totally amazing. Charli XCX, Lykke Li and Katy B all have a handful of great songs on their latest releases. And, of course, “Sexy and I Know It” because it was the best TB-303 riff made in the past decade. Gives me a geekgasm everytime.
What can we look forward to in the future from some minor noise?
JANE: We make what we feel, so unless we both spontaneously become happy, well-adjusted individuals that hate technology…probably more electronica with melancholic brain vomit vocals. But who knows, weirder things have happened.
Jess is a writer for hearty magazine. She's been published by Vice, Chatelaine, AsiaLife, and the Phnom Penh Post, among others.
Contact her at jess@heartymagazine.com.
