MARRY THE NIGHT

Marry The Night from Born This Way - Lady Gaga 2011

ha ha ha. But no.

I'd LOVE to know what he'd just been asked.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be such a bitch BUT sometimes the shenanningans on FB are JUST TOO MUCH. Don't we all have an aquaintance who posts albums full of photos of themselves purely to garner a flurry of comments from their sychophants – er, friends – oh Agatha you're so cool and sexy and I wish I was like you etc etc and Agatha herself is *totally* into it, saying things like, yes, I totally agree I should have been born in a different time frame, my beauty is just so classic and doesn't fit in with the Gossip Girl mode….oh please, someone tell that girl/guy to shut up. I'm probably just jealous.

TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural

As a natural heir to the hit television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Supernatural” has risen to prominence with a strong cult following, and this series of essays from contributors around the globe investigates the genre-bending series’ cultural footprint both in the United States and abroad. The writings explore topics such as folklore, religion, gender and sexuality, comedy, music, and much more, and a brief guide to all the episodes is also included. “Supernatural” follows brothers Dean and Sam Winchester as they encounter and battle evil beings such as vampires, shapeshifters, ghouls, and ghosts from a multitude of genres including folklore, urban legends, and religious history.

via TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural. From Fishpond.com.au

 

How excited does this make me? It makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall for not noticing the time-frame in which you could enter essays! Guess I’m going to have to write my own goddamm book . Also, who want to be in a band with me called TV Goes To Hell – I need A) a drummer B) a lead guitarist and C) either a rhythm guitarist or a bass player, I ‘ll do whichever you don’t want. Imma also do keyboards and anyone can do as much or as little vocals as they want. Aight.

HEROINE ADDICT IV

Edge Of The Moon from Night Of Hunters, 2011

I don’t really listen to classical music – okay, that’s a lie, I never listen to classical music, I just sometimes accidentally hear it. So in trying to get my head around Tori Amos’ new album, Night Of Hunters, I listened to the corresponding pieces that the NOH songs are ‘variations’ on. It’s something I would only do once,out of curiousity (which makes me sound like someone about to develop a devastating ice habit.) I can’t really deny that I understand rock more than anything else – although I do have a soft spot for some musical theatre which is an inevitable result of attending drama school. All I really discovered from this was that I can’t write with any great clarity about the album, because as strange as it sounds, it really does seem to be something you have to experience as a whole. (“Song Cycle” is the technical term, which makes me think of washing mahines.) To describe any one song would be a little like reviewing Star Wars but only the Cantina scene. I don’t think I will drink it up the way I did American Doll Posse, even though it’s kind of that albums elegant, British older sister. But I am still utterly enamoured of Tori. I can’t think of a musician who is less concerned with being cool. And who has put out a rock epic, a MOR album, a Xmas album ALL THE WHILE touring and then a double concept album based on 19th century classical music and Irish mythology – in the space of four years. Even if you can’t stand a single one of her songs you’ve got to admire her work ethic.

HEROINE ADDICT III

"Bullet With Butterfly Wings" from the Smashing Pumpkins album, 'Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness", 1995. lyrics Billy Corgan©

What can I say about the amazing Ms Buffy Summers that hasn’t already been said? Her creator, Joss Whedon,  purposely set out to make an icon, a heroine, a superhero who could hold her own alongside Superman and Wonder Woman; “Barbie with a Kung Fu Grip.” To say he succeeded is like saying the Pope follows some Catholic practices. But unlike so many of her (mostly male) predecessors, Buffy also had to cope with the horrors of the real world, and not just the hell dimensions that were constantly leaking or leaping out of the conveniently-located Sunnydale Hellmouth. And it wasn’t always easy – she was betrayed, tortured, lied to…forced to make choices a more average female character wouldn’t have to make. Hell, she even died (twice) – saving the world – something she did, a lot. She’s an archetypal Aries too (like Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played her for seven years) in that she’s a warrior first and a thinker second. But when it comes to blood, love and loyalty, Buffy’s side is the one you want to be on. (But don’t be too lovable – Whedon will kill you off in an undead heartbeat.)

HEROINE CHIC II

So I had decided my zine was going to based on eight women who I admire and respect – eight heroines. They didn’t have to be real, or living, or even human. But so far they have been. So – at the  heights of the sixties, who gets to enchant, seduce and marry the smartest, most talented (and best-looking) Beatle?

Konichiwa, Ms Yoko Ono!

Yoko Ono in 2006

What is there not to love about this woman? Like Vivienne Westwood, she also came from a poor background, and you have to remember World World II was part of that childhood. She’s gone beyond the stereotype of the bohmemian artist to it’s avatar, it’s archetype. Remember in the Simpsons when her (very thinly veiled) counterpart ask for ‘a single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man’s hat’? I’m sure most people, myself included, are more aware of the ‘performance art’ and ‘art films’ she was famous than we are to have actually SEEN them. I have one CD where a load of hipster bands have remixed the vocal part of some of her songs, and it’s amazing.

And even after all the pain she’s been through, (losing her husband to utterly senseless violence the most well-known), she remains passionately, relentlessly, unstoppably in the favour of peace , disarmament, and positivity. Everyone knows that she and Lennon met at one of her exhibitions, specifically at a display where one had to climb a step-ladder and use a magnifying glass to read a tiny word that had been written on the ceiling. <insert scouse accent here> “I thought, this is going to say ‘no’ or ‘fuck off’ or something smartarse’ (and I’m paraphrasing here) “but when I looked, I saw it was just one word [one of the most beautiful words in the English language, surely]…”Yes.” That was all; just ‘yes’. Thus a great 20th century love story was born; but there’s much more to Yoko than being Mrs Lennon. Public opinion was racist, sexist and ageist in ways we can hardly imagine now (“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey” wasn’t symbolic; a newspaper actually referred to Oko as Lennon’s capering simian pet.) Against those odds, she’s still making art, still a loving mother, still putting her name to peaceful causes for the sake of humanity. And my personal favourite – she has a pair of lungs that rival the volume and breadth of Kurt Cobain and Kate Bush put together. Thus she is famous for making the most intriguing and unlikely noises and singing sounds that the roman alphabet cannot do justice. Ai-yi-yii -yi- Yarrrrgh!
Yoko Ono performing at MoMa, 2010

And if that’s too avant-garde, just skip to the coda of girlrock legends L7 song, “Wargasm”.

L7 \”Wargasm\” – listen at 1:27 to 1:40 and the last few seconds.

See what I mean?

See what I mean?

LJ MEME – BEST TV VILLIAN

Mark Sheppard as Crowley in Supernatural

Mark Sheppard is brilliant in everything I’ve seen him do, but as Crowley, the usurping king of hell, he has an awesome Brit-stereotype camp to his demon. You know he wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing anything to save himself, but he’d do it without getting his hands dirty. At the very most, he’ll straighten his tie after decapitating an adversary. He comes across as totally omnisexual but you suspect he secretly could never love anyone more than he loves himself. (But if flirting with a man will make said man uncomfortable, he’s more than happy to do it.) And his rebooted version of hell – the eternal queue – is perfect. I just hope we haven’t seen the last of him.

Ink-stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors

Ink-stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors by Jennifer K Stuller, I B Tauris, 2010©

Are you a feminist? Are you a genre-TV-and-movie geek? Do you ever ask yourself ‘what would Buffy do’? Then you need to read this book. Stuller concentrates on TV and graphic novels for the most part, and it is /kind/ of depressing that almost every show in this book has been cancelled…and we’re now innundated with gossip girls and pretty little liars who are most spectacularly lame in the superpower department.Still, relive the glory days of Buffy, Xena, Dark Angel et al and hope some new blood is inspired to make women super again.

Fangirl drool

And, yes, I know Dean wouldn’t waste a bullet from the colt on a vampire blah blah.

Eat It, Twilight.

And a real fangirl would remember the name of the episode this pic is from. It might be “Abandon All Hope”, from season 5. I’m just guessing though.

HEROINE ADDICT

I think I finally have a grip on what to write a zine about. Eight women who inspire me? I don’t know why I picked eight – it’s just seemed like the right number. So far, I have been thinking;

Vivienne Westwood

A seventy-year old royal, both punk and real – she’s a Dame, who once greeted the Queen wearing no knickers, came from a working-class background to influence English counter-culture and make Brittania cool. She also has a remarkably similar horoscope to me: Sun and Venus in Aries, Mercury in Pisces, and Mars in Aquarius! Tres bizarre. Her Saggitarius rising makes sense, as she is definetly a philosopher and something of a diletantte – being a fashion designer and simultaneously dismissing consumerism; “I don’t feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you’ve got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don’t buy too much.” Her moon in Leo makes sense too – even from her punk days, right through to the Victorian Empire-vibe corsetry and crowns motifs. But most of all I admire her for staying true to her vision of glamour and totally disgregarding the mainstream paradigms of what an older woman should look like. God save Vivienne!