Apparently, this outfit was too much for “Warren.”
(femme = fight)
Some highlights from dressing Israel at the Tit-wrench benefit party last saturday…
Indigo denim pants, or blue pants as they’re more commonly known, are the epitome of iconographic garments. Historically they have symbolized a sexualized masculine rebellion from the class warfare of 19th century western miners, farmers and ranch hands, to the teenage rebellion of the 50’s embodied by western fashion icon, James Dean. While in popular culture they are seen as symbol of western class struggle, their production has always been classically oppressive (which means in every denim related labor struggle from the 30’s to the 90’s the state’s militia was used to kill union organizers and suppress economic democracy). As well, even the association of indigo denim with the American West is a reflection of American eurocentrism, as it ignores the original origins of the garment, which was with sailors in India, not white capitalists, surprise, surprise.
These days, the message of the indigo denim pants is worse. It has become a symbol of casual homogeneity, American nationalism, and middle class values of simplicity and conformity. Indigo denim has become almost invisible it is so common. Far from being a garment that conveys class consciousness, it has become everything from a businessman’s attempt to be “hip” to $300 pre- worn biking culottes with stickers that warn that the rips present when you buy them will become worse over time though you can “repair as you wish for a more vintage and personal look.”
By using recycled indigo denim as fetish gear and as an outfit for erotic dancing, we at the Free Boutique celebrate the radical sexualization of the working class, while undermining the nascent conformity of indigo denim as the benchmark of the status quo.
Wow… I just read the saddest article in this week’s New Yorker about the exhumation of the mass grave in Spain where Federico García-Lorca was killed. I never knew very much about Lorca before this article… For those that are unacquainted: he is considered the greatest Spanish poet, was a prolific playwright, as well, and was one of a very few people at that time to live openly as a gay man. I guess I had no idea how brutal the fascists were in Spain, but along with the hundreds of thousands of people they outright murdered, there were as many, if not more, people put into concentration camps – not to mention the dark fact that many of those who escaped to France were by and large picked up by the gestapo and put into German concentration camps. The site where Lorca was murdered by the fascists, and where his body lies still, remains, at this point, completely unmarked, and though there have been several plaques put out, each has been removed or destroyed.
Lorca was such a beautiful person, here’s a quote and a poem for you to remember him by:
“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.”
Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.
If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,
never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.
Here are some of the mansy looks from last week’s MAKE TOTAL DESTROY runway show at the Blastomat that I helped put together… yes that’s a tie of safety pins on Jordan’s shirt!
Speaking of fashionable o.g. anarchists, I recently ran across these pics of Ba Jin. I particularly like this first pic, it’s a little blurry, but I think that’s a white trench over a white button-up, and of course, the round glasses are a classic. As you perhaps have noticed, I’ve been wearing my round glasses as of late; I wore them in junior high and decided to bring them back after finding them last week during spring cleaning. Since I’ve started wearing them again, I’ve discovered that there are a lot more fashion critics in the world than you might have thought… harry potter, a hunky, young orville redenbacher, harry potter circa germany ‘32, gandhi, and harry potter on his way to a carnival are some of the imaginative fashion comparisons I’ve received thus far. What I’m really going for, in case you budding sartorial critics are curious, is definitely something more in the way of Ba Jin in this top photo…
Anyway, Ba Jin was an amazing fellow. He was a participant in the May 4th Movement, is considered one of the greatest Chinese language writers for his Torrents trilogy, and was a survivor of torture and persecution by Maoists because of his anarchist affiliation. The only book of his I’ve been able to find in English is Family, but it is absolutely incredible. What I love about this book is the way he writes about the effect of the family on anarchism, and how politics are often derived from the personal experiences that we go through and the personal relationships that we form. I think that when we anarchists discuss the family, we tend to dismiss it as the most fundamental building block of the state, and in particular the homophobic mechanisms of the state, which I agree with. Because of legislation on the meaning of family, and zoning laws that only allow for a particular number of “family” members to live together, the state has decided what is and what is not a family, and most of the time that’s based on an erroneous concept of what is “natural” — the patriarchal nuclear family and the definition of family as relating to biology explicitly. But, when theorists dismiss the family outright it tends to leave radicals to fend for themselves in dealing with the complex interactions of familial love versus radical independence.
Clearly situations arise when dealing with family, when you ought to cut your losses, before wasting a lifetime feeling oppressed and unable to live your own life. But in many other situations, family can offer a support network that helps us learn a great deal about ourselves and helps to deepen our politics. Especially given the fact that family, contrary to the state’s definition, isn’t based on biology, but rather on the bonds that are created and reinforced through our formative experiences as we grow older, and thus our idea of family may extend out to include or completely rely on other members of our community. These formative experiences can happen anywhere, but only in a community that’s inclusive of a wide variety of ages, because as social beings we need those reflections of ourselves as youngsters and oldies to feel whole. The problem is that these experiences almost never happen in the “i’m gonna live forever” 18-to-25 year old anarchist culture. That type of youth culture will always end up feeling hollow and fleeting, because at the end of the day, we need those deeper community bonds, otherwise we will end up ‘growing out of it’ eventually.
Which is why a book like Family is so important. If we aren’t thinking about families and understanding them through the lens of anarchism, then every graduation, birthday, holiday or what-have-you will be weirdly guilty from an anarchist perspective; which they needn’t be at all, given that these can all be community building experiences that offer potential for radical growth. Aside from my experiences with anarchist youth culture, I feel like I personally became an anarchist through the influence of my family, especially my mom, who has always worked to create a family based on community rather than biology. She has always been both a diligent neighborhood organizer and a radical therapist for me, my dad and sister, our extended relatives, her best friend and her best friend’s kids and anyone else who fell into her spider’s web of motherly love! Growing up in this environment has taught me everything I know about community organizing and feminism, and I’m proud to be her sunny son!
Yay! Ba Jin! And happy birthday mom!
Excerpt from Emma Goldman’s Living My Life:
He arrived in the afternoon, an exotic, picturesque figure with a large black cowboy hat, flowing silk tie, and huge cane. “So this is the little lady, Emma Goldman,” he greeted me; “I have always wanted to know you.” His voice was deep, soft, and ingratiating. I replied that I also wanted to meet the curiosity who believed enough in free speech to help Emma Goldman. My visitor was a tall man with a finely shaped head, covered with a mass of black curly hair, which evidently had not been washed for some time. His eyes were brown, large, and dreamy. His lips, disclosing beautiful teeth when he smiled, were full and passionate. He looked a handsome brute. His hands, narrow and white, exerted a peculiar fascination. His finger-nails, like his hair, seemed to be on strike against soap and brush. I could not take my eyes off his hands. A strange charm seemed to emanate from them, caressing and stirring…
These o.g. anarchists sort of depress me, now take this fellow: here’s a mansy that besides being a snappy dresser was * l i t e r a l l y * a hobo doctor (wtf!), went around curing prostitutes of the clap, wrote Boxcar Betty, helped start the Dil Pickle Club (anarchist cabaret in Chicago), traveled around the country as an anarchist agitator at times being tarred and feathered, and was Emma Goldman’s lover to boot, and that’s a very short list. Really? It’s too much. I can’t stand reading Living My Life for that exact reason, every page is a plethora of unbelievable actions in the face of intense violence from the state, lynch mobs etc etc. It really puts things into perspective I have to say! But it was definitely a different time. I guess that the reason anarchy was so hot in the late 1800’s to 1930’s was that people hadn’t become so accustomed to the nation and advanced capitalism, it was such a new idea in those days that people at the very start saw it for what it was, a system bound to fail. I mean, at this point we anarchists have trouble even explaining how alienated we are and how much we’ve lost just in terms of our imagination, having been born in a prison, to quote Yoko. Try to elucidate a more complex anarchist idea, about cultural appropriation, patriarchy, heterosexism, or any other the tools of nationalism and capitalism, and it’s like you’re from another planet. Oh well, the beat goes on. Yay, Ben Reitman!
Since I’ve been so bad about posting lately, I figured I would just share a little list of a few random things I like and let you sort out the rest.
#1: This guy
Now while all in all I think that the fashion from the Somalian pirates has been a little lack luster, I think that this guy is really holding it down in a sort of Grey Gardens meets anarchist super villain way. And in other news, aren’t these guys amazing! Whether or not they are actually fighting to protect their shores from illegal fishing and dumping, they are hitting capitalism where it hurts and, you know, it just warms my heart thinking about them.
#2 Feminist Heist Movies
You may think you know the Boulevardier inside and out, but one thing you probably didn’t know is that he’s a huge heist movie aficionado. One of my projects on the table is to start a heist movie night and for each screening have a demo of an o.g. confidence trick from here or something… we’ll see if that pans out or what. Anyway, heist movies are great, they are the only shiny, big budget, anarchist, feel good genre out there, the only problem is that they are dominated by men, though you can always choose to see them as potential transmen, (or in the case of Ocean’s 11, gay men) as I do. Eitherway, that’s a lot of transmen in the heist movie limelight and it is really refreshing to see a feminist heist movie such as Mad Money out there. It’s just fantastic, get it from the library or whatever but just see it, it’s mahvelous. Another great heist movie I saw is Lies & Alibies, which was with a whole slew of amazing actors and actresses and was hilarious and overall well worth it, though at one point they paint S&M in a pretty bad light, just ignore that.
#3 This Guy and His Accessories
Pitch perfect, pitch perfect. He also runs a lovely column on opera and what not called Trrill which seems a little defunct but check it out nonetheless.
#4 The Aire Fresco
Ingredients: Gin, sparkling water (never tonic!), healthy slice of cucumber and a dash of lime
A light, refreshing, adult, contemporary, spring drink invented by my partner and master chef, Bruiser. The cucumber is everything. It’s very pleasant and spiritually uplifting. The name comes from my Ecuadorian friend Antonio who says this every time he steps outside, each time with his arms out to his side and head tilted back. The drink is an homage to life.
#5 Milwaukee and it’s people
Every time I turn around I hear new amazing things coming out of this city, from the Cream City Collectives to a slew of mahvelous queer zines and now this! C-Con sent me these videos as an example of a feminist bike culture, enjoy!
So I’ve been more than a little obsessed with pushing the limits of appropriate men’s accessories these days. Part of the reason is that I recently saw the movie Color Me Kubrick with John Malkovich (or Ham Malkoham as I call him) and was truly stunned by the fashion choices they made. In the movie Malkovich plays a queer grifter who is drifting through life pretending to be Stanley Kubrick, another grifter! I love it! But as the movie progresses, Malkovich starts wearing stranger and stranger accessories until he’s literally using trash as accessories and with an all in all positive effect! Some of my favorites were a shower cap, eye patch, lots of head scarves worn in variety of ways, a fake LV purse (and referring to it constantly), battery powered fan, butterfly broach, a fifth of vodka, fingerless fishnet gloves, rings that are too small and don’t fully fit on the finger, bright clashing patterned socks, pocket squares, plastic visors, cigarette holders etc etc.
I love the traditional men’s accessories: gloves, hats, ties etc but after a while they do get dull and being willing to throw on some trash really opens up the door to endless possibilities. Personally I think that this approach needs to be done with caution, it’s best to have a solid classic look before throwing a shower cap on your head and in the end, attitude is really what will sell the whole thing. Fashion collective, and juggernaught of recycled-fashion inspiration, Andrea Crews is pretty much the master of trash as accessories, as you can see yourself.
And here are a couple more directions you can take with inappropriate accessorizing, which I pilfered from that land of endless fashion insight known as Style Bubble.
