Narcissa

A follow-up from last week’s post where I shared some images from a European publication that was “celebrating” the idea of being a bad mother. You can take it any way you want, I mean part of this shoot is rather funny and then there’s part of it that is slightly disturbing. Still, I like it when art dares, even if the art in question is French Vogue’s twisted approach to the outdated model of Leave It To Beaver-style parenting. Not everyone that has kids sees it as an experience of growth, there are many who see it in a narcissistic way where the child is simply an extension of themselves and is there to bow to their needs–not the other way around. The novel White Oleander is probably the best example of this, the relationship between mother and daughter is about control and manipulation. At one point, Ingrid–the narcissistic mother in question–gives a powerful and brutally honest monolgue about how unpreared she was for motherhood and why she dumped her daughter at a stranger’s house for a year. Her shocked daughter, Astrid,  listens in agony but also relief as she can finally learn the vulnerabilies of the woman who had dominated her for so long.

Ingrid: Imagine my life, for a moment. How unprepared I was to be the mother of a small child. I was used to having time to think, and you just wanted, wanted, wanted. I felt like a hostage. Can you understand how desperate I was? I dropped you off at her house one afternoon to go to the beach with some friends, and one thing led to another… they had a place in Ensenada. It was wonderful. You can’t imagine. To take a nap in the afternoon, to make love all day if I wanted and not have to think, “What’s Astrid doing? Where’s Astrid?” Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Clinging to me like a spider. At the end of it, at the end, I just wanted to throw you against a wall.

The shoot above is probably a version of someone’s life, probably some wealthy young woman who still acts like a child because she can. Still, even the non-wealthy can blow smoke rings in their baby’s face–see the performance of Mo’Nique as Mary Jones in Precious for evidence of negligence at the poverty level. The photos above are just another reaction to where we are going as a culture, the world is no longer innocent and therefore family values have become passé and well…odd. We want to see grit and irony; we want to see a young, glamorous mother reveling in her own narcissism. As for the fathers, well, sexism is also still alive and well–this hasn’t changed or evolved since the days of the white picket fence fantasy. The paternal role has remained unchanged and continues to be excused much easier.

Photos: Jezebel

Secrets Of The Flesh

We are supposed to be the children of Seth, but Seth is too much of an effete nonentity to deserve ancestral regard. No, we are the sons of Cain, and with violence can be associated the attacks on sound, stone, wood and metal that produced civilization.

–Anthony Burgess

© Lydia Panas, The Mark of Abel

Take A Picture

David Bush–a second year student in the Yale MFA program for photography–captured this image for a project he is doing called “Pictures.” The photo above spoke to me because it’s both moving and tragic, proving that old age really is hell. There we will all sit, passed out with a TV tray, surrounded by reminders of what we once were.

This is life’s ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay.

© David Bush

Haiti

I’m dedicating this post to the people of Haiti and the current devastation they are having to survive. On CNN, there is footage of children in tents writhing in pain from broken bones and internal hemorrhaging–they will die of infection and it’s not fair. It could take fifty to a hundred years before Haiti gets back on track, if it ever was on any kind of track to begin with, and it’s not fair.

I always try to remember that where I am is such a small part of the world out there and forgetting our neighbors would be unwise in times like this. Seeing the outpouring of support has been truly amazing and as I wrote about with the Iran elections–the world has a way of coming together in times of injustice and disaster, it’s a great human bond that has been around since the days of hunters and gatherers. Here’s to the future and may the sun shine just a little bit brighter in Haiti tomorrow, and the next day and the next…

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Vanity Fair

The socio-economic divide, celebrated in a past issue of Vogue Italia and shot by Miles Aldridge. Not only does this shoot inject not-so-subtle hints of Gone With The Wind-style racism, but it also celebrates being a bad mother and this seems to be something that is becoming rather fashionable lately in the edgier, European publications. In a way, it’s a pleasure to see an editorial breakdown that being a parent can be hell sometimes, but the woman in this story seems too self-invovled to have even had a child and also most average people cannot afford the couture and servants to make the experience easier.

I feel like this is a bit of a Mad Men effect as well, the lead female on that show–Betty Draper–is basically the mother your seeing in these pictures and she also happens to be a fascinating character study of the time. She’s a young mother who passes her children off to her black maid and spends most of her time in a glamorous stupor of martinis, cigarettes and Grace Kelly perfection. Her children rarely talk back to her and seem to have a real respect and fear of her power, even though she is one of the most unstable people on the show. I’ve seen countless opinion pieces that both scold and revere her power as a parent, and I suspect editorials depicting motherhood like this will continue to become more mainstream. Whether that is good or bad will be up to the public to decide in time, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more pieces like this in American magazines. It would definitely create interesting conversations about how parenting styles are changing, for better or worse.

Photos: Contexts

Lost In Space

I was flipping through a new magazine called Saga that I discovered at Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago when I was suddenly stopped by an article discussing early photography taken by astronauts on space explorations. The photo above titled Earthrise was taken by William Anders on Christmas Eve in 1968 and is apparently one of the most famous images to be born from the Apollo missions, which is not hard to believe when one considers how amazing it must’ve been for the public to view a color photograph of the earth rising over the moon. This picture makes you realize how small our lives are in context to the endless universe that exists above us.

Photo: NASA

The Aquarium

Monika Sziladi’s series, Aquarium, explores how human beings relate to each other–or more specifically how they don’t relate and are completely detached in many ways. Did you ever sit next to somebody for a really long time and never say a word, even though you wanted to? I feel like we’ve all been there, where we’re so close and just want to connect, but we hold ourselves back for fear of rejection. We worry about rejection even if it has no correlation to romance, we just don’t want to be humiliated. After all nothing is worse than humiliation, nothing. Sziladi says,“I envision this series to be installed in a room on all four walls, so the viewer would feel surrounded but unnoticed. The blue background was chosen to create a formal decontextualization of the subjects. Here, there is no environment, only the blue emphasizing artificiality.”

Anna: I’m not sure about the title.
Dan: Got a better one?
Anna: The Aquarium.
Dan: So you liked the filth. You like aquariums.
Anna: Fish are therapeutic.
Dan: Hang out in aquariums, do you?
Anna: When I can.
Dan: Good for picking up strangers.

This exchange takes place in the film Closer between two eventual lovers–the theme of aquariums runs deep in this movie, which is centered around the dysfunction of modern relationships, much like Sziladi’s series. I like that Dan references the idea of strangers in aquariums as Monika does, again all going back to isolation and lost connections. And really, what could be more isolating than fish trapped in a blue wonderland filled with their own excrement. It’s no different than all of us walking around everyday–strangers–swimming in our own issues.

Alice: Don’t eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish piss in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don’t eat children either.

© Monika Sziladi

Pretty On The Inside

© Koen Hauser

You’re So Cool

College campus. Los Angeles. 1962.

Three words went through my mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re so cool.

Fairest Of The Seasons

Some left over shots from the past fall season, I had almost forgotten how vibrant the colors were on this day. It was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life, I’m glad I found these. It was a great day to be alive.

All images © Jeffrey Michael Smith