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you're just mad that my presence is haunting and offputting and yours isn't

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young autistic catholic wedding photos

catholica.pandam

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Actress Marisa Mell wearing a jeweled gold belt by David Webb with a white crop top. Photo by Bert Stern, Vogue, March 15 1968.

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Dressed to Kill

By the time he made DRESSED TO KILL (1980, TCM, Tubi), Brian De Palma was such an overt stylist his films seemed to take place in a hermetically sealed world with less connection to reality than to other movies. In this case, he’s mirroring Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960). Both feature a transgressive leading lady with whom we come to identify before she’s murdered at the end of the first act. Both end with a psychiatrist’s explanation of the plot’s psycho-sexual basis. And both resolve the mystery almost by accident as investigations of private spaces trigger the murderers to reveal their identities. There are also stylistic echoes in the way both directors use a moving camera to pull us in and rapid cutting for shock effect.

If PSYCHO is the superior film, it’s because it takes us deeper into its consideration of transgressive acts. Hitchcock transfers our sympathies to Norman Bates, suckering us in to identify with the film’s most destabilizing figure. De Palma transfers our sympathies to Nancy Allen’s Liz Blake, the world’s cutest high-priced call girl, who discovers Dickinson’s murder and has to find the real killer to clear her name. He gets in some good comic moments aimed at her and her profession — the client bragging about his stock portfolio who turns tail and runs at the sight of a dead body, Allen’s changing masks as she fields calls from her escort service and her stockbroker on two different phones, the client who can’t even acknowledge he called for her while she’s still in the hall outside his hotel room. But identifying with her doesn’t make us question the ways we invest in characters emotionally.

The film is still tremendously effective, particularly in the first half hour focusing on Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) and her frustrating marital situation. Dickinson is totally committed to Kate’s emotional state. She easily pulls us into her fantasies, her flirtation with her psychiatrist (Michael Caine) and the wordless nine-minute sequence in which she and a handsome stranger cruise each other in an art museum. That scene is De Palma’s great tour-de-force in the film. Kate is in a room with sexualized paintings as she watches a middle-aged man come on to one of the patrons and a couple cuddling as they look at the art works. It’s all sensuality, and he builds suspense so that we’re actually rooting for her to score a one-night stand. There’s a lot of good work in the rest of the film, and De Palma keeps the tension up as the killer stalks Allen, the one witness to Dickenson’s murder. Keith Gordon is particularly appealing as Dickinson’s son, who helps Allen search for the killer. Dennis Franz is the police detective putting pressure on Allen, and there are bits by Brandon Maggart and actor-playwright Samm-Art Williams.

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Shakira Caine, 1970s

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Political compass but it's Charli XCX songs

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Bad Girl Boogey

Teenaged director/co-writer Alice Maio Mackay’s Australian punk genderqueer take on the slasher film, BAD GIRL BOOGEY (2022, Shudder, AMC+), may look like it was made for a quarter, but the talent behind it is priceless. A mystical mask turns its wearers into killers not by making them kill but rather by letting them kill. In addition, it often imparts an unhealthy dose of homophobia, courtesy of the escaped Nazi who first brought it to Australia. That sounds like a lot of baggage for one film to carry, but Mackay’s style here communicates a lot with rapid images.  And the focus is less on the standard tropes of the slasher film than on the community affected by it.

Alienated teen Angel (Lisa Fanto) has no time for the adults she feels have left her a ravaged world, but she has close bonds with her friends — including party girl Lila (Prudence Cassar), trans recovering addict Dario (Iris Mcerlean) and gay boy Ashley (Steven Thai Hoa). When the killer starts offing her friends, she doesn’t expect the police to care about a bunch of queer kids, so she and Dario start investigating on their own.

With only $13,000 to spend, Mackay uses a lot of quick cuts. In places, they rush us through the standard slasher tropes, most effectively when the police question Angel and Dario after Lila’s murder. There’s none of the sweeping landscapes of the first wave of Australian films to garner international attention. BAD GIRL BOOGEY is set in a bleak urban landscape of warehouse clubs, ramshackle houses and sterile public buildings. The film is also shot through with the rhythms of bands like Alter Boy and Tears for the Dying. The only time Mackay’s style flags is in a sequence in the last act when somebody has to explain the nature and origin of the mask. The takes get longer, and it all feels stilted. When the killer is revealed, the homophobia underlying the murders is almost too baldly stated. But the focus on community is refreshing, reminiscent of the work of filmmakers like Gregg Araki, Gus Van Sant and Stephen Cone in addition to Mackay’s debut feature, SO VAM (2021), released when she was just 16. And even in her teens, Mackay has developed a strong stock company, with particularly effective performances here from Fanto, Mcerlean and Liwi Dawson as a girl who can’t even connect with Angel’s crowd.

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260624

Perfecting my skills as a songwriter has made me a worse musician.

Watched this TikTok this morning of the Tape Notes Podcast.

She’s so right about the vocal laziness. I’ve struggled with this since heavily embracing autotune in 2018. I was creating “home-made” vocoders by duplicating a lead vocal and forcing the pitch to one note. And then building those notes into chords.

“I’m used to leaning into the note”

When recording all my demos I’ll record through my gaming headset in my bed, with autotune on. I rarely write over more than a bass synth playing single notes. I rarely take the time to plug in a midi controller of some kind.

As does every other wanky creative, I subscribe to a lot of the ideas presented by Rick Ruben as a way to understand the creative process. I believe ideas, and thus whole songs, are somehow placed into our minds. A great artist is less defined by their ability to create from nothing (building?) and moreso their ability to record and communicate the idea given to them as accurately as possible. To me, this is what it means to “serve the song”. There are multiple 10/10 versions of the song that exist in your head, you’ve just gotta capture it. Which sounds easier than it is-

For those who aren’t musicians, songwriting feels a lot like trying to remember a dream right after waking up. With every second that passes, you’re forgetting and remember more and more aspects of the dream. In order to combat this, I’ve opted for my autotune / headset / bass synth method.

However, I’ve developed a muscle memory to “leaning into the note” as I would when recording with autotune on.

When James and I first used a real studio and booth, we recorded a near-dry vocals - assuming that they would sound better being processed, if I were closer to being on key in the recording.

But my vocals sounded kinda awful. The autotuner sounded like it was strained. Even though I was mostly on key.

I’ve since concluded that the hard-autotune “hyperpop” sound requires it’s own vocal techniques that differ from a regular pop vocal.

When writing / engineering for other artists I keep this in mind. You need to record with the autotune enabled in the playback. Take off your headphones. If they’re doing it right, you’ll notice how the singer unconsciously changes their timbre. It’s not that they’re “tone deaf”, or “lazy”.

They’re leaning into the note to work with the autotune.

In tracks like Angel, I recorded the verse vocals dry for that common pop sound. The autotune wasn’t so heavy, so this worked. But I’m the chorus, I recorded with tune in the playback so I could “lean in”.

I used to sing live for years only with reverb. Nowdays I’m so used to leaning with autotune I really struggle feeling like a “real singer”.

Hard tuning requires a focus on a clear tone and timbre. Removing as much vibrato and sliding as you can to get a clean sound. My voice naturally vibrates and slides into notes when I’m singing raw as an attractive way to cover when I’m bending into pitch.

I’ve been training my voice to lose these techniques, so without autotune, I sound pretty mid hahaha

Anyways, todays thoughts over x

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Guess who found the old VCR/CRTTV and got them up and running!!!!

I'm so happy bc the CRT that had a built in VCR I grew up with got thrown out. :( But now I can watch my tapes again finally!!! I'm pretty sure this tv was my sister's, and the VCR was just in storage. Wish me luck in that they keep working lol.

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This show haunts me. Inspired so many nightmares when I was a child.

Did you know it's considered partially Lost Media?

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CAMP INFORMATION VIDEO

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It came from the sea...

Spooky season is upon us and I was in the mood to try something different. Was very inspired by that Godzilla analog horror trend

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tbh i was drawing all days and not posting here anything😈😈 i only draw for my two best friends cuz sometimes i dont feel safe to post any of my arts in public

don't mind me if i will leave this platform someday as i do that all times😋 (i love doctor nowhere characters they are so cool)