It just feels like the kind of day for one of my favorite Nirvana covers, David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold The World.” This was filmed in November of 1993 for MTV Unplugged. This set list and performance that night, was, in my opinion, Nirvana’s final hour, and Kurt’s finest moment. Enjoy.
…Not to be confused with the deodorant brand us girls wore when were 10. Caribbean Breeze, anyone?
It’s time to get scent–imental in here. Yes, I know…my creative wordage is at an all-time high. I was thinking about CK One today. CK One was a unisex perfume from the early ’90s – made popular by the heroin chic, waifer thin models dressed in Calvins. I went through the half bottle my babysitter gave me, and then my mom bought me a new bottle. The one I received came with a spiffy silver pencil case and thin silver pencils that had really awful erasers, like, entirely nonfunctional and disappointing. They should never open a school supplies store.
So, with that said — what are some scents you remember from your childhood? My first perfume as a little kid was Love’s Baby Soft. It came in a pink bottle and smelled like a combination of baby powder, Joey McIntyre, and the summer beach episodes from season 2 of Beverly Hills, 90210. My mom always wore one perfume throughout the ’80s and ’90s, and that was Anais Anais. It still comes in the same white bottle with a decorative pastel floral motif around it. It smells like hairspray and a Saturday night.
But back to my CK One phase (roughly from 1994-1996.) At that time, little teeny bopper jewelry shops in the mall like Claire’s and Afterthoughts came out with a line of scented clear nailpolishes, including one scented like CK One, and another infused with another popular perfume from that era, Sunflowers. The Gap was also the source of signature scent purchases. As a 5th grader, my choice Gap perfume was Dream. And as I recall, the other choices were Heaven, Om, and Grass. I was walking down the sidewalk last night and could have sworn I walked past a boy wearing Gap Dream. It infiltrated my nostrils with the Gin Blossoms, adventures in the mall, and pens with fluffy puff balls on them.
Cool Water by Davidoff will always remind me of rainy nights at summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina and the harsh, adolescent years of middle school. And there are numerous colognes and perfumes that remind me of exes, best friends, and crushes. You can’t help but think about frilly dresses and school dances, the way someone’s car smells just like them when you open up the passenger door, a night, a weekend, a time in your life that you hate to remember, or wish you could remember better.
My windows are open right now, and it even smells like summer and autumn are mixing together, sweet and airy. Do you know that smell?
This is utterly fantastic. To view more, check out the “Public School” blog.
I recently saw a movie so mind-bending and raw that I want to watch it again, and again. And again. I want to talk about it with all of my friends — and see looks of astonishment on their faces, and then force them into watching it, too. Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know (released in 2005) is quite possibly my new favorite film. And that’s a huge ladder to climb up with me. What is it about, you ask? It’s about me, and you, and everyone we know….that’s it. Someone once told me that the true mark of someone’s character isn’t how they handle themselves in a crisis, but what they do in their every day life.
In some ways, the film is a less in-your-face, Hollywood version of Crash, because all of the characters are seemingly connected through each other on a strand, in certain ways. Sometimes we’re pretending, copying, resisting, aching. And each character in Me and You… are doing so in privately exposed moments. When separated and spliced apart, each scene feels very dream-like. You begin to ask yourself questions: is this how life truly is? Why is she wearing socks on her ears? Does this child have a speech impediment problem? Am I hallucinating? Should I be on drugs? It all seems so far out because, well, it sort of is. But at the core of the film is something very plain. If someone filmed me sitting here typing this article, the audience would be watching a girl leaning over an ottoman, her back completely parallel to her knees, with a strange look on her face. To me, this is my life, this is what I do. I don’t stop to look at it. But to the outsider, it’s odd. It makes no sense.
My favorite scene involves Miranda’s character filming her feet. She is wearing a pair of faded pastel pink flats that she’s adorned with black Sharpee to read “You” and “Me” on the toe of each shoe. Well, yes, I know. There’s a picture of it above these words. Anyway, the score swells and fades delicately and playfully, then sadly, as she motions her feet to and for, towards each other and away from each other, back to each other, and then one moving towards the other, and vice versa. Nothing cinematically has ever captured the human relationship more beautifully than that. Gets me every time. The closing scene in the film is also very poignant in regard to time and the way we waste it and pass it and make it. This is the part where I spoil the whole movie. So do’t read any further if you want to watch it.
The little boy (with the possible speech impediment) is at a crosswalk where a man is tapping a coin against the stop sign. Now, this sound has been playing sporadically throughout the film, but it’s never clarified. The boy asks the man what he’s doing, and the man says he’s just passing the time. He hands the boy his coin and walks away, and the boy takes it in his hand and does the same thing the man was doing. As he does this — the sun moves lower and lower into the sky, as time is moving forward, faster and faster. And scene. Do you ever finish watching a film and sit there for a few minutes with your mouth hanging open? That was me. Open mouthed, and impressed. I realize this is a poor description of the film. I don’t want to review it, though. The random obscurities the film places together are better left for your own eyes.
Life is real and, yes it is happening right now. But you didn’t know that. None of us did.
I was at Lollapalooza all weekend — a music festival that takes place in Chicago every August. Here’s the thing about music festivals: If it isn’t raining, it isn’t really a festival. Day 1 brought a mist of rain that sporadically weighed down on the crowds for 10 solid hours. And as the hours passed, pathways turned into muddy slopes reminiscent of a Woodstock ambiance. At Fleet Foxes, the crowd began chanting, “No umbrellas!”
The Decemberists’ hauntingly wild arrangement of instruments paired with songs off their Hazards of Love album, was a perfect match for the torrid weather. When Colin Meloy began performing “Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid” the crowd cheered and sang along loudly, and went crazy when it was reprieved at the end of their set. Becky Stark (lead singer of Lavender Diamond) scares me. She’s brilliant, and her collaborations with other artists are impressive, but — still. If you’re familiar with Hazards, she’s the luminary voice of Margaret. (And it’s possible she think she’s either really, truly Margeret….or Snow White.) Nevertheless, the Portland band rocked it. And I hear they did a great Heart cover at the pre-show at Metro. Two thumbs up.
Then came the long hour and a half wait for Kings of Leon. People were packed against the stage like a can of sardines. KOL was wonderful – the Followill brothers are not only talented, but dreamy. They opened with “Be Somebody” and sang all of their hits. (I wish they had played two of my personal faves “Revelry” and “Frontier City.”) During “Charmer”, graphics of Janet Leigh screaming in Psycho flashed across the screens. Marvelous. Only disappointment — no encore. The crowd even chanted the “One more song!” yell. Doesn’t that grant us one more song? Answer: no.
Day 2 was hot. I lathered up on SPF 70. (I’m painfully pale.) We watched Robert Earl Keen, Artic Monkeys, and then got cornered in a massive crowd that was held at a standstill for Santigold. For a minute – I felt like I was stuck in a labyrinth with no way out. Insert cliche David Bowie joke here. Aftr that we parked it for Ben Harper and the Relentless 7, and listened to the sounds of TV on the Radio across the field.
Several hours later – it was time for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Karen O. is a trip! She dances and hops around that stage like it’s a trampoline. Her costumes were loud and colorful – she opened with an Indian headdress adorned with bright neon feathers and stretched and leaped about in matching multi-colored tights and sneakers. She sang “Runaway” and a huge crowd-pleaser, “Gold Lion”, “Heads Will Roll”, “Zero,” and a cute, quiet acoustic version of “Maps.” A minute into the song, Karen O. forgot the lyrics, but no one seemed to mind. Hey, she can do whatever she wants.
Day 3 was a scorcher. It was said to be the hottest day of the summer in Chicago yet. ‘Twas indeed. Ra Ra Riot put on a great show, and Bat For Lashes was ethereal and enchanting – I give Khan props for wearing that heavy, sequined top. Vampire Weekend dedicated one of their songs to John Hughes! And here’s where everything enters into the twilight zone. We decided to sacrifice Passion Pit and Deerhunter and Band of Horses for Snoop Dogg — if only to get a good spot for The Killers. We sat down on the grass and listened to the Cold War Kids and said to ourselves, “Oh god – what are we about to get ourselves into?” And then the D-O Double G came out on stage, and for the next hour, I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun in my life. Dead serious. He opened with “Gin and Juice” and from there on – sang a handful of classic songs that sent the crowds arms in the air like we were tracing through a time machine that led us into a 1992 music video. There was a lot of praising, a lot of “when I say this, you say that,” east side/west side hoopla, and every song was intro’d with “and it goes a little somethin’…like….this.” An avid Killers fan stood in front of us the entire time, stone faced, and wouldn’t even jump for “Jump Around.”
But I’m sure he was thrilled when The Killers took the stage an hour later (more claustrophobic sardine standing and waiting time). They are a genuine concert act. They reeled out a zillion songs, including all the hits, my personal faves, “Smile Like You Mean It”, “Read My Mind” and the crowd favorite, “Mr. Brightside.” As we walked out of the park, they were closing with “When You Were Young.” I found myself looking around for Seth Cohen at one point. Can you blame me?
Something I learned: you’ll never see all the acts you want to see. I wish I could have witnessed Depeche Mode and Jane’s Addiction, but you have to make sacrifices. (Is this a life lesson?) Maybe.
In memory of my greatest inspiration and icon.
Highland Park, Illinois: to the outsider, it’s a spec on a map, suburbia, a wealthy community of people striving to get their kids into the best colleges; to the John Hughes fanatic, it’s a land of nostalgia, a place of intrigue, and the home of Ferris Bueller.
In the 1980’s, mastermind director, John Hughes, had a vision to create films that stemmed from his experiences with growing up in the suburbs of Chicago: ivy covered homes dripping with money, infested by yuppies. Hughes’ goal was to paint the picture of what life was really like there, life beyond the glossy American image. He wanted to capture the invisible lines in the school cafeteria that divided the masses of pom-poms and football jerseys from the calculators and pocket protectors. For Hughes, the stories he envisioned were born from the sprouting social hierarchy in any locker filled hallway.
My brother, Michael Hoffman, a director in L.A., attended Highland Park High School in the mid-‘80s: “The main pressure by peers was to be popular. Main pressure from parents was to get good grades. Having your “group,” was vital, even if you were a part of the geek-clique, you were still a part of a clique. You just didn’t want to get caught alone in the jock-hallway too often, if one of the jocks was in a bad mood.” Hughes’ films addressed all sides – you empathized in the jocks, you felt for the nerds standing against the wall at the school dance. You could see it in their eyes – no one felt like they deserved what they had, but it was easier to let the stereotypes do the talking.
Underneath the upbeat new wave music faintly playing in the background, were real conversations. People were communicating something bigger than Aqua Net hair. After the football games had been won and a prom queen had been crowned, real issues had to be dealt with when the sun came up again. I asked my brother, Michael, about the real problems. “You were striving to be the best from the start. Best actor, best in your class, best athlete, quickest to finish your biology experiment so you could get extra credit…” This sentiment reminded me of one Hughes’ film in particular.
Hughes’ movies were detailed visions of post-adolescent life: school dances, crushes, rebellion, wild parties, and petty fights. In one of his films, he put all of these pieces together in one room, for Saturday detention. “Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062.” The Breakfast Club stirred up significant ideas in young America when it was released. The characters opened up to each other about suicide, peer pressure, abusive parents, cliques in school, and the yearning to just be understood. There is something to be said about this film, different from the others. Perhaps it is the fact that each character was on their own in this library, with no sidekicks of their kind to aid them, a single representation of their kind, suddenly face to face with their skeletons for the first time.
Aside from The Breakfast Club, Hughes made other cult classics such as my favorite movie of all time – Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Pretty in Pink. In each way, all of his movies were centered around those private moments with characters: Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) in Sixteen Candles crying in the hallway against the brick wall with her pastel pink purse tumbling to the floor at her side, surveying her changing body in the mirror of her bedroom, thinking about Jake Ryan while she lay awake at night.
Several generations later, teens still watch these movies, some oblivious to the fact that they are picking up on something fundamental. Highland Park is still the same picturesque place it once was, but as we know, looks can be deceiving. Years later, everyone still yearns for acceptance, struggles with peer pressure and faces problems at home. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And that is why Hughes’ movies are considered classics. In the end, Hughes’ desire to uncover the emotional problems under the seemingly perfect bubble of the teenage life was a success. Roger Ebert once said, in reference to John Hughes, “[He’s the] philosopher of adolescence.” If high school culture had a religion, it’d be Hughesology.
1950-2009
I’ll think of you every time I watch Jake Ryan’s Porsche 944 drive into the sunset.
Two of my favorite scene/character entrances in a film:
Josh Hartnett as Trip Fontaine in The Virgin Suicides, and Matthew McConaughey’s breakout role as David Wooderson in Dazed and Confused.
There’s a great scene in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous where everyone in the fictional band Stillwater is on a plane, and they’re all about to die. I often wonder what I would do if I only had a day to live, or a matter of minutes. Who would I call? What would I say? So, anyway, these guys are all sitting there yelling at each other – pointing fingers, confessing to one night stands, love affairs, homosexuality, proclaiming their love for that one person they never said it to. And then — right as they’ve all said their peace, the thunder storm passes, and the plane lands into a beautiful sunset.
The band didn’t make it. Everyone went their separate ways, and as they walk down the gangway of the airport, you can’t help but think about what Buddy Holly was thinking that fateful night, or how it takes life threatening situations like that to throw everything into sudden perspective. Uh, hmm. This just got deep. This is the part where I cut corners and insert some kind of pop culture, snap your fingers and sing along, reference.
The film Almost Famous as a whole resonates a true lost art – the glamour of travel. It’s about music and drugs; it’s about the ’60s. But for the greater length of the movie, the band spends their time touring the U.S. on a bus, the kind of bus that is a total jaded rock-star-mess inside: scattered books, guitar picks on the floor, faded window curtains, and empty bottles of Jim Beam. It makes you want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” and drive with your windows down across a North Dakota highway.
This calls to mind a handful of other films that carry the same images, minus Penny Lane, Cream Magazine, furry groupie (band-aid) jackets, and Aaron’s pet snake. People are on the go – disappearing into lonesome taxis, boarding vessels, waiting under the foggy morning at a train station, or running through a wooden paneled airport while the contemporary tunes of Frank Sinatra soothe the air. You picture men in fedoras drinking martinis while they hang up their dusters for the long commute home. You picture intrigue and mystery, murder, escape, and the chance of a new life, somewhere else, miles away.
Other movies to set your sights on, if you feel like getting away: Blow (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), North by Northwest (1959), Airplane! (1980), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Into the Wild (2007), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983).
