Hyperkult

Photo credit: Style Rookie

You’ve no doubt heard of Tavi, the 13-year-old wunderkind who belongs to a new garde of fashion writers: teen bloggers. She is as ubiquitous a front row staple as Anna Wintour; she counts the Mulleavy sisters as friends; she is a Pop magazine cover model. She’s a girl, not yet a woman, and let’s not forget that.

A self-professed “Style Rookie,” Tavi maintains a blog of the same name, but if we’re to believe her acutely fashion-literate entries, she’s nothing of the sort. That is, unless the Tavi phenomenon is an elaborate ruse in the same vein as J.T. Leroy. My impressions of Tavi are scattered, but I will cop to occasionally reading her blog and being curious about who this boffo, Rei Kawakubo-loving young lady is.

My issue is less with the wide-eyed aesthete herself than the world that has shepherded her transformation from anon to internet superstar. I wonder under what circumstances, for what purpose such a budding icon is constructed, and by many, revered. What is Tavi’s writing—which seesaws between hyper-mature and rambling tween-speak—teaching us? Have we accepted her as a legitimate expert (Bazaar has), or an avatar of the kind of 13-year-old us adult fashion lovers wish we were at her age—hell, even now?

I am both fascinated and unnerved by the rising Cult of Tavi. The fashion industry routinely turns out star designers, models and false gods, then carelessly discards of them when they are deemed unnecessary. How true Heidi Klum’s tagline rings. It’s admittedly youth and image obsessed (I’ll save the curious sexualization of teen models for another time), and Tavi-idolatry exaggerates these qualities. What this means for a young woman undergoing puberty alongside peers like Aggy and Hamish Bowles is concerning.

Just ask Tim Blanks, whose furrowed brow in Part One of Loic Prigent’s Habillees (several minutes in) says it all:

Wave to the future.

San Francisco's Union Square, Epicenter of Merriment and Shopping Hell

My secular self makes grand attempts to resist the allure of anything Christmas-related this time of year. Though I profess a love of religious iconography, evidenced by both the rosary bracelet and Virgin Mary prayer charm I’m wont to sport, you won’t likely find me supplicating at Catholic midnight mass. I can only hope that my semi-devotional accessory choice is not sacrilegious.

Yet, “come hither, give in” call those twinkling lights, fine department store displays, sugar cookies, and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” By the time I return home, park myself on my parents’ couch and catch one of umpteenth airings of Love Actually or A Christmas Story, it’s all over. I am a blubbering mess as Laura Linney’s tryst with hot-guy-from-the-Chanel No. 5-ad goes awry. I am failure.

This year, I will surrender to the merriment. But I will do things my way. For example, instead of glittery Christmas greetings, I am sending out non-denominational good wishes scrawled on postcards from the Twin Peaks box set. The snowy climes of the series’ setting struck me as fitting, and nothing says “Happy Holidays” like David Lynch, right? Maybe I’ll have my picture taken with lecherous hipster Santa at Melrose’s Marc by Marc Jacobs store, too. I hear they do that right ’round December, sleigh and all.

Critically, the soundtrack to any alt-X-Mas happenings will be a strange collection of songs I deem appropriate. Being half-Filipino, I have traumatizing fond memories of the local church choir invading my house en masse to sing traditional carols, none of which made this cut. Instead, I present to you The Flaming Lips, et. al., on this, my best attempt to make a holiday playlist. Some of the tracks have nothing to do with presents, tinsel and the like, but they do make me want to huddle underneath a blanket and sip on a hot toddy. That’s good enough for me.

Remember, though, this is coming from the girl that sent out David Lynch holiday cards.

There Will Be Lists

Lists! God, yes, I love them again. See what happens when you get a girl started? Oh, it’s all fun and games until I name The Pineapple Express one of the Best of the Decade. (I will not, though I loved it and am sure a cogent argument could be made in its favor.) Someone recently asked me, for pure shits and giggles, to fire off a list of the Top 25 Films of the last ten years. I could only come up with 20, and at least three of those I felt ambivalent about.

Also to be considered is the perilous line between “Best” and “Favorite.” Just because I adore a movie and can sit through multiple viewings—ahem, The Devil Wears Prada—does that make it worthy of a top spot? In this case, I will say “no,” because I’m judging films like a Michelin rater does a plate at Jean Georges. Well, okay, maybe I’m not that calculated about things, but I am naming movies I consider punch-you-in-the-stomach good—the ones I can’t shake for their beauty, charm, and/or overall execution.

To make things easier on myself, I’ve narrowed that original list of 20 down to 15. This is the nice thing about such a self-imposed assignment: I’m not beholden to anyone else’s standards, and can choose to include or exclude any information I please. Hell, this could be a list of three and it would be perfectly acceptable, albeit not that interesting. I would highly recommend any and all of these for rental. Once again, in no particular order, but this time sans explanations:

Top 15 Films of the Decade

1. Amores Perros
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Capturing the Friedmans
4. Talk to Her
5. Punch-Drunk Love
6. Before Sunset
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Dogville
9. Dancer in the Dark
10. Lake of Fire
11. All About My Mother
12. The Royal Tenenbaums
13. City of God
14. Amélie
15. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Paris is for (erstwhile) lovers.

A memorable concert moment among headstones

Now is a time for reflection, for looking back over the past year—oh, God, the past ten years—as the first decade of this millennium comes to a close.

It is a time for list-making.

I love lists. I hate lists. Making succinct, inevitably inadequate run-downs of my favorite something-or-others—films, designers, albums, ice cream flavors—is alternately fun and maddening. As soon as I think I’ve locked one down, I’m plagued with the guilt of having left off a borderline contender, or left wondering if I’ll look back on my Top [insert number here] with embarrassment or regret some time down the road. I now have mixed feelings about the Top 10 films I submitted to the San Francisco Bay Guardian for publication last year, for instance.

Yet like a smitten kitten I keep going back, because I love reviewing what’s been released, moments that have stuck with me, and searching the recesses of my culture snob soul to cobble together something that vaguely reflects my taste. So I suppose I’ll keep at it, though why anyone should care about what little ol’ me on my little ol’ blog has to say is not something I will dwell upon.

I may release these in a piecemeal fashion, or perhaps this is the only post I’ll dedicate to bulletpoint-ing…stuff. In any case, here is the first (last?) installment in Heidi’s End-of-Year reflections, in no particular order.

Top Five Live Shows of 2009

1. M83 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, March 7
Highlights: The Phil’s rendition of Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres,” a soaring, orchestra and choir-backed take on “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun.”

2. Thom Yorke Secret Show at The Echoplex, October 2
Highlights: Crazy-ass, funk-a-licious “Harrowdown Hill” and “Paperbag Writer,” a song I never, ever thought I’d hear live—with Thom’s shirt unbuttoned the whole time, no less.

3. Bon Iver Sunrise Show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, September 27
Highlights: Waking to a Buddhist blessing ceremony, the pure romance of “Flume,” a sing-a-long to “The Wolves (Act I and II)” followed by Justin Vernon’s cryptic farewell to the audience.

4. MSTRKRFT at Coachella, April 18
Highlights: As usual, the transition from Ugod’s “Ugodzilla” to “Easy Love,” which never ceases to inspire embarrassing, beat-bumping gyrations in me. That, along with John Legend’s surprise appearance for a finale of “Green Light”/”Heartbreaker” (whatever half-lip synching he was doing notwithstanding).
Lowlights: My friend almost passing out in the Sahara tent pre-show and getting drenched in the sweat of shirtless 21-year-old frat boys, but that goes with the territory.

5. Junior Boys at the El Rey, October 14
Highlights: “Parallel Lines,” the ever-so-sexy (and even moreso live) “Count Souvenirs”
Lowlights: A few technical problems and opener CircleSquare. Oh my suck.

Also, I need to stop using song titles as post titles so frequently.

*Edit: Sasha Frere-Jones is much better at this than I am.