radicalcartography: Geology of the Moon.
…And The 1st.
Undercover AW 09/10 – “Neo Boy and Poptonez“
Post nuclear apocalypse utilitarianism courtesy of Jun Takahashi.
Clothing for the New Years that is about to ensue. It’s almost tradition in our corner of Makati, that by this hour, things begin to Baghdad up. The smell of what I imagine to be cordite, enough to almost taste. Come 6 p.m., the solemn morning is traded-in for controlled chaos.
Abrupt pops and flashes, which I imagine isn’t too far from the sound of anti-aircraft like echoing in the distance. From close, far. Closer, to too close. There’s no better way to end the year. A deafening blast to usher in the flames and ashes.
Human Nature
Rendition, 2006.
I could do without it. The long hours of idle. I’ve sat still for hours, casting a longer and longer shadow. I’m starting to wonder if its beginning to resent me, and in some Peter Pan like fashion, tear away and have a mind of its own.
Before you know it, it’s gone, in every sense of the word. The shadow, and the day itself. Passed by like a turning page in a very boring auto-biography left to gather dust. Gone nowhere, done nothing. Been nowhere, am nothing.
There is no try, do or do not. Shouldn’t have taken an alien to point that facet out. I suppose it’s just human nature.
The Great Putdown
“Twenty million dollars and a Ferrari GTO Switchback. It’s five o’clock, awash in the orange hue of the L.A. sun. There was too much time, too little time to kill. We had too many drugs, too little drugs, to little drugs, my knobby fingers couldn’t manage.
Steve Mcqueen stopped in the middle of an intersection. He liked my car, and drove on. Painted the California Army Green, and the guys died when I brought it to the club meet. Smoking joints and racing my car down Mulholland drive, boy how the world stood still, boy how the world stood still.”
For The 25th…
Undercover AW 09/10 – “Neo Boy and Poptonez“
Nothing to reinforce the chilly weather of Christmas any further than a little Christmas Day Flu. With the late night drinking finally catching up, and the cold breeze permeating my bones, I’m thinking that a little Undercover wouldn’t hurt.
Nothing like boiled wool to keep the warmth as I overeat my way back to drinking condition health, It doesn’t hurt to be seasonally red either.
All I Want For Christmas
Junya Watanabe COMME des GARCONS New Balance 576
Off the top of my head, I’m sure there are quite a few things that I’d like for Christmas. Though out of the sea of frivolous wants and needs, these pair of shoes rise to the top. No, this isn’t a decision reached through gut instinct, nor an end result of careful discretion.
The two former things being probably the right path to take in deciding what to splurge on for the holidays, I can’t ignore the fact that when I look at these long enough, it begins. I can hear it faintly from the tip of my ears, the cheesy chime intro, and the big organ chords.
Come the staccato piano rhythm, and sleigh bell claps, it begins to be pretty damn certain that yes, I’m hearing it. It’s Mariah Carrey’s All I Want Is Christmas. And, that’s how I know. Nothing like the piercing vocal serenade of a 90s ballad to tell you that you want something really, really bad.
Man vs. Chimp
Taekwondo Chimp Attacks Trainer via Telegraph.co.uk
Hu Luang, 32, a bystander who photographed the incident, said: “I saw one punch him in the eye – he grabbed another by the ear and it responded by grabbing his nose. They were leaping and jumping all over the place. It was better than a Bruce Lee film.”
Appropriation And Versatility
In terms of words, the f word must take the cake for being the most versatile. One can just enjoy its ability to appropriated to any situation. No need to feel too audacious or uncouth about it. Don’t be maladroit either, and say it with some pizzazz.
Use it over dinner with your parents. Fire off a few at your friend’s dad’s funeral. Write in in cursive. Pop a few at a job interview, and drop it a couple times while your talking with your boss. Seeing as its Christmas, quirk a smile, and give one to a couple friends.
Unleash it in a wave of verbal diarrhea, and feel better about the world. And since words like the f one come far and few, be generous at setting it free. There’s no better thing to do than say f-you, f-him, f-her, and the ever so special f-me.
Singapore Smoking Gun
Unleash The Black Mamba, SBTG x Crate Sneaker Launch. Click on the image for all the details.
I relish the opportunity to watch and see ideas turn into reality. The human ability to take nothing but air and genius, and turn it to something tangible always leaves me amazed. The entire process is something that entrances me, partially because it’s something I’ve failed so often at. Come the 100th botched attempt at trying to summon poutine from negative space, I conclude that the task best be left to the experts. And in the case of ridiculous sneaker, there’s not too many that can get a leg up on SBTG (Singapore) and Crate (Manila).
Though possibly not entirely relevant to your milieu, I see it as an incredibly significant step towards the right direction for street wear in the Philippines, which admittedly is in a bad, be it neglected state of disrepair. With its former vanguards/enthusiasts renouncing any affiliation they’ve had with it, its sad to see something that showed a lot of promise be left to the dogs.
Yes, there’s that possibility that people might have just gotten older. The brightly colored sneakers got too small, and the graphic tees, increasingly more inappropriate. Then again, all that fluff was was never really the gist of it all. What I’m trying to arrive at and say here is that, we’ve lost something. That sense of audacity in what we wear. The balls to be adventurous enough to put on clothes, shoes that might stir looks of amazement and even daggers from other people.
Don’t get me wrong though, as I already feel terribly hypocritical about writing this, as you probably wont catch me wearing anything mention above. But, I feel that whatever this is, this trend that’s followed streat wear has that gross after taste of homogenization. Like taking two steps forward towards a fashionable direction, and then taking a big leap back, we’re back to square one and it’s such a waste that we’re all lemmings again.
Yes, there’s subtleties involved with work wear, and all this trad stuff, but damn it, sometimes we just end up looking like our grandfathers, which in the case of other people, is a bad thing. I’m not knocking on the look of the trend as a whole, but just the relatively big and stale comfort zone it resides in.
Show me some god damn edge. Wear some deck boots, a shirt with quirky details. Layer on something odd, try a different shape. Somebody do something, before we end up in a future where we’re all clad in button downs and khakis, looking pretty damn ordinary.
Though what SBTG x Crate have done might be an all too literal interpretation of audacity, the intention is spot on. Its that giant gaudy middle finger in the middle of the room, telling everyone to live a little.
Who knows? It’s SBTG today, maybe New Balance tomorrow? Band of Outsiders the next month, and Quoddy the year after? Before you know it, we’ll all be clad in fun mash of Junya Watanabes and Jil Sanders, wearing Dick Owen boots, and layered in Robert Geller cardies, and all will be saved.
Now, that might be a fucked up dream, considering there’s much better things for one to aspire to (better education, reduced corruption, more job opportunities for the common man) rather than have everyone in our country dressed well, but I’ll live with it. See you guys on the 30th, there’ll be midgets, clowns, strippers and alcohol, or so I imagine.