So shoot me

[imomus]

Last week I got shot. Let me clarify. Last week I got photographed for Street, a magazine from Shoichi Aoki's stable of grassroots fashion publications comprising three titles: FRUiTS, Street and Tune. These mags, almost entirely ad and editorial free, are dedicated to full-page non-styled verité shots of people on the street, wearing outfits they've put together themselves. FRUiTS and Tune focus on Japan, whereas Street wanders the globe in search of interesting-looking characters.

The photographer was Fumi Nagasaka, a Japanese woman who lives in Brooklyn and, the day we met, sported a Glass Spider Tour t-shirt and bleached eyebrows. I ran into her while showing Fumiko Imano around Mitte, and we all went on a café crawl, trying (and failing) to find one with air conditioning (this has been Berlin's hottest July since records began).



Who knows if the picture will run -- five years ago, Street scouts in New York photographed me twice the same day, in different parts of the Lower East Side, but in the end neither photo ran in the magazine. Here are some of the folks who do run, from the Street magazine site (which puts thumbnails of the whole magazine online):



In the context of the war currently raging in the Middle East -- and through these pages -- it's impossible not to look at these pictures and think "Wow, there are people in the world who aren't firing mortar shells at each other! How entirely admirable!"

Comments

[auto-nalle.livejournal.com]

so what were you wearing?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, just something a bit bland, like this (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/imomus/momusatberlintokyo.jpg). But with a Graniph (http://imomus.livejournal.com/204100.html) shirt. Which is why it won't run.

[(Anonymous)]

However, like those firing weapons in the Middle East, they are evidently full of their own self-importance!

Eamonn

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's a much better way to vent it, though, isn't it?

I doubt Street magazine will ever go to Haifa or Beirut, although I hear the Hamsa in Beirut is a bit of a fashion district. As for Israel, its misfortune is that when it does leisure things they look sinister, just because of the juxtaposition with the suffering of the Palestinians so nearby. The videos of Yael Bartana (http://imomus.livejournal.com/2004/03/14/) spring to mind.

[beketaten.livejournal.com]

What the FUCK are you trying to prove?

Would you rather, for example, someone:

A)Write a song about how much they want to kill their band teacher.

B)Actually kill him/her.

No further comment, man.

[beketaten.livejournal.com]

That last bit made me crack up because the "truthiness" of it is so simple.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that I'm saying "We're not all the same deep down, damn it!" That seems to contradict my "Man equals man" riff of the other day. The difference, of course, is that when you shift from art (which is all about distinction, originality, hierarchy) to war, everything changes. An artist who killed his rivals, rather than merely doing better work than them and gaining more distinction for himself, would be utterly insufferable.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, skipping from the Lebanon war to matters sartorial with even less apology than me is the Daily Mail, who demand to know why journalists covering the conflict aren't wearing ties (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/07/tieless_in_gaza.html#more)!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, given the tendency of thinkers like Zizek and Etienne Balibar (http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=426) to debunk the whole idea of neutrality and objectivity, I think it might be interesting to see BBC or CNN reporters wearing hassidic outfits while reporting the war, rather than ties. Not giving an Orthodox account of events, just wearing the clothes to re-contextualize the reporting they're doing.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, I recently read a book called Difference, by someone I am reliably informed is your brother. I thought it was a pretty solid read, and went to Amazon.com, to see what other readers had to say. There I encountered a rather weak parody review, written very much in your style, and signed Momomomus, whom I assume to be you. It made me wonder if you are in fact jealous of your brother. In a sense, you have reason to be. After all, in his field, he has all the "legitimation" that you crave and no don't get in your field. What he's also managed to do is narrow his intellectual focus, taking one area and exploring it in a lot of depth, and becoming an established expert in it, leading to the aforementioned legitimation. Your approach, on the other hand, lacks this sort of consistency and depth. One moment you're offering sub-oped pieces on Israel of a type you'll find in a million blogs across the Net, the next you're musing self-importantly about whether you'll have a walk-on role in a minor fashion magazine... Momus, I think you could do worse than take a leaf out of your brother's book.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I've already taken a leaf out of my brother's book, and placed it here (http://imomus.livejournal.com/53369.html). As you can see, I describe Mark there as "one of Britain's leading writers on deconstruction".

What does make me jealous is that he wins at Google Fight (http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Nick+Currie&word2=Mark+Currie). I console myself with the knowledge that most of those Mark Curries aren't him, whereas most of the Nick Curries are me.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll bet Momus is at least jealous of his brother's full head of hair...


Momus, are you related at all to the philosopher Gregory Currie? If not, then it's quite a coincidence that his field of interest seems to be so similar to that of your brother's, ie nature of fiction, the relationship between fictional and non-fictional discourse. He has a good essay on art and delusion here:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/philosophy/downloads/artanddelusion.html

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

Why is this anonymous? Who are you trying to hide from? Is there some danger or embarrassment that will befall you from chiming in on a little blog?

That said, why would two brothers, both intelligent, have to follow the same path to career happiness? Maybe they are coming to the top of the same mountain, from different sides. It is good, as you say, to focus tightly on one area of research and become an expert, but it is also good to ignore the usual divisions between fields and bring together things which are normally disparate. Putting together things which normally don't belong together is an excellent way to discover new thoughts and sensations, and maybe get a new and distinctive perspective on events. People wearing street fashion and warring people in the Middle East all live on the same planet, and they're all people with similar needs, what does this mean that they act simultaneously? I find it very interesting, and refreshing.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

this must be one of the fastest blogs in the universe..
an hour ago there were like 4 comments and after dealing with some tax issues, domestic chores and phone calls, its a vast reservoir of opinion

so easy to disappear in the momus fulcrum..

anyway..i was just pondering army hats last night and the price of russian naval tops, you know the blue and white striped affairs..army and navy stores are useless..but, it did make me ponder the fashion aspect of reappropriating the "war on terror" mindset..remember when Arafats headdress was common on the "New Wave" scene in the Uk? The Apocalypse Now trend? The bloody Clash fer chrissake!

if we are being conditioned to feel the terror of the other and by doing so reenact terror personally can we do it with some style? by which i mean wit i suppose..play as engagement, rather than the engagement of war

oh if all the worlds assignations and engagements of conflict were fashion wars as in the house battles of Vogueing..but then, this could be called the thinking of the "Godless"

only yesterday i threw a few pieces of apparel together in a "living right" sense..felt the tremor of terror that i would conflict with the standard "dress code" of everyday life and thought, "I am doing a Momus"

even open toed sandals raise eyebrows round here

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

oh and a friend who was studying for theatre design and costume tells me part of her syllabus was the Victim's Ball of post Terror France with its necklines and strange dance steps and invitation rules

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"My job is to export violence to the four corners of the globe, awaken the four horsemen, open Pandora's Box, unleash the seven terrors, torture millions, play the fool, shoot some pictures, and sound the last trump. The blowback is gonna be amazing."

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I prefer this Momus style incarnation.

Whatever happened to that wonderful raincoat? (http://www.imomus.com/dailyphoto130600.html) ()

[mandyrose.livejournal.com]

That raincoat looks just like a glossy, carnivorous hothouse flower :)

[beketaten.livejournal.com]

That's cold, yo.

[pixelmist.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was so excited to see an entry about Street.

"Finally," thought I, "We won't get diverted by the Lebanon-Israel conflict! Finally, we can make wise-cracks and have a merry old time!"

Alas, I was naïve. Momus, please, tell me now and tell me true: is 'Click opera' to be embroiled in this global conflict from now on? And also, why can't I get this (http://www.graniph.com/t-shirts/t-shirts.php?J=1&C=0&ITEM_NO=5) Graniph in an 2X? WHY?!?!?!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Until the hatred Jew feels for Arab and Arab feels for Jew is replaced by hearty backslapping, Condi Rice tells me, this blog must keep firing mortar shells into apartment blocks.

[violet-hemlock.livejournal.com]

admirable indeed...Yo, I wanna be in STREET. I hope I bump into them someday...

[hairparty.livejournal.com]

last time i was in the LES (september)
i also got shot by a little japanese girl. the photo never ran though.
i love street, but my only complaint is their use of people is very repetitious.
seeing the same person in each issue gets a little old, albeit they're good outfits, but still...there are more well dressed peopel than the select few they shoot.

[(Anonymous)]

latest report gives Mr Bush the spin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5225358.stm

Thanks for the debate over hte last few days.

It actually helps.

[rwillmsen.livejournal.com]

Is is just men wearing skirts then?

[beketaten.livejournal.com]

I think more men should wear skirts.

contentious fashion

[(Anonymous)]

thanks momus I'm back (I was going to stay away too upsetting I'm a delicate flower) I like your blog I like your commenters I like ze fashion...

I hate ze stupid wars and ideologies that engender them but whatever life's a crap shoot, huh? People try... they get it wrong mostly apparently, but they try...

I heard some tv commentators "welcoming" (literally) their audience to the mideast crisis this morning. I wasn't looking don't know if they were wearing ties. Just lip gloss, is all. but serious lip gloss. deadly serious.

Re: contentious fashion

[(Anonymous)]

uh, that was me trixie.

thank you very much.

Top Ten Favorite Pronunciations

[intergalactim.livejournal.com]

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/staff_top_10/top-ten-favorite-pronunciations.htm

Re: Top Ten Favorite Pronunciations

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"Oddly delicate" sounds about right!

Be- be- be- be- beaten by Thom Yorke, though!

[wringham.livejournal.com]

Hi, Momus.

You praise the mags as being "almost entirely ad and editorial free". As the curator of a just-about-flatplanned magazine currently pondering over whether to include an editorial or not, I find it interesting that you might consider an editorial to be as undesirable as an ad. Do you reckon they're unnecessary fluff or can be they be employed usefully?

Also, if you enjoy FRUiTS for the "non-styled verité shots of people on the street, wearing outfits they've put together themselves", check out The Sartorialist (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/) blog.