The ludic ludicrous

[imomus]

You know, it's a very sad thing when pretension seems to have left the building, left the district, left the nation, or left the world. Do I mean pretension, or do I mean the outrageous dandyism of the charlatan or shaman? Where has that dandy-charlatan-shaman gone? I used to find dandyism in Japanese street fashion, but these days there's precious little inspiration there. Beige, cream and black seem to be the rule, with a denim jacket flung on top. In the whole of Japan, only Eye Yamataka dresses well any more.

It's helped that I've just moved to a new apartment in a hipper part of Friedrichshain; I'm seeing a lot of pleasantly pretentious people right outside my door now, or sitting in pleasantly pretentious cafes with pretentious small dogs, talking pretentiously on cellphones. I'm still more pretentious than most of them, though, which is disappointing: I want someone to look up to, someone to egg me on to even more ludic ludicrousness.

Well, there's one megalith of pretension, a wise, kind, gifted centre of the ludic ludicrous. Its earthly name is Devendra Banhart. I'm sure you know Devendra's charming, warbly records by now. They're some of the least futile sound recordings currently being issued. He's working on a new one at this moment, according to Pitchfork, who've just published an e mail interview with him. His insanely interesting answers to their insipidly boring questions fill me with joy. I like Devendra's records, I like the license he gives himself to wander and ramble (in interviews, only Tom Waits does this better) and I especially like his outlook on life, his references to Donovan and Caetano Veloso, his subcontinental looks, his hippy-glam-indie-Indian fashion sense, his spiritual absurdity, his charismatic gentleness...

Pitchfork: How does this album differ from your previous work?

Devandra Banhart: "I wanted it to be a circle, a red ring representational of human feelings whole — all feelings, I suppose. That's the way Donovan's Barabajagal album makes me feel, or all of Caetano Veloso's albums make me feel. I wanted to make something like walking down the road and to your right is a mango tree, your left a peach tree, a guava on the road, a bee stings you past the fig tree, you hear a
cow, you get pissed, you get cold, you get overjoyed, you get warm, you swim in the road of fruit trees, but it ain't all fantasy goodness. It's like the seabirds who don't dig the land but gotta go to it and have kids on this one perfect-to-them tree, but they can barely balance on it. And that's not the point, the balancing — the point is the trees release their seed pods which are very very sticky and some get stuck to the mama and papa birds and the birds can't use their wings so they drop dead around the trunk and turn into fertilizer."

Before I knew about Devendra, I had a Devendra-shaped hole in my life. It gapes most screamingly in my February 2001 essay The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet. I wanted a contemporary figure in the mold of Gong's Daevid Allen or the Incredible String Band's Mike Heron. And, by Shiva, we've got one.

Comments

Re: Japanese style photos

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's great to see some street fashion snaps from Teheran rather than Tokyo, and I think the Teheran women are much more interestingly dressed. Headscarves are a nice device for bringing colour to the head, and also keeping off the sun. Hisae and I wear them whenever possible (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/40094.html)!

I would rather resist the view that these women are just waiting to wear only jeans, T shirts and sneakers, though. I certainly don't think that Western garb is either elegant or free, and I don't think that all of civilisation is on a converging "upward" path towards denim and pseudo-sportswear. I think the Teheran women have the mix of traditional and modern about right just now. I was slightly worried by the ads on the site by the US Department of Immigration, offering US citizenship and green card lotteries. I'm not quite sure what the site's agenda is.

Re: Japanese style photos

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

As far as the agenda of the site, I too am not entirely clear. I happened to find the link through a different lj community.

I do think it is relevant to note that Hisae and you have the option of wearing a head scarf. As of now, Iranian women don't. Technically (I believe) the law of the republic actually demands the veil be black or navy blue and no hair should be showing underneath. It is encouraging to see a relaxing of the rules.

I too don't think the intention of the youth in Iran is to move toward western garb. I completely agree that "all of civilisation is [not] on a converging 'upward' path towards demin and psuedo-sportwear". Such a belief would not only be exceptionally arrogant and ignorant, but would provide frightfully boring consequences. At present, I think the style in Iran is a mixture of defiance and curiosity about the forbidden as well as a way of uniquely retaining Persian (and by this I mean pre and post revolution) culture. The photographer ably captured this, but there was a certain amount of western romantism to his written explanation that I felt inadequate to what is truly going on in the culture and fashion.

I'm sure you are familiar with this artist already, but on the off chance that you are not, I thought you may enjoy this picture:

<img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/be I don't know if this is actually going to work as I've never posted pics into a comment before. If it doesn't, go here: http://www4.plala.or.jp/kusanagirin/kawashima.html and check out "Sebastian" under works. It completely reminds me of the cover of Circus Maximus.

Re: Japanese style photos

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

I don't know what I did. Here is a link to the photo:

http://www4.plala.or.jp/kusanagirin/kawashima.html

go to works. The one I am talking about is "Sebastian", and it reminds me of the cover of Circus Maximus (for obvious reasons).

Re: Japanese style photos

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, Kawashima! Yes, I've seen some of his stuff before at Tomio Koyama Gallery. Kawaii Sebastian!

Re: Japanese style photos

[pinkfoils.livejournal.com]

I was looking for blogs in Iran, and I rather like this one , that being one of my favorite photographs.

p.s. I should mention my gratitude for your Momus Radio page, as I have an asphyxiated cornea (due to excess contact lens wear) and I've been laying around listening to them all with one eye, contemplating making an eyepatch since it's rather annoying to keep shutting one eye. How ironic, no? They're marvelous when I'm suffering from cabin fever and can't see quite enough to do anything else. (http://vagrantly.com/04/05/scarves_on_mannequins.php)