The Funeral

One of my poems was published today in Issue 7 of Really System. It is one of my poems that is most dear to me and is about my experience at my grandfather's funeral.


http://reallysystem.org/issues/seven/the_funeral/

Some faces and limbs

New drawings of hairy limbs

A Chick with a Trick

A Chick with a Trick

Michał Socha’s (b. 1981, Warsaw) 2008 computer animation Chick (Laska), is a stunningly executed story of two cycloptic characters: a femme fatale who prepares herself to receive a male visitor in bed. After an evening of romantic activities, wine and dancing culminating in sex between the two, the man leaves with a new “point of view”, or lack thereof…

Socha uses only black, white and red and brilliantly assembles objects and body parts that emerge and recede through his use of the different hues to communicate shadows, light and silhouettes. There are also some wonderfully abject moments: the female figure takes a blade and shaves off her armpit and leg hair and later uses a long hair on her head as a straw which she places directly in the wine bottle, finishing every last drop. Her breasts bounce up and down as she runs towards her set of shelves to trap them in a bra, only to release them when she takes the male character to bed, who consequently during the sexual act, is shown jumping from one breast-shaped mountain to the next causing milk to squirt straight out from the nipple.

Their lovemaking is depicted more or less abstractly and metaphorically through a montage of grinding gears, erecting shapes, a martini glass that becomes a female pubis, and their bouncing individual eyes that lead to a fireworks-like explosion. The male leaves clutching the walls, having lost something now occupied by the female, who remains lying in her bed.

The five minute film was the winner of several awards including Annecy IAFF, Ottawa IAFF, 49 Krakow Film Festival, BuSho, Animania, Art Directors Club of Europe, amongst others. Socha was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and continues to work on animated short films both artistically and commercially.

http://michalsocha.com

This review is originally published on the Play Poland Film Festival website as a part of an animation mini-series I am working on called Watch It Again. http://playpoland.org.uk/index.php5?name=newsy&oId=598

CHICK from Mayki on Vimeo.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Two days ago I went to see Ana Lily Amirpour's Iranian vampire film called "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night". It takes place in Bad City, where a young and beautiful woman, who also a vampire, stalks and kills a number of male characters. Although there seems to be some kind of social justice in her choices of which men to go after (drug dealers and addicts), she does at one point kill an innocent homeless man. In addition, there is some kind of self-awareness on her part about her actions and how they fit into human conceptions of ethics and moral behaviour as she vocalizes to Arash, a young man that she meets in the street (ironically after he leaves a dress up party disguised as Dracula) that she feels she has done bad things.

What I thought was most brilliant about the film was its use of sound, but mostly the circulation of props and the ways in which commercial and monetary goods are passed around between characters: the fancy car that Arash worked for over 2000 days to afford, the jewels and watches of the drug dealer, Arash's cat, the little boy's skateboard. There is an overt presence of money as it is exchanged for drugs and services (like sex) as well as stolen goods that are transferred from one character to another. While the film could be called somewhat feminist, whereby a charming and sweet yet dangerous and demonic creature holds the power to decide on the fate of people's lives, there is also a palpable critique of capitalism and the dangers of what money can buy and the ways in which money transforms individuals to act in a certain way.

The film is beautifully made and there are several tender moments between Arash and the vampire girl. One of my favourites was when they are listening to music in her bedroom and Arash is dressed as Dracula. They are close to one another as the disco ball spins and causes flashes or circulating light throughout the room.

Café Manuela

Café Manuela

Its been four years since

I saw the adult man shriek and weep

over the freshly dead body

of a small dog in the street,

now stained with a trickle of blood.

Four years later I return

to Café Manuela

under different circumstances.

The waiter comes over and I order my usual:

freshly squeezed please

orange, carrot, ginger

naranja, zanahoria, jengimbre

which comes with a straw

its two usual ice cubes

and I remember.

The waiter brings me a plate of mixed nuts,

crunchy corn and bits of chocolate

and I remember

I only used to eat the corn

so I do that again

despite my temptation for peanuts.

To call the feeling in my chest nostalgia

would be a cheapening

but perhaps accurate description

for the shear delight I took

in my Proustian moment.

I am grateful to the world that not much

has changed at Café Manuela

other than the wait staff.

The chairs are the same,

the white marble tables have remained

(I sit in my usual spot)

the meta paintings of people playing cards

and drinking at Café Manuela still hang

in crammed spaces on the walls.

I think of everyone I have been with

here four summers ago,

as I eat the peanuts,

one by one.

Steve McQueen's "Ashes"

Included in the Arsenale portion of Okwui Enwezor's curated exhibition at this year's Venice Biennale was a two screen video installation by Steve McQueen which I think may be the work that stuck most with me during my trip. The video is shown as two back to back screens with overlapping sound. One screen depicts the labouring body of a man intricately preparing a concrete tomb and engraved stone for a another man named Ashes. There is a sense of the body and work that goes into the preparations for burying the dead as well as the craftsmanship and artistry involved to make memorials aesthetic. The sound of this work is particularly striking. We hear the sound of the concrete being spread, chiseling, pealing the plastic stencil to expose the text to be engraved. In this side of the video, while the body of the man working to prepare the dead is present, Ashes's body is absent. Another funeral takes place in the background, emphasizing the work in situ that goes on to prepare a tomb. Death and the labour of burial is cyclical. 

The other video, which I viewed second, shows Ashes standing on a boat wearing nothing but a necklace and white swim trunks. He has a young and healthy body and seems to be having fun and playing around. As we hear that voice over of how he was shot several times and consequently died, he falls off the boat but comes back up laughing. In addition to the voice over, you hear the sound of the ocean, but also the sound of the chisel and concrete from the other video, which now seems more aggressive, as if the violence is already being inflicted on his alive and almost polished body. 

Images from: http://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/3466-SteveMcQueen_JSouteyrat.jpg

http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2014/05/21/steve_mcqueen/gallery/01-steve.mcqueen-elv.jpg