Stevie and Zoya Play Rock & Roll And Turn The Zombies Back Into Party People
"The past is cloaked in multi-coloured taffeta. Every time we look at it, we see a different hue."--Milan Kundera
Forgive me, I am still geeking out about my reunion. It was odd seeing so many people after all these years. I realized that not only was I not as miserable back in the day as I have come to tell myself I was, but that I probably would have been miserable wherever I went and with whoever happened to be there. So now, I am forced to alter the story of myself which I tell myself. Not drastically mind you (I still maintain I was unfortunate looking, you can't take that away from me). The alterations are minor, like the novelization of a film, the story is the same, the events unfold in the same fashion, but the medium causes a slightly different picture to emerge.
Or maybe I am looking back and yesterday really is an entirely different color.
So, anyway, I find myself thinking of the things from way back when which made me really happy, the things that I always think about, but also stuff about which I had forgotten. One of those things which holds up surprisingly well is Stevie Washington (or Stevie and Zoya, which it appears is what it was called, thanks Wikipedia). This was one of the many things which made 120 Minutes worth staying up way past one's bedtime and enduring a sleep deprivation related migraine the next afternoon. Well, this and the videos.
Another thing I loved as a young adult was the film Liquid Sky. Oh, I freely admit that quite a lot of the acting was horrible, but Anna Carlisle is quite spectacular and I can say, quite freely, that this film inspired me to be a feminist in a way that the more self-conscious and serious manifestos did not (which perhaps explains a lot). Also, I kid you not, I credited bits of the following scene, in my memory, to the time Kathy Acker gave a reading in the chapel at Reed, so clearly, it has literary pretensions (in my own mind, at least) which far exceed the new-wave, sci-fi, camp value of it all.
Of course, Stevie and Zoya could have solved all of Margaret's problems with a boombox and a skateboard, but they weren't around to help her. She only had drugs, day-glo makeup, and a dream. No wonder she turned to the aliens for help.
Forgive me, I am still geeking out about my reunion. It was odd seeing so many people after all these years. I realized that not only was I not as miserable back in the day as I have come to tell myself I was, but that I probably would have been miserable wherever I went and with whoever happened to be there. So now, I am forced to alter the story of myself which I tell myself. Not drastically mind you (I still maintain I was unfortunate looking, you can't take that away from me). The alterations are minor, like the novelization of a film, the story is the same, the events unfold in the same fashion, but the medium causes a slightly different picture to emerge.
Or maybe I am looking back and yesterday really is an entirely different color.
So, anyway, I find myself thinking of the things from way back when which made me really happy, the things that I always think about, but also stuff about which I had forgotten. One of those things which holds up surprisingly well is Stevie Washington (or Stevie and Zoya, which it appears is what it was called, thanks Wikipedia). This was one of the many things which made 120 Minutes worth staying up way past one's bedtime and enduring a sleep deprivation related migraine the next afternoon. Well, this and the videos.
Another thing I loved as a young adult was the film Liquid Sky. Oh, I freely admit that quite a lot of the acting was horrible, but Anna Carlisle is quite spectacular and I can say, quite freely, that this film inspired me to be a feminist in a way that the more self-conscious and serious manifestos did not (which perhaps explains a lot). Also, I kid you not, I credited bits of the following scene, in my memory, to the time Kathy Acker gave a reading in the chapel at Reed, so clearly, it has literary pretensions (in my own mind, at least) which far exceed the new-wave, sci-fi, camp value of it all.
Of course, Stevie and Zoya could have solved all of Margaret's problems with a boombox and a skateboard, but they weren't around to help her. She only had drugs, day-glo makeup, and a dream. No wonder she turned to the aliens for help.
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