The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:21:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Let's All Get Dressed Up In Elaborate Costumes and Have Sex! http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/lets-all-get-dressed-up-in-elaborate-costumes-and-have-sex http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/lets-all-get-dressed-up-in-elaborate-costumes-and-have-sex#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:21:02 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/lets-all-get-dressed-up-in-elaborate-costumes-and-have-sex I'm not sure I really even know what cosplay is, other than that lots of people do it, and not necessarily for sex, just for fun and coolness, but the other night I was watching The Switch, one of the best movies of 2010, despite its problematic insemination issues, and (no spoilers!) at one point there's a kid's birthday party and all the adults are dressed in pirate hats and you can't help but think: wouldn't it be sexy and fun to dress up as a pirate or a lion or something like that sometimes? It'd be like you were in an Adam Ant video all the time! There just aren't enough excuses these days to dress up in elaborate costumes. (Also, think of the truly excellent costume party in Beginners! Who wouldn't want to meet Ewan McGregor when he's dressed as Freud and also carrying a puppy? I mean, what more do you need, shoes made out of chocolate cake?) Anyway, Comic-Con is coming and the goose is getting fat, please fashion for yourself a complicated hat. But who to dress up as even? I totally get stumped there. Just don't leave your sexy funtime costume thingies laying around or half of Chicago gets evacuated.

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]]> I'm not sure I really even know what cosplay is, other than that lots of people do it, and not necessarily for sex, just for fun and coolness, but the other night I was watching The Switch, one of the best movies of 2010, despite its problematic insemination issues, and (no spoilers!) at one point there's a kid's birthday party and all the adults are dressed in pirate hats and you can't help but think: wouldn't it be sexy and fun to dress up as a pirate or a lion or something like that sometimes? It'd be like you were in an Adam Ant video all the time! There just aren't enough excuses these days to dress up in elaborate costumes. (Also, think of the truly excellent costume party in Beginners! Who wouldn't want to meet Ewan McGregor when he's dressed as Freud and also carrying a puppy? I mean, what more do you need, shoes made out of chocolate cake?) Anyway, Comic-Con is coming and the goose is getting fat, please fashion for yourself a complicated hat. But who to dress up as even? I totally get stumped there. Just don't leave your sexy funtime costume thingies laying around or half of Chicago gets evacuated.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/07/lets-all-get-dressed-up-in-elaborate-costumes-and-have-sex/feed 16 Is Mariah Carey's Voice Just Done For? http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/is-mariah-careys-voice-just-done-for http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/is-mariah-careys-voice-just-done-for#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:33:54 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/is-mariah-careys-voice-just-done-for Making allowances that Mariah Carey was, in fact, at a funeral yesterday-"Sorry that I wasn't able to pull it together and really do it right,but I was literally choked up when I saw him there in front of me," she posted to Twitter-there's still a reasonable question to ask: is her voice damaged beyond repair? I was out with noted homosexual and vocalist Julian Fleisher this morning, and he was pretty much reeling in shock at hearing a legend-a bona fide legend, and one that is all of 39 years old-sound the way she did yesterday.

A couple years back, I talked to The Lady Herself for a terrible piece for a terrible lady magazine. (It paid in pounds sterling though! I bought shoes!) Mostly I was interested in vocal production, which, eerily enough, the magazine wasn't too interested in? I was concerned about how chaotically, it seemed to me, she'd been singing for a number of years, and how byzantine her methods of producing various sounds were. Singers find methods and shortcuts to making sound through the physical inconsistencies of their body, as visualized in the mind. Often, the methods we come up with, particularly without outside help, for both singing and speaking, can be damaging in the short or long term.

"I do really have different vocal cords. It's because they're not–I don't use my voice the way different people use their vocal cords. A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do; I've learned to sing through my vocal cords," she said. So she would regularly go to Dr. Scott Kessler and together they would look at pictures of her vocal folds. To produce her trademark high-pitch sounds, she sings through her nodules, or at least, conceives of singing through them; sites of damage created most likely by, well, creating those high-pitch sounds.

Over the years, it's pretty obvious that there have been changes to Carey's voice. (Also she seems like a much happier person, and one that is making better music!) And what remains is a pretty luscious, hissy thing. But you also get the sense that everything is so completely jury-rigged between her mind and her throat. And it looks to me, watching both yesterday's and other recent performance, that while she is singing, she's seriously thinking through what will "fail" in the right way, to produce a stop, or allow her to pull off melisma, or jump about between voices, producing a pleasing effect-and what might possibly fail in a bad way, ending in disaster. I think that while she is singing, she is in a bit of panic about manufacturing sound.

Also? One slightly disturbing thing also comes from her Twitter, posted at 3:20 a.m. EST in the middle of June: "4:20..how is everyone?" Oh boy, let's hope she's baking it in brownies, not smoking the stuff.

And here is an insane year-by-year retrospective of 18 years of live performances.

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]]> Making allowances that Mariah Carey was, in fact, at a funeral yesterday-"Sorry that I wasn't able to pull it together and really do it right,but I was literally choked up when I saw him there in front of me," she posted to Twitter-there's still a reasonable question to ask: is her voice damaged beyond repair? I was out with noted homosexual and vocalist Julian Fleisher this morning, and he was pretty much reeling in shock at hearing a legend-a bona fide legend, and one that is all of 39 years old-sound the way she did yesterday.

A couple years back, I talked to The Lady Herself for a terrible piece for a terrible lady magazine. (It paid in pounds sterling though! I bought shoes!) Mostly I was interested in vocal production, which, eerily enough, the magazine wasn't too interested in? I was concerned about how chaotically, it seemed to me, she'd been singing for a number of years, and how byzantine her methods of producing various sounds were. Singers find methods and shortcuts to making sound through the physical inconsistencies of their body, as visualized in the mind. Often, the methods we come up with, particularly without outside help, for both singing and speaking, can be damaging in the short or long term.

"I do really have different vocal cords. It's because they're not–I don't use my voice the way different people use their vocal cords. A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do; I've learned to sing through my vocal cords," she said. So she would regularly go to Dr. Scott Kessler and together they would look at pictures of her vocal folds. To produce her trademark high-pitch sounds, she sings through her nodules, or at least, conceives of singing through them; sites of damage created most likely by, well, creating those high-pitch sounds.

Over the years, it's pretty obvious that there have been changes to Carey's voice. (Also she seems like a much happier person, and one that is making better music!) And what remains is a pretty luscious, hissy thing. But you also get the sense that everything is so completely jury-rigged between her mind and her throat. And it looks to me, watching both yesterday's and other recent performance, that while she is singing, she's seriously thinking through what will "fail" in the right way, to produce a stop, or allow her to pull off melisma, or jump about between voices, producing a pleasing effect-and what might possibly fail in a bad way, ending in disaster. I think that while she is singing, she is in a bit of panic about manufacturing sound.

Also? One slightly disturbing thing also comes from her Twitter, posted at 3:20 a.m. EST in the middle of June: "4:20..how is everyone?" Oh boy, let's hope she's baking it in brownies, not smoking the stuff.

And here is an insane year-by-year retrospective of 18 years of live performances.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/is-mariah-careys-voice-just-done-for/feed 19 Rupert Everett's Gayface http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/rupert-everetts-gayface http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/rupert-everetts-gayface#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:32:19 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/rupert-everetts-gayface What happened to Rupert Everett's face? And how much did it cost?

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]]> What happened to Rupert Everett's face? And how much did it cost?

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/rupert-everetts-gayface/feed 3 Fun http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/fu http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/fu#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:22:12 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/fu Our motto, maybe? "The smart thing to say, I think, is that the way out of this bind is to work your way somehow back to your original motivation-fun."-David Foster Wallace.

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]]> Our motto, maybe? "The smart thing to say, I think, is that the way out of this bind is to work your way somehow back to your original motivation-fun."-David Foster Wallace.

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