To my dismay, writing weird short stories isn’t exactly the goldmine I had once envisioned. So, when amazing and beautiful items that range out of my modest budget catch my attention, they go into a fantasy file in my head reserved for what I’d buy if money were no expense. Here is a peek into that bundle of covetousness.
These heels look like 80s apocalypse punk exploded all over them. I’ve never seen anything by Gasoline Glamour in person. I might worry that the spikes would fall off, but then it looks like there’s just layers upon layers on these. You could probably shed a bit and never notice. Some might believe the natural mate for shoes like these would be fishnets, but I’d wear them with opaque black or magenta hose to keep it from looking too much like Road Warrior cosplay. Pavement Shoes at Gasoline Glamour.
Pavement Heels by Gasoline Glamour
I desperately want one of these to display on a shelf. I remember as a kid reading books on the paranormal and coming across stories of crystal skulls that screamed in the night. While the screaming bit would likely lose its appeal quite rapidly, a life-sized crystal skull certainly would add a touch of the macabre to Prime Manor–which is shamefully lacking in supervillain-style decor. Rock Crystal Skull at Skullis.com
Quartz Crystal Skull
I love the sort of tribal post-industrial slightly futuristic aesthetic of Dannijo’s jewelry. This necklace in particular seems perfect for lounging on your tauntaun skin rug while plotting something’s demise. The shades of violet, red and blue make this Zander necklace my favorite among Dannijo’s offerings, but there are many more gorgeous pieces on their site. Delicate jewelry is for the timid. Dannijo.
Zander Necklace by Dannijo
This excellent industrial keyboard is exactly what I need to class up my lair. Gears, battle-damaged metal, hex-nut shaped keys: yes please. Steampunk fails to move me because I hate the look of brass but hit me with some dirty steel and I swoon. Keyboards by Datamancer.
Industrial Keyboard by Datamancer
I hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of unnecessarily awesome things.
Oh, one of these pictures is of some chains I was oxidizing with liver of sulfur solution. So that’s why there’s a shot of chain draped over a towel rack. I oxidized a silver bracelet I’d made that I should post pictures of soon. I’m also planning on challenging myself to use up my fabric stash (of which there are several bins full) within the next year, so there may be photos of my own handmade clothes soon. Maybe.
I like my goth with a side of futurism. But I have issues with the way these two great tastes are usually combined. Cyber goth is a bit too neon and Halloween costume-y for me. If it’s your passion to wear plastic hair and shredded tutus, that’s adequately satisfactory, but not at all a look I would wear. I like industrial or military looks, but I also like a touch of glam and that can be hard to balance with that post-apocalyptic wasteland raider look. If I could look like an evil extra from Farscape that would be ideal. Here are some items I found on Etsy that could be incorporated into a dark futuristic look.
This dress by Masq combines Art Deco with Japanese influences. I like that the body of the dress and the sleeves are different materials. The series of darts at the front are a lovely addition. Darts are tough to do in satin, but these add shape and interest to the front of the dress. I also like the combination of black and blue. This dress is perfect for the space villainess to relax in her destroyer. Just because you spend all day oppressing planetary systems doesn’t mean you can’t look fabulous. Visit Masq Here.
This leather corset belt by Zahira’s Boudoir features some excellent hardware. Add this to the dress above and your cowering minions will soon begin to understand that you want them to find you those plans immediately! The back of the belt is elastic so you can take deep breaths–the better to bellow at incompetent generals and uncooperative rebel fighters. Visit ZahirasBoudoir here.
Plastik Wrap comes pretty close to perfectly embodying my vision of goth meets future. I’ve been pining after these slick opera gloves for some time now. But, alas, as I have no space empire to keep in line I can’t quite justify buying them while pesky annoyances like student loans and food stand in my way. There are several other Plastic Wrap items I’d indulge in if I won the space lottery, including their Harness Dress and their Geisha Dress. Visit Plastik Wrap Here.
Once you’re dressed to oppress, you’ll need some jewelry that ties the whole look together. This silver necklace by Ruonan is alien, organic and rare. The shapes are suggested by coral, but they also remind me of bones. The larger pads at the ends of each piece are brushed matte, while the rest of the necklace retains a polished silver finish. Let your minions know you have great taste. Visit Ruonan here.
Listening to Skinny Puppy was like living in a haunted television. The vocals were run through layers of dirty distortion that made what came out of our stereos sound like a tormented soul in hell or worse. Over this and assorted electronic noises, clips of movies or tv shows with telltale midcentury diction floated, unmoored and decontextualized so that they may as well have been more synth noise. The lyrics, such as they were, vaguely hinted at death, torture and despair. Narratives were absent, just nebulous words connected only by some nearly schizophrenic associative process that inspired a codebreaker’s fervor in me. My middle school boyfriend—a pathological liar with unaccountably great taste in music—and I would pour over liner notes, debate what samples were supposed to mean. In the days before everything was on the internet it was a massive triumph to finally prove that the line in The Choke was “assuming that were possible” and not—as said boyfriend insisted—“assuming I were comfortable.” We spent hours trying to conjure up lucid dreams while Skinny Puppy tapes reeled out on the stereo in my room. What we expected from those dreams in not clear. Something like divination, maybe. Communicating with those eerie disembodied voices? The music was disturbed, irrational and perhaps we wanted to think we were like that too.
We—and here I mean all the Goths who grew up in this late 80s-early 90s not-quite-Gen-X- but-close-enough milieu—thought of ourselves in some ways as like these songs. Full of random noise, made of senseless words from TV shows that only came on after everyone else in the house was already asleep, knowing a world of pain existed out there but not sure we were actually feeling it. Songs like “Deep Down Trauma Hounds” spoke to us of horrors in remote, vague terms. If there was identifiable pain in all the vivisection and torment, it didn’t seem to belong to anyone specific, so we made it belong to all of us. We reveled in the strange, dissonant noise. We had been vivisected, it said so on our ripped black shirts. And if—as in all likelihood—that wasn’t true, we would find a way to do it to ourselves. If ever there was music made for zombies, this was it.
There was talk that Skinny Puppy was going too mainstream when Last Rights came out. There were fewer of the songs that challenged you to sit through eight minutes of stuttering samples and tinny drums. The lyrics were more coherent but still cryptic. Though this album gave us the hauntingly beautiful “Love In Vein” and the quiet melancholy of “Mirror Saw” it still dared you to prove you were not a poseur who’d skip through “Circustance” or “Download.” Then Dwayne Goettel died, The Process eventually came out and it had all kinds of horrors like Ogre’s unprocessed vocals and acoustic guitar. Was the band trying to be Skinny Puppy Unplugged? If the opening acoustic guitar of “Candle” played over any club’s system and you headed toward the floor everyone would know you were a noob. You’d better sit on those cockroach–kickers until “Testure” played.
In retrospect, The Process shaped a lot of the industrial that came after. But it also began Skinny Puppy’s deviation from a band that would make most people call the exorcist to something that might conceivably be played in association with some sort of sporting event. There was a time in the early aughts when one could hear Front Line Assembly on MTV sports. I feared this would be Skinny Puppy’s fate.
The excellent book House of Leaves has a dedication reading “This is not for you.” This, then, exemplifies how I felt when Skinny Puppy t-shirts started cropping up on regular kids. This was not for them. They hadn’t listened as intently, trying to scratch some meaning out of the songs. They didn’t understand where this music came from. They liked some rocking guitars and bass drums and didn’t care about the message. Of course, it was the time that anything vaguely labeled “alternative” was stripped from the fans to sell toothpaste. I’d cherished this music that was spooky and weird and I didn’t want to share it with everyone. Sometime close to 2003, I stopped trying to keep up with any music save a handful of obscure German acts. I mined the past and avoided the present. I ignored Ogre’s solo albums and focused on the multi-volumes of Back and Forth. The Process really marks the end for me.
As I was looking for videos to insert into this post, I came across this:
This is just the worst sort of thing. Trying to throw some sort of banal hip-hop attitude into Skinny Puppy? It’s not funny, it’s not cool. It seems like if Skinny Puppy aspired to be played at wet-t-shirt contests, then this would accomplish that.
Sigh.
I need to get some sleep. See you in electric dreams.
Lashes and Stars 