My kids tried to explain the difference between Goth and emo back in the day (probably turn of the century). I have lectured about "Gothic" on many occasions in various art history classes, but "emo" is too abstract for me. I was a monster kid" in 1958, switching my allegiance from MAD to FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and from the Hardy Boys to Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. More like the kid in MATINEE than the one in SALEM'S LOT. Nobody writes about fashion in all its manifestations than you do, Cintra. The best advice I ever got from my dad was "don't take yourself too seriously," a lesson he learned the hard way. Popular culture was my gateway to expanding that pearl of wisdom to everything else. You are the one of the Wise Ones in that regard. Om.
In the late 80s my roommate Thoralf and his friends were the nucleus of the Jomsvikings, kids of U Maryland faculty who met in the SCA, made their own weapons and chainmail, and then got into punk rock and motorcycles. They were whip-smart and funny, but everyone was terrified of them. Most capered around the perimeter of goth without actually going over the edge; they listened to the Cocteau Twins and Einstürzende Neubauten and wore mostly black under their gang colors (which were rendered in the Elder Futhark). Other than the skeleton they disinterred from a local cemetery and kept in Thoralf's closet and that time I caught them hot-wiring my motorcycle, they were mostly harmless. I'm still guilty of wearing (mostly) black, but I entirely lack the flair required for actual gothness. Or Jomsvikingness, for that matter.
My kids tried to explain the difference between Goth and emo back in the day (probably turn of the century). I have lectured about "Gothic" on many occasions in various art history classes, but "emo" is too abstract for me. I was a monster kid" in 1958, switching my allegiance from MAD to FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and from the Hardy Boys to Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. More like the kid in MATINEE than the one in SALEM'S LOT. Nobody writes about fashion in all its manifestations than you do, Cintra. The best advice I ever got from my dad was "don't take yourself too seriously," a lesson he learned the hard way. Popular culture was my gateway to expanding that pearl of wisdom to everything else. You are the one of the Wise Ones in that regard. Om.
Dressing all in black doesn’t work for me. People ask me if I’m attempting a Johnny Cash impression.
"Biker Madonna with a mood disorder" might that not be an oxymoron?
if you narrated a piece without the use of the word "kinderwhore" i'd start to get worried
also without something as confoundingly profound as "black is the new black" 😜
Crazy thing, Whitley Streiber wrote The Hunger.
You nailed the raccoon- they are on my mind as one was eating cat food in my house last night and another was chasing ducks in a nearby urban canal.
In the late 80s my roommate Thoralf and his friends were the nucleus of the Jomsvikings, kids of U Maryland faculty who met in the SCA, made their own weapons and chainmail, and then got into punk rock and motorcycles. They were whip-smart and funny, but everyone was terrified of them. Most capered around the perimeter of goth without actually going over the edge; they listened to the Cocteau Twins and Einstürzende Neubauten and wore mostly black under their gang colors (which were rendered in the Elder Futhark). Other than the skeleton they disinterred from a local cemetery and kept in Thoralf's closet and that time I caught them hot-wiring my motorcycle, they were mostly harmless. I'm still guilty of wearing (mostly) black, but I entirely lack the flair required for actual gothness. Or Jomsvikingness, for that matter.