Photo(s) of the Week: Two Queens

Hello there everyone. Wow, it’s been a very long time since I last posted something about this feature… The day before yesterday, almost three months to the day, I had the pleasure of seeing Milk and Louisa again, together with Kyoshiro, Ed Elric and Chiroto. After exchanging news and vacation stories, we started to reminisce and  – predictably – the discussion went the way of Japanese music parties. I was then I remembered yet again of two folders of photos from Le Ciel’s  (back then still “Ordre de Ciel”, which I can finally publicly say was written wrong, since in French “ciel” is male and therefore, it should have been “Ordre du Ciel” – what can I say, I am a language geek) parties last November, just before all Hell broke loose.

After all this time, I have finally come to realize that given our history with [room302], I cannot find it in me, even infinitesimally, to devote time and energy in writing about those parties from the viewpoint of back then – there has just been too much bad blood, black and sticky, separating that time from the present. However, I have never forgotten one thing, which remains true: had it not been for Milk and Louiza (as well as their friends, who pitched in when things got way too crowded), who busted their asses for around 4 hours each time, there would have never been the two “Let’s Get Visual” parties, let alone been so hugely successful.

Therefore, I dug up these two photos – previously unpublished – from “Let’s Get Visual II”, where the two queens of Visual Kei transformation are hard at work on Vegetasmate. Ladies, you can let anyone say that you were not great, because, in fact, you were fantastic!

Love you both,

Speedgrapher

Photo of the Week: Louiza, Ordinary Day

I know, I know: what the Hell am I thinking? Louiza was also featured in the previous Photo of the Week. However, this particular picture is one I have long sought among the thousands on my PC, ever since Photo of the Week was conceived of, by Ergo Proxy. It was taken a year ago, almost to the day, on the 10th of April 2008 (4 days after I got back from Japan). It really struck me because I realized it was probably the first time I was seeing Louiza in her casual wear and wearing next to no make-up (at least, none that I can perceive of). Remember, I used to meet all of you strictly at night, at KABATZA or Japanese-related parties at BIOS, which translated in a certain apparel for most. This image of her, casually strolling around Exarheia, with huge headphones around her neck and the green-turned-blonde tufts of hair, made me think how weird it was I had almost never seen her in the light of day and once more brought to mind her actual age.

It is really odd, but at the time, apart from a tight circle of friends, I would rarely meet and talk with people in the middle of the street, in broad daylight: there was no particular reason behind that; it was just so. I am not entirely sure what else this encounter and picture made me think of, since I had been at the other side of the Earth just 4 days prior and my mind was wired differently at least for a month. At any rate, one thing is certain: it brought to mind the beginning and end of Vanessa Carlton’s “Ordinary Day”, with the single change of the word “boy” into “girl”:

Just a day, just an ordinary day
Just tryin’ to get by
Just a girl, just an ordinary girl
But she was looking to the sky

Indeed, what are we all, except ordinary people who simply dare raise their eyes to the sky and dream?

Speedgrapher

Photo of the Week: Louiza, Roxie Hart

The name on everybody’s lips is gonna be: Roxie
The lady raking in the chips is gonna be: Roxie
I’m gonna be a celebrity,
That means somebody everyone knows,
They’re gonna recognize my eyes, my hair, my teeth, my boobs, my nose.

From just some dumb mechanic’s wife, I’m gonna be: Roxie
Who says that murder’s not an art?
And who in case she doesn’t hang,
Can say she started with a bang?
Roxie Hart!

-excerpt from Chicago, the Musical, from the song “Roxie”

It’s been quite a long time since I last posted a Photo of the Week and the last one has remained at the top of the charts ever since, as the most viewed photo of the blog. Going through some of my, as yet unarchived photographic material, I came across this folder named “2008-12-20 – Post FF”. Glory be that I still have my head attached to my shoulders, and I recognized this as a set of photos taken after the Final Fantasy Cosplay Party. I had been thinking since forever that some of our fun, non-Japanese, outings with people you are probably familiar with, should find their place in Easy Subjugation but, at the risk of becoming tedious, I haven’t had the time until now.

Returning our focus to the picture, on the very same day I took it, not only did I instantly think, but also said that this had a place in the Photo of the Week Gallery. It brought to mind images from the days of the Prohibition in the U.S.A., when daring smugglers, ruthless gangsters and upstanding detectives with republicas, would duke it out or chase after each other, all the while gorgeous ladies on their arms, whether as airhead, dazzled-by-the-money companions, femmes fatales, cabaret girls and even proverbial black widows. Whatever the case and the details, those wild, violent years, had a charm and kind of desperate thirst for life, most often expressed by the female populace. Having watched Chicago, I think only fit that Louiza reminds me of the ruthless, sensual and in a way, tragic villain, Roxie Hart, in this particular photo.

Hence, the above lyrics from the song that bears her name: you murder us girl, but “who said murder’s not an art?”

Speedgrapher

P.S. Incidentally, this photo is not posed: Louiza, WAS actually dancing at that moment. The rest of the photos from that night will be up on Easy Subjugation tomorrow, so go and have a look. You won’t be disappointed.