letter from the editor. This took a while, hope everyone’s happy with the outcome. Thankyou to Jessica ‘January’ Johnston for her help, Audrey Cantwell, Mitra, and Marc from Das Monk for the clothes. Don’t believe those who say eternal youth is inexistant; they always forget to dream.
Editor Chris Petres thechrispo.com
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Florence and the Machine performing Dog Days. There is absolutely nothing not to love about Florence, who just released her debut ‘Lungs’, an album full of passion and gothic imagery. She is even more mindblowing live.
Vivienne Westwood.
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LOVE 1. in the clear by Peyton Straker It’s 2:29 AM. Usually at this time of morning I could be caught sharing with Daniel LeClair. I am Peyton Alix Straker, I live in a place called Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. You’ve never heard of it because it is hardly existent. The whole town, the whole population ... A waste. Google-ing it would be equally wasteful. Here, there is nobody even half worth your time. I go to a normal high school where normal girls fuck normal boys. There is a McDonald’s and every so often, a good book to read but usually that’s all. The only positive detail about this town is that Daniel came from it. He and his mother moved here from New Brunswick. Another nowhere. They came to town with eight army bags and each other. Than he left, leaving his mom here, just like every other interesting, unconventional adolescent creature who ever steps foot in this materialistic piss hole. He had a thick, dark mane that covered his ass, the kind that most women dream of. He wore a jean jacket. It had Rolling Stones patches on it, Ozzy patches, all sorts. It was one of a kind, as was the boy who wore it. His hair and his jacket were the reasons I stayed away from him. He looked too interesting, too uninvolved in society and irregular. It scared me, but I always noticed him. He walked with a strut. The kind any self respecting stoner has. He boxed and played hockey quite well. My mom once mentioned how high he always seemed to look. Now, I just see his bloodshot eyes as a personality trait and a contribution to his character. He is beautiful. When I tell him so, he takes the compliment and with no arrogance, no chuckle and no ego. He would never let gender define one’s beauty and so clearly, it doesn’t because he is synonymous to the word. He has the ability to make me feel two totally opposite feelings in the same second. When he speaks to me it’s like listening to poetry. All of his words are so delicate and careful, though it’s obviously not on purpose. I always tell him to write down his thoughts as they are and he’d end up with a perfectly delightful poem. He won’t. I’ve never conversed with somebody with such talent as to be one hundred percent honest, but respectful and darling while doing so. His thought patterns are rare and realistic. Sometimes Daniel will say things that no other human would have ever realized. When he says them, I wonder how I could have missed such lovely details. He is aware, but the things that drive most people mad are the things that he lets slide off his shoulders. His personality can’t be defined. It would be unfair to label him because there’s no stereotype that could possibly cover all of his layers. His brain is like boxed hair dye. It never does the same thing twice. A line in a song was what caused us to first speak. It was one by Bon Iver that I didn’t even enjoy listening to but “ in the morning I’ll be with you, but it will be a different kind” helped explain the jumbled puzzle I was feeling inside my skull. He asked what it meant to me and from than on music and all the facets and dimensions of it were what shaped us and our never ending conversations, which usually took place in the dark of the night. Not long after the conversation started, we discovered our mutual love and respect for Neil Young. Cowgirl in the Sand was the first song we discussed and deep meaning was quickly attached to it. Another thing we discovered was that we were both rehabilitating from previous relationships, which was why he was living in Vancouver. He needed to get away. Stupid things, relationships can be. Those were the first things we discovered we had in common. We now know there is a Bible-length list. I always picture him singing Rocket Queen to me and I get worked up just thinking about it. The telephone is all we have, so we use it religiously. Facebook is an asshole and i dread it, but sometimes we have no choice. No matter what our means of communication may be, he never fails to make me feel genuine. He allows me to feel hallow and empty of all the dangerous things that swarm outside the nucleus of my noggin. He makes me feel sweet and passionate. Even at the thought of him, I feel like a cowgirl covered in glitter.
2. follow not like a sheep by Kayla Stinson My words are well hidden, even though it seems I say a lot. My anticipation is way off, and my mind wonders like a child. My eyes see more of what you speak, then what my ears hear; as my words speak more than I do myself. I have yet to figure out your complex ways, as you have yet to understand the emotion one can have, one can share, and one (such as yourself) could so easily learn from if you only allowed yourself to follow. Follow not like a sheep, but in the interest of knowledge to what I have to offer you. I will keep you guessing, as you do to I. However, my feelings are plastered all over my face, if you’re in any doubt, just take a look. you’ll know what my expression means, if you’ve learnt how to read emotion - I know well enough you’re mind will work properly in trying to figure out the puzzle, if you only so much take the time to look deep enough. One day you’ll understand the admiration I have for you, one day you’ll be the one to break down my walls, one day I’ll be the one to break down yours.
myspace.com/meyoko
Listen to Rebecca’s music on rebeccaschiffman.com
I was born in new york. I do random freelance work but I dont make a living so I live with my parents. Anything (people, art, experiences- good or bad) can inspire me, unexpectedly, and I feel lucky when that happens. New York influences my music in as much as it’s my hometown and current home - I recently realized I’ve never been outside of NYC for more than 7 weeks at a time - and also, a lot of great music and art comes here. I hear about kids in the suburbs doing creative things to overcome boredom. Here, it’s as if there’s too much stimulation and you have to delve in and sort out what you like. I discovered two of my biggest musical influences/inspirations from going out in NYC. In high school I used to go to almost every Sunday all-ages show at Brownies and I saw Ted Leo play there in his band The Sin-eaters. And a few years ago I saw Jeffery Lewis play in the basement at a house party in Queens. Ted Leo and Jeffrey Lewis continue to be great inspirations to me.
FREE LOVE RECESSION BY PHILIPPA SNOULTON TRASHFORCEREAPER.COM
I can’t help but smile as I notice that once again, it’s that special time of year when a young girl’s fancy turns to all the simplest and most inexpensive joys in life – the first day of summer, for example, or the thrill of sitting around an open fire on the beach just after a peach-pink sunset, or, say, giving regrettable but enthusiastic head to a stranger in the bathroom of a Shoreditch boozer with little or no consideration of the consequences. Oh, the follies of youth! (At this point I was going to attempt to pull the rug from underneath you and reveal that actually, I wasn’t talking about the summertime at all, but actually the recession, which I thought you’d all think was a suitably tortured segue into the article, but there’s no way I can do it in a way that isn’t as heavily signposted as the bit in The Sixth Sense where we realise Bruce Willis is dead. If you’re writing me an angry email now telling me that I’ve just spoiled that film for you, by the way - hello, and welcome to 2009! I trust you’re enjoying Lady Gaga and HD television.)
Regardless, I wanted to talk to you about the economic downturn, and the impact that it may or may not be having on our sex lives – sex is after all, the most fun you can have with your clothes off, and haven’t you noticed that clothes are getting bloody expensive lately? The media is keen on pushing the idea that we’re all spiralling into another free-spirited, spirit of (ahem) ‘69 “summer of love”, disregarding capitalism and all of its shackles by casting our scruples aside and rediscovering the transcendental wonder of screwing each other like rabbits. It’s one big love-in, Western World, and you’re all invited! Except the absolute weirdoes of course, but then the sales of sex-toys are soaring, so it seems that everyone’s happy! Let’s all forget about the fact that we can scarcely afford a tin of baked beans by caressing each other’s bronzed, sculpted bodies and braiding daisies into each other’s bushes and shit like that, yeah? But, here’s the thing; sex, granted, is not expensive. It isn’t free for those of us who use nonchemical forms of contraception, granted, but a shag, on average, is probably as inexpensive as a go on the pub quiz machine, and requires far less general knowledge about football teams and the early cast-members of Coronation Street. People, however, can be expensive. And they can look shit without the superficial veneer of capitalism all over them, at least by societal standards. Think about a world without access to good-quality razors, decent clothing, make-up, hairdressers, anti-dandruff shampoo, waxing salons, gym memberships, nutritionally-balanced food, Pilates classes, etc, etc. Feeling horny? I thought not. Strip, in your mind, a well-known Hollywood actor of his hair-plugs, his California tan and his personal trainer. Deny a Hollywood actress her hair extensions, acne treatments and DD breast augmentation. A sprinkle of the fairy-dust is gone. In truth, our modern ideal of what it means to be Sexy - with a capital S - relies so far on artifice that with our economy going down the drain we’re left with only two options. The first is to be so aghast at the idea of a world without the perfect Brad and Angelinas we’ve constructed, Frankenstein-like for our own illicit fantasies that we completely selfdestruct, retreating into celibacy and eventually dying out like the freaky, outdated dinosaurs we are. The second is to get the hell over ourselves, place our naked and unaltered faces and bodies at the mercy of the rest of the general public, and, for the pure and primal joy of being alive, go forth and multiply with each other like greasy, unashamed, spit-end-ridden monkeys. Which one of these comes to fruition is entirely up to us. (I don’t want to be cynical, but I’d stock up on that expensive conditioner, just in case. Guys don’t make passes at girls who use the two-in-one stuff. Or something.)
MADISON PALFFY URBANAUDREY.BLOGSPOT.COM
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DISCORDANT discordantphotography.xb61.de
JESSICA JOHNSTON JJJANUARY.BLOGSPOT.COM
BY KIMIYA SHOKOOHI
Plopped on top of Vancouver’s Canadian soil stands designer Cindy Lou Atkinson’s heritage home. Nothing too original from its roadside counterparts at a glace, but this humble abode has a little secret that sets it apart from the rest of the perfectly aligned houses on Union street. It’s first floor has been wiped out and turned into a portal back to the sewing era of the 1920s. Atkinson, a Vancouver designer with 30 years of film and television styling experience, has transformed her living room and dinning room area into a sewing safe haven for anyone eager to pick up a sewing needle. Fashion itself has held a tight grip on the lime light all throughout human history. Clothes has been peoples form of nonverbal expression for hundreds of years. While the shapes and sizes of the Victorian ruffle dresses and wired undergarments have altered in our contemporary fashion era, it still remains a prime component of self-identity. Fashion has not taken a breather from its dominating role in many people’s lives, but what has changed is the way fashion has been delivered. The Victorian and Edwardian sewing era of old New York’s garment distinct where seamstresses would delicately stitch together a marvellous piece of history has now turned into a monopolized war game of who-can-make-this-t-shirt-the cheapest. The clothes makers of the early 20th century have now transformed into impoverished people in third world countries putting clothes on peoples backs for pennies. Atkinson’s sewing studio is revitalizing the art form of sewing and bringing originality back into the lives of people tiered of painting the town red in the same dress as everyone else. “There is this mass production going on. To me being original has always been way more important then looking like your neighbour,” said Atkinson. A walk into Atkinson living room-turned-studio feels like a walk back into a 1920’s fashion studio where industrial and vintage sewing machines and irons sparkle through their rustic form. Fashion Dummies, cutting tables and spools of thread ornament this creative space where Atkinson’s students come to get away from the modern world of H&M regurgitation. “I’m so relaxed here,” said beginner sewing student Abby Campbell as she carefully prepped her pencil skirt to the jazzy beats of 50’s lounge music. “ There is no pressure with Cindy. She is nurturing, and I know that she knows what she is taking about. I trust her.” Not only has quality fashion been diminishing but Atkinson notices that it is an art form has is also vanishing from many secondary school systems. Atkinson classes offer a type of educational intimacy that post-secondary fashion schools fail to deliver as their sardines-in-a-can classes eliminate the one-on-one learning experience. Atkinson’s limits her classes to a maximum of four students. “You get a different type of style and flair here that a big centre or college wouldn’t,” said student Shawn Fullerton. “This is where you want to be when you’re learning something like this, not in a big concrete building, but in a residential area with a cozy and funky feel.” Atkinson offers a variety of classes from introductory sewing to couture draping. She provides students with the materials and the skills they need in order to create their own pieces. She shows students proper handling of industrial and domestic sewing machines, how to draw out their pieces to fit their own bodies and the step-by-step process of putting all the bits and pieces together. Designers and teachers like Atkinson are preserving whatever dignity is left in the contemporary fashion world. She’s showing her students that sometimes the best outfits are the ones self-made. Whether many like to admit it or not, fashion is a big contributor to individualism, because underneath it all, we’re all pretty much the same.
JUST DANCE
Put on your dancing shoes and get ready to tackle this seasons new look by Lucy Robertson betterwithanaccent.blogspot.com We know what everyone thinks of when the word ‘ballerina’ is mentioned- some prissy, poised and probably blonde skinny little thing with a hairbun so tight it looks painful, prancing about in a pink tutu. Then Balmain’s Spring/Summer collection comes out, and bam! It may not be in the same baby pink I had imagined, but it was diamanté and spaghetti straps galore all the same. Although they were dresses I could never imagine myself in- the words “Disney princess” sprung to mind- I was drawn to the body and the bounce of the tutu skirt, also the way they were paired with some rather vicious looking heels- I liked the contrast. It was then that I set myself a challenge: create a wearable, daytime, ballerinaesque look. Not only did I think this was next to impossible, ballerina and daytime aren’t exactly two words I’d put in the same sentence. All the same, I set out to see if it was really a look that could be pulled off. I started with American Apparel: I’d seen figure skating dresses and other dance class style pieces there before, and I hoped it was going to offer me the same again. This time it wasn’t the dresses that had caught my eye; AA has a huge selection of bodies on offer: perfect under a full skirt. I particularly liked the backless bodies; they seemed more fitting for the look I was trying to achieve. Next stop: Topshop, for a full bodied skirt. I find a cotton mini skirt in most brilliant shade of blue and it matches the AA body…sold! To avoid becoming too girly and to get a look that really packs a punch; I team the body and the skirt with a man-cardigan (Zara and Topman have the best selection) and lace up flat shoes from Topshop. My verdict? Whether it’s a full skirt, a body, a dance dress or even some ballet slippers, try teaming it with something a little more casual: think slouchy cotton cardigans or jumpers. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it: I’m no ballerina, but I definitely have more spring in my step.
x
LOS ANGELES, GIVE ME SOME OF YOU These 14 pictures are part of a larger portrait Jenna and I are creating about The City we love so much. They will be released as a series of zines, and much later on, after we’ve died of old age, they will be released as some kind of collectible hardcover coffee table book. We are paying our respects to the environment that created us and allowed us to bloom. Let these pictures give you a taste of what it means to wake up everyday and to actually be in love with your surroundings.
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From chapter two: “What I remember before I began” Preview exclusively for Vinyl Riot.
The world pressed in on me with its strange invitation to experience how it might feel if I held its sphere in my palm. The more I wanted to get under its skin, the more it made me, it seems. I was intensely aware of how everything looked the same, and yet felt vaguely different. The people here must know that. There was more to it than they knew though, and less that I could put my finger on. If I could be you with your wetsuit, with your bike, with your feet for a while, I might find out about your world; how it differs from mine and how it must be the same, at the crux of things. I want to go backwards into my own life, and forwards into yours. I want to feel what it is like to be completely the same, and yet utterly different. But if I was so interested in you; in the flip of your ankles and the marble veins in your skin, the pulse I so badly wanted to get inside of, then what was it that you looked for in me? Other people were equally mad. Standing there under the dome of sea air I felt doubly removed from myself, as if I could get inside you and you watched me with curious intent. It was a strange feeling, being up there and looking at me, the mad one. The one who even likes to be mad. Though the air was shy now, I knew it promised heat later, the kind cacti like. The days always began like this; built towards a heat explosion at three and then dissipated into the flowery night some hours later, with the sun tagging the moon as it went on its opposite way. I looked forward to what that darkening sky promised. Those afternoons when I would just hang together, in orbit, with old friends or my sister, and suck roasted hazelnuts and wet lime halves on cold tiles while we talked about things I never remember talking about. Every year I did this, and every year there were some different people, some new. I thought about how often I think: Mostly about what could be around my corners; but also I think about the journey to the beginning of time, to the essences of things, to the basic cruxes of the stuff on this earth. I often imagine how the bottom line of the universe is that fact that everything is made up of one essence, those vibrating atomic particles of information. The spidery wetsuit children had churned the sand to fit the feel of the morning, the essence, the texture. The surf mirrored the hidden magnitude
of the lidded, wooly sky and the sand was whipped up to bridge the gap in between. I have also been likened together with this one existent essence. I have been fit into my culture because I learnt to talk like they all did, and I was called Sophie and not Mark. I was the same, and it has lasted kind of a long time. Some days though, I actually want to be different. I like to change how people might see me, to turn holographic for a moment, patch myself into flashed firework pixels, or go stone cold sombre before you can bat that snapped eyelid of yours. But sometimes I just watch you. I don’t want to be different or looked at, because I indulged too much in my ego yesterday. Really I think I’m just the same as you are, I want to talk to you so badly and find out what we are like and where the yardstick lies that separates us. In fact I want to smash that stick in to pieces. If this thing I want is in you though, and not anywhere in me, I’m intrigued. I might look at you for a long time. You might look at me, and sometimes I think that if I don’t want you to know me, there is no reason for me to look like that for so long or you might find my hiding place. He brought a shallow bowl of dry salty popcorn to where we sat on the walled edge of the sea-fronting terrace. I saw how the blue bowl mirrored the ocean with its own popcorn-white fishing boats, drifting about in the salt, and wondered if the blue potter might have lived once by the sea. A hundred metres from the shore one man stood up in a lone boat and peered over the prow toward the granite shore and azure shallows he hovered over; unwary of the appeal that his curious manner, his grey hair and brick skin, held to the outsiders above him. ‘I always thought we were the only people in the world,’ my friend said quietly, without looking me straight in the eye. ‘How much has changed.’ He spoke his words, perhaps more to himself, with a kind of impassioned interest, watching the fisherman lie down now widthways in his boat. ‘I first saw a white man on the television and I was five years old’, he said. And then, with a slight smile, ‘I was very confused’. ‘Did you learn English in Paris, when you moved away?’, I asked.
‘I am still always learning English. But to work in France with my boyfriend I must learn French. It takes a long time to change,’ he said as he hooked his leg up to his chest and placed his foot down with careful attention on the limestone. ‘Do you miss your home in Thailand?’ ‘I left when I was young, it isn’ t home anymore. If I was home, it wouldn’t be home. That was one home, and now I have many.’ He picked the last kernels out of the oiled bowl and flicked them down amongst the geraniums. ‘Do you want to go down to the lagoon with me?’ I asked. He said yes, and he would take photographs. I watched his eyes as he searched for the camera in his pockets. Crippled lizards flitted about amongst the salty shade as they descended toward the scene that unfolded below them. The day was disconnecting itself from time in waves. The heat did that. The nights rolled along and we’d walk along the rotating globe toward places that moved just as fast toward us. I always looked forward to that warmth of an elbow in mine, to wondering which bar would serve us dinner tonight and where the table would be when we found it. In the magneticism of so many dark nights, my mind often talks to me; when the silence is so afloat elsewhere and even the trees seem to make less noise without light. In the day the echo of wakeful birds and distant tyres upon ashphalt reflects itself into my open room. That noise is gone in the night. In its place, time and again, I’m aware of something almost hugging my mind to itself: some thought or voice that emanates from the depths of some unfathomable situation. I realise only upon reflection, that these thoughts would seem strange to an outsider. Only inside my mind it is real, and in place. How do I talk back to them? Is it the past that is talking back to me after I’ve made it? Or is it the future? How do I know it is me doing the talking? These days I couldn’t wait to be free, which really meant that I wanted to wander around changing myself all the time, not trying to change, but just
being a change. Walking in a world where everything was entropic and wandered away from what it was. It was part of my life, I thought, this was the very nature I’d been created with and when it was worded it seemed scary, as if there was nothing definite in the world not even that sun or any man. But I know now: This is how I like to be, wandering, stepping into myself and being a different version of the same soul with every step along the pavement, sending the pressures of gravity bubbling upwards through vein and synapse. But before this existence there was nothing, and yet everything after, like the universe creating its information about how the world should occur. I wanted everyone to be freed from the rules of the information that told them this was it. I wanted people to know the other side of the moon as well, the other ways life could be. At the lip of the shore Gemma cradled a bleeding ankle, cut out on the reef. She looked back at me through the brim of a long and broad hat, then drew her attention to the light. I start believing that madness might not be a sickness, but just a different, no less perfect view of this world. I like to think that’s what happens. Your electricity never weeps away. I could see the old man on the horizons’ hadn’t (he almost skipped to the shore), and I hoped the little spiders’ didn’t ever. But I want to let go of mine for a while. I want to get into other worlds and see what your madness is like because I need to see a fuse burn beyond mine.
5 years time - noah and the whale daniel - bat for lashes when I grow up - fever ray the youth - mgmt between two lungs - florence and the machine bombs - scanners hospital beds - cold war kids carbon monoxide - regina spektor playground love - air me and katie on the ues - rebecca schiffman pot kettle black - tilly and the wall gold lion - yeah yeah yeahs
youth/youth by Jessica Johnston we are the pale electric . buzzing and crackling sparks beneath translucent skin, our glass bones are so easily shattered . snap . but oh, they feel so strong . our lungs taste burnt, our tongues coated in a pixie dust acid . our voices glitter with the metallic notes of apathy and ecstasy . we scream, we yell, we whisper . epic tales crawling past our lips, begging to be heard . we want to be heard . we want to disappear . listen to our fleeting songs of crystalline heartache and mistakes . are we not loud enough ? we shine so bright . mercurial blood streaming though our veins, we run, we leap, we sleep . never slowing down enough, always exploding . our tiny mouths on fire . fuelled by gasoline laughter . fuelled by vodka and rum . the clocks keep ticking,, but we don’t see the hands . mechanical, meticulous, strict . we break free, surviving on the electricity we exude . we glow . we are young .
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Jacket Audrey Cantwell T-shirt by Das Monk Jewelry vintage
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