CURIOSITY JOURNAL

Seven days and seven things worthy of curiosity.

 

 

#1 – FORBIDDEN DESIRE

GRAVE / RAW

The poster for this movie by Julia Ducourneau is an image that has stuck with me since the very first time I saw it. Several things speak to me in that image, its aesthetic being the first one. From the unnatural lighting to the position of Garance Marillier, including her expression and the way she fills up the space, there is a heated magnetic aura which automatically draws the viewer in. But the real element of fascination here is the blood dripping from her nose– a single frozen drop, at crossroads between violence and desire. Without even talking about the pitch of the movie, it is evident that there is something here that is, in a way, forbidden– an unexplained bestiality. What does it mean to undergo an unnerving desire prohibited by both law and moral values– here, the taste of human flesh? There is an undeniable erotic tension to that image, which is nonetheless hard to admit knowing what it’s directed to. Isn’t desire, in its very essence and in all of its form, a transgression, something which corrupts human consciousness? That very drip of blood is the embodiment of that transgression, standing at the verge of desire and its accomplishment. It sends us back to the unspoken: who decides of what’s forbidden or not? Is it mankind’s specificity to regulate and monitor raw and fundamental lust? The title, in red, bold letters, seems to think so– grave, serious, severe in English. What cannot be condoned. Yet, the image prevails– and with it, the lust and heat.

 

#2 – GOODBYES

I like endings, I think they’re important to progress. I think if a lot of things had death clauses in them, we wouldn’t have a lot of problems in the world, to be honest. I think ending are good because they force things to get better.

– Donald Glover talking about his Childish Gambino project

I don’t like endings. On a superficial level, at least, I don’t. I guess it is closely linked with feelings of attachment or time passing, even–

As I try to find a reason why, I realize I can’t put any into words. I find it hard to let go, and it is for purely egoistical and impulsive reasons. An impetuous impression that if I don’t hold onto things that do me good now, it is going to shake the very foundations of who and what I am. In the now, it seems to me completely illogical and impossible that watching something I hold dear end will make way for something better. It is impossible for an ending to be of value.

Retroactively, I do believe that some things which have ended have done so for the better. But it is still hard to live with the bits and pieces which linger. Nostalgia of the simpler times after my parent’s divorce. The feeling of “was I not good enough” after a breakup. I guess what all of this is trying to say is that I find it hard to see the point of something even existing if it is eventually going to end– writing this, I remember it as a question I have asked my therapist when I was ten. Double that age, I still don’t have a definitive answer. Maybe things happen because they help you survive the now, and go through the very task of being. Maybe that is why they end; because their task has ended. Point is– I have to learn how to live with the feeling of past.

 

#3 – HASHTAG HOME

 

WHAT– A PICTURE OF BEIRUT TAKEN FROM A PLANE

WHO– A FRENCH GIRL I KNOW WHO HAS GONE TO STUDY THERE FOR A YEAR

WHERE– INSTAGRAM

WHEN– RETURNING FROM CHRISTMAS BREAK, PROBABLY

CAPTION– “COUCOU MAISON” / “HELLO HOME”

Seeing the picture appear on my Instagram feed made my heart jump almost instantly. No, this is not your home. No, living there for three months does not give you the right to start using Lebanese slang with every person you come across. No, I cannot consider this normal.

It is a complicated matter because the Lebanese have always been proud of seeing someone appreciative of their culture, to the point that they often do not even acknowledge the difference between appreciation and appropriation. I cannot rejoice or be proud of the fact that someone who has lived for three months in the country where I was born and raised, a country to which I have such conflictual feelings of love and hate, would call it “home”, be it merely for an Instagram post.

I know we live in a day and age where the very concept of home is constantly shifting. In a time where we travel and settle in different places constantly, rethinking “home” as more than a house or place where you were born is essential. But here also comes the danger of thinking that something which isn’t yours, is. Also comes in of course the matter of history, or even concepts such as oppressor and oppressed, white passing and discrimination, Occidentalism and Orientalism, all of which would require a more adapted context to be developed.

Before trying to rationalize everything and understand the mechanisms which come behind calling something “home”, the very first reaction to appropriation is hurt. Because once something is taken, it is hard to take it back­– and once something is written or hashtagged, it’s harder to edit than one might think.

 

#4– HIGH-FEMME / HIGH-STRENGTH

I have always seen my mother with impeccable nails. And as soon as I was of age– which means early on– she had taught me how important it was to stop biting my nails and start taking care of them. Though purely cosmetic, it is a principle that I have carried with me when arriving to Paris.

I found my nail salon almost accidentally. Ever since the first time I’ve been there, there has been an undeniable fascination from my part for the manicurists at work. Fiercely clashing with the sober and discreet Parisian style, they are all Brazilian women who have been living in France for five to ten years, constantly wearing vertiginous heals, tight sweaters, and make-upped on the daily like beauty vloggers. Matte lipstick, winged liner, and dramatic eyeshadow.

There is something magnetic about them– at first, I kept going back not really for my nails but more to see them talk, move, be so excessively feminine. We would talk about their life in Brazil, their lovers in Paris, and the Jenner/Kardashians.

They appear to me somewhat the embodiment of a sort of hyper-beauty, hyper-feminine, and hyper-empowering movement that has sprung over the last few years. An article from I-D actually retraces that phenomenon through Kylie Jenner’s transformations, talking about high femme and woman-to-woman drag. I believe that is an extraordinary affirmation of femininity. That it should be celebrated that women can reclaim beauty tools originally made to please men to empower themselves. There is something almost performative about the clothes and makeup they wear– something which raises them above a certain standard of carefulness and exposes them to their own strength. The epitome of feminine power through its core paradox.

 

#5 – CONJUNCTION OF ACT AND MEANING

I’ve been collecting words on walls for a while now. I even have an Instagram account dedicated to it. I try to find words of love, longing, sadness on the streets and catalog them into a virtual collection of anonymous poems. I think it has always fascinated me, the way people can feel something so deeply they write it for everyone to see, but in the real world and on real walls. A counter Facebook in a way.

I guess I like the mystery about it– not knowing who wrote it, or why, and the doing of that universal connection of us only being able to link it to our own personal story. It’s often very tender. It’s a beautiful thing, to have so many voices raise to try and shape our public spaces to resemble those who inhabit it.

There is one in particular that I often think about. Somewhere on rue Charlot, someone wrote “J’EXISTE” / I EXIST, laboriously traced in capital letters. I feel somehow that it embodies all other words and writings– the accomplishment of an act of testimonial. Isn’t it the subtext of what we always try to say, no matter what it is we write? I exist– that multitude of writings I have collected ultimately all say the same thing. Why do we write? Why do we try to leave a mark, in any shape or form? Aren’t we all scared of being forgotten? And by compiling it all, am I not doing the same thing, trying to say something about myself to avoid descending into oblivion?

“I exist”– that is the truest form of language, the purest writing, the ultimate conjunction between an action and its meaning.

 

#6 – TALKING ABOUT WHAT DOESN’T EXIST

It is a strange picture.

There is a sense of oblivion in Lebanon around the war, a sort of elephant in the room effect– everyone knows it’s here, that it’s happened, but no one ever talks about it. Like an open wound we must avoid touching.

Seeing a picture so oddly rooted in that time is like an electroshock that makes 1982 seem so close. I guess the core feeling is that I am tired of not knowing, and merely guessing– how my parents lived back then, how everyone lived back then, who did wrong, who decided what. History is desperately political. I was never taught about the war in school. My parents used to only talk to me about the future, and what future– that I had to leave the country because it could not give me anything more than it had already.

It seems almost absurd to have this will to know what preceded me. History is so hard to grasp, and I sometimes feel that thinking about it is a mere waste of time. But then I stumble on a picture like this, and I realize how little I know, and how much I need to know– like filling in a puzzle.

These were shirts worn by the press. The fact that the man in the picture has a gun tucked in his pants is, I guess, an ironic embodiment of that time. I guess what’s odd, too, is that the graphics of the t-shirt seem so contemporary, so modern– we could probably wear them today as a fashion statement. It’s almost unreal.

 

#7 – MY FAVORITE TRUISM BY JENNY HOLZER

When I think of it I think of a way to survive and I figure out that it is what we are all looking for– a way to survive

It is part of the series SURVIVAL

But I think the main focus is on the word joy

And it is the word joy which is so hypnotic

It is both child-like and very Nietzsche

And the word joy beams of hope–

The truism is very hopeful anyways, very prophetic

The ultimate dream being, finding a way to survive

I feel like throughout these seven days of curiosity I have talked a lot about survival. About how to survive

Maybe it’s just an impression. But I do believe that finding a way to survive is the ultimate dream

Sometimes I think of Trump supporters and how they keep saying “snowflake” whenever someone dares to show any sensitivity to the world

And sometimes I say it to myself as a wake-up call because I do have a tendency to wallow

But when I talk about finding a way to survive I believe the utmost sensitivity is required because survival is the one true way to live– on the edge of life

Never letting go of anything

I think a lot about joy and so many people have written so many things about it– it almost seems unreachable. The core and very basic ideal of human nature

I do hope this is more of a prophecy than a truism

And I do hope sensitivity finds a way to survive

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