MYSTERIES

Japanese visual kei bands are well-known for their flashy theatrics and cutting-edge fashion. The styling of various vkei artists’ have even inspired designs for some of the most iconic characters in popular culture (see Buck-Tick:Takumi from Nana or Gackt:Ryuk from Death Note). My favorite vkei artist is definitely Mana, the guitarist from Malice Mizer. Mana’s clothing label, Moi-même-Moitié, helped popularize the gothic lolita fashion subculture in the late 1990s. Their stage persona is beyond shy, with Mana rarely speaking in public, even going so far as to only whisper their answers to interview questions in the ears of their bandmates. That’s why the mostly instrumental song “saikai no chi to bara” is so special–the only voice singing is the rarely heard Mana, who just whispers the lyrics into the microphone at the 4:02 minute mark. Breathtaking.

Going down rabbit holes on Flickr is possibly my favorite digital pastime. This is how I somehow stumbled upon one of the greatest lovers that no one has ever heard of–user lesbian tomboy. Last seen online 17 years ago. What I’ve gathered about her is that she was living in Kuwait and belonged to a subculture of women who identified as boiya (بوية). On her Blogger, she writes that her occupation is “in love” and that she is “romantic ,Sensitive , faithfull, tough” and “faithfull 2 my baby that i love so much we are so true in love.” You really see this in her posts and graphic design. I often wonder why she logged off.

The Library of Babel was originally a short story by Jorge Luis Borges about a library that contained all possible permutations of a series of 410-page books, where any functional, coherent text the reader might find is by pure coincidence. Someone created a website that mimics the accidental genius one might find in the gibberish of such a library. Though incomplete, the website currently contains all possible pages of 3200 characters, about 104677 books. You can either search for phrases or randomize and see what you come across. The first thing I did was look for you.

I recently visited Mexico City and decided to take a tour of the largest archaeological site in Mexico: Tenochtitlan. Famous for its Sun and Moon Pyramids and its likeness to the layout of the ancient pyramids of Egypt, there are many mysteries that surround this Mexica site with no surviving writings. For example, with a lake of liquid mercury beneath the surface of one pyramid’s courtyard, one has to wonder if there was some form of electricity being generated for a purpose unknown to us now. One such interesting conceptualization of the site that my tour guide introduced me to was the pyramid complex’s striking similarity to the layout of a computer chip.

Ninot engages the female body as a form of spectacle, a site to be endlessly masked and corrected. The beautiful mask-like application of makeup in her series “Poupée de peau” is based on a Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge study she conducted to gather notes on how to look beautiful for the 30 portraits in this series. There is something about this series that reminds of the Aztec flayed-skin god Xipe Totec, a deity specializing in life, death, and rebirth. He wears the face of deceased and flayed open individuals upon his own face. In conversation with Angel Money the other night, we were discussing the way that makeup and the process of getting ready to go out occupies a ritualistic space within our lives–an hour-long ritual with yourself that leaves you feeling born again but this time the way you wanted to look.