(Last updated: 17/09/25)
On my bedside table pile right now:
If you're crazy and would like to stay updated on what I'm reading, you may enjoy my goodreads' rss feed. Saves me remembering to update this page quite so regularly :). You can also follow to only receive updates when I've reviewed books, with this feed. Also, I will note, there is nothing that I love more than recommending people books and I have a comprehensive categorisation system to help me with this, so please if you are ever unsure of what to read, let me know and I will try my best to find something good for you!
I am especially interested in bridging the gap between theoretical and real-world security from a cryptographic perspective, and exploration of the extent to which the two are actually correlated. I also have an interest in proof assistants and their applications to cryptography.
I recently read Rogaway's The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work which I also really enjoyed, and would love to read more papers of this variety.
Inspired (blatantly stolen) from my wonderful friend Anna, I am going to try my best to update my song of the week :) This list aims to collect songs that feel like they're going to kick their way out of my chest when I listen to them. If I also end up looking really stupid dancing to them at the bus stop because I literally cannot stop myself that is often a corollary.
For past songs of the week & my thoughts on them, check out the archive here: Song Archive
In my 26th of May song of the week, I asked my dear readers if any of them would like to come to a Pierce the Veil (PtV) show with me in September. Clearly you're all horrible people because nobody wrote in and said they wanted to. Oh well, I thought, I'll just go on my own and enjoy it being a chill night where I don't have to deal with anybody else. Then, lo and behold, at least 6 people I knew were there. I jest, it was actually a lovely time, and in Nathan's defence he did invite me to go with him literally 3 days before the show so he is forgiven. Now I'm sure this is really really shocking to you all but I'm actually a really big fan of PtV, and I had a very very lovely time. I also really enjoyed the openers that I did catch (sorry to Crawlers...); Hot Mulligan played pretty much the same song for the whole set but at least it was a great song (or, well, lots of different songs that sounded familiar to me), and Cavetown showed up with a new somewhat heavier setlist and logo to match. I thought it was pretty fun music, I've always said I liked Cavetown live better than in the studio because he's much better with the additional energy of a live band, and this (from what I've heard on recent recordings) seems to be bringing some of those drums etc into the studio which I appreciate.
Anyway, as I was at the PtV show I ended up reflecting on a couple of things, and that's why this bulletin is horribly late because it took a while to untangle my thoughts -- I've still not done a great job at turning this into one actual flowing piece, but I wanted to put it out at some point in the next 3 months, so here you go. I promise I'm going to also share some songs but bare with me. The first thread I wanted to pick at is performance of gender in alternative subcultures. I am definitely a person who finds comfort & identity through my association with music subcultures, and I think one of the things that has always resonated to me about the metal, post-hardcore and emo scenes is this deliberate blending of masculinity and femininity as a deliberate subversive statement. I actually ended up reading quite a lot of papers around the topic, so I'll collect the ones I read and used ideas from at the bottom of this. From my angle, I find there is almost a "lowered barrier" for performance of masculinity, in that it is assessed in separate ways to in "mainstream culture". Me, standing there in my long hair and black jeans and big boots and band t-shirt, was equivalently attired to most men there (and I in fact felt quite bad because I was being too tall and blocking people's view). When you look towards the stage, the people performing, who almost set the blueprint in many ways, are similar. We don't see the same trappings with traditional masculinity in many ways, which I think is especially obvious in hairstyle and jewellery, although also reflected in other places. It makes me feel like I can fit in, while remaining on my own terms. Additionally, the fact that there is a slightly more obvious level of performativity, in that I think people presenting themselves differently to the norm can highlight the level of thought and decision that goes into even a simple outfit (t-shirt and jeans but, ok, which ones? how are they cut? what colours? how do you wear them? etc.)
Quite an interesting thing that was brought up in a number of the articles that I read that I honestly hadn't really considered is how male-dominated a lot of these scenes can be. A number of them look at gender through the lens of specifically how women fit in to the subcultures, and that does I suppose higlight some areas I don't often think about. I am quite happy to be "assimilationist" in that I enjoy confirming to these masculine standards in a number of ways; the question is therefore is there space for women that do not wish to assimilate? Let's look at, for example, the pseudo-violence of moshing (the page is a fun read), and the association with machismo that a few papers mentioned. Does it reinforce connections between masculinity and violence and exclude women? I mean, in my opinion, no. My argument is that for all involved, including women, it's an opportunity to forego rules about how to act in public and treat other people, and just be free for a bit, to take up space and hit and rub against each other, to not worry about what you look like or how you are consumed. Specifically this idea of taking up spaces was brought up a few times, and I do think it's important; praising and implicitly including people in the in-group for their decisions to be free and take up space is no small deal. The same could be said for singing along loudly, and especially the inclusion of screaming. As Hot Mulligan said, "if you don't know the words, just yell!" I don't think there are enough chances in our modern world for people to be ugly, to engage with things that are on the fringes a little bit of what we consider to be positive. Deliberate imperfection in dress, singing, and dancing all come together to reinforce the ideas of rejecting rules & the need to conform (although there is a lot of discussion of "conformist non-conformity").
In terms of the need for assimilation for acceptance, I also think in my experience this isn't what I've seen. A lot of people I run in to at shows have exaggerated almost drag-esque performances of femininity, of course through an alternative lens. Specific and neat haircuts, sharp eyeliner and large fake eyelashes, skirts and fishnets and boots. It's a performance I've been a part of too, although I suspect it felt more like one to me than most of the girls at shows who I described as performing through more of a Butlerian interpretation (subconsciously). There is an exuberance to it that I enjoy, too, making a deliberate mark and carving out space.
All of this to say, being in these sorts of spaces is something that I really really enjoy. I love letting go, feeling like I'm in a place where I can truly fit in, and also getting insane amounts of sensory feedback (loud music, bass you can feel through your chest, bright lights, slamming in to people). The song I was the most excited to see (and that did NOT disappoint at all) was Hell Above; I've linked the music video here because I think it captures exactly the energy I've been trying to write about. On the track listings the intro to the song is split off as a separate track, "May These Noises Startle You In Your Sleep", but in this video you get both of them together for the full experience. All through the intro, you feel the anticipation slowly rising in you and the crowd around you, this thrumming sticky thing that binds us all together, and elastic band stretching further out out out. Then, of course, you get hit by the scream and drums as the intro truly kicks off, and then in to my favourite part of the whole track, that guitar that comes in along with the relentless drums stretching everything until it SNAPS and Vic yells and the song starts. It's so masterful, everything perfectly pitched to have people going crazy before the track has even actually started, bringing everyone together. I was horribly out of breath and a little scared of passing out by the end of this song, slightly bruised and very sweaty; but also feeling alive in the way a wire is, electric and humming and ready to bite. That's why I had to, of course, make this my song of the week (for last week...).
But wait! There's more! The PtV show opened with them playing a clip from a song by Mexican icon José Alfredo Jiménez. It was a really fun intro and I liked how it quietly made a statement and re-affirmed the importance of the band's heritage. I was quite shocked to find out that some of my friends weren't aware that all of the band are Mexican-American, because it's an important part of their music AND in why I really like them. I've talked before about how this scene can be really white and pretty specifically American as well, so I really enjoy PtV being intentional and open about discussing being Mexican. Additionally, it adds some really great stuff to their music -- wow, what a surprise, diversity makes things better!? And adds other perspectives and ideas we wouldn't have otherwise!? A great example of this is Besitos which was not played at the show but that I really like. The electric take on traditional Hispanic guitar is so so cool and lends this energy to the track that it wouldn't have otherwise.
I was very happy at the show to end up on the side with Jaime Preciado, because he's my favourite and I loved seeing him on bass throughout the night. I think he especially has talked about being a kid in the scene and not seeing anyone like him (it is perhaps also relevant that of the band, he is the one who looks the most visibly "other" than the white standard) and how now as an adult he gets messages all the time from fans who have talked about how important it is to them that he exists as a role model. I think it is really important, in both of these sections where I've talked about identity, for people to feel like there's a place for them to be themselves, and I like that PtV has played a role in making people feeling comfortable in that place.
I am still on the hunt for more diverse and interesting post-hardcore and other alternative music (and open to suggestions!) but I actually rather serendipitously ran across some this week that I thought I'd share with you. When I landed in Venice this week on my way to Austria I had some time to kill hanging around Mestre, and long story short I somewhat accidentally ended up involved in a protest. It was a really cool way to be introduced to the city, and as an additional bonus it introduced me to some cool new (to me) Italian bands. The song that immediately grabbed me from the second it started blasting over the speakers was Strength for Life from Bull Brigade, but I'd definitely recommend you check out at least the rest of this album, it's some really great punk music. As I've talked about in other sotws, globalisation has resulted in some amount of homogenisation of culture, and often that happens through enforcing the American hegemony. I think therefore it's really important to fight against that where possible, and put in the effort required to find both local & international media that wouldn't otherwise be familiar to me.
Finally, I'm just going to bowl a couple of other songs at you, because this took so long to write that it's a new week and I have new musical obsessions! I've already talked about another track from Gerard Way's Hesitant Alien, but this week I've been listening to Maya the Psychic over and over again. Also on my rotation has been Existing in a Crisis (Evelyn), which is definitely the song of THIS week. My feelings on it and why I've loved it so much are basically summed up in the line, "I'll tell you that/ I'm alive for the first time". Yeah, yeah. And I'm making my best go of it.
Bibliography:
Goulding, Christina & Saren, Michael. (2009). Performing identity: An analysis of gender expressions at the Whitby goth festival. Consumption Markets & Culture. 12. 27-46. 10.1080/10253860802560813.
Chaney, Damien & Goulding, Christina. (2015). Dress, transformation, and conformity in the heavy rock subculture. Journal of Business Research. 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.029.
Griffin, Naomi (2012) "Gendered Performance Performing Gender in the DIY Punk and Hardcore Music Scene," Journal of International Women's Studies: Vol. 13: Iss. 2, Article 6. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol13/iss2/6
Rogers, A. S.(2015). Women in Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis of Gender Dynamics in the Heavy Metal Subculture. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3155
Under construction. My top favourite tv shows are Interview with the Vampire, Riverdale and Bob's Burgers, and I mostly have a lot to say about the first two. Yes I am serious about Riverdale, I think it is a masterpiece, not even worth arguing about it. Will update this to add some essays, maybe.
Regarding movies I am actually so bad at watching them but the past month I've watched LOADS that are good and a couple that were really awful (which is also fun). You may view my opinions on letterboxd dot com. <- recently updated with my reviews of ALL star wars films, as well as everybody's favourite hit, Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper. Incredible stuff.
Back to home.
|
<- Trinity | webring | Peter Hebden -> |
|---|