The 5th Element, in spite of being a fairly bad movie, is still one of my favorite films, if for no other reason than the entire thing is absolutely gorgeous. It is a future in which the soft, rounded corners of plastic-everything that we all expect to be permanently spotless and milky white are in actuality smudged with the dirt and grime of a population that built its way out of the polluted, earthen pit they created for themselves.
Everything in the movie is immediately obvious as “futuristic” without looking outlandish or ridiculous (save Ruby Rod, who gets a pass for having a special place in my heart); a problem to which many films set in the future fall prey.
The above grand piano, designed as a collaboration between Schimmel and Luigi Colani, would have fit perfectly in the film. As such, it is awarded my highest praise. Redesigning an instrument that many have a near religious reverence for is a tricky task, rife with perilous design flaws that could very easily ruin the whole shebang resulting in packs of pianists screaming for blood; but Colani and Schimmel have pulled off their design coup with a singular aplomb.
Had I the measly $110,000 that is being asked for this masterpiece it would be snatched up greedily with a haste I’ve likely never before displayed; and thus I would be able to count myself among the lucky 14 that stroke the keys of a piano sent back through time.
In your daily meanderings through the hallowed halls of Ectomo you may at some point have taken note of my odd name. I can assure you it isn’t the result of air-headed, hippie parents and in spite of my questionable ancestry and modern American nature I still have quite a bit of reverence for parts of my dubious heritage.
As such, I can’t help but love this outfit recently featured by fashion aficionado The Sartorialist. This woman is the spitting image of the pack of post-apocalyptic Neo-Bedouins that stalk across the vast expanses of my imagination. I adore the combination of flowing, layered fabrics employed as shawl and head dress, and the tight, boot strapped pants easing mobility, all of which unites to form the image of an ancient wanderer fit for a modern age.
Early in the 22nd Century the recently formed World Government passed legislation declaring there could exist only one fast food mascot. The reasoning behind the decision remains a mystery to this day, though conspiracy theorists and rational thinkers suspect it was simply a display of power by an infant government. The tyrannical government’s method of pairing down what had become a veritable orgy of brightly colored clowns and cows with opinions on our dietary habits? Gladiatorial combat.
Long and hard they fought, showing bravery and cowardice in equal measure. Finally, from the viscera strewn pits of endless fighting emerged a victor. A relative unknown in his world, yet no less savage and cunning for his lack of infamy. This man, nay, this hero goes by the name of McClucksky. May his epic never be forgotten.
Behold Le Cochon Danseur (The Dancing Pig) from 1907, a short film of someone dressed in a shuddersome pig costume, dancing. He also appears to be enamored with a delightful young woman with whom he shares a sado/masochistic relationship in which he both fawns over her and gropes her and she embarrasses him by stripping him of his clothing and laughing at his loathsome, nude body. After they have finished dancing they leave the stage, which is when something seemingly distasteful happens. Honestly, I cannot even fathom what is going on at the end, but it is unpleasant.
Oh to have been born in the 27th Century, where the futurenymphs of indeterminate sex prance and lurk in the neon drenched, rain slick alleyways. A place where the Martian fashion districts are surrounded with federally mandated billboards, warning potential shoppers of the fashionshock that lies within. This is a place in which clothes such as these are de riguer, and I will not rest until I call it home.
My father and I have long maintained a correspondence of epic intellectual proportions. Usually these take the form of discussions on science and science fiction, Rick Gauger being an award-winning science fiction author, and all-around life of the party.
Recently I sent him a link to a collection of cartoons on the fashion wars of the early 1800s, which were as vicious as they were short-lived. Men and women abandoned the stiff, straight-laced wardrobes of the 1700s and briefly adopted a more modern, flowy, comfortable look. This was the famous Regency era, in which Jane Austen lived and wrote. Unfortunately for fashion, it was quickly destroyed by the severe repression of the Victorian age’s corsets, high heels, and silly hats. Dad, armchair fashion historian, elaborates [with my notes appended, thusly]:
Yes, I’ve always thought it odd that women went out of, and back into corsets in the early 19th Century. In our own time, the 60s got over in a hurry, as women went back to makeup and hairdos in the early 70s. In my century [Dad is 64], I think that the corporations panicked as they saw hair styles, makeup and tailored clothing apparently becoming obsolete, and they put on a major propaganda offensive. The majority of people (including women) never understood the 60s anyway, so they were ready to buy into it. We had a last hurrah of big cars, just at the moment when we should’ve been changing our ways.
Another reason for the quick loss of those styles was that a woman really has to be very good-looking [such as my mother, 54, who to this day refuses to learn how to use an eyelash curler, probably because she’s too busy beating men away from her door with a stout stick] to be able to go without makeup and tailoring. There were a couple of girls among the grad students of 1965 that made me froth at the mouth; most others, however smart and sweet they might be, just didn’t have what it took. One of them was the girl who welcomed me back from my first tour in Vietnam. She came out in a nightie that made her look like a joke. I would have rather died than hurt her feelings at that moment.
Speaking of questionable fashion choices, just in time for the impending nuclear and/or sun scorched apocalypse (or Burning Man, whatever) Ectomo brings you the Medusa. When this thing appeared on my screen I audibly gasped, it’s like someone reached into my brain and groped around until they found the specific squishy fold housing all my cranial accessory fantasies. With a hat and goggle set like this I would be unstoppable, or hilarious, or oft ridiculed and savagely beaten. Unfortunately I’ll never find out; with a price tag of $750 for the complete set my dreams of achieving total fashion alienation may be forever out of reach.
When they aren’t walking in slow motion to a techno soundtrack, looking bored at shows, or crafting spells to finally show that jerk Brad who’s boss these precocious gothlets fight prejudice and inequality wherever it can be found. Sadly, not everyone understands the hardships of being spooky and fighting for the right to be taken seriously while looking like a complete jackass.
The goth wonder twins were ejected from a bus (the enormous leathery bat wings with which they usually travel being in the shop) due to the lead the the more feminine of this fearsome duo (the one with less clothes on in case you’re wondering) is led around the streets of West Yorkshire. Citing a strict “No dogs allowed” (do you see what he did there?!) policy, the bus driver refused to take on any more passengers or move the bus any further until the gothlets took a powder from the virtuous and wholesome people’s public transportation.
I’m strangely torn, on one hand I support the bus driver’s decision simply because of the atrocious taste these youngsters display with zeal. More people should catch a little humiliation for nancing around in an unoriginal costume they put no thought into whatsoever. On the other hand, at no point did the bus driver inquire whether Gothy McCliche was using his young paramour as a service animal; a seeing eye goth as it were. Think about it, if you saw these two out and about would it really be that much of a stretch to assume blindness as the source of their fashion woes?
Late at night, when Ectomo HQ has quieted down and the rhythmic gurgling of Eliza’s life support tanks lull us to sleep, I swing lazily in my hammock under the stairs and dream. Dreams of power, dreams of glory, dreams of Brownlee’s massive aneurysm as he mocks my massive, glistening forehead for the fourth time in a day, but most importantly dreams of an acrobatic army of aquanauts and the adorably striped fascist regime they police.
Kudos to the Japanese television program Ultraman for standing up and saying what we have all been afraid to say but know to be true, namely that the physically handicapped are all maniacal villains who, given the chance, would destroy us all. Witness what happens when this crutch-bound gentleman gets his crippled hands on a strange stone, with the ability to turn into a man in a monster suit with trowels for ears. You’ll never go in a hotel pool again once you’ve seen said monster, in a bikini, frolicking in the water. Simply horrible.
Due to my own deeply Freudian psychological baggage, this was the creature that would prance out of my bedroom closet at midnight when I was a boy, to float horrifically above my bed, pink cape splayed between pale, stretched finger tips, and profusely vomit blood all over me. These days? The slippery slope, one thing leads to another, and somehow, I’ve ended up dating my own personal Dracula.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
