sxsw part two (interesting bands and their outfits)

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

it's a pity i didn't get more funny pictures, but it's hard to sneak up on people and take pictures with the phone when you are doubled over laughing. i mean, i just can't stop myself from laughing. it was bad enough with troy because we'd look at each other and make faces. i did however get this one pic of jrockers outside elysium. it was a pain in the ass to try to stand behind them, because their hair blocked the view of everything. i have absolutely no idea who they are or if they are famous.

these are few crackberry pics of the bands that i saw. they ranged from the pretty charming and aggressively stylish to the insane.

the japanese show is a useful starting point, because the (admittedly few) bands i saw there were interestingly dressed, as were the spectators. pictured to the left is the band "the emeralds" who wore leather pants and jackets with polyester shirts. they also wore big ugly plastic sunglasses, as part of a pseudo elvis tribute.

the fans wore a wide range of things, with minis, legwarmers, etc. it was very much like second life becoming real life.....people were wearing whatever, like anime characters or covered in tatts and piercings.

the band "mad juana" was very interesting. this is the violin player. the rest of the band wore an intriguing meld of roma, spanish, mexican, and hipster outfits. this guy scared the freaking hell out of me because i bumped into him in the hallway not noticing and i just wasn't expecting to meet death so soon. he was also wearing halloween spectacles that distorted his eyes in addition to the heavy make up and improbable combo of mariachi suit and afghan hat. i liked the black polka dot skirt-velvet corset plus piano shawl and tophat that the accordion player wore, and the lead singer looked like the greaser girlfriend in the movie grease--with plaid capris, a satin 50s letter jacket, and a rose in her hair.

the most austerely stylish were the moog, from budapest. they had us laughing because they were so into their style and appearance that the band members would duck into the bathroom at least every 15 minutes to make sure their hair was utterly perfect. the lead guy especially was very chichi, with uber tight black jeans, pointy toed shoes, red shirt, vest and jacket and ascot.
it was hard not to stare at him when he was off stage because he was just so easy on the eyes.

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honorable mention: monareta


they are zany, but it takes balls to wear a silver helmet with a bicycle wheel mounted on top of it. that and dancing energetically around, and climbing balconies........i mean it's not really an outfit, but i thought it was hilarious.

i also saw a band of street performers, half furry, who were a type of brass band with trombones and things. they weren't entirely furry, only partly, but wore bits and pieces of marching band uniforms....the one human was dressed sort of like a sweet little country rodeo clown.........

urban tribes

Originally uploaded by al-zahra, who appears to be from the pseudo hipster tribe

the language of clothes is a way to encode all sorts of things...one of the most fascinating things to me is to "read" people in a crowd, to learn about them and understand them in the context of the world by the things that they are announcing and saying about themselves in their dress.

sxsw has been fun to stare at all the urban tribes, because the streets are literally thronged with all nationalities, ages, conditions....all the different little groups we belong to, because we believe or we want to be a certain style or way of living.....

i often feel that as i get older i am losing my handle for the language of the urban tribes, that perhaps i can't get the finer nuances of why tight jeans plus pointy toed shoes and glasses=hipster and whatnot. i never really felt an allegiance to a tribe, other than the weirdo-american community, and so tend to freely mix things up. i wonder though what it is that these little whims translate to, what i am really telling people with the way i dress.

right now i am totally in love with miniskirt plus leggings plus goofy tshirt plus chucks. but i saw very few people wearing this combo. instead there were tons of women wearing miniskirts and boots. it being texas, naturally the cowboy boot predominated, but the 80s-ish slouch boots and those weird flat heeled boots were very much in evidence.

i didn't go to any goth, punk, or major subculture bars so i didn't get any firsthand observations on those tribes. i think one of the funniest things about the bleed through of SL into RL is the skewed perspective on fashion. maybe it is just me but it seems that because i am used to seeing the most bizarre things on an avatar, that i have come to regard that as normal even for RL....which can be funny.

i notice too, in my limited forays into sl fashion, that there seem to be tribes in SL. maybe they mirror the urban tribes i see in the real world. it seems to me that there is a group of sl fashion types who seek to replicate real life fashion very closely, and those that seem to embrace the unrealistic possibilities of SL.

i was too much into everything to take major notes but i also tend to really scrutinize the noticeably foreign because they always seem to be the ones who are wearing the freshest styles..........

carnaval brasileiro, austin, 2009

in carnaval gear............................

pax, juana, and teop...........

i was dressed rather modestly, though i had rouged. i didn't wear the pasties. later i was told that my bra was transparent, but i didn't notice it at the time. i ditched the hat, and wore the mask all night. i also stuck with the seamed fishnets though i liked the other hose i had better (striped) but that other pair wouldn't stay up on my skinny little legs.

the shoes were utter death. but fabulous looking. omg i could barely walk in them. and worse to dance in them..........there were parts of the night where i literally had to remove the shoes and hobble along on the icy floor.

the corset was very spectactular though i don't recommend it. there was a point where i thought i was hyperventilating, because it was squeezing me an i had a horrible sensation of unbearable constriction. it was almost like claustrophobia. it is just bearable when standing upright, but sitting in a corset for long periods is nearly unendurable.

pax went as nacho libre.......

he'd been to lucy in disguise, which is a funky costume place on congress. very austin, very old school. he got tons of compliments and was photographed a few times. he was a bit cold though. we were joined by a friend of mine from work and we also had been trying to find poet. i didn't expect him and the vast cavernous auditorium was pretty dark and loud. it was not a repeat of last year's shouting but there were plenty of texts going back and forth and we just were totally unable to see him in the mass of people.

finally he told us to just go to a particular corner and so we did, and while we were loitering around staring at the various plumage that was parading before us, we happened to look over at one of the makeshift portable bars, and there he was, tying his shoe. i had to laugh because even bent over doing something as mundane as this, poet is still incredible.

poet looked spectacular, as usual................

he wore the same outfit from new year's. last year he wore a similar ensemble but it was black. it amused me very much as he was wearing combat boots (last year he had bare feet) and the sole was taped with duct tape on one foot.

but no matter. teop's adornments were his incredible physique, and amazing skin. he was utterly mesmerizing and it amused me because drunk besotted women were totally flinging themselves on him and hanging on him, staring up at him with completely adoring faces.

this was actually the last memory of poet at carnaval i have, for i left for home afters...........................



there really is no way to express accurately or describe the pageantry of the night. and it boggles the mind to imagine that this little event is completely nothing compared to the real brazilian carnaval..........

carnaval gear

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i have most of my outfit ready. i had a little mishap with the car getting the corset, which was a tad spendy, but omg. it's steel boned and satin, and a more perfect corset i can't imagine. the laces are very very soft, and it is quite comfortable. i noted that many people were going burlesque, and so i guess this outfit when worn will look sort of vaguely burlesque--more like garden variety ho-ish i suppose.

while i was there i bought pasties, fingerless gloves, a bra, seamed fishnets, and a nice jewelry set. the shoes i have had already for quite some time. the only thing i think i need now is a mask.

pyehole's testicle

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

today i chatted with pyehole, for the first time in about a year. i thought he hated me but it turns out he had merely forgotten to reply to my email.

i was given a message from him on new year's from arjuna, and so today i called him. he'd been in the hospital recovering from a twisted testicle.

i have missed him. we are throwing out ideas of having a benefit for him. i'd totally pole dance for him. :) when i discussed this with him he was highly amused.

and in keeping with his pyehole style, when i said good bye, he merely said, don't be a stranger. it was as if he'd just left five minutes ago.

new years..........

teopdances
Originally uploaded by al-zahra

this is teop, or calanthe, who is manifesting so strongly as a uncontrollable force of nature right now. he is probably the most beautiful person i know. this new years eve he was set to perform at a masquerade with the hipnautica collective at teh club copa downtown.

he wore a version of what he normally wears at carnaval. namely, body paint and the skimpiest of loincloths, with little legwarmers since he dislikes to show his lower legs.

although i missed the firedancing and performance part, i hung out with him for a bit outside where he obligingly let me capture his dancing and take a few blurry pics with my crackberry.

this whole outfit was made by a friend of his who is a seamstress, from a skirt obtained from a second-hand shop. he was wearing his dancebelt underneath it, and a mask that he'd decorated himself to match.

he is such a hummingbird and such a presence that i spied him immediately on the dance floor in the dimly lit club, and he was standing outside smoking and chatting with me in about 40 F degree weather, and seemingly insensible to the cold.

he also has the power to attract stares and downright adulation, and it amused me very much this evening to see him in his finest form, soaking up all the attention, and converting it into a kind of focused energy which he then threw back into the crowd.

i myself decided to go goth this evening. generally i glam it up on my birthday and wear ballgowns. but i thought given the masquerade, that it might be more interesting to go in pure goth style. normally i like to wear a mixture of things, not really favoring one particular style. i do tend to like punkish gothish stuff though, though most often i am found in jeans and a funny t-shirt.

i will make a terrible admission. i do go to secret october, and workclothes and more, and legs diamond, and any number of indie store, but often i cheat and go to hot topic, the mall goth store. it's a dreadful thing, but i am so lazy and barely have time to make my SCA dresses.

i am sort of picky though because generally the gothy things they have i don't like. i think it's interference from the costuming that i do, that makes me abhor some of the clothes that are out there, with their mishmash of corsetry nightmares, and badly made too. but i found a nice little dress i liked, and a fishnet shrug for sleeves, some silly wristlets, rhinestone and skull earrings, and banded fishnet stockings. the dress reminds me some of dickie's actually.

i wore a little plastic ring, my new lion's head torc, and my beloved doc boots. and dressed my hair in pigtails.

i was wildy amused because when i arrived at the second party, all my friends crowded around me and scrutinized my attire very closely. they were the ones who discovered that the little hanging tabs on the skirt were actually garter belt attachments (though only in the front, so what gives with that?) and that the zippers on the armlets actually were functional. so theoretically i could secret items in them.

the only thing i would have wished was to have legwarmers, but i will have to figure that one on my own. alas.

sublime porte sallies forth

You Cant Do THAT!
Originally uploaded by steelskyblue

i am laughing so hard. this is way too much fun. and this is as good as an introduction as any to my friend sublime porte. he has a very complex nature. i have described him at length elsewhere in pillowblog, and so don't have time to repeat all that i have said.

but this is so very representative of him i think. and so i put this as a souvenir of him. it is actually proper as well, because he was the one who pushed me to have a blog, and then after told me in his sublime way, that it was too texty and i should have pictures and things throughout.

my first video with new camera

my first video with new camera
Originally uploaded by al-zahra

and so it begins, no?

a new camcorder, ridiculously easy to use.......i don't normally speak this slowly but i am not used to speaking into the camera. :)

it's not a fashion blog, although that is one of my major hobbies, in RL and SL. at first i had it to keep track of my sca garb projects and sl outfits, like a blog version of the notebook i used to have. but now i thought it could be more like a pillow book for pictures, outfits, and videos. and pranks. and SCA. and whatever i want to do. i am not sure.....