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Francesca Woodman

Is a footprint on the snow absence or presence? Why?

Lolita

Oh facebook! You're the ultimate device for procrastination but sometimes you bring amazing discoveries that I would otherwise know nothing about. Lolita is one of my favourite novels. I'm not much for re-readings but I came back to it this year because enough time had passed and wanted to read it in English - I read Lolita as a teenager; I don't think I was ready for it, much of its humour was lost to me back then.

Just like teenage me was unprepared for the irony and the sense of humour that Nabokov expressed in his novel, I think many readers have missed the point when it comes to understand what is really going on between Lolita and Humbert. The very name "Lolita" is now used to refer to a femme fatale figure, a barely legal temptress, a wicked and hypersexualized child (unfortunate I have to say, Lolita or Lola are very common names in Spain). Well, we read the story written by the hands of a deluded man, a rapist and pedophile so are we to take what he says and believes at face value? How on earth did we end up glamourising the idea of a girl being the victim of sexual abuse?

This conception has been replicated ad nauseam in the cover books. Some years ago, John Bertram counteracted and sponsored a design competition to see alternative takes on this novel. Some of my favourites:

You can see the rest and read an interview with Bertram here.


And according to the source, we Lolita fans are in luck! Next month will see published a book based on the competition, Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl, a selection of critical essays on the topic of  the treatment of Lolita in the covers.

Listen all of y'all this is Sabotage

I'm still in shock over the news of the death of Adam Yauch- I really thought he was on the mend. I can't say I was a fan of BB, I'd be a poser if I said that, but I certainly enjoy their music and have much respect for them as artists. This iconic video (and one of my favourite songs EVER), for me, is connected with what I'm going to publish tomorrow on NJMagazine.
I still remember when I watched this for the first time on MTV. MTV was not easy to get in Spain in the 80-early90, so when we moved to a bigger and newer flat, and found we had cable TV, thirteen-year-old me was elated. I felt so cool.
"Sabotage" blew my mind even though I didn't understand a word- I had never heard something like this before and the video became an instant favourite (it still is). I'm not sure I'm capable of feeling similar things now that I'm an adult. Sure, I still can feel excited about things, I'm not dead on the inside, but adolescence is a time of excess, extremes- you love and hate everything, with the same intensity. I find that now less and less things blow my mind.
My article tomorrow deals with our teenage years being definetely buried and the vertigo that makes us feel as members of the Generation Y (or whatever name we have those born in the Eighties). When someone like Yauch dies, it seems like this vertigo grows a little bigger.