theses on magic

WRITER'S STATUS: CONCUSSED, DRUNK, SEDATED. It is best that the below is taken with a fistful of salt.

Magic: the borderlines, the uncomfortable homoerotic tension between teutonic plates. old misplaced recognition across a room interpreted as a sign. the traffic light changing from red to green. lipstick smeared on your chin. flickering lights (neon). the accidental, the failed, the inevitable but unexpected.

Lana Del Rey is magic, blurring the lines between real and the fake. She's too honest and way too fake, fuck her! I'm in love with the first half of Honeymoon and I just really fucking want to move to the US and put on a leopard print fur coat and a fake-but-way-too-real persona of Lana proportions (there's a definite California theme for me this year - Halsey's Drive and Grimes' California are some of my most played songs. I start to live on signs).

There are roses in between my thighs and a fire that surrounds you 

I saw Lana talking about David Lynch and David Lynch talking about her a few days ago and I've just been !!!!!! since. They're both exploring this border of perfect, seductive, manicured beauty with its obvious underbelly of demons and disgust and self-hate and total unbearable pain. I feel like that's magic. Magic comes out of that border and the accidental slips, the reveals, the doorways and dark red-lit rooms and Lynchian electrical crackle and Lana Del Rey's smile.

In the land of Gods and Monsters I was an angel 



So much garbage will never ever decay
And all your garbage will outlive you one day

Trash is magic and I will stand by this until I am rotting next to all my fag ends and crisp packets. Trash will outlive you. Trash does not degrade. It repulses and entices (tell me you've never wanted to put your hand in something gross and I won't believe you). Trash is the ultimate survivor. Trash is immortal, the survivor is immortal. We also smell. Call it a curse or a blessing but you sort of want to set it on fire. You want to kill it but also save it; an honest-to-God baptism by fire. Out of the trash I rise, with my red hair...

"I don’t necessarily love rotting bodies, but there’s a texture to a rotting body that is unbelievable. Have you ever seen a little rotted animal? I love looking at those things, just as much as I like to look at a close-up of some tree bark, or a small bug, or a cup of coffee, or a piece of pie. You get in close and the textures are wonderful."- David Lynch


Suicide is also magic. The moment on the bridge is magic. A cigarette that hasn't been ashed in the hand of a dead man is magic. A body surfacing on a riverbank is magic. It's also totally pathetic, but most magic is, right? Like, everyone hates angel dust for a reason. You want to see it but it can get the fuck out of your life.

Anyway, I'm writing this because I've been listening to Lana a lot this year and experimenting with magic and I feel like that has been the essence of my 2015. An edging against psychosis, violence, a circle of candles, out-of-body sex, a prayer, a dance around death, a Catholic Church. I've chosen ritual over real every time.

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