Alright

If you were wondering if there ever would or could be a Philadelphia riposte to Sex and the City, you need look no further than the Philly Free School. A little coyness would seem to be appropriate, because we  were always about doing serious work, and having our work be taken seriously. But as I have written about Mary on Art Recess 2, we were all extremely serious about playing, being players, too. If you want to stick us with the geek mold for having been classicists, you are going to have to get the fuck out of our way. We played, played for real, and played for keeps. About matters of the flesh, Mary was a gaming avatar. The city that gave some real kids, like Mary and I, a stage on which to really play happens to be Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, babes. New York up close is a chastity belt kind of place. We spent the Aughts with steam coming off the streets, out of the bars, issuing even from the galleries. The whole game, as this piece addresses, starts for Mary and I in the Nineties. As we learned the ropes, subconsciously we knew we would be ready for each other. And for whoever else came along.   

Hungry Like The Wolf

Not much to say that what Abby & I do relates to Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. It doesn't. Yet I call us Neo-Romantics, and the aegis thing we have going for the Aughts Neo-Romanticism, for complicated reasons. Then, there were the New Romantics in pop music in the early-to-mid-Eighties. They are worth bringing up here, because, on both musical and fashion levels, they were Gaetan Spurgin's bag. Gaetan, as I have written about in The Seattle Star and Scud, resembled Mary H in that he cared very much about self-presentation. His clothes were a part of who he was, and he related to them as such. The band he was in when I met him as of 1999, Metro, played music more tilted to straight rock, but their fashion moves were a Goth-ed out version of the Neo-Romantics. Not the posh side of the New Romantics, as it were, the racy side of them. A heavy emphasis on Eighties fashion meant that Gaetan's studio, as was later established, always had the New Romantics lined up to be played at key times. Gaetan's thing with glam meant, along with other things, that he was often the most elegantly wasted human being on the East Coast. Nineties grunge passed him by, and he had nothing to say to indie rockers either. Watching Gaetan share venue space with indie rockers was always amusing, because he was a stickler for sharp dressing and indie rock dudes in those days dressed down. Also interesting to understand that Gaetan was real, human, and had some depth to him. He could turn off the New Romantic persona whenever he needed to. Mercurial. And, with lots of European experience, an interesting contrast to the rest of Aughts Philadelphia.  

Blow Out (Don't You Want Me?)

Can't not notice the balls-out, extraordinary resemblance this classic vid holds to Brian De Palma's Blow Out, from 1981. In terms of what a song/video can do, a milestone. Not to mention the female lead (Ms. Sully), her also extraordinary resemblance to Justine Caskey. Word up.

Feel 2

Over several years, Feel 2 is the most popular track I've placed on hearthis.at. 

If Only (Beyond Dolorem mix)

 Speck tackles the creepy side of things, in this Opera Bufa carrying opus.

Feel (I saw) remix: The Labyrinth Continues

Continuing to map the Eris Temple: at the top of the stairs from the studio/DIY performance space, where Feel was recorded, turn due left and this large front room space is what you will see, which can also be used as a performance space, and where the two Apparition Poems videos were shot, in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The window facade at the end faces out into 52nd Street. The neighborhood is a racy, or spicy one, giving the whole enterprise of the Temple a sort of rogue, maverick tinge. As you will see, turn due right from the studio and more steps lead up to a living room space, followed by a kitchen.   

P.S. Something worth saying about Acid Dropping, Mixter Riders, and the singles.

Portrait with guitar

 photograph by Mary Evelyn Harju, Clark Park, West Philadelphia, 2002