#Soviet Kitsch

[nicklloydnow]

“Looking from East to West in the 90s, like Alice through the looking-glass, one could feel as confounded as the residents of Animal Farm. The Russian premier Boris Yeltsin spent the 90s spearheading "shock therapy" for the former Soviet Union. This process of economic liberalization, privatization and asset-stripping led to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of an oligarchic elite, leaving the rest of the country to impoverishment, psychological shock, endemic organized crime and corruption. To the benefit of its leaders and the detriment of its people, the East became a mirror-image of the West's worst excesses. The Manics' critique of Western capitalism and its turbocharged adoption by the East, allied to their lack of faith in the practical application of communist ideology — though not the ideology itself — makes "Revol" an extension of the axiom of post-communist cynicism which states that Soviet leaders "were lying when they told us about communism, but were telling us the truth about capitalism."

The Manics' use of Soviet imagery in a post-Soviet world was not new, but The Holy Bible, with its lyrical preoccupations the band's adoption of military uniforms and the semi-logo of a Soviet war medal, saw it become something more definitive. How much of this was aesthetic opportunism, and how much politically earnest? Like the Manics, I grew up in impeccably Old Labour territory and, way before discussions on how to be a fan of problematic things, remember being starry-eyed about the Soviet Union. Any yearning for the USSR, though, had less to do with the reality of its final days and more to do with its symbolic opposition to a Conservative regime which was then laying siege to the industry, economy and community of my part of the country. I looked East in the way one might look to the stars in the hope of arbitrary rescue by occupants of interplanetary craft, with expectations about as realistic.

What had been a source of fear and fascination in the 1980s was, in the postmodern vacuum of the 90s, safely powerless and therefore kitsch. Fascination with the communist past — dubbed Ostalgie — tended to be denied any political dimension, allowed to manifest only in ironic or mocking forms, and very rarely linked with contemporary anti-capitalist critique (Pyzik, Poor). The Holy Bible's suffusion in Soviet chic, though, had more to it than ironic recuperation. Nicky Wire, when asked, "What do you think makes sense?", responded: "Certain kinds of socialism, where everyone is given a chance. A true egalitarian society where everyone is offered an education." As basic and uncontroversial as this is — and note the cautious "certain kinds" of socialism, pre-empting the conflation of socialism with Stalinism — it highlights the band's commitment to keeping the idea alive in politics and culture. The later Manics' Labourism appears almost uninterestingly mellow in comparison to The Holy Bible's morbid fascination with the extremes of Soviet communism, but neither approach denies the contemporary relevance of political history, or presents it merely as kitsch.” - Rhian E. Jones, ‘Unwritten Diaries: History, Politics and Experience through The Holy Bible’ [p. 76 - 78]

“Ballard, Saville, The Holy Bible all use shock tactics, aesthetics of gorgeous abjection to assault the viewer. Ballard does it with crashed bodies and psychologies smashed to shards; Saville with bloated bodies out of control, tragic flesh of saints, sanctified for their suffering with no meaning, of no purpose beyond the physical carrying-through of their existence. The Holy Bible does it with its ruptured squabbles, soul sores leaking pus of humanity's capitulation to the dark side, rotten missives, accusations, breakdowns and weaknesses, as if it can't stop shaking anymore.

All three want to make their mark on you, perceive their own mission as one of violence upon the spectator: a moral mission because amidst all the white noise and static of the information-entertainment world, the jeering is too loud, and the crying is all but drowned out. In the service of truth, the artist must lacerate, and the profound abjection of the body, the scarification of the self, the breaking of the taboo of the illusion of sanctity of the body as self-contained whole, is a perfectly acceptable way for encroaching on the complacency that allows us to live complicit lives. Aesthetic butchery is thus a moral enterprise. Obscenity, critically modulated, pulls you out of your comfort zone and makes you confront yourself, or at least the parts you hide daily in order to live in polite society and in good conscience with yourself.” - Daniel Lukes, ‘Fragments Against Ruin: The Books of Manic Street Preachers' The Holy Bible’ [p. 226, 227]

“The present absence of Richey endured even through the years immediately following his disappearance, when the band was most vociferously separating from their past. Speaking in 1996, Nicky stated, "We'll never fill that gap. We'll never get anoth er guitarist. James will never go over to that side of the stage" (qtd in Maconie, "We Shall Overcome" 88); the space of stage right became a sacred site of remembrance for the band, but also a heightened, present absence for fans. In the documentary for the tenth anniversary edition of The Holy Bible, James describes his discomfort whilst playing Reading Festival in 1994 as a three-piece (at this time, Richey was hospitalized), which included the fact that some of the fans "were staring at the space of the stage where Richey should be, refusing to look at me." This desire to look at the empty space usually occupied by an object perceived as valuable is arguably an expression of the connection between emptiness as an index of a sign that holds symbolic meaning; the absence ironically brings more meaning to the surface than was originally recognized in the object itself. In his discussion of the spectators who flocked to see the empty space in the Louvre from which the Mona Lisa had been stolen in 1911, Darian Leader posits that this incident makes manifest the split between art and the space it usually occupies, thereby prompting an interrogation of the usually unseen or hidden meaning in the artwork that typically isn't in question. In becoming a signifier of totemic mythologies of tortured genius and martyred rock stars, Richey's absence became an index for that signifier, whereby spectators intuit meaning even by staring into the void of the lost signifier. These mythologies then perpetuate a kind of lovely knowledge because they fit into an already established perspective and narrative of popular culture. Within the last twenty years, the proliferation of music magazine covers featuring Richey have played into this lovely knowledge, rather than confront the difficult knowledge his disappearance evokes.” - Larissa Wodtke, ‘Architecture of Memory: The Holy Bible and the Archive’ [p. 302, 303]

All passages from Triptych: An Examination of the Manic Street Preachers’ Holy Bible (2017)

[eighthfloorwindow]

[mellowchouchou]

Regina Spektor - Chemo Limo Soviet Kitsch (2003/2004)

[victusinveritas]

Lenin monument on the island of Spitsbergen (Svalbard), 2014, two angles.

[girlal1ve]

talking about the book i just read and regina spektor

i just finished a book called as simple as snow. my dads best friend gave it to me when we visited him in portland a couple years ago. i didn’t get to really reading until now and i finished it a couple days ago. i love this book so much. it’s the best book i’ve read in a really really long time. i love it so much and i can’t believe how underrated it is. i want to make it into a movie really bad.

while i was reading the last half of it i was listening to the album soviet kitsch by regina spektor a lot. i mean on repeat for a long time. now that album reminds me of the book and it is so great. i love regina spektor so much. i have started to learn piano because of her. she sings like a fucking angel it’s insane. listening to this album while reading this book for the first time was amazing and i wish i could do it again. it made me so happy and distracted me from all the other shit going on, like for example having a god damn crush. i wish i could escape like that. like how anna did in the book. (not a spoiler lol you can see that on the back of the book). i don’t live in a place where it snows. i really really wish i did. and before anyone is like “no you don’t omg” try living in a place where the LOW in the winter is like 72 every day. it’s lame. nothing changes. it’s all the same and it’s boring. i want it to snow and i want to play in the snow and then get to cold and go back inside while looking at the window at all of the snow outside.

i hate the humidity and the heat so much. it’s boring and painful.

idk what else to say i just wanted to talk about this i guess

[halo--hall]

she will kiss you til your lips bleed but she will not take her dress off

americana, tropicana

all the sailor boys have demons, they sing, "oh, kentucky, why did you forsake me?"

[goobersplat]

Four Vintage Rubber Dogs

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

(Image ID: Four vintage rubber dogs.

1) A light brown dog with dark brown patches. They are facing the right and looking down.

2) A white dog with an orange head patch and orange feet. They are smiling, sitting, and looking to the left.

3) A white dog with brown ears with orange outlines, and an orange hindquarters with a brown spot. They are standing and facing the left.

4) A brown dog standing on his back legs. He has a light brown muzzle with blue overalls.)

[xxxecuted]

70s estonian inflatable toy deer

[eighthfloorwindow]

[desperatepleasures]

tagged (sorta) by @loreofcardigan for 9 no-skip albums!

hold on baby - king princess

shadowlawn - django haskins

melodrama - lourde

in league with dragons - the mountain goats

end of the summer - dar williams

the unauthorized biography of reinhold messner - ben folds five

soviet kitsch - regina spektor

bury the lede - dessa

almost everyday - matt and kim

[mellowchouchou]

Regina Spektor - The Flowers Soviet Kitsch (2003/2004)

[pink-carnelian]

Regina spektor is for twee bitches with commitment issues who went through a metric fuckton of fantasy novels in elementary school and had a phase where they clipped a fake bird to their hair and just went to school like that

[noctude]

idk what happened but woag i love carbon monoxide!!!! delicious snack

the world is full of beautiful and small things

[awisa]

currently holding auditions for my new staple autumn album 🏆

[foragecore]

me and regina hanging out in my room at nite chatting :)