NOTES ON "SESSY" (From 2007)

NOTES ON SESSY

"Sessy" is a state of being. It is epitomized by the choice to employ mass media symbols of sexiness in a time of need, like clubbing, instead of cultivating one's own ideas RE: sexiness.

It is ersatz sexy.

Sessy is buying the Ikea put-it-together-yourself sexiness kit.

Sessy is the spectacle of the mediated image overpowering the individual mind.

The unaltered human body cannot be sessy - it takes some one's mistaken idea of what other people think is sexy to create sessy. It is the game theory of attraction.

Sessy must be a serious attempt to accomplish a goal (be physically attractive) that is so excessive as to strike the uninterested observer as humorous.

It's a concept that is a catch-all for everything that is ostensibly sexy, everything that we are told by advertising firms to be sexy, which clearly isn't.

Sessy is the verse chorus verse of fucking, the fast food of fetishes.

Sessy is a semiotic system perpetrated by the American capitalist enterprise to denote sexuality, which when put into use by those living non-celebrity lives, falls flat on its head (except in times of overexposure to alcohol, which is why sessy usually happens in close proximity to a bar).

Originally the term came into use as a conflation, a portmanteau of "sexy" and "sassy." It has come to be used as a sarcastic pejorative for someone who is overtly signaling negotiated signs of sexuality. It is easy to see how this combination of words has devolved into its current meaning - you could not regard someone you do not know - someone just walking by - as being sassy about their sexiness unless their manner of adornment used the language not of a "target audience" of people, but of "the mainstream"or the imagined "all people"- as if there was anything that all people agreed upon. This "all people" fallacy is one produced by thinking that what the mass media shows is all of life or is even "what life is like."

Sessy trafficks not in the individual-to-individual but in the individual-to-everyone. It is, essentially, capitalist-sexy. It casts its net for the lowest common denominator. Since standards of attractiveness are highly subjective this is clearly an indefensible/illogical/whatever position.

Currently "Sessy" (2007)

Tramp stamps
Thongs
Collagen injections
Any "clubbing" outfit
Tongue rings
Belly button chains
Six Packs
Nip Slips
High Heels
Tans/Tanning
Unnaturally blond hair
Muscle

Notes For a 2007 Essay About Sparks I Recovered From My Stuck In Time Myspace

Sparks is the product that proves you can pay off the FDA. (2010 note: but not forever.) In the nineties when The Drew Carey Show reminded national audiences of Cleveland's existence, the idea of the show's "Buzz Beer" was laughable, a sitcom concoction of beer and coffee. While Sparks and other alcoholic "energy" drinks taste nothing much like those two liquids, the idea of Buzz Beer - along with "Irish Coffee" - is a suitable antecedent for this confounding in a can. Not produced continually for thousands of years following a process passed down from inebriate to inebriate like wine or beer but as a marketing concept that materialized after the fallout of the XTREME early-2000's action sport craze, Sparks combines xtreme uppers (caffeine et al) with xtreme downers (alcohol). Sparks seems to say that even in our resplendent nighttimes of fraternity and partyhood Americans still wish to be able to "work harder" and "accomplish more" and need the "energy" to do it. Conceptualized then as the ultimate party hopper's drink and initally marketed through the coke worshipping press (Vice), Sparks has become ubiquitous in gas stations across the heartland, becoming the choice of Fratamerica, the energymaker behind so many daterapes and brofights. 

But what is Sparks? It tastes like it has the chemical makeup of house paint and is obviously packed full of carcinogens whether we currently "officially" know that or not. Its yellowish piss stains tongues with high fructose corn syrup and Yellow 5 color dye. Its caffeine doesn't keep you up all night - it's no substitute for coke - but it does alarm clock you four hours after you've passed out with Sparks stomach, the shakes, heart palpitations and morning insomnia when you just want to sleep off your bad, energetic decisions. It's actually - xtremely let's say - the worst drink in the world. 

Candy & Cigarettes / Snakepit Essay

This uploaded zine from Austin, Texas, "Candy and Cigarettes" was edited by Reynard Seifert and contains an essay I wrote a couple of years ago about Ben Snakepit's comics called "Snake Sense: Time in Snakepit." This essay was also published in a slightly different form in "Punk Zine" but for completionists' sake I wanted to link/blog it. Candy and Cigarettes also contains two comics/illustrations from John Malta as well as other comics and literature.

Here is an internet blurb/review from the zine's release party in 2008.

"PUNK ZINE"

This is the 'zine I made two years ago. It's about Columbus, Ohio and some of the "punk" bands and artists that have called it home. There are eight interviews - Geoff Hing from Defiance, Ohio, Matt Reber from New Bomb Turks, Andy Hinton from Vile Gash, Phonzie Davis of Left Handed Sophie fame, Jason Molinari who lived at The Neil House, Anne Elizabeth Moore of the book "Unmarketable," John Malta of Rattail Flyers, and Jimmy Buttons who lives at The Legion of Doom. There are articles about The Evens, Bike Punks, the comic "Snakepit," Delay, Tin Armor, the CMA show "Renoir's Women," a janitor's strike at OSU, a successful Clinton-Era protest against bombing Iraq, a Griot memoir of Defiance, Ohio reminiscence, and a review of Magic Flowers Droned by Psychedelic Horseshit. There are reprints of a Lantern article about The Neil House, an Other Paper article about The Legion of Doom, an Entertainment Weekly article about "Columbus, the next Seattle," and something originally published in MRR about the Gaunt/New Bomb Turks scene.

If you want to buy a physical, paper copy Microcosm Publishing probably still has it.

Here are some reviews the zine received.