Day spent revising graphic novels and psychogeography for the exam. I’ve also been reading about ‘Hauntology’, a Derrida term reclaimed by Mark Fisher to use instead of psychogeography, for instance when describing Laura Oldfield Ford’s book, Savage Messiah. He uses it along with Simon Reynolds to denote a theorised ‘end of history’ trend in music as well as writing: ‘mourning for lost utopias’.
Article by Andrew Gallix on hauntology
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Candid photo of me taken by Travis Elborough at the Aubin Cinema the other day. I’m in the middle of talking to Alex Mayor about, oh I don’t know, ‘failing upwards’ or some such Whit Stillman quote. We were about to watch Damsels In Distress, the new Stillman film.
I like the photo, even though it’s my Not So Good Side. I never did learn to fully love the constellation of little moles on my right cheek. Always thought they look vaguely like a join-the-dots puzzle of Bonnie Langford. I even went to see an NHS plastic surgeon about them, once, when I was about 20. He pretty much laughed me out of the room, saying they weren’t worth worrying about.
And yet… One thinks of standards of acceptable facial imperfections. In fact, it reminds me that Analeigh Tipton, one of the main actresses in Damsels In Distress, has a faint scar around one side of her mouth.
What’s unusual is that not only has her scar not been covered up with make-up (as I tend to with my moles when properly being photographed), but the director, Whit Stillman, often seems to focus on it, lovingly, as if making a point. It’s like a sweeter version of that much maligned cinematic theory, the Male Gaze. Ms Tipton is already extremely beautiful, and the scar stops her being boringly beautiful.
A little bit of Googling reveals that she started a career in modelling, but was soon dropped by her agency. Because of the scar. ‘So many people in the fashion industry were like, ‘We’re so sorry that happened to your face.’ 
One thinks of Cindy Crawford making a trademark out of her mole. Why is a scar worse?
Still, up yours, fashion.
Tags: damsels in distress, me, photos of DE
