Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

This time it’s Fiona Apple’s old school video for the song Limp. I find her so captivating because of her physical beauty combined with her musical and lyrical talents. It’s too bad that she dropped out of the music world for whatever reason(s). Maybe her ‘James Dean syndrome’* got in the way.

* James Dean syndrome is how I personally describe this state of mind that generally afflicts adolescent folks that is characterized by a brooding, pseudo depressing, and an anti authoritarian sensibility.

Some grow out of it after they go to college while others seem to be stuck in it for life. Maybe Fiona fits the latter but I really did not research her story and why she dropped out of the music world.

The following doctored, color corrected, and manipulated screen-shots are from her video for the song Limp. Afterwards I will also provide the link for this pretty decent and off-course pseudo angry tune.

Honestly, I stumbled on this interesting and fun of a parade in NYC. I’ve developed this ritual of going to Washington Square Park after work and/or during the weekends. I go there to read, people watch, and record street performances that always seem to take place at this iconic park.

This time when I got out of the subway I was in for a pleasant surprise. Scores of people were lined up behind police barricades off of Avenue of The Americas and the 9th street area. It was the Gay Pride Parade and I instinctually took out my phone video camera and started shooting anything and everything.

I missed out on the big floats but still captured some interesting stuff. I spliced, cut, and pasted some footage with Blur’s 1994 track, “Boys & Girls”.

I have noticed recently that I have been taking pictures of pictures (still or moving). Whether the pictures that I take are from a computer screen (Youtube + Websites), a street billboard, or moving images (theatre + TV), It seems like I have been reproducing reproductions. I am taking a picture of a picture and making a new image.

At times I don’t even use a camera, I use my Apple’s screen capture feature to take pictures from Youtube videos and other video websites. I then import these images into Photoshop and tweak them to my liking. I crop, color correct, and at times totally change their ‘genetic’ make-up and make them my own.

With the Internet, Youtube, and the blogosphere (there are countless of images that saturate the web) it’s easy to appropriate other people’s images and make them your own. It’s the age of digital and algorithmic recycling. At the same time, i don’t mind when my images are appropriated and are used by others; as long as a profit is not being made from this borrowing/appropriating/stealing.

I am just a small piece of the grand puzzle because my reproduced reproductions eventually will be reproduced by someone else and then these reproductions of reproductions of reproductions will be reproduced again and again, ad infinitum.

I love and respect Tom Waits. he’s a poet, a writes, a performance artist, an actor, and a musician. His singing voice is so distinct that it cannot be confused for anyone else. The second you hear his voice on you know it’s him.