Punk presentation: in which our hero is just a tiny bit shocking, like static cling

[radfrac_archive]

Two different guys came into the bathroom while I was doing my makeup.

Liquid eyeliner is a sonofabitch. Furthermore, my eyes are a difficult shape to enhance. They tend to look smaller and more like bullet wounds when lined unless I draw the lines out like two shining highways into the crow's lands.(1)

I was performing this intricate procedure, leaning over the sink, when this young guy came in. He went over to the urinal, and stood there for a long time without seeming to be able to produce the comforting melody of urination.

I went out to check my lipstick with my co-presenter. She pronounced it too goth, so I went back and wiped it all off except a muddy reddish smear around my mouth, which was perfect.

If you recall, it rained a lake all Thursday (and all today, for that matter). The second guy just came in to paper-towel his hair dry, and he seemed to think that we were both making perfectly reasonable use of the countertop.

The presentation. Right, so: everyone had to participate in a threesome whose purpose was to produce a semiotic analysis of one youth culture's gear. I got punk & v. pleased I was.

My co-presenters were both young women born in the mid- to-late-eighties, and I felt Very Old and Weird. There was some discomfort when I proved myself able to obtain not only restraints and a leather jacket, but three foot of heavy chain. So I told them it came from a planter.

This is without logic, and I only said it because I once claimed I was going to tell my parents that the spreader bar a previous ex and I once hung was a plant shelf. It has apparently stuck with me that the thing to do when people may become alarmed is to pretend to be gardening.

It was decided that since my hair was short enough to spike, I would be the punk and they would be the analysts. This evolved into our taking on the roles of Fake Hot Topic Punk, Authentic Female Punk and Pre/Post-Authentic Male Punk Who Gets to Yell "Bollocks!"

I wore leirdal's leather jacket, which once was mine until it got too small (but it fits again!) and before that was the ex-co-con's, because that's how we do the leather at our house. When she put it on me she did the same thing he did, that long time ago, unsnapping the cockring from the left epaulet and fixing it onto the right. Our thesis being that Punk was essentially a masochistic faith.

You're right. This was almost exclusively an excuse for me to parade in leather and restraints in front of an audience, get shoved around, and say petulant things in a British accent. (Which, miraculously, stuck all through my speech. It kept sliding all over the Isles when I was rehearsing, but my character seemed to solidify in the event.)

Also worn: vaguely military shirt, distressed. Our best attempt at drainpipes, this being was women's stretch jeans with a fine black stripe, cut off at the ankle and safety-pinned in for a better shape. Leather converse; not exactly period, but in the spirit.

They wore: schoolgirl skirts, leather tie, mesh, fishnets, and so on, sorted according to their inclinations. Authentic Female Punk ended up with the chain for a belt.

I really think, when we got it all together, it was not at all a bad show. Music, dancing -- yes, we pogoed. Yes, we looked like idiots. I should have been more aggressive to be properly punk, and we went on a bit long, but overall I think it was a success.

When I went into the bathroom again after class to change out of my gear, the third guy walked in after me just as I was shrugging off my backpack. The strap caught the epaulet of the jacket. The cockring flew off, arced into the air, and rang on the tiles like a church bell.

Our grade? A-. I am a little grouchy about this. In any other class, surely, this would have been an A presentation based on my shoes alone.(2)

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Notes

(1) Yes, I wanted to look bad, but even the punks knew good bad from bad bad.

(2) I suppose what odds me is that I did what I thought was a truly dreadful, lifeless presentation for my theory course last spring and got an A- from a fairly rigorous professor. So I rather thought this ought to be an improvement.

(3) No particular location for this footnote: university classes are a brutal crowd.

Comments

oi!

[(Anonymous)]

the trick with eyeliner is to put it on only on the outer half of the eye - as in, from your pupil outwards. if you do the whole thing, you just look like you've been struck.

no need to thank me, just passing on the knowledge that is my birthright.

Re: oi!

[radiantfracture]

I did have a stint with eyeliner in high school. It just didn't take.

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[foxymuffins.livejournal.com]

i wish i was in your audience - sounds delightfully interesting.

note (3) - you betcha - it's distressing when you're talking about something you find amazing and they sit there like cold lumps of yesterday's porridge.

[radiantfracture]

They were looking down a lot. Maybe they were writing notes assiduously.

Yeah.

At least I kept my energy/focus. In every other academic presentation so far, I've had my knees knocked out by nerves and the lack of responsiveness.

Apparently what I need is a persona. And good hair.

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[argus-in-tights.livejournal.com]

Leather cons?!?! Lucky. Yes, that should definitely have got you an A. Maybe you needed my yellow Docs? P'raps the prof was distracted by schoolgirl/fishnets/chain-belt. Must admit I was slightly.

\i/

understandable

[radiantfracture]

My plan was that he was to be distracted by my sullen morning-after mien and strategically-placed dress sock. But you're probably right.

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