Drake in a 2010 Sprite commercial, long exhale, brow furrowed.
Yo, I’m just not feeling it.
Tracking shot moves through recording studio over two producers towards Drake. We pass through the soundproofing glass separating the rapper and the other men, the barrier shimmers, bubbles and then dissolves.
Stabby beat begins, Drake, nodding, hyped, opens a 20oz Sprite. Loud fizzing noise. Three second pull on the bottle then a kind of pouty duck face.
Oh my god, he is transforming. A fissure is opening at the center of his face, it splits and forks across his cheek bones. His whole body is splintering, forming into plates that raise up, ears, elbows and biceps all separating and hovering above a subcutaneous world. Fuck, it looks like T2 in there, like, there’s this metal endoskeleton inside of Drake.
The beat still climbing. An air horn sounds, we dive in. Whoa, Ok this is pretty cool, there is a little turntable in here near his forearm. Liquid is everywhere, Sprite, but its really really bubbly and now, its, its pulling us across his android organs, internal mixing decks, microphones and speakers. Sprite branches and forms a ventricle system landing us at an enormous subwoofer that is his heart. On beat it erupts with Sprite.
Medium shot of Drake, exploded diagram of self, Sprite is suspended, flowing out of every crevice.
Jumping now, to Villem Flusser, from The Gesture of Shaving, from Gestures. He is thinking about gardening, mowing a lawn mirroring shaving ones face. Asking:
Is gardening a type of cosmetic care, a beautification of an extended human skin, or is it the other way around? Are cosmetics a kind of gardening, an artistry applied to humans natural environment?
Jumping now to five photographs on my desk right now. All taken at Atlantic Times Square in Monterey Park, a shopping center-cum-condo village-cum-movie theater-cum-faux Italianate town square.
1.
Foreground to background.
Pale blue parking ballasts, weathered, struck.
A cement pad, evidence of a once structure.
Topiary hedges, manicured inscrutably, far left ramps slightly up, then the whole hedge looks stuffed into a box, shaved on all sides, a bench like form, an unequal step up.
Centrally, an orange traffic cone, a horizontal flag saying Botox then backed up cars, Bank of America, finally smog.
Is the gesture of gardening with respect to the grass a gesture that alters nature…or is it the opposite, that the barbers gesture with respect to the beard is rectifying gesture?
Moving fast, jumping now to 710 South.
LA LAW LAND
SUPER WOMAN SUPER LAWYER
SWEET JAMES
2.
Tight close up, there are industrially polished ornamental rocks of different sizes, all of them bluish gray. Three larger ornamental rocks, arranged, a hand sawed PVC pipe sneaks in through edge of frame.
One quarter of image is textured deep red tile, mold, or something, growing on it, water falling. We are looking at the bottom of an outdoor fountain.
Beyond this, more ornamental river rocks, weeds sprouting between them, then two PVC pipes shoot out of the ground.
WHO HURT YOU?
Jumping back to Drake, jumping to the beginning of this commercial, when we move through the sound proofing glass of the recording studio. Im not sure now, is the glass dissolving? Maybe that is us. In this world we are given the properties of a ghost, voyeuristic, passing through walls, unnoticed.
Because both gestures are subject to the extremely problematical phenomenon of fashion, can cosmetic fashions (e.g. the length of hair or beard) derive from urbanizing tendencies ( e.g. from those towards suburbanization and second homes) or the reverse, that is, do urban fashions follow those of cosmetics?
INJURED?
3.
Astroturf, three cigarette butts
Green curb
Champagne colored Prius, cropped from front wheel to just beyond passenger side door. Sooty dirt (Oil? Burn?) is creeping up to handle from undercarriage of vehicle.
Startling blue sky reflected on windshield.
GO FOR THE WIN!
Coming back to Drake for a moment, when he is split into panels, his t-shirt and gold chain separate together with his skin. The flesh and clothing of Drake are apparently the same material, some kind of synthetic exterior.
ACCIDENT?
This kind of question…comes down to the questionable concept of the skin, that indefinite no-mans land that is used to mark out a zone between a person and the world.
4.
Reflection of shitty palm tree on storefront glass.
Behind window is red and white striped tarp resembling those used for fumigating houses.
Blurry legs of man passing through slit in tarp.
The ghost in the recording studio proposition seems flimsy, whatever, I’m still thinking of it. I rewatch, its Sprite and we are Sprite, thats why it fizzes like being poured into a cup when we hit the glass
1-800-411-PAIN
5.
Large central fountain at entrance to Atlantic Times Square, blue tile, chlorinated turquoise water, algae, trash inside.
Storefront windows covered in butcher paper from inside.
Between glass and paper a sign, Coffee Sandwich Soft Serve Churro Smoothies Tea Milkshake
Above that an enormous LED screen with a frame to make it appear like a film strip.
On screen a horse is jumping through an explosion.
Subtitled The Apocalypse
INJURED?
INJURED?
INJURED?
How do they know?
Sprite moving through recording studio glass,
through windshield of my Accord,
through fourth wall.
HUEY IVE HAD THE WORST WEEK
THE GARDEN IS TURNING TO WEEDS
I MISS YOU
From here we can resume the comparisons of barbers and gardener, of cosmeticians and city planners and (why not?) of social engineers and ecologists. They are gestures that have the intention of humanizing nature (producing culture) nor of naturalizing human beings (preserving nature for people) but of emphasizing and expanding the border area between man and world, the “skin.”
Beat still building. A crescendo and the suspended Sprite retracts back into the rapper, his parts coalesce, appearing human again as he leans into the mic,
Last name Ever,
First name Greatest
Like a sprained ankle boy
I aint nothing to play with,
Digital green background, a Sprite is hovering above the same mass of liquid recently burst from Drake’s chest.
Sprite, Obey Your Thirst.
