The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
Thursday, September 15, 2016 — 3B
By MERIN MCDIVITT
Daily Arts Writer
In a museum that often focuses
on
cutting-edge
contemporary
pieces,
UMMA’s
most
recent
exhibition came as a bit of a sur-
prise. To be fair, the museum is no
stranger to variety. Detroit factory
architecture? Of course. African
scrap metal sculptures? Why not?
But ... Elizabeth Taylor? That
was something new, and certainly
unexpected. After all, the world
of Serious Art hasn’t had much to
do with celebrities since the age
of Andy Warhol. In spite of this
seeming mismatch, or perhaps
because of it, photographer Cath-
erine Opie’s exhibition “700 Nimes
Road,” a series of photographs of
the interior of actress Elizabeth
Taylor’s home, may have been the
most intimate, thoughtful collec-
tion shown this year.
At first glance the photographs
are sometimes dull, sometimes
lustrous, capturing Taylor’s tables
and rooms, her enviable closets
and boudoirs. While the images
are visually striking when taken
as a whole, particularly in their
artful arrangement of colors and
textures, each individual photo-
graph feels a little off. In some,
like those of Taylor’s dressing
table or her famed jewelry collec-
tion, Opie has eschewed the easy,
alluring snapshot in favor of more
awkward lighting or an inferior
vantage point. There’s something
odd at work beneath the surface.
Where’s the shine, the patina of
fame, fortune and a life lived in the
dazzling, blinding spotlight? The
answer may lie in the gap between
famed public persona and private
life.
The
incredible
proliferation
of “personal” information about
celebrities, now and then, prom-
ises that you’re really getting to
know the star, that they’re just
like you. But do these images show
anything about their subjects? And
do the lives of the stars represent
something relatable, if not attain-
able, to their admirers, or is it just
a sweet escape, a chintzy mirage
that revels in its own artificiality?
The nation may be fed up with
plain old reality, beamed at them
from the nightly news or shoved
roughly through the mail slot each
morning, but our obsession with
“reality” is at an all-time high. Rat-
ings for dishy shows like “Keeping
Up With The Kardashians” and
competitions like “The Bachelor”
keep on rising, promising audienc-
es a no-holds-barred leer into their
subjects’ personal lives. They spin
a web of false intimacy around the
viewer, complete with tell-all con-
fessionals and dramatic, choreo-
graphed reveals.
Even LIFE Magazine, once wit-
ness-bearer to some of the last cen-
tury’s most significant events, now
hawks glossy and expensive spe-
cial editions, mining their archives
for
never-before-seen
glamour
shots of the stars of yesteryear. The
lacquered faces and taut, midcen-
tury physiques of these dead celeb-
rities simper next to Kourtney and
Khloe on the rack at the check-out
counter.
Into the lurid fray steps Cath-
erine Opie, a respected art pho-
tographer well known for her
work depicting everything from
queer subculture in Southern
California to drab, sun-bleached
planned communities. In 2010,
she was given access to Taylor’s
home while the lauded actress
was away. Unlike Taylor, whose
public appearances were marked
by high drama and oodles of cos-
metics, the house was left just as
it was: lived-in, not fixed up or
polished for the camera.
The photographs have a curi-
ous untouched quality, as though
Liz has just stepped out to run
errands, leaving clothes and cos-
metics in benign disarray. The
viewer feels like a teenage neigh-
bor, housesitting for the first
time — running their fingers over
the glamorous haute couture in
the closet, fiddling with the TV
remote and almost knocking
over an Oscar on a crowded end
table. The images are flat and two
dimensional, of course, but they
are remarkably tactile — gossa-
mer fabrics hanging alongside
their ilk in an overstuffed walk-
in, the glint of sharp, sparkling
jewels carefully placed in dusty
shoeboxes and labeled with their
bestower:
“Michael
Jackson,
2005,” “Richard, 1961.”
If modern celebrity culture is
a floodlit snapshot of life, show-
ing everything and revealing
nothing, Opie’s exhibition is the
photo negative, so to speak —
the antidote. By focusing less on
Taylor’s larger than life person-
ality, and more on the human,
almost ordinary aspects of her
home, a strange near-intimacy is
achieved with Taylor, the absent
subject whose presence none-
theless permeates each image,
like musky perfume that lingers,
stale, in the air long after the
wearer has left.
Opie may not have delivered
the glittering facade that charac-
terized Taylor’s life and mystique
— a disappointment, perhaps, to
some diehard fans. Touring the
exhibition felt a lot like walking
through a stranger’s home for
the first time. The viewer wants
to know the owner, but they’re
always just out of sight. More
conventional images of Tay-
lor, bathed in glamour, seem to
promise the instant closeness
of “reality,” where everything is
somehow familiar and remote
at the same time. Opie’s work
gets closer to the uncomfortable
truth. This home, its luxurious
silks and carpet stains, piles of
old pictures and years of accu-
mulated dust and memories, is
that of a stranger. We may know
“Liz Taylor,” but we don’t know
this woman at all.
A conversation with
author Nathan Hill
CAROLYN GEARIG/Daily
“700 Nimes Road” was at UMMA for three months this summer.
An intimate ode
to ‘Nimes Road’
BOOKS
By RENNIE PASQUINELLI
For the Daily
Nathan Hill was in Ann Arbor
this Tuesday, reading from his
debut novel, “The Nix,” at a beloved
spot of every book enthusiast —
Literati. In case you haven’t heard
that name or title, Hill’s “The Nix”
became available in books stores
across the world in late August
and received a warm welcome in
the literary community. Actually,
“warm welcome” may well be
an
understatement.
Before
it
was even published, “The Nix”
had been compared to works by
several groundbreaking novelists,
including but not limited to, John
Irving and Charles Dickens. And,
just to reiterate: “The Nix” is Hill’s
first novel.
“The Nix” is 600 pages filled
with what Hill refers to as a
magical bag Hermione Granger
could pull anything out of. It’s
a story of many characters and
several plots, but centers around
a video game-addicted English
professor
(Samuel)
and
an
estranged relationship with his
mother, Faye. The novel covers
the Chicago riots of 1968, a mother
trapped in a suburban lifestyle in
the 1980s, as well as the lives of
the modern college student and
professor.
Hill’s
warmer-than-warm
welcome
transcended
the
reviews he’s received for “The
Nix” at Literati. Those who were
fortunate enough to attend his
reading couldn’t get enough of
both Hill and his book. Before he
began reading from “The Nix,”
Hill quoted an email from a fan
that he described as a reason being
a writer is so rewarding, which
included the lines “I am old. I have
read many books. Yours is among
my favorites. Please do not take 10
years to write the next one. I am
82.”
The Daily had the chance to sit
down and talk to Hill about the
novel, his sudden rise to fame, and
what we can expect next.
---
TMD: “The Nix” took you
about 12 years to write, which
is about a quarter of your life.
In a previous interview, you
said you poured all of your good
ideas into this book, your first
book. Why write one book? Was
it difficult to make all of those
ideas cohesive?
NH: Yeah, it was. To the first
point, about why writing one book,
I guess I put all of these ideas into
the book and chopped stuff out
where they didn’t belong. The first
draft was 1,002 pages long, and
the final draft is 620, so a lot of
stuff got cut out. Maybe that stuff
might find another appearance
in a book somewhere down the
line. But really I was just trying
to find something out in the
world that would be confusing,
or interesting, or would make me
mad, or I wouldn’t know how I
felt about it, and I would think,
“Could I use that in ‘The Nix’?”
It became sort of like the filter
that you see the world through.
Anytime I had a really good idea, I
felt like I could use it, and I didn’t
censor myself. I just put it in there.
For better or worse. It took a long
time to write the book because of
it. But at the same time I feel really
happy, because I feel like it’s just
packed with things that hopefully
make people think.
Of course. And I’ve seen
some fan tweets to you, one that
said there is a true sentence on
every page of “The Nix.” I’m
sure that felt good to hear.
That was a cool one. I don’t
know, it was mostly like I was
trying to write a book that I would
really like to read. And those are
the kinds of books I like to read;
the ones that have interesting
characters and are also full of
ideas.
That kind of brings me to my
next question. Presumably you
read a couple of books while
you were writing “The Nix.”
Which ones would you say were
most influential to writing it?
In terms of content, the books I
list in my acknowledgments page.
I did a lot of research, especially
about the 1968 section, because
of course I did not live through
that, so those books were really
important
to
me.
Especially
Norman Mailer’s book, “Miami
and the Siege of Chicago.” It was
interesting, because most books
about Chicago in 1968 are histories
told by history professors. They’re
really useful and helpful, but to see
Normal Mailer do it, I mean he’s a
literary writer, and to see someone
approach it from that direction
with the purpose of telling a story,
rather than the purpose of telling
a history, was really helpful to me.
I read those books until I felt like
I knew enough about the period to
write about it myself.
I assume it takes a lot of
confidence in your knowledge
base to feel comfortable writing
about something you didn’t
experience first hand.
So, my wife is a classical
musician. And classical musicians
have this phrase where they
rehearse something until they
have it “under their fingers.” You
know, which is kind of like, in
the body. You work and work on
a certain run until you just kind
of have it, and don’t have to think
about it too much. For me, I did
research until I had it under my
fingers, until I could write about
the time period without having to
consult all the time. I just felt like
I could do it.
How
did
you
tap
into
womanhood in an era you didn’t
live through?
Again, a lot of research helped
me out. There was a book called
“Young, White, and Miserable”
that I liked a lot, about young
women in the ’50s. That gave me
a lot of good ideas. And, (“The
Nix”) is Samuel’s retelling of the
whole thing. It was almost like I
was writing Faye through Samuel’s
eyes. Kind of like what he would
think. And he’s, of course, looking
at it through a great distance in the
future. Really it was just looking
around, too. I found websites
that had old advertisements for
woman’s beauty products, and they
were just so transparently sexist.
And you’re like, “I cannot believe
this was normal.” So to have Faye
working against that, and Samuel
writing it with our eyes today felt
like a really nice tension.
Right. And I’ve heard you
say you have felt connected to
the character Samuel, because
you played a lot of “World of
Warcraft” in a period of time
where you felt in limbo as a
writer. What was that like for
you?
That was a time when I just
finished grad school and moved to
New York. My first month there,
all of my (writing I had done in
grad school) was stolen. I was
really sad about that, like really,
really sad, and a buddy of mine
suggested that we play this video
game together. He just wanted to
keep an eye on me I think. You
know, you can chat through the
game. And I guess it was just a
couple years where I was trying
to write what eventually became
this book but in a very different
form, and it wasn’t going very
well. And I wasn’t making any
money in New York. I was there
working at a poetry nonprofit, so
you can imagine how much the
salary was.
So I was just barely treading
water in New York, and the
writing wasn’t going very well,
and I was getting rejected all over
the place. But, I was playing this
game, and I could be really good
at this game, right? So I felt like
in the rest of my life I was failing,
but I was not failing at this game.
So it made me play it a lot, for a
little while, until I finally realized
I was spending way too much
time doing it. I gave it up cold
turkey one day and really launched
myself into the book. That feeling
of the video game replacing, I don’t
want to say replacing real life, but
the video game becomes a place
where you find meaning where
you lack meaning elsewhere. That
idea stuck with me, and it’s in
both of the characters Samuel and
Pwnage.
Well, this is your first novel.
Before it came out, you were
compared to John Irving and
he compared you to Charles
Dickens.
Countries
bid
on
publication rights, which is
rare for a first book. How are
you taking all of this positive
reception and recognition?
A lot of people have asked me
that question, and I still don’t know
how to answer because it still feels
so strange, you know? For the time
that I was writing the book — for
the years and years it took — the
only person who knew anything
about what I was doing was my
wife. I would read her pages. At
first she requested me to read
pages; I was always very shy about
my first drafts. But, eventually, I
read her a few pages and she said
she really liked them and wanted
to hear a couple more, and that just
became our routine. For 10 years
you’re working on a book, and one
person in the world knows about it,
so there’s this fear that you’ll send it
out into the world and it’s not going
to make any sense to anybody.
That’s not happening. That people
are saying nice things about it is
really gratifying. And kind of a big
relief, too. The 10 years would’ve
been well-spent no matter what,
but I’m glad that the 10 years is
meaningful to other people, too.
You clearly view writing as
something internally beneficial
as opposed to just rewarding
because of external praise.
You can’t work on something for
this long and have all of your hopes
pinned on it being published. It
will just drive you crazy and you
won’t do very good work. What I
discovered, sometime around the
time that I quit “Warcraft” and
really started getting into a routine
with the writing, is that there
needs to be something (in) the
writing itself that is intrinsically
valuable to you. And for me, writing
became the place where I would go
to try to figure out my emotions
and things I was confused about.
The way I’ve been comparing it
to lately is to someone who keeps
a garden. Nobody thinks their
garden is a failure if a bunch of
other people don’t see it. Nobody
keeps a garden to get famous. It felt
like that. Part of the prerequisite
for writing all the scenes I wrote in
the book was that I had to find joy
in it. I had to enjoy it, I had to like
it. There needed to be something
about writing that scene that was
pleasurable to me, or interesting
to me in some way. That’s how
it became worth it intrinsically.
Beyond any of the praise, it was a
good project to undergo in a cheesy
personal growth kind of way.
I’ve read that you have
considered yourself a writer
since second grade, when you
were writing “Choose your own
adventure”
novels
yourself.
But is there a book that really
convinced you to become a
writer?
I’ll tell you two books that are
radically different from each other
that made me feel like “I want to
do that.” The first one is called
“Sixty Stories.” It’s a collection of
short stories by Donald Barthelme.
He’s an absurdist, avant-garde
writer. He’s just hilarious. And
goofy. He’s a weird combination of
high-intellect and high-absurdity
crashing into each other. And
you’ll finish a story and be like
“What in the world was that?!” I
found him in college, and at the
time I had become an English
major and was reading a lot of
really ponderous prose in some of
my other classes, and I found him
and just found him delightful.
That sense of humor, I just love.
The second one is Virginia Woolf,
“Mrs. Dalloway” and “To the
Lighthouse.” I didn’t read her
until grad school. Oh my god. I
love the way she dives into her
characters’ brains. The tone of the
novel is the voice of the character
from the inside. I love that so
much. You know how you have
certain bands that you listen to
that hit you in the right time of
your life? Those two for me were
the bands that hit me at the right
time.
Can we expect another magic
bag of ideas and stories from
you in another 10 years?
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s going
to be … No, it totally will be that.
I’ve started working on another
thing, and I’m only about 50 pages
into some exploratory material.
But, the things I’m stuffing into
the bag right now are marriage,
authenticity, gentrification and
the ’90s. That’s in the stew right
now. We’ll see, we’ll see.
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
YG’s music video for “Why
You Always Hatin?”, a single
off his sophomore album Still
Brazy is, in a
word, lavish.
The first 40
seconds have
the rapper
casually
hop out of a
helicopter
and hop
into a red
Mercedes.
The next
three-and-a-half minutes
follow a similar trend, with
an array of shots of YG,
Drake and Kamaiyah rapping
from moving convertibles,
drinking Hennessey, popping
champagne, dancing next the
the cars they were previously
rapping out of and even in
Kamaiyah’s case, receiving
foot massages from really
buff shirtless dudes. There is
also a conspicuous lack of a
helicopter in the final three
and a half minutes, which is,
in its own way, lavish.
Over-the-top displays of
wealth are nothing new in
the rap video world. So much
so that a video without some
excessive display of wealth is
considered avant-garde. This
video is not avant-garde. It is,
however, a perfect match for
the single and the album.
Still Brazy is an homage to a
simpler time, a West Coast ’90s
rap album with skits and jokes
and funky baselines. It’s also
an album made in 2016, with
references to Aisha Curry,
Drake verses and rampant
anonymous internet hate.
“Why You Always Hatin?,” a
happy song about haters, is the
albums’ mascot.
The duality of the album
allows the cliché-but-not
video to work. There are
rented drop tops, but there are
also men giving foot massages
when, unfortunately, the
prevailing lavish rap video
rarely has men in subservient
roles. There’s are bottles of
champagne popping over
lobster dinners, but an oddly
disarming set of shots with
YG and his friends goofing
around in a parking lot. This
is a YG video, but people are
enjoying themselves.
This video isn’t anything
artistically groundbreaking,
but in between the cars and
money and liquor you can see
YG winking at us, making a
little joke that plays off the
fact that, on the surface, the
video is so derivative. It’s a self
awareness we want to see, but
rarely do when paired with
exuberant displays of wealth.
- HARRY KRINSKY
B
Why You
Always
Hatin?
YG
DEF JAM