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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Burn, baby, burn

Long talk with a woman from LA during and after breakfast. She was an iconic example of the self-improving summer of the seventies in my theory. She married in the sixties, turning into a mother and housewife until she started reading Ms Magazine, a bible for the starting feminist movement in America and decided she wanted to study medicine after all, which was not that easy at her age at that time, in the process discovering she was a lesbian, organizing 'pot-parties' for her teenage daughter who grew up to be a cartoonist and published her first cartoon in.. Ms Magazine. She's now a doctor. Her daughter is also a typical example of one of the most visible cultural expressions of the beginning of the nineties: tattoos. She has a giant tattoo of a personal cartoon character all over her back. I've seen so many people between 30 and 40 here with tattoos (and then not the small tribal ones we see in Holland, but full coloured ones all over the (upper) arm. Which leads to some conflicting arrangements, I must say, when a women is wearing a armless summer dress which does not match the tattoo at all

It also reminds me of research we did last year, showing that tattoos are totally out of fashion with young people. So we will recognize the people that had their youth in the beginning of the nineties clearly, even in fourty years time, when they use their tattood arms to push their wheelchair through the streets of Seattle. Wonder how cool that will look. Once thought about setting a tattoo of a volcano, but couldn't find the right design. Yes, I've lived through the nineties.
And survived the heat today, the burning sun right above me, by spending time in Rem Koolhaas' public library. Will do a tour tomorrow.
And returned to the CD shop as a true addict, but only 10 today.

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