Ponytail Picks #35 - Colour
My partner-in-ponytailing Mr. Andrew Paul Koole is away this week and I’m feeling quite blue. Hope you can still enjoy this rain-bouquet of Picks I’ve picked for you.
LISTEN
Songs across the rainbow
Colours (yes, I’m Canadian so I’m sticking a “u” in there) are a fun thing to think about it when it comes to music. Can a song sound purple? The titles and lyrics of the songs below have the names of colours in them, but perhaps there are also other more whimsical ways we can connect the visuals of the rainbow with the audio of the tracks in our experience of listening to them.
Losing him was blue, like I’d never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone…
But loving him was red
A blood-pumping country-pop heartbreak-on-sleeve ballad where Swift amplifies the colourful description of her past tense loving with references to other shades of the relationship. The fiery red of love remains the strongest hue though, even after the fact:
But moving on from him is impossible
When I still see it all in my head
In burning red
If anyone’s on some different plane of existence where they can experience colour in a non-visual way, it’s Big Thief songwriter extraordinaire Adrianne Lenker:
Orange is the color of my love
Fragile orange wind in the garden
Fragile means that I can hear her flesh
Crying little rivers in her forearm
I’m just realizing now that my first three picks here all use colours to describe the various seasons of love. Is love perhaps the most colourful of all human experiences? On this 7-minute slow rock jam from her aptly titled album color theory, Sophia Allison AKA Soccer Mommy contrasts yellow with blue, much like she does visually on the album’s cover, interestingly enough. In the first lines, warmth:
The bright August sun feels like yellow
And the white of your eyes is so yellow
Then the truth hits (“I’m falling apart over a memory”) and she reveals her true colours:
I could lie
But it’s never made me feel good inside
I’m still so blue
Can’t erase the hue, it’s just colored over
The next verse makes the colourful contrast clear: her current reality is blue like the cold water that has swallowed up her love and the citrus-y brightness of good times is only a vision in the distance:
I’m thinking of her from over the ocean
See her face in the waves, her body is floating
And in her eyes, like clementines, I know that she’s fading
And the light of the sun is only a daydream
Had to include one of my long time favourite artists Monster Rally at some point in this list. Ted Feighan has always leaned heavily into the audio-visual connection in his work, pairing his ecletic exotica instrumentals with super cool collages that burst with life and colour. “Green Magic” is the perfect track for your next real or imaginary tropical trip.
T-Swift and Soccer Mommy both used blue in contrast with other colours in their aforementioned tracks to convey a sadness or loneliness that’s often associated with the colour. Vancouver-based lo-fi garage rockers Primp bring a bit of a different tone to it here. The lover’s yearning is still there (“You’ll go away and I think about you”) but it results in a more energetic and passionate response:
I’m not afraid of what they might do
I’m gonna scream until my face turns blue
A perfect chillhop track to put on for those post-sunset summer night drives home when the blue sky starts to darken and the noise of daytime fades into your steady heartbeat.
One of Coldplay’s angstier songs, on an album named after a phrase from the French Revolution. This one, which immediately follows the title track, digs with 4/4 piano hits and gnarly guitars right into the tumultuous mood of the colour violet (“When the future’s architectured / By a carnival of idiots on show / You’d better lie low”) before it takes a stark step back to reveal the calm and beauty that can also be found in that deep shade at the end of the rainbow:
I took my love down to violet hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still
It all comes back to love.
Orange you glad we have another colour-related Ponytail Picks?
WATCH
Anything made by people who aren’t white
I was going to make a list of some of my favourite films made by people of colour here but then I remembered a little conversation I had with my partner Rachel after we went and saw Easter Sunday in theatres with many members of her Filipino side of the family. The movie was not great, and I think white boy me was tentatively talking about some of its flaws when Rachel said something along the lines of, “Well, people of colour deserve to make bad movies too. White people have been doing it for decades.”
No kidding. And yet, it doesn’t matter if the latest Will Ferrell comedy or white man action movie flops hard because there will be another ten like them coming to a theatre or streaming service near you next season. On the other hand, it feels like there’s much more pressure for films like Easter Sunday to succeed because there are no other films like it in the Hollywood landscape. Browse through the Letterboxd reviews for Easter Sunday and half of them are Filipinos rejoicing about the Filipino representation on a Hollywood screen while at the same time bemoaning the fact that the movie was mediocre at best.
It has felt like there has been a greater diversity of stories and skin tones on popular screen media in recent years and I’m encouraged by that. But the fact that I even considered just now making a list of my favourite films made by people of colour (when no one would ever make a list of their favourite films made by white people—top 10 Martin Scorcese films, maybe) is a little embarrassing for me, personally, and shows that there’s still a ways to go.
So go watch something, anything, made by a person of colour, and let’s get to the point where the full and colourful spectrum of cinematic creativity, from brainless action films to silly comedies to arthouse dramas, is on worldwide display by the full and colourful spectrum of filmmakers already out there.
READ
Queer education
I’m a little late for Pride Month, but I couldn’t ignore one of the other major cultural connotations of colour (or, multiple colours, specifically), which is the rainbow flag, a common symbol for the large demographic of humans on this planet that live outside of the small boxes of heterosexuality and binary and fixed gender that have been the enforced norms in this world for too long. The transition to thinking about something as a spectrum instead of as a binary or a box can be a tricky one, but the more unique stories you hear, the more points on the spectrum emerge within one’s worldview (no matter what particular aspect of human identity you’re talking about, for that matter). Anyways, here are a few worldview-expanding queer-interest and -educational stories and articles from my trusty source for outside-the-box thinking, Geez Magazine:
“Two-Spirit Identity and Faith”
A Conversation with Chantal Fiola by Alana Trachenko
Two-spirit is kind of an umbrella term that reminds us of Indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality. Most Indigenous cultures, before contact, had up to five different genders, and this was just a normal part of society.
“Feminism 201”
Melanie Dennis Unrau and Miriam Meinders
Just overturning the binary doesn’t always solve the problems it creates, so feminists, among other thinkers, try to get away from it altogether. Hard to do, though, hard to do.
“Sexuality like a Boulder: A Testament to William Stringfellow”
When Anthony died suddenly in 1980, Stringfellow produced his most beautifully written book, A Simplicity of Faith… the book is a love tome – for Anthony, for the Island itself, and for the community who had accepted them. In the course of things, he variously describes Anthony as his “conscience” and his “sweet companion of seventeen years.” His copy editor, a dear friend on the Island, sat by his fireplace with the manuscript in her lap and asked, “Oh Bill, why don’t you just come out and say it?”
On the other hand, Daniel Berrigan commenting on a manuscript of mine, urged me to consider the economy and tact of Simplicity. Less is more, he said. The book was like a boulder, mostly buried, where enough is told but the rest is pure depth.
“Got Your Back: A Sung Prayer with and to Trans Bodies”
(Bonus “Listen” pick with this one).
I’m here, I’ve got your back…
Feel my heart beating in you, beating strong.
No more bodies on the line, my line is drawn.
Well, slap me silly and paint me red, or maybe just colour me confused. Either way, the lines have been filled in and we’re ready to rise in two weeks time towards our new theme of
As I have written elsewhere, I'll believe that Hollywood's latest obsession with Native Americans is real when Native actors aren't playing Native characters. Native actors must take the roles they're offered but they'd love to play the roles where their Native-ness isn't the point. Diversity is a valuable goal, certainly, but that same call for diversity ends up narrowing the options for Native filmmakers and actors.