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Maya Ben David
Maya Ben David

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Glittery bodysuit needs destiny

Your rat has been flailing. I bought a tiny nylon bodysuit that came in a box for $9 at a convenient store and I have nowhere to wear her. I’m not sure what to do with this strange little scrap of sequins except show it off for you in my cage. I would wear it as a costume over something but the fact that the arms don’t cover my shoulders means it has to be on skin or it won’t grip.

I’m finding it hard to make costumes in my new existence, far away from home. It’s hard to be away from my mom and all my comforts. I think I’m in one of those post-video states that you know I get into, where I feel sad and listless. It feels like there is something stopping me from locking into a headspace.

I’m going to list off some potential directions I can go, to keep myself accountable! For a while I’ve been thinking about the obsolescence of pinup girls. They are nowhere and yet sexy girls online are everywhere. What’s the difference between a pinup and sexy Instagram pic? I’ve been wanting for a while to make a character that laments this end. I was thinking she would be airplane girl, but lately I’ve been looking at pics of pinup girls that were painted on the noses of WW2 planes. What happens when you were painted for companionship and for literal war and now you slowly erode away on display? If you see young lads who are military age, do you want to enlist them?

Secondly, I’ve been thinking about boomers a lot. The boomers I grew up with and our perception of them. I’m currently working on a live performance called Boomer Restoration Committee. I want it to be a sort of funny but sad performance that is more confessional than I usually get. I wanna talk about the boomers that line up at value village at 9am to storm the doors, the boomers on my street that have strange and funny things to say. Lastly, I wanna talk about my boomer parents and my step dad that died 10 years ago. Sort of an ode to the bad boomers that still bring us complicated joy.

ALSO, I made a Dune dubstep song with my friend Ethan and I wanna make a stupid, funny video for it.

Those are the things I’ve been thinking about! I’m gonna go to a sex store for fun today and see if I can find another one of those bodysuits that could be a potential cool costume piece. I’m flailing but trying my best!!

-Your boomer rat

Comments

I don't get it!!

Maya Ben David

didn't know you spoke norwegian

sordidsardine

Honestly, I feel like you nailed it. Perhaps bikini pics in the past, which were more candid and situational, like on vacation on the beach, were closer to pinup pics. Perpetually being in the now and without a story and a setting does seem to completely change how you view the image. I would love to do a very staged photoshoot that replicates a pinup pic, then paint it to look even more exaggerated.

Maya Ben David

I've enjoyed pinup art for a long time, and I'd love to see how you'd explore the concept. As for the difference between pinup and Insta, here's my take. With pinup art (I'm thinking Gil Elvgren here) there's often props, a setting, a theme, and a sense that the model is being captured candidly, a salacious or playful moment as they move through their story. With Instagram the model is posed solely and specifically for the lens, removed from a narrative, a kind of endless now, unchanging and perhaps unchangeable - is there a difference between a bikini pic on the 'gram taken in 2015 and one from 2025? Maybe that reflects differences in how people see themselves and their world. Maybe it's just ubiquity. I really would like to know your thoughts on this.

Jerfling


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