good prattle magazine no. 1

goodprattle a new magazine and the other young-sters taking over popular culture

ezramillerlaura

marlingminors

making musicthe american

teen: revisitedno.1: youth in revolt!

melonie diaz

this issue we celebrate all the youngsters taking over modern culture (and the world).

issue 01youth in revolt.regular features:editor’s letter 2cult(ure) following 3this issue: take a look at HEATHERS, that inimitable cult classic and bastion of teenage angst.

the list 4

on the cover:MELONIE DIAZ 25our cover star is not a delicate flower.

making the band 15SOPHIA WARREN covers the underage music scene in Brooklyn.

barely legal 30please welcome seven of the most important ac-tors and musicians currently under 21: LAURA MARLING. EZRA MILLER. OLLIE BARBIERI. KATHRYN PRESCOTT. and the FIASCO boys.

fluorescent adolescent 48NED VIZZINI paints us a portrait of a fictional american teenager.

youth in revolttABle oF ContentS.all the other good stuff:new york, i love you 20the typical city-visit article... with a twist. NYC as inhabited by SLOANE CROSLEY and PARKER POSEY.

here at Good Prattle we like talking to real people, so every issue includes interviews with your typical neighbors... and since this issue is all about youth it stands to reason that we’re talking with teenagers this time.

florian koenigsberger 42lily bartle 45

page 1

Making a magazine is really, really hard.

This is something nobody tells you. You get an idea, but you’ve got no clue just how difficult it is until you actually try to do it. This issue has been over one full year in the making, those twelve months spanning some fantastic ups and many soulcrushing downs, so if you’re reading this right now... we did it. Somehow, we did it. Thank god.

By the way, our entire staff is under 20. (Does that give us extra achievement points?) This is why we decided to spend our debut issue celebrating awesome young people. In this issue, you will read about career kids (##); adolescent actors (##); and Brooklyn’s rockin’ all-ages music scene (##)... not to mention our cover star, actress Melonie Diaz (##), who at the plenty-young age of 25 is the oldest person in this issue. I said this issue was about youngers and I meant it, by George!

Let’s talk about the magazine for a minute. Will our awesome periodical see regular bimonthly or even quarterly publication? Probs not. Our associate edi-tor and I are about to start college; our administrative editor is already in college; and our managing editor is about to start the college applications process. In other words, we’re all kinda busy, and I already told you this issue took obscene amounts of time and hard work.

But there aren’t a lot of great magazines out there right now--a situation the recession is only making worse. And none of us think print is dead, so we consider that a doggone shame, and we started this magazine to do something about it. And we’re gonna continue doing something about it. With a new issue maybe once a year or so. If we’re lucky.

Say hello to a new space for culture.

dear readers,

keely weisseditor-in-chief

goodprattleeditor-in-chief: keely weiss

[email protected] editor: sophia [email protected]

associate editor: chantel [email protected]

administrative editor: betty [email protected]

additional photographers:Perri Hofmann (N.Y.C.)

Leia Jospe (N.Y.C.)Emma Pulido (N.Y.C.)

Kelly Mount (L.A.)

contributors: sloane crosley, gala darling, solgil oh, parker posey,

ned vizzini

send in a letter to the editor:[email protected]

send us an advertising inquiry:[email protected]

issue 01: 2010

page 2

cult(ure) following: heathers

HEATHER. HEATHER. HEATHER. VERONICA.Well, screw me gently with a chainsaw, has it really been 21 years since the release of the movie that paved the way for Jawbreaker, Mean Girls, Juno, and new-and-improved high school cruelty everywhere? In cele-bration of the classic that has done more to define adolescence than you probably know, we’ve made Heathers the subject of our first cult(ure) following. Lick it up, baby. Lick it up. BY KEELY WEISS

Year released: 1989.

Director: Then-first-timer Michael Lehmann.

Memorable quotes: Other than the two we stealthily used above? “I love my dead gay son!”, “You’re beautiful!”, and the use of the word “very” as an adjective, e.g. Christian Slater was really very in this movie.

Ahead of its time? Heathers poked fun at the idea of school shoot-ings (among many other dark subjects) before anyone realized that sort of thing could, like, actually happen in real life.

Influence: Is this a real question? If a high school movie made af-ter 1989 has even a pinch of satire or cynicism, Heathers probably influenced it. Oh, and the girl heading that posse of mean girls at your middle-or-high school? She can thank Heather Chandler for her swagger.

the liSt.

15 things made better by the nightby daniel gatenio

1. Going to the supermarket to buy mundane things

2. Parks

3. Breakfast

4. Having an open window (even in the cold)

5. Fishing

6. Swimming

7. Bicycles

8. Snowball fights (followed by hot chocolate)

9. Waiting in airports

10. The cold

11. Old things

12. Running

13. Gospel music

14. Rooftops

15. Light

15 things to own and wear for a long timeby florian koenigsberger

1. Japanese raw denim

2. Alden indy boots

3. Tweed blazer (with elbow patches)

4. Another pair of Japanese raw denim

5. Sailor’s red hat

6. ‘Go <3 Your Own City’ tee-shirt

7. Two-tone brown monkstrap shoes

8. Speckled grey wool pants

9. RVR paisley necktie

10. Uniqlo washed Oxford shirt

11. Sand-colored desert boots

12. Plain heather grey tee-shirt

13. Silver collar pin(s)

14. Black Converse hi-tops

15. Olive-green driving gloves

COMPILED BY CHANTEL SIMPSON

15 things that smell fantasticby ruth kace

1. Paint thinner

2. Sunscreen

3. Erasers

4. Shoe polish

5. Dryer sheets

6. New books

7. Gasoline

8. Crayons

9. Warm weather

10. Hay

11. Popcorn

12. Paper currency

13. Leather

14. Sawdust

15. Papa’s cologne

15 things that will improve your lifeby chloe webster

1. Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town

2. A mini tub of vasline

3. A planner

4. Eating at $1 Dumplings

5. Carrying a tin of altoids, especially peppermint

6. Buying a nalgene; drinking enough water

7. Changing your hair

8. Watching Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

9. Listening to Born to Run

10. A toasted bagel with cream cheese and bacon

11. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

12. Hot tea

13. Getting enough sleep

14. Owning the bartender’s guide Mr. Boston

15. Red Queen by Matt Ridley

the liSt.

MAK-ING THE BAND.Brooklyn may be known for its

proximity to NYC’s more famous borough, but it has a life all its own, complete with a teeming

music scene... especially among the underage crowd. SOPHIA WARREN shines a light on minors making

music in the better borough.ALL WORDS IN THIS SECTION BY SOPHIA WARREN

making the band

location, locationlocation is everything! here are some of the best venues in town.

PHOTOS BY LEIA JOSPE .

STFO, Clinton Hill

making the band

LOCATED AT: 280 Washing-ton Ave, Brooklyn, NY – it’s in a house. FOUNDED IN/BY: Early 2008 by myself, a then-fourteen-year-old Sophia Warren WAS ONCE: A home (and still is!!!). DON’T BE DISCOURAGED: When you find my mother work-ing the door! IS AWESOME BECAUSE: It’s epic (if I may say so myself). The shows are great fun and I always bake home-made

crownies (cookie-brownies)... and who doesn’t like home-made baked goods? For 25 cents? Hard to beat!ALWAYS HAS: ENERGY!!!BANDS THAT HAVE PLAYED HERE: Fiasco, Runtime Error, Starscream, So So Glos, Le Rug, The Crayons, and a few more! DOWNSIDE: For you over-21-ers, there’s no alcohol allowed at this spot! NOTE: STFO has been on a grand hiatus for a few years and will be re-opening this summer!

making the band

LOCATED AT: 1142 Myrtle Ave @ BDWY, BKLYN, NY–it’s above Mr. Kiwi’s grocery. FOUNDED IN/BY: February 2008 by Todd P and the So So Glos WAS ONCE: A Dominican speak-easy in 1970s (supposedly) DON’T BE DISCOURAGED: When you can’t find the door. IT’S AWESOME BECAUSE: There’s a room painted with tons of white eyes that watch you while you wait in line for the bathrooms (which ALWAYS have toilet paper—SCORE!). There’s a legitimate stage. Mr. Kiwi’s, located downstairs from Market, has great produce and a giant freezer room!

BANDS THAT HAVE PLAYED HERE: Parts and Labor, Aa, Fiasco, No Age, HEALTH, Pterodactyl, Tyvek, and many more (some from the other side of the world)! ALWAYS HAS: Lots of people! DOWNSIDE: There aren’t many, but it is like a sauna in the summertime! Sweating is healthy though! NOTE: Market Hotel was raided by police and closed down recently. It is looking to re-open legally. Everyone should try to be involved in volunteer-ing and fundraising for this great cause. It will be Brooklyn’s finest all ages DIY venue if successful and will hopefully get a foot in the door and show that all ages venues are great (you can read more about this awesome-ness at toddpnyc.com)!

Market Hotel, Bushwick

making the bandLOCATED AT: 915 Wyckoff Ave @ Weirfield in Bushwick, Brooklyn, near Ridgewood, Queens.CURRENT PROPRIETOR: Joe Ahearne takes care of the house when its typical occupants are away. He lives at Silent Barn and curates the space’s bajillion differ-ent projects.NOT JUST A SHOW SPACE BUT AN ART GALLERY... Art is every-where here: it’s all over the walls, as you can see, and even the bath-room is used to exhibit some in-credible artwork. Silent Barn hosts art shows pretty often....AS WELL AS A LIBRARY AND A VIDEO GAME ARCADE: In the basement there are several old-looking computers connected to strange keyboards... turns out these are video games hand-made by individuals who are patrons of Silent Barn and very interested in what goes on there. There is also an extremely impressive zine li-brary containing publications from all over that is well worth checking out if you get the chance.BANDS THAT HAVE PLAYED HERE: Fiasco; No One and the Somebodies; Vivian Girls... you name them and they’ve probably played here.DOWNSIDE: there’s so much to do here you’ll get a headache trying to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

Silent Barn, Williamsburg

making the band

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making the band

michael makes a mixtapeMichael Sheffield has been a huge player in Brooklyn’s all-ages music scene for a very long time. First he was a member of the band Michael Jordan, which he has since left, and now his new band Sweet Bulbs is on ev-erybody’s radar. We asked him to make us a mixtape for you, our wonderful readers, and he was more than happy to oblige.

1. Mission Complete by Brandon Can’t Dance2. Love Is Overtaking Me by Arthur Russell3. In Love by the Raincoats4. Too Late To Turn Back Now by the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose5. The Atheist’s Burden by Disco Inferno6. Second Self by Biblio7. The Birds They Sing To You by Ariel Pink8. Sleep Swimming by I Create Soundscapes

9. I Stole A Gun That Sings With Joy by Secret Abuse10. No Song II by Youth Bridage 11. Forms by Martial Canterel12. Don’t Die by Neon Boys

13. Best Friends by Weed Hounds14. Day Dreaming by Aretha Franklin15. Amebo by the Lijadu Sisters16. Golden Lady by Sun Ra

ARTWORK BY MARLAND BACKUS.

When and how was Le Rug formed?Le Rug was formed around 3 years ago. I asked a bunch of kids if they wouldn’t mind playing music they didn’t write.What does ‘Le Rug’ mean? The Rug.If you could play a concert on any planet, which one would it be?Uranus.Name three songs life would be pointless without.“In a Big Country” by Big Country. “Waitress in the Sky” by the Replace-ments. “Fantastic Life” by the Fall.

making the band

an interview with the band Le Rug!If you were something in a past life, what would it have been?Hairdresser.What kind of music would you say you play?Built-to-spill songs.Is the mustache or beard a better form of facial hair?Beard.Whom do you idolize?Joe Ahearne.Favorite movie pre-dating 1970?I have no idea. I don’t really watch many movies. I do like Space Jam, though.

making the band

page 14

When you guys started out, did you realize how many people you would end up with?Well, we haven’t “ended up” yet so I still don’t know how many people will join. We started with the idea that any and all of our friends could be in the band and people have trickled in throughout the 2 years we’ve been doing this. The idea is, if everyone just does a little bit, they don’t have to be good (even though most of us are) but we can still make something great when we get together. Not in a sexual way. Okay, sometimes in a sexual way. What is the selection process for new members? Is there any?Are you a person? Did you bring beer to practice? You’re in. Actually you don’t have to be a person. We allow cats and dogs and all manner of god’s creatures.If you could add another instrument, what would be the #1 choice?Harp. Let’s get Joanna Newsom in on this. Fire? Does anyone play the fire?

an interview with the band Eskalators!Can you tell me a bit about the Subway Shows and what they mean to you guys?Subway Shows mean drinking co-vertly, yelling at strangers and danc-ing in forced close proximity with all of our friends. We’ve done 6 shows so far with destinations from Bush-wick to the Bronx to the Unisphere in Queens. You know, from Men in Black? Are you guys out to change the world, considering the colossal force that you are?The world’s gonna change anyway, we just want to make it dance. We’ve played benefit shows by accident, but then we called the cops on them be-cause we’re not a political band. When is the apocalypse going to be, in your opinion?Whenever our band breaks up, which will be never. When everyone in the world is in our band, we won’t break up until everyone in the world is dead.

making the band

page 15

BANZAIIII!!!!banzai is pretty much a brooklyn supergroup. they’ve been booking shows left and right and can be found in ven-ues all over the city; its mem-bers hail from other esteemed bands, such as fiasco (also featured in this issue). let’s see what they’ve been up to.How did you guys meet and when? When did you guys start playing together? Was it the four of you then?JONATHAN EDELSTEIN: We all know each other from going to middle school together. In mid-2004, Mike and Jesse started a band with Lucian and Julian called Defibrillator that played jokey metal tunes about secretaries, Old McDon-ald & wheeled backpacks. About a year or so later, Jonathan replaced Lucian on drums and about a month after that, Max replaced Julian on bass. As of March 2006 the band name changed to Banzai and we started playing different mate-rial.MAX COBURN: We all knew each other from going to Berkeley Carroll middle school together in Park Slope. We actually started playing to-gether as soon as I started high school at La-Guardia, while everyone else stayed at BC. The original lineup consisted of Lucian and Julian, best known from Fiasco, and Mike and Jesse. Jonathan then joined to replace Lucian, and I replaced Julian.

Name three songs you think would make life pointless if they didn’t exist.JE: Some of These Days” by Cab Calloway, “Naane Maharaja (I Am the Emperor)” by Vijaya Anand, “Harness Your Hopes” by Pavement. That question was really painful to answer.MC: This question, I already know, is going to come back and haunt me on various different occasions, and these are the best answers I could come up with. “Joining a Fan Club” by the ‘90s power pop supergroup, Jellyfish has always been a favorite, I’ve probably listened to this song close to 500 times and haven’t even grown

making the band

page 16

a little bit tired of it. It’s a perfectly constructed pop song. Another masterpiece for me is “What Do You Want Me to Say?” by The Dismemberment Plan. I swear, this group will never get the cred-it they deserve, honestly, they made music in the late 90s that sounds like music being made now, and probably in the next de-cade. That wouldn’t be so ridicu-lous, but they’ve actually refined their ‘genre’ more than any band I can name in their same field. Past or present. Not to mention that this song is just ridiculous. The songwriting is just unortho-dox enough for them to pull off a passionate performance, pretty much absolutely perfectly. One of the best recordings I can ac-tually think of. This last one, I’m just going to say to be weird, but the second version of the back-ground music in Mario Paint is one of my favorite things to hear ever. I think I could actually lis-ten to that on loop for at least 24 hours and still love it. I like the majority of Kazumi Totaka’s work in video games, but the Mario Paint soundtrack, and this track in particular, just does it for me.

I could actually go on for hours about exactly what I love about this song: the fact that everything is just ever so slightly out of tune, the fact that there were hardly any other soundtracks like this for video games at the time... but I’ll spare you. Again, all three of these could change at any time, I just gave what I felt was appro-priate for this instance.

If you could travel to a plan-et in outer space (imaginary or real), which would it be?JE: Playing a show on the moon has always been the dream.MC: I would travel to Mars. And I am aware it’s freezing there. It looks like that’s where we’re go-ing to be heading eventually, so I’d rather be a part of the future in an environment that can sus-tain human occupancy, than be crushed by immense pressure or turned into gas. Or melted.

Do you think living in New York is beneficial to playing music?JE: It certainly doesn’t hurt. There’s a really awesome commu-nity of bands, venues and show-goers (in Brooklyn in particular)

that most other cities either don’t seem to have or haven’t devel-oped as well. MC: Yes; in fact, I wrote my first college essay on that very sub-ject. The amount of people you meet and get to know is just stag-gering. There’s really a scene for pretty much anyone here.

Who in the band is most like a Martian?JE: I’ve never seen a martian so I wouldn’t know, but let’s just say Max. Actually maybe Jesse. Ac-tually maybe we’re all Martians.MC: Jonathan.

If all of you morphed into one super-human, what animal would it resemble most?JE: Wow, what a question. It would probably resemble a gi-ant, winged, fire-breathing ko-modo dragon complete with laz-er eyes, an impenetrable metal exoskeleton and abilities to teleport, read minds and control time. Basically the most bad-ass thing you can imagine.MC: A Viking.

thrown into the mix...8. All Star by Smash Mouth

9. Tim Finnegan’s Wake by the Clancey Brothers

10. Mona Lisa by Slick Rick

11. Hit It and Quit It by Funkadelic

12. Autumn Almanac by the Kinks

13. Evil Woman by Electric Light Orchestra

14. La Vie en Rose by Louis Armstrong

1. Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway

2. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) by Jay-Z

3. Funky Kingston by Toots and the Maytals

4. Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys

5. Flower by Deerhoof

6. Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys

7. Sweet Leaf by Black Sabbath

page 17

making the band

And now a mixtape, courtesy of the aforementioned members of Banzai.ARTWORK BY MARLAND BACKUS.

making the band

page 18

From the Mouths of BabesWhere is the name Baby Dino from? A couple different things. Dino-saurs were a recurring theme in my toddler years, and that’s when things manifest themselves the most it seems. for one, I was obsessed with Little Foot from The Land Before Time. I still am. And, two, my parents divorced when I was around the age of 6. My dad didn’t really feel like ex-plaining what was going on, so he bought me a book titled Di-nosaurs Divorce, which told the story of a little dinosaur family with the momma and the dadda and the little baby dinosaurs and it showed the parent dinosaurs splitting up and the little ones taking the whole thing person-ally and I couldn’t take any of it seriously because I just could not get over the fact that they were dinosaurs and not human beings. I favored dinosaurs from those years on. If you had a super power what would it be? Why? To read minds. It’d really help with weening out all the assholes.Which in a sense wouldn’t be too good for Baby Dino, seeing that

an interview with Baby Dinodiary, sort of. if that makes sense. I’ve never been the best writer, I get too wordy and feel pretentious, so when I was upset or feeling feelings and wanted to sort of vent about it, I’d pick up my guitar. some people pick up a pen and write in their jour-nal about how the boy they liked kissed their best friend and explain how sad it made them, others tell their friends. I preferred to do nei-ther, because really I’m just not good at translating what’s going on inside into words. so I’d make music, write songs, it was completely therapeu-tic. I had been recording baby dino songs years before there was any baby dino. then one day I decided to open up and share a few with friends who then told me “hey, we think you really got something here” and it was then I decided to make it public. so really, I’m not conveying anything, because to convey something is to explain it for someone else. I do it for myself, and just let you guys listen. Do you have a favorite writer? I do but I don’t want to say because then you’ll judge me. If your music were a color, what would it be? Blue, purple, and lack-of-color black.

basically all the songs are about assholes. Flying would be great too, though I’m scared that’d be a bit too conspicuous and would result in me being captured and dissected by the government. Where do some of the samples you use come from? how do you select them?I’ve sampled The Land Before Time, for obvious reasons. I also have taken bits from the film ver-sion of The Fountainhead, and various voice mails left by people important to me. I usually use samples when I’m trying to con-vey a more blunt message than I feel I’m able to get across musi-cally, but all the while still being discreet, since I’m not saying it directly. does that make sense? I also think it sounds pretty cool. What would be the best place in the world to live in? New York City. Not if you want a family, though. It all depends on what chapter of your life you’re living.

What are you trying to convey with your music? nothing. baby dino first began as a

lily konigsberg.question--apologies.)

When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up? I didn’t talk when I was little and didn’t go outside. I didn’t have time to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was too busy worrying. Not much has changed. Where do you think your life will lead you? I can’t answer this question because if I had any idea I’d be devastated. If you could grow a mustache, would you?Completely. ¶

When did you first start playing music? I started playing music when I was 8. I played piano and sang. That’s also the age that I started writing songs.

If you could pick a season that inspires you, which one would it be? Why? Fuck winter and summer. I think spring and fall are the prettiest seasons but oddly enough winter comes up in my songs most often. I guess winter. If you could be an animal, what would you be? I’d be a shapeshifter so I could turn into any animal as well as other things. I’d like to turn into smoke; I think that would be great. (No, I’m not really answering the

making the band

New York, I Love You PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMMA PULIDO ILLUSTRATIONS BY PARKER POSEY SKYLINE DRAWING BY MARLAND BACKUS

writer Sloane Crosley and

actress Parker posey take us on

personal guided tours of their much-beloved city

nEW YOrk secondsby sloane crosleynew york iS known for being a fast paced kind of place. Sometimes I think the best way to understand it is to actively seek out those 10 or 30 second mo-ments in which you slow down just long enough to wink at the city. And if you’re lucky, the city winks back. My personal favorite is the time it takes for a taxi or bus to travel through the 66th street entrance to Central Park, starting at 5th Avenue and spitting you out on CPW. At night, if you look left, you can see the Central Park South skyline lit up through the trees. It starts with the Plaza and the build-ings bob up and down until they fade into a tunnel or a wall and before you know it you’re waiting at a traffic light directly across from the building where Ghostbusters was filmed. If it’s snowing, the buildings look like Hall-mark ornaments but in a good way. And if I’m feeling especially dramatic and I’m by myself, sometimes I put my hand against the glass as the sky-line zips by. But then I usually take it away pretty quickly. This is New York after all – God knows who’s been touching that glass.

new york, i love you

page 21

Panya Bakery and the Sunrise Mart just above for Japanese baked goods and fun treats that you can’t get anywhere else. Karoke down the street and sake bars and that noodle place on 9th that serves street food, you can’t miss it, there will be people standing outside of it. Great to get food to go and walk around.And then there’s Veselka for Pero-gies and borscht and great ambi-ence any time of the day or night.

eASt villAGe. St. MArk’S Pl.

new york i love you

PARKER POSEYshows you around manhattan

Around the corner—on 8th Street between 2nd and 3rd…my new fa-vorite place to grab a bite and walk is Baoguette, a Vietnamese joint that’s got a place on the west side as well as here. Grab a bite, walk around, see what’s in store.Or if you want to take a yoga class: Yoga for the People, on St. Mark’s place, you can donate whatever you want. Look out for the Mud Truck: great coffee, the flagship store’s down the street and the train there can take you up or downtown East or West.

union SquAre PArk

little inDiA

The Union Square Park farmer’s market is on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday—look out for the cheese girls and get bread and take the train to Central Park if it’s nice. And just down the street--it used to be all the cool kids stood outside of clubs to go in, now they go to Trader Joe’s to stand in line for great prices on good food… to go or take home.

wAShinGton SquAre PArk

new york i love you

Probably a 20 minute strol l from here: a place called Kalustyans, an Indian gro-cery store—amazing spic-es from India and Chutneys and dates and incredible nut mixes and Indian f lat bread.

Now to Washington Square Park: in the middle of reno-vations, this park has been on its way to being com-pleted for way too long.

the rapture of

melonie

diaz

Strike up a conversation with a person who looks like a West Village resi-dent—preoccupied, walk-ing fast—perhaps to the dogrun—ask this person what they think of “the renovation” and take part in the conversation.

Then walk to Sheridan Square and to the West Side… you can walk all the way down to Battery Park from here. On your way back, stop by Tortilla Flats for a taco…

One of my favorite inde-pendent book stores is 3 Lives Books. Stop by Joe’s Coffee down the road or the Roasting Plant on Greenwich Street—you can hang out here or meet a friend.

Then you can go to Highline... on Gansevoort Street... and expe-rience Manhattan with others who are experiencing this new view. Very nice.

new york i love you

the rapture of

melonie

diaz

WORDS BY KEELY WEISS PHOTOS BY LEIA JOSPE

First she conquered Sundance. Then she won the hearts of Michel Gondry, Ryan Murphy, and other Hollywood honchos. Now, though, the indie actress is doing her own thing.

page 25

Melonie DiAz iS So tiny, She CoulD Fit inside her own handbag. Despite this, however (or maybe even in compensation for it), she’s certainly not a diminu-tive screen presence. She’s been acting for a decade but really began dominating the indie scene in 2008, when an insane four of her films headed to Sundance, and at 25 is still an indie darling. As of late, however, she has decided to branch out: she was on Nip/Tuck (yes, gasp, a TV show)not too long ago, and as of right now she’s focusing on theatre and pretty much just doing her own thing. Sounds great—we, personally, would follow her anywhere.

We’ve spoken before.Really? Wait, yeah, you interviewed me for—

For ACED Magazine. That was like a year ago, right?Yeah, wow. And now you’re making your own maga-zine! Are you excited?

Oh, yeah, totally. I’m working my hardest.Well, that’s all you can do: work hard and be ambi-tious. Eye of the tiger. You know, I love this theatre. [NOTE: this interview is taking place in the lobby of the Angelika movie theatre.]

I know, they always show great films here!Yeah. It’s truly independent. A truly independent theatre.

Not many of those left any more. It’s depressing.Well, there’s the Sunshine, and IFC…

mean, in New York, yeah. But not in general.Oh, yeah, that’s true. Well, there’s L.A. too, but not in Middle America.

It’s lucky the indie industry is still so strong when the number of places to see independent film is shrinking.Well, in general I feel like this year has been pretty rough around the world in terms of filmmaking. I mean, yes, there’s the constant word of the recession and the economy, and we all know it’s bad and don’t want to talk about it anymore, but I think it really has af-fected cinema and independent film in terms of the amount of things that are being made. I mean, this year nothing was really being made. But even within that badness there’s a lot of gems, you know? I was on the jury for the Independent Spirit Awards this year.

this is the perfect time to have your own idea, to collabo-rate and just make somethingOoh, fun!And I was actually surprised—there’s a category called the Cassavetes Award for films that are made for under $500,000. You know, spirit of Cassavetes: no mon-ey; you and your friends just make that movie—and some of the Cassavetes films were among the best ones out of all of them. Especially in terms of independent spirit, you know? So even though things are kind of bad and cinema’s kind of drag-ging, I think that… I’m still a really positive person. I still think that there are really good things being made, you know?

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Well, I think also that the presence of the internet and YouTube makes it a lot more accessible and a lot easier to just get up and do your own short projects.It’s definitely… when I went to film school, a lot of my friends were filmmakers; a lot of my high school friends were filmmakers; and, yeah, this is the perfect time to have your own idea, to collaborate and just make something, you know?

You’ve said in the past that you’re interested in venturing into writing and—I’m doing it now.

You are? What are you working on?Y’know, scripts. I don’t re-ally want to talk about—I feel like when everybody talks about it then it doesn’t become real, but I am work-ing on stuff with my friends. I was living in LA for a while, and I just had to come back to New York for that par-ticular reason: to work on my own projects. Also, New York is my home and I feel like it’s such a good place to be creative, you know? And there’s so much inspiration here that I definitely want to come back.

Speaking as someone growing up here, I think it kind of ruins a lot of other major cities for you. Like, you can go up to Boston, and next to your hometown it seems… puny. [laughs] It skews your view of the world.I mean, it skews it, but it also makes you appreciate your life. I don’t think most people grow up with this much ac-cess to stuff; I’ve really been so spoiled all my life that way, so I take that away from it. I mean, but I’ve been to some good places. I’ve visited Par-is; I’ve visited Prague… But, no, nothing compares to here.

I’m always going to return home.

new york is such a good place to be creativeAnd you started acting when you were in high school.Yeah, my old high school is kind of like LaGuardia, but not as big. But you had to au-dition to get in and that kind of thing. It’s like Fame but

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not really. Not as cool.

No spontaneous bursting into song in the hallways?Oh, they did!

They did?Yeah. Kind of crazy. It was one of the best experiences. From 8:30 to 1:20 we had our academics and then until 3:20 we had our professional classes. Like, the dancers would go to Alvin Ailey—it was so fucking cool. I loved high school! High school was one of the best experiences.

Do you split your time be-tween LA and here?Yeah, half and half now. Whenever I go there it’s for work purposes, but my friends and family are here.

How involved have you been in theatre?Not as much as I was when I was younger. I definitely want to get back into it. When I came back to New York that was one of my goals, but I

haven’t really done too much yet.

Yeah. It’s pretty much the place to be for that.I mean, part of why I live in LA so much is because an actor I’m more film-oriented, I think. But I’m always open. Always.

Have you been seeing a lot of films this year?Well, I’ve been on the jury for all these things! I was on the Gotham Awards, on the Spirit Awards jury… so, yeah, I’ve

been seeing everything. I love movies. I love movies. I love it so much. I’ve be-come better-versed in film, too, especially this year. Like, being on these juries I’ve seen so many films that I would ordinarily never have watched but was kind of forced to, but I enjoyed it. I don’t really know how big studios work; I’d love to actually see that conversa-tion where they’re deciding what to make, but—what with all the remakes—the concern is probably just about making money... and that’s a shame. ¶

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ezra miller: ladykillerI’m not sure Ezra Miller is going to be thrilled with the title of this article: after speaking with him, I’ve gotten the distinct impression he has no desire whatsoever to be known as a heartthrob. The 17-year-old likes the ultra-underground indie films he works on (he had two at the Tribeca Film Festival this year: Beware the Gonzo and Every Day), loves acting, and seems to have no qualms about living out of a gutter in ten years if it means he gets to keep doing what he enjoys. But I like it (it rhymes!)--and, hey, he’s certainly appealing enough to pull it off.All right, let’s talk.Let’s.

When did you first start acting?I got the itch to do performance when I was eight years old and did this very surreal contemporary op-era called White Raven. Directed by Robert Wilson, music by Philip Glass, and it was beautiful. It was a beautiful experience; nothing has been more formative, because this started my artistic way of dealing with the world. So it was just this really beautiful conception. Then after that I did opera for two seasons at the Met. Singing. Pre-pubertyI could sing really well; now I’m just sort of discovering again.

But so I worked at the opera for those two seasons and then I was in middle school, just doing the-atre programs, and one thing led to—[our food and coffee arrive]

Oh, wow, thanks. This is just what I need: lots of caffeine!Oh my god, this is so good.

What is it?It’s a mocha. It’s glorious. Try it.

[takes a sip] This is fantastic.What was I saying? I was saying that one thing led to—

That pre-puberty you could sing!Yes! That is my basic point! You

can end it right there: that pre-pubescently I was a gifted singer. [laughs] No, yeah, one thing led to another, and I got involved with an incredible artist named Riz Swados who’d done this incredible musical in the eighties called Runaways, so through working with her I got in-volved with the revival, and through that I got representation, and when I was fourteen I did Afterschool, my first film.

So you did theatre first.Yeah, on like a middle school level.

I mean, that counts. How else do you find out you’re into acting?No, absolutely, and it’s a wonderful

barely legalful way that school can present kids with a way to explore artistic endeav-ors.

Afterschool only came out recently, didn’t it?Well, the deal was it did a lot of festi-vals and it got distribution in a lot of places. But not the US, which if you see it—

I will know why, yes!Yeah. This country’s on media lock-down in a lot of forms, and entertain-ment’s only one of them. But the film-makers, Antonio and Josh, wanted distribution where they come from, and when Afterschool came out in all these foreign countries a lot of them think it’s science fiction: “They make you line up and give you your meds? In a line? At lunchtime? That is ab-surd! That’s seriously some George Orwell crazy shit!” And it’s not. As we know, that happens here for real. So they kept doing the festival circuit and finally IFC—one of the last stand-ing hopes for American independent film—

Yeah, they rescue all the indies.They really are. They’re like a rescue team.

IFC and FilmForum. It’s a shame; even in New York there are so few indie theatres left, and here there are far more than in Bumblefuck, Oklahoma.Right, absolutely. We’re in an artistic metropolis and there are, what, four independent theatres? [laughs] It’s bad news. It’s some sort of bad news.

It sucks that even independent films have to be somewhat mainstream now if they’re going to be seen.Yeah, especially since film is such a beautiful art form; it is the most beau-tiful art form that man has stumbled upon, and it shouldn’t be just 20 films in theatres every year, you know?

I’ve really just gotten into film in re-cent years, and when I started see-ing films like American Beauty I was like, “Wow, this is actually legit art! This is crazy!”It’s a legitimate art form! Yeah, it’s beautiful. Humans have been figuring out ways to tell stories since forever, and… they found a good one. They found a fucking good one. [laughs]

What are some of your favorites?Favorite films? I’m a Kubrick freak. I’m a Sidney Lumet freak. I recently—you should see Avatar. That’s all I’m going to say right now.

I don’t know, it seems so... why did they need someone from our world to teach them how to rebel against the corporate mercenaries?No, no, that is just a combat technical-ity. They needed a marine, man! They needed the insider info of how to fight these big machines! I’m telling you, Keely, see it.

Okay, here’s my compromise: I’ll see Avatar, but I’m not going to spend $12 to see it in theatres.You’re right. You’re going to spend $16 to see it in 3-D. IMAX. In the the-atres. You’re right, you’re not going to spend $12; you’re totally going to spend $16!

No I’m not! I have no cash flow; my regular babysitting gig just ended!Did you drop the baby?

[laughs] What?!Did you drop the baby? It’s okay, you can tell me. People do it. Parents do it. It’s not a babysitter-specific thing; they’re slippery when wet! [laughter]

What are you implying with that?I don’t know, I’m just wondering why you had this regular babysitting job and it disappeared, poof, into oblivion.

No, the mother—The mother dropped the baby? See, I told you, it happens! ¶

and this songbird...lAurA MArlinG is the 21st-Century personification of Victorian England. Her music is Byronic; it’s Brontean; it’s Shelley-esque (think Percy and Mary). Marling is 20 now, and in the four years she’s been around her sound has only improved. Her music is worldly; it is cynical and poignant: she’s found a way of expressing these qualities that would fill the original Gothics with pride.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEIA JOSPE

About your second album, I Speak Because I Can: there are a lot of changes from your first record, Alas, I Cannot Swim.Well, the process in which we recorded it was differ-ent. It’s all recorded live, so it has a much timelier feel, I should think. That’s the main thing.

I kind of wish your cover of Needle And The Damage Done were on it. What was it like tour-ing with Neil Young last year?Oh my gosh, it was amazing! I don’t really know how it happened, to be honest, but I got asked to do it and I obviously would never have dreamed of say-ing no. It was totally different from what I’m used to, though: huge shows!

I know, you usually play in much smaller ven-ues. Little bars…[laughs] I know, it was crazy! They’re so good at prepping for it, though. He has this whole crew; it’s really amazing.

Do you get different reactions from audiences

in different cities?When I toured in America last year, I no-ticed a huge difference with Americans in the very… obvious… you get incredibly vocal crowds in America, whereas in Eng-land they’re a bit more reserved. It’s a lot easier for me to play in America because you can expect a reaction immediately, whereas in England, I dunno, they keep their cool and it’s very hard to tell.

I still can’t believe you’re so young.[laughs] It’s a bit intense at times, yeah.

How has your age affected… your be-ing a musician, I guess?Well, when I started out a few years ago

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I found it all pretty difficult be-cause I still felt very young. I mean, I was seventeen. And I found talking to people diffi-cult; I found touring difficult be-cause I was scared to go on… you know, all those things that went along with my being that age. But now—I know I’m very young, still, and still growing up. [laughs] But in the past year and a half I feel like I’ve grown up to the point where I feel like a grown-up. I’m more experienced now, and it’s final-ly getting easier to perform.

Since I’m young, too, I find myself paying more atten-tion to actors and musicians who I find out are on the younger end.Well, the reason I was so in-secure about how people felt about my age when I was younger is because I would be a bit unsure about hearing about a sixteen-year-old song-writer. So, I don’t know, I’ve got to say I sort of take pre-cautions, I guess, when I hear that someone’s quite young. [laughs] —Which is terrible, because that was me, origi-nally, and I’m pretty sure that’s where my reputation has come from!

By the way, do you feel the idea of the term “singer-songwriter”, especially as applied to female musicians, is overused?Yeah. I mean, I was reading something on me recently where somebody said it and I was just like, “Oh, no, god!” That just conjures up images of a whiny… [laughs] I just don’t like that term. I don’t know why; it’s never settled with me very well. I guess anybody who writes songs and sings is a singer-songwriter.

Right, I think that’s what’s frustrating for a lot of people I’ve talked to. It should be a

descriptor but it’s used as a genre.Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like with every type of music you need a way to describe it to other people so they can understand it. [laughs]

Right. Yeah, especially when

there’s piano or acoustic guitar involved, it seems the term really gets laid on thick.Yeah, it does, it does. I wouldn’t call myself a snobby person, but if someone were describ-ing somebody to me and called them a singer-songwrit-er I would immediately have a bad reaction. [laughs] ¶

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Shirts and

Skinswe talk to two ofthe young actors from the second series of hit Brit show Skins. How’d they get on it? What are they up to now they’re off it? Ollie Barbieri and Kathryn Prescott answer our questions.ILLUSTRATIONS BY CAMILA MERCADO

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Ollie Barbieri is so studious and re-sponsible that he doesn’t even have time to chat with me on the phone-- but not responsible enough to wait until he’s done with his studies before answering my email questions. And writing me a limerick.What are you doing right now?Well, right now and for the past few hours I’ve been studying like a man possessed for a physics exam and listening to The Hospital Podcast and Pulp Fic-tion by Alex Reece is playing.

From where are you writing?From my desk in my room in Bath in England in Europe on Earth

Did you like staying in Bristol while you were shooting Skins?Well, for the most part, I stayed at home because Bath is only 10 miles from Bristol, but when we had late or early shoots, I would stay in Bristol with the rest of the cast, Because of this I’ve developed a real soft spot for Bristol. It’s an amazing city.

Let’s talk more about Skins, actually. How fa-miliar with the show were you beforehand, and what did you like about it?When series 1 came out, I didn’t watch the show, purely because all of my friends loved it, and I guess I wanted be different. I was forced to watch an episode once by a friend of mine and I actually thought it was quite good, but I couldn’t admit it. It was fantastically ironic that out of all my friends, the one who didn’t watch the show got a part in it.

Tell me about playing JJ. A dreamer, a schemer, an illusionist... must’ve been awfully fun to be him.Yeah, JJ was really fun to play because there was a chance to really go over the top in some ways, and

to have an excuse to act really uncool. Plus, I got given loads of fun things to do in the show as a result of JJ being the character he is. Learning magic, singing etc.

Were you very familiar with Asperg-er Syndrome prior to playing JJ, who has Asperger’s?Well, It was one of the things I was most worried about when I started with Skins because I didn’t really know much about it. I did a bit of research on autism and Asberger’s during the audition stage but playing it, and con-stantly thinking about how someone with Asberger’s would deal with cer-tain situations, also taught me a lot.

How much interaction was there be-tween the writers and the actors?Loads. The writers were always around if you needed to clarify something. And they always knew the meaning of each scene. Sometimes you could work your own ideas in to some of the scripts and sometimes they were worked in because of something you accidentally mentioned in passing to a director, like playing the ukelele.

Were you an actor before getting cast in Skins?No, I was just a regular student. I didn’t even study Drama.

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I’m going to assume you want to continue acting. What sorts of characters would you like to play? Yeah absolutely. I would love to play really different parts in loads of different genres. But I guess I’d really like an Edward Scissorhands-like character

What interest do you have in film and theatre as op-posed to continuing in TV?I would love to act in films. Theatre scares me, there aren’t any second takes, but I’m sure will do it at some point.

Do you have anything lined up? What’s something you’d like to do?At the moment I’m concen-trating on getting some good A levels, but I’d love to do a film adaptation of one of the books I used to read when I was younger, like Artemis Fowl.

What other things would you like to do with your fu-ture?I would love to be involved in any films in other coun-tries, and ultimately I’d love to write and direct.

I know you love foreign tongues, so I’m sure “learn a billion languages” is on the list. How did you become such a language buff?Shamefully, although I talk

about it so much, I’m only fluent in one language at the moment and that’s English. But I’m studying Spanish and hope to learn loads more. I think my in-terest started when I started Spanish class. I just loved learning it and speaking it and the thought that I could converse with people in their own tongue. Another thing that inspired me was meeting Laurentiu Possa who played Christian the builder in Thomas’s epi-sode in series 3. I got talk-ing to him and he speaks at least 7 languages, I decid-ed right there and then that that was my goal.

Linguistically and cultur-ally, what languages do you find most interest-ing?I love East Asian languag-es because of the writing and because they are so different from anything we have in western languages. Basque is also fascinating because it’s so unique and no one really know where it evolved from.

Tell me what you’re lis-tening to and what you’re currently reading.Pulp Fiction has finished. Right now I’m listening to Beautiful Lies by B-Complex and I’m reading a personalized version of The Wizard Of Oz that I

got given for Christmas. All the characters names have been replaced with the names of my friends and me. I’m Ol-lie the Cowardly Lion.

What are your favorite films and television shows?My choice for my all time fa-vourite film is really clichéd, it’s The Shawshank redemp-tion, but I also love Pan’s Labyrinth and Duck Soup. As far as TV shows go, I love Family Guy, Frasier and…..Air Crash Investigation (the reconstruction scenes are epic).

What is your life philoso-phy?Do what you can with the choices you have.

Do you consider yourself happy? How do you define happiness?That’s a deep question! I would say I am happy. I reck-on happiness is having the right balance of companion-ship and solitude, occupation and distraction.

Tell me a story—any kind of story.

There once was an interviewer called KeelyWho asked her questions quite freelyOf language and proseAnd television showsAnd of the prospects of learning Swahili

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Kathryn Prescott is bright, talented, and legitimately pleasant, but it seems none of that has done anything to prepare her for the shock of hearing the average cost of American university tuition.How familiar with Skins were you before you ended up on it?I wasn’t, really. I didn’t watch it. I’d seen a few episodes, but I’m so bad with remembering when stuff is on so I never watch TV. But my sister Megan [who was on the show with me] watched it all the time, so I was familiar with it and I liked what I knew, and I remember thinking even before we got the audition that if I could ever be in anything Skins would be the ideal thing because it’s about teenagers and it’s quite well-respected and stuff.

I interviewed Ollie recently—Oh, did you!

Yeah, and I asked him the same question, and he was like, “Actually, all my friends were really into it, so I want-ed to be different and said I didn’t even though I had watched one episode once and it was pretty good.”[laughs] That sounds like Ollie.

It seems like the cast gets along so nicely.Yeah. Yeah, it’s such a strange mix of people because there are kids from all over the country. Some are from London, but some are from way out, and we’d never met each other until Skins, and it was so nice to work with a mix of such different peo-ple who all got on really well.

The writers are all teenagers too, aren’t they?Some of them are teenagers. All of them are quite young; some of them are early-twenties, nine-teen, eighteen, which I think is

filming the third season. [laughs] That was quite difficult, but I man-aged, and then for the last season I wasn’t doing anything. I’m on a gap year before I go to uni next year.

Where are you going?Westminster. It’s like in the middle of Oxford Circus in London, which is nice, so I can carry on doing acting if I want. I’ll be studying Psychology.

Cool! I applied to a few English schools for Classics. Did you ap-ply to schools in the States?No, I wanted to, but it would have required a huge amount of money on my part and when I was applying I hadn’t gotten the part in Skins so I didn’t have a really good agent like I do now, so I couldn’t have carried on acting really. I would have had to find an agent there, whereas here I already have one. But I would like to do a postgraduate course in LA at some point. I’m going there for the summer.

Yeah, it really is more expensive here. You guys have it so cheap; for us it’s like an arm and a leg and an eye!Really?

Well, state schools are probably comparable to what an interna-tional student at an English uni-versity would pay, but the top schools are private schools and those cost upwards of $40,000 a year.Oh—! [silence] Oh my go—a year? God… [shocked laughter] Oh my god. That just… oh my god. Wow.

Is your jaw going to be hanging open for the rest of the day now that I’ve told you this?[laughs] Yeah. Wow.¶

good, because a lot of shows about teenagers are written by 40-year-olds who have no idea what it’s like to be a teenager be-cause they can’t remember it, but someone who’s living through it, or who recently has, will be able to write about it more realistical-ly than someone who was there twenty years ago.

Skins is real... it doesn’t play things down and is not condescendingYeah, definitely. I think that’s why Skins is such a hit. It’s re-alistic in a way that most other shows really aren’t.Yeah. It’s also not afraid to cap-ture things that maybe wouldn’t be in other shows. It’s not scared to let it all hang out, which is cool because, compared to other shows, it talks about things that actually resonate with teenagers.

I mean, speaking as a teenager, we’re not as easily offended as a lot of networks seem to think we are. It’s just a matter of not condescending to us, which is what Skins does so well.Yeah, definitely. On a lot of shows, serious issues are avoid-ed; they’re walking on eggshells, like, “Well, we can’t put that in our show.” But, yeah, you’re right, Skins is real and it doesn’t play things down and is not con-descending to teenagers.

Are you studying for A-levels?Actually, I did them while we were

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The Beautiful Catastrophe

Prospect Park and it’s gorgeous outside, if a bit chilly. Perfect

weather for talking about... Russian neo-Nazi metal bands, apparently: I’m with the members of Brooklyn-

based band Fiasco, not a single one of whose brains, I’m sure, oper-

ates in a socially-acceptable way.

Julian mentioned that you guys are finishing up your new album—JULIAN BENNET HOMES: Oh, you have that CD, right?JONATHAN EDELSTEIN: Yeah, I do.LUCIEN BUSCEMI: This thing? Like, the most current—JBH: Yeah, that’s the latest—like, I balanced everything this morning. But anyway, yeah, we’ve almost finished the mixing on our new album, which is a full-length album with vocals on it.

Well, how does it differ from your oth-er albums?JE: I think we all kind of think of it as a

combination of our first two full-length records be-cause there’s songs with vocals and simpler stuff, but there’s also stuff that makes it more complex, like some of the experimental stuff we’ve already—JBH: But even more complex.JE: Just a combination, which is exactly what we wanted to do.

What about your last EP? The one you released online?JBH: Oh, The Split?

Yeah. How does that play into the whole…JBH: That was just a fun thing to do.JE: That one was interesting because the whole point

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was to get people to know about one of our favorite bands who we thought was breaking up at the time—but they’re actually still togeth-er now and releasing a full-length album.JBH: They’re getting married soon.JE: [laughs] All of them.JBH: And having children. But, yeah, so that was just to promote Snuffalupagus.JE: That was just to spread the word about them, since they were breaking up, and now they’re actually a band again. Which is nice.JBH: They’re still really good.JE: Yeah, they’re actually even better. The tracks I’ve heard are really good.JBH: The tracks are incred-ible. It’s going to be amazing.LB: They’re called Snuffalu-pagus, by the way.

Are there any other bands right now that you’re really into?JBH: Turbo Sleaze.JE: Turbo Sleaze and NO-ATS.JBH: Yeah, that’s No One and the Somebodies. They’re

really good.LB: I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal. Like, actually, black metal.JE: [laughs] Yeah, me too.JBH: Not me.LB: My friend just got a tape from this, like, National Social-ist black metal group—

Wait, what?LB: Yeah, they’re this Russian band, and they’re total Nazis, and on the tape it says “This record cannot be played in the USA.” It cannot be sold any-where in the USA! Probably because it has—JBH: Does it have like a swas-tika on it or something?LB: No, nothing like that, but it also says “If this tape is found on the radio then it is a viola-tion of the white man’s code of honor.”

[laughter] Oh my god.JBH: Oh my god!LB: And it’s good music, that’s the thing! But you can’t under-stand anything they’re saying.JBH: Because it’s in Russian?LB: No, I think it’s in English, actually. A lot of bands I’ve no-ticed from Europe usually sing in English.

Yeah, I don’t know what it is but it’s definitely more com-mon than English-speaking bands singing in other lan-guages.JE: But I think we really just try to listen to whatever we can. Right now I really like Tears for Fears.JBH: For what it’s worth, we’re much farther into this meadow [in Prospect Park] right now than I ever go.

Really?JBH: Yeah. I literally stay right by 9th Street, usually, because that’s where I live. Generally I just go [points] over there.LB: What are we, north right now? This is the north meadow. Okay. On our way!

I’m trying to think of a twee question to ask you. To send us off. Okay, I think I’ve got one: what is the true path to happiness?LB: The true path to happi-ness?JBH: Well, okay.JE: Doing stuff you like with people you like.LB: That’s right.JBH: Yeah. Just, like, doing fun stuff. ¶

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Florian Koenigs-berger

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Florian Koenigsberger is your standard teen-age New York boyIf you were to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?1. Denim2. Forward3. French

Describe yourself in twenty words or less.I’m the kid wearing the red hat—indoors—and if you ask me, I’ll smile and let you know.

How would your friends describe you?At times, painfully serious. Moody, perhaps, but a solid orator nonetheless. A night owl, a vindictive joy-seeker. What kind of life do you live?I’m a city explorer subjected to the undercurrents of a globally-influenced growing up. I grew up with Ger-man, learned French in highschool—mom speaks five languages with relative ease. I’ve found New York to be so full of stories waiting to be pried open, and I’ve made it a little of my job, everyday, to break these stories open just a little bit more.

What are some of your hobbies?People watching. If I ever have the time to spend an extra hour—even a few minutes—in Grand Central station, I stop and watch people come in and out of trains. Kids with their noses pressed to window panes, the angry faces of passengers jostled by passengers, the impromptu iPod-in-ears created dancers, the mu-sicians thankful for the clinking of change in their re-ceptacles—they all feel so New York-y. I guess it’s fair to call photography a hobby, but for similar reasons: I’m forced to interact with the City,with its people.

Strangest thing you have ever done in your life?Perhaps not the strangest, but it ranks near the top: I dreamt, one night, that I bought a small, ugly dog and kept it in the same cage as my chinchilla Carmen. It was a sludge-brown pitbull, if I remem-ber correctly, and it sat on one of the cage shelf/levels, staring at me with drooping eyes. I woke up and though the cage sits at the foot of my bed in real life (it did in the dream, too), and even though I looked at the cage upon waking, I remained under the impression for the major-ity of the day that an ugly unknown dog was sharing living space with Carmen. At 4 PM that day, I real-ized I didn’t have a dog.

Who have been the most influen-tial people in your life?Joe Colombo: Italian industrial de-signer during the ‘60s and ‘70s. His work was so ahead of its time, both in terms of design and functional-ity—died at 41 after living a life of innovation, drinking, and smoking. glass that allowed one to smoke and drink more easily at the same time. Colombo’s the type of genius who sincerely appreciated the brevity of his life and lived accordingly. I try to take as much of that with me as I can.Kip Fulbeck: Genius author of the Hapa Project, a series of undertak-ings which explore the defintion of multi-racialism for those of mixed descent. Not only is he a vibrant speaker, but he managed to cut right

WORDS AND PICTURES BY CHANTEL SIMPSON

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Apparel, on which we print a good deal of our shirts, make this easy. As for in-spiration, my partner and I always bring it back to the city streets. A walk home is a subtle opportunity for design ideas—street signs, neon store lights, canvas banners. We try to incorporate all the little things with which New Yorkers identify into our de-signs while preserving the bigger, more iconic expres-sions of NYC life that cannot be taken for granted. I see that you are an avid photographer. How would you describe your tech-nique as an artist? Do you come up with a concept first or do you just photo-graph freely? What do you get out of it?The best thing about photog-raphy for me, in the last year, has been the unbelievable force with which it moves me to meet the characters living in this city. My ‘100 Strangers’ project involves my photography, introducing myself to, and writing about passers-by on the street and the wealth of great stories that come from the simple willingness to ask someone to stand for a shot is so re-warding. That, and a con-stant need to figure out how to manipulate the few ma-terials I have to get a better

a suppressed race-conversation that many people have needed a guiding light on for a long time. His “100% mixed” slogan has stuck with me since I first heard him speak three years ago.

What are the top three musi-cians that define your taste and why? Top three songs you can never get tired of?Lee Fields & The Expressions justify all that I can ask to appre-ciate in music. I tend to measure the strength of an artist by sin-gle works instead of compiled works, but these guys brought back everything there is to love about The Temptations and Sam Cooke (also favorites) and add-ed what can be termed a hard, hip-hop kick. Their track “La-dies” is an absolute favorite. I can’t honestly say that there are many artists I’d gladly listen to on call at any time of day, but I have a somewhat embarrassing attachment to the music in a lot of foreign Nouvelle Vague films. Hard to not love Anna Karina and Jeanne Moreau—favorites from both include “Ma Ligne de Chance” and “Le Tourbillon” re-spectively. You have a t-shirt line called FLOC. What is the concept and what was the inspiration behind it?Concept behind our brand was very simple at first, and has re-mained so in our 1+ year of “of-ficial” operations: New York design-engineering on a lim-ited edition product. We make 113 of each design, that be-ing the sum of 40º and 73º, the latitude and longitude of New York City. We’ve worked to in-corporate eco-friendliness into the model as much as possible and companies like Alternative

shot keep me going. I almost never shoot outdoors with prior visual intentions, but if I happen to come upon a spot I like (i.e. Pershing Square on 42nd), I get a pretty clear idea of what I want in my camera before I leave for the day. What is beauty to you?Beauty is an eye game. I always think that women can be beauti-ful only because of their eyes. All of the other positive attributes find solace in a selection of other de-scriptive adjectives. Literature, where it can surpass the appeal of the eyes in eloquence, seems to lack some of the sparkling, sponta-neous natural effect of the eyes.

What do you think defines your generation?Facebook. It hurts to say, but we haven’t even seen a small fraction of the effect this will have on po-litical (and election) culture in 20 or 30 years.

If you had the opportunity to cre-ate a new definition for the term “teenager” what would it be?Teenager is just another way of phrasing “messy”. On all fronts—emotional, developmental, phys-ical—the day to day changes are incredibly volatile in a way that I don’t think life ever repeats again. We have an unbelievable willing-ness to reject hard and fast rules of all sorts, a quality too often dispar-aged. Is it comfortable? Not all the time. Necessary? Absolutely. ¶

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Lily BartleWORDS BY CHANTEL SIMPSONPHOTOS BY ANNABELL LEE

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Lily Frances Bartle is your standard teen-age New York girl

Who is Lily Bartle? Answer in the third person.Much like Billy Pilgrim, Lily Bartle is “unstuck in time.” Consequently, she often appears a little lost in space and time, as if she wandered into the wrong decade and is often dressed for the wrong occasion. She also has a little trouble with punctuality.

Describe yourself in twenty words or less.My hands are always dirty and callused and one of my eyes is much bigger than the other.

And how would your friends describe you?Never on time, disorganized beyond human concep-tion, perhaps a little overly critical. “Human time-capsule”/”fountain of information”.

What kind of life do you live?I am never lonely, while I thoroughly enjoy the com-pany of my friends. I also enjoy a serendipitous drift, sometimes for days at a time. I’ll always come home but I think isolation is good for a person. Whatever I have I like to be something I made myself, making things is a very important part of my life. Everything I do I do by hand.

What do you do in your free time?I like to read and ride my bike. I like to paint, sew, and build things. I go through phases of obsessive col-lecting. Much of my time is spent taking things apart and putting them back together. As I mentioned earlier I like to do things by hand, I think that process is important. I like to take naps a lot too.

How do you spend a typical Sat-urday?If I’m not working, sometimes I like to go to graveyards on Saturdays, [and] depending on the weather, I may or may not ride my bike. I may take a book or a picnic; there is also a good chance that there will be an-other person there too. I go to a lot of yard sales. I really don’t have a typical Saturday. A well spent Sat-urday is as untypical as I can pos-sibly make it.

Describe a day in the life of Lily.Fall asleep, sleepwalk through the Union Square subway station, get on the wrong train, wake up in Queens, transfer to the right train, get to school, dissect a worm, con-verse with Dr. Pollock or Mr. Cor-field (history teachers), doodle, hide in the painting studio until 3:15, get on the train, depending on the day I may or may not go to work at this point, if not, go home, sew and/or

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paint for 4-5 hours, read, watch The Twilight Zone, go to sleep.

Strangest thing you have ever done in your life?5 miles of walking through the boondocks of Austin, Texas only [to] find myself at an LSD renais-sance fair complete with dragons, pregnant wizards, and minstrels.

What are the top three musicians that define your taste? Top three songs you never get tired of?I could never do this in three so I’m changing it to 5 (which is still pretty hard).

Five musicians who define my taste:Sun Ra, Lightning Bolt, Joy Divi-sion, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Jelly Roll Morton. I have fairly eclectic taste in music—this hardly covers it.

Five songs I could never get tired of:“Bury the Hammer” - Beat Hap-pening, “Out in the Streets” - The Shangrilas, “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” - Skip James, “Silly Love” - Daniel Johnston, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” - Bauhaus

Name a movie that defines you. Sleeper. While I love Annie Hall and Manhattan probably more than life it-self and Sleeper may be considered a “screwball comedy”, it [has] always really resonated with me. Probably because I was raised watching it.

What do you think defines your gen-eration?Lady GaGa and the Bush Administration.

What are friends for?All my friends play completely differ-ent roles in my life. And I have differ-ent relationships with all of them.

If you were to create a new species of animal what would it be? Describe.A horse with the head of Bill Murray so I could ride it to school and it could tell me jokes on the way.

If you had the opportunity to create a new definition for the term “teen-ager” what would it be?I think that the definition now is just fine. To make the criteria any more specific for someone [between] the age of thirteen to eighteen seems a little unfair. ¶

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NAME: Perry ButtnerUSERNAMES: _skynt, prolapze, moggFader,DrakoLitch, primortal00ze, JamesTaylor443,serratedPecs AGE: 13 HOMETOWN: San Diego, CA

SCHOOL: Torrey Pines Junior High School

INTERESTS: Magic: The Gathering, aka M:TG, aka MagicPROFESSIONAL GOAL: TO WIN $1M US PLAYING MAGIC: THE GATHERING

PERSONAL STATEMENT: Let me put out the word right now to all n00bs who think that they can come and take me in Magic. You’re mine. I’ve been playing col-lectible card games since the age of three and it’s quite possible that I’ve already beaten you in nightmares that you don’t re-member where you wet the bed. I’ve played everything from vintage Fruity Pebbles to Draw-Go to Jund Ramp and frequently, when I play MWS, I keep two or three win-dows open at once so I can beat two or three chumps at once.

FAVORITE PEOPLE: On magic-league.com I like to hang out with my team, GushiSushi (wassup to DjinnQ, Shooter, and VineWolf!). In terms of

FluoreSCent ADoleSCentAuthor Ned Vizzini paints us a portrait of a fictional Ameri-can teenager: one Perry Buttner, age 13.

people irl, I don’t hang out with a lot of them at school. I play Magic with actual cards with some kids at lunch every day, but I’m too busy playing so I don’t remember their names. There’s one teacher who likes me—my English teacher, Ms. Alexander. She says that if I were to take my interest in CCGs and turn it to something creative, I could write fantasy novels or direct films or—hold up, this guy is messaging me to play a game.

MOMENT OF GLORY: I don’t want to brag too much, but you never know, some people with high tourney rankings might be reading this, so I’m just gonna put it out there. I got a flame war with some punk n00bs from Portugal, and I destroyed this guy rarafuggi (I call him something else, but I don’t need to write it here). Basically, he started getting on me for not using Scion of Oona in a fae deck. Seriously? How are you supposed to match up against aggro and mirror with no Scion? He was saying, “Peo-ple stopped using Scion a long time ago.” So I responded, “People stopped using your mom a long time ago.” And seriously, he never said anything again. Just disappeared. Shamed out of existence.

LIKES/DISLIKES: What, like with girls? I don’t talk to girls.

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