#806 – a teetering shack on a mountain top

So this chapter is named "Boy Problems", a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a Carly Rae Jepsen song that was new around the time, but doesn't actually have much to do with anything. It's a song about the lightness of breaking up with a boy, in the face of a falling out between friends.

In hindsight my alt title could've been "Ice Princess/World Princess", songs by Azealia Banks and Grimes that emerged around the same time and stuck with me. They're both cold proclamations of the singers' wealth and success, sneering at all who doubted them - not perfectly spot-on either, but somehow closer. I played with the princess trope a few times; these are girls who grew up in the 90s, and the comparison seems inescapable. In a world of personal branding we all have ideas - at times, troublingly uniform ones - about how we wish to be seen. The songs had a power and a significance to me.

A few years out from this, Grimes has had better luck controlling her image than Banks, who can't put a lid on her contentious thoughts - an undesirable trait in a pop star. But Grimes has also disappeared into an aesthetic that leaves me cold. I still love the music but I never wanted to know about her relationship with a billionaire or her skincare/wellness/swordfighting routine. It shakes loose the limitations of her art, of art itself, in the face of real crisis. I guess in this way, she is the princess: gifted, unmatched, aloof. Banks has lost her grasp on power, but she retains something coveted in 2020: the ability to speak freely.

Do I have anything about the page? The "diverse day" line was in response to a very unsuccessful waux (faux+woke) Starbucks campaign, the actual name of which I can't remember.

15 thoughts on “#806 – a teetering shack on a mountain top

  1. It's the first panel that gets me – I just cannot imagine a Starbucks drone here in California telling a customer to stop pouring cream. If a yoga pants mom wants to order a drip coffee and make her own latte by throwing 2/3 of the coffee out, demanding the cream pitcher be refilled, and then filling the rest up with cream they will just smile (while digging their fingernails into the meat of their palms). I've seen it many times.

    Because a yoga pants mom will just take your head clean off with no remorse (they have none) or regrets (they've never had any where other people are concerned). Then again, Jane doesn't look like a yoga pants mom.

    1. He's the customer though? Jane is the barista preparing the drink, not the customer adding cream to her own drink.

    2. I think you have them switched? Jane is the barista.

    3. Isn't Jane the barista rather than the customer? (or have I misunderstood your post :S ?)

    4. Jane is the Barista here, the lovely very polite chatordering man is the customer.

    5. just wanna apologize for the explosion of corrections any time i haven't moderated in a few hours! haha

  2. Eh? Jane is the barista, and the customer is the one bossing her around.

  3. The King of Denmark line deserves a shout. Jane enjoyed that one.

  4. The King of Denmark is so perfectly set up and delivered, DAMN. This is one of those Octopie lines that comes up in my head all the time and makes me wish everyone knew this comic and would get the reference.

    1. I need someone to explain the reference to me because it's definitely gone over my head.

      1. Hamlet’s father, the king of Denmark, was murdered by Claudius, who poured poison into his ear. Act I scene v:

        GHOST:

        Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

        With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

        And in the porches of my ears did pour

        The leperous distilment;

    2. Is it a Hamlet joke? It flew over my head and I only made that guess after googling king+denmark+ears.

      1. Yes, Claudius puts poison in the king of Denmark's (Hamlet's) ear. Metaphorically and literally

  5. >waux

    Oof that's an ugly pormanteau if I ever saw one. I think "fauke" would be marginally better, or simply "foke", which has the benefit of looking like "fake".

  6. Campaign was called "race together".

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