About a year ago Misty Forsberg of Southtown Tattoo and Body Piercing (southtowntattoo.com/) in Fort Smith, Arkansas, did a suspension-themed cutting (note the accuracy of the knot) on Kyrsten, which was then rubbed with magenta ink, which you can see here fresh. The right side picture was taken at eleven months, showing the scar successfully mottled with color, the magenta tint giving making it look permanently inflamed.
As many of you know, I’m a voracious reader of comics and have talked before on ModBlog about creating some sort of database of bodymod and body art in the illustrated world. Today I read last year’s graphic novel BleedOut, which tells the story of a world devolved into a sort of criminal feudal dystopia after worldwide oil supplies mysteriously run out in a matter of weeks — “civilization devolved 200 years in less than one”. The comic actually exists as a vessel to explain the post-apocalyptic 3rd-person-shooter criminal simulation MMO CrimeCraft (crimecraft.com), “believably” letting players know how the world devolved into gang-moderated hell so quickly. I’m actually glad I didn’t find out this was the purpose of the comic until afterwards because videogame tie-in comics are usually so terrible that I might not have read it at all.
Anyway, the comic is broken up chapters, each drawn by a different artist — with some great names like Nathan Fox, Zach Howard, Sanford Greene, David Williams, Gary Erskine, Howard Chaykin, Glenn Fabry, Vince Proce, and Trevor Hairsine. The book as a whole tells a story about this awful world, and most chapters are a sort of vignette on a different crime lord. The chapter that caught my eye for ModBlog was “Youth Bulge”, drawn by Ben Templesmith (you may know him from 30 Days of Night), which is about Arkady Kavchenko, who runs adult entertainment in the city where the story takes place — pornography and porn, with a taste for kink, the farther out the better. He’s also been infected with a genetic virus of sorts that gives him Wolverine-like healing. Before selling people a vice, he always tried it first, and this taste for kink would have killed a normal person “twenty times over”, but somehow he’s survived it. The apex of his dangerous perversion pyramid? I was amused to see that it was suspension!
Click to see the whole page, or better yet, pick up the comic. It’s not in any way body modification themed as a whole — there are a myriad of tattooed characters (they are criminals after all!) but it’s completely incidental — but suspension is rare enough in pop fiction that I thought it was worth a mention.
If we learned anything from Project Serpo [serpo.org], it’s that the Zeta Reticulans fucking love flesh hooks.
Seriously, is it just me, or does resurrection suspension really look a lot like some sort of Fire In The Sky sort of alien abduction? I guess I see aliens before resurrection because I was brought up on science fiction, not on the Bible, so when someone is being drawn up into the skies, it’s an act of the Greys, not an act of God. This picture is from the wonderful suspension campout that I posted earlier in the week — be sure to check out that entry if you haven’t already seen it.
Click the picture to see the original, as it really happened.
After posting the highly technical suspensions from Italy and Japan with intricate static rigging, it’s nice to see the other — and equally beautiful and profound — end of things. Cere just dropped me a message this morning to take a look at his page where he’d been collecting images from their Suspension Campout this past weekend — below are four of my favorites (whittling it down was nearly impossible). That reminds me, while I’m thinking of Cere and his band of merry misfits, a wonderful article was just published in The Atlantic that heavily features him. It’s titled “The Therapeutic Experience of Being Suspended by Your Skin” and is one of the most positive articles about suspension that I’ve seen to date in the mainstream press.
Anyway, I’m sure that this waterfall location will seem familiar to those who’ve admired previous outdoor Rites of Passage events. I don’t know what it is about water, but for me, it just goes so well with suspension. I don’t know if it’s the meditative quality of water, or the idea of being hung between sky and sea, or if it’s just the simple beauty of nature. But it really works for me. I also have enormous respect for people like Cere and the others in Rites of Passage and iHung and the many other suspension groups that are now well into their second decade of bringing something very special to people’s lives. They’re giving of themselves in ways that profoundly alter the course of lives for the better, but the world rarely sees it or thanks them for it.
There’s magic in this world because we create it.
I’m so moved by these pictures that there’s little I can say about them that won’t come off super-cheesy. I’m sure more pictures will show up in BME’s galleries as time goes by — please add your pictures via the normal channels!
I was thinking about the “musical arc” of suspension, and if we’re going to compare the early suspension movement to all the little rock’n'roll bands that sprouted up across the Western World in the 1950s and 1960s, then I think that some of the suspension masters today — Havve of Pain Solution and Wings of Desire being a prime example — are in their prog rock phase. Prog rock was characterized with an absurd level of musical technical expertise and composing complexity that’s never been outdone in popular music, and I think suspension today is much like that — extreme technical feats, with complex and beautiful rigging that’s harder and harder to outdoe. I was about to wonder whether some sort of punk rock renaissance was next in suspension, a rejection of all this engineer-artistry and replacing it with guerrilla two-hook suicide suspension with a couple of shark hooks, but then I realized that one of the great things about suspension is that it’s not a matter of changing and exclusive tastes — it’s a matter of broadening tastes. Havve still plays in his garage punk band on the side while noodling away with the Musical Box-era Genesis of the suspension scene in Italy!!!
Rambling aside, I really do continue getting blown away by every new suspension photo set I see (these are from Christianne’s collection) from the Italian Suscon — whenever the best minds in suspension get together at these events (and a big thank you to Allen Falkner and his Dallas Suscon for setting that in motion), amazing and inspiring things always happen.
Christiane and Havve (Wings of Desire/Pain Solution) are in Japan giving workshops and helping spread their expertise as always, and Christiane posted this amazing photo from a suspension demonstration at Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo last night. A beautiful and technically advanced example of the cutting edge rigging they’re known for — I really feel like this captures some space station art moment that should only be possible in the absence of the Earth’s damning gravity.
Andrea Azzolini took these beautiful pictures at the 8th Italian Suscon of Marita suspending over the water from the tripod (previously). I should note that I edited the suspension gear out of the picture, but I assume that’s obvious. Andrea writes (translate into English),
Sono arrivato cosi Lontano dal Mondo, che sperare di trovare Qualcuno che mi Comprenda è diventato un Illusione.
e le mie Illusioni sono i miei Sogni.
Vedo Cosi Tanta Bellezza e cosi tanta Tristezza, vedo Persone che Non Sanno Nemmeno chi Sono in Realtà, Nessuno che tenta di Raggiungersi, ci si fa Bastare l’Apparenza e ci ferma alla Superficie delle cose.
Per chi è Diverso, Rimanere Solo è Inevitabile.
Un Destino da Spettatore,
sempre Sospeso,
tra i più Bui e Confortevoli Abissi e le Più Fredde e Lucenti Volte Celesti.
Click the pictures to see them uncropped.
Rachel Laventure vs. Havve Fjell at the 8th Italian SusCon, 2012.
Click to see the original photo.
The mainstream media just loves saline injection in the forehead, and because it’s so weird and rare — and most of all, photogenic — they just love printing it. It gives them permission to print human oddity freakshow photos without feeling exploitative. They don’t get to see it often, and thus every time they see it, they ignorantly and hilariously insist on calling it “the latest trend” — often “the latest Japanese trend” to be specific — and thanks to last night’s episode of National Geographic’s fun but clueless “Taboo” series, it’s all over the media, with sites like Jezebel running headlines about “Bagel Heads“. Here’s a screen cap from the show.
This story is so silly, and really, is ancient news. The short version of the history of “bagel heads” is that Montreal photographer Jerome Abramovitch (chapter9photography.com) created the concept for performance art and photographic purposes (and a little amusement), presumably after seeing fetish-scene saline inflation and artistically extrapolating the technique in new directions. He brought this to ModCon — many people first saw this on the cover of the ModCon book in fact (download a free copy here since it’s out of print) — and we later shot some fun footage of his doing it again for the still hibernating BME movie. Another good friend, journalist and charming body mod superenthusiast Ryoichi Keroppy Maeda, was here for all of that from Japan and brought the idea back home with him, where he walked many other people through it. For whatever reason — and Ryoichi deserves the credit for this I’m sure — it was much more popular in Japan, seeming to find a niche inside both the fetish and suspension worlds. Much of the footage floating around the net of forehead saline is from Ryoichi’s events in Japan, and you can actually see Ryoichi being interviewed about it in the clip above.
These pictures are from the ModBlog cover and Jerome’s video shoots with me.
In the photos on the right we’ve inflated his cheeks as well as just his forehead by the way. In the fetish community breast inflations (of both men and women), are also quite popular — as are the penis and scrotum, the clitoris, the anus, and the lips (both genital and facial). BME has massive galleries on this subject — literally hundreds of thousands of images, stories, and interviews, and my new book also covers it extensively. If you don’t have a BME membership yet, you can find some free saline content with the appropriate ModBlog search (although you’ll get some false positives talking about saline in other contexts), and this NSFW interview (a preview from the new book I just mentioned) also covers fetish-saline in depth: “Impgrin Inflated“
I probably should have started with this instead of mentioning it as a footnote, but for those that are unaware of what you’re seeing in these stories, it’s basically voluntarily induced pitting edema. Saline is dripped via a needle into the forehead (virtually any body part can be inflated), engorging the tissue dramatically until the body gradually reabsorbs it over about 24 hours. Like the medical condition pitting edema, while the tissue is full (of interstitial fluid in the case of an edema, saline in the case of an inflation), it is maleable and can be “sculpted” by pressing into it. Unlike a scrotum inflation, which is more of a “water balloon” when full, normal skin is more like a “sponge” than a “balloon”. Since the saline is held in place by the tissue and can’t flow freely, when you force it into a new shape, it holds that shape for a time. Assuming that proper sterile precautions are followed this is not particularly dangerous.
As to how it feels, well, few people would say it feels good. Most would say it’s mildly unpleasant, but not unpleasant in the way that suspension hurts and can lead to an altered state. More like unpleasant as in a headache. To be honest, it’s more of an “art trick” than a ritual experience. The sort of thing you do for great photos or curiosity, not the sort of thing that teaches you about yourself or gives you a high or all the wonderful things that people get out of suspension. Of course I’m generalizing and some people will get all of that, but overall this is just a cool looking trick that people have been doing for about fifteen years. It’s not new, and it’s certainly not a trend.
But all of this truth that I’ve just typed out is completely irrelevant to the media. Nothing I’ve said here is hard to find out with a minimum of research. But if I’ve learned anything in almost twenty years of first-hand dealings with the media, it’s that the truth is the very last thing they care about. The truth isn’t a virus. The truth is an irrelevancy. All that matters to anyone — be it trash media or be it fallen media aristocracy like National Geographic — is a dumbed down moment of meaningless amusement to sell advertising for garbage we’d be better off without.
Neil Chakrabarti, whose name you certainly recognize, writes me with this sad note,
So another one of our beloved members of the suspension community is in need of our help. Robby Seepersad, aka Ribble, is in the custody of the INS and is facing deportation to Trinidad. Robby moved to the US as a child and grew up in Queens where he applied for citizenship. Due to red tape after 9/11, Robby never received citizenship in the US, and in 2009, under extreme mental duress, plead guilty to false charges in NYC and went to jail for eight months. This past winter, Robby was in a car that hit some sleet and slid through an intersection in IL. When the police ran his name, Robby was turned over to the INS due to his previous wrongful imprisonment. Robby Seepersad might as well be my brother. He’s kind, hilarious, passionate about what he does, and is an amazing suspension practitioner and friend. Please help us raise money so his fiancée, Dede Nichols, can marry the love of her life before he is forced out of our country. Please visit http://www.gofundme.com/16qja0 and help save an American Dreamer.
Over the years I’ve dated a couple people who were so-called “illegal aliens” in Canada — part of Rachel’s current medical dilemma (which is a big part of the reason that BME struggles at times) is my fault for never having properly dealt with her citizenship issues while we were married. I was one myself for a while in Philadephia when I was dating an American. I can not imagine how much more horrific this experience would have been if myself and the people involved didn’t have a home country we knew to go back to. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I was facing losing the love of my life rather than just running away from a broken relationship. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if the country I was being exiled from was the only home I’d ever really known. Well, Robby doesn’t have to imagine any of that. He knows it all too intimately.
Let me share a few pictures.
From left to right, (1) Robby, Neil, and other groomsmen at Arwen’s wedding. (2) Robby and his fiancée, Dede Nichols. (3) The first time Neil met Robby, 12/6/09. (4) The back to stomach pull Robby and Neil did after Arwen’s funeral in Long Island on 10/22/11 — his fiancée, Dede, is in the pic as well doing Robby’s bio.
If there is anything you donate it would help. You can do so at http://www.gofundme.com/16qja0. As always, I would not post something like this, asking you to help if I wasn’t willing to help myself. I don’t just post every request for help people ask me to post. I only post them if I believe in them, and if I believe that donating will actually help.