Next week I turn 25. Naturally, like most people who feel but don’t like to admit around their birthday, I’ve been grappling with the liminal, lost feeling of what my next year on this planet might look like. More specifically, it got me thinking about ageing and dying as most existential crises go, to which suddenly I remembered I never finished my sentence about Kim Kardashian and her vampire facials (Dream 002). Since ageing and dying happen to us all, I’ve compiled a list of everything which has helped me recently and over my 24th year release some kind of emotional dread. Welcome to an ultimate* guide to an existential crisis.

1. Sing Pop Song by Larissa Pham

“Butterflies on a carcass” is how Pham relates pain seeking out pain. I’d never thought of butterflies as carnivorous creatures, but some species (like the Purple Emperor) feed off rotting corpses to extract necessary nutrients, known as ‘puddling’, a process which even in itself sounds cute. Another thing which stuck with me in this book is the point of death not being a part of the Western vocabulary, point proven. Larissa Pham writes autobiographically, referencing artworks and poetry as she confronts her ghosts. After experiencing sexual trauma, she found herself working for a crisis hotline, in an attempt to help others heal, and in the hopes of healing herself. I’ve heard people talk about the ghosts of their pasts, but only in the sense of a mistake; an ex-partner that rears their head and reveals something of yourself you didn’t expect. What I know about ghosts is they are often unsettled souls who seek peace so they can rest: Pham chronicles her journey as they follow her, making clear she cannot rest until they do, the butterflies feeding off her carcass. Which, as someone who can relate to Pham’s experiences, is something I’ve been trying to figure out too - how to lay my ghosts to rest.

2. Believe in Ghost and Spirit, the Mike Kelley way

An artist who I can honestly say is ‘the man’ is Mike Kelley (next to Paul McCarthy). Seeing his show Vice Anglais at Hauser & Wirth I found it better than trotting along to his retrospective at Tate Modern, only for the fact that Tate is always too busy. I like to take my time looking without pushchair warrior Mums threatening me. Not to say that Ghost and Spirit was unsatisfying, but his pieces in Vice Anglais really scratched that nasty, carnivalesque itch in my brain. His drawings depicting stereotypes within American culture felt like character studies for the images he recreates through the Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction series. I came away with that sense of twisted threat from the nature of humans costuming ourselves up, performing a pantomime ritual allowed to exist in the system, only to transgress it as we await punishment.

3. Watch Picnic at Hanging Rock

With my existential crisis slowly edging me to the point of feeling lost entirely, last week I took myself to the BFI to watch a film I knew nothing about but a friend had recommended to me. Getting there early (very unlike me) I dipped into the shop, finding books like ‘Folk Horror’ and ‘House of Psychotic Women’ as affirmations for my sense of self. Feeling slightly better, I headed in to find my seat, ready for the talk by Senior Curator James Bell to prequel the screening. In this, he stated to envy anyone who had never seen the film before- to which I felt smug. Going into this blind of context, I had naively never considered Australian Gothic as a film genre, and ultimately I came away feeling haunted by the mystery which surrounded the incident in the film. I loved it. The relationship between the girls in the film reminded me of a baggy pants, ankle-Uggs, Eastpak backpack, and Northface puffer-clad Girl Gang I had been walking behind the previous weekend. Their uniform claustrophobic but as coalesced as Victorian lace and stockings on a summer’s day. Each of which I have immense respect for and take into my 25th year of life with admiration.

4. Don’t Join the Carnival, Even Kim Had Her BBL Removed

In Dreams 002: Vampire Facials I looked back at the post Kim Kardashian made the day before my 13th birthday. Ironically, I’m talking about this almost exactly 12 years to date, as if we have been in a long-distance relationship the entire time. She communicates to me through her beauty regimes, so I know precisely how she’s feeling; for example, the recent (speculated but almost definite) removal of her BBL tells me she has relieved herself of her Liberalism (cc: this video). I’m so glad she's able to breathe a sigh of relief, that she doesn’t need to pretend anymore, it’s like a weight has been lifted from behind: where the puppet masters were able to control the strings, now they run deeper, from the inside.

5. Take a Beta Blocker, Lock-In

Rachel Sennnott recently said this on the red carpet at the Oscars as a coping mechanism. Sarcasm or not, I have to agree. Or, go to therapy- just anything to get outside of being sucked into other people’s shit through your phone. Compliment with a cigarette and you’re g2g.

6. Never Watch Your Heroes

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is one of the most disappointing horror films I’ve ever seen, after the Halloween sequels. I was SO excited to see Eggers' adaptation, I even dragged my boyfriend to the cinema on Boxing Day to see it (I was in America at the time). I thought it was a sign from the hellscape of horror heavens that I should see it before my friends back in England. Turns out that being cocky only leaves you disappointed. This past year I’ve been reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and whilst Nosferatu is only ‘inspired by’, it’s hard to not make comparisons, and the book is genuinely scarier.

7. Go Back To Your Villain Origins

Reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula reminded me of the beauty of the North East coast. Growing up in Grimsby, my only memory of visiting Whitby was to get fish and chips by a seaside town just close enough that it wasn’t too expensive, and worth the drive because it’s nicer than Cleethorpes. Next month I’m aiming to revisit Whitby for its annual Goth Weekender to reconnect myself with the landscape and the people in it. Stay tuned I guess???

8. Define An Easy Death with Simone De Beauvoir

I’m not going to write any of my own thoughts about this because I think this book is best to read to make up your own mind. Simone De Beauvoir writes a day-to-day recount of her Mother’s final days, and death itself. I went back through the pages I had turned back and picked these two quotes to ultimately write some profound fluff, but I’ll just leave them here instead -
‘Why attribute such importance to a moment since there would be no memory?’
‘There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question.’

*There’s only 8 which maybe doesn’t make it ultimate.

DREAM 003 - in ghosts we trust

DREAM 002 - vampire facials