actually

... i was trying to work this morning. blocked out the whole day. but then i checked facebook. bad move. or maybe not.

a friend had 'liked' pet shop boys. i like pet shop boys. in fact i'd just gotten back into them in a big way, listening to behaviour a lot in the last couple of weeks. in love with nervously, and the general melancholia of this album, the sounds, the lyrics. it gets me every time.

and so, this morning, i find myself on youtube looking at videos like this one, and this one, and this one, etc.

and i'm thinking about chris lowe, again. and i think i need to write a zine about him.

there's a pattern of chrises in my world. there's the unrequited love chris of many years ago, who often re-enters my world. i write him letters, but he doesn't know this. he's the chris of the past. and recently, i met a chris of the future. he's nothing like the old chris. and then there's chris lowe, with whom i have had a long and sustaining relationship with, through his music. (his surname is almost love)

he's the silent pet shop boy. the one who stands in the background, never smiles, is often looking away, or hiding behind sunglasses.

and in looking for photos of him (for i have sustained a crush on him for many years, and often like to look), i found this biographer's note, which sealed the deal in me wanting to make a Chris Lowe zine. from this comes my working title of "the wall of silence".

for i think this is what it is about chris that gets my blood pumping. his silence. he's probably responsible for most of these sounds, yet he avoids speaking about them. he is there in body, but never does he really interact in videos, interviews, photoshoots, etc. the reluctant star. the serious boy. the shy boy. the man who chooses silence. and such a beautiful silence it is.

in the video clips i watch (80s to early 90s) he sometimes appears to be quite sad. i find myself wanting to love him. and i do, because i can love him. but perhaps not in the initial ways i wanted to love him. i wanted to get him, to know him, to understand his sadness, his distance, his inability to look at me.

but now i realise that this is the force of my attraction, this distance. and i don't want to encroach on that space, for without this, i would probably cease to love him. therefore, the temptation to 'research' this man creates a certain tension in me. i want to get close to him, but i don't, because i already am. currently i construct him as i want him to be. the sad, serious and shy man. if i start to read things he says, or what others say about him, maybe this version of him will dissolve. maybe i'll stop watching PSB videos in the way that i do - eagerly searching for him in the background, trying to catch his eyes, or a hint of a smile. trying to catch him out, to get close.

i love him for being elusive. if i met his gaze and found myself knowing him, then this could no longer happen.

so this zine will be about my love of chris lowe. but it will also be about a certain chris-ness. the infatuation with chris lowe didn't always exist. in fact i think it first peaked around the time that chris #1 stopped seeing me. he looks a little bit like this chris. they share a sadness. chris #2 is not sad though. he laughs at my jokes. he looks me in the eye. he's less chris lowe than chris #1. but they each share a name that punctuates my current feelings on love, connection, sadness, and music.