KLF UNSUPERVISED

  A Kunt Commentary article from Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Perfect is easy to understand. It sits where it is supposed to sit. The colors match. The edges are clean. Nobody has to stare at it for ten seconds trying to figure out what the hell they’re looking at. And that is probably why perfect gets boring so fast. Give me something slightly wrong instead. A painting with proportions that feel strange. A house that looks like nobody has opened the curtains since 1974. A ridiculous roadside attraction. An ugly little ceramic animal at a thrift store that absolutely should not cost twelve dollars but somehow needs to come home with you. That stuff sticks. Not because it is beautiful in the traditional sense. Because it makes your brain stop walking in a straight line. Weird Makes You Pay Attention Most of the world is designed to be understood immediately. Stores want you to know where to walk. Apps want you to know where to click. Advertising wants you to recognize the prod...

  A Kunt Commentary article from Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Watching a horror movie to relax sounds ridiculous until you try relaxing with the fucking news. At least a horror movie is honest with you. It tells you up front that the next ninety minutes might be unpleasant. There is something almost considerate about that. You choose the nightmare, settle in, and know you can turn it off when it’s over. Real life has never been that polite. I’ve always found it funny when people act like horror is the dark, disturbing thing and everyday reality is somehow the safer alternative. Horror movies have monsters, haunted houses, killers, demons and enough fake blood to refill a small lake. Reality has bills, stress, loss, broken systems, people who behave like feral raccoons in Walmart parking lots, and headlines that make a slasher movie feel almost organized. So no, I’ve never been especially scandalized by horror. If anything, I understand why people love it. Horror Gives the Fea...

  Originally published as part of Kunt Commentary by Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Something funny happens every few years. The fashion world discovers alternative people again. Suddenly black is interesting. Chains are interesting. Leather is interesting. Torn shirts are interesting. Goth is interesting. Punk is interesting. Something somebody would have called weird six months ago walks down a runway and now we're supposed to discuss its cultural significance. Apparently weird becomes fashionable on a rotating schedule. Right now, we're having another one of those moments. Gothic elements have been showing up prominently in fashion coverage, punk and rock influences are appearing on runways, rave culture is being pulled into high fashion, and London street style continues doing what London street style does best mixing things that aren't necessarily supposed to go together and making them work anyway. And you know what? I don't actually have a problem with it. N...

  Originally published as part of Kunt Commentary by Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter I own clothes that should have been thrown away years ago. Not donated. Not repurposed. Thrown away. They have holes in places holes aren't supposed to be. Graphics are cracked. Black shirts have faded into that weird gray color that technically stopped being black about a hundred washes ago. There are things in my closet that probably couldn't survive an aggressive washing machine cycle without becoming several smaller pieces of clothing. I'm keeping them, because somewhere along the way, they stopped being clothes. They became evidence. Some Clothes Have a History Everybody has at least one. Maybe it's an old concert shirt. Maybe it's the hoodie you've had through three relationships, four jobs and five addresses. Maybe it's a pair of boots that should have been declared legally dead years ago, but your feet have molded themselves into them so perfectly that replacing ...

  Originally published as part of Kunt Commentary by Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Anybody can start with a monster. I think it’s more interesting to start with a Tuesday staff meeting and figure out how to ruin it. Although calling anything around KLF a traditional “staff meeting” might be generous. Kunts Live Forever is still a very small operation. I’m here in Alabama, my daughter Violet works with me here, Chad is in Ohio, and my daughter Alyssa...better known around here as Ultra Kunt... provides an impressive amount of unsolicited creative fuel despite not technically being on payroll. Alyssa is also an asshole. I say that lovingly. Mostly. Ideas get thrown around, something completely normal gets mentioned, somebody says something ridiculous, and ten minutes later I’m wondering whether it belongs on a shirt. That pretty much explains how some of the stranger ideas at Kunts Live Forever happen. I don’t usually sit down and think, Today I’m going to make something weird....