When Chris Cunningham first heard the track, he wrote down the words “milk”, “sexual”, “surgery”, and “white porcelain”; they outline what would become the music video.
MILK
1. Growing up, my mom told me that if I drank lots and lots of milk, I’d be big and tall, just like her younger brother who drank lots and lots of milk and grew to be 6’2. So, I drank lots and lots of milk—every percent, oat, almond, soy, chocolate, sometimes even strawberry when it was on sale. I only grew to be 5’2, but my mom told me who knows, maybe I would have been even shorter if I hadn’t drunk all that, so there.
2. In Alien (1979), the ship’s computer mainframe MU-TH-UR 6000, a.k.a. “Mother,” secretly works with Ash to protect the Xenomorph. Milk is used for the close-up of Ash’s synthetic innards, along with pasta and green marbles.
3. Browsing reddit, I found out that my facial cleansing milk, recommended to me by some mom blog, recommended to her by Oprah, is what’s used for fake jizz in porn photoshoots. Jizz is also supposed to be good for your skin, or maybe that’s a myth. I’ll cover my face with anything for clarity.
SEXUAL
1. Does fucking make you feel complete, or undone?
2. “Sex times technology equals the future.” —J.G. Ballard (1974)
3. If you’re having frequent sex, you’re a fuck machine—and a whore? My eighth grade English teacher patiently encouraged us to question why “whore” is seen as a negative, and a woman (I promise it was mind-blowing at the time), but we were too busy giggling about the bad word, bad girls. A year later in my first year of high school, we’re all bopping around to Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous,” and the year after that I’m showing a picture of Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad album to my hairdresser, all while gasping at the rumour of this girl from school who apparently went down on six guys at one party.
4. Watching fuck machines “for research” and soaking in the pleasure of pleasure without man and with man-made machines.
5. What I’d do with an android clone of myself, in order:
- Gaze into my eyes
- Hold hands
- Kiss (lips, then tongue)
- Fuck
- See what the back of my hair looks like
SURGERY
1. “Surgery is the new sex.” —Timlin, Crimes of the Future (2022)
2. You’ll be given love / You’ll be taken care of, robot Björk purrs as machines operate on her, drilling, pumping. Is that not what you want to tell yourself before going under the knife? Especially when your surgeons can’t speak to you, for themselves—only limbs, no mouths.
3. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the human universe if I could leave my meat behind and just live here. If I could just be pure consciousness I could be happy.” —Topo, Cyberpunk book 1, vol. 1 (1989)
4. When I woke up after my wisdom teeth were taken out, the dentist told me that my eyes were open the whole time.
5. To cleave is either to stick together, or to split apart.
WHITE PORCELAIN
1. The only porcelain doll I ever had was an Anne of Green Gables one, bought on a family trip to Prince Edward Island. So precious, so delicate, she was kept in her box in a box in the den.
2. Porcelain / Do you carry the moon in your womb? / Someone said that you’re fading too soon —“Porcelain,” Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. As a kid, I always wanted this kind of skin. Lighter, brighter, whiter. I won’t run it all by you again, you know the drill by this point. But now I know better, that dirt and cracks show up right away, stand out, and stay.
When Chris Cunningham first heard the track, he wrote down the words “milk”, “sexual”, “surgery”, and “white porcelain”; they outline what would become the music video.
MILK
1. Growing up, my mom told me that if I drank lots and lots of milk, I’d be big and tall, just like her younger brother who drank lots and lots of milk and grew to be 6’2. So, I drank lots and lots of milk—every percent, oat, almond, soy, chocolate, sometimes even strawberry when it was on sale. I only grew to be 5’2, but my mom told me who knows, maybe I would have been even shorter if I hadn’t drunk all that, so there.
2. In Alien (1979), the ship’s computer mainframe MU-TH-UR 6000, a.k.a. “Mother,” secretly works with Ash to protect the Xenomorph. Milk is used for the close-up of Ash’s synthetic innards, along with pasta and green marbles.
3. Browsing reddit, I found out that my facial cleansing milk, recommended to me by some mom blog, recommended to her by Oprah, is what’s used for fake jizz in porn photoshoots. Jizz is also supposed to be good for your skin, or maybe that’s a myth. I’ll cover my face with anything for clarity.
SEXUAL
1. Does fucking make you feel complete, or undone?
2. “Sex times technology equals the future.” —J.G. Ballard (1974)
3. If you’re having frequent sex, you’re a fuck machine—and a whore? My eighth grade English teacher patiently encouraged us to question why “whore” is seen as a negative, and a woman (I promise it was mind-blowing at the time), but we were too busy giggling about the bad word, bad girls. A year later in my first year of high school, we’re all bopping around to Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous,” and the year after that I’m showing a picture of Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad album to my hairdresser, all while gasping at the rumour of this girl from school who apparently went down on six guys at one party.
4. Watching fuck machines “for research” and soaking in the pleasure of pleasure without man and with man-made machines.
5. What I’d do with an android clone of myself, in order:
- Gaze into my eyes
- Hold hands
- Kiss (lips, then tongue)
- Fuck
- See what the back of my hair looks like
SURGERY
1. “Surgery is the new sex.” —Timlin, Crimes of the Future (2022)
2. You’ll be given love / You’ll be taken care of, robot Björk purrs as machines operate on her, drilling, pumping. Is that not what you want to tell yourself before going under the knife? Especially when your surgeons can’t speak to you, for themselves—only limbs, no mouths.
3. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the human universe if I could leave my meat behind and just live here. If I could just be pure consciousness I could be happy.” —Topo, Cyberpunk book 1, vol. 1 (1989)
4. When I woke up after my wisdom teeth were taken out, the dentist told me that my eyes were open the whole time.
5. To cleave is either to stick together, or to split apart.
WHITE PORCELAIN
1. The only porcelain doll I ever had was an Anne of Green Gables one, bought on a family trip to Prince Edward Island. So precious, so delicate, she was kept in her box in a box in the den.
2. Porcelain / Do you carry the moon in your womb? / Someone said that you’re fading too soon —“Porcelain,” Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. As a kid, I always wanted this kind of skin. Lighter, brighter, whiter. I won’t run it all by you again, you know the drill by this point. But now I know better, that dirt and cracks show up right away, stand out, and stay.