Photography by Frederik Heyman

For most young bands, playing a private concert at Natalie Portman’s Los Feliz home for an audience that includes Ewan McGregor might count as a nerverattling experience, but for Ioanna Gika and Leopold Ross of Io Echo, the gig was business as usual. “I really embrace strange situations,” Gika says. “I think you can learn a lot from awkward or uncomfortable moments.” Gika and Ross, who have opened for Florence and the Machine and Nine Inch Nails, had been invited to perform by Portman’s husband, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who met them at a dinner in L.A. for designer Hedi Slimane. Millepied became such a fan of their arena-goth sound that he directed the videos for their songs “Stalemate” and “Eye Father.” The latter featured a geisha dancing kabuki-style in a grocery store, a reference to the vein of Eastern influences that courses through their debut album, Ministry of Love.

Purple Haze: “When we talk about Shanghai, or something like that, it’s not the literal Shanghai, but a more surreal idea of this place as an escape from where you actually are,” Ross says. “You could take a forest in the Far East literally, but we don’t,” Gika adds. “Ours has purple smoke and magical creatures.”

Photography by James Orlando

From the moment Daniel and Andrew Aged picked up guitars in their early teens, they were consumed by their craft. That obsession led the Bay Area natives to Los Angeles, where they detoured from the clichéd pursuit of stardom toward a more nuanced gateway into the music industry. “We always dreamed of being involved with great albums,” says Andrew. “We just wanted to be specialists.” The soft-spoken brothers (who are separated by just 14 months) are cryptic about how they accessed the industry’s inner sanctum—they’ve played and recorded with legends like Elton John, Beck, and 50 Cent—but the experience readied them for what would become Inc. “We had the feeling that we wanted to do something on our own, but it took us a little bit to figure out what that would become,” says Daniel. What it became was no world (released today), their debut album filled with meticulous production (courtesy of Daniel), a frosty falsetto (that would be Andrew), and songs that borrow from R&B, funk, jazz, and soul. “Music is an open place where we can say things that we’re feeling,” says Andrew. “It’s a place where we feel at home.”

High Contrast: “The comparisons we get to Prince don’t bother us,” says Daniel. “To me, Prince sounds like Joni Mitchell.”

Photography by James Orlando

In Karen Russell’s new short story collection, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, the vampire in question is a man who has long been awakened to the fallacies surrounding his own supernatural existence: daylight isn’t lethal to him, he doesn’t need to sleep in a coffin, and he doesn’t thrive on blood; lemons are as good a substitute as any. “These lemons are a vampire’s analgesic,” he says. “If you have been thirsty for a long time, if you have been suffering, then the absence of those two feelings, however brief, becomes a kind of heaven.”

The humanity in Russell’s characters is defined by the paranormal circumstances in which they find themselves: a young Japanese girl becomes a human silkworm; American presidents are reincarnated in the bodies of competitive racehorses; and a bullied boy seems to transform into a scarecrow. The diversity of the stories’ settings and points of view makes a reader anxious to find a connecting thread, but Russell doesn’t let us off so easy.

In a literary climate that prizes “serious” realism over playful fabulism, the 31 year-old Miami native emerged out of a different set of traditions when her debut collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, made an unexpected splash in 2006. In 2009, she earned a coveted spot on the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 list, which was followed a year later by inclusion in The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 Fiction Issue. The question of how to categorize Russell has been floating around ever since. Is she a Southern Gothicist? A parabolist? A moralist? Do her stories expand upon old histories, or create new, fantastical explanations for them? But the stories, without ever confining themselves to one genre or tradition, speak for themselves. Her first novel, Swamplandia!, vied for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize against Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, and created a deadlock so powerful that it led to a nearly unprecedented no-winner tie.

In Vampires, out in February, the theme of willpower obliquely ties together a diverse cast of antiheroes in a way that seems at once unconscious and designed. “I was thinking about powerlessness and what happens when a single event wants to violently repeat itself,” says Russell. “You’re trapped in the traumatic repetition of this one event from your past. How do you deal with it?” The cast of Vampires finds its own, usually destructive ways to cope, whether through mutiny, the exchange of memory, or a desperate struggle toward some kind of empty victory—all of which are, according to Russell, rooted in “this American idea that you can conquer and vanquish against all odds. There’s something beautiful about it and there’s also something really dangerous and delusional about it.”

The pitiful, strident nature of that delusion is one of Vampires’ strengths, and the enjoyment Russell gets from stepping into other viewpoints is evident from the empathy with which she portrays them. “For a lot of writers, their big experiment would be to write from the point of view of a lamprey eel or something, but for me, the lamprey eel is much easier to create than a middle-aged woman from the Midwest. I was talking to an editor friend about having a hard time with a female character because she was just a regular woman, and he was like, ‘Well, why don’t you just give her a brain tumor! Or green wings!’ I was like, You’ve got my number, man.”

Russell’s next project is a novel that takes place in and around the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a catastrophic period that threatens to repeat itself in the wake of present-day ecological-economic disasters. “Interesting things happen to humans in disasters,” she says. “I think that’s part of the reason why everyone loves zombie movies and post-apocalyptic stories. There’s a real curiosity about what we would become in those shorn seasons. But I don’t believe that it would be so totally Hobbesian, where everyone becomes a monster and goes cannibal and starts looting—I think it’s more complex.”

Photography by Asger Carlsen

“Just fucking around” is how Edwin White describes the impulse to start Tonstartssbandht (pronounced “tone-starts-band-hut”) with his younger brother Andy (photos of whom are being held by Edwin here). After outgrowing their sibling rivalry, the Orlando natives joined forces in 2007 and found that shared DNA meant shared sonic sensibilities. “It was like something had simmered between us for years, and it was finally there,” says Edwin. Eventually, the brothers found themselves in Montreal, where Andy was a student (Edwin had already graduated from New York University), and sharpened their brand of experimental noise-pop on that city’s notorious loft-party circuit. Propelled by the single “Black Country,” a murky, mysteriously addictive shredder, the brothers drew a fan base and the attention of Arbutus Records, which released their 2011 LP, Now I Am Become. Don’t let the album’s title fool you. Tonstartssbandht is still evolving, continuously becoming something new. “We’ve become really obsessed with boogie rock and applying that to psychedelic jamming,” says Edwin of their new direction. “We try to bend what’s expected and really explore that nether space.” —BEN BARNA

To Russia with Love: “Russia is the new thing, and all these kids there are obsessed with us. We can’t book shows in plenty of cities in Western Europe, but the Russian kids will fly us and pay out of their own pocket to do a DIY thing. It’s crazy.”

Photography by James Orlando

Jason Chung’s interest in music started at the tender age of 10. “I would save up as much as I could, not eat lunch, and just buy records,” he says. With the help of Napster, which granted him unlimited access to music before it was shut down in 2001, the Los Angeles–based musician perfected his craft, producing otherworldly sounds under the name Nosaj Thing. Since then, he’s founded his own label, Timetable, an imprint of Innovative Leisure, and collaborated with a diverse range of artists from Kendrick Lamar to Charlotte Gainsbourg. But it was his 2009 debut album, Drift, that brought Chung’s talent for surreal soundscapes to the fore. This year, his sophomore release, Home, promises to trace the same, sound-shifting lines.

A Trip to Remember: “When I was 15, I tried acid for the first time and we went to the mall—I remember just staring at the Disney Store. We later took the city bus to my friend’s house, and I really thought I was on a spaceship.”

Photography by Charlie Engman

“I’ll kill anybody, but I’ll only sleep with someone I love,” says JENNIFER TILLY as TIFFANY, Chucky’s helium-voiced homicidal sweetie in the 1998 film Bride of Chucky (she also starred in the subsequent instalment, Seed of Chucky). But as far as the Oscar nominee and champion poker player is concerned, the devilish doll needs to get her priorities straight. First step: Stop the slaughter. 

Dear Tiffany,

I think a lot about your situation, and I wish there were things I’ d told you before it was too late. Some of them should be self- explanatory, but apparently not. Honestly, you are a hot mess and I don’t even know where to start, but here are some of my thoughts regarding your character flaws and things I think you need to work on.

1. Less is more. It amazes me that Martha Stewart is your idol and yet you present yourself like Kat Von D. Scrape off that makeup and go au naturel. What are you afraid of—that people will see the real you?

2. Your mother was no wise woman. It’s nice that she had a saying for everything, but I can’t believe she never told you not to take a bath near electrical appliances.

3. You need to be kinder to your houseguests. When Damien wouldn’t roll over in bed, for example, it was because a) he was chained to the bedpost, and b) he was dead, so for you to get all petulant and start pushing and kicking him was just immature.

4. Please stop smoking. It was bad for your health when you were a human, but smoking is even worse when you’re a doll. Besides being a fire hazard and smelling bad, it causes your plastic to degrade.

5. Unprotected sex always leads to unplanned pregnancies. It’s admirable that you had the forethought to ask Chucky if he had a rubber, but when he said, “Baby, I’m all rubber!” you should have stopped right there. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings by saying this, but you and Chucky are not psychologically prepared to be parents. Which leads us to…

6. Your kid needs help. Not only is he/she swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool, but it has also really messed with his/ her mind having you two as parents. Your insistence that she is a girl and dressing her in pink bows followed by Chucky’s insistence that he’s a boy and taking him on hunting expeditions is tearing him/her apart!

7. Co-dependency. You have a co-dependent relationship with Chucky— there, I said it! I know you think it’s very glamorous, the two of you running around like a pint-size Bonnie and Clyde, that it’s something you share that most people can’t understand, but you need more than a mutual interest in murder to bind together a relationship. Chucky is very abusive to you! Not only did he kill your mother, but he killed you as well. Twice!

8. Impatience. The problem with you, Tiffany, is that you like to take shortcuts. You want everything to be easy and quick. You’re lazy, you practice “voodoo for dummies,” you let bodies pile up in the closet. When you tried to quit killing, I noticed you were reading A Guide for the Busy Addict: 12 Steps in 3 Days. Well, not exactly reading—you were skipping ahead to get to “the good stuff.” But it doesn’t work that way. Killing is a serious addiction and not something that’s cured overnight with a self-help book.

9. Finally, you’re a mother now. It’s not appropriate for you to be running around like Britney Spears in torn fishnets and bloody clothing. It’s time for you to put away the machete and grow up.

I hear they’re not using you at all in the next Chucky movie, and that’s a good thing. You’ ll never have a career in Hollywood with that voice. You sound like a cartoon character. You need to take some time off from show business to work on your personal issues.

With much love (and trepidation),

Jennifer

PS: I’ve given up that giant house in Romania, so don’t bother looking for me there. If you need to discuss anything in this letter, please contact my new assistant.

For as long as she can remember, Teresa Palmer has led a double life. “I’m a 50/50 person,” she says over coffee at the Urth Caffé in Beverly Hills, smiling at the realization. Palmer, who was named after Mother Teresa, is here to promote the zombie love story Warm Bodies, the latest film from director Jonathan Levine, who, incidentally, is also responsible for the surprisingly winning cancer comedy, 50/50.

In Warm Bodies, which costars Nicholas Hoult and John Malkovich, Palmer plays a woman torn between the emo zombie R (Hoult) and her aggro human boyfriend Perry, played by Dave Franco, who Palmer admires for his avoidance of Young Hollywood clichés. “There are too many tortured artists in Los Angeles,” she says. “It’s just so refreshing how much he loves life.”

Palmer’s own experience with the Hollywood machine wasn’t always so amicable. After a brief career in Australia’s minor film industry, Palmer, whose childhood was split between her mother’s public housing apartment in Adelaide and the rural paradise of her father’s farm, scored her first break when she was cast as the female lead opposite Tom Sturridge in Doug Liman’s time-travel caper Jumper. Two weeks before shooting, the film’s producers decided to recast both leads with older actors Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson. The decision crushed Palmer, then 18. When she finally bounced back with a role in the horror film The Grudge 2, the experience of being on a Hollywood movie set overwhelmed her. “I was still an outsider looking in, and it was exciting but it was overwhelmingly scary and isolating,” she says.

At 26, Palmer is already a screen veteran. Her body of work up to this point has been an intriguing mix of indie fare (December Boys with Daniel Radcliffe, the vacation thriller Wish You Were Here) and studio servings (the ’80s-set comedy Take Me Home Tonight and the alien saga I Am Number Four). Although she’s tasted success, Los Angeles constantly reminds her of its ruthless ability to quash dreams at random. “There are so many women and young girls who come out here with these huge hopes,” she says. “The majority of them are left fighting for it day in and day out, having to take waitressing jobs. I see it in people’s eyes.”

Palmer’s eyes, however, are confident and calm, those of someone who was recently given a shot at the A-list by Terrence Malick. The reclusive director cast her in his upcoming Hollywood-set story Knight of Cups, alongside Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, and Christian Bale. According to Palmer, Malick phoned her a day before the shoot to inform her she’d been tapped for a major role. “That was the most surreal phone call that I’ve ever had in my life. Hearing that the next day I was going to be filming a Malick movie? I didn’t have any time to prepare! I didn’t even know anything about my character.” Minimal pages of scene exposition were sent to Palmer, but the rest remained—and still remains—a mystery. “I’m not really supposed to talk about it because his films are always very secretive, which I love.”

But she knows that no matter how much professional satisfaction she achieves, it’s not enough to feed her soul. “I recently did sensory deprivation meditation,” she says. “It’s unbelievable. We turned off the lights and meditated in silence for five minutes, and then we started chanting. We didn’t realize that by the time we finished we’d been sitting there for 65 minutes.” Her devotion to meditation and Eastern philosophies led her to create Your Zen Life, a website she launched with friend and fellow Aussie Phoebe Tonkin. To keep the balance, Palmer, along with Tonkin and actor Tahnya Tozzi, founded Wood Cabin Pictures, a production company whose first film starts shooting next year. “I feel like I’m a swinging pendulum,” she says. “If I can strike a balance, I’ll ultimately be very happy.”

Photography by Hilary Walsh

It hasn’t been long since Dominic Lord (formerly A$AP Dom), the Harlem-based ex-A$AP member, made his break from Rocky’s crew and started calling his own shots. His first EP, Fashion Show, is a mix of the rapper’s two great obsessions: fashion and music. “They have a connection,” says the 19-year-old Harlem native. “If you got some dusty-ass clothes on and you hear your favorite song, how you gonna move?” With the release of his visually stunning video for the Fashion Show single “Pierce,” it’s becoming clear that neither the fashion nor music worlds will know  what hit them.

When did you start thinking about fashion?
That’s what I was always into. It was more like shit first, like just dope cool. And then it got higher, you know, it gets crazier so then you start doing other shit, just taking it a different way, but that’s what I was always into, fashion. But not necessarily fashion though, it’s like designing shit, creating shit.

What is the relationship between fashion and music in your eyes?
If you don’t see that, then I don’t understand it. Because you get dressed every day, you listen to music every day. It’s the daily relation you know. I think anything you do every day has a relation. People spend so much time on categorizing shit it’s retarded.

Does what you eat define you?
You eat every day! In the hood they might say like yo, I’m gonna eat this nigger up, like, I mean you cut niggers. You know what I’m saying? You’re eating food! It may sound crazy and farfetched, but it’s like what you do every day. You live today. The energy that you put in to categorize some shit, I’m actually living some shit. Diddy lives that way. You think Diddy takes Viagra? No homo. I don’t think so, yo.

Do you think it’s better to aspire to be a brand rather than just a person who makes music?
I think you should be a person and then you should brand yourself.

What’s been your most surreal moment, drug or non-drug related?
You think I do drugs? My Most surreal moment was when I went to go see The Avengers a few months ago. I went with my fucking cousin. We got two drinks right, I’m looking at The Avengers, right. Why the fuck was Samuel Jackson in it? That was surreal to me. Because I’m already thinking it was supposed to be like super excited, action action action, then I see Samuel l Jackson, like bro, you should just play enforcers, like really play an action role. Who the fuck is in control of that budget? Why are you scouting Samuel L. Jackson for Avengers?

Because he’s in everything.
Ok but the movie could have made so much more fucking money. When I looked at that shit I was like oh fuck no, they just fucking blown one hundred mill right there, that’s crazy, one facial shot, done, twenty mill, bang.

If you made a movie what would it be like?
If I made a movie it would probably be a porn because that shit makes money. I might make a movie about my life, about how I used to sell drugs, how I got five baby mamas but I don’t got them no more, and how I have a stage age—I’m not really this age. This shit goes deep, yo.

Photography by Charlie Engman

PHOTOGRAPHY: Bela Borsodi

STYLING: Rhianna Rule

MAKEUP: Erin Green

MANICURIST: Holly Falcone

MODEL: Sarah Varacalli at Parts Models

PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: Juan Chami

PROP STYLIST’S ASSISTANT: Sabine Zschaubitz

RETOUCHING: Lutz & Schmitt

Two years ago, Lakisha Robinson (aka Kilo Kish) was enjoying a falafel in New York City when “some random dude” crossed the street and strode up to her with a look in his eye. “You are going to make something of yourself and it’s going to be awesome,” he told her. “You’re going to be a star.” Robinson quips, “He was probably high on meth,” but whatever he took had psychic side effects. Since then, the Orlando native—who came to New York after accepting a partial scholarship from the Pratt Institute—stumbled into a music career after goofing around in the home studio of her then-roommate, hip-hop producer Smash Simmons. “The whole thing started as a joke,” Robinson says of her musical beginnings.

Her first mixtape caught the attention of Odd Future producers the Internet, who invited Robinson to Los Angeles for a tequila-soaked recording session. The result was her self-released Homeschool EP, a structurally loose scrapbook of abstract melodies and conversational lyrics about the push-pull between past, present, and future lovers. Robinson, who earned a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology last May while balancing part-time gigs as a model and a server, has vague plans for a proper full-length, and is only now getting used to the idea of an actual recording career. “It’s really funny how things happen,” she says. “Even when you’re not really trying.”

Photography by James Orlando

Before he’d ever seen her act, filmmaker David Lynch came across a photo of SHERYL LEE that was being used to promote a Seattle play she’d been doing, and asked her to audition for the part of LAURA PALMER, the murdered homecoming queen she’d later play on Twin Peaks (and in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the show’s big-screen prequel). But corpses don’t typically get much dialogue, so Lynch, hoping to give Lee more to work with, created the role of Maddy, Laura’s doppelganger cousin. The world of Twin Peaks explored the deepest, darkest corridors of the human psyche, and no one’s journey was more grueling or lonely than that of Lee, the beautiful face behind television’s most iconic victim. For our 2012 Winter issue, we asked Lee to make contact with the ghost of Laura Palmer, which she did in haunting, poetic fashion. 

Dear Laura,

Laura, Laura, Laura
A ghost of me, you are
For one who did not want to live
You are never very far

As a soul lost deep in trouble
You gave my art a name
But if I did it all again
I might not do it

Quite the same
Pulled down from heavens’ ethers
You arrived to share my life
I instilled your death with purpose

Before you left me with your knife
I take it out from time to time
Run my fingers down the smooth blade
Is my destiny the same as yours
Or do I
Just
Simply
Fade?

My dear, sweet Laura
My doorway into death
Alive and yet not living
In this play
I am your guest

I offered my whole self
In honor of your life
And in exchange
Was tricked quite well
When you rewrote my rights

Fair, you say
Do I not agree?
Your fame
After all
Did rub off on me

It’s not what I wanted though
Had I known
I just longed for a place
And a space
Of my own

But you, my friend
Had different plans for my life
You stepped in out of nowhere
And won’t leave others’ sight

I sit alone now
On this journey of ours
Caught somewhere between
My earth
And your stars

One of Lee’s diary entries from the early ’90s, just after filming Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me:

Where do I begin? It has been a little over a month since we stopped filming. In a way, it seems like years and in another, only yesterday. As I sit down now to write this, so many emotions arise. The gift and the experience that you gave me are beyond expression of words. I am aware that your death also allowed an old part of myself to finally die… a very self-destructive part. Through you, I came face-to-face with my own dark side. I feel as if I have lived a whole lifetime in those two short months of filming. I will never forget how, the week after we finished, I suddenly became aware that my thoughts were my own again. My mind and my life had been completely occupied by you. You came to me morning, noon, and night—especially night. That was your time, the darkness of midnight. You continually wove your spirit into my dream world, revealing bits and pieces of yourself, myself, and our fears and struggles. The thing I remember most about you, though, Laura, is your loneliness. That loneliness haunted me. Walking back into my empty hotel room by myself each day, left to deal with the fragmented pieces of my own life, your loneliness would still fill my room. My prayer is that you are now someplace where you are truly loved and at peaceful rest.

Much love and gratitude,

Me

KORAKRIT ARUNANONDCHAI
Painter and sculptor, Age: 26
Hometown: Bangkok, Thailand
Currently resides: New York, New York

Can you recall your weirdest, most vivid dream?
I was hanging out in the soccer field of my all-boys Catholic high school.  In front of me was the school’s church, which resembled an upside down Noah’s Ark. I walked toward it. Next thing I knew, a ghost of Johnny Depp appeared. He was like, “Come check out my first solo show.” Then all of a sudden, neon glowing trees appeared on the soccer field. I later made some glowing tree sculptures. Maybe it was my subconscious at work.

Your installation, 2012-2555, has a rave-like vibe. Are you at all inspired by rave culture?
Street fairs, lit-up buses, and even funerals have this over-stimulating decorative quality to them in Thailand. There’s something about these aesthetic experiences that parallels what happens in rave culture. That indefinable feeling is what inspires a lot of my work.

Is 2555 the year that it’s all going to end or begin?
The world as we know it isn’t going to end or begin in 2555. I could be totally wrong though.

Photography by Charlie Engman

Acid flashbacks. Thorax removal. Zebra-loving gerbils. Cult music parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic lives up to his name when he takes our patented questionnaire.

Lori Petty chased her breakthrough performances as an orphan surfer in Point Break and a baseball player in A League of Their Own with a giddy portrayal of a sexually charged , post-a pocalyptic anarchist in Tank Girl, the 1995 adventure comed y about a dystopian 2033 where water is so scarce it’s worth killing for. In 2008, she co-wrote and directed The Poker House, an autobiographical story about her painful childhood starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chloë Grace Moretz. Here, Petty takes aim at an altogether different— but equally explosive— blast from the past.

How’s tricks? Blow any shit up today? Never mind. I’ ll just follow the smoke and sirens. If we’re lucky, there will be wet firemen.

Why is it that everywhere I go, you go? (I couldn’t hide from you if I tried.) Just the other week I was at Warner Bros., standing there in my panties during a costume fitting, when a young costumer walked in sporting a huge, colorful tattoo of you on her forearm. You’re a timeless little freak. Bitches who weren’t even in kindergarten in 1995 love you. But that’s no secret. When I bike down Ocean Front Walk in Venice, which is daily, they’re always mistaking me for you. It’s nice to hear, “I love you,” yelled in my direction every day from strangers. Thank you for that.

Your joy and fearless glee, your laugh, your balls-out freedom—like N.W.A before you, you saved the world and told the truth (and pissed off the popo). And you can fly. Always years ahead of these fuckos, you were (and are). Bet still can’t nobody tell you nuthin’.

While I’m directing youngsters who end up making millions (they’re young and beautiful and talented and rich as fuck, and I’m only old and beautiful and talented), other famous girls their age are getting poison shot into their lips—and foreheads and knees and elbows—before they can legally drink champagne. I’ d like to hear how many ways you could say, “Maybe you should go fuck y’self,” if someone told you to get implants in your butt.

I suppose you could have married a big movie star like Jet Girl did. Or you could have married one of your agents like several of the other ones. Meh. We’ve always been more street-smart than movie star–smart, so we’ ll just leave that to the professionals.

I remember the red roses in silver ice buckets at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, where we stayed on our press tour. I remember our parade led by a female motorcycle gang in Hamburg from the Louis Armstrong Suite to a basement full of flawless drag queens. How about our party in London at the infamous Roundhouse? I remember us turning down forced call times every few days so that our crew members wouldn’t die while driving home from a 24-hour workday. (And being screamed at for it.) I remember you laughing.

1995. I suggest you stay there. It’s mad funner. Just keep showing your ass and talking your nasty shit. Go get your Ph.D. in glamour and patience from the Reverend Malcolm McDowell, then cut off his head. (He’s a bad, bad man.) And your friend the prophet Ice-T is really 50 people, all of them nice. Stay alive, Tank Girl. Live to be 1,000 years old and stop wasting beer, FFS. And don’t cut any of your bits off. I miss you.

Forever yours,

Lori Petty

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins with a degree in industrial design, Isamaya Ffrench has explored body paint and developed her passion for extreme makeup. The London-based makeup artist now works with notable names like Nick Knight, Garage, and Dior. Here, she lets us in on the items she just has to have.

Clockwise from top: Whitesnake Poster, Kenji Kawasumi Coat, David Koma Dress, Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, Nasir Mazhar Backpack, Carven Shoes, J.W. Anderson Top and pants, MAC Cosmetics Acrylic nail polish, Céline Top, scarf, and bag, Leif Podhajsky Album artwork, Chanel Shoes

On March 21st, 2002, a 13-year-old girl name Milly Dowler mysteriously disappeared on her way home from school in Surrey, England. While a massive search team scoured the region, the girl’s family called her cell phone repeatedly, leaving voicemail messages. That her voicemails were being regularly deleted suggested she was still alive, a false hope that would eventually redouble the pain of her family’s loss. Six months later, mushroom pickers in nearby woods discovered her decomposed remains. It was determined that she had been killed shortly after her abduction. The messages weren’t being listened to by Milly, but by phone hackers employed by News Corporation’s newspaper News of the World.

The Dowler case was the revelation that ignited the News Corp. phone hacking scandal. An investigation revealed that, in addition to Dowler’s phone, the hacker employed by News of the World targeted the phones of family members of deceased British soldiers, victims of the 2005 London terrorist attacks, and political officials. The list of targets runs close to 4,000 individuals. The ensuing fallout launched dozens of investigations in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. News of the World was shuttered after 168 years of operation, and Rebekah Brooks, the paper’s editor during the Dowler affair, resigned, was arrested, and currently awaits trial. The public was outraged. Phone hacking had been elevated to an issue of national significance. British MP Tom Watson told an interviewer, “[This case] moves phone hacking into a new league.”

But if the News Corp. scandal signaled a more vicious incarnation of phone hacking, did it also suggest that phone hacking was at one point less heinous? Phil Lapsley, who’s currently putting the final touches on his definitive account of the practice, says it does. In his forthcoming book, Exploding the Phone, Lapsley outlines the fascinating history of the telephone network, and offers a window into the innocent emergence of phone hacking.