PAZ MENDEZ HODES
PAZ MENDEZ HODES is wearing the Rosa no.008. She is a video producer and writer living in Los Angeles.
What is good design?
Rex vegetable peeler, $9 knockoff Dieter Rams alarm clock (the Braun one ticks too loud), black silicone spoon and spatula from Muji. Pre-industrial hand knitting, especially socks and fisherman sweaters.
I recommend Bruno Munari's analysis of the orange as product design, best quote: "Apart from juice the sections generally contain a small seed from the same plant that produced the fruit. This is a small free gift offered by the firm to the client in case the latter wishes to start a production of these objects on his own account."
Other considerations, shaped by google searching "buddha on material possessions": Does it get better as it gets older? If it wears out, can you replace it easily? Is it accessible to everyone? Does it make a boring part of your life more beautiful? If it's cheap, would you buy it even if you had to pay a lot? If it's expensive, would you buy it if you found it in Walmart?
Where do you find good design?
Once I found four Artek chairs in a dumpster.
What would you embroider onto a pillow?
First of all, I'd needlepoint (basketweave of course; cross-stitch is T-A-C-K-Y) "Kill Them All, God Will Know His Own" :)
What should we be reading?
Dream: "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" by Friedrich Engels. Reality: "Sweet Days of Discipline" by Fleur Jaeggy, because it is so sublime and terrifying that it will floor you for the rest of the year. I read it 2 months ago and I'm still lying down. PLUS it is 100 pages long. BONUS who doesn't love a story set in a Swiss boarding school?
Who is an inspirational figure?
Franz Fanon, Pope Francis.
What do you treasure most in your neighborhood or city?
I moved to Los Angeles this year - It's a messed-up place riddled with fundamental failures. But every time I go outside I still want to cry with how beautiful parts of it are. Everything looks like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, fun colors and hand painted signs everywhere. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the Flintstones, for example yesterday when I watched a hawk maim a dove amidst my neighbor's giant agave plantings. I don't drive, so when someone takes me in their car on the highway I feel like I'm in the Jetsons, like "wow what is this spaceship life!?"
What takes you to cloud 9?
When the group chat is in deep flow, when the group chat experiences blessings & success, support and love from the group chat
Do you have a soundtrack to your life?
"The First Cut Is The Deepest" - P.P. Arnold
"Blues Run The Game" - Jackson C. Frank
"Jesus Was A Crossmaker" - Judee Sill
"Ain't Nobody Home" - Howard Tate
"I'm Set Free" - The Velvet Underground
Where do you imagine you would find your doppelgänger?
My exes' exes - uncanny.
What does your house smell like?
Dream: cut flowers and palo santo
Reality: rice cooker, cabbage
What does your house sound like?
Unrelenting mosquito & paleta truck jingle with doppler effect.
What is most difficult to find in contemporary culture?
Sincerity, pleasure, accessibility
What do you find most exciting in contemporary culture?
The idea that another world is possible. Also films by Artemis Shaw, paintings by Cynthia Talmadge, sculpture by Kira Freije, design by Charlap Hyman & Herrero!
The best arthouse films?
1. now-instant.la - an LA cinema and bookstore closed for covid but now screening brilliant, important programs online. Do not miss the lovingly and rigorously presented accompanying texts.
2. Tiktok
What was your last download?
"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" by Friedrich Engels.
What do you still wish to learn?
How I can square my anarcho-syndicalist politics with my penchant for LUXURY & books set in Swiss boarding schools
What do you see outside your window?
A 1930s spanish-style bungalow courtyard: terracotta roof tiles, dwarf palms, all different kinds of ferns and figs on the balconies, cute cats sleeping on stairs. Yesterday I saw a possum hiding in one of the two-story banana trees (assume it was the same one that appeared in my living room a couple months back). Also an unidentified mammal trundling a bit too casually down the path - it was the size of a long guinea pig, stub tail, snub nose. Before you say mutant rat - it wasn't moving fast enough.
What do you find humorous?
Bathos
What is your favorite slogan?
You can't be stressed if it's not your fault!
What is the best cult classic?
The Passion Flower Hotel by Rosalind Erskine*. Aka the Tiktok version of Fleur Jaeggy. It's a fun story about a bunch of teen girls who set up a bordello in the theater of their Swiss boarding school. My mom gave it to me when I was little, her naughty aunt had given it to her. I think Ma kind of blocked out the subject matter and when I passed it on to my best friends she was horrified.
*Real name: Roger Longrigg. Plot twist!!!
What are you wearing?
I'm in bed, so nothing but Chanel #5 and a surgical mask. Leorosa cardigan wrapped around my head for warmth.
Any last words?
Send cardigans.