If memory serves me accurately, my earliest exposure to cinema (as it, um, were) involved a triumverate of Care Bears movies and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. They all came out within the general vicinity of my birth/rearing, and I’ll wager that a healthy number of you who came into this world in the early to mid-eighties lay claim to the same movie influences. Watching the Care Bears at five, six, seven years old, of course, is fairly self-explanatory and innocuous enough. Viewing E.T. at that same stage in life, however, is positively frightening! There was that pervasive sense of intimidation (the government on the hunt, runs through the forest at night, faceless scientists suited up in space suits). There was that gruesomeness (E.T.’s red glowing heart, an ailing E.T.) and that violence (Elliott’s cut and blood, attempts at E.T.’s revival with defibrillators). And that intro song? Well, there's an ominous beginning if I ever heard one. But most of all, the film conveyed a sadness, a loneliness that was hauntingly indefinable to me at the time. In truth, that may have been the scariest thing of all to a wee kindergartner like myself.
Fast forward to the present. In a supremely style-inspiring interview with Pipeline, Vena Cava designer Lisa Mayock explains her outfit formula: "How about three words: Confuse and Amuse. Some kind of incongruous element is always essential—a sweatshirt worn with a beaded collar, or a long black gown with an old E.T. pin from the '80s always makes me feel like myself."
Now, for those who appreciate a dose of the sartorially unexpected, did she pin the tail on the donkey's bum or what? I don't know about you but upon reading, it was immediately evident what my next purchase was to be. In my most unoriginal move to date, I clicked over to eBay and searched for—you guessed it—E.T. pins.
What better way to achieve a sinister, supernatural and sensitive sort of discord? Though I no longer need to cover my eyes when watching the Spielbergian classic, that creepy-crawly sensation continues to linger. So much so, that I tentatively toed the line of not wanting to wear such a creature on my bosom. I've mustered the guts to don them, however, and have already purchased two such brooches. There were many to choose from, including a set of four ceramics that looked like tiny turds. In the end, I decided to go classic: a full-length of the eponymous character (in which he appears to be playing with himself?) and a cloisonne version of Elliott and E.T. Gosh, how these pins dial up the memories....
Photo credits: Full length E.T., cloisonne pin.
