Ghosts I - IV

Guest Post by Lady Cameron XIII

Alright. Where do I begin, mes amis ? Well, it started when I came home from work yesterday. One of our fellow Lilly Towners/frikis, RondasX, tweeted to me about Alizée's new single due out in November, and provided me links to her official website and her MySpace.

When I first looked at the two images Lili (or someone else) placed at those locations and on her Facebook, the first thought was that these were really good charcoal drawings; I realize that, of course, those may have just been Photoshop'd from two photos to look that way, but these were good nonetheless. However, upon closer examination, I began to wonder where Lili was going with these images...

In short: Alizée as we knew her is dead, buried alongside that teddy bear under the tree of dolls.

How did I come to this conclusion? As I examined the images presented before me, I couldn't help but notice that it appears as if we came upon our Lili's death bed just after she had passed on from this mortal coil. The fact the images were presented not only in black and white but as charcoal drawings only helped to spur my theory forward.

It would make sense, after all; from what I've read about Lili and her body of work, it would appear that up until now, others helped shaped her image, whether it was Mylène Farmer or anyone involved with her last album (if I am wrong here, do let me know).

From what I gathered from Lili's Spanish Wikipedia entry, though--and with a little help from Google Translate, as well--it seems that while she has a team to help shape her current work, this one is all her this time, music and lyrics.

Also: She did just turn 25. Being a quarter of a century old is quite the milestone; being a quarter of a century old /and/ accomplishing all that Alizée has accomplished... 'tis not just a milestone, mes amis. 'Tis a freakin' monolith!

Thus, these images signify, IMO, a closing of a chapter, a turning of the page (cue Bob Seger now, s'il vous plaît) on Lili's wonderful life thus far.

But I digress.

So, I took to Twitter and posted my thoughts on the images. Rondas suggested they were a bit Tim Burton-esque in nature--which I do agree with here--and in turn, the gears in my mind began to spin...

Go back a couple of years. Remember when Trent Reznor and his merry band of mercenaries began leaving clues about a new album while touring--the USB drive with a high-quality copy of "Survivalism" left in a bathroom stall in Germany or the tour T-shirt with a hidden code printed in broad daylight that eventually led to the first of a series of increasingly disturbed web pages come to mind--and all of the attention it brought before and when "Year Zero" finally came out?

I got to thinking, "If Trent can do that, why not Lili?"

Little did I know...

After going on about this through a few tweets with Rondas, I opted to take a shower before going to work on a little problem I had with my version of Linux and PulseAudio. While I was in the shower, though, another thought came to me:

"You know, I should check the source code of Alizée's official site. Something might be there."

Now, what prompted this thought was that years ago, another band I followed--The Sisters of Mercy--did something similar with their website, as seen here, taken from the Live News page of the band's site: http://www.twitpic.com/mbf9y/full. Easter eggs, as they are called. I figured if Andrew Eldritch can leave a snarky comment about potential opening acts playing on-stage with The Sisters, then why couldn't Lili do the same thing, but not as vitriolic?

So, after I finished my shower, I headed back to my laptop, pulled up Lili's official website, and right clicked to "View Page Source."

This was what I found: http://www.twitpic.com/mb2ee/full

Nothing out of the ordinary, really. All that stuff is there to make the page render nicely, is all... except for that green text my cursor pointed to. What's going on here?

I had to know for myself.

I had to open Alizée's Box.

I copy and pasted the URL into Firefox and found this interesting Flash movie of two guitarists interacting with a woman in the dark while a keyboardist plays away, all accompanied by this strange, dark, film noir-ish soundtrack.

The woman appeared to be giving direction to her two guitarists in this film, but then decided to break the fourth wall by turning to us and smiling before going back to work.

I figured there was more to this file, though, so I let it play for about five or so minutes.

Nothing.

I left the page to report my findings to Lilly Town and tweet more about it.

Then, I decided to look again...

Lo and behold, the second Flash movie appeared, this time featuring one of her guitarists and her keyboardist, who appeared to be playing along with the hook of the soundtrack.

Further, unlike the first film, the second scrolled from right to left, which, with the wisps of smoke coming into view and combined with the aforementioned soundtrack, really started tipping the WTH?! meter into the red.

I told Rondas to reload while I did the same. After reloading the vid the first time or so, I was taken back to the first...

And then, I reloaded one more time.

The third and final Flash movie came into view. It scrolled from left to right as did the first, and the creepy soundtrack was still there, and, like the other two, ran in a perpetual loop as well.

At first, Rondas thought the woman in the film was Mylène Farmer, as her hair did appear to be a bit red. I agreed for a while until I played the film once more, when I noticed that it was an extreme closeup of the first video, and that the woman was, indeed, Lili.

After that, everything exploded.

So, we have two images show our Lili in a state of post-mortem, but what of the three Flash movies? What is going on with those?

And what is with the creepy music?

And why is the website called "A Child of the Century?"

I have no idea, mes amis. I really don't. Maybe those were just teasers, those films. Maybe she wanted to tell the world, "Oui, I really am working" or something like that...

But maybe, just maybe, they, like Lili, point to something in the works.

Can you imagine Alizée going on-stage as Alizée Jacotey?

Something wicked this way comes, my friends, and we... are along for the ride. Hang on.

-Lady Cameron XIII

UPDATE

I just figured out what that soundtrack was: It's a funeral durge.

Link it back to the two "death bed" images of Alizée. Make sense now?

-Lady Cameron XIII

Alizee Nation