ten good things (june 2006, better late than never)
10. so, my official (fake) reason for holding off on this post is that i wanted to wait till i'd seen the boredoms at the starlight ballroom friday night, which was even more fantastic than i figured it'd be. i guess technically i saw the vooredoms, which is the official name of the new, three-drummers-at-once fourpiece version of the boredoms responsible for vision creation newsun and things since.
anyway, yamatsuka eye spent a good bit of the night playing what appeared to be some sort of souped-up theremin, but instead of making weird doctor who noises it made great big boredoms noises-- and did so in-step with eye's physical theatrics... a VERY HAPPY MARRIAGE, indeed. the crowd was a funny mix of real young and real old, and several of my old-skool-homiez came out of the fucking woodworks, reminding me that the last time i saw the boredoms was in fucking 1995 (eleven years!!!), and with many of the same people.
as i was doing my usual, sweaty, over-enthusiastic dance-in-place i thought of all the harvey-pekar-esque forty-somethings in the audience and how i will gladly, one day, be one of them. the entire experience renewed my faith not only in live music, but also in the uncomfortable spectacle of myself bopping around in place to live music, which occupies the same sacred space for me as the jitterbug once did for my grandmother-- who to this day claims that my pop-pop's ability to do this dance was what made her stay with him for the rest of his life. (my grandmother is awesome.)
but more on dancing a bit later...
(this is probably my favorite boredoms album cover, but in all honesty i don't own the record!)
9. if i wasn't so accustomed to being a bad cinephile lately (for good reasons-- makin' art and going out), i'd be re-watching the short films of artavazd peleshian right now instead of typing this (thanks again, returning). like the work of dziga vertov sixty years prior, peleshian's films deal with life in all of its magnitude-- there is movement instead of storyline, events instead of conversations, sounds instead of words. but peleshian is a less gluttonous filmmaker than vertov, and the peculiar, indeterminate logic with which he selects his images separates him from the increasingly familiar trend of "look-at-how-beautiful-the-world-is" movies (baraka, waking life, microcosmos... haven't seen any of the -stasi movies yet, though... i kinda hate philip glass). his films are too violent and vulnerable to properly fit such quasi-new-age-y-ness (enjoyable as it often is). instead, a fresh, intuitive space emerges between the physical properties of film itself (cropping, cutting, bodies moving, etc.) and the fog of memory invoked by its imagery. this tension is particularly engaging in 1975's the seasons, where a series of often violent rituals formed loosely around the practice of sheep-herding seem somehow to amount to a universe unto itself. it has to be seen to be believed...
(1970's les habitants is available for download on ubuweb's miraculous film page, if you're interested...)
8.
...once in a while, usually just after a paycheck, i make my way to one of those asian import dvd stands in the mall. and it's always a strange experience when i do. for starters, they tend to assume i'm another token indie kid in search of lady vengeance (or kung fu hustle, or house of flying daggers or whatever). but when i inform them that, on the contrary, i'm actually looking for eight diagram pole fighter, usually the dude (and it's always a dude)'s eyes light up a bit, and a weird conversation ensues. it always involves price-haggling, chit chat that leaves me feeling like an absolute kung fu flick amateur (which i am, at the end of the day), and-- on more than one occasion-- attempts to sell me porn (or in one case, a dude asking me if i'd seen ichi the killer in a tone i found HIGHLY UNCOMFORTABLE). i always leave amused and bewildered, and reminded of the odd cultishness of kung fu (as well as my own weird investment in it... possibly my most dude-like attribute).
7. the smell of jasmine rice in my rice cooker has got to be one of the finest scents in the world-- up there with popcorn and coffee and girls.
6.
the final segment of paul bowles' novel the sheltering sky really threw me for a loop. it's a pretty engaging novel anyway, being particularly good at maintaining a strange and even tone, but i found the third act to be the most elusive and essential. maybe it's just that it finally breaks with the familiar, existential predicament of bored westerners in exotic locales-- trading in a tired, vanguard ennui for something truly and alarmingly catatonic. it's not even as simple as saying i like it, actually. instead, it's something that felt important to experience, and to think about, and i'm far from finished with the impression it left me with as we speak. (comments? interpretations?)
5. i'm really digging the new record by itavayla (i still can't make umlauts on my damn computer), which (confusingly enough) is titled itavalta. itavayla is an off-shoot band of finnish psych/prog/metal weirdos circle, and take a similar delight in mish-mashing a lot of contradictory sounds and styles. loosely framed around some idea of stoner rock, itavalta slips convincingly from goblin-esque atmospherics one minute, only to arrive at a hawkwind-style jam session the next. and it's all done rather loosely, with a vague sense of humor reminiscent of trans am, minus the smugness. i'm not doing a very good job describing this, so have a listen:
itavayla, "future representation" mp3
4. as of, umm, tomorrow, my new roommate will be gabe (who's long-abandoned lj is here, if you care). gabe is my oldest friend. i've known him for almost 26 years. i can remember being jealous when he got armpit hair before me. his mom eats thanksgiving dinner at my folks' house sometimes. he's the closest i'll ever come to having a brother, or a gay lover, or both, or somethin'... here we are back in 2000 next to that giant t. rex outside of joshua tree national park (which i miss dearly):
once upon a time i didn't wear glasses...
3. as if the remarkable work of avant-garde-disco-visionary arthur russell wasn't already uncategorizable enough, i find his love ballads particularly strange and resonant. there's something humble and awkward about them, especially when plopped in the middle of the otherwise whole-heartedly dance-able world of arthur russell compilation recently released by soul jazz. they're like the awkward wallflowers of the album.
but they're also beautiful, simple little songs. they remind me a bit of the raincoats, or even animal collective. but sweeter and sappier than both. sappy in a good way. check it out:
arthur russell, "a little lost", mp3
2.
i can't stop thinking about eloy de la iglesia's low budget horror flick cannibal man (a recommendation from dellaluna... whose new and improved blog you should all be reading). made at the tail end of the franco regime in spain, it is heavily evocative of the italian giallo genre at its best-- meaning lots of swanky atmospherics, lurid violence and a cool soundtrack. there's also a well-written script that eventually makes room for a surprisingly resonant bit of social criticism, handling homo-eroticism, class envy and redemption with far more subtlety than many a sanctified "classic" of its day (suffice to say i found this film's thesis far more compelling than, say, the more typically "cinematic" one put forth in bertolucci's the conformist). one thing i love about good genre movies is that their most intelligent moments always seem to emerge on the sly-- they're always crafted to seem incidentally meaningful instead of deliberately articulate. i feel like i have a little room to breathe while thinking about them, i guess...
1. and now, an unpopular observation...
there comes a time in the life of many a bookish, prudent and un-funky white man-- usually following an unprecedented mix of alcohol, peer-pressure and introspective self-hate-- when one must throw caution to the wind and finally, once and for all, hit the dance floor. mine came somewhere around 1997 and--as is usually the case-- the results were liberating and memorable and atrocious and embarrassing. and when it was over, i emerged a little looser and less irritable, and-- provided you didn't get me talking about foreign films or art theory-- maybe even occasionally fun to be around.
at any rate, it occurred to me that nothing more perfectly encapsulates the experience of this very-necessary-life-moment than the abject spectacle of michael stipe's dancing. stipe's strut embodies this little life-lesson at the nerve center of its vulnerability itself. there is literally nothing cool about it. its joy is too sober to muster any hypnotic allure... it's effeminate, but entirely lacking in sass... it prances forward in complete indifference to basic human dignity, wearing its distasteful shiny-happy-people-ness like a ten gallon hat in a line dance to "achy breaky heart"... reminding all in its path of that elemental, narcissistic buffoonery that is so (unfortunately) intregral to expressing one's self in any capacity.
...dude, the boss totally knows what i'm talkin' about here...
and finally-- having found no conceivable escape from its elemental purity... having been caught in the headlights of its horrifying honesty-- i stand before you (a full fifteen years after mr. stipe donned the yellow child's cap) with the following confession:
i like michael stipe's dancing.
(i can't help it.)
anyway, yamatsuka eye spent a good bit of the night playing what appeared to be some sort of souped-up theremin, but instead of making weird doctor who noises it made great big boredoms noises-- and did so in-step with eye's physical theatrics... a VERY HAPPY MARRIAGE, indeed. the crowd was a funny mix of real young and real old, and several of my old-skool-homiez came out of the fucking woodworks, reminding me that the last time i saw the boredoms was in fucking 1995 (eleven years!!!), and with many of the same people.
as i was doing my usual, sweaty, over-enthusiastic dance-in-place i thought of all the harvey-pekar-esque forty-somethings in the audience and how i will gladly, one day, be one of them. the entire experience renewed my faith not only in live music, but also in the uncomfortable spectacle of myself bopping around in place to live music, which occupies the same sacred space for me as the jitterbug once did for my grandmother-- who to this day claims that my pop-pop's ability to do this dance was what made her stay with him for the rest of his life. (my grandmother is awesome.)
but more on dancing a bit later...
(this is probably my favorite boredoms album cover, but in all honesty i don't own the record!)
9. if i wasn't so accustomed to being a bad cinephile lately (for good reasons-- makin' art and going out), i'd be re-watching the short films of artavazd peleshian right now instead of typing this (thanks again, returning). like the work of dziga vertov sixty years prior, peleshian's films deal with life in all of its magnitude-- there is movement instead of storyline, events instead of conversations, sounds instead of words. but peleshian is a less gluttonous filmmaker than vertov, and the peculiar, indeterminate logic with which he selects his images separates him from the increasingly familiar trend of "look-at-how-beautiful-the-world-is" movies (baraka, waking life, microcosmos... haven't seen any of the -stasi movies yet, though... i kinda hate philip glass). his films are too violent and vulnerable to properly fit such quasi-new-age-y-ness (enjoyable as it often is). instead, a fresh, intuitive space emerges between the physical properties of film itself (cropping, cutting, bodies moving, etc.) and the fog of memory invoked by its imagery. this tension is particularly engaging in 1975's the seasons, where a series of often violent rituals formed loosely around the practice of sheep-herding seem somehow to amount to a universe unto itself. it has to be seen to be believed...
(1970's les habitants is available for download on ubuweb's miraculous film page, if you're interested...)
8.
...once in a while, usually just after a paycheck, i make my way to one of those asian import dvd stands in the mall. and it's always a strange experience when i do. for starters, they tend to assume i'm another token indie kid in search of lady vengeance (or kung fu hustle, or house of flying daggers or whatever). but when i inform them that, on the contrary, i'm actually looking for eight diagram pole fighter, usually the dude (and it's always a dude)'s eyes light up a bit, and a weird conversation ensues. it always involves price-haggling, chit chat that leaves me feeling like an absolute kung fu flick amateur (which i am, at the end of the day), and-- on more than one occasion-- attempts to sell me porn (or in one case, a dude asking me if i'd seen ichi the killer in a tone i found HIGHLY UNCOMFORTABLE). i always leave amused and bewildered, and reminded of the odd cultishness of kung fu (as well as my own weird investment in it... possibly my most dude-like attribute).
7. the smell of jasmine rice in my rice cooker has got to be one of the finest scents in the world-- up there with popcorn and coffee and girls.
6.
the final segment of paul bowles' novel the sheltering sky really threw me for a loop. it's a pretty engaging novel anyway, being particularly good at maintaining a strange and even tone, but i found the third act to be the most elusive and essential. maybe it's just that it finally breaks with the familiar, existential predicament of bored westerners in exotic locales-- trading in a tired, vanguard ennui for something truly and alarmingly catatonic. it's not even as simple as saying i like it, actually. instead, it's something that felt important to experience, and to think about, and i'm far from finished with the impression it left me with as we speak. (comments? interpretations?)
5. i'm really digging the new record by itavayla (i still can't make umlauts on my damn computer), which (confusingly enough) is titled itavalta. itavayla is an off-shoot band of finnish psych/prog/metal weirdos circle, and take a similar delight in mish-mashing a lot of contradictory sounds and styles. loosely framed around some idea of stoner rock, itavalta slips convincingly from goblin-esque atmospherics one minute, only to arrive at a hawkwind-style jam session the next. and it's all done rather loosely, with a vague sense of humor reminiscent of trans am, minus the smugness. i'm not doing a very good job describing this, so have a listen:
itavayla, "future representation" mp3
4. as of, umm, tomorrow, my new roommate will be gabe (who's long-abandoned lj is here, if you care). gabe is my oldest friend. i've known him for almost 26 years. i can remember being jealous when he got armpit hair before me. his mom eats thanksgiving dinner at my folks' house sometimes. he's the closest i'll ever come to having a brother, or a gay lover, or both, or somethin'... here we are back in 2000 next to that giant t. rex outside of joshua tree national park (which i miss dearly):
once upon a time i didn't wear glasses...
3. as if the remarkable work of avant-garde-disco-visionary arthur russell wasn't already uncategorizable enough, i find his love ballads particularly strange and resonant. there's something humble and awkward about them, especially when plopped in the middle of the otherwise whole-heartedly dance-able world of arthur russell compilation recently released by soul jazz. they're like the awkward wallflowers of the album.
but they're also beautiful, simple little songs. they remind me a bit of the raincoats, or even animal collective. but sweeter and sappier than both. sappy in a good way. check it out:
arthur russell, "a little lost", mp3
2.
i can't stop thinking about eloy de la iglesia's low budget horror flick cannibal man (a recommendation from dellaluna... whose new and improved blog you should all be reading). made at the tail end of the franco regime in spain, it is heavily evocative of the italian giallo genre at its best-- meaning lots of swanky atmospherics, lurid violence and a cool soundtrack. there's also a well-written script that eventually makes room for a surprisingly resonant bit of social criticism, handling homo-eroticism, class envy and redemption with far more subtlety than many a sanctified "classic" of its day (suffice to say i found this film's thesis far more compelling than, say, the more typically "cinematic" one put forth in bertolucci's the conformist). one thing i love about good genre movies is that their most intelligent moments always seem to emerge on the sly-- they're always crafted to seem incidentally meaningful instead of deliberately articulate. i feel like i have a little room to breathe while thinking about them, i guess...
1. and now, an unpopular observation...
there comes a time in the life of many a bookish, prudent and un-funky white man-- usually following an unprecedented mix of alcohol, peer-pressure and introspective self-hate-- when one must throw caution to the wind and finally, once and for all, hit the dance floor. mine came somewhere around 1997 and--as is usually the case-- the results were liberating and memorable and atrocious and embarrassing. and when it was over, i emerged a little looser and less irritable, and-- provided you didn't get me talking about foreign films or art theory-- maybe even occasionally fun to be around.
at any rate, it occurred to me that nothing more perfectly encapsulates the experience of this very-necessary-life-moment than the abject spectacle of michael stipe's dancing. stipe's strut embodies this little life-lesson at the nerve center of its vulnerability itself. there is literally nothing cool about it. its joy is too sober to muster any hypnotic allure... it's effeminate, but entirely lacking in sass... it prances forward in complete indifference to basic human dignity, wearing its distasteful shiny-happy-people-ness like a ten gallon hat in a line dance to "achy breaky heart"... reminding all in its path of that elemental, narcissistic buffoonery that is so (unfortunately) intregral to expressing one's self in any capacity.
...dude, the boss totally knows what i'm talkin' about here...
and finally-- having found no conceivable escape from its elemental purity... having been caught in the headlights of its horrifying honesty-- i stand before you (a full fifteen years after mr. stipe donned the yellow child's cap) with the following confession:
i like michael stipe's dancing.
(i can't help it.)