- Hope you had a good first holiday. I will be in Chicago for New Year’s Eve, so this will likely be my last post until next week. 2013, damn I’m getting old.
- Wow… so it turns out Quentin Tarentino has similar taste to me! That makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Okay, I openly admit to not knowing who, much less seeing any of his flicks, William Witney is. Apparently he was a director who also worked at Republic Pictures with John Ford, and QT has quite an affinity for the guy. I watched Stagecoach in a film class once. And although I can respect certain scenes for plowing the way for action flicks (particularly the open range chase scene), I really found the entire thing lacking when sandwiched between movies like M or Rules of the Game. Not to be a dick or a snob about it or anything, but like it’s just an action movie from 1939. A damn good action, but still. Nothing more, nothing less. So I’ve always sort of thought John Ford wasn’t as greats as THE greats. Even Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance… they’re just sorta boring.
I thought I was on my own… the “John Ford is just an early version of Gore Verbinski” theory. In a recent interview Tarentino talked about American Western movies (as Django Unchained is modeled off of non-American Westerns, particularly Spaghettis) for TheRoot. In it he talks about how Whitney is one of his American Western heroes, and how John Ford is a racist pile of shit. And here I thought I was the only one, silly me.
- Speaking of The Root, they’ve got an impartial and practical article up right now in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings, and the media’s coverage of the event and what to do about it. Mental health in schools being the major focus.
- I’m loving the Saga #8 cover. It speaks volumes about the character. Saga is easily one of the best new comics of the last few years. Out of all the comics I read — a large variety — Saga is one of the books I consistently look forward to.
“For many years, I have been writing and following resistance movements and the new economic policy. I’ve always found that the chances of coming upon despair are much greater in middle-class households, than on the ground where people are actually fighting. Middle-class people have the choice between hope and despair, just like they have the choice between shampoo for dry hair and oily hair; they have the choice between doing politics and interior design. People who are fighting don’t have a choice; they are fighting and they are focused and they know what they are doing. They are arguing with each other a lot, of course, but that’s all right.”
- Been a bit since I posted. Had a good and lively weekend. I’ve been saying all week that the Easter creature shouldn’t be a bunny, because bunny’s are mammals and give birth; they do not lay eggs. If anything, it should be the Easter Condor. Or maybe the Easter Velociraptor. Before someone comments to tell my WHY though — while I’m writing — I know it’s a rabbit because Easter was originally a pagan holiday celebrating Spring fertility. Hence the eggs, and hence the term “fuck like rabbits”.
- Sean Hartter posted this on Facebook minutes ago:
Getting more and more excited for that flick. I know, I know… everyone and their brother is too. But if you’ve read anything I’ve posted here before about Begins or Dark Knight, you know that it’s only natural for me.
Perhaps better known in relation to Nietzsche, the concept of the Eternal Feminine is the affirmation of Platonic ideals of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful—atemporal and expressed through activities like love and wisdom. In opposition is the Will to Power, the masculine principal of finite struggles for domination.
Organized in fourteen sections, the prints are grouped thematically. Some of their titles focus on a visual or stylistic theme, such as “Mujer sentada” (“Woman sitting”) while others ground the works in an artistic tradition revisited: Cubism, Renaissance, Baroque. Still other groupings are more explicitly abstract: “Mujeres imaginadas” or “Misterio y silencio.”
For now. I’m suspending all activity at least through the weekend. I’ll likely post once or twice next week. Then I’m going to Chicago for the following weekend. So may also send something from the road via the phone. Not that anyone cares. Look at that image though, yikes that’s beautiful. Got that from THIS Flickr page, by the way (kinda beat the system by being too fast for it, I don’t think I’m supposed to be using it; but c’mon, I’m promoting the shit… and is there any damn ads on this page?? The guy’s name is Paul Bradley, and he’s good; but if he wants to sue me for promoting his art then so be it).
Well I went through a birthday, a couple different Thanksgivings, and one hell of a rough night. I hope anyone who reads this had a happy holiday (if he/she chooses to celebrate that particular one). Now, here are some links and things to get me back into the swing of things:
- The newest Black Lantern Music release is “Narcoleptic Insomniac” by Asthmatic Astronaut. He describes the tracks as outtakes from his previous release (“Super Intelligent Common Sense”), but these don’t sound like outtakes to me. Crisp, polished Electronic Hip-Hop for the future… which is now. I’ve always been a big fan of his name too.
- John from SuperPuch is calling Marc Maron‘sWTF Podcast his absolute favorite podcast out there. Quite the compliment, considering his other tastes. It’s nice to know that a guy like Maron — smart, funny, surprisingly non-political, honest — can find a home via the world wide web, when no other media outlets will have him.
- Not really all that impressed by the newest Avengers promo image. I mean, I get that’s it’s an over-the-top type of title but this screams of desperation. I think most people can agree that the best Marvel film connected to this project has been Iron Man thus far; a movie that suffered only when it tried to go over the top (the end scene with Tony and Stane makes me cringe every time I see it). On the other hand, this promo image has got my brain working. Why oh why would that character be holding up a picture of that character? Interesting.
- I’ve been away on “holiday” for a few days and haven’t been around. Although I worked quite a bit over that period so it really wasn’t much of a holiday for me. I have mixed feelings — that I won’t get into — on the 4th of July.
- I’m quite surprised that Djaffar Chetouanedoesn’t have Wikipedia page yet. Or a book deal. True, he’s only written one book that came out earlier this year, but his story and personal history is one that I would assume some publisher would want out there (perhaps not the case though if you spend any time looking at New York Times best-seller lists). I listened to part of his interview with local radio personality/all-around weirdo TD Mischke a couple nights ago and it blew me away. Forced to pick-pocket his way through northern Africa for bread, pose as Jewish to enter Isreal, pose as Muslim to escape an Egyptian prison, Chetouane roamed Western Middle-East for years on end, looking for a purpose, until finally being thrown into a military prison for his part in the “Black October” riots in Algeria, 1988. In prison he was repeatedly brutalized and beaten and burned and maimed until he made the decision that he was going to try to escape (in the interview he said he didn’t care if he died trying, he’d rather have died than lived in that prison for another month). He picked out of his cell in the middle of the night and walked past a couple sleeping guards holding assault rifles. This is the stuff of a political-espionage thriller. He said he could literally hear his heart beating. He slinked through the barbed wire fences on the outside and ditched his clothes (apparently in Algeria they often times use German Shepherds to track prisoners). He then roamed over the border into Morocco where he finally started to feel free, even surrounded by a police state’s worth of military in a country cloaked in political unrest. He eventually made it to America where he went to school to be a writer. Donkey Heart Monkey Mind is his first novel, chronicling this amazing story. Here it is on Amazon, and here’s the official site. Here is his lengthy interview with TD Mischke:
Still missing my laptop, still writing on a three inch keyboard. This is particularly frustrating cause I’m trying to write the first draft of my first novel. Yes, I have other hardware to use — typewriter, girlfriend’s PC, this device, pad & paper — but none of them contain my litany of notes/research for the damn thing. Not to mention character glossery and previous writings. It just doesn’t feel right, not having access to any of that. If I don’t get it back soon I’m afraid my goal of completing a first draft by the end of the year may slip away. Now I know how Warren Ellis… well, maybe not.
I’ve been preoccupied anyways though, with this beast of a machine. It’s an Akai MPC-2000XL. One of the SE editions, the infamous blue one. I haven’t much time with it on account of work and Valentine’s Day (I was busy searing scallops and zesting lemons that day) but am starting to get the hang of it. Or, the hang of looping at least. Looping is extremely intuitive with any MPC; it’s nothing to brag about really. Anyone who’s ever spent any amount of time playing an instrument or arranging a song would be able to setup a loop in their sleep on this machine.
My interests mostly lie in sampling with it. Something I thankfully have a little experience in. I used to import an entire song file into my Cakewalk production program, chop 95% of the song to get what I want, and trim the edges. With an MPC the process is streamlined. Immensely. I’m assuming I won’t have much trouble with it.
Then there’s setting up your own programs, time stretching, setting up a series of sequences, etc, etc. Hopefully it’ll all come with time. Gotta get going.
I’m about to go on a hoodie, gloves, and jacket wearing bike-ride. The cold is coming. The snow is coming. Seriously though, who doesn’t like Fall?? The leaves here are beautiful. Not as pretty as up North, but still beautiful. It’s sunny outside right now. All blue, not a spec of cloud, ‘cept maybe in the Western horizon. Not sure yet what I should listen to. But I have discovered recently that my very large headphones make for great ear-muffs as well as music deliverers. My Dad gave me this bike he’s had for slightly over 20 years now. It’s this old-ass Schwinn. Handle bars that swoop up and out, eventually curving to sit perpendicular to the rider. The complete opposite of mountain bike handle bars. I love that thing. She was probably so high tech in her day; one of the pioneers of a 10 speed (or more) bicycle. I don’t ride a bike like it’s some sort of statement though; I’ll leave that to the Uptowners. No idea what I’m going to be for Halloween, it’s looking to be getting too late. Something REALLY controversial… It’d be rad to go as an abortion, but how the hell would one pull that off? I’ve wanted to get a group of Ten together for years now, and go as bowling pins. You know, walk in one big triangle everywhere. I’ll say this much… two most popular costumes this year: women=Sara Palin, men=The Joker (obviously the Ledger version). Both of those will be completely overblown and overdone. Oh well. It happens every year. Excited for Local H tomorrow at First Ave. I’ve been wanting to see them there for years. Got Astonishing X-Men in the mail yesterday. If Ellis can pull this off well, this is the best usage of Globalization in X-Men since Morrison’s “World Tour” arc. I just realized that Chapter 5 in Watchmen is completely symmetrical. Pg. 1 is the mirror of the last page, page 2 is the mirror of the second to last page, etc. Awesome. Nothing here of use, or interest for anyone… of course. Shit- I’m off.
