Word of Warning: A cursory glance of the videos featured here suggests a repressed sexuality that escapes in the form of serial killings. I am not aware of this being the case.
I would very much like to write a story that depends solely on "The Queen is Dead" for pop culture reference. It is rich. And it gets that "The king died... the queen died..." nod for all the CreatWritrs.
"The Queen is Dead" is not easy to come by. It was recently reissued on CD, which is just groovy, but "Rank" has a most excellent live copy that I, and maybe you'll, prefer.
Do you hear tympani in this song? I see no tympani in the video and yet it's like listening to thunder. Thunder and Agony. "Jack the Ripper" was a B-Sides and Rarities find for me. Someday I'll find a copy of "Henry's Dream," because the electric version is way better.
Totally thought "Get Your Rocks Off" was a new but good Rolling Stones song when I heard it. Thought the time-space continuum had split and maybe I'd have some closure on my "Beast of Burden" hang-ups. I love how shiny this video is. Makes everything look wet, or "sweaty" if you prefer.
I can't believe that I didn't notice "Police on My Back" was in "Knocked Up" until the third "screening." I guess these things happen. Lethal Bizzle has sampled it in a new song by the same name. It is "Okay". These things happen.
The really great video that goes along with the sweater song can't be embedded from youtube.com. I am cunning enough in my use of html to provide the picture you see below, but to watch it you'll have to use what I'm assuming is the Swedish version of internet tv. (The second one.)
Remember when Weezer was good and didn't just rap about drugs over ridiculous bass guitar? Remember when you could listen to a CD and have this strange experience that resembled vicarious emotional telepathy? I went to Kroeger yesterday. "Undone" was on the radio. I ended up smiling for a while.
Showing posts with label perception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perception. Show all posts
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Accidental Impression of The Duke
I was reading "Killing Yourself to Live,1" which has been easy for the first one-hundred fifty pages but the part at Lenore's apartment (while emotionally taxing) is just boring. Sad joke at the end of the chapter is great though.
Immediately afterwords, Chuck Klosterman begins a rant on Rod Stewart which includes the revelation that the Rod Stewart box set Storytellers is 4 CDs in the essential 600 disc CK road trip collection.2 The rant ends with the conclusion "Rod Stewart may be a blond clown, but everything he says is true." Which I just had to say out loud, and I did, but I was laughing so I ended up impersonating John Wayne as good or better than Kurt Russell does in Deathproof.3
_______
1Which means that this blog entry is (a) of no consequence, (b) a joke, or (c) (a) or (b) but adheres to a standard of at least 85% veracity.
2yes, 600 essential CDs. So far there's Kid A, OK Computer, Hunky Dory, Drive-by Trucker's Southern Rock Opera, The soundtrack to Girl, Interupted, Highway to Hell, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and possibly Thriller, Shania Twain's Come On Over, Boston's Boston, and The Eagles greatest hits from 1971-1975 but that may have been a joke.
3Didn't you just crack up seeing Kurt Russell do the Duke? I nearly split a gut. My mom doesn't like Deathproof, or many other movies I like, but that's neither here nor there. She was upset that Kurt Russell is the bad guy. (I'm sorry.) Does this make John Wayne the bad guy? Is he just the bad guy to non-white, non-males?
I mean Kurt Russell is unemployed. My grandpa would not like him. (Stuntman Mike, not Kurt Russell, sorry.) Where is the connection? Is it the scar? Did KR say "OMG! I do the coolest Duke impression. You guys gotta see this!" and then Quentin Tarantino said, "zOMG! We should totally film this shit?"
I think it's a possibility.
Seriously though, was the Duke laughing while people were filming him?
Is there something to the fact that an honest impression of the Duke can only be created while laughing?
Who is the clown here?
Immediately afterwords, Chuck Klosterman begins a rant on Rod Stewart which includes the revelation that the Rod Stewart box set Storytellers is 4 CDs in the essential 600 disc CK road trip collection.2 The rant ends with the conclusion "Rod Stewart may be a blond clown, but everything he says is true." Which I just had to say out loud, and I did, but I was laughing so I ended up impersonating John Wayne as good or better than Kurt Russell does in Deathproof.3
_______
2yes, 600 essential CDs. So far there's Kid A, OK Computer, Hunky Dory, Drive-by Trucker's Southern Rock Opera, The soundtrack to Girl, Interupted, Highway to Hell, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and possibly Thriller, Shania Twain's Come On Over, Boston's Boston, and The Eagles greatest hits from 1971-1975 but that may have been a joke.
3Didn't you just crack up seeing Kurt Russell do the Duke? I nearly split a gut. My mom doesn't like Deathproof, or many other movies I like, but that's neither here nor there. She was upset that Kurt Russell is the bad guy. (I'm sorry.) Does this make John Wayne the bad guy? Is he just the bad guy to non-white, non-males?
I mean Kurt Russell is unemployed. My grandpa would not like him. (Stuntman Mike, not Kurt Russell, sorry.) Where is the connection? Is it the scar? Did KR say "OMG! I do the coolest Duke impression. You guys gotta see this!" and then Quentin Tarantino said, "zOMG! We should totally film this shit?"
I think it's a possibility.
Seriously though, was the Duke laughing while people were filming him?
Is there something to the fact that an honest impression of the Duke can only be created while laughing?
Who is the clown here?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
A double-bind
Inside one of those really unfairly marketed BMW M(3)s is a blonde woman,**** driving down High St. past Elena's. I've just walked by Waterbeds n' Stuff, which is selling a framed Dark Knight poster (Why So Serious?) for $25.99.* The scene where the Joker kills Gambol is replaying in my head. (Why So Serious?) My lips are moving around the words "why so serious." I look up and there's the woman: blonde hair, inconclusively dark skin, maybe from the fact that the sky is about the piss on Columbus, maybe from an adolescence of acne, maybe she tans, and she's looking at me. Is it because I'm talking to myself? Is it because I'm just so damn attractive? Is it because I'm slightly more interesting to look at than traffic?
Earlier in the week, I came back from Pittsburgh with some "dry goods. An innovation the Americans have put a lot of research into perfecting." My parents were kind enough to pick them up. Three peaches and a can of tuna rolled out of the passenger side of my truck when I pulled out my laundry hamper. I wasn't really sure what to take in first.
Food
I need food to continue living. And my continued possession of a shelter, which becomes more difficult if I have to buy food again, is somewhat meaningless if I don't have food. Food is universally desirable. If you're going to steal it, you don't have to pawn it, you can use it yourself and think "hey, I just saved some cash."
Clothing
Clothing is less necessary than Food. It is a form of Shelter, in that it provides protection from the elements, and there will come a time when I have a stupid amount of money and can do stupid things like have meals delivered to my door and ten pairs of boxers and twenty outfits and my hermetical aspirations will be realized. Until then, the potential theft of my laundry is a real threat. My hamper is more difficult to move than even the entirety of my groceries, but they also have less immediate value. Stealing my hamper is an investment of time, both to move it and to get practical rewards out of it.** I don't imagine an attendant at a consignment store will ask anyone hard questions that are generated by the intuition of "these clearly would never fit [your body-type/gender,]" but it's not like the thief is going to drop of everything at once with out saying, "I'm punishing my boyfriend/husband/brother/roommate/adulterous employer. Would you like to join me in my righteous justice."
Really, though, food is the important thing. I have clothing. Clean clothing, that I could wear, and enough of it that I wouldn't need to replace anything but boxers.
I've been thinking about this for most of the week. The order we prioritize things in. I had an ethics class in high school, a good bit of it was dogmatic, some of it was "wrong."*** We talked about instinct, which was ironically juxtaposed against a discussion of justified true beliefs three weeks later. (You're right, that's not really a juxtaposition. It was in the same class though. It's possible I merely like the word "juxtaposition." It, along with "conversely," "subsequently," "ambiguous," and "delicious," are words I use, what's the word? Often.) This was one of the things that came up. The hierarchy of happiness. I looked for it on the internet (where everything is) and I found something similar under "Need" but it wasn't exactly like that. "Love & friendship" instead of "significant primary relationships with others" & "safe birth control and child-bearing," nothing about health care or an appropriate cross-cultural education. But otherwise, that was it. Happiness is safety. Happiness is security. Happiness is knowing that when you die, some people are still living to remember you were there. To think about where you are now.
Imagine how happy I was, seeing the women in the expensive, dishonestly marketed car, knowing that now I could finish this. An epiphany. Not really. But still, sometimes writing is something I do, it's Bliss.
**all of my clothing is 38-40 in the waist, XX-XXXL in shirts. I do not believe my clothing is practically useful to the great majority of the population of Columbus. It would merely be a means to an end.
***"wrong" meaning I do not believe it exists and moreover, I have a good reason to believe it does not exist. This may be pointless in an ethics class, but we talked more about instinct than I thought was necessary. Yes, even at seventeen. We started talking about maternal instinct, mostly because its name (maternal instinct) meant that it didn't show up in men: Men are clearly meant to be nomadic, to spread seed, to be serially monogamous, etc. Arguments like "human instinct is limited to a fear of heights and the instinct to root. there are no other instincts. "maternal instinct" is a taught behavior." (not that well drawn-out) fell on unmoved ears. Whatever, man.
[**** The ad, called BMW-Independence, is to sell BMW 3-series cars. (it's really selling BMWs) It talks about what they didn't try to do. What I don't like about it is it doesn't show the product until the end, building tension right?¹ But it's not showing 3-series bmws, its showing a variety of BMWs, including a 320i with body art by Roy Lichtenstien. (Which it turns out is a 3 series, but it has an m-series engine, so I feel slightly vindicated, but not really, I just don't think there's much overlap between M3's and 3's and yet they sell them as such.)
¹What gets on my nerves about advertisements, specifically this advertisement, is this tactic, policy, subterfuge (whatever) of showing something else, like cars that aren't even old versions of the car your selling but simply cars you've put your seal on. And I guess a lot of people do this. From the people that brought you the iPod and the iPhone: here's the MacBook Air. A meritocracy, yes? We've done well before, We'll do well again. We can prove it.(You know, with our previous track record. (I watched mad men this weekend. It's actually how I ended up seeing the BMW ad in the first place. (they have an "exclusive advertising agreement"(WTF?)))) Race Car drivers are employed for much the same reason. I think we all know that the Rally, F1, and NAS cars driving really fast on TV aren't for sale in, especially in, dealerships. What's the purpose of the brand on the race car? Money from sponsors? added 08.14.08, because PQ1000 pointed out I was being vague.]
Friday, July 25, 2008
Speedball
Seven Reasons (Raisons en Francais) why you should Start to or Continue to Smoke*
Chapter One: Where a Cigarette fills in for Gainful EmploymentI wake up in the morning and ignore the pile of clothes that the bedroom is doing a really great, like promotion-worthy, job of containing. I walk into the hall, which is doubling as my kitchen, and fill a saucepan with water. In the time it takes for the water to boil, I turn on my computer, grind up enough coffee beans to cover the agitator, and clean out my coffee press. If there's any electronic mail, I either delete it or do what it tells me to do. Sometimes I wash my face.
I am always careful to navigate the growing pile of books that the living room does a less remarkable job of compartmentalizing. The only thing keeping the bedroom from getting it's promotion and all the trappings that entails is the existence of the living room. The living room's perpetual underachieving makes the bedroom appear to be worse than an overachiever. It looks like a brown-noser. It is both independent and needy. Any self-sustaining bonus points are immediately undermined by the giant orange bed it so proudly displays. I know what that bed is saying. It's saying “don't leave me” and you can't have that in the management. By contrast, the living room is easy-going and unphased. You call it into your office and hear “Whatever, I'm trying.” And you want to help that kind of employee, maybe not with a full renovation, but a bookcase and a new lamp would really help them out.
By the time I figure out what the fuck my bedroom (MY bedroom!) is up to, the water is boiling, and the automatic motions of turn off coil, dump coffee grinds into press, put water on top of grinds, stir, fit plunger on top of “press,” go to bathroom,** push plunger down slowly, pour coffee fill in for conscious thought. It is maybe not the best breakfast drink. I take medication and gulping it down with coffee creates a comical expression which has been described as “self-pitying,” “somewhere between nauseated and confused,” and “contorted.” And this is about the time I get dressed.
I really like my porch. It's no more than the staircase that connects the third and second floors to the ground, but the well midway between second and third projects off the building and almost out into the sidewalk. It is almost the width of the building. I have considered putting a plant there. It gets direct sunlight in the afternoon. I people-watch from it. This activity, along with regular classroom visits, is probably the only reason I ever put on anything other than boxer shorts. People-watching requires appropriate apparel and accessorization. The dress code is broad. Pants or shorts. Shoes are not required. Shirts don't need to be buttoned, but they should be worn. I have coffee and a cigarette when people-watching on the porch. (MY porch!) It is a necessity.
**The bathroom is, if not the cleanest place in my apartment, the least cluttered. Despite the brand-newness of my vacuum, I have no faith in it, or really any other cleaning device other than a mop and bleach. To give you a better idea of just how committed I am to this, the first place I applied to was all tile. I would have rented it too if only for three months in the hopes of manuvering myself into a comfortable month-to-month arrangement afterwords, but it had a lease lined up for September.
Innovations: New Applications for Acrylic Polymers
I'm going to invent clear luggage. Hardshell Plexiglas ones with aluminium clasps and soft vinyl ones with your choice of colored piping!*
I saw some lady using the bag that bedsets come in as a suitcase. Damn sharp if you ask me... It also occurs to me that maybe this lady is a type of performance artist. Is it perhaps easier to simply travel with see-through luggage? Probably not. Though the irony of transparent luggage in the most accessible of situations where you come face-to-bureaucratic-"face" with the very opaque war on terror is pretty delicious, I doubt that the purchase of clear carry-ons will do anything but draw scrutiny until the FAA "strongly suggests" and then "insists" you purchase it. (luggage, not scrutiny) Then it will be like going to high school again.
Other observations over Coffee & Kahlua:
-I prefer over-ripe bananas to under-ripe bananas. I find myself thinking "HA! caughtcha!" as I peel the soft banana, which is a better thought-emotion than "drat, I could have waited."
-The dryer in my apartment complex is awful. If it were a fifty cent dryer, I may have simply noticed that it was poorly named, but at 1.25 it is "awful."
-Rally's, perhaps fast food in general, is not the same without a cigarette to complete the double beef gorging.
-I am pretty resistant to the written word. I read Crooked Little Vein over Linguini and Clams and had to stop around the description of Ben Franklin's possessed rectum. I picked it up later.
b.But if it's supposed to be a joke, or a roundabout attempt to point out that something is ironic...
c. like homophobic mexicans liking morrisey...
d. then maybe I should "just fucking go with it..."
e. because I'd be screwed if people didn't do that for me.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Informational Metaphysics
That fly is four days old! Shes way over her daily allowance.
Thirty-one flavors strawberry dirt bubble Foster flamb
on one-hundred-and-seventy-five degree sidewalk cement.
Forty-one sixteen, stock-ticker red for an old Malibu;
full tank at the fifth avenue Speedway three-hundred sixteen
feet per compressed fluid, spark ignition.
Phone lines, LAN lines, calling all cars CB pulse,
microwave radiation passing, phasing, parading
through finger-stain purple silicon skies.
Green rivers of subconscious though cascading
from rushing mind mouths. He really looks quite silly
in that flight suit. Animals and humans separated
by the degree to which they are preoccupied
with matters other than survival. I think
I'll drink tea and play a mandolin. Truck Grill!
Biological statistics in neon yellow.
Theres Suzy-Q, shes five-foot-two,
loves Johnny Rotten with her chemical cloud,
and coalesced out of Elvis Costello and Jenny Sparks
in a Petri dish with electric pulse Tesla coil
catalyst.
Eleven Forty-three,
Seventy-four degrees,
Sunny skies, smiling faces,
and its on good authority
that Gods vacationing
in the Hamptons.
Thirty-one flavors strawberry dirt bubble Foster flamb
on one-hundred-and-seventy-five degree sidewalk cement.
Forty-one sixteen, stock-ticker red for an old Malibu;
full tank at the fifth avenue Speedway three-hundred sixteen
feet per compressed fluid, spark ignition.
Phone lines, LAN lines, calling all cars CB pulse,
microwave radiation passing, phasing, parading
through finger-stain purple silicon skies.
Green rivers of subconscious though cascading
from rushing mind mouths. He really looks quite silly
in that flight suit. Animals and humans separated
by the degree to which they are preoccupied
with matters other than survival. I think
I'll drink tea and play a mandolin. Truck Grill!
Biological statistics in neon yellow.
Theres Suzy-Q, shes five-foot-two,
loves Johnny Rotten with her chemical cloud,
and coalesced out of Elvis Costello and Jenny Sparks
in a Petri dish with electric pulse Tesla coil
catalyst.
Eleven Forty-three,
Seventy-four degrees,
Sunny skies, smiling faces,
and its on good authority
that Gods vacationing
in the Hamptons.
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