Chuck Pahlaniuk's "Pygmy"

The expression devices of operative terrorist agent called Pygymy in novel also of the name are part of the time hilarious and annoying chore other part of described time. But so is most of esteemed corrupt capitalist pig author Pahlaniuk's work, so "Pygmy" is successful mission of the satire kind. 13 year old is Pygmy, operative agent of classified foreign nation, embedded in evil American suburbia in order to destroy religion propaganda distribution outlets and decadent female-pleasing vibrator exchange parties and cheery families that use self-descrition of "team". Agent armed with swift penis-detaching moves like Viper Snake Ball-of-Thunder, and also agent armed with courage-infusing quotes by inspirational heroes like Che, Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro and Mussolini. Unfortunately, Americans dense with Red Bull and informercial brain-clotting and unhelpful to terrorist mission, so when Pygmy asks Walmart Greeter:
"Revered soon dying mother, distribute you ammunitions correct for Croatia-made forty-five-caliber, long-piston-stroke APS assault rifle?"
She direct him to sporting good aisles, and Pygmy frustrated by inefficient weaponry.
Pygymy even have to join school of imperialistic training and participate in degrading oppressive mockery of Model U.N., and, more than the bad, Pygmy chosen to represent blood-thirsty, life-depriving fat cow of American States because nobody else even wants to.
Pygmy mission funny for a bit, but then assessive reader may perpetrate some thought and prepare summary situation that concludes Pygmy is basically Stewie from "Family Guy", and Pahlaniuk's joke, as xenophobic illiterate racist superstitious tabloid-buying Church-going porn-spreading perverted Americans say, a "one-trick-pony."
Giggles, though, are to be acquired from reported book if confusion not eliminate your interest.

Greg Rucka's "Queen and Country" Volume 5: "Stormfront"

Talking about killing for queen and country... How perfect. Tara Chase does James Bond better and more realistically than Ian Fleming ever did. Bond never had to deal with PAPERWORK and ever so volatile issues of diplomacy. Bond villains could be told a mile away by the twin Hindu bodyguards, or the diamond-encrusted revolver grafted onto the stump of a left arm, or the kitschily patrician name like Baron Herman Von Silverbullet. Chase's enemies look like bureaucrats, or like cops, or like pretty much anyone, and are all the more deadly for it. This is my favorite Q&C volume so far. It starts with the death of a certain beloved character, a death that must be avenged... but CAN it? And it goes on to the snows of Georgia, the better to show the blood spots. (That's Georgia the ex-Soviet country, not the state that cradles Hotlanta.) I love Greg Rucka. I really do think those Kodiak books of his are calling me. Oh, where art thou, time of idleness?

Marc Forster's "Quantum of Solace"

While it's not the post-"Casino Royale" letdown I'd been warned about, "Quantum of Solace" does feel like a pit-stop on the way to new Bond revelations. The man with a license to kill for queen and country is here defeated by a very underwhelming foe, Mathieu Amalric from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". I kept thinking: "He's practically dictating his evil deeds one paraplegic wink at a time, Bond! What can you be scared of?" "Quantum of Solace" does everything "Casino Royale" did, but not quite at the same level of freshness- even Ukrainian hottie Olga Kurylenko is a step down from Eva Green, (what's with the tan? Is she supposed to be Latin?).

The plot is no more laughable than any previous one in the series, in fact, what might have seeemed cartoony on the screen turned out to be prescient (another corrupt Latin "presidente"? Oh, wait, there's a bunch of those!) There's one dog fight here that should blast your synapses away but is shot in all the wrong angles- (Dog fights are not between dogs, btw, but between planes). Maybe the blame lies with director Marc Forster, the adrenaline pusher behind... "Finding Neverland"? "Stranger than Fiction"? "The Kite Runner"? Jesus, what, they couldn't hire Merchant and Ivory? Merchant died, you say?
I'll be honest, I've watched every James Bond at least twice- yeah, you did not know that about me, but I'm a James Bond dork, surprise- and I'll keep on watching pretty much all the way through, or until they cast a Jonas Brother as my man JB. So I'm more than lenient on the series. I complain because I love.
A complaint a day, though, keeps the doctor away: In the "Song-Doesn't-Match-The-Title" gripe department- I kind of liked the Jack White/ Alicia Keys collaboration "Another Way to Die" but didn't we just go through Madonna's "Die Another Day"? It kind of feels like the Broccoli peeps aren't even TRYING anymore with the song names.

"The Best of Gene Wolfe"

You figure your way out through a Gene Wolfe story a world-building sentence at a time. His favorite trick is to drop you in a What-If world and set you loose to figure out exactly WHAT is the What-If. The 31 stories in "The Best of Gene Wolfe" are very very good, and if the term SF conjures spaceships and Darth Vader, and you find that nauseauting, look up Wolfe immediately. He's of the old literary school, closer to Kypling, Wells, Chesterton and Melville than he is to Robert Heinlein. As for range? You'll find it here. Very very recommended.

All right, so he's not a hottie. But that ovoid head contains universes that you shouldn't miss out on.

Martin Campbell's "Casino Royale"

Martin Campbell's "Casino Royale" rebooted the James Bond franchise by making 007 (Daniel Craig) unrecognizably apish, a thug with a bowtie that somehow manages to be more than a relic good for selling watches. I mean no offense to Pierce Brosnan, who I actually thought was excellent at portraying an icon- but I mean some offense at the stiffly formulaic movies he was encased in. (ANOTHER evil magnate steals ANOTHER weapon-of-mass-whatever!)
And yet on second viewing I find "Casino Royale's" distillation of the Bond mythos less than progressive- nothing at ALL moves FORWARD- and Craig is unable to emit a single funny line out of that handsome, fossilized face. (Where are Woody Allen and David Niven when you need them? At least Dame Judi Dench KNOWS she's being funny.)

Even the movie's best line ("Shaken or stirred?" "Do I look like I care?") is tossed off too angrily, without a single darn wink. It doesn't sound like Craig is playing with a classic moment- it sounds like he's never seen a James Bond movie, or would care to. We might as well be watching a Jason Statham movie.

The "free running" action scenes are still phenomenal. So's the under-used Jeffrey Wright. So's Miami International Airport. (They made it look like a decent place to have a shoot-out!) Oh, and of course there's a kickass credits sequence and some hottie born to be featured on Playboy or FHM (Eva Green). They can take away the vodka martinis and Moneypenny and Q and the gizmos, but NOT THE BOND GIRLS!

One more complaint on my way to "Quantum of Solace": what hapenned to making the opening sequence MATCH THE TITLE? The ditty howled here by Chris Cornell is titled something like "Shoot Another Octo-Day". I liked my Shirley Bassey better. Hell, I liked my Duran Duran better.

Sageness

"I want to know if it's meant anything," Forlesen said. "If what I suffered- if it's been worth it."
"No," the little man said. "Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Maybe."

- Gene Wolfe, "Forlesen"

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA: What's Next?

Ok, so after a year a half, the First Book in the Super Abridged Marie Antoinette is done.
YES, DONE. A NOVEL. ME. WHOOH!

What comes next, Dear Imaginary Reader, who by and large HASN'T BOTHERED READING IT?
Well, good thing you ask.
A period of editing. I want to iron the oddities in voice that come from having written something serially (and often sporadically) for so long. Take out the dated jokes, and slash all the repetition. This started as a lark, and somewhere along the way I really bought into this project, into the possibility of finishing an 8-or-so book series.
Yes, the dreaded hubris! I'm wondering if someone somewhere will want to publish this, as part of at least a 2-book deal. (Obviously this cliffhanger thing will not do.) Before that happens, I want to give people access to the first part in bulk, so they can read it at once- or in a few sittings. I'll create a separate page for it, particularly looking for editorial suggestions. As the volumes stockpile, they will be published there.

Here's the thing, and here is the loophole I got through as a first time novelist. I DON'T want to hear about how my characters are cliched and don't come alive, how my history is inexact, how it's too episodic and rambling, how the plot is not compelling enough, how my descriptions are amateurish, how I tell but don't show-

Don't like something in my CLASSIC, CELEBRATED NOVEL?!?!? Too bad, I'm liking it!!! Go take all that shit up with the BELOVED, WORLD-FAMOUS AUTHOR, BEEATCHES, MWAHAHAHA!!!!

ANYWAY, THE SAGA IS JUST STARTING!
Soon, I will offer a nice recap so anyone can join in, and then, onto the second book: JOSEPH BALSAMO!!!
As all the extra exclamation points suggest, I'm having fun. Thanks, Alex D.!

CHAPTER 65: THE FIREWORKS AND THE STAMPEDE

Andree is stunned by our young philosopher's appearance:
"Who..? Is that you, Albert?"
Gilbert's face turns all red, but since the fireworks started, that could be an optical illusion.
Andree looks away from Gilbert at the night sky which has suddenly been splashed with color, as if the clouds were putting on garish make-up, and she oooohs- Gilbert's half understood monologue has been drowned in the admiring shouts of sixty thousand people. The scaffold is lit up level by level, and when the four dolphins open their mouths to release trumpets of multi-colored flames, the crowd screams with joy. Even Andree's regal face allows herself an expression of pure childish joy, and a devoted Gilbert forgives her all.
It is then that Philip frowns, for he's noticed that while Master Ruggieri's fireworks are meant to ascend, one swirling arrow of sparks has been let loose in a most horizontal manner, directly into the mass of people, like a cannonball.
"That's not supposed to happen..."
Singed people scream, and Philip's alert military gaze is directed towards the scaffold's base, where bundles of spare fireworks are kept- and he sees the authoritative shadow at once, a man who is moving decisively with a torch in his hands, followed by helpful, smaller shadows.
"Something's wrong. Andree, back to the carriage."
"But, the fireworks!"
Philip grabs her by the shoulder: "Listen to me, I think somebody's setting fire to..."
A hurricane of flames suddenly spits out of the scaffold and lashes at the crowd, which, singed and not understanding why, sets off on an stampede.
And with the running comes the crushing.
"Gilbert!" Philip screams. "If you do love her, get Andree OUT OF HERE NOW!" And Philip puts the stunned girl's hands in Gilbert's, and unloosing his sword, starts to fight against the rushing peasants in a patriotic but predictably ineffective attempt to get to the scaffold and stop the shadowy saboteur.
Gilbert is momentarily too thrilled by the touch of Andree's hands to hear the small explosions that are going off all around the Place Louis XV. Zigzagging fireworks are landing on stands and biting at people, people which in their panic have forgotten the "people" aspect of their personalities and are trampling each other like their tails are on fire, which in some cases quite literally are. Children shriek in the upraised arms of the mothers who are trying to save them from being pureed, while their own maternal bodies are caught in the rib-crunching pressure. The off-duty, trouble-emaking French Guard joyfully unsheath swords and swipe at any and all, leaving bloody streaks in the air which the killer fireworks are tinging with blue and green dyes.
Gilbert looks fixedly into Andree's eyes: "I know you don't love me, but at least trust me to get you out of here."
Andree quickly nods. Gilbert presses her against his side, and begins to punch his way out towards a rising monument to a side of the plaza, gaining strengt from the girl's warmth against him. He feels if he can only lift her above the crowd she will not be squished to death, as he himself is starting to be: the random punches and defensive kicks he gives out are more requited than his love ever was. All sorts of villains feel free to break sticks against Gilbert's shoulders and back. He feels nothing- protecting Andree is all, and even when a punch on the back of his head leaves him with blood dripping out of his nose, and everything starts to look double, he doesn't let go: the monument. He. Must. Get Her. There.
"Ooooh, where are you taking that pretty bird?" A French Guard makes his horse rear noisily, the hooves inches away from Gilbert's face. "Why don't you let me get her out of here in my horse? Safely?"
"I don't think so," Gilbert mutters, wiping the blood from his face on his sleeve.
"Oh, I must have made that sound like a question!" The Guard's horse bears down on Gilbert, and the youth sees with horror as a hoof kicks at his arm, he senses his bones gives way, and he lets loose of the girl. The Guard has not finished: the hilt of his sword descens upon Andree's head, and an expression of sheer terror disturbs that beautiful face as the girl falls to the pavement to be crushed by the horse.
Gilbert lets out a furious scream and drags the surprised Guard off the saddle onto the floor, bites at the hand with the sword, and even though every movement feels bone-splintering he pummels down until the Guard is elegible for disability. Should have taken that day off!

Then Gilbert runs to where Andree's body is prostrate and crouches around her. He knows he's going to die right now, because he hears the stomping of tens of thousands of crazy boots getting closer and closer- but dying like this, in the middle of a human stampede, will be worth it if his protecting body can spare Andree even the smallest measure of pain. He looks around him where the ground is already littered with the corpses that have burned or have been booted in all too sensible kidneys, and Gilbert looks at the heaps of the dead and feels less alone that he's felt in a long time.
Then a shadow covers him, and he assumes those dark boots belong to Death, but daring to raise his eyes, follows the boots up to that long black coat then up to the impassive face of-
Oh, COME ON, I think you can guess who's behind this evening's debacle!
"Master Joseph Balsamo! You!"
Balsamo looks down sadly at the boy, the girl, and then directs a look at the roaring zombies approaching. "She looks dead, and it seems you don't have much time either, young Gilbert."
Gilbert says: "But you're a magician, you can save her! Just lift her to that monument behind us!"
Balsamo cocks his head, curious: "You would like me to save her? But what about you?"
"Oh, I never mattered in all this! Please save Mademoiselle de Taverney!"
Balsamo kneels and with a strong arm picks up the limp doll's body.
"WAIT!" says Gilbert. "One last thing." And he grabs the hem of Andree's dress and kisses it. Balsamo rips the dress away: there's a spot of blood where Gilbert has kissed it.
"Friends, to me!" Balsamo screams, and suddenly a dozen or so determined looking men, undisturbed by the surrounding clamor, materialize like demons to form a shield around our magician. Gilbert's capacity for surprise has abandoned him. What can surprise one in Death? He mutters happily:
"I kissed her dress... She's saved. Now, I die."
And he lets go as the trampling wave crashes on him.


THE END!!!

Of Book 1 of The Super Abridged Marie Antoinette Saga: Andree & Gilbert.

I know I know, what a Tease!

Book 2 of the Super Abridged Marie Antoinette Saga coming VERY VERY soon!

CHAPTER 64: THE TWO PARTIES

Dumas says:
History is to the novelist what a mountain is to a tourist. We take pictures from a distance, but we don't want to climb all up in there and end lost in the snowy expanses and eating our own feet in despair.
Similarly, we're not going to talk too much about the magnificence of the actual marriage of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. It happened in a fine evening, May 16, 1770, it was glorious and half of France sparkled in the aftermath. There.
After the wedding, the King Louis XV, (Robert De Niro), is like: "It's nine o'clock. My back hurts. Let the masses celebrate. I already had my own royal wedding. This deja vu is giving me the creeps. I need a nap."
The Dauphin (Jason Schwartzman) and the Dauphiness (Kirsten Dunst) retire to their nuptial quarters.
The crowds of spectators, however, throng the well-lit gardens and the courtyard of Versailles. They have been waiting for fireworks, a display of light and splendor up to then unprecedented. They're expecting a Pink Floyd laser show.
But nature does not always submit to our will. Like Alanis famously put it:
"It's like raaaaaaain on your wedding day."
Right after the first celebratory firework explodes in the sky, a deluge unfolds itself upon the gardens of Versailles, as if the lights had pierced the pregnant sky. The lines of candles along the lands are drowned, and people scatter like a flock of frightened birds. There was hail that night, too. Parisians were pelted all the way home, and the fireworks will have to wait.
An omen?
In the morning, the rain has lessened to a drizzle, but Versailles is hardly recognizable. The prettiness of the garden has turned to a muddle, lightning has whipped some trees down into crippled shapes. King Louis XV didn't have a good night at all. His back has been bothering him, and the rain seem to whisper songs against the monarchy. A more nagging nightmare has pursued him through the night.
He gets out of bed, and walks down the hall with a determined, manic glare on his face, and without knocking, pushes open the doors of the nuptial chamber.
What does he find?
To the left of the room, there's a startled Marie Antoinette, dressed in a long white unblemished robe, kneeling in prayer before an icon, perhaps asking for the end of the watering ram which has been beating against the window and has in fact slightly flooded the room.
All the way to the right, there is the Dauphin, silently rocking in an armchair. Not so so silent, actually, you can hear the splish-splash as he rocks on the flooded floor.
In the middle, there is the marriage bed. Neatly made. Untouched and virginal. Exactly the same way it was the night before.
Louis XV doesn't say a word to the "newly-weds". He closes the door. He sighs:
"Yeah, I kind of saw this coming. All that time spent cleaning clocks and prancing around the gardens in elaborate masquerade parties. Darn."

On the 30th of May, climactic conditions finally allow for the HALLUCINAtory fireworks. The city of Paris is ready to celebrate the wedding of the Dauphin and the Dauphiness, the future King and Queen, by gathering around the Place Louis XV, centered on a tall equestrian statue of the King.

60,000 people come to gather around the statue of the King in his horsey, and there is a circular scaffold set up around it from which the fireworks are going to be shot TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT. Everyone wants to get a good view: boys climb trees, women bring chairs with parasols, gypsies magically invent "perfect viewing stands for 2 bucks!" It's a big party with the usual barrage of opportunists out to sell "Marie Antoinette <3 Louis XVI" shirts.
And there's cops, of course.
Except that there's a problem. The French Guards have been let out for the day. Now, usually these cops are brutal thugs about preserving the peace, but because the City Government figures it's a Holiday, this celebration, it has decided to NOT pay the cops for the day. So the French Guards are brutal, thuggish, and, for once, they don't HAVE to preserve the peace. In fact, they get a chance to mingle with the crowds of thousands. Ever seen an off-duty cop out for mayhem?
So, gypsies shelling memorabilia, pick-pockets all about, disgruntled cops on the loose. Trouble is brewing.
But at first it looks peaceful enough, kind of like this David Teniers picture times six thousand.

The little gamins, that is, the ghetto kids of Paris, the boys that are let looose and see everything first, have already elected their position. Then the fancier nobles arrive in their carriages, some of them rent windows at the surrounding palaces to get the best views. People who don't have reservations or good seats just mingle with the crowd, and even though there's some time before the action starts, it's already very packed; pushers and shovers are finding the best angles for the big show, and if in the pushing and shoving some old lady gets trampled- isn't it worth it? For a better view of the spectacle?
After all, tonight's pyrotechnics are designed by a certain Master Ruggieri, who is more than ready to overcompensate for the earlier, wedding night fizzle-works over at Versailles. That scaffold around the statue is decorated with four huge Dolphins, each facing a cardinal point and from their mouths the muilti-colored lights will flare, symbolizing four great rivers- the Loire, the Rhone, the Seine, and the Rhine.
Oh, also, those dolphins spewing rivers? Supposed to symbolize the Dauphin spewing you-know-what all over Marie Antoinette.
Except we know the Dauphin hasn't spewed much of anything, has he?
The illuminated scaffold is like a cone, really, terminating on a tip on which rests the Earthly globe. It's a huge structure that, when fully sparkling will symbolyze coitus at a cosmic level quite quite well.
So there's the crowd, and the carriages, and it's hard to move. In fact, the incoming carriages make it very difficult for the crowd stationed here to move away from the scaffold should they have to- they're locked in- concentric circles of carriages press on and on. On the carriages, many uncovered, there are ladies who are flummoxed when the average jean who passes by their side whistles at them or mocks their prissyness. "Get down with the crowd, lady!"
One of those carriages, which arrives to the event just short of nine o'clock, is trying to make its way to the governor's door, but traffic is terribly jammed, and the horses are getting restless and not above chomping off a peasant's shoulder here and there. This carriage is swimming in a river of people.
"Swimming in a river of DIRTY people," says the Baron of Taverney, (Gene Hackman), for it is he who is in this carriage, and his daughter Andree (Keira Knightley) and his son Philip (Heath Ledger) are sitting before him as he rants: "Gypsies, tramps and thieves! Andree, don't you dare peek out of the window, you know some raggabumpkin will try to kiss you and will destroy your make-up!"
Andree says: "Father, if we could only get the carriage to turn to the left, I know we would have a good view, but as it is, I can barely see. I want to see pretty fireworks!"
The Baron of Taverney leans out of the window: "Coachman, my daughter wants you to turn to the left, aren't you listening?"
The coachman: "I can't move! If I do that, I'm going to crush ten people!"
The Baron of Taverney: "Make it fifteen crushed bodies. I'm a good tipper."
Philip and Andree: "DAD!"
The commoners mobbing right outside the carriage hear this: "Hey, who do you think you are, a Baron or something?"
The Baron of Taverney: "Damn right!" (gives them the finger)
People start getting menacing, banging at the door. Philip says: "Look what you started! I'm going out with the people, I can't stand it in here."
Andree: "No! You're going to get killed. It's a mob! People are trampling on each other!"
The Baron of Taverney: "If these people only knew I'm the Baron of Taverney! If they knew I'm dangling my daughter before the King's eye! I would get the best parking spot in the city!"
Andree: "What did you just say?"
Philip: "Yeah, I can't take anymore either. Sister, let's just join the crowd, I'll protect you."
The Baron of Taverney: "What, you're just going to leave me here all alone? Bah, I don't care about fireworks, I'm just here because everyone else is. Go on! Don't get herpes out there touching the peasants!"
Philip opens the door of the carriage, and the commoners stand back. He gets down, makes space for his sister, and she steps out. The people ooohhhh and awwwww. Andree is very beautiful, and beauty is respected even in the midst of mobs. She smiles at the effect.
Philip gallantly says: "Shall I escort you, sister?"
Andree puts her arm around his: "Of course, dear brother. See how they make way for us? How lucky."
Philip: "No, I think it's just that they're noticing a beautiful woman."
Andree: "Oh, please."
Behind them a third voice says: "You are, you know. Beautiful."
Andree turns.
Gilbert is standing there.
He lowers his head.
"I... I knew you would be here. I have been looking for you. I have been looking for you sooooo long. I know it seems wrong, I know I'm not worth it, but I've loved you for ages. And I've always come after you. And it's not like I'm stalking you, is more like, I'm just drawn to you by chance. And these things happen, and these parties happen, and it always ends up like this, just you and me. And there's a million people around, but it just feels like you and me. I think.... I think you should give me a chance. Because maybe it's meant to be. Because I love you."
Andree is stunned.
And then the fireworks start.

"Black Lagoon" and "Black Lagoon: Second Barrage"

From a virgin spring to a black lagoon.

Rei Hiroe's "Black Lagoon" is a two-season-thus-far anime series that plays like a grounded "Cowboy Bebop". Except forget the ground: The mercenaries and bounty hunters of the Black Lagoon company are saltwater mammals, and high-seas piracy is their bread, butter and bombs.
An unfolding amoral tale of maritime hi-jinks, "Black Lagoon" follows subservient office drone Rokuro Okajima as he becomes the hostage, (and then willing member), of said pirate crew, which includes tough calculating Dutch, support-techie Benny, and the irrepressible Revy- the kind of anime girl who spends so much money on bulletproof vests that she forgets to buy jean shorts long enough to actually cover the full roundness of her ass.
But who's complaining?

The plots are by turns exciting, slightly quirky, and philosophically pretentious, as any otaku can expect: A deep-sea quest for Hitler's last known painting becomes a scathing satire of neo-Nazism and then becomes an examination of wheter any war can be called good when it ends with corpses rotting in sunken submarines. The fish swimming through the eye-sockets can't tell between Axis or Allies.

A third season- or "barrage"- is announced to premiere in Japan this August.

CRITERION: Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring"

Wes Craven's opening salvo, "The Last House on the Left", (which was recently, inexplicably, remade) does emanate from Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring". You don't often hear of Bergman quoted in Freddy Kruegger's ancestry, but "The Virgin Spring" is a tight horror story of its own. The dread mounts in unforgiving blacks and whites- (you know the story: a young girl is raped and killed, the evildoers end up accidentally taking shelter at the girl's house, and the parents proceed to avenge the death.) Great as this movie is, what jumps to my attention is the gradual loss of cosmic interest in the three versions.
In the 1960 film, Bergman's question is: How can a just God watch over these horrors and do NOTHING? Bergman's sly answer may be that there is simply no God, but note that the movie ends with a miracle.
In the 1972 film, Craven's question is: How can our SOCIETY allow this? Craven's answer is that the kids may not be alright, but it's because the parents are kind of fucked up too. (Which, again, forecasts the twist in "Nightmare on Elm Street": your parents MADE the monsters that haunt your dreams.)
In the 2009 film, the only question is: How much water can we pump into the fountain soda before people realize they're being ripped at the concession stand?

Anonymous' "The Farce of The Worthy Master Pierre Patelin"

So yes, as we already know, the word Tragedy comes from the greek Tragoidia, meaning "Goat-Song", and Comedy comes from the greek Komodia, meaning "Komodo-Dragon-Song".
...
I find it hard to believe I would be the first person in the history of the English language to say that! Someone must have gotten there first. ANYWAY, "The Farce of the Worthy Master Pierre Patelin" is a popular French comedy of the 1300's, a distant, hard-to-fathom era in which lawyers and businessmen were always screwing each other out of money by means of sophistry and sheer heartlessness. The worthy titular Master Patelin is a lawyer who gives a local merchant an I.O.U in exchange for a suit he will repay "ASAP"- then absconds with the fancy outfit and pretends to have been sick for the last 13, 14, 15 weeks, as his willing wife testifies- so it must have been a GHOST the merchant gave the suit to! It all concludes on a delirious court scene in which a key witness pretends to be a sheep. This must have been the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather of the one in the Marx Brother's "Duck Soup"...


...which in turn gave birth to this one in Woody Allen's "Bananas"...



...which in turn lecherously tried to feel up the one in "Legally Blonde."
No Pauly Shore, "Jury Duty" comments here.

Jarvis Cocker's "Further Complications"

Jarvis Cocker, the once-upon-a-time voice of Pulp and now solo explorer, is fine with going back in time. Not just musically- although "You're in My Eyes (Discosong)" is a sunny slice carved off the bloody side of 1979, and "Leftovers" is knowingly reminiscent of Pulp's "Common People"- but also sexually. He must be pushing mumbledy-some years by now, but that 23 year old "Angela" girl still has the young flesh he'll like to sink his teeth in. Still seedy, funny, and a little snarly in that glam way, (treasure his breakdown at the end of "Homewrecker"), Jarvis makes it safe for aging Brit-pop lovers to get back to the dancing even as the worries of impending divorces and recessional firings circle outside the club. It's frothy, fun stuff, but then he never said he was deep.

David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is so aware that it's very very good that it loses all respect for the capacity of your bladder. That said, it has the world-building attention to detail one demands from David Fincher, and the dedicated acting we expect from Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, so by all means pee right into your Dockers, discard, buy new ones. That's why the good Lord invented Wal-Mart.
It's curious how little interest I had in this movie during its initial, acclaimed theatrical run. Having read the F. Scott Fitzgerald story it's based on, (not to mention "Back to the Seed", the MUCH BETTER, similarly themed story by the great Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier) all I felt was: "All right, so he ages backward and ends up as a kid. The make-up and FX people go home loaded with shiny statues of naked men." The story seemed explicit, unspoilable: indeed, Eric Roth's script, (which is naggingly reminiscent of his own work in "Forrest Gump"), may be masterful, but you don't go home quoting its assertions about life, time, and miracles; you go home thinking that he could have told the story much better with some 40 minutes excised from it.
What I forgot, (thankfully Fincher reminded me), is that there's a lot more to a great movie than WHAT happens in it, or even HOW it happens. A movie isn't a seven page story- a movie is GREAT HATS, and awesome furniture, and city views worth pausing and making screensavers out of, and storms at sea, and rain that swells musically and falls at convenient moments so that nature is at sync with the emotions plastered on the flawless face of a star in close-up. And "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has all that, not to mention an impressive supporting cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Taraji P. Henson and the long-missing Julia Ormond. So yes, you should go watch it right now, if you haven't yet. But pee right before.

Or, you know, use the pause button.

Anonymous' "The Mystery of Adam"- and the Scapegoats

It ain't quite "Year Zero", but there was a rather loose re-telling of the Book of Genesis touring mid-European towns in the middle of the 12th century called "The Mystery of Adam". Medieval Mystery or Miracle Plays more or less unwittingly recreated the ancient Greco-Roman experience of cathartic religious theater. (Curiously enough, they were MORE removed from the Greeks and the Romans intellectually than we are.) Strict re-iterations of lithurgical drama gave way to endless variations on the COOL STORIES. The separation of Church and State is a silly modern hang-up; the separation between CHURCH and THEATER is the true metaphysical problem. To this day, Southern Church-goers will talk about feeling the Spirit coming over the congregation, probably unaware that the same Spirit also comes over the exhilarated participants of the currently running "Hair" revival.

What I find most intriguing about this classic Miracle Play is the deviation from the Adam-and-Eve fig-leag motif. I think it's thoughtful and innovative, and obviously an invention driven by stage necessity: here Adam and Eve are NOT naked in Eden, but rather richly clad, and after the eating of the fruit the awareness of their sin leads them to rip their clothes apart and cover themselves with dirty leaves in expiation. Interesting medieval twist.


I suppose I should state my intellectual understanding of the myth, which flows well enough with the religious consensus (as much as there can be consensus on these things): Adam's eating of the forbidden fruit leads him to the awareness that he is naked, an animal, it elevates his thinking, it leads him to questions of choices between good and bad, awareness of SIN, etc- hence the election of leaves to cover the nakedness before God. God WANTS the nakedness, the free spontaneous actions and sexuality of animals. Most animals aren't great sinners, but they also aren't great thinkers. The shame, the perception of sin, the wanting to HIDE things is God's tip-off that man is AWARE, closer to GOD-LIKE, which is a big No No for that jealous, rather insecure Old Testament God. THERE is the original sin of mankind: Pride. Wanting to be like God. How is this sin redeemed and forgiven? Through a sacrifical lamb, a Scapegoat. What's a Scapegoat? The embodiment of a sin that is then killed so that the sin goes away. What's the Embodiment of man's SIN of wanting to be like God? Well, there you go, a man who says He IS God. The death of THAT man is the only thing that can expiate for mankind's Original Sin.

I realize I've stated the Christian arch a little more bluntly than most Christians would like it, but that's what the story means, and that's what a sacrifice is. If Jesus wasn't a symbol of man's greatest transgression, and if His death didn't free mankind from Original Sin, then he was just another cult-of-personality-wacko among the many thousands that have stepped to the microphone and gathered followers.

Back to theater. It happens THERE so that it doesn't have to happen HERE. The play, the opera, the movie, the TV show, the videogame, they're the Scapegoats. All our fears and horrors and sadness and idiocies and transgressions go away if we put them up there and start talking about the stupid things we've done, and how we can avoid them, or do them better.
Surely you know the word "tragedy" comes from the greek Tragoidia, "GOAT-SONG", right?

Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest"

It's beastly out there on Indie land. There used to be a Panda Bear but now there's a Grizzly Bear, and there are Mountain Goats, and also Deer, with Hooves AND Hunters and now TICKS! As for Mice? There are Modest ones, Dangerous ones, some are even on Mars. And what about Foxes?!? A whole Fleet. I'm telling you, it's a veritable Animal Collective. It's terrifying for old foggies like me.

Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs"

Don't! Don't watch Pascal Laugier's "Martyrs"! It's a really really GOOD horror movie! TOO GOOD! As far as fear goes, the best I've seen in ages! Look away! You don't want to see this! You really don't! Unless you know you can take it! Don't come puking and crying to me if you think you're so tough and you've seen it all and you're desensitized by videogames and the horrors of FOX news! This is some really well done, really fucked up disturbing shit!!! Your kids can NOT watch this ever!!! This isn't some pussy PG-13 movie about a cute little vampire! This is not one for the drive-in! There are no black cats jumping out of closets so the girls can make out and the boys can feel boobies! If a cat jumps out out at your face in this movie, it's because it will claw your eyeballs out, digest them, shit them out, smear the end result over over your face, then ram itself up your nose cavity while you scream for the pain to end, and then kitty will scratch your brains like it's a meaty ball of yarn until your only thought is how to best bash your skull against the wall to make this horrible existence go away as quickly as possible.

Ok.

Don't say I didn't warn you.


Unlike the Italian, (this film is dedicated to Dario Argento), the French don't really have that much of a horror tradition, other than giving the world the Hunchback of Notre-Dame and the Phantom of the Opera and the ocassional "Haute Tension", (which is worth your horror time if you accept that it's directly ripped from Dean Koontz' "Intensity", which is sad, and has an impossibly bad end "twist".) But that's all changing, and here they've come up with the best Catholic torture-porn movie since "The Passion of the Christ". And by best I mean it's a repugnant, cry-for-your-mommy, vile, there-is-nothing-good-in-the-world kind of movie. But that's what I call SUCCESS in horror.
I can not stress this enough, this movie is only for MATURE ADULTS WITH SOLID MINDS who LIKE AND UNDERSTAND THE HORROR GENRE. If you fulfill both conditions, this is bliss, painful, excruciating bliss. If you do not, you should not watch this, and you will not want to, trust me.
A clear distillation of a life watching world cinema, "Martyrs" is the end result of an equation that goes pretty much like this: Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc"+ Alejandro Amenabar's "Tesis"+ Michael Haneke's "Funny Games"+ Hideo Nakata's "Ringu"+ David Slade's "Hard Candy"+ Eli Roth's "Hostel"- (the last one a movie the director particularly claims to detest and whose glitzy, enjoy-the-carnage aesthetic he's, in a way, refuting.)
In 1971 a girl is rescued from a torture center. Fifteen years later, the traumatized child has grown up and she's trailed by a friend as she attempts to take revenge on her torturers, and what follows is horrifying and totally unpredictable. The two young ladies are played by beauties that are stunning even through the battle scars- Morjana Alaoui and Mylene Jampanoi- but beauty rots as good as anything. The plot is thin- just like a body stretched apart to the limits of suffering- and almost laughably improbable- THANK GOD- but it's also significantly more clever than the usual gorehound's meal, which means that while you're scooping up the vomit from your shirt front you'll think: "Oh, it's very intelligent, how effectively that was filmed." By the time the religious imagery of martyrdom pops up, you might be tempted to think that this movie has advanced to a higher level of philosophical discussion, but don't be fooled: this is just a horror film, a very smart one, one that the director is as conflicted about as you are. He made something truly horrible, and he's proud of that achievement, but also as scared of it as you or me.
Definitely watch the Making Of, btw. You will NEED to feel like this movie involved, like, cameras and catering and make-up and special effects and press junkets and editing. No actual humans were harmed.

The King is Dead

What Elvis was to my elders, Michael Jackson was to my generation. Just like Elvis, Michael was a creature of music that bridged musical genres and cared little about race and all about imagination, we saw the transformation from someone who was adorable to a being of pure observed madness- just like Elvis, what we saw wasn't always pretty. We were aware that we were participants in the formation of something that could not relate to other human beings under any kind of normal circumstances, and who therefore was trapped in a world of spectacle. But what a show he gave out! Look past the tabloid allegations, past the idiosycracies, past the family spats and past the surgical nightmares, past the millionaire playground built in tribute to a carefree childhood he never had truly experienced and could only perpetuate through a grotesque arrested adulthood... The fact that we WERE willing to look past all that testifies to the amount of love and goodwill he'd generated. I'd grown with Michael in the '80s- the first music video I ever saw in Cuba was a smuggled Betamax copy of "Thriller", which TERRIFIED ME and yet INTRIGUED ME, (it came with John Landis's explanation about the special effects)- and I UNDERSTOOD then, all these monsters and things aren't REAL, there's no need to be afraid, they're CREATED, they're SPECIAL EFFECTS. And they're fun... And you can DETACH yourself from the scary and understand mortality in a more accepting way... And there was Michael to let me know, with that final wink, that of all life is an illusion.

With the dissolution of my first SERIOUS relationship, after our two year anniversary, I was driving my car in tears knowing that this was it and it was irrevocable. I knew it would be wise to park, I was no longer in control, and I gathered my breath and then the radio played "She's Out of My Life", in one of those moments of synchronicity that inevitably suggests to mystics like me that there's more beauty and magic in this grand show that we could ever deserve:

She's out of my life
She's out of my life
And I don't know whether to laugh or cry
I don't know whether to live or die
And it cuts like a knife
She's out of my life

It's out of my hands
It's out of my hands
To think for TWO YEARS she was here
And I took her for granted I was so cavalier
Now the way that it stands
She's out of my hands

So I've learned that love's not possession
And I've learned that love won't wait
Now I've learned that love needs expression
But I learned too late

She's out of my life
She's out of my life
Damned indecision and cursed pride
Kept my love for her locked deep inside
And it cuts like a knife
She's out of my life"

Of course I cried, and you might think it cheesy and unimportant, but that song broke through everything- HOW DID HE KNOW WE'D BEEN TOGETHER FOR TWO YEARS?!? HOW DID HE KNOW THAT I NEEDED THAT SONG JUST THEN, THAT I NEEDED THE MUSIC TO CRY WITH ME AND FOR ME?"-

And by letting me know I wasn't alone, that someone else could feel the same, it somehow made the moment survivable, and I could let it all out. And when the song was done, my fingers still knew how to work their way to the ignition, I made the car start.
And I drove on.
Thank you, Michael, for letting me drive on.

MICHAEL JACKSON? AND FARRAH FAWCETT?

Next it will be disco that dies. This is sad.
And I had been making so many uncharacteristic Michael Jackson references in Hallucina, too!
The good music's still around. And to be honest, very few of us were expecting the NEXT great Michael Jackson album.

He's out of our lives :-/

George Harrison's "Let It Roll"

The quiet Beatle didn't have McCartney's seemingly endless gift for melody or Lennon's caustic inmediacy. If there's one thing you get from George is how he could transform an undiscerning sense of wonder into communal bliss. He's uncertain about everything- there's something in the way life works that is great but he doesn't know exactly what, he really wants to see his sweet Lord but he has no clear idea of what THAT might look like, or when it might happen, he just knows that the Sun is coming up and it's going to be all right. This is a nice collection from a soul that wanted to express unnameable emotions. It's good that he was quiet. He let the guitar talk.
Or gently weep, whichever.