Karl Bollers' "Emma Frost"

Emma Frost, the White Queen, is the iciest sexiest creature in the Marvel Universe, and I fell under her spell when I first started reading comics as a wide-eyed ref, (we're talking '94, '95 when I stumbled upon "Generation X", helmed by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo, my gateway drug to comic book dorkiness.) But the 2003-2004 "origins" story provides no actual pyschological link between the arrogant frigid intelligence of Emma's canonical maturity and the rather scatter-brained, boy-wary-yet-idolizing schoolgirl first discovering her telepathic powers. This Young Emma is only connected to the character by her talents. In fact, there is as wide a disconnect between this Emma and the grown up White Queen I worship as there is between the strip-club-worthy covers and the girly-shojo stories inside.

OUTSIDE:

INSIDE:
"Will Emma learn that she does not need Daddy's approval to make her way in life?

OUTSIDE:

INSIDE:
"Will Emma learn how to express her sensitive feelings through gardening?"

OUTSIDE:

INSIDE:
"Will Emma cheat at poker by reading into the mind of her buddies?"

On some meta level, of course, this IS exactly the kind of teasing bait-and-switch one would expect from the White Queen.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company: Shkspr Abrdgd

I saw this over at the Arsht Center Downtown, (a building that's approximately 70 times more interesting on the outside than on the inside- sort of like Angelina). I dejavued straight into 1997 when I first saw these same guys doing the old shtick at my high school. Interestingly enough I have more vivid memories of their four jokes than I do of the rest of my education, their four jokes being:
1: "We have big/ tiny penises",
2: "We are in tights, but we're totally not gay, except maybe we are."
3: "Jewish People! Oy Vey!"
4: "Hitler!"

Their typical "classy" joke: "Call me but love..." "Okay. Butt Love!"
Their typical "awful" joke: "Shakespeare wrote a play about cellphones. It was called 'The Two Mobile Kinsmen.'"

It was an education in comedy, which Dear Imaginary Readers can testify I've put to good use. The Company SORT of rushes through the 37 plays and sonnets, but not really; mostly it re-enacts "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet", and has a rap about "Othello", ('cause he's a negro!) that was whitely whack-ass back in 1997. Still, the trio of actors summon enough energy after all this time to interest teenagers into the Bard, and you'll laugh and feel smart for recognizing references to brave new worlds.

***

Two things that cannot happen simultaneously in my life is alcohol and Shakespeare, because I'm a dork that will lecture at length about what I honestly consider an unsurpassed literary legacy, greater to me are those 37 plays than any Biblical spouting, and among all the middle-brow puns, the Company stops as one of the actors HONESTLY issues this wonderful moment from Hamlet that brings a chill to any attentive ear, and wrenched a tear from my overly sensitive one:
(btw, you can't wrench a tear from an ear, only from an eye, but you get the idea.)

What a piece of work is man,
How noble in reason,
How infinite in faculties,
In form and moving how express and admirable,
In action how like an angel,
In apprehension how like a God!
The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

In one wonderful moment of "to be or not to be-ness", Shakespeare raises makind from the dust and dashes it back down. To me, the simultaneous grasp of our inmense nobility and inconsequence is the hallmark of the human mind at its most expansively beautiful- and that was Willie.

(Added bit of greatness? The punchline to the above speech has Rosencratz say: "My Lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts." A THIRD dimension of humanity, neither exalted nor debased- just grounded: Rosencratz is hinting that Hamlet has a sex drive.)

Dario Argento's "Mother of Tears"

Talk about Italians and their belief in demons and exorcists!

Dario Argento's "Mother of Tears" caps the trilogy that began with "Suspiria" and followed with "Inferno". (You remember "Suspiria"? It starred Jessica Harper, who you remember from Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories".) Dario Argento is the Pedro Almodovar of Italian "Giallos", his elaborate murder set-pieces are always secondary to the most beautifully colored backgrounds. This movie stars his daughter, Asia Argento- he's not shy about filming her soaping her breasts in the obligatory shower scene- but little else here makes sense. There's evil witches provoking murders in Rome, and Asia enters the coven and manages to solve the problem by strategically undressing the Main Evil Witch, the Mother Lacrimorum. There's also some acting by Udo Kier, Germany's alternative to Christopher Walken. Other than that, you can pass on this "instant cult classic"- after all, there's a whole mock-opera starring Giles from "Buffy" out on movie theaters.

CHAPTER 50: THE DEMONIAC

The day of celebration- with its bells, horns, and drums- is over, as Marie Antoinette and her "gay throng" move on.
Madame Louise, (the King's daughter who-has-gotten-herself-to-the-nunnery and has become a Superior of the Carmelites), doesn't even sigh as she orders that flowers be removed, hangings brought down, and lace be ripped off. The convent of St. Denis has become, once more, the sober home to prayer, repression, and covert lesbianism. It strikes me that I haven't given an actress the role of Madame Louise, but that's easily solved. She'll be played by Sally Field.

Madame Louise, our sensible, socially conscious, understanding Mother Superior adjusts her wimple and starts taking care of convent business, like polishing the spines of the hymnals, when she hears a disturbing noise.
KRAK!
That's actually the sound made by a furious black horse kicking at the stable- the horse is our old friend Djerid, who will not be treated as anything less than horsey royalty. Madame Louise is reminded that she has recently given asylum to the horse's rider, a certain beautiful Italian lady called Lorenza Feliciani, and summons this desperate woman to her presence. Lorenza (played if you'll recall by Monica Belluci) comes in tearing at her habit, all pain and misery.

LOUISE: "Draw near, my beautiful child. You said you had a secret? Why did you not confess before a priest? I can only console, not absolve."
LORENZA: "It is a secret meant for a woman to hear, and for a woman as powerful as you are, being the King's daughter. No one else can protect me."
LOUISE: "So there's someone we have to protect you from."
LORENZA: "Oh yes, a mighty evil!"
LOUISE: "Ok, you realize we're a bunch of nuns, right? If someone's bothering you, maybe you should go to see some guards or something."
LORENZA: "Mother, Pluh-Se, they can't do anything against him."
LOUISE: "Him. So who's this man?"
LORENZA: "Not a man at all. A Demon. One of Satan's Princes who has Possessed Me. I need an Exorcist."
LOUISE: "Riiiiiiight."

Here it should be noted that even though Madame Louise, like any good nun, pretends to believe in angels and demons because it comes with the territory, she still starts making meaningful motions with her eyebrows that, when translated from the French, mean: "Crazy alert, bring on the strait jackets!"

However, crazy people tend to be ugly and drool and have elaborate theories on how the arrow that killed Louis X could not have been shot by the Duke d'Oswald and instead was probably shot by a Hollander hired by Queen Katherine the One-Legged. Also, Lorenza is hot, and many among us entertain the fantasy that when someone is hot, they're not crazy, they're merely quirky, so Madame Louise gives her a free pass.

LOUISE: "So tell me your story. Keep the head-rotating to a minimum, and please, do not fuck any of our available crucifixes."


And so Lorenza tells this doleful tale, to the sound of a mandoline:

"A poor little ragazza was I, although of a proud Roman family. We didn't have much- all of my allowance was put forth to help my brother, mio fratello, advance in the Church, so that he would one day be a cardinale. I was sacrificed to his career and was sent to take the veil at the Carmelite convent at Subiaco. On that fateful giorno, mio padre set up our carriage and headed through the woods- but as I fearfully pondered my future, I heard him shout and then the click of pistols- we were being attacked by BANDITTOS!"

LOUISE: "Bandittos, really? Is that how you say that in Italian?"

LORENZA: "Sure! To my shame, I was GLAD we were stopped! I thought the thieves would take away the money we had, which was my tuition at the convent! Oh, but I was so naive, for the bandits, upon spying my curvaceous figure, decided they could steal something more than money from our family! I was dragged out of the carriage, my hands were bound behind my back, my clothes were ripped, and the men played rock-paper-scissors to see who would be the first to part my legs and..."

LOUISE: "Whoah, whoah, whoah, this is a church! I get the idea!"

LORENZA: "But just when I was closing my eyes and wondering if it was all going to be as much fun as my cousin Slutezza said it was, a hush fell upon the scene. I kind of peeked and saw a man, a most handsome dashing man with commanding features. He rode a black steed, and whistled, and all the bandittos drew back respectfully. The man uttered a strange password: "Mac." "Benac", replied the bandittos, and hurriedly restored all of the stolen money, carefully untied and reunited me with my still sobbing father. The mysterious man then walked to me, covered me with his coat, lifted my chin with one finger and said: "Lorenza Feliciani, you are now free."

LOUISE: "SMOOTH! I'm a nun and all, but, damn, a gal can react to bad boys."

LORENZA: "Oh, oh, but do let me go on with my story about being posessed by tall, dark and handsome! I thought the man must have been a protector sent by God- my father more realistically suspected he was a Mafia boss. But I liked my version way better and prayed for him tutta la notte."

LOUISE: "Your, er, Italian accent seems to come and go."

LORENZA: "Oh, do not interrupt my tristissima tale! Away from this man I felt dead to the world, sequestered in my cloister, torn from an unnamable need. SEE, he was a demon, and he had filled my soul with DESIRE. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I was saying the Pater Noster backwards, all I could think was of HIM, and I knew he was outside the convent, looking in my direction, calling out to me. And how I wanted that."

LOUISE: "My child, the advances in knowledge of the 18th century have allowed us to figure out that what you call 'posession' is called scientifically 'horniness'. The Devil is called Love."

LORENZA: "Well, I saw him again. I used to have friend from back home, a young married signora whom I missed terribly and honored me with a visit at the convent. She was accompanied by a man in a cloak, who seemed her servant- oh, but what a lie, for I knew it was HIM, right away, heat seemed to radiate from my body towards it, I felt the fires of the inferno in all my naughty parts, and while my friend was off praying to La Madonna, the man enfolded me in his embrace and, both to my horror and happiness, pressed a hand against my breast."

LOUISE: "Jesus Christ, this is the porniest chapter yet! Ave Maria, Ave Maria."

LORENZA: "I didn't know what to say, I nearly fainted, but later that night while undressing, I found that he had put a note in my bossom. The note said: 'In Rome, the man who loves a nun is punished by death. I love you. Please do not kill me.' I can't lie. I knew right there and then that the Devil had won and I would not be a nun and that all I really wanted was to find this guy and..."

LOUISE: "Enter the holy sacrament of marriage, yes, understood."

LORENZA: "My flustered state was obvious to all the novitiates, and they told the abbess, and they called on my family, but I denied it all. What a lie, when I could FEEL him at Church during Mass, even though I kept my eyes down I knew when he was a hundred feet from me, fifty feet from me, and if he had been three feet away I would have pretty much exploded with passion right in front of the altar. Oh, I was a damned damned soul! He was the Devil!"

LOUISE: "Geez, Louise, so what was this dude's phone number again?"

LORENZA: "Finally came the day when I was to make my vows, take the veil, and become a nun. 'When I am the bride of Jesus,' I thought, 'surely He'll get all jealous and smack this nonsense out of me.' Many came to the service, for the news had spread that I was lovely, and lovely are the victims the Lord loves best. The Padre raised the crucifix, and I felt like I would almost be saved. But oh what was that sudden thrill up my spine- he'd entered the Church, that man, I knew he was nearby! I looked back and there he was, staring at me, hypnotizing me, the Priest had brought out the scissors and was ready to cut my hair but I kept on burning and turning away from that cold steel on my neck! "Stay put, God damn it!" Howled the Priest, but I recoiled from the scissors and fell, faint, and the last thing I saw was my man, that demon, extending his hand towards me!"

LOUISE: (composing herself) "I don't see what's demonic about this! You had a crush, you didn't want to be a nun, and you fainted at an admittedly difficult spiritual step."

LORENZA: "But I didn't faint, Madame Louise. See, when you faint, you recover a few minutes later, half an hour later, maybe, among your friends. But when I awoke, I was no longer dressed in my dark habits.
I was dressed in a long white dress, like a bride's, and my hand ran to my hair and there was a crown of white roses there.
And my head was resting on my lover's bossom.
And we were far away.
And I later learned that three long days had passed."

John Hodgman's "More Information Than You Require"

John Hodgman's "More Information than You Require" is an interesting compendium of trivia on presidents, hoboes and molemen, but it should not be taken at face value by impressionable readers, because whenever Hodgman wanders away from his areas of expertise he makes grievous mistakes. For instance, Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Starlight Express" was not based on T.S. Eliot's Wasteland but on Ezra Pound's Cantos. Also President Bob Dole did NOT have a hook- instead he had a pencil he used to gouge out the eyes of his political opponents. A little research would have saved Hodgman the embarrassment.


I couldn't help but notice that Don Rickles is 67, Dave Barry 57, John Hodgman 37, and I am 27. Also, the numerological value of Heaven in the Jewish Kabbalah is 777. I'll leave you to draw the obvious conclusions.

Dave Barry's "History of the Millenium (So Far)"

Dave! Greedy! Couldn't wait three more years to put this out and have at least a decade's worth of material? As it is, this covers 2000- 2006- a mere six years. NO, it's much worse, only five years, because it skips 2001, (a.k.a. "The Year When Humor Died, Only to Resurrect Three Months Later in the Shape of Larry The Cable Guy.")

Call out to Perverts: I swear there's some dude in porn that looks exactly like Dave Barry and has jizzed on half of California's fake breasts. This man's my hero. Any info on him? BTW, I only know this because when the Discovery money started to dry up, Captionhouse briefly started captioning porn for pay-per-view channels. It was a noble cause: the Deaf and Hard of Hearing have needs too!

Brian K. Vaughan's "Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure"

One of the more interesting aspects of Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedures" is how the people involved in the Abu Ghraib incident were aware enough to point out that, without the cameras to pose for, they would NOT have created the torture vignettes. In a world of chronicled poses, how many of our worse actions are meant to be observed?

This Spiderman mini-series, written by Vaughan, (the finest mainstream comics writer) touches on the idea. Since Peter Parker photographs Spiderman's greatest moves from a vantage point, Doctor Octopus hires a disgruntled "Daily Bugle" reporter to serve as his parallel photographer, as part of a larger ploy. The mayhem is staged- and looking at terrorism at its most extensive, like in the recent Mumbai attacks, one gets the feeling that targets this insignificant (from a military point of view) only exist FOR the cameras, for the reporters, for the TV viewers, for the world to witness.
Without cameras to observe terror, would terror shrink in size?

...

Ok, it's a false question meant for the more conscious media to roll around in: terror will exist as long as a murderer enjoys the infliction of pain- and that sort of madness prospered long before Edison or Lumiere.

Those Wacky Terrorists!

Now I know why cousin Ahmud politely balked out of our Thanksgiving dinner! That rascal!

Louis Letterier's "The Incredible Hulk"

In honor of Thanksgiving, here's a big green turkey.

This re-boot of the character, (didn't we just watch Ang Lee's movie, like, last week?) is appropriate and competent in all respects, but it suffers inmesurably by the contrast with the recent "Iron Man." It's not in its details: the action scenes are fantastic, the swopping views of Brazil's favelas are impressive, and Edward Norton and Liv Tyler are as appropriate as Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow were. The problem is the Hulk himself- a feral smashing creature is not an interesting character because it is not a character, anymore than a volcano or a twister are characters. The Hulk says two things: "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" and "Hulk smash!!!" You wait, (NEED) him to say those things, but what do you do with the other hour and 40-some minutes? Norton has (so far) been incapable of sleeping through his roles, so he gives Bruce Banner all the humanity a silent creature that spends his time running can have, but then he's replaced with a big CGI creature with a cute haircut? Norton might as well be a supremely talented stand-in.
Within the context of this origin story, The Incredible Hulk is no super-hero- he's a super-villain with a remorseful alter-ego. I suppose we'll see what happens when, (as the movie teases) "Avengers Assemble".
What, no "Thor" movie?

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA!!! PART 1: MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. RECAP OF EPISODES 1-50

JUMPING IN TIME AGAIN!!!
Ok, so here's what you need to know, and Sofia Coppola and your history teacher have probably loaded you with reference points, but it's all pretty simple and I'll remind you and you can ask me if you're confused, but you won't be confused, because, what did I say, it's pretty simple!!!
It’s 1770. We've met the mysterious Baron Joseph Balsamo (Johnny Depp). Joseph has taken control of a worldwide cabal that's out to end/rule the world, whichever. He is guided by the wizardly Althotas (Richard Harris), who is close to obtaining the elixir of life and death. Joseph is traveling towards Paris with his Italian girl, Lorenza Feliciani (Monica Belluci), when their carriage is struck by lightning. In the confusion, the pious Lorenza escapes with Joseph’s Arabian horse, Djerid.
Balsamo is aided out of the storm by the young aspiring philosopher Gilbert, (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who leads him to the crumbling Chateau of Taverney. Here we meet the batty Baron of Taverney (Gene Hackman); his beautiful daughter Andree of Taverney (Keira Knightley); and Nicole Legay (Kirsten Dunst) a waiting maid who, we learn, looks like a clone of Marie Antoinette, the Dauphiness, who incidentally is traveling towards the Chateau, as Joseph Balsamo is magically able to see. Marie Antoinette is escorted by Andree's handsome soldierly brother, Philip de Taverney (Heath Ledger)
The dauphiness is both creeped out by Balsamo's predictions and charmed by the Taverneys. Marie Antoinette decides to pluck the whole family out of its humble country home and take them with her to Versailles, where she's about the celebrate her wedding with the Dauphin, soon to be Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman).
Gilbert, who has a crush on Andree, bums a ride towards Paris with a woman called Chon (Evangeline Lilly) and her sword-fight-happy brother, the Viscount Jean Dubarry (Gerard Depardieu).
Chon and Jean are actually in the midst of an elaborate plot to get their sister, the Countess Dubarry (Anne Hathaway) to be oficially presented in court, making her super-powerful. Since the Countess Dubarry is a famous ex-courtesan and mistress to the King, Louis XV (Robert De Niro), there's a lot of opposition to this presentation. Heading this opposition is Prime Minister De Choiseul, (Tom Wilkinson), along with Chief of Police Monsieur Sartines, (Roman Polanski) and the Marechal of Richelieu, (Jack Nicholson)- except the latter has been playing all sides, since he's a cunninng conspirateur.
After a thousand delays, the Countess Dubarry is presented in a beaaaaautiful display of dazzling extravagance, and Marie Antoinette arrives to court with the Taverneys, and Joseph Balsamo is there to oversee future developments. Meanwhile, Gilbert has begun to work as a part-timer for his biggest idol, Jean Jacques Rousseau (George Carlin), saving his pennies to finally present himself to Andree, now as an independent young man.
And she's pretty much been like: "Hmmm, stop stalking me, you creepo." And there we are.

Jim Butcher's "The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle."

Now that "Chinese Democracy" is forcing everyone into pretending that they haven't outgrown Axl Rose is as good a time as any to bring up puns about good ol' G'n'R.
Or was it GNR? G&R? G*R?
I forget.
"Welcome to the Jungle" is a competently-drawn stab at franchise expansion for Jim Butcher. (Isn't his real name just as brand-friendly as that of his creation's? The creation being Harry Dresden, a wise-cracking wizard/detective/action-hero.)
Clearly it's all a composite of John Constantine-Hellblazer/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Peter Parker-Spiderman/Doctor Who, with a little X-Files thrown in, and I'll be darned if all these hyphens, dashes and slashes aren't suggestive of its derivative nature. I guess that's why I never took to "The Dresden Files". Apparently neither did Sci-Fi Channel viewers, and they'll take to ANYTHING.

Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedure"

Those ghostly halls of Abu Ghraib are maybe a little too sylish in Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedure": the photographic evidence is so stark and dramatic that when the documentary re-enacts the events it practically adds poetry to the situation, almost dignifies it, but there's no dignity. These are pictures of the dumbest, deadliest frat house. There's a lot of humanity revealed in this documentary- humanity at its most revolting. Lynddie England, in particular, whom I had previously attempted to have some mild empathy for (I thought she looked like some stoner tomboy trying to play up to the boys) comes across as a bitter, self-pitying, uncouth bitch. Go watch now.

David Hine's "Daredevil: Redemption"

Bland movie outing aside, (damn you Ben Affleck), Daredevil is the most prime-time friendly of all Marvel heroes: why, he's a laywer AND a superhero, sort of "Heroes" meets "Boston Legal". This series (illustrated by "Alias" artist Michael Gaydos) is a good ol' tale about murder among Southern fanatics who still think 'Appetite for Destruction' came with instructions for summoning Moloch. Part of me thinks it's all about the cheap shots, but then that part wonders about the small number of lynching among liberals and I have to side with the authors: Crazy conservatives are evil. For the record, the extreme left does NOT seem liberal to me, (liberal a title leaning towards "freedom of the individual"): "les extremes se touchent", and extreme liberals only differ from extreme conservatives in the choice of uniform colors.
That said, bible thumpers are hard to like, specially when their willful misreadings of the Bible lead them to gather around a big ol' Electric Chair.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"

Awwww, young hipsters in love.



There are three things that sadden me about this book.
1) It's sad that it reminds me that I may have skidded past the age in which I believed in the life-changing powers of love and music. If we can have sex without dimming the lights and she disapproves of Nickelback, that covers the love and music requisites.
2) It's sad that even though the characters are called Nick and Norah, it contains zero references to "The Thin Man" and the classic crime-solving, drink-sucking, wit-spilling duo of Nick and Nora Charles.
3) It's sad that I know what "The Thin Man" is. And I've watched the sequels too.

Anyway, so Nick and Norah meet at the club, and Nick is a bassist in a queercore band and sensitive and gay-friendly but straight because he has this ex-girlfriend, Tris, who totally broke his heart and didn't pay attention to how much thought he put into his mix CDs. Meanwhile Norah is cool and witty and not so pretty that girls can't relate to her, but pretty enough that she spends all her time in clubs, and she's Jewish but not obnoxiously so, unlike her asshole ex-boyfriend Tal, who's an activist douchebag- one does not imply the other in the book, but it kind of does in my mind. Anyway, so they meet this one night after the show and Nick is like: "Oh shit, my ex-girlfriend is here. Oh, strange girl, can I make out with you to make her jealous?"

Lemme tell you, fictional buddy, I used to wear glasses. One time I tried that old "My girlfriend just came in, quick, make out with me!" con at a club and I got punched so hard that the glass shards got lodged in my eyeballs, and I haven't worn glasses since. Girls will usually not react well to overt rapist behavior. I'm talking before midnight. Oh, and then Nick takes the girl to a "Sound of Music"-themed strip club, because, really, there is no better way to confuse a girl about your possible sexual pervertions.

Of course in the book it works and they make out, and Nick and Norah banter, and they exchange their hipster Williamsburg barbs, and mosh-pit their way into each other's hearts through detached references to bands, and OH HOW BANDS MATTER WHEN YOU'RE SEVENTEEN. The following is a paraphrase because I already returned this book, but I swear the sentiment was copied down faithfully:

And then that drumbeat yes it was like love let loose and you could feel it and it was TRUE and all the poses vanished and she looked at me and I at her and we were just one with the rhythm and there was no tomorrow just that bass up and down and swirling through our synapses love yes LOVE OH God FUCK Don't stop this is the best Husker Du cover EVER!"

It's like the authors are auditioning to be in Michael Azerrad's band. It's "High Fidelity" for teens but with more cursing. Cute enough if you're foolish enough to still be in your teens and believe your band will make it, but it's false advertising, (like "The Never Ending Story"). I give Nick and Norah's playlist two months, tops. I'm totally down for the movie, though, specially that final act where Nick slices the Joker's head off with an old Bauhaus vynil.

"Will Elder: The MAD Playboy of Art"

Will Elder's pop legacy was guaranteed by his co-starring role in establishing MAD Magazine's initial aesthetic of irreverence, (Harvey Kurtzman being the star he trailed). Elder's pages seemed to explode with so many drawn gags that could barely be limited by panels. More remarkable is that they both went and also influenced that OTHER perennial magazine of arrested adolescence, Playboy, with the lavishly painted strips about Little Annie Fanny, who, (if you are of the demure persuassion and didn't know) kept on losing her clothes- with sexy results. With time other members of the usual gang of idiots took on the strip, (I'm fairly certain even Robert Crumb laid his grubby paws on Annie at some point, if my perverted memory serves), but Elder was there first.

This book of benign biography, introduced by Daniel Clowes, makes a convincing case for him as a popular artist whose dead-on parodist style was not as much an imposition of commerce as it was an extension of his pranksterish personality. Elder sounds like the type of crazy genius who learns to paint a perfect Mona Lisa just so they can personalize it with a mustache.

Faye Kellerman's "The Mercedes Coffin"

Jewish people are supposed to be all witty and full of chutzpah! The only thing wittier and chutzpahier are supposed to be 19th century French courtesans! What hapenned, Faye Kellerman? I used to devour the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, but the charm's been replaced with cliches- women are described as having "legs that don't quit", you are NOT being shitted.
Once upon a time this was the kookiest marriage in crime fiction: Rina kept Peter informed about Zionism and land-grabbing Palestinians, and Peter told Rina about the un-kosher world of drug-peddling Negroes and child-raping Gentiles. It was so cute when Decker abandoned his silly upbringing to learn about Manischewitz or whatever. All for love! I don't remember any chapters dealing with Decker's pre-conversion circumcition, but I do admit to having skipped one or two entries in the series. Incidentally, I'm not sure if that's how you spell circumcition, (circumcission? circusmission?) but you understand further online research might accidentally bring up high-definition pictures of the procedure, and as one of the Unchosen, I'll rather avoid those.
To reiterate my point: how did this series get so horrible? Couldn't Jonathan Kellerman edit a little for wifey? The travesty is what has hapenned in Rina's emotional journey to non-entity. June Cleaver was a bra-burner compared. Her approximate 3 appearances in a 350+ page novels go like this:
APPEARANCE 1: "Oh, Peter, has it been tough solving those murders where the eechy corpses were inside a Nazi Mercedes? I can help you solve everything... with milk and cookies!"
APPEARANCE 2: "Oh, Peter, while you were interviewing colored people who I do NOT look down on at all for being of a less advantaged race, I've been busy planning the Shabbos. There will be milk and cookies!"
APPEARANCE 3: "Oh, Peter, it's so convenient that you managed to solve the murders just in time to avoid violating the Sabbath! Want some milk and cookies?"

Add to that an unforgivable ending for a mystery- SORT OF SPOILER:
Peter: "Well, we've accidentally killed the murderer! I guess we'll never know what exactly his motives were, or how he accomplished that tricky murder in the locked room, or who the dead woman in the yacth was, or what the strange message in his basement meant. OH WELL. That's why they call it a mystery! It's almost sunset! Gotta go home!" THE END.


ABOVE: This isn't from the book but how could I resist?

3-EP: NOTHING'S GOOD AFTER 3:25

CAPTAIN EMO

Go send me out to sea
Free from your tyranny
At the dock
Your lips lock, quiet
But my heart provides the riot

I feel sooo much
The waving rush
Our faces blush
Our bodies crush

'Cause Captain Emo rules the waves (whoaaah)
And only pirate loving saves (whoaaah)
And until then we'll be the slaves (whoaaah)

Our wedding on the deck
The prelude to the wreck
At the dock,
Your eyes mock, ruthless
'Cause you've been truthless

I feel sooo down
The seagulls...frown?
The sails are brown
As we whirl 'round

'Cause Captain Emo's sinking now (whoooaaah)
And I've been left just thinking how (whoaaah)
You could break a drinking vow (whoooah)

(Whooaaah 13X)



BROKEN HIPSTER (Fragment)

Drinking Pabst, considers the lobster,
Loves Sinatra, but not a mobster
Went to Hunter- thesis on Queercore
Only buys from Subpop or Matador
That's so gay-who knows where your taste went?
Call today for a hipster replacement


BOTH SO GOTH

Nobody minds if we're both goth
Or share the flesh of the King Moth
My father feeds on a virgin
Your mom on faith and a sturgeon
I sense the fast shot of pistons
An ambulance in the distance
White ashes, horny neuroses
Eyelashes thorny like roses
Their hands are all middle fingers
Their tongues are forked into stingers
A nightmare bred by the media
Says so in the Blood Encyclopedia

CHORUS: Today we're both so goth
And Beelzebub's our boss
Today we're both so goth
And Lucifer's for us
Today we're both so goth
You're Satan's sorry wife
Today we're both so goth
Tomorrow: Get a life.

LINER NOTES:
Alvis Rockett (lead singer, guitar): It's been a while, so when we dropped this, our fans, specially Gervase K, (props, homes), they were all like: "Alvis, is there some hidden meaning to that 3-25? Is it like 4-20, or like some shiznat that went down on March 25?" I think music's felt, like a mystery for the hearing cannal, it's like a rock puzzle full of clues to the soul. So let me drop this hint on you, exclusive. Matt was listening to the radio like at 3:25 in the morning to see if K-RLC was playing our last EP, 'cause we sent that shit to them and this chick who reads their traffic said DJ AXXXEL was going to play "Knowledgeable Heart" from our last EP, but it didn't come on, instead they played this bad set of screamo, then some Brooklyn indie douchebag shit, and then this goth chick was on about the magnificent wings of her vampire lover, and Matt got really pissed at AXXXEL and blogged about the attack on cultural standards perpetrated by K-RLC. So then he wrote songs that were emo, indie, and goth. He was so angry at the session, he was like: "This is what they want? I'm going to stuff their asshole ears with it!" So he made us do this, and he promised I could write the lyrics to a song next time. I got the title and all, tell me if you feel it: "Baby, You're Rocking Like I'm Rolling."

Matthew Porfirio (main lyricist, bass, backwards trash-cans in "Broken Hipster"): Brevity is the essence of the mosh pit, I felt we could go with a punchy set where every song clocked under 3:25, and where we roamed stylistically. There, that's the answer to what the title means, more and more I feel like overly extended bursts of music veer into indulgence and that a song's leanness helps reveal its best aspects. Some people have guessed that I am parodying other sounds, that the first song sounds like Taking Back Sunday, the second like Deerhoof, and the third like freaking Bauhaus- now I am INDIGNANT that whenever we try to stretch our musical muscles people think it's a pastiche. This is like when I wanted the band to wear pink scarves and Betty was all like: "What, is your band going to play in Williamsburg now, oooh, look how hip we are, clap your hands and say fag!" Let me tell you, Betty, I'm SOOO over you and your constant criticisms and putdowns!

Helen Sandborg (drummer, shift manager at Wendy's): So I'm looking at my career options more and more. Matt says we're due to blow up but I don't want to be playing freaking GOTH or RAP or EMO or whatever goes through his head that week. Let's be honest- my drumming? Pretty limited. He comes up to me and he's like: "So why don't you shift into an experimental-but-not-too-crazy 3/4 signature that sounds sort of like the skittering of bats? Thanks Helen." DUDE! I don't know what the fuck any of that meant!

Hari Kunzru's "My Revolutions"

I can't decide if it's unjust or the most tangible proof of JUSTICE, but the fact is that the man of fifty lives out the mistakes of the man of 20- and that men of 20 are formed by the mistakes of men of 50. (Yes, women too, no one's off life's hook.)
I'm still pleased by the relatively small role played in the elections by Obama's quasi-relationships with "trouble-makers" like former Weather Ungergrounder Bill Ayres, (who coincidentally blurbs warmly about Hari Kunzru's "My Revolutions".) What would be suspicious is a young Obama with a total lack of interest in the politics of change, no?

"My Revolutions" follows a similarly conscious young lad, Chris Carver, as his idealism morphs first into overt violence, (the aftermath of which forces him to assume a false suburban identity as Michael Frame), and then into middle-aged ennui: radicalism traded for comfort. (Check out those last names: CARVER and FRAME.) But they say "blood will out"- which has more than one meaning here- and characters from Michael/Chris' past surface, alternatively alluring or threatening.
Kunzru's politics ensure this won't be on McCain's bookshelf, but at least the author is quite aware of the fact that violence has unapologetically marked his "heroes". Read it for the way it contrasts the political certainties of youth with the dubiousness of "growing-up", and ignore the way it almost wistfully paints the glory days of embassy bombings and assassination attempts.

RANDOM ACTU CONNECTION:
I suppose my own feelings towards "radicalism" are pretty much played out in "Across the Universe", when young Jim Sturgess starts some shit with the local Commies (a scene set to "Revolution", naturally.) To recap: "No money for minds that hate, forget Chairman Mao, count me out on destruction." Of course, it's all tongue-in-cheek: Our kid is less concerned with stopping unnecessary violence than with stopping a charismatic terrorist from introducing Evan Rachel Wood to the Karl-Marx-Sutra.


ABOVE: Awwww. Any excuse to show Evan Rachel Wood.

Jestaboy- or- Catchy Crap from Hot Girls

Dear Imaginary Reader:
"Why are you so jealous? It's not like I'm sleeping with the girl!"


ABOVE: If I were a boy, I would probably find this picture intriguing...


ABOVE: And if I grew up on the Appalachian mountains, and this was my step-sis, I would call it a prom-date.

I cannot fully endorse this stuff- not now that I'm busy exploring all the New Order albums I was too toddlerish to enjoy the first time around- but there's some breast-thumping hip-pop in Beyonce's "I Am... Sasha Fierce", and some cutesy orchestral twanginess in Taylor Swift's "Fearless". Nothing as FIERCE or FEARLESS as the titles advertise, but some astute examination of early 21st-Century male/female sexual dynamics, particularly as evidenced through individual asertion.

Lol, JK, I only care about the accompanying photoshoots.

Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman's "Shooting War"

"THE FREQUENCY IS COURAGE"-

goes the (fictional) Dan Rather's motto in "Shooting War". It's the journalistic legacy he lays on Jimmy Burns, an accidental guerrilla blogger who's embedded in the clusterfuck of Baghdad, 2011, where things are progressing not at all. Things are so "No End in Sight" that President John McCain, unable to continue putting his conscience's dictates on mute, resigns with a heartfelt speech that would almost have made you vote for him if it had been delivered in 2008. "Shooting War" skillfully balances political commentary, action and its punchline-a-page webcomic sensibility: the bleakness never becomes too much, the laughs never too glib. It doesn't rise above agit-prop, and the way in which the hero is witlessly kicked around from the bloodthirsty-Americans to the deranged-Muslims is soooo "Bananas", but even a year too late it's a worthy read.

UN-Fair

Art Spiegelman! Scott McCloud! Jessica Abel! Dave Barry! Anthony Bourdain! Chip Kidd! Junot Diaz! David Hajdu ("The Ten Cent Plague")! James W. Hall! Dennis Lehane! Joyce Carol Oates (my old-lady crush!)! Sandra Cisneros! David Wroblewski!

All of the cool people Hans will NOT go see at the 2008 Miami Book Fair!

I could have seen Mia Kirshner, for Crippety's Sake!!! Oh, those nights I stayed awake just to watch "Exotica" on Cinemax!!! Seriously, that movie informs every perverted fantasy I ever had. Oh, Mia! To run my hands through your faintly bi-sexual hair- and then be forcefully ejected by Fair security- wouldn't that be a dandy excuse of an afternoon?


But life (or the semblance of it) intervenes. Most of the big names made Saturday appearances, and I will be otherwise burdened tomorrow Sunday. Besides, the Lord's Day is mostly devoted to that one local poetess who writes about running her fingers through her glistening rose-bush.

I suppose I can still catch the Sunday evening reading with Salman Rushdie, but I don't feel like hanging with the dude until they call off the fatwah.

I feel more inspired already.

My browser's current start-up page (a generic gateway to YouTube, Google, CNN and Wikipedia) provides daily inspirational quotes programmed, (guess hazarded), by the robot that wrote "12 Steps to Your Corporate Merger." Today's motivation comes courtesy of Andrew Carnegie:

One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

Indiscriminate charity? Really? Those giant mutated ants fighting tanks in Arizona are a much more serious threat, and easier to find. And what's that about "our race"? Which race is that, Andy? "Billionaire Steel Industrialists"? (You can tell them by the rosy glow of happiness in their cheeks.)
Nah, see, I like Carnegie fine, I am bothered by the conniving 'bot that chose the quote out of context. Carnegie was one of the builders of large institutionalized charity- the quote is actually part of an advice of how to BEST organize a large charity so that it does the maximum amount of good, and not some rant about magical bootstraps that lift people out of poverty. (Although he lived the Horace Algren dream, I get the impression he considered himself an exceptional man, and a look at his steel workers would have confirmed that.) Read Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth"- look at the extent of his philantrophy. I'm not saying he was Santa Claus, but this particular quote irks because it's misleading about Carnegie's capitalistic feelings. He's no candidate for sainthood, but Carnegie was relatively benign in his acquisitional methods, at least by the harsh standards of 19th century America.

ABOVE: Look at those Scottish eyes! Isn't he dreamy, sort of Sinatra-ish? For a robber baron?

I was trying to defend the idea of sharing wealth with the unfortunate as liberally as possible, but I've ended up sounding like Sarah Palin, haven't I?

R. A. Salvatore's "Homeland"

I have resisted the "Drizzt" saga for very many years- like wine, some books must reach maturation before they cry for a tasting. "Homeland", the first book in a series of something like 13 ( the number-that-shall-not-be-named) observes the young drow's coming of age rituals. Drizzt Do'Urden is a drow with a conscience- in a world where deadly alliances are the norm, Drizzt's humming conscience is what makes him an outcast. He doesn't want to join in the killing game that takes place in the under-darkness of Menzoberranzan, because of whatever sense of hippieness his Dad's genes have endowed him with: this is what makes for a great character when you're 15! A deadly killer ebony elf with a conscience!
I have to say, aside from R.A. Salvatore's overuse of the archaic ever (as in, "he was ever a youthful lad") the first of the Drizzt series was more of a pleasure than I would have expected.

"Chuck" Season 1

I should like "Chuck" more than I currently do. Beautifully coreographed action scenes that parody a wide range of big-budget standards (the likes of "Kill Bill", "Mission Impossible", and "Rush Hour"). The comedy is a little leaden, but smiles are elicited at a reasonable rate.

There's also THIS:


And whenever and wherever Adam Baldwin chooses to be brutally funny, I'll be there.

There's also THIS:


Plus I've always enjoyed shows that embrace their own ridiculous plotlines. "Chuck" OWNS ridiculous: "Let's save the visiting Prime Minister of Madeupistan from South American drug dealers that have put a deadly strain of AIDS in his coffee! The AIDS makes the coffee BLOW up!"

There's also THIS:


Yvonne Extrahotski, you may spy the shit out of me.

So why am I not building an elaborate shrine to "Chuck"?
I suspect the problem is Chuck himself.

I dunno. Some tools just rub me the wrong way. It may be that they obviously needed Zach Braff but "Scrubs" was getting another season? Is it that Zachary Levi isa tad too generically handsome? He's unconvincing as a nerd, no matter how unstyled his hair purports to be. He just doesn't magnetize me. Josh Schwartz' shows are always cosmetically appealing, he has a veritable cattle of beautiful L.A. faces to work from, but this dude's "charming and befuddled" face begs for my metaphorical fist, and I couldn't tell you why. Chuckles, you get one more season, but it's for Adam and Yvonne, and don't you forget. BE A BETTER ACTOR.

Lloyd Kaufman's "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead."

I wasn't kidding! Troma's "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead" is probably the best of its kind- its kind being a hilariously foul (fowl?), inventively gross, musical horror porn comedy. It's not "so-bad-it's-good", it's "good-pretending-to-be-bad-and-succeeding." A fried chicken franchise churns out zombie chickens because it was built on Indian burial grounds, and then incredibly gross things ooze and pop and squelch at a frantic pace... It's a cluckin' good time, I grinned through it all!

Seishi Kishimoto's "666 Satan"

Talking about 666...
In the same inalterable way that female librarians develop an unseemly interest in YA literature, a male librarian develops a fascination with manga. It may be some sort of acquisitive instinct. "There is so MUCH of it, I must somehow make this part of my bibliographical make-up!" Librarians love to own books virtually. We are lords of volumes.
Oh, wait, I'm not a librarian. Not yet anyway. I don't have a masters or anything. In my mind I kind of always was. What's a librarian? A guardian of information! A seeker of knowledge. Aaaah, I always was a library boy, ever since that day my 8 year old self flirted with a librarian so I could go deep into the reserves. There was a basement leading down to the Dungeon of the Cuban National Library and they had all sorts of pre-Castro Disney Comic Books that weren't to be released to the masses. I was in LOVE with Minnie Mouse.

Ok, so anyway, I'm reading "666 Satan"- a "Naruto" style manga in which our hero, Jio, discovers that the MAGICAL 666 number pops out of his forehead at inconvenient (?) moments, turning him into a DEMON. (Oh, the Fleet Foxes have a lyric about turning into a demon, see how it's all connected? There's some demonic forces at play now, I tells ya.)
Early on the manga, Tte author feebly defends himself by pointing out that if his style is so "Naruto"- like, it's only because he's the twin brother of Naruto's creator! It's all genetic.
(The title has been sanitized by VIZ into "O-Parts Hunter"- which makes it sound like he's hunting for someone's O- Parts, and if you ask me, that is just as naughty.)

The Fleet Foxes

Suppose that the Beach Boys weren't into surfing or California, but instead were into sheep-herding and the Nordic countries. There you go: that's the Fleet Foxes, and they're are leaving paw prints in the mushy snow of my mind.
Ok, so they're from Seattle and on Subpop, but sorry, that's where they take me, no telling where they may take you. And they certainly are transporting: I haven't been this seduced since Joanna Newsom's "Ys". Try "White Winter Hymnal" and "He Doesn't Know Why".

Philip Roth's "Indignation"

Philip Roth's "Indignation" is a very good novella, a solid reconstruction of a young man's psyche circa 1951. Marcus Messner is straining under the forces of morphine, the Korean War, a quick with-a-blow-job suicidal girlfriend (Olivia), and a butcher father who is all too aware that any tiny little mistake can reverberate in horrible ways- sense the force of FEAR- and then he dies and it all comes to naught. It's one of those books we can discuss for eons. Or we can summarize it by saying that life happens, you accumulate a lot of experiences, then you're gone. Like every other novel.

I mean, there's really nothing else to it, is there?

Profuse Apologies

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I'm in between computers- hence the slow flow, bro. Chapter 50 of the SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA is on its way, as are my trenchant reviews of Bulwer Lytton's early novels of manners, snarky comments on Beyonce's new name that I think even she gave up on already, and witty assesments of the latest movie that I drunkenly added to my Netflix queue, ("Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead", why did you sound like such a necessary rental when I was arranging my Q at 3 A.M.?)

Christopher Reich's "Rules of Deception"

Like Daniel Silva, Christopher Reich entertains with thrillers that work as a summary (and magnification) of current political paranoias. Here the boogey men are Israel's undue influence on American policies against Iran, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Pentagon agents (with agendas), and Evil Evangelicals bent on fulfilling whatever end-time prophecies they've gleaned from watching Jack Van Impe's Ministries.


ABOVE: This man wouldn't lie to you: Obama WILL tatoo 666 on your forehead as part of his health care proposal.

Evil Evangelical That Wants to End the World? Isn't that the same plot as that last Jack Reacher novel? Man, I gotta stop reading this kind of crap if I ever hope to get through Proust.

Current Mood:

Wary Optimism.
It's in my nature. I would have been that one skeptic outside of Camelot, everyone's cheering the King and I'm like: "Sure, it's oh so perfect, but I bet Guinevere is banging one of the Knights when Arthur's not looking." And guess what? I would have been right.

Fareed Zakaria's "The Post-American World"

Whoever wins tonight would do tell to spend these last antsy minutes before the results are announced reading Fareed Zakaria's "The Post-American World", if only because it summarizes succintly the global reality of what Zakaria terms "the rise of the rest" and our slip into a shared prominence with countries like China and India- if we're lucky. It's not another of those "the Empire is doomed unless" rants that both the right and the left are churning out of presses: if anything, Zakaria errs in the side of optimism. Whenever he draws an apt analogy- for instance, between the U.S. and the Iraq War and the British Empire and its similar decay after the Boer War- he qualifies it by saying: "But the U.S. is different! We're better than that, by Yankee Doodle!" (He points out that at that time the British Empire had only been a true economic power for 30 years, while the U.S. has reigned for 130- he has the numbers to prove it, but far from reassuring me, that makes me more aware that we've had a better-than-good run.)
Zakaria's optimism bordes on naivete at times. For instance, he's actually satisfied when high-ranking Chinese officials tell him things like: "Oh, don't worry, we're a tiny harmless country, China is like a purring pussycat, we will never be real competition for you big strong Americans!"
Also like many topical books, its forecasts are already smacking of obsolence: written before the current admitted recession, Zakaria happily intones the old cant about the solid foundations of American economy- which even the current presidency hasn't been toting for a few days. No fault of Zakaria's, of course. Remember what we learned from "The Black Swan"? Not some, not most, but ALL long term economic projections are necessarily wrong.
Nonetheless, I find that optimism sort of contagious, even as the book offers a happy ending: all America has to do to pass the global test is to be once again that forward-thinking land of freedom, knowledge, and multi-cultural tolerance that welcomed foreigners like him- and ME- to its shores.
Yeah, it sounds corny, but amen.
We'll see in a few what our prospects are.

The Uninformed Pundit ULTIMATE ELECTION PREDICTOR

Aaron Burr 1, Alexander Hamilton 0.