Protopunk

Lately I’ve been listening to some protopunk garage rock. Stuff brings back memories, man, though not of the ’70s or 80s, but rather of the girl who stole my heart. I enjoy the raw energy of this music, not to mention the usually leftist political stance, social critique, or otherwise inspired lyrics. I’m talking about going all the way back to The Velvet Underground, circa White Light/White Heat (1968), and Loaded (1970). Great, though harsh, experimental psychedelia. I’m also thinking of the debut live album by MC5 (Motor City Quintet), Kick Out the Jams (1968), “motherfucker!” Talk about raw power and energy! Then there’s Iggy Pop & The Stooges. Like garage glam punk blues with hints of free jazz. Their album Raw Power (1973) says it all! Don’t forget Alice Cooper, whose early-70s output has a great punk garage rock vibe. (All three bands, MC5, The Stooges, and Alice Cooper, not coincidentally hail from Detroit.) Of course we have the New York Dolls (true glam punks) as well as Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers (Like A Mother Fucker!), fun punk rock ‘n’ roll. And Television, with their intriguing interlocking guitars and much more technically proficient compositions.

When I was younger (“so much younger than today”), I didn’t care much about punk rock, not because I disliked it, but because I was listening to progressively more and more complicated and weird music. It was only a few years ago that I started listening to punk because the love of my life spoke about it. That’s when I picked up albums by The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and so on. I remember we listened to Blondie together when we were in Hawaii. (They played “The Tide Is High” everywhere we went, until we got sick of it!) She recommended The Buzzcocks to me after we broke up and I was still hoping we’d get back together. Other bands I (re-)discovered on my own, like The Runaways, The Damned, The Jam, The Stranglers, and so on. I remember taking the bus to her place one day when I had just uploaded Iggy Pop into my iPod. So, those are the recollections I get when I hear punk rock. Bittersweet as these memories are, they are some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life.

Funny Games

Have you ever seen the movie Funny Games (1997)? (Not the Hollywood frame-by-frame remake, I hope, but the German original.) This is another one of those weird movies, like Man Bites Dog and Delicatessen... I’ve been meaning to check this one out for quite some time, too... The title refers to the sadistic “funny games (komische Spiele)” that these two charming-looking lads unleash onto two completely unsuspecting vacationers and their kid. It’s the most awkward and uncomfortable movie experience, yet I couldn’t stop watching ... I had to see what inhumanely humiliating hoax these guys come up with next! None of the more gory, torturous scenes actually happen on-screen. That’s left to our imagination... But it’s already enough. Michael Haneke is clearly a director who enjoys long single shots in which the camera moves little or not at all, and he enjoys long awkward silences... The most charming of the two torturers keeps addressing the audience, winking and talking to us, even using a remote to rewind the action, thus breaking the fourth-wall, alienating us from the narrative, forcing us to realize we are only watching a movie ... making us wonder why on earth we are actually watching such a tediously torturous movie about random violence... Best not to watch this on your own at night if you’re skittish about going to sleep alone in the dark...

Challenges of Life

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there’s a follow-up to BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and it’s simply called Life. Oh, boy, oh, boy, am I thrilled about this new series!!! The theme is survival, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s death. This introductory installment focuses on the challenges of life, the spectacular strategies in the struggle to survive. (Note, incidentally, that the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” is not from Darwin’s Origin of Species.) There are so many magnificent moments in this episode: Venus flytraps feasting on flies trapped in her sweet leaves; male stalk-eyed flies fighting over who has the largest, well, stalk; a tiny strawberry poison frog carrying her tadpoles one by one high up a bromeliad tree into the waterpool between its leaves; an ever color-changing chameleon catching praying mantis with its tongue; two grebe birds performing a magnificent dance of courtship; a gruesome scene of a flailed chinstrap penguin sinking to the ocean floor after a leopard seal catches it skittering across broken ice; a school of flying fish escaping an attack by a group of sailfish; bottlenose dolphins stirring up silt in circles to trap a shoal of fish; some two dozen killer whales outwitted by a remarkably agile crabeater seal; a 14-ft. Pacific giant octopus laying a hundred thousand eggs and then starving herself to death while tending to her brood until they hatch; hippopotami fighting for overlordship and the right to mate; three cheetahs felling an ostrich together; and tufted capuchin monkeys cracking large nuts, that they had first peeled and let dry, with a large stone on a rocky surface. Truly awe-inspiring!

Mad Men 3x12(b)

Back in TV land, on Mad Men, I’ve been feeling that Betty and Don Draper were growing back to each other, getting past his false identity and weathering the storm after Kennedy’s assassination. There was this sweet scene in which Bets wakes up because the baby’s crying ... the bed is empty beside her ... so we assume Don is out philandering with sassy Suzanne ... Bets goes to the baby’s room ... only to find Don’s already cradling his little boy! But when Betty screams watching Lee Harvey Oswald get shot on live television and Don tries to comfort her, she says she has to leave the house and clear her head. Instead, she’s meeting with that Henry Francis she’s been dallying with. He offers her marriage. They don’t even know each other! What a moron. She goes back home and tells Don she doesn’t love him anymore. He believes she’s distraught about the tragic event of JFK’s death. The tables have been turned: while Don has cut things off with Suzanne, Betty is drawn further toward that Henry.

When she suggests Don to contact a divorce lawyer, he advises she should see a doctor. She asks him why, “because I have to be sick to want out of this?” “I didn’t break up this family,” she retorts when he blames her for walking away... sigh... Soon enough Betty is seeing a lawyer with Henry, but she learns that it won’t be easy in New York to get a divorce. Moreover, Henry advices her against a financial settlement. (That’ll mean she’ll become dependent on Henry. Not a good idea.) Later Don finds out about Henry and his hurt turns into anger. All the ugliness comes out, the accusations, the frustrations. The truth comes crashing down and all the lies are crumbling. Oh, my, I’ve been rooting for these two, believing they could get past their issues. I always wanna believe in love. But it seems quite inevitable now... They need to tell the kids, Sally and Bobby, who take it hard. They want to know who’s to blame, solve the problem, and keep things the way they are. “Nobody wants to do this,” Don tells Bobby. Afterwards Don calls Betty from work to let her know he won’t be fighting her. “I hope you get what you always wanted,” he adds. She and Henry will go to Reno for a quicky divorce. Don moves to Greenwich Village.

Dexter 2x05

This second season of Dexter has a brilliant story arch of Dexter’s introspection as a result of his inadvertent attendance of the Narcotics Anonymous. Dex is confronted by the fact that his foster father wasn’t the straight and narrow upright police officer he always believed he was. A poster at some homicide scene of the “Dark Avenger” provokes a flashback to the time young Dexter witnessed the bloodbath in which his mother perished. The memory leads him to see if any of the murderers are still alive ... and he learns that one is actually still on the loose. In the archives he also finds audio tapes ... another brilliantly unexpected plot twist ... because they are interviews of Dex’ foster father Harry with his biological mother Laura! She was an informant for the police! Harry knew her before the bloodshed! No, more than that: Harry had an affair with Laura!!! Soon after he takes a trip with his N.A. sponsor Lila to confront his mother’s murderer, but I found that a bit anticlimactic...

When Rita’s mother hears that Dexter is in the N.A. program, she tells him to leave her daughter alone. Rita insists she feels safe for the first time in her life and will choose Dex over her if she has to. So her mother decides to give Dex another shot, but will move in with Rita, just to stay close! Awkward. Deb doesn’t know if she can trust her new date, Gabriel. So she goes through his things ... his drawers ... his e-mails ... and believes he’s writing a piece about her, “The Ice Princess,” hoping to cash in on the notorious Ice Truck Killer she went out with. But Special Agent Lundy, concerned over his favorite officer, ran a back check that showed Gabriel is a children’s books writer. Aw! How sweetly innocent! Wanting to be sure there really are no blood stains left on his boat, Dex goes to the harbor at night to give it a thorough cleaning using black light to spot any stains – not knowing that FBI Agent Lundy installed security cameras that record everything going on at the harbor...! Exciting episode!!

Caprica 1x08

At planet Caprica, Joseph Adama is still looking for his dead daughter Tamara in virtual reality ... He learns that she been spotted at this joint in V-World New Cap City, appropriately called “Mysteries.” The club offers some freak cabaret, strip-tease, game show that’s too tedious for words. But she had performed there, so Adama is on the right track. Daniel Graystone has become convinced that the “avatar” of his daughter Zoe is trapped inside the body of his U87 Cylon prototype. So, he tries provoking her to reveal herself, talking to her about teenage rebellion and childhood traumas, giving the robot commands to see if she snaps, yelling at her, ordering her to shoot her dog (except he gave her blanks). She doesn’t budge. Amanda Graystone seems to be going insane, seeing her long-dead brother everywhere, even when she revisits the scene of his death. When she confides in Sister Clarice, the sly fox tries to turn the conversation to Zoe and her avatar that she’s trying to steal.

Gossip Girl 3x15

On Gossip Girl, Nate and Serena are still taking it slow the way only they know ... between the sheets getting their freak on! Dan and Vanessa are similarly taking things slow ... between the sheets! Wow, people get lucky in New York! The motherchucker of a basshole, Chuck Bass finally gets sued for sexual harassment by several of his female employees at his Empire Hotel! And some Christian Family Values club threatens to boycott his business. To spoil the party between Chuck and his long lost mother, Uncle Jack shows up claiming Chuck’s real mother did in fact die, and that this woman is a fraud. So Chuck has a DNA test run on her, which comes out positive. And to weather the storm, he signs off operations of his business to her. Except we learn soon after she is nothing less than a partner in crime of Uncle Jack! The Basstard has been double crossed!!! Jenny’s been banished to Brooklyn and grounded ... for life, it would seem. But Jenny from the block wouldn’t be a teenage rebel if she wouldn’t cut class ... and do her best to become a virgin no more ... So she takes it slow between the sheets with dapper Damien! Freak out! At least, her dad Rufus is freaking out. But in the end, Jenny too freaks out and backs out, and stays a sixteen year old virgin. Oh, how I love you, Gossip Girl!

Patti Smith

Last month I was talking with people about how I believe that Patti Smith is seriously overrated. But if you want to formulate a statement, you’ll also need arguments on which to base it. To be sure, I realize that she helped female singers explore modes of expression beyond merely singing pretty love songs. In that respect, you can draw a direct line to Blondie and to Siouxsie and the Banshees. Unfortunately, that also means that she often sounds horrible, no Janis Joplin or Billie Holiday (singers who likewise can be said to have been limited in their vocal range, but still were unrivaled in their expression). The spoken word delivery of her own poetry is even more annoying (witness “Birdland,” and “Land” on Horses, “Poppies” on Radio Ethiopia, “Babelogue” on Easter, and the title-track on Wave, for instance).

Musically, her albums provide a link between the psychedelic art rock of The Velvet Underground and the American punk rock of Television, The Ramones, Blondie, and The Runaways, via some garage blues rock. If her debut errs on the artistic side, it lacks the punch on the punk side. I prefer the burst of energy on her rendition of The Who’s “My Generation.” In retrospect I find it hard to believe that critics blamed her for self-indulgence on her sophomore effort, as if Horses (1975) wasn’t overly self-indulgent. You might say she sold out, in that onwards from Radio Ethiopia (1976) her sound became more and more polished and mainstream, until Patti Smith sounds just like Stevie Nicks (not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, just that Stevie Nicks does that better). So, to me it seems that her overall relevance is limited to the late-70s NYC punk rock scene at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB... Admittedly, I wish I could have been there!

The members of her band in the 70s (Lenny Kaye, Richard Sohl, Ivan Kral, Jay Dee Daugherty) are no doubt talented, I’ll give her that, but much of the music remains rather uninspiring and unoriginal. Noted exceptions include “Radio Ethiopia” (ten minutes worth of distorted rock guitar noise), “Chicklets” (a nice outtake with fender rhodes), “Easter” (a religious meditation on death and resurrection), and “Dancing Barefoot” (a celebration of falling in love). Perhaps it’s unfair to dismiss her poetry without so much as a word, but I just can’t force myself to analyze her lyrics. I just think she’s trite. (“Hey Sheba, hey Salome, hey Venus eclipsin’ my way, ah! / Her vessel, every woman is a vessel, is evasive, is aquatic. / Everyone, silver ecstatic, platinum disk spinning”; or “She is recreation. / She, intoxicated by thee. / She has the slow sensation that / He is levitating with she” ... ?)

Sorry if I offend any die-hard followers, but my contention remains that Patti Smith is a clear case of being at the right place at the right time – and with the right people: photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Lynn Goldsmith; producers John Cale, Jack Douglas, Jimmy Iovine, and Todd Rundgren; plus musicians such as Tom Verlaine (Television), Allen Lanier (Blue Öyster Cult), (her own guitarist) Lenny Kaye, and Bruce Springsteen; and the coterie of Rolling Stone writers who praised her to the stars (she was herself at one point an RS writer). That doesn’t mean I find her outright bad, I just could have lived without her music – even if I’ll keep her first four albums in my iTunes...

The Hurt Locker

“War is a drug” ... is how The Hurt Locker opens. We’re in Bagdad, the War in Iraq, a bomb threat, U.S. military occupation. I hate the documentary-style camera dangling. We follow a team of soldiers responsible for disarming IEDs (improvised explosive devices, i.e., bombs). It’s ten minutes of awkward tension and panic ... and then ... BOOM! Someone dies. Repeat: tension, panic, boom, death. After about half an hour, the story starts to explore the relations between the members of the team and of the soldiers with locals. The new team leader Sgt. James is all brazenly cool. He’s a cowboy in a bombsuit. He’s a wild one. He’s also the only one attempting to befriend locals. Sgt. Sanborn is the intelligence guy, a control freak who wants to do everything by the book. He despises James’ recklessness – even though he learns to admire what he believes is James’ courage. Then there’s Specialist Eldridge, who blames himself for causing the death of his previous team leader and later of the field psychiatrist. He’s scared of dying and questions the purpose of their mission.

It surprises me that this movie has won so much praise and so many awards. Not that it’s outright bad, but I just feel that it’s not that much of a good film. I guess that Americans still need to see war movies to wrap their heads around the realities of war... the atrocities ... the horror ... the death dealing desperation... Hurt Locker is touted as the first movie about the Iraq War, and is praised for its realism. I can’t vouch for its accurate depiction of the situation in Iraq (veterans have complained sufficiently to make me question its realism), but there are also people who actually came out of this movie feeling that it glorifies warfare! Apocalypse Now was also meant to criticize war, the Vietnam War in particular, but still most people watch that movie for its awesome effects and memorize its cool dialogue. (“I Love the smell of napalm in the morning!” “The horror, the horror.” “Charlie don’t surf.”) The military occupation of Iraq commenced seven years ago, now. Do Americans still need to be reminded how many unnecessary deaths their occupation causes on both sides? And do we need the Academy Awards to remind us to watch Hurt Locker?

Horizon: Robots

Dude, where’s my robot? That’s what I wanna know! And it happens to be a question an older installment of BBC Horizon tried to answer. We all have been raised on promises of a future in which every home had a robot performing menial tasks, errands and chores around the house. So, the question seems to have some validity, no? First we visit the artificial intelligence (A.I.) lab at Stanford University to witness the very sharpest bit of the cutting edge of robot design in America – a desk on wheels with an arm sticking out... sigh ... boring! We then travel to Tokyo to see the most advanced walking android ... only to be asked to leave the lab after super robot HRP3 falls over... ouch ... painful! So, next we listen to Nobel-prize winning immunologist and neuroscientist Gerald Edelman explain how incredibly complicated performing a simple task (like getting him a cup of coffee) actually is, and that the difficulties for A.I. start with perception. That leads to issues how our brain recognizes objects and conditions around us – something scientists are only just about starting to teach computers. The problem seems to be that we tend to think of the brain as some kind of super computer, but it’s not. At least, it’s not digital, and it doesn’t run on programs. In other words, we’re probably still very far from the day that every home is supplied with a humanoid robot...

Mad Men 3x12(a)

Oh, my, we’re getting very close to the end of Mad Men’s Season Three! Many plotlines are starting to get tied up – and there are many subplots I haven’t mentioned before... One of these involved our svelte redhead Joan, who used to be the head secretary at Sterling Cooper. She married Greg who hoped to become a surgeon. When his plans fell through, she encouraged him to apply for a psychiatry residency. Meanwhile, she calls Roger (with whom she used to have an affair) in hopes he may help her with finding work – and he’ll make every effort because she’s important to him. When Greg’s interview went bad, he comes home sulking. He keeps complaining ... and I’m watching him whine ... and I can’t help thinking, she should smack him upside the head. Then we see Joan’s face, she’s getting livid, and what does she do? She bashes him upside the head with a vase! Yes! Way to go girl! Later Greg apologizes and announces he’s joined the army to work as a military surgeon ... ouch ... How to you come back from that? Joan has to take a deep breath.

Not surprisingly, they’ve kept the assassination of President Kennedy (Nov. ’63) until the near end. And they make great dramatic use of the tragic event. Duck Phillips unplugged the TV to make sure Peggy wouldn’t hear the news – and he could have his way with her. He only turns the TV back on after they had sex. At Sterling Cooper, Pete and Harry’s conversation about their future at the office is interrupted when about half the personnel barges in to watch the news of Harry’s TV. Don’s about the last person to get the news, as he was just walking down the hall as the story broke. He rushes back home, where Bets can’t stop crying. He tells her to take a pill and lie down – so patronizing! – and tells the kids it will all be okay... The worst part is that Roger Sterling’s daughter is getting married that weekend! It’s a terribly awkward affair with many no-shows. Most people from the office came, though, despite the circumstances, but everyone’s very uncomfortable. After the ceremony, with his wife drunk on the bed, Roger has to call Joan, because she’s the only one he can really talk to about the wedding and the assassination.

Dexter 2x04

So, Dexter suddenly has to deal with the remains of his victims laid out in a temporary morgue at work. Fortunately for him, he has no feelings, so it leaves him cold. That doesn’t mean, of course, he isn’t paranoid about getting caught... Following one of Debra’s hunches, super-dooper special agent Lundy has already discovered that most of the victims had felony records, were either convicted or suspected of murder. Then there’s another breakthrough of sorts... They found algae in the bags that they hope to trace to the harbor where the killer (i.e., Dex) docks his boat... In his desperation and fear to get caught, Dex unplugs the refrigerator of the morgue so that all the bodies decompose overnight! At work, Dex has to examine the body of a woman shot at home by some expert special ops (military terminology). Sergeant Doakes went to the same regiment as the woman’s husband. Doakes confronts the guy. He admits he killed his wife. He wants to leave the country, slip into Cuba. But Doakes is having none of it. They end up in a stand-off. Still, Doakes insists he’ll take the guy into arrest. The guy takes aim again, but Doakes shoots faster.

Things with Rita got complicated after Dex’s inconvenient lie that he’s an addict. Now he’s checked into a twelve-step program and his sponsor is this gorgeous woman with thick lips, a sexy body on her, and a heavy British accent. In her unconventional, unbalanced, artsy, liberal, kleptomaniac kind of way, she is able to let Dex open up. He tried ending the program, but she comes to his work and wants to see the bodies in the morgue. Her sympathetic response convinces him to maintain the relation. To make matters even more complicated, Rita’s mother returned to her life after a ten-year absence... They’re so alike, even their speech patterns are the same! Interestingly, she senses right away that there’s something amiss with Dexter. She thinks he’s hiding something.

Deb has been eyeing this guy at the gym, but dating is hard for her after her last boyfriend tried to kill her and all... She brings up the nerve to ask him out, takes him home, cuffs him to the bed, and right when they’re about to get it on ... Dex walks in unexpectedly! Hahaha! That newly appointed Haitian Lieutenant Esme Pascal is having a serious meltdown since she found out her fiancé is sleeping with another woman... She’s going so far as to ask for tests on his shirts... The emotional breakdown is so bad, the chief has to let her go and give the job back to Maria LaGuerta. The beauty of it is that we learn it was LaGuerta all along who was sleeping with Pascal’s finacé! Heehee! Manipulative byatch!!

Caprica 1x07

On planet Caprica, Sister Clarice is working hard to become fast friends with Amanda Graystone, because she desires to speak to Zoe, or at least the “avatar” that is left of her in V-World. But Amanda is having an emotional breakdown ... having nightmares and believing she is seeing her dead brother... actually chasing his ghost... popping pills to stay sane... Clarice believes that it makes Amanda a vessel of God that she is seeing people who aren’t there... So, she is feeding her liquor and drugs... and Amanda confesses she has once been admitted to a mental institute for two and a half years (three years after her brother died) when she couldn’t cope with reality ... and she’s afraid it’s happening all over again.

Zoe’s friend Lacy is having trouble shipping Zoe-the-Cylon to planet Geminon... Rogue Soldier of One Barnabas is unwilling to help unless she becomes a monotheist, too. Joseph Adama is still hoping to find his daughter’s “avatar” in V-World’s New Cap City. Pressure on Daniel Graystone continues to sell his team, so that he can save the financial downturn of his company... But he also learns that the chip he stole from Vergis’ lab was deficient ... and so he starts to put the pieces together ... through his lab assistant (with whom Zoe is communicating in V-World) he starts thinking that part of the Cylon’s chip isn’t digital ... but somehow analog through some generative process... He realizes that the “avatar” of his daughter Zoe must have been uploaded onto the chip... “Zoe?” he asked the robot...

Gossip Girl 3x14

Gossip Girl! OMG! XO XO I love how Nate and Serena are taking things slowly! They’re going all 9½ Weeks quickie in the kitchen for breakfast! Hahaha! Taking it slow? Not. Chuck is still following that woman who claims she is not his mother... Blair, Serena and Nate are all interfering, but he doesn’t want their advice. He’s afraid the woman just wants money to stay away. Of course, deep down he needs to know if she’s really his mother ... And, lo & behold, in the end the truth comes out that she is indeed Chuck’s mother. She didn’t love his father, he paid her to stay away, but now that father dear is gone, she would like to know her son... Aw! How cute and cuddly! I get all mushy... not. Okay, truth be told... never mind.

Dan finally has the nerve to walk up to Vanessa, after she’s ignored his many voice messages since he told her he’s in love with her. Um, mumble-stumble, awkwardness. “I meant that I love you as a friend.” Oooh, good one, Dan! You must be the first guy in the history of mankind to come up with that gem of a comeback! Not. She invites him to this beach-themed party and he promises to bring a date. More awkwardness – especially because he wasn’t seeing anyone up until now... Vanessa brings her “boyfriend” who’s as gay as can be... D & V end up kissing, she backs off, comes back, admits she scared, they promise to take it slow, and ... spend the night making whoopee until the early morning night. I love how these kids take things slow!

Like I said last week, with Chuck & Blair, Nate & Serena, Dan & Vanessa all lovie-dovie, the only one to stir up some dirt is little Jenny with her debonair Damien. And that’s exactly what happens when Lily finds Damien in Jenny’s room and presumes they, too, had it going on. Rufus goes berserk when he’s told his little girl is a maiden no more. (Damien, btw, is an anagram of “maiden” but that’s probably coincidence...) But Jenny is our favorite rebel, so she throws Damien’s party pills on the floor and throws a scene. Dapper Damien explains they’re his father’s, who’s an addict, blah-dee-blah. Oh, this gets better by the minute. Still, Jenny wants him, despite being grounded and exiled to grimy Brooklyn... So she flees and follows her man! Ah! Gossip Girl, you know I love you. New York City is still looking as gorgeous as ever! How I miss being there...!

Heavy Metal

I’ve been listening to so much heavy metal recently, I’ll just throw the list at you (with only the barest parenthetical comments) and see what’ll stick: Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (melodic hard rock) and Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow’s first lead singer, who went on to take over Ozzy Osbourne’s job in Black Sabbath and then formed his own heavy metal outfit Dio); Alcatrazz (mid-80s virtuoso metal with Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Steve Vai successively on guitar, and with Rainbow’s second lead-singer Graham Bonnet at the helm); Tokyo Blade (now-forgotten footnote to the 80s New Wave of British Heavy Metal); Anvil (the granddaddies of speed metal and practitioners of the “Thumb Hang!”); Queensrÿche (progressive metal, first leaning towards heavy metal like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, but more recently tending to sound like radio-friendly hard rock); Alchemist (Australian psychedelic/progressive thrash/death metal); and Carnage (Mike Amott’s grindcore band before moving on to Carcass and then Arch Enemy). All come highly recommended, but I doubt there’s a single one of you even remotely interested... Heh.

Delicatessen

Watching Man Bites Dog the other day made me realize that I’ve been meaning to check out Delicatessen for a while ... and then wondered if I had seen it before ... it all seemed so familiar... (Did I really see it before?) The setting is some post-apocalyptic France seemingly circa 1950, with much if not all of civilization, politics and economy burned to cinders. The plot centers on an apartment building run by the local butcher. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I add that most animals have become extinct due to hunting, and that therefore the butcher doesn’t trade in animal meat, if you know what I mean... The best-known sequence is also the funniest, in which we see and especially hear tenants in the building play cello along a metronome, pump a bicycle wheel, beat a carpet, paint the ceiling, knit, drill holes in those little animal-call boxes, all in the rhythm set by the landlord making love to his mistress atop the squeaking bedsprings... Hahahaha! Definitely worth watching if you care for dark humor, but you have to be in the mood for weirdness... (And I haven’t even mentioned the Troglodists!)

Planet Earth: Ocean Deep

BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth are, as far as I know, unsurpassed nature documentary series. I’d reiterate this ad nauseam if I had to, but please watch this show if you at all can. There’s nothing like it, if you enjoy the genre. Really magnificent. So it’s with some sadness that I have to tell you that we’re already at the series end with one more episode ... and what a grand finale this one is! For this last installment, we’re visiting the deep waters of the open ocean and get to see dazzling shots of several schools of hundreds of divine dolphins trapping tons of mackerels into bait balls attacked by sheer water birds from the surface; two-ton manta rays (devilfish) gliding through the night while feasting on baby sailfish; shoals of bait fish swarming around a whale shark as a shield against the predatory yellowfin tuna; and a great many other varieties of shark (such as the whitetip).

The true wonders of the deep, however, are the weirdly alien creatures that dwell deep in the ocean’s strange and dark waters ... sea spider shrimp, saw tooth eel, dumbo octopus, vampire squid, sea urchins, monk fish, spider crabs, isopods, albino squat lobsters, giant tube worms, nautiluses, ocean sunfish, sea turtle, sailfish... I’m always impressed by images of the towering chimneys of hydrothermal vents at the earth’s molten core blasting black clouds of sulfide smoke. Other than that, of course, we get to see colorful coral reefs, the most majestically, gargantuan blue whales, and countless schools of variegated fish. So, please, do yourself a favor and check out this spectacular series. Preferably the U.K. version with David Attenborough’s narration, and not the Sigourney Weaver voice over. Fortunately, there’s a follow up series, called “Life”! So, you’ll be hearing more about that very soon. Be prepared!

Mad Men 3x11

We haven’t heard much recently about Dick Whitman, the birth name of our Don Draper, the Mad Ad Men at Sterling Cooper on Madison Avenue, or about Anna Draper, whose husband, the real Don Draper, got killed in Korea. One day Betty is doing to laundry and happens upon the key’s to Don’s desk drawer. Out of curiosity she uses it, only to find her husband’s deed to Anna Draper’s house, plus a box full of Whitman family photos! She doesn’t know what to do. At first she’s waiting for Don, but then she puts everything back. Later she talks to her father’s lawyer, who advises her against divorce: Don’s a good provider, Bets could lose custody of the children. “It’s a lie so big,” Bets sighs. She goes back home and when Don arrives, she orders him to open the drawer. “You know I know what’s in there,” she tells him.

“I can explain,” he replies quietly... And she’s actually giving him a chance to explain ... and we are treated with some of the best TV we could ever hope for: emotionally gratifying, profoundly touching, excellently, expertly acted, superbly shot. Don tells Betty about his poor upbringing and how he found it easier to assume Don Draper’s identity than to start over after Korea. She argues that she doesn’t even know who he is now. “Yes you do,” he replies. During Halloween Trick-or-Treating the next evening, they all go out, and this man (the husband of Betty’s friend) says to Sally and Bobby, “We’ve got a gypsy and a hobo,” and glancing at Don, he asks, “and who are you supposed to be?” What an amazing show! Did I tell you that before? Man, if you’re not watching Mad Men you should run out and get the DVDs. It’s stupendously wonderful!

Spooks - Series 1

For the past few weeks I’ve been catching episodes of this BBC spy series about MI5 agents, called “Spooks,” which premiered in the U.K. back in 2002. In the first season we’re treated with anti-abortion terrorism, race-hate violence, human trafficking, Kurdish activism, a heist at MI5’s private bank, anti-globalization riots, anarchist agitation, bickering with MI6, double dealings by double agents, illegal arms deals, an attempt to overthrow the government, pompous Christian evangelism, and an IRA bombing. What gives the show psychological depth are the characters who try hard to keep their private lives entirely separate from their work as spies, struggling to keep the lies apart that they tell their loved ones. The main character Tom Quinn, who in his private life goes by the name of Matthew, has fallen in love with Ellie. Naturally, when he finally has the guts to tell her he is a spy, her world falls apart and she has no idea if she can ever trust him again. I also enjoy how the plots delve deep inside modern society’s ills and the individual psyche’s of criminals and psychopaths from which the spooks are hoping to save society Then there’s the dry sense of humor: “You’re a little shyte, Derrick. Have I ever told you that?” this MI5 bossman asks a government suit. “You’ve implied enough times, Harry. Take a chill pill,” the suit replies – all with the most civilized stiff upper lip! Nice series, try finding it yourself and see if you like it too.

Dexter 2x03

Dexter felt backed into a corner by Rita, who was interrogating him about Paul. Dex felt forced to tell her an inconvenient lie: that he has an addiction! Now he has to go through some Narcotics Anonymous twelve step bullshit program to convince her he’s willing to recover (from an addition, mind you, he doesn’t have)... Perhaps even less convenient (at least it would be for me – and it sure is for Rita once she knows), is the gorgeous brunette Lila with a sexy thick British accent (a blend of Liv Tyler and Teri Hatcher). Dex soon gets afraid this Lila will uncover his true addiction, but when he tells Rita he wants out, she shows him the door. So, ultimately he returns to the program. The fun part is that Sgt. Doakes believes he has finally discovered what was wrong with Dexter and gives up tailing him! Hahahaha! LOL. And Dexter himself is starting to open up, to feel his heart, literally and figuratively – becoming more human and more likeable in the process.

Caprica 1x06

On Caprica, when Daniel Graystone was desperately trying to finish his Cylon prototype for a military contract, he instructed Joseph Adama to order the Tauron organized crime syndicate to steal a meta-cognitive processor, i.e., an artificial intelligence chip created by Graystone’s rival the Vergis Corporation. We briefly visit the capital of the planet Tauron, a beautiful, faux-classical city, where we learn that two people were killed in the theft. Now industrialist Tomas Vergis approaches Graystone to confront him about the theft and the double murder, offering a lot of money to purchase the famous Caprican sports team owned by Graystone, revealing in due course that he is set in ruining all of Graystone’s dreams and ambitions.

Meanwhile headmistress Clarice, facing competition from some rogue Soldier of the One, sets out to steal the “avatar” (virtual identity) of Zoe Graystone, who she believes to be some godsend with visions of an eternal (though virtual) afterlife. Zoe’s friend Lacy, however, has persuaded foot soldier Keon to arrange a meeting with this rogue Barnabas, because she has promised Zoe to take a package to the planet Geminon. For his part Joseph Adama is still trying to find his lost daughter Tamara in V-world. No doubt this doesn’t mean much to you. It’s not a show I would recommend to anyone (not that it’s bad, but it isn’t great either), but since I’ve seen the entire Battlestar Galactica, I might as well watch the last few episodes of this one...

Gossip Girl 3x13

Did you miss Gossip Girl? You know I have! XO XO ..LOL.. I’m so very happy that Nate and Serena are finally back together again!!! Now I hope Dan and Vanessa are getting together, too, because that’s been in the offing since day one. Of course, if Blair is with Chuck, Serena with Nate, and Dan with Vanessa, we don’t have much intrigue left ... well, except for little Jenny... Speaking of which, our international playboy, debonair Damien is hooking up Jenny with a pandora’s box load of recreational pills that he needs her to get to the French Ambassador’s daughter, who happens to be under twenty-four hour surveillance. Isn’t it great what comes with the advantages of privilege and affluence? That little girl is pushing dope as Damien’s dealer! Anyway, there’s enough intrigue left as far as Lily and Rufus are concerned, since he’s thinking about breaking up with her (no!!!) because she keeps hiding things from him so that he finds it impossible to trust her... Hahaha! You’re rolling your eyes, aren’t you?

Serena wants to rush into things with Nate, but he feels they should take it slow – he doesn’t want to ruin it after waiting so long for her. Pissed off, Serena goes to the French Ambassador’s dinner with Damien instead. So now Damien isn’t going to take Jenny there and Jenny can make a splash by going with Nate! Oh, the scandalous deceit! (And you’re wondering why I like this show. Ha!) Meanwhile Blair is hoping Chuck will arrange a meeting for her with some secret society, but he is too busy trying to find this woman who he saw at his father’s grave ... and suspects to be his mother ... even though his father always told him and blamed him for the fact that his mother died giving birth to him... What plot twists! (Funny how The xx was on the soundtrack! Heehee!) Perhaps the best part of Gossip Girl, though, is the backdrop. God, I love New York! I miss the City so much. Seeing all these familiar locations makes me sad and nostalgic, but I luv New York City! Wish I were there ... with you ... right now!

Girls Next Door 6x08

O!M!G! Hugh Hefner’s bimbo girlfriends and some playmates are going to do a commercial for Guitar Hero 5 ... !!! “I didn’t know there were going to be rehearsals!” “We didn’t even know what Guitar Hero was...” Twit & Twat, the twin tweeters are twitting twats! “We didn’t know anything...” How must that feel never having any goddam clue?!? They googled it, and since Heidi Klum did a commercial for it, it’s okay... ??? They’re residuals. “Residuals?” “I don’t even know if I said it right.” “Residuals?” O!M!ƒ!G! How annoying can you be?!? Looks like a great commercial, though, anyone seen it before?

Then Crystal goes to visit her mother in San Diego. Her father died years ago from a brain tumor. Her mother plays a song her father recorded. And then Crystal’s mom drops the bomb that she never married her father... WTF?!? That was awkward. Did we really need to know that? We didn’t, right? Wow. Just because she’s Hef’s whatever, girlfriend I guess, she’s able to go into the studio with Smokey Robinson, of all people, to record her version of her father’s song... Holy crap, her voice is awful! Toe-curlingly awful.

Hatshepsut

BBC had a documentary recently about Hatshepsut (first half of the fifteenth century BCE), one of the few female Pharaoh’s (not the first, incidentally, as they make it seem). (What’s so fascinating about her, parenthetically, is that she presented herself as a male ruler. Ancient Egyptian also didn’t have a term for female monarch. But that’s not what this documentary is about.) In Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri (across the Nile from Luxor) there are scenes depicting an expedition to the land of Punt. This wondrous, distant land has troubled Egyptologists for ages. Where is Punt? Did the whole expedition happen? Could Egyptians even build ships that navigated the seas? Or is this the stuff of legends that true historians ought to dismiss as fanciful nonsense?

In my classes I would indicate that Hatshepsut was a not a military ruler, she didn’t campaign with Egyptian armies in the Levant (the Middle East) or in Nubia (south of Egypt, in northern Sudan). Instead, she supported trade expeditions – maintaining her position of power as a female sovereign through peaceful means that enriched Egypt (and must have pleased the nobility with luxuries). But “peace sells” only when people are happy, when times are good and enemies are leaving you alone. Hatshepsut could boost her position and the morale of the populations returning from a mysterious land with rich treasures of exotic woods, gold, precious jewels and gems, ebony and ivory, animal hides and ostrich feathers, living animals (giraffes, panthers and cheetahs), and perhaps most importantly of all (at least to the priests of Egypt) live myrrh trees and other marvelous resins for incense.

A few years ago at Mersa Gawasis along the Egyptian Red Sea coast, archaeologists uncovered wooden boxes bearing inscriptions that read “wonderful things of Punt”! They also found coiled ropes and ship timbers. Those finds, combined with the depictions at Deir el-Bahri of the seafaring expedition, allow maritime archeologists to endeavor the nearly unthinkable task of building a replica of an ancient Egyptian ship. Egyptians didn’t use nails or screws, or any kind of metal, to fasten planks, instead they used mortise and tenon joints. Moreover, there is no evidence that Egyptians used pitch, resin, bitumen, or any other product to make ships watertight – in other words, they became watertight because the wood would swell after the ships were launched.

Except when the ship makers are done at the yard ... it leaks terribly ... they wait for the wood to swell ... they wait two weeks ... and after pumping all the water out ... the ship still is not watertight! A traditional method in Egypt, still (and attested in other ancient cultures), is using linen (or other plant fibers) as well as beeswax. Then, finally, after nearly a year of construction, the replica sets sail! They’re on open water for days, everything goes fine, they put the ship to the test, and they are even joined by dolphins (just as the relief scenes depict at Deir el-Bahri)! In short, ancient Egyptian some three thousand five hundred years ago could have sailed down the Red Sea coast to the Horn of Africa.

The Leopard

Recently, when going through boxes from storage, I found back my VHS copy of The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, 1963, based on the novel by Tomassi). I have long been an admirer of Italian cinematographer Luchino Visconti (Boccaccio ‘70, The Damned, Death in Venice), yet I haven’t seen this film in maybe fifteen years. So, it was about time I revisited this jewel. It features an incredible international cast including Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Terence Hill. Enjoy the rich Technicolor, the luscious lights, the sumptuously saturated colors, the thick shadows, and the overwhelming straw yellow, sand and dust, and the parched earth of the island’s countryside! Marvel at the period detail, the rococo ballrooms, the splendid catholic costumes, the hilarious mustaches! We even view a “déjeuner sur l’herbe (lunch on the grass),” very much like an impressionist painting (well, save Manet’s scandalous female nude).

Set in Sicily during the Risorgimento (19th-century Italian unification), the three-hour historical epic chronicles the decline of the local nobility. When the story begins, an aristocratic family prayer is rudely interrupted as a dead soldier is found in the estate’s garden: Garibaldi’s revolutionary forces have landed in Sicily, in Prince Salina’s backyard! These are times of revolution and resistance ... “brutti tempi” ... On the barricades and in the streets idealistic fervor battles with murderous defiance, tricolor nationalism struggles to overcome parochial loyalties, republican forces fight royalist troops, leopards and lions replaced by jackals and hyenas. The local prince demonstrates persistence in the face of fear and terror ... “Se volgiamo che tutto rimanga com’ è, bisogna che tutto cambi (If we want everything to stay the same, everything must change),” a young hothead idealist proclaims. But soon the Bourbon royal house must flee Sicily and make way for the Savoy Vittorio Emanuele.

The heart of the story revolves around the marriage of Don Tancredi, the hothead idealist nephew of Prince Salinas, with Angelica, the daughter of the local homo novo (“nouveau riche” or upstart, if you prefer), Don Calogero. The wedding symbolizes the new order: the marriage of the old nobility with the newly rich. Meanwhile, we witness the Sicilian aristocrats struggle in languishing anxiety with their uncertain future, with their age-old distrust for Northern Italians. What will happen to the Church in a Republic? Will it lose its riches and its hold over the poor (which it bribes with alms and scares with infernal damnation)? Should the nobility deal with the bourgeois Liberals in order to survive? Can a leopard change its spots to save its skin?

Claudia Cardinale’s first entrance, however, is absolutely phenomenal ... She is for all I know female beauty epitomized! The whole room is dumbfounded in admiring silence ... What a stunningly breathtaking beauty! She is such a seductively sly wench, she could get any man to do exactly as she wishes, have them grovel at her feet in obedient adoration. (And I would be first in line!) What a beauty, Angelica! (And what an appropriate name, for such a devil in disguise!) Just as all present at the traditional first night dinner in the Donnafugata estate, an opulent affair, we gawk at this divine demoness, this evil temptress with her heaving bossom, flirting delightfully with Tancredi! What an undying beauty!

The last forty-five minutes of the movie is one of the most magnificent cinematic experiences you’ve ever had: a lavish, glorious, conspicuous ball to celebrate as if for one last time an age that has passed. An Elegy for Nobility, if you will. It is also Angelica’s beaming debut into aristocratic high society. The prince reasons that all the cousin marriages have been morally degenerating his noble lineage. It’s good, in other words, that new blood is coming into his aristocratic house. But what is really happening is that he is madly lusting after Angelica, despite his upright formality. He keeps telling her how beautiful she is, he’s entirely captivated, thoroughly under her spell. So, he contemplates death and his own mortality. The Age of the Nobility has died – and this angelic vision of sexual desires run rampant embodies a new, modern age that has just begun. Angelica knows exactly how to take advantage with her seductive charm. “Nobody could ever resist your beauty,” the Prince tells her. Amen.

Alt Rock

At the recommendation of my dearest Luloo I’ve recently tuned into some non-heavy metal music... First off, The xx’s eponymous debut album (2009) that has apparently been received with universal critical acclaim. At first it didn’t blow my mind, but after repeat listening it grew and grew on me. Theirs is very nice, dreamy, alternative pop rock, with hints of new age electronica. Or, to state it differently, it reminds me of Radiohead, Björk, Keren Ann (especially her collaboration with Bang Gang’s Bardi Johannsson), some parts resemble The Cure (circa Seventeen Seconds), with a splash of Bat for Lashes or Feist. To these ears their song “Infinity” is a remake of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” (which you might know from David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart, or from that sexy black and white video in which Isaak is rolling on the beach with fashion top model Helena Christensen). I really had to warm up to this kind of music and, to be true, I have to be in the mood for it, which I’m not always, but it sure does pay off very well.

Next, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s collaboration with Beck, entitled IRM (MRI, of the brain scan, spelled backwards). The album similarly reminds me of Keren Ann plus a dash of The Velvet Underground with Nico, and some Portishead, maybe Radiohead, too... It’s sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic, soft, alternative pop rock. Unfortunately I can’t let go of the fact that Charlotte’s father Serge Gainsbourg is a legend in France, that she would most likely never have been able to release this album without her father’s legacy, because in all honesty, Charlotte cannot really sing ... she sighs and moans (much like her mother Jane Birkin), which is nice, too, but not extraordinarily skillful. After giving it some time to sink in, though, it sure grew on me, too. When I was moving these past few weeks, these albums became my soundtrack and gave me a sense of regained cheer and hope and optimism...

Another critics’ fave is the debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, by Bon Iver (“bon hiver” is French for “good winter”), practically the one-man band of Justin Vernon. This kind of acoustic alternative indie folk rock is definitely not your Music Cricket’s usual cup o’ tea... Yet, I was soon captivated by the tuneful tracks, with remarkable soundscapes in the background here and a beautiful trumpet line there, carefully arranged, especially considering that it was essentially self-produced and recorded in a Wisconsin cabin. There are silent moments where you can practically hear the cracks of the woodwork. “Lump Sum” could almost have been by Radiohead. After making the concerted effort of listen to this music, I was pleasantly rewarded. After just a few days I started humming random bits of melody from “re: Stacks,” “Wolves,” “For Emma” and “Skinny Love.” I can imagine that listening to a song like “Wolves” on a good stereo (to which I don’t have access right now) would be an amazingly powerful, wistfully emotional experience. Thanks Luloo, my love!

[This is a slightly edited version of the original post; BvO - 5/26/10]

Mad Men 3x10

Stupid Mad Man Don Draper is continuing his affair with sassy Suzanne, Sally’s teacher. He’s even spending the night with her – pretending he’s going back to the office, and getting Betty’s sympathy to boot... Not that I don’t find Suzanne attractive, but, jeez, things were finally starting to get better between him and Betty... I hate to see people ruin love... One day, while he’s with Suzanne, there’s a knock on her door, it’s her brother Danny and she wants Don to meet him. Later she follows him into the train to New York (wait, why is Don sometimes driving his car, sometimes taking the train?) ... and tells him she doesn’t care about his work or his marriage, as long as she knows he’s with him... Uhoh, here we go. She’s getting possessive. The affair has turned in to a relationship. They’re even holding hands. Darn fools!

At Sterling Cooper, Peggy Olsen demonstrates yet again how good she is. They’re supposed to come up with ideas for Western Union telegrams... Paul Kinsey is working late, drinking steadily, and has an epiphany, then drinks some more. His secretary wakes him up the next morning ... he forgot to write down his incredible idea ... now he has nothing ... he forgot! Peggy tells him it’s alright, she has nothing much either. Paul recalls a Chinese saying, “The faintest ink is better than the best memory.” In Don’s office, Peggy’s ideas don’t go anywhere. Paul has to admit “the dog ate his homework” ... Then Peggy asks Paul to repeat that Chinese saying and she spins off from there, off the top of her head. Paul is visibly impressed. “See, it all works out,” Don says. I adore Peggy!

Dexter 2x02

Serial killer Dexter is on edge ... he’s failed twice to kill his victim ... and now scuba divers have surfaced the remains of the people he did kill before... Miami homicide is bringing in this rock star FBI agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine), who has successfully cracked many serial killer cases. “This is the guy who stands between me and death row,” Dexter thinks. Here’s the delicious irony, of course, the serial killer they are looking for (dubbed the Bay Harbor Butcher in the media) is right in the room with them getting debriefed how much (or, rather, how little) they know about him.

At work, Dexter’s case involves the heroine-addict mother of the man slaughtered in the previous episode. Since she suffered the same machete wounds, the assumption is that “Little Chino” must be behind this murder, too. Dex is still having trouble killing this giant Mexican gang lord Little Chino. Eventually, though, he manages to get mad enough to do the deed. But then he has to get rid the corpse ... he chooses the Atlantic Gulf Stream current as it passes Florida ... hoping the corpse will drift far away enough...

Storylines are even more compelling than last season! Dex’s sis Deb is struggling to get her life back after the man she loved turned out to be the Ice truck Killer. Sgt. Doakes is still tailing Dexter whenever he can ... and meanwhile is thinking about a career move. Sgt. LaGuerta has learned personal information about the new Lieutenant, Esmee Pascal (that is, that her husband is cheating on her). And LaGuerta knows so well how to take advantage of that knowledge manipulation, nearly blackmailing Pascal.

Burn Notice 3x16

So, Michael Westen, in his continuing quest to discover why he got a Burn Notice, has had to deal with law enforcers and criminals of every shade. Last season the “Management” of the shadowy company behind his burn notice released him out of their surveillance and protections. In season three, Michael is back on the grid, under the attention of police detectives, FBI and CIA agents, as well as black operation psychopaths like Gilroy. Now, Gilroy was double-crossed and an international terrorist is on the loose. Michael is pursued by the FBI for his involvement in the terrorist’s escape. On the run, he’s looking for this terrorist, who’s of course also looking for him. Soon enough we learn that this guy, Simon, has been responsible for major acts of terrorism that were then (inexplicably) blamed on Michael. His burn notice, in other words, is based on crimes this Simon committed. Simon wants Michael to get in touch with the “Management” of that shadowy company behind the burn notice, and threatens to blow up an unspecified hotel in Miami Beach to encourage Michael’s co-operation.

This season delved deeper into Michael’s relations with Fiona (his trigger-happy ex-girlfriend) and Sam (his old friend who used to inform on him to the FBI), as well as his mother (his chain-smoking, complainy, but ultimately iron-fisted and loyal mother). Those relations added more layers, more psychological, emotional depth to the storylines. This season finale was particularly powerful, with great action scenes, and unexpected plot twists. Sam and Fiona help Michael find the explosives to save Miami from another devastating act of useless terror. FBI put pressure on Michael’s mother who refuses to budge. “Management” manages to mess up the arrangement with Simon, who blows up the company’s helicopter, takes “Management” captive. In pursuit, Michael gets arrested, but not before “Management” tells him he has a “big future” ahead of him. In the end, Michael is taken into detention, hand cuffed, foot cuffed, blindfolded, taken to some dark hole in some unknown location ... and when the light goes back on, Michael finds himself sitting in a beautifully decorated room. Ah, what a wonderful cliff hanger! Love this show!

Caprica 1x05

On Caprica, things are finally starting to get interesting. Tamara, the daughter of big-time lawyer Joseph Adama, died on the monorail bombing. Yet her “avatar” is trapped in the anarchic V-world, the virtual reality created by Daniel Graystone’s company as a form of teenage recreation. She has been wandering around hoping to find her way out and now approaches this woman Vesta for help, only to get shot in the stomach. (Normal V-gamers check out, take off their “holoband.”) But Tamara’s wound stops bleeding and heels. So, the Vestal priestess uses her to settle a score, break a heist, to empty the bank account of some fat man called Chiron. (Perhaps some people enjoy all these references to Greek and Roman Myths and Religion. It annoys the heck out of me!)

Meanwhile Joseph Adama realizes he’s losing touch with his son Willie, who is drifting towards the world of organized crime in which Sam Adama is an enforcer. Sam helps Joseph understand that what Willie needs is closure, that is, the traditional Tauron funerary rites to mark the death of his mother and sister. On his part Daniel Graystone has to face the consequences of his promise on Colonial TV to make the holoband technology available for free – or lose his own company through a vote of no confidence by the board. So, he barges in with his Cylon prototype – the one with the “avatar” of his daughter Zoe somehow uploaded into it (except he doesn’t know that).

Black Metal

The genre “Black Metal” derives its name from Venom’s sophomore album (1982) and its title track. While they functioned as an inspiration in terms of imagery (leather and spikes) and lyrics (mock-Satanic themes), Venom was a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band, and never as extreme as trve kvlt black metal. Other early influences include Mercyful Fate (who added the corpse-paint make-up to the Satanic themes) and Hellhamer/Celtic Frost (who added grim atmospheric soundscapes). The extremely fast distorted riffs, blast drum beats, and shrieking vocals we now recognize as black metal began with Bathory (who also pioneered the Viking metal genre by adding another source of non-Christian/pagan inspiration). By the early 90s, trve kvlt (grïm nekrø) black metal emerged predominantly in Norway and to a lesser extent Sweden. We’re talking about bands such as Immortal, Marduk, Darkthrone, Satyricon, Emperor, Carpathian Forest, Dark Funeral, and the even more extreme bands (I’ve stayed away from) such as Mayhem, Burzum, and Gorgoroth. On the fringes we find Ammon Amarth (melodic death, Viking/power metal), Dimmu Borgir (more commercial, melodic, symphonic black metal), and Cradle of Filth (also more commercial, symphonic, gothic metal). Then there’s the American black metal scene, including acts such as Krieg, Twilight, Nachtmystium, Leviathan, Xasthur, and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, some members of this “cult” (also referred to as the “inner circle”) take their anti-Christian misanthropy overly serious... Some are known to display slaughtered goats or crucify naked women on stage, others have committed suicide or murder, and several were involved in a series of church burnings... It’s those kinds of disturbing excesses from which I wish to distance myself. I certainly don’t subscribe to their ideology, even if I think it’s healthy to be critical of organized religion, and to promote a strong non-conformist individualism. Another regrettable aspects of this scene is that several bands or their members have outspoken homophobic and neo-nazist sentiments. Perhaps you’d argue that such anti-Christian, sexist and racist ideas are the logical outcome of heavy metal, but I’d counter that singing about death and destruction, devils and damnation, dungeons and dragons, demons and wizards, is something entirely different than actually believing in them. One is a form of entertainment, the other a symptom of insanity! No matter what, I adore the sheer aggression of black metal.

Man Bites Dog

Are you ready for a satirical black & white pseudo-documentary (“mocku‐mentary”) about a serial killer? You may know this one as “Man Bites Dog,” but the original title is “C’est arrivé près de chez vous (It Happened Close to Your Home).” I wish I could say I find it disturbing, as I feel about watching Dexter... but I rather find this flick’s pitch black humor funny. Let me illustrate: the opening scene takes place in a train where a woman passes by a man, who strangles her with a string of some kind, they fall on the seats, she struggles in vain without uttering a sound, and then dies atop the man smiling. Okay, so you probably don’t find this funny, but if you do, you’ve just as sick a mind as I do!

The way the guy talks and keeps yapping with his twisted logic, then cheerful, then offended, boisterous and loud, grotesque and endearing! Heehee! For instance, he gets all worked up about urban renewal. “How can you design low-cost housing projects in total disregards of aesthetics?” he cries, going on about cosmetic cherry trees, and violently red bricks, “violence is the scourge of society,” he can’t accept it, “je suis désolé (I’m sorry),” he cries! Hahahah! He never stops talking, about poetry, pigeons and politics, art and recollections of younger days, music, money and murder. With increasingly chaotic violence he kills indiscriminately – and the members of the film crew become more and more involved, drinking and dining with him, helping him dump bodies, chase victims, and worse... Not your average light fare – sure no chick flick for a first date... Teehee!

Dexter 2x01

Speaking of serial killers ... it’s time to start Season Two of Dexter! I admit I’m actually excited to begin another season. We pick up just thirty-eight days, sixteen hours and twelve minutes after Dexter murdered his serial killer brother, Brian, the notorious Ice Truck Killer, in cold blood – and he’s trying his best to act normal, since his colleague Sgt. James Doakes is hot on his trail, hoping to catch him ... though Doakes doesn’t know what he’d find ... but is suspicious nonetheless. Dexter’s all Jekyll and no Hyde. When Doakes finally takes a night off, Dex cannot get himself to slay his victim, a blind voodoo witchdoctor (hurray!).

At work Dex goes to a homicide scene, where he finds a slain body and the victim’s heroine-addicted mother cries out that gang lord “Little Chino” did it. Dex sympathizes with the victim’s little sister. So, he hopes to set it right by killing this “Little Chino” (an enormous Mexican gangster) himself. Except he didn’t use enough tape to restrain the giant after he came to. They end up in a fight, and before Dex can reach for his butcher’s knife to finish him off, he’s gone.

Meanwhile, Rita’s ex, Paul, dies in jail after he got into an angry inmate altercation because she refused to help him get out. And something very troubling happens – for Dexter at least – when news comes on TV that scuba diving treasure hunters accidentally found his tools and some thirty garbage bags with the mutilated remains of his victims in Biscayne Bay. An exclamation point wouldn’t do justice to my excitement! What a plot twist!! What an amazing way to begin the new season!!!