Moist Deluxe

Zona pt 2

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:50:52 -0500

Update: I finished the book and am now onto reviews of it. Dana Stevens wins with this line: He’s like the most brilliant boyfriend you ever had in grad school. Well, I’ve never been to grad school and I’ve never had a boyfriend, but that about sums him up.

But then she goes on to write, “whose combination of trippy visuals and weighty Christian symbolism was never much to my taste.” Between Stalker and Tree of Life that’s all my taste consists of right now.

Zona

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:55:00 -0500

I went to see Stalker last night. The occasion: Geoff Dyer, whose new book, Zona, is about Stalker and the impact it had on him. He was hosting a few others for a panel they called Tarkovsky Interruptus. A frustrating way to see a movie you’ve never seen before, especially a three hour long Russian scifi; the movie plays for thirty-ish minutes, and then they interrupt-us, and talk about it for a few minutes before continuing; I almost didn’t go.

But I did, and am I glad. As promised, the movie was mind-blowing. I don’t have anything to add except for an interpretation at the end, offered as an alternative to Philip Lopate’s impatient and almost wilful misunderstanding.

It’s the very end of the movie, and the Stalker, exhausted from what’s been the hardest trip into the Zone of his life — not physically the hardest, amazingly, no one died, but spiritually — collapses into bed while his wife soothes him and wipes his forehead. He rants against the unbelievers (Stalker has no purpose without believers). He gets more and more agitated, until his wife feeds him a sleeping pill.* She offers to go into the Zone with him; doesn’t she have wishes too? Stalker says no; he couldn’t bear it if she became an unbeliever.

Here’s where Lopate comes in. He said, fairly unbelievably I thought, that Tarkovsky is trying to “have his cake and eat it too,” slinging belief with the one hand and doubt with the other, and, of course, that Tarkovsky should just pick doubt, Goddammit.

What a shallow understanding of the religious mind. Does Lopate think that doubt is not an integral part of faith? That believers, the brainwashed dolts, are locked in until they’re locked out? That there can’t be a conflicted evangelist?

Tarkovsky is saying complex things, but he’s not having and eating cake.

Here’s my reading. What if this last trip got to Stalker more than he thought? What if the Writer unlocked a doubt that had been lingering inside him? What if his agitation is a sign not (only) of his anger towards the Writer and the Professor but of his own crisis?

In other words, what if Stalker’s also talking about himself when he tells his wife she can’t go?

After all, by staying out of the room, Stalker maintains his shaking faith by never putting it to the test.

*!!!! What’s the connection between that pill and the stash of pills they find in the room with the phone? Just another of the film’s many symbolic echoes? Or could his wife have been to the Zone? His daughter?

Booty Rap: A Poem About Love

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:37:55 -0500

By: Kathleen Roberts

Once upon a time on the middle coast
lived a man who felt his heart did hurt the most.
All he wanted was a lady and to make her his baby,
and from lack of sex this dude had gone a little bit crazy.

So our guy took up a hobby that his neighbors disliked:
ridin’ naked up and down the streets of town on his bike.
Well the cops were called by the Neighborhood Watch,
who described a cyclist exposing his crotch.

By the time that the police cruiser had tracked his crack down
and brought him in, it turned out he had burned his shack down,
so with no home, no clothes, and no girl either,
he lay in jail and giggled till he had a seizure.

They took him to the Psych Ward at the hospital,
but for male roommates it turned out that the place was full.
So they put him in a double with this crazy bitch,
who explained that in her brain at the center was an itch,

so she’d often try to insert sharpened rods in her temples,
a habit met with horror and grief by her parentals.
She’d been living here a month when her roommate suicided
by stockpiling muscle relaxants she was provided.

The fella in question said Ya got a pretty face,
and pretty soon the two were locked in loony embrace.
After half an hour of our main man’s persistent urgin’,
the girl confessed with eyes aside that she was a virgin.

Our protagonist said Well perhaps a lover’s touch
will extract from your brain that itch you hate so much.
The girl said Oh, hey boy, maybe you’re right,
so they rocked her metal bedframe all through the night.

In the morning when they woke she found the itch was gone,
and he could tell his sanity was turned back on.
Pretty soon their discharge was approved by a doctor
and they moved into a lovely little home in Proctor.

Now the moral of the story, as the story went,
is that all you need is love to get yourself unbent.

sports blog

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:36:48 -0500

This sports blog makes me laugh and cringe. (some of this shit’s fucked up and some is hilarious, largely both)

http://touchitdave.blogspot.com/

check out the links on the blog too.

check out "Fancy"

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:10:09 -0500

check out "Fancy"

Geeking out about my favorite music: deconstructing the musical and cultural significance of The-Dream's "Fancy."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:09:00 -0500

Many music writers and bloggers comment on the questionable and ambiguous process of genre classification (example: http://www.xlr8r.com/mp3/2010/08/oochre), and this article is no different. But instead of merely trivializing the characterization of certain kinds of music into boxes, i.e., rap, rock, dance, or to be more specific (pretentious, perhaps?), chillwave, screwgaze, soulfly, or down-tempo, to an extent it can be helpful to use descriptive ques. Genre classification necessarily exists as a means to direct interests (what kind of music do you like? I like dance music… what kind of dance music?). In this case, the genre ‘dance’ is too vague to be helpful. Artists have moment between and within genres; it does, however, become problematic when artists and their music become pigeonholed. Musical genres need not levy such intense criticism, but it is important to understand that they should be fluid and dynamic categorizations and not hermetically sealed, culturally restrictive labels.

Which brings me to The-Dream. I first heard 29 year-old, Atlanta native The-Dream (Terius Youngdell Nash) on my Hip-Hop KRLX radio show. My co-DJ, Dan Jensen, was raving about this one song called “Fancy.” I think he described it as the soulful, RnB version of Lil Wayne’s ‘Let The Beat Build.’ “Fancy,” a track on the March 2009 album Love vs. Money, is a 6:30 song, the first 5:30 of which is a slow build, continually adding different elements, ultimately culminating with 12 seconds of an actual snare/bass beat. I know no other song from an RnB/Soul/Hip-Hop musician/producer with this structure (save for, perhaps, Erykah Badu).

“Fancy” glimpses the life of a 23 year-old young woman from a poor background, who, presumably, is stunningly beautiful. I imagine a young and quieter Beyonce. As The-Dream sings, “She’s the dream of a billion men.” The first 25 seconds contain the fundamental musical elements of the song: an underlying, panning, hollow-sounding synth, a basic piano cord progression offset by a tambourine and reverb clap, Nash’s rich, tenor voice on the lead as well as the background, the “aayyyyyyyyyy” yell present in many The-Dream songs, accompaniment piano and strings, and what I can only describe as breathing noises. These elements remain throughout the song with increased or decreased importance as the verses and chorus’ progress.

With producers as talented as The-Dream, listening with a gross attention to detail reveals their musical genius (At one point, Nash is singing a three-part harmony with himself). While “Fancy” contains many brilliant moments, often very subtle, I’d like to highlight only a few. At 35 seconds, after singing “she climbs up way up to this bed singing melodies,” Nash sings a little three-note melody. It’s not the lead vocal part so does not detract from the flow of the verse and blends in nicely with the music. It is so subtle as to be almost unrecognizable. The song is filled with these background support devices, in place to give the listener a sense of the atmosphere and setting. Instead of simply hearing sensual lyrics of foreplay, the listener almost feels in the room, as creepy as that sounds. My other favorite device of this order is at 2:00, the start of the second verse. Nash is talking about yachts, traveling, and wine, and sings “In Paris seducing me while we dine.” Here we have a specific reference to Paris. Just before he sings this, in the background music, which has at this point only increased slightly in magnitude from the opening note, an accordion plays a little solo behind the lead vocal. What better romantic imagery than spending a quiet, pleasant evening together, drinking wine at a nice restaurant in Paris, with a single accordion player providing background music.

Beyond The-Dream’s musical gifts, this song is significant because it’s about a respectful and amorous relationship. The-Dream sings “I’m with her cuz she’s beautiful and deserving….have anything she was cause she my girl.” The woman is attracted to The-Dream not only for his money, though he has copious amounts of that. She’s looking for a certain savoir-faire or respectability.

“Fancy” is about class in it’s most ostentatious form. A hallmark of Rap, the genre in which The-Dream is heavily associated (he produced Rihanna’s hit ‘Umbrella’ and has collaborated with Kanye West, T.I., Drake, Lil John, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z), is the showcase of riches: money, cars, diamonds, bling, etc. Against this background, “Fancy” is conspicuously fresh, a song about the glamour’s of wealth as opposed to riches. Nash walks a fine line between gaudiness and refinement. The-Dream is not excluding those previously mentioned exhibits of success, however, he is clearly in another league. Among the ritzy nice cars, diamond rings, and expensive plane rides are “Trips to Monaco…evenings among the stars…designer clothes…wine…Italian shoes.” While “Fancy” is 6:30 detailing The-Dream’s ascension over all other men, claiming the most sought woman in the world, the life-style present is elegant and sophisticated while not being pompous or snobbish. Nash is careful to maintain his swagger, concluding the song with “even when I used to rock Polo I was fancy.”

-Dan Curme

Photo

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:12:10 -0500

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Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:11:52 -0500

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Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:11:27 -0500

Dino Rossi is running for Senate in the great state of...

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:16:56 -0500

Dino Rossi is running for Senate in the great state of Washington.

http://touchitdave.blogspot.com/

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:28:07 -0500

http://touchitdave.blogspot.com/

The 21st Century Etch-A-Sketch! #teabaggingmexico

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:17:32 -0500

The 21st Century Etch-A-Sketch!

#teabaggingmexico

At least the one dude is protecting his child

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:10:42 -0500

At least the one dude is protecting his child

Tales of Zombies (in Actual Haiku form)

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:06:00 -0500

my neighbors still slept

as the zombies crept through town

they awoke undead

——————————————————

mom threw a grenade

the zombie blew up, alas,

blood got in her mouth

——————————————————

gunning down zombies,

my arm was bitten. weeping,

i hacked it clean off

——————————————————

later i saw mom

dead-eyed, moaning, and bloody

and slit my lone wrist

——————————————————

nora burned the stairs

zombies piled up beneath her

rotten hands grasping

——————————————————

nora stayed upstairs

after five days of terror

she starved to death there

——————————————————

dad was cleverest

he fled to the Atlantic

to escape by boat

——————————————————

wading through driftwood

he found a russian u-boat

full of gnarled corpses

——————————————————

not dead as they seemed

the kremlin zombies leapt up

and ate my dad’s brains

Moist Extraordinaire

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:55:20 -0500

Moist Extraordinaire

Troll 2... "One Was Not Enough!"

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:41:00 -0500

Troll 2. Absolutely, the worst movie you will ever see. Nothing about this movie makes sense. Every scene will leave you confused, offended, angry, and helplessly awkward.

But trust me… you’ll sit down and watch all 135 minutes of it.

Before you start the movie, know this… There is not a Troll 1. The title was changed from “Goblin” to Troll 2 in an attempt to draw an audience from a previously established horror film entitled “Troll”, which was released four years earlier. Another thing, there are no trolls involved with this production… there are only goblins… vegetarian goblins.

The film starts off immediately. Bluntly dragging you into a random storyline of a “courageous boy” named Peter, who is being stalked by goblins in a forest. He soon realizes he is being watched, and “to make a long story short, Peter started to run, and run.” Then comes the beginning of a glorious soundtrack, rumored to have been recorded solely through the use of a vintage 80’s Casio keyboard. At that very moment, you begin to smile. You think, holy shit this is terrible… but I want more.

Oh… you will get more.

The opening narrator, creepy Grandpa Seth, informs you that the goblins frequently take the form of other humans. They trick people into eating delicious bowls of green goo (strangely resembling green gak… that sticky fad from the mid 90’s). Upon consumption, this substance would turn a human into half-man half-plant… the goblins’ favorite food, of course. The transformation is gruesomely overdone, with green goo pouring out of orifices (mainly from the forehead?), sticks growing from hands and tearing through skin.

As the film continues… you experience a whirlwind of nonsensical ‘plot-lines’ as a typical American family swaps their home with a goblin family from the town Nilbog… yes Nilbog. “NILBOG IS GOBLIN SPELLED BACKWARDS!”

There’s really only so much one can say… So please, enjoy the show.

And the 2010 Car and Driver Award for Safest Ad Campaign goes to...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:07:00 -0500

And the 2010 Car and Driver Award for Safest Ad Campaign goes to Toyota.

Honorable Mention: Kia. In their most recent ad campaign, they...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:06:00 -0500

Honorable Mention: Kia. In their most recent ad campaign, they quite humbly suggest that you’d probably rather drive a Kia than a toaster… or a cardboard box… or a washing machine…

First and foreskin: any car commercial that incorporates some 90’s Native Tongue freshness is safe in my book. Plus, meek is far more appealing than downright aggressive.

Photo

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:54:38 -0500

Soccer Dog: The Movie

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:52:35 -0500

In my infinite curiosity, I purchased this charming gem from Cub Foods on my last trek before graduating. I was intrigued: “The Movie”? What previous iterations has this wonderful canine embarked upon as to warrant a subtitle? I have yet to watch it, but here are some Netflix reviews of this Air Bud spin-off.
   I have seen/rated over 1,500 movies on this site. I can safely say that this was the very worst of them. Horrid acting, terrible dialogue. Maybe that was to be expected, but it wasn’t even silly, or cute enough for the kids to enjoy. Instead it was a lot of creepy adults yelling, and looking ominous in every other scene. My 6 & 10 year olds have never told me to turn off a movie before. Well they were begging me too! I finished the rest later just to give it a fair shake. It didn’t deserve it.
   This is the first time I have truly felt the need to write a review of a movie. This movie was terrible on so many levels I dont know where to begin. I foolishly looked at only one review of this movie and, looking at that same review again, I would guess the P.R. people from the movie actually wrote it. I really don’t know if it was the weird dog catcher and most of the other bad characters or the fact that one of the adults drugged a kid so his own kid could try and throw the game that bothered me most.
And, the sequel:
   The stereotypes of the Scottish are insulting terrible. I would not recommend this film for anyone.