wasting words on lower cases and capitals
Not surprisingly, one of the first truly memorable conversations of my teaching career involved music. A student was telling me about his longstanding (by 15-year-old standards) feud with a classmate. To his credit, he was trying to be diplomatic about the issue and as a result was tossing around metaphors. I was not completely following him until he described it as a “Brand New-Taking Back Sunday situation.” Suddenly, we were speaking the same language, which is impressive in itself: even in 2010, years after the feud ended (at least officially), the perceived rivalry is so legendary in the pop-punk scene that current high-schoolers are still waging war on message boards over merits of the bands’ first two releases. Closure has been sought many times and many ways, but I think that I might have a fresh – if not final – perspective to offer: that of a new critic.*
The feud itself dates back to the early 2000s, back when Jesse Lacey (lead singer of Brand New) and John Nolan (backing vocalist and lead guitarist of Taking Back Sunday) were best friends. Legend has it that sometime in late 2000, Jesse’s girlfriend cheated on him with John and as tends to happen when you cheat with your boyfriend’s best friend, Jesse found out. Stories surrounding the personal aspect of the feud vary, but there is no doubt that Brand New’s 2001 full-length debut, Your Favorite Weapon, was born out of the dispute. Full of teenage angst and anger directed at Lacey’s girlfriend and Nolan, songs such as “Mix Tape,” “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad,” and “Last Chance To Lose Your Keys” pull no punches in expressing the betrayal Lacey felt in the aftermath. The pièce de résistance is “Seventy Times 7,” the catchiness and away-message-quoatibilty of which is only matched by its vitriol. Not to be outdone, Taking Back Sunday responded in their 2002 full-length debut, Tell All Your Friends. The band borrows and twists Brand New’s lyrics on “There’s No ‘I’ In Team” and mocks Lacey’s songwriting on “Timberwolves At New Jersey.”
The appeal of both albums, at least as I see it, is the relatablility: at some point, almost every young adult has faced something akin to the situations described on the albums. This is not accidental or incidental. The album titles themselves - in the second person – are meant to draw the listener into the experience of the album and I think they both succeed in that. As pieces of pop-punk art, they are true peers; all of the message-board drama seems pointless to me. Their second albums, however, provide a better point for comparison.
In “Timberwolves At New Jersey,” Taking Back Sunday criticizes Lacey for writing “words at best / worse than teenage poetry / fragment ideas / and too many pronouns.” Ironically (in the real sense, not the Alanis Morissette sense), it was Brand New that produced an infinitely more mature second album. Arguably one of the best albums of the decade, Deja Entendu is the product of many and varying musical influences (hence the title’s translation, “a thing already heard). While not quite a concept album, much of it is an extended metaphor exploring the payoffs and prices of fame. Unlike the debut, Deja Entendu is not an album composed for its fans to relate to; I happen to identify with many of the themes, but not on the same visceral level as Your Favorite Weapon.
Taking Back Sunday’s sophomore release, Where You Want To Be, is for all intents and purposes an extension of their debut. Most strikingly to me, the repeated use of the second-person pronoun says that this is another album meant for the listener; the band seems to consciously be portraying their experiences as universal ones. Beyond this, “Slowdance on the Inside” seems to further press the issue of the alleged feud, this time alluding not only to Lacey, but to a larger disagreement involving Nolan and lead singer Adam Lazarra. Don’t get me wrong: there are some well-composed and very catchy songs on the album, but the band has not grown or matured in any way. I do not mean that they should have produced a carbon copy of Deja, but I think it fair to expect some maturation; I expect eighth-grade English students to write more involved and better-thought-out papers than their seventh-grade selves, so why wouldn’t I want the same from my bands?
*Michael Delahoyde’s excellent explanation of the term can be found here: http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/new.crit.html
to catch a faun (or: TheEasyKill ruins your childhood)
Children’s literature is filled with dark, often sexual and violent, themes. C.S. Lewis’ 1950 novel The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, with its plot that depends heavily on the interaction between a preschool-age girl and an adult male faun, is no exception to this trend of dark subject matter. I could beat around the bush and first talk about the literary basis for this, but I’ll get right to the point: I think Mr. Tumnus is a pedophile.
When Lucy stumbles into Narnia and spots who she later learns to be Mr. Tumnus, she begins piecing together his appearance by observing him from a distance and soon realizes that “he was a faun.” The term “faun” comes from Roman mythology, but its symbolism derives primarily from its name and role in Greek legend. It seems curious that a devout Christian, such as Lewis, would make one of the first characters we meet one drawn from pagan mythology. On the other hand, the faun was depicted in many works of art as carrying a shepherd’s staff, which would actually fit into the Christian tradition on which Lewis is drawing. At the most basic level, the idea of the faun as a shepherd would make sense since Mr. Tumnus leads Lucy into Narnia while, at the same time, this would evoke the image of Christ as the ‘good shepherd.’ However, this is not the only, nor the most common, symbolism associated with the faun.
In mythology, the faun is most commonly depicted as engaged in every kind of sensual pleasure. Often shown either holding a goblet of wine or outright drunk, satyrs were regular players in Dionysian orgies and, more generally, were also regarded as extremely and overtly sexual beings. Lewis’ initial description of Mr. Tumnus, given through Lucy’s eyes, depicts him as “from the waist upward […] like a man […] with his legs shaped like a goat’s and instead of feet […] goat’s hoofs” (8). This is very much the typical appearance attributed to fauns in mythology with one notable exception.
On vases and in wall paintings, satyrs are almost always drawn with both sizeable and erect sexual organs. This aspect of the faun’s appearance is noticeably absent from Lewis’ description of Mr. Tumnus, but at the same time, he does not seem to want to completely deprive the faun of his sexuality. Interestingly, Mr. Tumnus is thrice mentioned to be carrying an umbrella, which is – if I might borrow a quote from my Regis film teacher – “his cock, you moron.” This image is taken so far that at one point, the narrator remarks that Lucy did not notice his tail, clearly situated between his legs, because of it having been “neatly caught up under the arm that held the umbrella” (8). The image of the umbrella being intertwined with his pelvis goes further toward suggesting it as a phallus. For what it’s worth, no other character throughout the novel is mentioned to be carrying an umbrella despite the snow.
The next and final mention of Mr. Tumnus’ umbrella comes just before the pair departs for his home, at which point he says “If you will take my arm, Daughter of Eve […] I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us” (13). If we now to take this umbrella as a phallic symbol, the notion of the faun being able to hold it up once Lucy is touching him should be quite disturbing. This is immediately followed by a transition to the narration, which states that “Lucy found herself walking […] with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives” (13). The use of “strange” to describe Mr. Tumnus here is of interest because, normally, one would not expect a young child to be lured away so willingly by an individual unfamiliar to them, let alone one that is specifically described by that adjective. There must be something, however, that leads Lucy to have this faint sense of trust in him.
Psychologists who have worked with child predators have identified several “grooming techniques” that they have found to be effective in quickly gaining the trust of the child. Chief among these devices is promising the child some reward for following along, often sweets or other things that a parent would not normally allow. Sure enough, we see this occurring when Lucy, after mentioning that she should probably return back, is enticed by Mr. Tumnus with promises of “a roaring fire – and toast – and sardines – and cake” (13). Considering the time period this novel is set in, Mr. Tumnus’ promise of cake would have been an especially enticing one: sweets were rationed to no more than 12 ounces per month. Once they have eaten the cake and another heavily rationed item, “buttered toast,” the equally suggestive entertainment portion of the visit begins (16).
After feeding Lucy, Mr. Tumnus takes out his flute, which is yet another recognized phallic symbol. He puts her to sleep with a tune he plays and it is not until “several hours later [that] she shook herself” (17). This sudden falling asleep and waking would be consistent with a child who has been drugged by an abuser. When Mr. Tumnus then becomes extremely upset having realized what he has done, he actually admits to kidnapping Lucy by pretending to be friendly and, further, putting her to sleep (20). Considered in the context of the entire episode, this is behavior is clearly suggestive of the culmination of a child predator’s efforts. While it is disturbing to think of Mr. Tumnus in these terms, it is neither unprecedented nor entirely without merit.
An easy way to excuse or even dismiss Mr. Tumnus acting in this role is to put his actions within the larger context of the series, where he becomes a hero figure of sorts because of his subsequent punishment in protection of Lucy and her siblings. However, if we consider his character as a teaching device, this makes sense. Mr. Tumnus’ questionable behavior considered with his later redemption provides parents with an opportunity to teach their children about the dangers of being lured by strangers; even an adult figure who they know to be a ‘nice person’ should not take them places or do things that make the child uncomfortable. On one level, this might seem like a stretch for an author writing in the late 1940s, as Lewis is, but such a device would not have been unprecedented at the time.
As early as the 17th century, stories have been constructed around the idea of teaching children the potential dangers of adult predators. An excellent example of this are the various permutations of the Little Red Riding Hood story, wherein a young girl is, in one way or another, stalked by a ‘wolf,’ obviously a thinly disguised allegory for an older man. In multiple versions of this story, the detail of the young girl being threatened by the wolf never changes, but neither does the overall entertaining nature of the story. In other words, the lesson can be, and often is, very well embedded in the tale such that a child hearing the story may not make the dark connections. However, this is available to parents who might choose to make the Little Red Riding Hood story a vehicle for teaching their children about the dangers of strangers.
Mr. Tumnus can be read as fitting into that tradition, but I find it far more amusing to imagine him being questioned by Chris Hansen.
playing favorites
If there is one thing about my pop-cultural existence that I want remembered, it is most definitely my favorite band. In most areas of my life, I prefer to defy expectations and make my own name. But as a disciple of pop culture, I would be fine with people knowing me as “that guy who loves The Starting Line.” There are definitely bands whose lyrics I find more relatable or composition more impressive or live shows more exciting, but whenever I pause and reflect upon my love of music, I always come back to TSL.
I had no idea who TSL was when the MTV crowd was suggesting that I should have adored them. Capitalizing on the success of their 2002 full-length debut, Say It Like You Mean It, and its breakout single, “The Best of Me,” TSL earned a prominent position on Van’s Warped Tour; they even performed “The Best of Me” on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. By 2003, they had released the acoustic EP Make Yourself at Home and in May of 2005 dropped their second LP, Based on a True Story, which peaked at #18 on the Billboard charts. Being in my no-cable-TV, in-bed-by-11:30 world, I no idea who TSL was as late as the summer of ’05.
All of that changed five years ago today. I was on the way to a graduation party with my never-would-have-thought-it-then-but-now-closest friends; naturally, there was no shortage of mix CDs playing. I remember my attention first being grabbed by The All-American Rejects’ “Swing, Swing.” Soon after, I heard the opening seconds of “The Best of Me” and was struck enough to remark how much I liked it. “Wait until the drums come in,” someone replied. And did they ever. I think that moment is the closest I will ever come to understanding the shock that St. Paul felt when he was thrown from his horse. I had always liked music in the way that you like a girl in kindergarten and “The Best of Me” was like a first real, passionate kiss: it made me realize that there was so much more I could get into.
In that moment, TSL became the first band that I could unequivocally call my favorite, but the process was admittedly a slow one. I remember when I saw them the first time (Winter of ’06, which also happened to be my first concert) how focused I was on hearing songs from SILYMI; I was actively bothered that I had to listen to “Artistic License,” a song off the considerably more mature BOATS. A little over a year later, as I sat on a Greyhound bus waiting to depart from Utica while on the way to visit the very friends who introduced me to TSL, I got to the end of “Artistic License” and was nearly moved to tears. In that time and place, no song seemed more appropriate to my mindset. I spent the next three years attempting to hear the song live (and only succeeded on the penultimate day of 2009). To this day, this bootleg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtT_3xWml6Q) remains the most chill-inducing piece of music I own. And when TSL “took a break” in March of ’08, I was initially crushed, but soon found myself attracted to entirely different genres because of frontman Kenny Vasoli’s experimental side project, Person L; listening to their song “Sunshine” (off the debut EP, Initials) after another important first in my life remains one of my most memorable musical moments.
All of this is why TSL will always be my favorite band. In a weird way, being so late in discovering them was the best thing: it allowed me the luxury of maturing along with the albums at my own pace. I was not ready for SILYMI in 2002 and I certainly wasn’t ready for BOATS in 2005, but over the years, TSL has been right there when I needed them to help me make sense of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my otherwise uninteresting life. TSL made me realize that music can transcend the simple experience of listening to become both visceral and cerebral; ultimately, this new understanding is what made me appreciate so much more about my life.
And if it seems like I am attributing too much to one relatively unknown band, you probably just need to listen to more music.
are you non-dairy creamer?
I think the world needs more pop-culture philosophy. William Irwin, professor of Philosophy at King’s College and a graduate of Regis High School, has made headlines for his series of books examining pop-cultural icons in the context of various philosopher’s works (e.g. Homer Simpson as an Aristotelian), but that isn’t exactly what I am after. What interests me more is exploring the mechanics and the logic at work in our conception of popular culture. I will eventually write a few of these, but for my first attempt I want to dissect a subject that has long been near and dear to my musical heart: cover songs.
A lot of awful cover songs have been thrust into the pop-cultural world (and I’m not even counting karaoke), so I understand the frustration of people who roll their eyes at the announcement of each new Punk Goes… compilation. While most of the covers on these and similar compilations are forced and awkward, there are definitely gems to be found in covers done expressly to change their genre. One of my perennial favorites of this variety is The Starting Line’s rendition of J. Lo’s “Im Real.” The Starting Line completely separates the song from its hip-hop roots, putting its full pop-punk power behind frontman Kenny Vasoli half-rapping replication of the melody and lyrics. While there is no mistaking this b-side for an original song, it genuinely and I think successfully gives new life to the song in the spirit of fun. Other covers seek to create a connection between a new band and an audience (Quietdrive covering Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”), to update an older pop song to a more modern style (The Click Five covering Tommy James and The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now), or as a tribute to another band (Green Day’s covering The Clash’s “I Fought the Law”).
I – and most people who own a radio – would likely be familiar with the original versions of the above songs, which is why I think that cover songs are ontologically different than original songs. In other words, the very essence of a cover song is different, thus making the experiences of listening, appreciating, and interpreting different. To know that a song is a cover alters the way we listen to it. Let me first explain by way of an anecdote:
For a while, I could not get The Maine’s version of “I Wanna Love You (Akon Cover)” out of my head and ultimately shared it with a few of my friends. One had heard both the Akon version and original songs by The Maine; he found it as infectiously catchy as I did on the first listen. Another friend did not know the song as a cover, only The Maine’s original work. After he listened, he messaged me back that he didn’t like it because it didn’t meet the expectations he had for The Maine, until I pointed him toward the original version. His reaction was a complete three-sixty in 4 minutes! After hearing the original, he loved it for the way The Maine had reimagined the song.
When we listen to an original song, we are evaluating a number of criteria, some of which might be melody, lyrics, instrumentation, genre, and – assuming we know the band – a song’s adherence to what we perceive as the band’s style. I would argue that knowing a song is a cover adds another element: how well it reimagines the original version. Similarly, there is an added level of enjoyment: the degree to which we appreciate the new rendition. To put it a different way (and use a third-straight sentence with a colon): an essential ingredient in evaluating a cover song is reflecting on its difference from the original version. This is why we can (and often do) love a cover version of song we otherwise detest (in my case, I hate Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” to a point that I will turn the radio off, but I love Off By One’s pop-punk version).
The final thing I would like explore about covers is a phenomenon I have only experienced: bands reimagining their own songs in updated recordings. I’m not sure how common this practice is, but I encountered it through Third Eye Blind’s rerecording of “Semi-Charmed Life” and “Never Let You Go” for Rock Band. For a variety of reasons (the least of which is Stephen Jenkins being batshit crazy and suing the whole world), the band could not release the original recordings of the songs, so they recorded them anew in 2009. Jenkins’ more mature voice and, perhaps more importantly, the different supporting band resulted in what were essentially covers of their original songs; at various points, the melody, lyrics, the mixing, the bass line, and even the tuning of the guitars was different. In SLC, my favorite part of the song (the bridge) was unchanged, but my favorite part of NLYG (the second verse) was significantly changed (well, significantly from my perspective).
In terms of my musical life, this created an existential crisis of sorts. I could not listen to either version without dwelling on the other; the relative merit – the meaning of one – seemed dependent on the other version. Hearing a demo version of a song is one thing; you know it to be a draft of sorts. To hear two versions that the principal songwriter presents as authentic versions was jarring and for a while I took 3EB out of my usual rotation of music (on both iTunes and Rock Band). Eventually, I found my ‘constant’: the bridge. I always have loved the guitar work during the bridge and by focusing on and learning to play it, I was able to appreciate the role of each version’s differences leading to and from the same guitar riffs. Existential crisis averted!
snapfail
A brief thought about Snapfish.com:
A blog I was visiting had pictures, which I wanted to view, stored in a Snapfish album. The welcoming “Click Here to View Photos” seemed innocent enough, but when I arrived at the webpage, I was prompted – nay, forced – to create an account in order to view the photos. I do not want a Snapfish account.
So, I hit some random keys in order to form a first and last name and, figuring that the site would recognize its own domain name in a fake email address, input “fuckyou@snapfish.com.” I clicked continue and got an error message. The message did not say that my name was invalid nor did it say that my email was invalid. Rather, the fake email address I entered was already taken! More annoyed than before, I tried fuckyou1234@snapfish. com, which too had been claimed. Also taken: fuckyou5678@snapfish.com. This cannot be good for business.
Somehow, areyoufuckingserious@snapfish.com was still available. So, if anyone wants to find me on Snapfish, that’s my username!
did you ever reach for the glued-down penny?
Hype is a terrible thing to waste. In the weeks leading up to Shutter Island‘s release, every commercial I saw extolled the movie’s ending as one of the most shocking twists of our generation (or something like that). Quite understandably (I think), when I sat down to watch the movie, I expected something that was at least unique. Normally, I would not dwell on the ending of a movie that I otherwise enjoyed; in fact, I wrote another 100+ words setting up a discussion of what I liked about the movie. I can’t write that though. There is a lot that I liked and some scenes that I loved, but the degree to which I feel slighted by the conclusion definitely deserves mention, especially since most ‘professional’ reviews have been positive. In case this is not obvious: spoilers ahead.
I think that the conclusion fails in three ways: predictability, unoriginality, and logic. As to the first, I called that Teddy was himself the 67th patient as soon as he began the interrogations. Introducing this plot point so early in a movie promising a twist ending set off bells and whistles all over the place for me. Without the premature introduction, the twist would have been much more dramatic. There are so many other clues in the movie that leaving out this device would not have been a problem (in my opinion, at least). Unless this was not “the twist.” Is the role play aspect the twist? If so, I can be somewhat forgiving on the predictability aspect. This was difficult to call mostly because of the internal logical flaws. I am all for suspending disbelief in a theater, but accepting the role play scenario is asking too much of me. I can overlook the phony interrogations and even the idea of allowing extremely dangerous patients (those on Ward C) to roam free in the name of this experiment, but the hurricane? How the fuck do you stage a hurricane? This is not a film-within-a-film scenario or something like that; we are actually supposed to believe that the hospital fabricated a hurricane in order to facilitate Teddy’s/Andrew’s breakthrough. Sorry, but I’m calling b.s..
To top it all off, I honestly fail to see the originality of this alleged twist. My standard for twists is set by The Usual Suspects, which was genuinely and satisfactorily shocking to me. I do not mean that every good twist must be that good, but I generally expect that a good twist will draw on a minor yet conceivable plot point. In The Usual Suspects (which I will not spoil), for example, the plot leads you to credibly believe one thing while leaving open the possibility for the eventual conclusion by means of the subplot of waiting for the sketch. Shutter Island did not do that; there was not a distinctly important subplot to which the film could turn for a genuine twist. The mystery of Rachel’s disappearance is so intimately tied with the 67th patient search that they become one in my mind, which perhaps was not the intention of the screenwriter.
I’m not just here to complain though. If you will, allow me to propose a conclusion that would resolve the plot in a more genuinely twisty manner. My two favorite scenes (apart from individually superb shots) were Teddy’s conversation with “the real Rachel” in the cave and his subsequent ride with the warden. In the former, I was intrigued by the conspiracy theory regarding the Nazis using the concentration camps for psychological experiments, especially Rachel’s explanation that the hospital was using similar techniques to create “ghost soldiers.” I would have loved to see an ending in which Teddy (or heck, keep the Laeddis realization too) is revealed to have been a former patient turned into one of these soldiers. I don’t think this would be without cause either. The scene with the warden builds an enormously vague tension, something which Scorsese consistently does well. Even entirely unchanged, I think that scene would prepare the audience for such a twist; it certainly would shed some light on the war flashbacks.
Last – but not least – I will owe a cookie to anyone who gets the allusion in the title.
it’s not a lie if you believe in it
The second of Chuck Klosterman’s questions from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:
Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that–for some reason–every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?
The first time I read S, D, & CP in 2004, I saw this question and immediately thought “no.” I’m about as far as one can get from those “horses are better people than people” people, but I generally like animals and would not want to be party to such an exercise no matter what the potential benefit. Besides, unless I were to land a few extremely lucky blows, I probably lack the brute physical strength required to complete the task. Maybe Lionel Messi could, but not this guy.
In my subsequent rereads of the book, however, my perspective has shifted. During the 2004-2005 academic year, I was an intern with Amnesty International’s Human Rights Education division. My most immediately-important task was mailing out materials to anyone who requested AI’s education packets. These orders came from as far away as Colombia, which was actually kind of exciting (if for no other reason than seeing the postage meter nearly implode). The other, more interesting part of my job was editing the Human Rights Education manual, a giant blue binder that collected all of the organization’s data and publications on human rights issues.
Most of my editing was straightforward copy editing: finding and correcting errors of punctuation, spelling, and occasionally, grammar. Each section also cited a few outside sources – the bulk of which were links to various court cases – that I was supposed to double check. In the early part of the manual, there were dead links here and there that I was able to update, but when I got to the section on the death penalty, I found several cases for which I could not locate a new citation. ”Simple enough,” I thought, “I just need to find these on a legal research site.” So, I ran them through Westlaw and still no luck. Finally, tail between my legs, I went to my supervisor to ask where I might find these cases.
The explanation I received is what has dramatically shifted my perspective on this question. My supervisor explained to me, very matter-of-factly, that I would not find them because they were not real. All of the details are true, she noted, but no single case was as compelling as the combined stories of several death row inmates. Since the manual was aimed at a middle-school audience, the rationale was that the veracity of the case law was considerably less-important than making the students passionate about defending human rights. I suppose there is some wisdom – or at least logic – in that theory, but it had the opposite effect on me: I no longer feel as if I can trust anything AI publishes. I agree with most of AI’s mission, but my time working there has ruined my view of them.
When I read Klosterman’s question now (as I have in eight – soon to be nine – readings), I can’t help but think that I wouldn’t even want Lionel Messi to step to the line on the basis of statistics cited by AI.
easy near french fry (Part 3)
“Yeah, hi, can we get one of these betas here…” my friend said pointing at the tank.
“Nah, dude, I think I’m supposed to take them out of the tank for you. I dunno though, this isn’t like, really my job.”
“What do you mean it’s not your job?”
“Well, I like, work over in toys but the guy who like, normally works here is like, sick or something and I’m over here. I like, didn’t think anyone would come over so I didn’t like, ask anyone how to do stuff. But I can like, try though.”
With this, the Gnome, whose name probably wasn’t really David but I definitely remember it being David, filled up a flimsy plastic bag with water from the sink and grabbed the net. He reached into the tank and made a few poorly-aimed swipes at the betas; “Wiggly little fuckers, aren’t they?” he said. After about two minutes of flailing around in the tank, the Gnome managed to snag one. He plopped it in the bag and started to walk toward the counter when I noticed our fish was belly-up in the bag.
“Ummm, I think the fish died.”
“Really dude?” he said holding up the bag. “You sure he’s not like, resting?”
“Uhhh, no,” I said through slight laughter.
“Shit dude, I’m sorry. Do you like, want another one?”
“That would be good, yes.”
“You got it bud. Let me try like, try using the stuff that says ‘fish water’ this time; maybe that’ll like, not kill the little guy.”
After another few minutes of hopping around the tank uttering muffled profanities, the Gnome lifted another beta from the tank, dropped him into the bag, and handed it to us. We waited around for a bit, lest this fish, which my friend had already dubbed ‘Jeeves’ after her favorite search engine mascot, also go belly-up before he had a chance to go base-jumping from his bowl.
As we got to the front of the store, we noticed only two lanes open. Left with the option of either getting on the line closest to us but behind the spastic kid and his mother, we chose the further line where a tall, middle-aged guy in overalls was buying only two items: a box of extra-large condoms and a shotgun. If this doesn’t prove that you really can buy anything at Wal-Mart, I don’t know what does.
We hesitantly got in the line and watched the cashier, a twenty-something, overweight brunette with a pinched face resembling a blowfish, scan the box of condoms while holding them away from her body by the uppermost corner like a snot-infused handkerchief. “Thirty-nine eighty-five,” Blowfish said to the man. He opened his wallet, in which I noticed thirty-two dollars, a half-chewed piece of gum, and an unused, regular size condom. “Guess it’ll just be the gun today, missy.”
“You should have offered him a few dollars,” my friend said, elbowing me in the ribs.
“Don’t worry,” I replied, “I think he was just flattering himself anyway.”
Blowfish rang us up without incident and we started back toward the air lock, where Agnes J was holding a flailing girl of about-thirteen by the arm and screaming for security.
“Let me go! You smell like death, bitch.”
“SECURITY!”
“Wait ‘til they get here, I’m gonna tell them you called me a whore and then you’re gonna lose your shitty little job, bitch.”
“SECURITY! And listen here honey bunny, if you’re going to tell them anything, get it right; I called you a thieving little whore. Now gimme that got-dang lipstick and stand still. SECURITY!”
bad puns make for good satires
James Mangold is too clever for his own good. With so many critically- and popularly-acclaimed movies on his resume (e.g. 3:10 to Yuma and Girl, Interrupted), I was more than a little surprised to see the trailers for his latest venture, Knight and Day. The trailers, both the English and the Spanish (which I have seen far too many times during World Cup games on Univision), portray this movie as a prototypical big-action, cheap-laughs romantic comedy. As someone pretty selective when it comes to $11+ movie outings, Mangold’s flick did not seem like my pint of ale. However, encouraged by my friend’s enthusiasm for the movie, I decided to give it a try and am more pleasantly surprised the longer I reflect on the experience.
My fondness for the movie hinges on one assumption: that Mangold set out to make a satire of the rom-com genre. Through about half of the movie, I too was squirming in my not-painted-or-repaired-since-the-mid-90s seat and rolling my eyes at Cruise’s cheap punchlines and exaggerated expressions, Diaz’s dumber-than-the-average-blonde antics, and – most of all – the absurdly over-the-top action. The only action scenes that seemed more farfetched were in the last Die Hard movie, but those movies have earned that; Knight and Day just seemed bad. One of the most frustrating scenes for me initially was a half-flirting, seemingly-all-stupid scene in which Cruise has brought Diaz to his “off-the-grid” private island. The dialogue, in which Diaz feigns disgust over Cruise having taken the liberty of changing her clothes after he had drugged her (in context, it’s not as sketchy as it sounds), is obnoxiously cheesy and cliche. The little shred of hope I had left for the movie was almost completely lost at this point and I spent the rest of the time engaged but unenthused.
Then, at the very end, after a ridiculous car chase and explosion, the two main characters find themselves together again, rehashing the very conversation that turned me off of the movie (albeit with an ironic twist). As I walked out of the theater, it struck me that the ending was not just an ironic twist; it was a militantly-ironic twist. Militant irony, a phrase coined by literary critic Northrop Frye, is a type of irony in which the author (or here, director) embraces something’s faults to an extreme in an attempt to mock and/or discredit it. According to Frye, this exercise of irony is often a trademark of satire. While romantic comedies almost always seem over-the-top, especially the action variety, the end of Knight and Day sold me on the belief that it was just too extraordinary to be authentic and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
For starters, Tom Cruise is perhaps best known for the Mission: Impossible series, an action-suspense trilogy that takes itself about as seriously as possible. Who better than the face of a major franchise to embody the multiple-assault-rifle-toting, airplane-crashing, entire-SWAT-team-killing character? Diaz, no stranger to the rom-com genre herself, completes a pair perfectly-suited to create a movie that seems to embrace and embody the genre but at the same time, parody it. I could break down the entire movie (there so much to say about Rodney), but I suspect that whether you buy my assessment or not, your mind is probably made up by now.
The only problem with reading the movie in this manner is that – as good satire often is – the cleverness of this movie will be lost on audiences. For a satire to be effective, you usually cannot tell the audience what they are stepping in to. The idea of militant irony is dependent on the audience buying into the creator’s false sincerity and even getting angry with it before the ironic reversal at the end. I hope Mangold’s film eventually gets the credit it deserves, but for now, I’m satisfied to have begun my summer movie season with such a serendipitous outing.
the unusual significance of a patriotic pine tree
Every so often, I will hear a song that I think should be an instant radio hit. The last song to elicit this reaction from me was “Kids in Love,” by the Florida-based pop-punk quintet Mayday Parade. I had enjoyed – but not loved – their full-length debut, A Lesson in Romantics, mostly because of the powerful vocal style of lead singer and principal songwriter Jason Lancaster. Lancaster left the band just prior to the release of their debut, so the release of the 2009 follow-up Anywhere but Here was only a small blip on my radar. On a whim, I listened to one of the free streams online and was smitten with the then-unannounced second single. It began with a strong, slow, and confident drum beat and a promisingly-catchy guitar lick. The lyrics seemed to espouse the always-popular nostalgia for summers past and, most of all, a memorable, vocal-driven pre-chorus grabbed my ear. I sent it off to a few friends, all of whom thought they had heard the next hit on the alternative charts.
Ultimately, “Kids in Love” became just another could-have-been that did not get the proper backing from its label. The reason I still want to dedicate a post to it is because the band followed their single a few months later with a impressively anti-pop, not-safe-for-work-or-children music video. Found here (http://www.maydayparade.com/video/18-kids-in-love-music-video-uncensored/), the uncensored version of the video watches like a documentary about the pitfalls of teenagers’ summers. There is more sexuality, nudity, and explosives than is realistic or probably necessary, but what the video does so well is to highlight the true meaning of the song: being young and in love is not always or even usually the fun and beautiful thing many songs make it out to be; being young and in love makes us all – not just the now-teenagers it’s easy to criticize – do things that we would not otherwise.
The thematic importance of the video is not even its strongest aspect. As my film-major best friend says so well:
One of my favorite shots is when the blonde girl is lying across the pool table in a bar and the [boyfriend] is at the mic in the background, actually at the right point in the song. He’s not even in focus – great attention to detail and one of maybe two shots of them singing.
The video does not just showcase the song or the band. There is a conscious focus on and attention to the narrative aspect of the project. Personally, my favorite moment is around the 2:08 mark, when the camera focuses on one of the guys pointing toward an American-flag-design pine tree air freshener hanging on the rear-view mirror as the flat, open road stretches out in front of them. In the second-long shot, the message of the whole song is captured so well: we see something iconic and familiar presented in an uncommon context.
Also worth mentioning is the ambient noise we get in the video. Unlike most videos where the song simply plays over the images, we actually get several moments of the characters’ voices in the form of screams and muffled shouting, including the video-ending yell. I will not try to attach a pretentious significance to this aspect of it, but it is worth considering why a made-for-radio pop song is paired with a raw, dark, and even disturbing video. I think it probably says a lot more about the audience than it does about the band.
