Know Yr Product

Hipster Grifter

2009-05-19T16:21:00.001-07:00

Notes On the California Novel

2009-04-20T00:13:00.001-07:00

1. Images of Disappointment

2. Grapes of Wrath as the definitive version

3. Day of the Locust represents the East Coast expection of certain doom

4. Taken up by the Mystery writers (Chandler, Cain, Ellroy)

5. Driven by makers and unmakers. Mike Davis and Joan Didion write about the makers (William Muholland, Harrison Gray Otis,etc.) and unmakers (earthquakes, smog, santa ana winds, etc.)

6. The move from California as the future to the future as obsolete (The Jetsons and Phillip K. Dick)

7. The Literature of California erases place. The story of Hollywood as a move from the place where movies are made to the way movies are made. Place turns into technology. California as not a place but a technology.

8. In the future California writers will not dote on New York and no one in California will use the phrase “back east” as if they have already been there.

On Random

2009-04-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

When commenting on the occurrence of events, the parlance for the course to describe how things happen that do not fit into expectation or planned outcome is to say random.

What is random, but mathematics?

When random is used to describe a certain situation it is to account for the equation of happenstance.

Maybe my real problem with the term random is not its misuse, but that it concerns probability over possibility.

Is It Really So Strange?

2009-04-18T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Trashmen performing on American Bandstand in 1963.

On Little Joy

2008-11-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

Looking passed Abe Vigoda's Tropic Punk sound, one sees evidence of Minutemen-like structure, touches of Pavement-snark, and the subtle bounce of Talking Heads strut. Think Psycho Killer dropping the French and adding lines in Portuguese.

But the surface is what one sees and now that Little Joy are on the scene, Abe Vigoda are influenced by Tropicalia. While it could be a blessing in disguise, no one likes to be put in a box.

I like the Little Joy record, but I like it because it reminds me of a ska record. Am I the only one?

Also, check out Metacritic for the backhanded compliment.
http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/littlejoy/littlejoy

On Modest Mouse, Denis Johnson, and California

2008-11-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

Communicating repetition through difference
Inhabiting a space between thought and action
Something warm never felt so cold

On Noir Narraration

2008-10-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

As she walked by, she caught my attention; her face, her hair, she had the look of quiet determination. I didn't know where she came from. But I wanted to find out where she was going.

On The Music Video

2008-10-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

A genre in which form follows content.
Literalness has been new-leveled.
If a lyric describes The East Side Motel, one can expect to see an image of The East Side Motel

On Music and Robots

2008-10-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

Fuck Pandora, Fuck Genius, today I emptied out my ITunes and filled it with only music I wanted to hear, 3,000 songs I want to hear, haven't heard in a while or at all. Now I'm enjoying the shuffle function for maybe the first time ever.

Crystal Castles Arcade Game More popular At Local Bar Than Band Of The Same Name

2008-10-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn, NY—When the Toronto band, Crystal Castles played a popular Brooklyn club on Friday night, attendance was poor. Perhaps more unexpected was that major interest that night centered around a video game console coincidently called Crystal Castles.

Area man, Jordan, who just moved to Brooklyn after graduating from Bucknell University said, “I have no idea who the band or the video game was before tonight. I just came to meet some friends.”

Bored by the band, Jordan moved to the back of the bar where he discovered the video game. Jordan’s high score attracted considerable attention by those in the bar. One onlooker said, “Initially I was curious because there was a video game named after the band I came to see. But after I watched that dude play, it was more entertaining than the guys on stage. I also dug the music better.”

The video game was released by Atari in 1983. The band however, claims the game in no way affected their name selection. But perhaps the game should have been more of an influence. According to Atari, Crystal Castles was one of the first video games to have an actual ending. At the time the game was released, it had been industry standard to have games repeat indefinitely or simply start over.

An area woman in attendance had a similar criticism. She said, “It’s like the game had purpose and direction. When Jordan made that bear eat those gems, he couldn’t leave the level until they were all gone. It was like Ms Pac-Man but better. When I was watched the band perform, it was like the songs would just go on forever and sometimes I felt like they had simply started the song over.”

Still, there are similarities. As another onlooker commented, “Its like I can’t tell the difference between the music in the game and the music of the band.”

The failure to garner interest surprised no one more than the owner and promoter, Harry J. “When I booked the band.” he said, “I heard a lot of the kids talking about them. Not just in the bar. When I would go on their Myspaces and Facebooks, I would see that the kids liked them. I thought they’d draw a crowd. But when I put that video game in the corner over there it was just to hide the rat traps.”

When asked if he would get rid of the game to allow more interest in the bands, leaving the rat traps exposed, the owner said, “Not with the Rat Traps, a local band, playing next Friday. It’s too risky. The kids today they love their irony. If I book a band like the Rat Traps, they may rather drink my cheap beer and stare at real rat traps all night.”

On Cinnamontality

2008-10-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

Long night walks through Claremont have been spent listening to the Smoking Popes. Played loud through those cheap ipod ear buds and only sometimes singing along at my favorite lines.

I don't know how to share the Smoking Popes with anyone. I listen to them at my most private and they make me feel more balanced. They take me back some place and I feel perspectived.

I imagine them to be what Weezer would sound like if Rivers believed in love.

On Wounded Lion

2008-09-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

Something absolutely beautiful happens a minute and half through Wounded Lion's "Pony People." A crack emerges in the garage pop foundation. The song quickly recovers and parts catchier than the chorus cover and suture the wound.

This song falls apart the way the best Talking Heads songs do.

When Sevens Fully Clashed (PreMillennial Music Moment Version 4)

2008-09-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

The 1977 album by Culture, When Two Sevens Clash was inspired by Marcus Garvey's apocalyptic predictions. The effects of this record were felt in Culture's home in Jamaica as the liner notes describe, "the prophecies noted by the lyrics so profoundly captured the imagination of the people."

Effects were felt abroad as well, The Clash released a record titled "1977," based around the same apocalyptic predictions as well as London turmoil and race riots.

But it was The Ramones who titled their 1977 album End of the Century. Conflating the end of the decade with the end of the century in the line from "Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio?" "It's the end of the 70s/it's the end of the century."

Call it rushing towards the end, but it's not really looking towards, nor anticipating a particular moment, its making something happen rather waiting for something to happen.

On Framing

2008-09-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

When I see photographs by Anita Bunn, it's like television. I trust her framing, that this is what I need to see. But in this trust comes the realization that there is something beyond the frame. Television never allows for that realization.

While watching sports, the playing field is reduced to the site of action: the ball being thrown, caught, hit, etc. When my grandma tells me things she saw on the news, there is no room in the discussion for the other side of the story, or that beyond the frame may be a more important story.

Slavoj Zizek says it a little different. It's not beyond the frame, but between two frames. There are always two frames, the visible and invisible frame; the frame that displays the painting, and the frame created by the structure of our perception. There is the frame of presentation and the frame of subjectivity.

The frame and the realization of the frame create a gap, a gap where meaning is made. In this way, this photograph by Bunn does not create an understanding or appreciation of inside/outside, but something much more complicated. It depicts spaces of between and beyond.

On Vampires and Zombies (PreMillennial Music Version 3)

2008-09-23T17:05:00.001-07:00

The way vampires and zombies represent both versions of the apocalypse, in the form of eternal life and eternal death, respectively, Rock music at the end of the millennium celebrate or mourn itself.

This 2004 track by Secret Machines, which includes the line "our lives erased," in form is celebratory, but in content reveals mournful lyrics. As the NYC by way of Texas band uses kraut.heavy.shoegaze influences expanding them into bright punchy works of U2 sonic density, I mean destiny. The future looks bright.

See also, Muse, Radiohead, My Chemical Romance, and as of late Vampire Weekend.

PreMillennial Music Moment Version 2

2008-09-22T19:14:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow You May Bring About the Destruction of Yr World.
But Tonight, But Tonight.

Henry Rollins. Germany. 1984. Reading Henry Miller.

The PreMillennial Music Moment

2008-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Strokes, Interpol, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs as perfecting the Iggy croon.
Mourning a yet-to-be experienced loss
Prenostalgia Ian Curtis/Postechnology malaise

Thoughts on Rocket Man

2008-09-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

The influence of the Bradbury short story "Rocket Man" can be heard in both the Elton John song of the same name as well as David Bowie's "Space Oddity," songs that depict loneliness as a conflation of success and failure.

As the narrator in "Rocket Man" feels the effects of leaving home as horribly mixed, space also becomes a place with neither past nor future. He is not the man he was back home and it is not a place he can stay, because he can't raise children there.

I always thought the line "It's going to be a long long time" should be it's going to be a lot of time, but I guess it's really the same thing.

A version of the song shows up again by Neon Blonde on their first record.

On the Music Video

2008-09-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

How come music video tropes become more apparent in the form of parody?

On False Metal

2008-09-13T19:31:00.001-07:00

I traced the Death to False Metal phrase to Manowar, a band of the genre who made the distinction between True Metal and False Metal. The slogan of Death to False Metal is not so much a battle cry as it is a badge one wears to display that one is not a poser.

In what I've been reading on Metal, Manowar and the Death to False Metal claim, emphasis seems to be placed on keeping the genre pure. In a way it is meta, or meta(l) or metal about metal.

I always misheard the lyric in the Beastie Boys song "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" to being about about death to false metal something about a boiling kettle, but this would not be. Manowar would call the Beastie Boys false metal because they don't have a stake in metal, only dabble.

I also encountered a curious rhetorical shift. When discussing what false metal is, focus always goes to who it's by, but not what it actually is.

The Urban Dictionary definitions of false metal are entertaining if not enlightening: false metal

John Darnielle expands on ideas of false metal in Last Plane to Jakarta here

For more information about Manowar check wikipedia

Welcome to the Jungle Revisited

2008-09-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

How does art function as a process of stabilization?

2008-09-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

An artist's creations says something about the world. The way a work provides meaning is a process of stabilization. Through the eyes of the artist, in the vision of the work, the world appears structured, whole and meaningful. This does the work of Grand Narratives. The lack of grand narratives allows everything to be supermeaningful. Like the line in the bible about Hercules chopping off the head of John the Baptist and 5o more heads sprout in its place.

That Unromantic Moment

2008-08-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

We drank bottled water together and talked business.
I think I played the right moves.
You were looking over my shoulder
As I went through the motions of another night.
And it was alright, because
I thought I knew who everybody was
Just by looking at them.
My heart is anywhere but here.
And how tired I was from the past couple of weeks
From the past couple of years.
Well, it hit me all at once
On a balcony overlooking nothing.

Against Me! - Tonight We're Gonna Give It 35 %

On The 909

2008-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Urban Dictionary says, A great place to live between Los Angeles and Las Vegas if you don't mind the meth labs, cows, and dirt people.

UC Riverside Grad, Jim Stewart wrote an obviously titled book about it.

LA Times says, Since its inception in 1992, the area code has become synonymous with the Inland Empire – a badge of pride for locals and a target for ridicule by L.A. radio deejays and others from more trendy Southern California locales.

On The HBO Unconscious

2008-08-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

When I hear Van Morrison's Into the Mystic, I'm reminded of the scene in For Keeps?, when Molly Ringwald, starts miming the saxophone solo to the song.

On Evolution

2008-08-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

That line in No Country For Old Men about it never being any better.

Or.

That Olympic athletes constantly set new world records.

Near Future Robots

2008-08-25T17:44:00.000-07:00

A scene from the yet to be produced sitcom, Near Future Robots.

On Dirty Dancing

2008-08-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

A series of moments of Baby becoming a women.
Closer to The Karate Kid than Flashdance.
How Jennifer Grey's nose reminds us of eternity.

New Jersey Mythology

2008-08-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

New Jersey's mythology functions similarly to the California Imaginary. The Sopranos, The Jersey Devil, and Bruce Springsteen songs are more powerful than history and become the stories that people tell to make sense of their environment. The Pine Barrens, Shore Towns, Route 29, The Suburbs, and The Shadow of New York City add up in a way that remains mysterious and explainable, an unresolvable core.

On Versions

2008-08-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

No Age is a version of Pavement in that they bury pop under noise. One falls in love trying to dig it out. Weezer can be described as a bad version of Pavement and Nirvana was Pavement's logical conclusion.

Mountain Goats are a version of Modest Mouse. John Darnielle reimagines the world geographically like Borges map so large it covers the territory it describes. Both bands utilize techniques of distance, sound and space in their music. Darnielle's version is more literary and Issac Brock's version is more psychic.

Aaron Sorkin is a version of Michael Bay in that they make art about art. Where Bay makes movies about movies, Sorkin makes television about television.

All Things Ordinary

2008-08-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

The summer goes on and then dies quick without much warning.
New CD out on Vagrant Records

Mousy Girls

2008-08-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

The line "Life on Mars?" that refers to the girl with mousy hair

Edward Albee's descriptions of Martha in Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as mousy.

The line in Of Montreal's "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" that refer to the mousy girl screaming, "Violence, Violence."

On Love and Time Travel

2008-08-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

From Foucault's The Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality Volume 2
Issues of timing that occur in relationships.

The opportune moment (kairos) as the concern of diatetics
The continual maintenance in relational structures of economics
The problem of the limit of erotics

This limit, as Foucault describes, is a feeling of anxiety that is connected to the fleeting moment of love. And love is connected to the ever-elusive character of desirability. In love exists a double-sided fear; that the lover may lose his charm and that the beloved may lose interest in him. This is the limit of love and passed love is friendship. This limit is not so much an end as a point of departure, a relationship that exists post-desire. That the limit is accounted for in the structure of the relationship, once desire dies, respect and admiration take its place. Love in all its complicated mystery, like comedy, is about timing. Although without end, love accounts for the death of desire, like a doomed, disappearing bond, longing becomes the moment of love-lost. Is it not impressive, that the Greeks would account for the limit of desire and the taking over of friendship, calling both love?

On Astral Weeks

2008-08-11T20:11:00.001-07:00

The Best of Astral Weeks as reviewed by Lester Bangs

1. It was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction.

2. Fueled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed.

3. You're probably wondering when I'm going to get around to telling you about Astral Weeks.

4. Maybe it is one moment's knowledge of the miracle of life, with its inevitable concomitant, a vertiginous glimpse of the capacity to be hurt, and the capacity to inflict that hurt.

5. Transfixed between pure rapture and anguish. Wondering if they may not be the same thing, or at least possessed of an intimate relationship.

6. The realization of living is just about that low and that exalted and that unbearable and that sought-after. Please come back and leave me alone. But when we're along together we can talk all we want about the universality of this abyss.

On Punk Rock

2008-08-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Punk is a vision of repair.

It can be described a reframing moment; from Lester Bangs to SLC Punk.

Taking things back to Dick Hebidge's Subculture, it has no origin point but is simply a meeting place of various styles, uses, and pleasures.

This is youth culture's most significant moment and it gets mistaken for something else.

On Space Trash

2008-08-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

Loss is the break from longing that renders the lack as physical.

Reality is not the obstacles that stand in the way of yr dreams, but the act of coming to terms with the obstacles that stand in the way of yr dreams.

History is oppressive and seeks to erase you.

Bruce Springsteen, as a version, is closer to Walt Whitman than Woody Guthrie.

On Time Travel

2008-08-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

There are stories of before and before and after. Things we know came before, but we only understand after. We understand pigeons as city birds, but what were they like before cities were built? To see a pigeon in its natural habitat would seem anachronistic, yet there is something very right about seeing the things in dumpsters and on subway platforms.

For other stories of before and before and after see also Alanis Morissette and The Sweet Hereafter.

On Cinematic L.A.ndscapes

2008-07-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

In "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," when Jack Kerouac says, Bookmovie, the visual American form, is he talking about comic books?

In The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, when Sam and Joe see Citizen Kane, they see in it, how they can use narrative techniques to achieve a more sophisticated mode of storytelling.

When we see how things form, the secret history of things, isn't this just a version of Don DeLillo's Underworld?

On Kerouac

2008-07-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

The Best of "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose"

5. Something that you feel will find its own form
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
19. Accept loss forever
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

On The Thing About Icebergs

2008-07-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

The inability for people to pull truth from fiction has very strong ties to what I perceive as a death of semiotics. We live in a world of symbols now, not signs.

I think it was David Sedaris who commented on how important the words "Based On A True Story" have become. But why did they fail James Frey? The more brutal the story, the more people put faith in fact when faith should be in truth. This is just a confused symbol. Fact has been conflated with truth when it shouldn't be.

Billy Crudup's character in Big Fish says to his father, "The thing about icebergs is that 90% of them is below water. He perceives his father's stories as lies. When really they tell more about his experiences, his life, the things he's learned than any fact could.

You miss a lot looking only for facts.

On Authenticity

2008-07-22T17:16:00.001-07:00

The other side of the search for authenticity is the search of authenticity. While one seeks to fill a lack, the other influences a separate trajectory not yet defined.

In a rather bland scene from Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a brief interaction between the pale librarian and the friendly security guard is described. There's Judy Dark, in her power/knowledge position and grey suit and Officer O'Hara with shiny hair and service job.

These characters represent the interaction between and both sides of the authentic. She goes home alone to eat a veal chop and read a fantasy novel. He calls her miss, asks to see her smile, and is unfamiliar with the word lovely.

On Directions

2008-07-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

In a move that may have something to do with the price of gas, Google Maps now offers walking directions in addition to their amazingly accurate driving directions.

The whole thing has me thinking about where I'm going and how I'm going to get there.

And I just wonder if people with cars get stuck on the question of how I'm going to get there.

On The California Imaginary

2008-07-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Read any review of L.A.'s No Age and it will make reference to The Smell and the downtown area of L.A.'s hollow center. Whether they're written up on Pitchfork or in the New Yorker, No Age have made literal the image of their Weirdo Rippers album cover that depicts the band's name upon the marquee of the downtown venue, The Smell.

No Age is the Los Angeles underground.

When No Age play, they reimagine bedroom pop as raw and unformed. In the imaginary space of the bedroom singer's head, these songs are perfect. In the place of the actual they appear messy, but their messiness sparks the imaginary in the way their actual perfection never can.

The perfect-actual is uninspiring, it's cold and empty. The draw of the perfect-imaginary is in the gap of the messy-actual, the listener fills the gap with their own imaginary, making it whole, making it theirs.

On Anti-Futurism

2008-07-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

An early entry in the Diary of Anne Frank describes a boy named Harry who had dated Fanny until he met Anne. He says, "with Fanny I was daydreaming, but with you I am wide awake." This is a nice undermining of the dream. Or a reading of this statement as anti-futurist, in that every moment spent with Anne was more important than the possibility of what could be with Fanny.

Cinnamontality - The painting of every moment as beautiful and whole. "Everything's all cinnamon and sage." Like vicodin on a summer's day. Like wearing Blu-Blockers in East L.A. Not the overpowering force of feelings and emotions, but just a prioritization.

We make the moment whole, when we're completely in it, otherwise, it gets pushed toward the future. Not a deferment, but a casting off, something to chase.

On The Popular

2008-07-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

Here are two examples that make me reconsider the definition of popular:

The scene in Devil Wears Prada wear Miranda Priestly informs Andy that the sweater she is wearing, the one she thinks labels her as too serious to be concerned with fashion, actually interpolates her into a system she thought her choice was exempt from.

To understand the fact that Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti" charted 5 spots higher than Little Richard, Richard tells a story about how kids probably bought both versions; Boone's to appease their parents and the original to listen to in private.

On The Middle

2008-07-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

How the middle moves to the margin: If we think of the middle as the place where things meet or come together, let's say people and ideas, the internet functions as a middle space. We can also talk of coffee shops, discussion groups, governmental meetings, etc. Essentially, the middle is the public sphere. It's where you go when you want to get close to something.

But if everyone uploads content on youtube, wikipedia, flickr or myspace, all of sudden you are closer, but not actually closer. It puts you back where you started.

In the Borges story about the Empire that draws the map so detailed it exactly covers the territory, the map becomes useless because it ceases to function as a map. When the archive becomes so large as to include everything it will cease to be an archive and simply be the world.

On Punk Rock

2008-07-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

When The A.V. Club's Noel Murray talks about punk as rock n roll classicism, it's an easy claim to make and a working definition that appears elsewhere.

Frank Kogan improves on the idea by calling punk rock the chasing of the past into the future.

Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons's book Punk Marketing describes a similar situation; the postnineties rupture in advertising that displaced many of the ideals and values of the industry.

But the closer one gets to stablizing meaning, punk keeps voiding its signifier as empty. Isn't this how Ben Stein is able to call Creationism the new punk rock and it work?

On Kenneth Burke

2008-07-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

The Oscar Wilde quote, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life," becomes the chicken to the egg of Kenneth Burke's theory of Dramatism.

According to Burke, human interaction resembles the art of theater and quite literally, all the world is a stage.

The question, which came first? is the way to understand Burke, because really, you won't get any closer. Whether it's the idea that symbols use human beings, not the other way around, or man invented the negative to understand the binary, rather than its obvious opposite.

In a most-perfect Kenneth Burke world, the critic (Burke), would have invented Shakespeare to understand human drama, instead, the critic invented Literary Criticism to valididate the work of Shakespeare's take on the human drama.

On Time Travel

2008-07-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

Why does science-fiction have the monopoly on time travel narratives? Any disruption or deviation from clock-time is a form of time travel. Transcontinental flights, days you forget to wear your watch, Commercial skipping DVRs are all versions of time travel.

Time machines are not time vehicles. The device by which time travel is possible is not one of transportation but simply disruption. To think of a mold as a time machine is to consider the stunting of time through repetition. The mold allows the same moment to occur again and again and again.

On The California Imaginary

2008-07-03T23:01:00.001-07:00

If it is true that Brian Wilson was not a frequent visitor to California's many beaches, than the west coast actual was no kind of inspiration for The Beach Boys. Instead, melody and imagery came from the imaginary.

Like the California Dream in John Phillips's "California Dreaming" Costa Mesa's Satisfaction recreate the California Imaginary as the dream we all get lost in.

On The Misplaced Emo Moment

2008-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

To say that The Promise Ring and Dashboard Confessional, given their age and time of formation, were just as influenced by alternative rock of the mid-90s as they were by underground emo, sounds much more reasonable than to assume the mainstream is no kind of root.

On Silencing The Voice

2008-07-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

In J.D. Salinger's Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, Seymour Glass says, "The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on Earth." This is what it feels like to watch films by Tim Burton and M. Night Shyamalan. The two sides of the coin, the excess and lack of this quote by Salinger.

On The Real World

2008-06-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

How to make The Real World More Real:

Instead of 7 strangers living in a house, six strangers are split into two groups of three.
Each group must move to an unfamiliar city, find jobs and an apartment.
If one of the participants is unable to find a job or pay rent, they are kicked out of the house.
When problems arise, cameras shouldn't provoke roommates to be tough and unyielding. Roommates should instead reach a resolution by discussion and comprimise
Participants should care more about their living partners than how they appear on television.

On Technology

2008-06-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

When I told the woman at Southwest Airlines Baggage Services that I may have lost my flash drive on my flight from PHX to PHL, she said she didn't know what a flash drive was. Something tells me if I did leave it on the plane, I'm probably not getting it back.

Also, when and how did Daft Punk become popular?

On Cinematic L.A.ndscapes

2008-06-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

Why are movies about Los Angeles so grand and sprawling?

On Yardley

2008-06-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Observations while running errands:

There are 4 dry cleaners in Yardley.
The furniture store, Calico Corners, smells nice.
Padded envelopes are in high demand
There are two Sovereign Banks
The Verizon building in Yardley looks exactly like the Verizon building in Claremont

On Breakaway

2008-06-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm finally beginning to realize how perfectly sequenced Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway album is. Each song goes through the emotional stages of a break up. Upon first listen I was sure the album was inconsistent and the songs contradicted one another and were more about not moving on than moving on. The album cannot be paired down to the single Since U Been Gone. And as I'm beginning to realize, moving on feels a lot like not moving on.

On Men Vs Boys

2008-06-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

Polarization: the division into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs.

Judd Apatow and Michael Bay are recent and popular filmmakers whose work appears at different ends of the movie spectrum. Apatow works mainly in the genre of comedy, portraying men as little boys; incapable of commitment, unable to take things seriously and possessing an inability to think of others. His characters go through changes before his films conclude but getting laid, having a baby, or getting over an ex are not significant changes, merely the catalysts for opportunities of growth. Michael Bay on the other hand is a director that makes action movies. His film portray men as heroes. Often characters in Bay's films are called upon to display great courage, face almost impossible obstacles and put the lives of others as more important than their own.

In addition to facing off directors, Consider the comparison of Billy Joel's My Life and Green Day's Welcome to Paradise. Both songs describe the decision to put yourself before others but at different points in the narrator's life. My Life describes a mid-life crisis scenario where friends and loved ones are concerned over choices made by the narrator. In Welcome to Paradise, the narrator is an young adult leaving home for the first time. The song depicts the growth and maturity that comes with autonomy.

On Ordinary People

2008-06-11T21:41:00.001-07:00

Reading Judith Guest's Ordinary People it seems to be a version of Catcher in the Rye, approaching the subject of youth and mental instability. As it is unclear what exactly happens to Holden Caufield at the end, it is revealed that he is in a mental institution. Similarly, the character of Conrad Jarrett spends time in a mental institution after a suicide attempt. Rather than think of Ordinary People as picking up where Catcher in the Rye left off, it works better to understand the novel as being from the parents point of you. Where Catcher in the Rye was first person, Ordinary People takes on many different perspectives through third person narration. While Conrad does have a voice in the novel, the text seems to focus on the parents fear for his safety. Catcher in the Rye on the other hand, was more how Holden was dealing with his own issues. Alienation and Rebellion for Holden was a way to deal with control in a world where he had none.

Both novels deal with Lee Edelman's version of futurism, or an interest in the future that is centered in the symbol of the child. They reach for a stability of normativity that keeps being undermined by the death drive symbolized in the memories of the two main characters dead brothers and actualized in their withdrawl from their interests, friends and families.

While the unfolding of Salinger's story feels much more organic in the unraveling of Holden's mind, Guest drops us in media res into the problem the Jarrett's refuse to deal with nor acknowledge.

Is one a better version? No, but right now I would say Catcher in the Rye is more engaging. And however one feels about the character of Holden Caufield, there is more at least more about him to have an opinion on. Guest gets inside the heads of her characters, but sometimes even 2 dimensional works appear well-drawn.

On Artistic Choices

2008-06-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Kevin Barnes on the new Of Montreal record: "I am so bored with art that makes sense and 'works.' I wanted to do somethings that didn't 'work.'"

I'm curious if the choices made by Shia LaBeouf of very broad humor on Even Stevens are informed by how he understands comedy or an awareness of how his audience understands comedy.

On The Bleakness

2008-06-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

The bleakness of my trans-continental readlist seemed almost perfect. Combining Cormac McCarthy's The Road with Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed was almost too much to handle as I contemplated both my future and my future employment opportunities.

But, it was also appropriate considering, I first traveled cross country reading another bleak novel, Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero. Coincidently, it was on cable today but I'm sure the chances of that are not very slim.

More interesting than how scary Nickel and Dimed reminded me of my past and prepared me for my future was the fact that the reference Ehrenreich makes to calling poverty a state of emergency seems very much in line with Agamben's State of Exception. In my own words, the fact that poverty as defined, is not considered a permanent state, but still treated as such is beyond the boundaries of politics. The state of exception declared by G.W. Bush following 9-11 put a hold on our civil rights, but once politics as usual are off the table, all bets are off. The state of exception is permanent and so is poverty.

On The Road

2008-06-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Cormac McCarthy's novel is a story of parenthood. There's a way to read it, much like The Bicycle Thief, where parental authority is undermined and it is actually the story of a boy taking care of his father.

In the novel's post-apocalyptic setting, all that's left are the roads of the interstate highway system. At the end of Back to the Future, Doc Brown tells Marty, that where they are going they don't need roads, as if the future is full of possibility and roads keep people too grounded. But BTTF II is not some Utopian vision. Cars take to the skies, it seems solely for fantastic expectations. They function much like the hover boards we'll never see.

The roads in McCarthy's story are the panopticon. The father can see trouble before it finds them. But they still leave the roads at night for safety.

On Horizontal or Vertical Connections

2008-05-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Three recent thoughts that in my mind either have metaphoric or metonymic relations. At their formation it is unclear as to where they fit together.

that in William Gibson's most recent novel, SuperCannes, a society would become free by giving up moral responsibility
that in Mark Andersen's All The Power: Revolution Without Allusion independence is not the highest political good, but interdependence is.
that subjectivity is being erased from consciousness and who we are may not exist inside ourselves, but on the horizon could only be identified by what one does.

On Melancholia

2008-05-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

Limbeck's transition from indie-emo outfit to alt-country cowpunks seems perfectly logical. Pop music, as a form perfects the expression of loss or longing. Think of a pop song as always trying to capture something lost. Somehow dance, electronica, techno, rave, whatever you call it, has no interest in the capturing of loss, instead focuses on the fleetingness of the moment.

Although critics would like to separate form and content, it only occurs in theory. The country ballad seems to have perfected the pop songs interest in longing. The whole idea of understanding pop music in this way can be understood by reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity or subscribing to my theory of Melancholia.

The strain of sadness that runs throughout popular music is where content becomes form. It's only logical that as Limbeck, perfected their broken-hearted ballads, the form of retro-guitar-driven late punk could no longer express the emotive content of their music. This is how their move to alt-country had taken place.

Is it not the case that the content becomes the form or that the content finds a suitable form?

On MSCL

2008-05-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

There's a way the My So-Called Life series works as an alternate past for Felicity (if J.J. Abrams can make alternate futures for Felicity why can't I make alternate pasts?) but Felicity could never be My So-Called Life: College Years.

To think about Ben and Felicity getting together in high school would have Jordan Catalano like results. I'd like to not think of Noel as a Brian Krakow like sophomore, but it kinda works. Watching MSCL now I don't have to obsess over Angela obsesssing over Jordan. I can pay attention to the little things: Rayanne's imitation of Angela in her Our Town audition, the flirting of Graham with Hallie Lowenthal, the strange acting choices of Jeff Perry as Mr. Katimski.

I still don't understand the last episode and one can argue that it is not really a last episode, but it does work as an ending even if it wasn't intentional. This girl at the bar that I was talking to says the final scene is where Angela upon learning Brian wrote her the letter, realizes she has feelings for him. I'm not sure if I buy that.

Still comparing the main storyline involving Angela and Jordan's relationship with Brian's interactions with Angela and Delia Fisher, the two seem similiar in that they seem oblivious to this economy of teen sexualtity that everyone else is willing to participate in.

Some call it innocence. That's why Jordan and Rayanne and Ricky and Sharon and Brian all love Angela.

MOVIE LIST:

Sweeney Todd - 2007 (Becomes worse not better by fast-forwarding through all the songs)
Material Girls - 2007 (Haylie and Hilary Duff played each other's part. This never happens with the Olson Twins)
My Blueberry Nights - 2008 (Tom Waits divided by Ethan Hawke equals Silk Stalkings minus sex)
They Live - 1988 (Ideology: a monster or more scary than monsters? You discuss)
Shampoo - 1975 (What’s it all about Beatty? The Kierkegaardian Narrative strikes again)
Alien 3 - 1992 (Rethinking Fincher's oeuvre, Se7en is his first film, Alien 3 is just a 2 hour music video)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - 2008 (disappointing that in the U.S. Russell Brand is now more famous than Noel Fielding)
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay - 2008 (Structurally identical to the first film, but better)
Atonement - 2007 (Proof, that there are still stories left to be told in the world)

On Avoiding Racism

2008-05-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

The disclaimer for this post is that anti-Israeli sentiment often gets mistaken for anti-semetic rhetoric. With that in mind, how do images of the modern Jewish male not reflect actual Israeli diplomacy? Spielberg's Munich may try to set the record straight, but Woody Allen has spent his career defining the post war Jew as neurotic, inept, and weak. Perhaps, Woody Allen's on-screen performances can be taken as a caricature of Phillip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman. Allen's heirs seem to be Zach Braff and Judd Apatow whose recent film work depict the plight of the modern American male as a series of compromises, concessions and settlings.

Juxtapose this with the modern Jewish female in the performances of Sarah Silverman and maybe Regina Spector (for lack of a better example, Madonna isn't really Jewish right?) or even their ancestors Barbara Streisand and Joan Rivers and you have strong images of female artists not afraid to do or say anything. If one were to not take into account Streisand's stage fright.

It is interesting considering Israeli Defense Forces are considered a powerful military source. And also that service is mandatory for both men and women.

MOVIE LIST:

Sweeney Todd - 2007 (Becomes worse not better by fast-forwarding through all the songs)
Material Girls - 2007 (Haylie and Hilary Duff played each other's part. This never happens with the Olson Twins)
My Blueberry Nights - 2008 (Tom Waits divided by Ethan Hawke equals Silk Stalkings minus sex)
They Live - 1988 (Ideology: a monster or more scary than monsters? You discuss)
Shampoo - 1975 (What’s it all about Beatty? The Kierkegaardian Narrative strikes again)
Alien 3 - 1992 (Rethinking Fincher's oeuvre, Se7en is his first film, Alien 3 is just a 2 hour music video)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - 2008 (disappointing that in the U.S. Russell Brand is now more famous than Noel Fielding)
Atonement - 2007 (Proof, that there are still stories left to be told in the world)

On Time Travel

2008-05-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

Rhett Miller’s use of age as a marker in the Old 97s song “Streets Where I’m From” always allows a gap for admittance. In the line “I recall when I was twenty-three, wondering how anyone could fall in love with me,” works in reverse. Rather than have the listener look back as Miller does, the line suggests the future or some adolescent longing of alienation. Likewise, the following line, “Now I’m well past 25, I can’t seem to fall in love no matter how I try.” strikes me in the same way as it did the first time I heard it. The line “well past twenty-five,” has an ageless quality that no matter what age the listener is, it always seems to be the age Miller is evoking.

Thought of the day

2008-05-07T10:48:00.001-07:00

Intention is really in-tension.

Sweeney Todd - 2007 (Becomes worse not better by fast-forwarding through all the songs)
Material Girls - 2007 (Haylie and Hilary Duff played each other's part. This never happens with the Olson Twins)
My Blueberry Nights - 2008 (Tom Waits divided by Ethan Hawke equals Silk Stalkings minus sex)
They Live - 1988 (Ideology: a monster or more scary than monsters? You discuss)
Shampoo - 1975 (What’s it all about Beatty? The Kierkegaardian Narrative strikes again)
Atonement - 2007 (Proof, that there are still stories left to be told in the world)

Something To Believe In

2008-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

In Cranked Up Really High Stewart Home wants to sever punks ties to Situationalism and Dada. Still, punk’s vague origins intend to be based on disruption, rejection, and revolution. Ironically, the documentary titled 1991: The Year Punk Broke would actually become a beginning of the end. Documenting Nirvana’s rise, the underground became an open door to the mainstream, positioning indie now, not as opposition to popular music productions. So where the beginning lies is still up debate.

For now, we can evoke the undead ghost of Richard Hell as introducing Rimbaud and nihilism to punk rock’s destructive philosophy recreating punk as art and poetry. Still, this often gets trumped by punk’s politics. That’s why the band Rancid proves so interesting.

Richard Hell and New York proto punk rock by 1977 was less important historically compared to what was happening in England at the same time. The British punk rock bands of '77 were arty and adventurous. Slogans that conveyed possibility by ’81 evoked nothing but literal emptiness. The second wave of punk commonly called streetpunk or Oi was unimaginative and lost much of punk’s vision. What remained was the working class concerns embodied in the cry of “No Future.” Johnny Rotten has revisited this proclamation claiming what he actually meant was there’s no future unless you make one for yourself. Sounding a lot like Sleater-Kinney’s coda at the end of “#1 Must Have,” “Now’s the time to Invent!,” Punk would once again regain possibility but only through genre revisionism.

The particular case of Rancid is that in form they evoke the streetpunk hopelessness of British working class Oi, but in content they hold on to the long-lost hope of punk’s enduring value.

To put it another way, Punk’s original nihilism was first artistic but became political. Rancid have reverted it back like holding a mirror upto itself. The anti-artistic formal qualities of Oi, somehow sound arty in their resurrection while the nihilism romanticized comes across as hope.

Rancid represent belief and may have both resurrected and killed punk rock. Now that punk has been coopted by Ben Stein and the Christian church, punk rock is belief and this may all be Rancid’s fault.

In the song "Ben Zanatto," an unimportant B-side, that only takes the place of every other rancid song includes a pretty trite chorus of:

There was romance in the air for sure
There was romance in the air
When the autumn sun light(ed?) Sharmon Palms
There was Romance in the air

The song points to other rancid songs namely "Nihilism" off Let’s Go and "Roots, Radicals" off And Out Come the Wolves. Sharmon Palms, the white ghettos that paint a picture in "Nihilsm," this time have a nostalgic quality in which romance is in the air. While the songs title is the same Ben Zannatto that appears in "Roots, Radicals."

Rancid songs, lyrically are often nostalgic, romantic, wistful and meaningful. Tim Armstrong’s 2007 solo album was appropriately titled A Poet’s Life, because like Richard Hell and Rimbaud before him reimagines punk as poetry.

And like Rancid as well as Armstrong’s previous band Operation Ivy, it is difficult to find a time before then that punk rock was something to believe in.

On Punk Genre Theory

2008-04-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

Noel Murray’s, at times, brilliant music project Popless has reached week 17 and while I am often moved by his revelations, insights and second thoughts, this week’s column revealed an opinion I find difficult to side with.

While listening to the Germs, Murray states that they resemble UK punk more than anything that has come out of Los Angeles. While L.A.’s major punk bands constitute a sound that appears diverse, underneath lies a sound that is much more consistent. It is an error to classify Black Flag as L.A. They made their home in Long Beach with SST records, clinging more closely with San Pedro natives The Minutemen whose untraditional pop structures more closely complimented Greg Ginn’s jazz and classical background. Black Flag’s core was often raw and unnerving. Pre- Henry Rollins however, vocalist Keith Morris’s “I Don’t Care” and “Wasted” sound like versions of the Germs’s “Lexicon Devil,” the song Murray says is UK influenced and albeit "snappier and less assaultive."

Scouring Dangerhouse’s back catalogue, a label responsible for many of the early LA punk singles, one finds many songs closely resembling “Lexicon Devil” namely, songs by the Bags, the Zeros, the Dils, the Weirdos, the Urinals, and the Eyes. The rub I guess is that one of the only bands in L.A. not to sound like how the Germs sound on Lexicon Devil is, well, the Germs. Early songs like "Forming" and "Sex Boy" resemble dark Doors-inspired Black Angel Death songs, while later songs like “What We Do Is Secret” and “Richie Dagger’s Crime” are more influenced by Huntington Beach/OC style hardcore punk.

The Lists

2008-04-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

This is how it works: A list will be made of movies I have watched lately in order of worst to best. Anything of note will be in parenthesis. Full reviews will be posted at my convenience. A music list is also in the works.

Sweeney Todd - 2007 (Becomes worse not better by fast-forwarding through all the songs)
My Blueberry Nights - 2008 (Tom Waits divided by Ethan Hawke equals Silk Stalkings minus sex)
They Live - 1988 (Ideology: a monster or more scary than monsters? You discuss)
Shampoo - 1975 (What’s it all about Beatty? The Kierkegaardian Narrative strikes again)
Atonement - 2007 (Proof, that there are still stories left to be told in the world)

On The Disco Trace

2008-04-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall features, among its many hit songs, "Rock With You," a song that, signifies the death of disco. Disco has probably suffered many deaths, its attempt at jouissance, and hedonistism mark it as anti-futurist and therefore already a product and effect of the death drive. But in "Rock With You," one can actually hear the end of an era. "Rock With You" has a standard four-four disco drumbeat, but it is hidden in the production. The disco beat becomes a residue left behind. Instead prominence belongs to the artist for the very first time. And this shift in presence from the music to the artist would signify the end of disco. As a genre, disco had literally no stars and was perpetuated by the moves the beats and the venues. Perhaps the biggest name in disco was Donna Summer, who was still overshadowed by a more important signifier, her label Casablanca records. The Bee Gees, as stars of the Disco scene becomes problematic because their success was linked with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Before they got the fever, the Brothers Gibb were an Australian rock band rewriting Beatles songs. The trace or residue of the deconstructed sign is always left behind. Rethinking the meaning process, we trace and retrace the signifier onto the signified leaving a ghost image behind. Like Warhol’s Elvis prints, but as Roland Barthes points out in Mythologies, the sign itself is a signifier for another signified. This works for both Donna Summer and the Bee Gees functioning as signs for disco and signifiers for Casablanca and Saturday Night Fever, respectively.

Incidentally, "Rock With You" is the least rockin’ song with the word rock in the title.

On Psycho

2008-04-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

An article at the Onion's AV Club states that Gus Van Sant's remake of Alfred Hitchcock is one of Hollywood's greatest failures. To be sure, when we talk of failure in Hollywood we are talking about money and when we talk of failure in film we are talking about art, but I am talking of neither.

Psycho'98 may be one of the most important films ever made. And it's only because everyone seemed to miss the point. Maybe because everyone was too busy listening to Van Sant discussing intention.

Where Psycho '98 supposedly failed was in it's inability to resurrect the original despite sticking to the original script and shot selection. Frame by frame it's identical, but as a whole its inferior. And this is important to pay attention to. Not whether or not it's in color or how believable Vince Vaughn is as a "psycho."

What are we talking about when we discuss film? What is the study of and enjoyment of cinema? Gus Van Sant's film asks these same questions and everyone ignored them.

Why ever Pyscho '60 is brilliant it is not in the remake and that totally moves the discussion of what a great film is. Or at least it should have. Because on paper it should have been. And paper is important because films get made because of what they are on paper. And thats how both Psychos got made. Because of what they were on paper. But a film is never its original or shooting script.

We say the director brings a film to life. We talk of her vision. The camera as an eye. Cinema as a visual language. But really, what it comes down to is what something looks like on paper. Psycho '98 truly questions that process.

On Sweeney Todd

2008-04-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Ed Wood may be one of my favorite films of all time. The way Johnny Depp and Tim Burton (who should have a clever name a la Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez due to their long relationship) pay homage to Ed Wood is anti-Hollywood in the way that Hollywood was anti-Ed Wood.

For me, the film makes visible, or brings to life how I'm interested in both understanding the things I like and how that plays a role in criticism. I'm learning that criticism always come second. We make up our minds about something and then find ways to justify those opinions.

As much as I enjoy Ed Wood, Deppberton may not play as big a role in that as I had thought. Sweeney Todd's placement along the slope of poorly executed projects is no surprise. And maybe through an outdated and dusty lens of auteur theory we can make sense of Deppberton as guys who like to play dress up. The failure is of course the lack. Johnny Depp is not a character actor. He's not much of an actor; his career flip-flopping between over the top characters (Pirates of the Carribbean) and understated apparitions (Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Benny & June) is the result of overcompensation and in ability to ever say something true. And I would like to find a kernel of his attractiveness lies in this overcompensation and understatedness as version of the modern American male symptom. The overcompensation as a performance of gender and the understatedness as a fear of impotence.

As for Tim Burton, similarly to Depp's weak points being extreme points, Burton doesn't play to his strengths. He's spent so much time in the dark that his style seems obvious and boring. How we forget his first film was the bright and colorful Pee Wee's Big Adventure. How we were only reminded of this for a second in Big Fish. And that Edward Scissorhands only worked so well because it contrasted the american gothic with suburban plasticity. Undermining the real horror better than Stepford Wives. Without that contrast, Burton's work suffers.

It's not that Sweeney Todd was bad, it was that I didn't like it. This reversal is important and I think it's something that people get wrong. The performances were stale as the air in old London and songs bored me to the point of fast-forwarding through them.

On Eyes Wide Shut

2008-04-06T18:54:00.001-07:00

The brilliance of Eyes Wide Shut is that its not a transgression. To think of the film as an exploration of fantasy, the end makes sense in terms of reality. As Zizek says, it's the quelling of the dream. We don't fantasize the lack in our sex lives, our sex lives prevent our fantasies from running wild.

The film can be understood as taking place in the imaginary. Where the symbolic is unable to make sense of the real. All Bill Harper's interactions are fantasy and all fantasies that compensate for class or, an inability to take part in a world where he feels he belongs. His constant reach for the symbolic as evident in his constant naming of himself as "Doctor" is the access to a world of power in which he isn't closer, but he's closer.

The symbolic is a constant interruption of the real in the film. The phone calls he receives bring about order. Still, the symbolic is unable to fully cover the real, as evident in the way answers ever truly provide explanations as to what is really going on.

On Television Studies

2008-03-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

While watching an early episode of the TV show Felicity, the thought occurred to me, how can anyone say anything critical or serious about television when I just watched Brian Krakow kiss the pink power ranger?

On No Country For Old Men

2008-03-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

Possibly more polarizing then the fans of the film that felt no contradiction in praising the film while disliking its ending compared to those that approved of the film whole-heartedly, is the issue expressed over whether or not the film should have been made no matter how pertinent the story being told was and is.

That being said, maybe for the first time in a long time, the Oscar-winning best picture is a movie that not everyone wanted to see (whether or not they saw it) and not in an English Patient kind of way.

On Relevancy and Irrelevancy

2008-03-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Barenaked Ladies song "It's All Been Done" (1998) walks the listener through many of loves tired cliches. In a way, describing these various scenarios, The Barenaked Ladies make the pop song irrelevant. The chorus stating "it's all been done...before" implies there is nothing new to say, no new way to say it.

Nada Surf's new record, Lucky, is an album of pop songs for people who've heard every pop song. Sounding fresh and new, one is completely unaware that the obscene underside of this album is that Nada Surf has in fact done this a number of times before. Lucky makes the Barenaked Ladies song irrelevant.

On St Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T16:07:00.001-07:00

The Bagel Shop I ate lunch at had a special:

Corned Beef and Cabbage on a dyed green bagel.

On the Funkiest of the Funky Bunch

2008-03-10T17:39:00.001-07:00

The future (and eventual) biopic of Mark Wahlberg could in fact be the Citizen Kane of our time.

Good.Yellow.Time.Good.Good.

2008-03-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

Philadelphia sketch comedy group Meg and Rob will be performing at the Philly Improv Theater this Friday and Saturday.

Here they are interviewed by the Phillyist: Meg And Rob Interview

On Versions

2008-03-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

The quadruple feature last night due to trouble sleeping began with Be Kind Rewind, followed by Some Like it Hot, Rules of Attraction, and ending with the pilot episode of Dawson's Creek.

Despite poor reviews, Be Kind Rewind was amazingly enjoyable. I feel like critics are missing it. It is not simply an ode to independent film as much as it is an ode to making yr own culture.

Sleater-Kinney's "#1 Must Have" describes the process from sub to mass culture. In this instance it refers to RiotGrrrl and how it started as something small but was co-opted and eventually appeared on Spice Girl t-shirts.

The song ends with the line "Now is the time to invent.invent.invent.invent.invent."

I see a similar thread in Michele Gondry's film. The idea that you would be so much happier seeing movies you were a part of seems so true to me.

I didn't like how Hollywood came in acting like they owned the intellectual property to Ghostbusters. An idea I came to wrestle with while writing my thesis, is I see something my own in the movies I watch. I don't see large themes, or metaphors. I see things my own way. And I think there is a little of that in all of our film experiences. In that way intellectual property laws fall apart. We all create versions of the things we consume. We can call it ours.

I'm in the middle of reading Bret Easton Ellis's Glamorama. It's been tough to get through so I briefly revisited Rules of Attraction as per Roger Avery's version. How good is that movie. Watching it again, I don't see how any movie can be considered unadaptable, Avery's film is unbelievable brilliant.

On Nostalgia

2008-02-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

After almost salivating over the ITUNES essential tracklisting for the year 1992, Brandon and I talked about nostalgia. And how maybe its just the self realization of purpose. In my words, its the moment when things that are now cloudy used to be clear. Like 1992, was my personal moment of my last pure connection with music. Pre Nirvana, music for me wasn't connected to identity. The radio station was what I listened to, it wasn't supernecessary to my being to know who was cool and what songs they played. I remember bringing my radio to the pool and hearing En Vogue, Prince and Arrested Development. I remember coming home from church to hear Casey's Top 40. Now it seems strange that I heard November Rain and Bohemian Rhapsody once an hour for a whole summer. And had no idea who each song was by.

No New Wave, No Punk Rock

2008-02-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

There's a great scene in Penelope Spheeris's documentary The Decline of Western Civilization where a guy named Phranc says:

I've got excellent news for the world--there is no such thing as new wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of some lame cunts imagination. there was never any such thing as new wave--just a polite thing say when you are trying to explain that you are not into the boring old rock and roll, but you didn't dare to say punk, because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore. There's new music, there's new underground sound, there's noise, there's punk, there's power pop, there's ska, there's rockabilly....but new wave doesn't mean shit!

It took a long time to come, but I'm starting to think punk rock doesn't exist anymore either. The more I see it and the further away I get from it, it all looks like versions of Catcher In the Rye, On the Road, and The Outsiders. It's just youth culture.

And if it is just youth culture, it would explain how the director of The Decline of Western Civilization would go on to direct Wayne's World and The Little Rascals.

On the Oscars

2008-02-26T16:54:00.000-08:00

Oscar Winner Diablo Cody writes in her blog that the film The Royal Tenenbaums can be boiled down to the friction created between Royal and Henry Sherman. While I appreciate the minimalist criticism. I too enjoy a good boiling down however, Wes Anderson's Tenenbaums is more of a slow simmer of a film.

Thinking of it rather as a cooking of a J.D. Salinger story allowing all the hidden themes to come to the surface. The film has far too many levels to be boiled down. Each character is a short story in and of his or herself. Tenenbaums becomes the final novel Salinger never published. The one where everything came flooding out. What happens when you put pressure on children that they cannot possibly live up to? This is something that Salinger himself is both victim and guilty of.

On Metapunk

2008-02-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

Bomb The Music Industry! released a record in 2006 that I missed. Goodbye Cool World at first listen sounds like a leftover third wave ska band. But repeated listens reveals a sound bordering on post-ska. While post-ska as a genre does not technically exist, one wonders what became of countless mid 90s ska bands.

By the way, can some help me track down records by DC's The Jumpstarts?

On the track "King of Minneapolis Pts. I and II," Bomb The Music Industry appear to echo the work of Minneapolis natives, The Hold Steady. Substituting punk and hardcore youth crews for the pseudo indie stomping grounds of Hold Steady songs, BtMI tackle metamusic commentary in a similar way. These narrative devices are layered with meaning allowing the song to function as a commentary on the scene, the singer and the lis-scene-er.

On My Relationship With Art

2008-02-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

Finished reading Olive Schnieder's The Story of An African Farm and watched G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box this week.

While both texts were dissimilar in form and content, they held a similiar place to me in terms of art.

Schneider's novel is considered one of the first works of feminist literature. Her character Lyndall represents a strong and opinionated view point. Her words today feel shocking and powerful. So relevant. I had read the book in college, but something about it stuck close to me, never leaving my mind.

G.W. Pabst's silent film Pandora's Box is a cinematic representation of the feminine mystic. While in the plot of the film beautiful and alluring Lulu uses her sexuality to get men in trouble. The agency taken away from her at the trial for the accidental death of her husband is in the metaphor of Pandora's box. Like the greek myth, Lulu's sexuality represents an evil let loose on unsuspecting men. The German film appears quite dated, but Louise Brooks's star quality is unmistakable despite her lack of success during her film career.

The place these two works hold for me is difficult to come to terms with. The novel I remember being quite strange upon first reading, particularly the chapter told from the point of view of a mule that resides on the farm. In fact, the whole middle section is some mystic shit that seems to take place outside space and time. The film runs well over 2 hours and could have been more economical. While neither of these works I felt were a waste of my time, the point I took way too long to make is that, the particular place each of these works inhabit for me is that I never get closer to a truth about them that is stronger than my first impression. The idea of Scheider's novel holds a much more important place for me than the actual reading of it. Similiarly, the singular, silent image of Louise Brooks was much stronger than the the film its entirety.

I don't know what to make of how this affects my relationship with art. The fact that the idea of work is much closer to me than the work itself is maybe more true than I'd like to know. Because really, I can only know what I think of a work and not the work itself.

On Fool's Gold

2008-02-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

While Fool's Gold seems to be on the bottom of every critic's 2008 film list, considering it's only February, that's quite a small pile. And considering it's a film that's easy to attack, I'm not surprised. Don't movie reviewers get paid by the insult?

What Fool's Gold does and does well are two different things. And I'm not concerned with whether or not it compares with other films released this year as if Oscar were a caliber. As if movies are ever award-worthy.

Whether or not Juno gets an Oscar has little to do with whether or not Juno deserves an Oscar. Peel away its hipster aesthetic and quirky Wes Anderson idiosyncrasies and you have a conservative pro-life movie. I don't know so much if Juno is a well-written movie as much as it is well-dialogued. Still, this is far away from my interest which is relevancy not quality. That's why I'm interested in cultural criticism not movie reviews. What Diablo Cody does well is anchor Juno with a strong female character making her own decisions. Rarely do we see young people in movies not treated like babies, not being saved, not playing victims. And that is refreshing.

Fool's Gold is the opposite of refreshing though. But it's staleness is important because it revives the 80s romantic adventure romantic comedy. Think Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile. Also Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey have a Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell like chemistry.

What would have saved Fool's Gold is about a half hour trimmed from the plot, this could have been achieved by shaving some of the back story on the treasure for the sequel. There only needed to be one villain. Choose. Either the rapper who owns the island or the mentor who competes with McConaughey to find the treasure. Finally, the opening scene with the exploding boat was cool, but could've made for a better ending. Skip the first half hour and start the film in the courthouse with the divorce scene.

Still for all its faults, Fool's Gold is a fun movie and is the heir to the 1940s screwball comedy more than any film I've seen lately. I think the Romancing the Stone reference is key too. It is no surprise this movie involves buried treasure in the year of the return of Rambo. Hollywood is now full of producers, directors, screenwriters who grew up watching movies of the 1980s. We are in the middle of an unconscious 80s revival. Enjoy it.

On Chuck & Larry

2008-02-06T17:55:00.000-08:00

Curiosity got the better of me; whether or not I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry was completely offensive or appropriately toned, I had to find out.

It turns out neither, falling somewhere in the middle. While Rob Schneider's performance as a Japanese minister seemed rather inappropriate and at times racist, if anything I would only fault Schneider for being inconsistent. The thing about his choices is that the obvious caricature is something you can't avoid, but it's also the thing you shouldn't be paying attention to. There are some pretty subtle moments of laugh out louds from Schneider.

What struck me about the pairing of Kevin James and Adam Sandler is that you get a sense that they do love each other even if they're not sexually attracted to each other. So why shouldn't they be able to get married. It seems that what about marriage that is being kept sacred, is normativity.

Looking back on Hollywood buddy films from the 1960s, you have the same homosocial paring going on in films like Some Like It Hot and The Odd Couple minus the homosexual overtones.

Although it was incredibly satisfying to see Adam Sandler punch a gay-bashing minister in the face, the film's message centers around centering. Or, provide some sort of normative structures for homosexual lifestyles, which is based on stereotypes and generalizations.

Levine (Sandler) and Valentine (James), two New York Firemen, register as partners to ensure Valentine's benefits go to his children. What follows is the opposite of a homosexual witch hunt where the domestic partners fear being labeled as not gay.

Perhaps most ridiculous is the fact that the government who made it almost impossible for Valentine to make sure his health benefits went going to his children following the death of his wife, needs some sort of definition of sexual choice in order recognize their union. In other words miles of red tape and inconsistency is fine when your getting screwed, but the minute they're getting screwed, all of a sudden things need to be clear as crystal.

I don't want to judge INPYC&L on what it is not, but I was hoping for something a little closer to the ahead of its time Fox sitcom Ned & Stacy starring Debra Messing and Thomas Hayden Church, in which high-powered lawyer Ned who must marry in order to receive a promotion meets out of work and looking for an apartment Stacy and they strike a deal. What was so great about this show is how it told the real story of gay marriage, or the story of the beard. Beard is a term for the female companion of a gay male who hides his homosexuality. While it is never stated that Ned is gay, his repulsion to Stacy makes you wonder and the open secret of homosexuality makes you not have to question.

What Ned & Stacy did so well is work on two levels by both reinforcing and undermining issues normativity and sexuality. INPYC&L doesn't so much do that.

On The Birds

2008-02-05T16:51:00.001-08:00

I found out today that Leslie Dixon (Hairspray, Thomas Crown Affair, Overboard) is writing the screenplay for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. IMDB has it slated for a 2009 release and Michael Bay is attached to produce.

This news shatters my dreams of producing a remake of The Birds for Television. Starring Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Keanu Reeves. The unintentional intertextuality would bring out much of the camp missing from the original. Also the stiff and lackadaisically competing acting styles will add a high school play level of professionalism.

I expected DVD sales and midnight showings to go through the roof.

Good luck achieving those numbers Michael Bay.

Supercute

2008-01-29T20:27:00.001-08:00

Amanda Bynes as Penny Pingleton in Adam Shankman's version of Hairspray was totally great. In fact, the cast in its entirety pretty much did an amazing job of not stealing the show. Travolta's, what I'm guessing was a B-More accent totally saved his performance and what a great dance number towards the end of the film.

Walken was wasted a little, but you can blame that on Travolta, most of their scenes were with each other and it could have been Travolta's fault for not playing up the Waters cringe-factor. Edna Turnblad should have been played as a man in drag.

What seems totally obvious is how much of a better movie Hairspray is than Dreamgirls. Both films are versions of each other in a way. And I guess for that matter Across The Universe falls into this category, but maybe I'm generalizing.

Although Across the Universe succeeded in discovering the obscene underside of the Beatles. In the scene where Jude storms the anti-war protest office singing to Lucy the song "Revolution," Julie Taymor plays the seen as sardonic.

Dreamgirls is played too straight. The playful tone of Hairspray and Across The Universe appear contemporary through their use of distancing.

Also, Hairspray had much better songs.

On the Corporeal and Incorporeal

2008-01-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

Halfway through Joan Didion's moving The Year of Magical Thinking and it's more numbing and calming than I imagined it to be. The part about the grieving process rendering her invisible, so not there; her word choice being incorporeal presents a stark contrast to the film I watched last night.

In Hany Abu-Assad's gripping film Paradise Now, 2 Palestinian friends make the choice of a lifetime, to suicide bomb or to not suicide bomb. Sophie's Choice seems almost trivial in comparison. As the two friends go through their own cycles of commitment to the cause, doubt and clarity, all takes place under a foreign logic where truth is not based on reason, fact, and support of your claim, but of only one very powerful thing; the word of God.

As one of the friends describes his choices and decision he talks about how his body is a weapon. In these two texts surrounding death and dying, the body becomes visible and invisible, powerful and impotent, capable of destruction and incapable of dealing with it.

But its through the music of BARR on his album Beyond Reinforced Jewelcase which puts this issue into context. BARR's music is sortof stream of conscious musings over drum machine beats, smarter than MC Paul Barman and less-white then Eminem. Less musical then Xiu Xiu and less whiny than Bright Eyes. As BARR talks about things and stuff that don't sound like he knows anyone is listening, the album is very self-conscious, but not in the breakdown of the 4th wall kind of way nor in the self-referential kind of way. It's just superaware of its self. Like the opposite of Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking, in terms of the body, BARR gets away from the "self" in self-referential. It's not the Cartesian understanding of self which is usually where the self in self-referential lies. It's more body-conscious, but not in an eating disorder kind of way. When BARR refers to himself, he is usually doing so in an action-oriented kind of way. Lyrically BARR's music is full of verbs, he talks about things he does or is doing in a very physical way.

In thinking about corporeality and understanding of the self, in the midst of bio-power, the corporeal and incorporeal are influencing the way we understand ourselves in the world.

On Politics and the Pop Song

2008-01-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

The Washington Post article on Campaign song choices, linked here on the sometimes ironic or inappropriate campaign songs chosen by candidates raises absolutely no eyebrows whatsoever. To think that we have to mean absolutely all of what we say, let alone someone running for president, is ridiculous.

Hopefully the Post will hold campaign promises to the level of scrutiny of their pop-identification. And that's all this is really. It's a song on yr Myspace page, the most recent track you downloaded, a first song on a mixtape.

That Hilary Clinton chose the Tom Petty banger American Girl somehow gets effaced by the fact that in verse 3 line 2 their is a lyrical incongruity. Has the post article author never received a mixtape from anyone.

And maybe that's all this is about, one's lack of mixtape grammar. We don't have to be all of what we identify with as long as we own all of what we say. The beauty of the mixtape lies in the secret language of using another's words to say yr own. That you can be vague and totally obvious at the same time is perhaps the real point, but I'm not sure if this necessarily translates to political campaigns as much as it does with pop-identification. Barack Obama choosing Aretha Franklin's think for one totally great line seems very close to online quizzes titled "Which Sex and the City Character Are You?"

And you are totally Miranda, because of three very specific things you have decided in the moment that based on certain episodes are also characteristic of someone on a television show.

This article takes no account for temporality. And it is all about the moment. That first time through a mixtape, only some things stick in your mind. And that's what a song should do. If this article is more playful than critical than fine. I love the fact that Carnival Cruiselines chose Iggy's Lust For Life how ever it might interfere with the values of their family style fun, it's still a pop song.

On What Happened To Sheena

2007-12-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

On The Horrors Strange House (2007), “Sheena is a Parasite” is the first good song on the album. It’s too bad it doesn’t appear until the second half of the record. Among the Horrors brand of Damned inspired goth punk, most songs lack energy and direction. “Sheena is a Parasite” saves the album from being the soundtrack for a mopey goth party.

It also does a better job of telling the story in Against Me’s “Thrash Unreal.” “Thrash Unreal,” from the album New Wave (2007), appears to be the kind of song Rancid used to write, but I’m not quite sure how Rancid became synonymous with Poison’s “Fallen Angel” narrative.

Tim Armstrong’s style of songwriting is actually very traditional and by traditional I mean, he writes good pop songs. Perfect almost (See also Pink’s “Trouble”). Even from Rancid’s first self-titled album (1993) their songs are poetic and romantic. Songs like “Another Night” and “Holiday Sunrise” paint pictures that aren’t pretty, but have beauty. In “Another Night” Armstrong sings, “She wouldn't move until the coast was clear. She always knew the final battle was near. If you have a bag of dope she give it up for free. If you got a song of hope it will help her see.” While his songwriting has progressed, what is visible in this early work is a sense of hope. People are down in Rancid songs, but they’re looking up.

On Life Won’t Wait (1998), one of Armstrong’s most impressive songs and least punk sounding, “Who Would’ve Thought,” Armstrong’s worldview appears crystal clear. “Who would’ve thought that dreams come true? Who would’ve thought I ended up with you? And would’ve thought what they said was true. But it was and you are light and darkness come through.”

There’s a difference here. “Thrash Unreal” both tells the story of how the scene has changed and of those that are always out of step. Think of Jack Kerouac being in love with the mad ones. If anything, the song should only be sad because the scene is not the place the girl in the song fits in anymore. She used to, but it’s not that she has outgrown it; the scene has changed. But the song comes across as sounding sad for the girl like Poison’s “Fallen Angel”.

“Thrash Unreal” is not a Rancid song, because she’s not in the gutter looking up. Things aren’t going to get better. But it’s not a Poison song either. In “Fallen Angel,” Mama’s fallen angel is rolling the dice with her life. The girl in “Thrash Unreal” is doing what she wants. “If she wants to dance and drink all night then there’s no one that can stop her” and “if she had to live it all over again you know she wouldn’t change anything for the world.” If anything she’s the girl from Social Distortion’s “Mommy’s Little Monster” who “left home for the streets” and “has fun with the boys in the band in her eyes it will never end.”

In “Sheena Is a Parasite,” The Horrors rewrite The Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.” The original Sheena was anthemic for all the kids who felt out of step. She got tired of going to the discotheque a go go. But Sheena is not a punk rocker anymore. She’s a parasite. She’s a hanger on just like the girl in the Against Me song. The Horrors manage to better express this scenario than Against Me. Despite the intention, which is to not feel sorry for the girl in the song, it still manages to feel sad. It chugs along slowly like a U2 slow dance song. It evokes the last call melancholia that is so prevalent and popular right now. “Sheena is a Parasite” on the other hand, begins at breakneck speed and never lets up. I don’t feel bad for Sheena. She’s a “champion of self-reliance.”

Identification

2007-11-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

My wallet is a mess. When it comes to identifying myself my options are: an expired PA license, my student ID for which I am no longer a student, and a Research Assistant card that does not have my name on it.

On Non-Weather

2007-11-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking it's not that the weather in Southern California doesn't change. There are changes; it's just that the weather doesn't matter. It's non-weather. So even though I have decided that it's November and I want to wear sweaters, others are walking around in shorts and flip-flops. And neither one of us looks out of place.

An Attempt at an Actual Show Review

2007-11-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

A missing piece to the indie rock puzzle was discovered on Wednesday night at the troubadour in Hollywood. After missing two pretty great bands, Glass Candy and Panthers, Australia's Architecture in Helsinki took the stage. Time was wasted as the band took care of things that could have been figured out during sound check and I managed to finish a beer even before they started playing.

What happened next could have been predicted by listening to their most recent record which fails to come close to 2004's stellar In Case We Die. Moments of pleasure were avoided as the 7 piece band played not one song I would have liked to hear before I decided to leave early. Instead, AIH waxed and wained between 80s unconscious and the chic return to electro. While In Case We Die was full of moments of band geekiness and gushing over music appreciation 101, Places Like This manages to fall into the Dustbin of Indie-History.

It is told however that to truly appreciate this band one must resurrect the HBO unconscious and bring to the surface memories of the movie BMX Bandits where a young Nicole Kidman, cleverly outfoxes random goons trying to retrieve stolen walkie talkies. How 80s? There were several 6AM Saturday morning viewings of this film that had me practicing my G'Dies over a bowl of Cap'N Crunch long long before Paul Hogan was showing his knife or Bret and Jermaine were referencing it.

The night ended at the Cha Cha Lounge where I pissed off not one, but two bearded bartenders. No pictures were taken in the photobooth.

The Thing About Cellphones

2007-11-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

Christopher thinks interesting is a cheap word. Grad students are always finding things interesting. Or are interested in whatever it is they are thinking about.

Hogwash!

Grad students may be interested in some things but are only curious about others, find them strange, or have been studying them as of late.

I guess the point being it's a redundant way to start a discussion because of course yr interested in it or else you wouldn't be talking about it.

So, not that I'm interested in it or anything, but the thing about cellphones is that they make you invisible or so we think.

They seem to take up a curious space in our lives. I stood at the corner of Dartmouth and 11th talking to Rob when Bert arrived and lingered for awhile. Was it he or I that really felt invisible? I've been making an effort to acknowledge people when I'm on the phone, I don't think it's rude unless the conversation is extremely private/serious. But few really are.

The thing about cellphones that is much harder to do is pretend that people who are on a cellphone aren't, to make yourself appear more visible. To let people know that there are things going on in the world, that time hasn't stopped so you can make a call.

It's time.

On Meme'ries

2007-10-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

The internet meme seems to be a completely new phenomenon only made possible by the type of logic that surrounds hypertext. As a form of Intertextuality, it's about how things point to other things.

Like how blogs only ever link to other blogs.

And as I succumb to the cycle myself, I'm remind of ouroboros

The New York Times book blog Paper Cuts features a internet feature that risks of being played out. As Dan Kois proves in his Salon article "Beyonce, Your Mixtape Sucks," nothing revelatory is learned from the taste of celebrities. But Paper Cuts attempts to prove Kois and general consensus wrong. The weekly feature Living With Music has semi-famous literary types talking about music. Llearning that Sarah Vowell has a soft spot for Jonathan Richman is somehow secret, but maybe a little obvious.

In a separate interview, Vowell was asked this question and I love her answer. Sorry, no link is provided because I have forgotten where it has come from.

What makes someone a New Yorker?

"Daydreaming of L.A.?"

This quote very much reminds me of Joan Didion. She unintentionally and in no way mean spirited or maybe even unaware, eliminates the space between New York and Los Angeles. As if, in the world of Joan Didion, there is only New York and Los Angeles.

As "Another Transplanted Californian," I realize that Sarah Vowell makes my assumptions true.

Karma Chameleons

2007-09-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Soft overripe fresh skeezed California females
with 3-inch cherry red press-on Lee nails."
~ Beastie Boys

Justin Timberlake's third single from FutureSex/LoveSounds titled "What Goes Around...Comes Around" is also his third consecutive single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot1oo. Although I'm not too concerned with chart status, it's popularity stems from usual markers of talent, ability, hotness/coolness, and relevancy. The fact that JT is making music people like is as obvious as the song's similarity to 2002's "Cry Me A River." Where "Cry Me A River" was rumored to be an inward reflection on his relationship with ex-wife Britney Spears, the story goes, "What Goes Around...Comes Around" is an outward look at the karmic circularity of relationships.

What this all points back to is the Beastie Boys's track "What Comes Around" off of Paul's Boutique. Although thematically and narratively similar, it is a much easier connection to establish Timberlake's song as being connected elsewhere. To make a case for the author, Timberlake's thematic unity or ideas expressed over time, gives value to the argument for Justin Timberlake as an artist. If "What Goes Around...Comes Around" is really a version of "Cry Me a River," then JT has depth and vision as an artist.

But, I'd still like to pull these songs apart. The inward examination versus outward understanding does the separation work for me. This is the difference between personal and public, between self and society, between individual and universal. "Cry Me a River" is just a dear diary entry; "What Goes Around...Comes Around" speaks a truth about the human condition.

Making that clear it becomes more difficult to posit the relationship of this song with that of one by the Beastie Boys, but my claim is simply that the connections made between texts should not be prioritized for their proximity; that connections made that cross context may not give us insight into the artist, but allow for a bigger picture that is our cultural construction.

Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys sophomore album, happens to be less sophomoric than their debut, Licensed To Ill. On Paul's Boutique we see them begin to emerge as artists. With the help of the Dust Brothers, they begin to really understand what they are capable of as musicians. This maturation process has absolutely nothing to do with them taking themselves seriously. And I think that's why it has become really disconcerting to understand the Beastie Boys in their current context.

Regardless, "What Comes Around" expresses similar issues as Timberlake's song. In the lines, "Look out my window look over the city with two black eyes your girl ain't that pretty. Why you wanna beat that brat with a bat? Why you wanna beat your girl like that?" the Beastie Boys question violent actions in abusive relationships. Although Justin Timberlake's song deals with no such issue, it's interest in karma that the Beastie Boys's chorus invokes in the lines, "What goes around, comes around and what comes around goes around."

Another difference between "Cry Me A River" and "What Goes Around...Comes Around" is in the tone. I think this difference provides evidence for the assumption that "Cry Me A River" comes from a personal experience and "What Goes Around...Comes Around" describes something outside of Timberlake's experience. "Cry Me A River" seems to be a bitter account of the end of a relationship. JT seems to be much harsher on the antagonist in "Cry Me A River," than he is in "What Goes Around...Comes Around." This harshness in tone could come from personal feelings, where in the latter, the distance of the situation gives Timberlake a much different perspective.