We're just busy at the moment.
Hey , remember that list of stuff I said I was totally going to review?
"Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens
The Avalanche by Sufjan Stevens
Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads
The complete Long Winters discography
Silent Alarm by Bloc Party
The Shining, Evil Dead 2 and 3, Superman Returns, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Clerks"
Here is that review: All these things are totally freaking awesome, except Superman Returns which is pretty ok.
¬_¬
More soon, try next weekend.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Tell-Tale Cathart(ic).
I've spent literally about three hours producing this review out of necessity and in my quest for heinous objectivity and all that crap, it's tarred with bookish results. But I haven't contributed anything in a while and am in need of blogging. Maybe we can all look back on this moment and giggle.
People think they know Edgar Allan Poe because he married his thirteen year-old cousin. Granted, its ethical implications are more than a little questionable and as such could be considered grounds for an appropriate affixation for Poe’s foaming, vitriolic ramblings on love, hate, insanity and ostensibly everything in-between. Such a criticism, though, profoundly over-simplifies and understates a personality at once disconnected and yet palpably ferocious.
This duplicity is no more prevalent than in The Fall of the House of the Usher, one of many short stories by Poe, which does away with the usual barmy protagonist as narrator and instead supplants this upon Roderick Usher: the one-time friend of our nameless guide, not only plagued by his unearthly place of residence and ill-fated twin sister but also an oppressive mental disorder which may or may not have something to do with the previous two. By eschewing the first person in this manner and up-playing the non-didacticism, Poe simultaneously adorns and degrades the soul. For itself is an emotional terror, not one of factual integrity. And so, as you’d expect, initial descriptions of the house sniffle of perpetual indulgence (“a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”), but Poe merely uses these fantasist extortions to legitimise his realist intentions. Thusly Usher has little to do with a wildly transmogrifying abode, and everything to do with the wearing of individualism – an admittedly sensationalist conclusion is poignantly two-fold; as the Usher house falls so, too, do the lives and lineage of the ashen siblings.
One can accuse The Fall of the House of Usher, and by extension most of Poe’s repertoire, of being comfortably digestible in its own horrific way. Its finale is a fitting one, it flirts with both the supernatural and spiritual, and the plot serves to typify insanity just enough to entertain. Poe is restrained and let loose at the same time, both pure and puerile, frothing at the mouth like a witless animal circling the epicentre of innate ‘Baroque-ness’. And yet this is not a desperate lunge like the slovenly poet who overflows his passion in For Annie, neither the murderous semantics of The Tell-Tale Heart. Instead Usher teeters somewhere in the middle: suitably aware of its own grunge and stream of consciousness but less audaciously. Then it is not with grim fascination we enter the House of Usher as the host’s ‘friend’, rather with a snooping curiosity. We are drawn to its grotesqueness not because we ourselves are grotesque – that honour is bestowed upon, ironically, a house more animated than its inhabitants- but because we ask why. Why is it the house compares to “no earthly sensation” other than “the bitter lapse into everyday life” one receives after an opium trip? Our narrator even feigns a shaky justification, and in this vein taps into some odd wealth of primal human emotion. Poe makes us afraid, and out of nothing other than opinion and manipulative observation.
The fact that Poe is able to mask these machinations so completely is nothing short of intimidating. So whilst there’s a veritable gamut of now familiar horror staples (internment while alive, doors slamming, the original haunted house) it’s a tribute to the author that his story of the corrupted individual transcends any potentially dating genre trappings. The most obvious manifestation of this would be the invention of The Mad Trist, supposedly by Sir Launcelot Canning in fact Poe himself, which serves as unlikely means to extrapolate the reader’s fear further as the sounds contained within the story-within-a-story begin to mimic those in reality. Appropriately, though, Poe drenches the story of the knightly drunkard deep in satire and the plot is intentionally nonsensical. This gimmick in other hands would be nothing other than a scant excuse to showcase the author’s talents. In Poe’s case, it rings of a knowing selflessness many strive for but few achieve.
Subtlety is not something one usually associates with Poe, and The Fall of the House of Usher is no exception. Indeed, he all but stops short of bludgeoning us over the head with the novella’s wanton spirituality and vagaries of quietude. But there, in that moment, in that house, when Roderick Usher gives up his soul to bellow “MADMAN!” at his alarmed guest, there is an instant of such utterly sublime terror that strikes such a chord of unspeakable feeling that it warrants the excess that has preceded it. Expectedly compulsive and emotionally shattering, yet just as deliciously disordered as its titular dwelling, Usher is a decisive work with a slobbering intensity. Just what you’d expect, then, from an American who married his thirteen year-old cousin.
“By utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher.”
For Edgar Allan Poe, that idea is fear.
People think they know Edgar Allan Poe because he married his thirteen year-old cousin. Granted, its ethical implications are more than a little questionable and as such could be considered grounds for an appropriate affixation for Poe’s foaming, vitriolic ramblings on love, hate, insanity and ostensibly everything in-between. Such a criticism, though, profoundly over-simplifies and understates a personality at once disconnected and yet palpably ferocious.
This duplicity is no more prevalent than in The Fall of the House of the Usher, one of many short stories by Poe, which does away with the usual barmy protagonist as narrator and instead supplants this upon Roderick Usher: the one-time friend of our nameless guide, not only plagued by his unearthly place of residence and ill-fated twin sister but also an oppressive mental disorder which may or may not have something to do with the previous two. By eschewing the first person in this manner and up-playing the non-didacticism, Poe simultaneously adorns and degrades the soul. For itself is an emotional terror, not one of factual integrity. And so, as you’d expect, initial descriptions of the house sniffle of perpetual indulgence (“a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”), but Poe merely uses these fantasist extortions to legitimise his realist intentions. Thusly Usher has little to do with a wildly transmogrifying abode, and everything to do with the wearing of individualism – an admittedly sensationalist conclusion is poignantly two-fold; as the Usher house falls so, too, do the lives and lineage of the ashen siblings.
One can accuse The Fall of the House of Usher, and by extension most of Poe’s repertoire, of being comfortably digestible in its own horrific way. Its finale is a fitting one, it flirts with both the supernatural and spiritual, and the plot serves to typify insanity just enough to entertain. Poe is restrained and let loose at the same time, both pure and puerile, frothing at the mouth like a witless animal circling the epicentre of innate ‘Baroque-ness’. And yet this is not a desperate lunge like the slovenly poet who overflows his passion in For Annie, neither the murderous semantics of The Tell-Tale Heart. Instead Usher teeters somewhere in the middle: suitably aware of its own grunge and stream of consciousness but less audaciously. Then it is not with grim fascination we enter the House of Usher as the host’s ‘friend’, rather with a snooping curiosity. We are drawn to its grotesqueness not because we ourselves are grotesque – that honour is bestowed upon, ironically, a house more animated than its inhabitants- but because we ask why. Why is it the house compares to “no earthly sensation” other than “the bitter lapse into everyday life” one receives after an opium trip? Our narrator even feigns a shaky justification, and in this vein taps into some odd wealth of primal human emotion. Poe makes us afraid, and out of nothing other than opinion and manipulative observation.
The fact that Poe is able to mask these machinations so completely is nothing short of intimidating. So whilst there’s a veritable gamut of now familiar horror staples (internment while alive, doors slamming, the original haunted house) it’s a tribute to the author that his story of the corrupted individual transcends any potentially dating genre trappings. The most obvious manifestation of this would be the invention of The Mad Trist, supposedly by Sir Launcelot Canning in fact Poe himself, which serves as unlikely means to extrapolate the reader’s fear further as the sounds contained within the story-within-a-story begin to mimic those in reality. Appropriately, though, Poe drenches the story of the knightly drunkard deep in satire and the plot is intentionally nonsensical. This gimmick in other hands would be nothing other than a scant excuse to showcase the author’s talents. In Poe’s case, it rings of a knowing selflessness many strive for but few achieve.
Subtlety is not something one usually associates with Poe, and The Fall of the House of Usher is no exception. Indeed, he all but stops short of bludgeoning us over the head with the novella’s wanton spirituality and vagaries of quietude. But there, in that moment, in that house, when Roderick Usher gives up his soul to bellow “MADMAN!” at his alarmed guest, there is an instant of such utterly sublime terror that strikes such a chord of unspeakable feeling that it warrants the excess that has preceded it. Expectedly compulsive and emotionally shattering, yet just as deliciously disordered as its titular dwelling, Usher is a decisive work with a slobbering intensity. Just what you’d expect, then, from an American who married his thirteen year-old cousin.
“By utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher.”
For Edgar Allan Poe, that idea is fear.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Some Films You Should See
Little Miss Sunshine
The Squid and The Whale
If you do not see them and enjoy them, I will come to your house and punch you in the face.
What do you mean what happened to quality reviews? We're busy! And lazy. And busy!
Fine -
Little Miss Sunshine starts off as a subtley funny Wes Anderson-a-like dysfunctional family comedy and half way turns into an outright hilarious Coen Brothers movie. For reasons you don't need to know, the family (mother, self-help-guru-wannabe father, heroin sorting grandfather, silent marxist son and beauty queen in training daughter and mum's just-failed-to-commit-suicide brother) set out on a road trip from somewhere to somewhere else. It's really, really funny. Some journalists have accused it of having a "cop out" ending. These journalists are soulless bastards who probably kill puppies for fun. Sorry, qualit reviews, right - If you wanted it to be all Royal Tenenbaums then you will perhaps feel let down by the ending. If on the other hand you "like comedy" and "enjoy fun" and "have a soul" then there is no reason you will not love it.
God I write some apalling stuff when I am not trying hard. Let's see if I can get back into the game
The Squid and the Whale - A lot has already been written about this by the rest of the world who saw it last year. But still. This might be my new favourite movie. Definitely into my top 5. Another comedy about a family (but definitely not a family comedy) this time one being TORN APART BY INNER TURMOIL (Any movie studios need writers for those idiotic trailer voiceovers?). Yes, parents divorce in Brooklyn in the late 80s. Hilarity ensues. We learn a lot about life, love and tennis. Well not much about tennis really. Basically nothing about tennis. But there is tennis in it.
...
It's a fantastic film anyway. Very smart, very well writte, brilliantly acted, wonderfully shot, perfectly soundtracked, [positive adjective] [verb]ed. Go rent it now. Now. Right now. Go on.
The Squid and The Whale
If you do not see them and enjoy them, I will come to your house and punch you in the face.
What do you mean what happened to quality reviews? We're busy! And lazy. And busy!
Fine -
Little Miss Sunshine starts off as a subtley funny Wes Anderson-a-like dysfunctional family comedy and half way turns into an outright hilarious Coen Brothers movie. For reasons you don't need to know, the family (mother, self-help-guru-wannabe father, heroin sorting grandfather, silent marxist son and beauty queen in training daughter and mum's just-failed-to-commit-suicide brother) set out on a road trip from somewhere to somewhere else. It's really, really funny. Some journalists have accused it of having a "cop out" ending. These journalists are soulless bastards who probably kill puppies for fun. Sorry, qualit reviews, right - If you wanted it to be all Royal Tenenbaums then you will perhaps feel let down by the ending. If on the other hand you "like comedy" and "enjoy fun" and "have a soul" then there is no reason you will not love it.
God I write some apalling stuff when I am not trying hard. Let's see if I can get back into the game
The Squid and the Whale - A lot has already been written about this by the rest of the world who saw it last year. But still. This might be my new favourite movie. Definitely into my top 5. Another comedy about a family (but definitely not a family comedy) this time one being TORN APART BY INNER TURMOIL (Any movie studios need writers for those idiotic trailer voiceovers?). Yes, parents divorce in Brooklyn in the late 80s. Hilarity ensues. We learn a lot about life, love and tennis. Well not much about tennis really. Basically nothing about tennis. But there is tennis in it.
...
It's a fantastic film anyway. Very smart, very well writte, brilliantly acted, wonderfully shot, perfectly soundtracked, [positive adjective] [verb]ed. Go rent it now. Now. Right now. Go on.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
SpiralFrog
We've all heard about this right? Major record labels band together to give free music to the world. Daw, how nice of them. All I have to do is sit through a few advertisements to get the hot new joint from Britney Spears? Sign me up!
Or, you know, don't.
I am of course being overly harsh. There are lots of good artists and bands on major labels. But I'm only expecting the really mainstream popular stuff to make it to SpiralFrog. And I would bet the farm (if I had one) that their will be some hideous, crippling DRM on the downloads.
Still, we shall see come September.
As I write this I am listening to the delightful Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads and David Bryne shares some thoughts of his on SpiralFrog at his journal - click here to read.
I'm going to see Little Miss Sunshine this evening so review tonight or tomorrow.
Or, you know, don't.
I am of course being overly harsh. There are lots of good artists and bands on major labels. But I'm only expecting the really mainstream popular stuff to make it to SpiralFrog. And I would bet the farm (if I had one) that their will be some hideous, crippling DRM on the downloads.
Still, we shall see come September.
As I write this I am listening to the delightful Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads and David Bryne shares some thoughts of his on SpiralFrog at his journal - click here to read.
I'm going to see Little Miss Sunshine this evening so review tonight or tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Back with a Vengeance: Bad Music
Ladies, gentleman, that sort of mole type thing
All is not well in the world
1) The Arctic Monkeys won the Mercury. Admittedly they very rarely get it right but surely Thom Yorke or the Guillemots or, well, ANYONE deserved it more than the Sheffield Strokes
2) The new My Chemical Romance song that they performed at/before that MTV awards show. I'm not embedding the YouTube video. If you want your ears to be assaulted by a minute of drum roll (OMG, MCR ARE BAK! THEYVE BEEN AWAY FOR LIKE SIX HOLE WEEKS!!!) followed by two minutes of hideous Queen pastiche that then descends into the usuall "mall-punk"(Thanks Stereogum) rubbish. I mean i didn't like MCR before but this is the worst thing of theirs I've ever heard.
3) I can live with the Monkeys being popular. I just don't like them, you do, that's ok. We probably both like The Strokes. But who in their right mind is buying that Kooks record? All of you are BAD, BAD people. I hate you. I still hate you less than anyone who bought the last Oasis album though.
4) Oasis in general. Their continued existance is most displeasing
5) I think I'm done.
Seeking solitude from all this horrible music? Perhaps you will find better music at some of my favourite mp3 blogs. I'll post a list of the ones I check regularly tomorrow.
Till then - It's good to be back.
All is not well in the world
1) The Arctic Monkeys won the Mercury. Admittedly they very rarely get it right but surely Thom Yorke or the Guillemots or, well, ANYONE deserved it more than the Sheffield Strokes
2) The new My Chemical Romance song that they performed at/before that MTV awards show. I'm not embedding the YouTube video. If you want your ears to be assaulted by a minute of drum roll (OMG, MCR ARE BAK! THEYVE BEEN AWAY FOR LIKE SIX HOLE WEEKS!!!) followed by two minutes of hideous Queen pastiche that then descends into the usuall "mall-punk"(Thanks Stereogum) rubbish. I mean i didn't like MCR before but this is the worst thing of theirs I've ever heard.
3) I can live with the Monkeys being popular. I just don't like them, you do, that's ok. We probably both like The Strokes. But who in their right mind is buying that Kooks record? All of you are BAD, BAD people. I hate you. I still hate you less than anyone who bought the last Oasis album though.
4) Oasis in general. Their continued existance is most displeasing
5) I think I'm done.
Seeking solitude from all this horrible music? Perhaps you will find better music at some of my favourite mp3 blogs. I'll post a list of the ones I check regularly tomorrow.
Till then - It's good to be back.
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