Music I'm Buying and Then Loving

I have a new ritual which keeps me smiling on Monday mornings: when I go to work that day I allow myself to buy ONE album off iTunes. I might buy something old that I'd never managed to find, or something new that I've been dying to get, or I'll simply hop around using the "People Who Bought This Also Bought That" links until I finally find something interesting.

Here's a chronological list of what I've been buying since I started doing this last August, with linked YouTube videos to appropriate songs when available:

Various singles by Rose Elinor Dougall. My favourite Pipette has gone solo with these lush songs, apparently inspired by '80s acoustic-goth music.

"Sign 'O' the Times" by Prince. I've long admired the tour video of the same name, but I've never been able to find the studio album until now. It was a shock to hear the original, stripped-down, somewhat bizarre versions of songs which became epic onstage, but it's grown on me...and "Hot Thing" is SUCH a sexycool song.

"Dali's Car" self-titled EP. Mick Karn from Japan and Peter Murphy from Bauhaus produced a very odd album: exotic, brooding, somewhat Arabic in its sound. It's not GREAT, but it's INTERESTING, and something I fondly remember listening to on vinyl.

"Imaginary Friend" by The Faith Healers. I heard their song "Don't Jones Me" on a compilation at CKMS, and it took me almost twenty years to give them a bigger listen. It's very much rooted in the '90s shoegazer-meets-grunge scene, but with a nice eccentricity and a hypnotic vibe. The twenty-minute "All at Once Forever" is especially fab!

"Here and Now" and "Moon Bathing on Sleeping Leaves" by Sky Cries Mary. Talk about eccentric: funk, prog-rock, DJ beats, and gorgeous vocals. The live album is amazing, but I'm disconcerted by the apparent presence of TWO copies of Anisa Romero singing at once. Overdubs or backing track? Either way, not cool.

Self-titled album by Zaza Fournier. Delirium gal Anissa sent me Zaza's debut video because she said Zaza reminded her of me. I am infinitely flattered, because Zaza's persona is the one I have always subconsciously tried to cultivate: playful, gawky, cute, individualistic. Do you think you wouldn't enjoy an album of accordian-dominated songs sung in French? YOU'RE WRONG!

"The Warning" by Hot Chip. Their song "Over and Over" is perhaps as close to perfection as a song can be, and it's one that DJ Al at Club Abstract plays when he's feeling very happy. "The Warning" is a good album but just a tad uneven and overproduced.

"Couples" by The Long Blondes. A happy random discovery, but again, a sort of uneven album...it's all good, but the hits stand head and shoulders above the rest. Oh, "Guilt!"

"Fixin' to Thrill" by Dragonette. Toronto's very own electro darlings full of attitude, oddness, and buzy-synthiness. Yet another slightly uneven album -- too long, maybe, to sustain its necessary energy -- but you've got to admit they have something original going on.

"Unmixed" by Freemasons. When I heard their cover of "Uninvited," I had to grab the album, and while it covers a huge number of styles -- being basically a collection of non-remix versions of their recent hit singles -- it thumps so beautifully hard, and the singers they choose are ALWAYS AMAZING.

"Replicas" by Gary Numan. I've mentioned here before that I've never picked up a cheap Gary Numan album that I didn't like; I love his gulpy voice and his ominous keyboards, no matter the era. But I found "Replicas" to be a tad overhyped; it's considered such a landmark album -- and it certainly helped shape the burgeoning New Wave sound -- but it's also awfully monotonous and sloppy.

"Damp" by Foetus. I'd buy anything by Foetus, so this was a no-brainer. A collection of demos, remixes, singles, and previously unreleased songs. His collaboration with Rotoskop will have to be an upcoming iTunes purchase, that's for sure...

"Your Bag" by Lida Husik. Back when I heard this album in the early '90s, it seemed so fresh and interesting: an oddball let loose in a recording studio to release a series of equally oddball releases, often with unconventional effects and weird noises and cut up tape montages. These days, however, it seems like more of a "good idea" than a "good album."

Self-titled album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. I'd buy anything by OMD, and I was looking forward to finally hearing all those older albums I'd never been able to find. The subsequent disappearance of most of their catalog off of iTunes has put the kibosh on that plan, but at least I got this one, their first. It's a mix of perfect pop songs and bizarre experiments, best listened to in the early '80s but still a real treat.

"Big Sexy Land" by Revolting Cocks. I'd heard good things about this first album, but it's of the more monotonous type of '80s proto-industrial noodling: the worst parts of both collaborators, Ministry and Front 242. In University I had a friend who said that, to him, all industrial music sounded like a sample going "Bodies everywhere. B-b-b-bodies everywhere." I was less than delighted to find out that he was thinking of a song on this album ("Union Carbide").

"The Golden Age of Wireless" by Thomas Dolby. One of my favourite albums ever, finally remastered and restored to its original track sequence. Worth it just for the album itself, even more worth it for the additional material.

"Lust Lust Lust" by The Raveonettes. Recommended to me by a friend, and an excellent Jesus and Mary Chain brand of lo-fi -- love that spring reverb! -- but there's such a thing as too much of a good thing...the album is longer than it needs to be by far.

"The Frenz Experiment" by The Fall. I'd buy anything by The Fall. Another excellent album from their Brix/Schofield period. "Hit the North" is such a wonderful song!

"Ljubi in Sovraži" and "Arhiv" by Videosex, both incredibly cheap, both wonderful, both with awful sound quality, and both previously mentioned here.

"Horehound" by The Dead Weather. Since I'm probably the last person on earth who isn't 100% sure who Jack Black is, I can approach this supergroup without any preconceived notions or expectations. It's got a fun, gritty, dark-blues sound that gets a little dull after a while...but when it's good, it's GOOD.

"The Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists. I admit it: I've never heard anything else by them. I only stumbled across this album because amazing animator Julia Pott made part of their album-length music video. I watched the video and said "wow," and bought the album and said "WOW!" (Chorus of dead children excluded)

Many albums by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, bought in release order, from their self-titled release to "Solar Fire." Thank you iTunes, I finally get a chance to hear all the albums by a band I'd Buy Anything From.

"Prince Charming" by Adam & the Ants. It's hard not to love the Adam Ant concept: sexy guy dresses up like a "Top of the Pops" version of a highwayman, then sings a bunch of fetishy, over-the-top songs for a public scandalized, annoyed, and in lust. Do all the albums live up to this? Not "Prince Charming," but it's...well, charming.

"On the Threshold of a Dream" by Moody Blues. Another of my favourite albums, finally remastered and released with tons of bonus material. It's still just as scary and lovely as ever and -- in my humble opinion -- the only Moody Blues album you need to own.

"Tale to Tell" by The Mummers. Weird woman with amazing voice teams up with a soundtrack composer and releases and album with lots of potential. Composer commits suicide shortly afterward. We will never know what could (and should) have happened next, but at least we have this difficult album of outrageous orchestral pop.

"The Family Jewels" by Marina and the Diamonds. The only album in recent memory that has kept me literally SWEATING for its release...and yes, it's good, but the singles are far and above the most distinctive songs. Even so, I'd pay double the money just for that handful of songs, and there are some others that are "just good enough that another fabulous artist might have been able to do them."

"All Request Live" by Ween. They're always fabulous. Their new renditions of songs from the past are all wonderful, but check out "Where Did the Cheese Go," an insane presentation of their rejected Pizza Hut jingle. Six minutes long. It's the best.

All the cassettes by Pain Teens. I've already mentioned that I'd buy anything by the Pain Teens, so imagine my joy when I discovered all of their original cassette albums on iTunes! Well, lots of songs have been removed (probably for copyright reasons) and they're generally overpriced, but I love them both for the chance to hear the "demo" versions of songs from later albums, and for a format that they represent and has largely disappeared: the 4-track 90-minute tape recorded in your parent's basement by a person (Scott Ayres in this case, with a bit of input by Bliss Blood) who seems to have no end of creativity and talent. I recommend "Manmade Disasters" and "Cathy" if you like more song-oriented albums, and "Narcolepsy" for experimental oddness that is still listenable.

The self-titled album by Sons of Freedom. The tightest rhythm section ever, made even tighter by the fact that the guitarist usually played rhythm as well. This one just thumps and thumps and thumps along, and while the songs near the end are a bit self-indulgent and weak, the first half of the album is massively great.

The self-titled EP by Lioness. How appropriate that this should follow Sons of Freedom; take their thumpy rhythms and add the best bits of Dragonette -- everybody being Canadian, incidentally -- and you get the catchiest song in ages and a darn good EP too. They Will Be Big.

"Eyelid Movies" by Phantogram, recommended to me by Joshua, king of the OTHER twin cities, doesn't have a lot of variety to it but is excellent background music.

"Too" by Madita. Ahh, this is so good: a pop album that always sounds great, but still manages to pull the in influences and oddities that make it something special. And she has a perfectly capable voice without distraction.

"In the Flat Fields" by Bauhaus. I never used to enjoy this phase of Bauhaus' career, but now I see the joy. It's a weird album of chainsaw rhythm and guitar effects, held together by Peter Murphy's histrionics: exhausting, alienating, and -- apparently -- the beginning of Goth As We Know It.

"Trip the Light Fantastic" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Rarely does an album leave me so thrilled and happy! Perfect production, beautiful melodies, and Sophie's expressive voice; this is anything but a pop-by-numbers album and it baffles me that more people haven't heard it. You want to, right?!?

"Wild Young Hearts" by Noisettes. This is my most recent purchase so I haven't listened enough to give even a capsule review, but I'm liking it so far. Embarrassing fact: Delirium gal Annissa (her again!) told me about the Noisettes several months ago, and I brushed them off as manufactured entities ala VV Brown, then I forgot about them. This week I gushingly asked Annissa if she'd heard of the Noisettes, and she revealed to me my reactionary music snobbishness. Reality check!

Subverted Expectations in My Old Hometown

I posted earlier today about the somewhat noisy environment I'm living in. At the time I found myself looking forward to visiting my parents in New Hamburg, so I could experience some of that good old fashioned solitude I remember so well.

Instead of solitude, I found out that my parent's house -- the one I grew up in -- is surrounded by a ring of six barking beagles. The house next door sports exactly SEVEN children. An angry father kept yelling at his dog "SHUT UP! DON'T BACKTALK ME! YOU SHUT UP!!!"

And then, amidst the cacophony, somebody began driving their team of snowmobiles up and down the gravel road. You know what a snowmobile sounds like when it's skidding over a mountain of snow? Imagine it instead grinding its way through dirt and rocks at 5kph. It's like a dumptruck, a leafblower, and an oil drill all at once, complete with swearing.

I can't believe it. My house is quieter than such tranquility. I count my blessings, over and over and over again.

My Shy Date With Modern Dance

On Thursday night I watched the rehearsal for "60 Dances in 60 Minutes," which will be performed at The Registry Theatre on November 4th. I'd hoped to learn what contemporary dance is all about and -- more importantly -- what makes it entertaining, enlightening, or (God forbid) insufferable to the modern layperson audience-member.

Can I explain the secrets of dance after a mere four hours of exposure? I only saw one single company performing one single piece and I didn't even get to see the end. There are many different approaches to dance, and every audience member is an individual, so I can't just say "This is what it's all about" (as much as that would save me some heavy pondering and how-do-I-express-this anxiety).

Seeing the rehearsal -- and enjoying some whispered chats with Jacob Zimmer, the dramaturge -- hasn't left me with many answers and it hasn't turned me into an instant fan. I learned a few more things about my personal hangups and how they relate to my entertainment choices...at the very least it was a good private therapy session.

But I'm not here to tell you about my childhood trauma; that's what the REST of this blog is about. I'm assuming instead that some of my insights may be interesting to you, whether you loathe modern dance or you think it's the absolute cat's meow.

WARMING UP

"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" was first performed in February by the five principle dancers of the Dancemakers company. For the show in Kitchener they'd chosen to add five local dancers to the performance, and they thought it would be interesting to have me -- the clueless, curious, neurotic-but-eloquent spectator -- sit in during one of their rehearsals.

I was nervous. As is always the case with events where audience-appreciation is not tied to long-standing rules of etiquette and judgment, my first concern was how much reverence I was expected to have for their work. How serious must I be? Dost I dare to make jokes about thee art, especially being the only person in the audience and surrounded by its performers and creators, all of whom are extremely fit? I can't speak for other shows, but I can say this for sure: if you don't laugh a bit during "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" then you probably have a really crappy sense of humour.

But the question remains: what should the audience get out of this particular performance? The more abstract a piece of entertainment is -- the more distant it is from convention, the fewer obvious cues transmitted by the performers, the more flexible its parameters -- the greater the potential for hostility, boredom, confusion, or feelings of boorish inadequacy. Nobody likes to feel stupid, especially not those of us who consider ourselves open-minded and experienced enough to be able to "get it."

Most forms of contemporary dance do not, in my experience, present themselves in traditional or unambiguous ways. If the audience doesn't "get" the performance, is that a failure of us or the dance company? Is that even a failure at all?

THE EXPERIMENT

The title "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" gives you an idea of what this performance is about, but here's a more explicit precis: the dancers, singly or in groups, will perform various tasks during a certain time period. How will ten dancers (and the audience) perceive the performance of these tasks in relation to the passage of time?

We have all benefited from (and been victimized by) time's subjectivity. Two hours spent at a good party can feel like ten fleeting minutes, while a ten-minute drive home with a full bladder simply never ends.

"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is -- in its most obvious interpretation -- about the subjectivity of time. Even if you miss the somewhat hasty and informal explanation at the beginning of the performance, you will eventually notice that the dancers are attempting to synchronize their tasks -- like counting silently in their heads -- but they never finish together despite all their highly-polished dancerly-discipline.

Why can't they sync with each other? Because the passage of time, in the absence of coordinated cues like the a visible clock, is a subjective and ever-changing thing. None of us have quartz crystals in our heads. We rely on metabolism and breathing, stride-length and thought-passage to inform us of how quickly the rest of the world is moving in relation to us. When all the dancers close their eyes simultaneously and start counting silently, and then each of them raises a hand when they have reached the agreed-upon number, the dancer who ate a cheeseburger may finish faster than the one with a painful blister on her heel. This is a bizarre and entertaining way of expressing what we deal with every day: there is no way for people to synchronize with each other without external time cues.

To look at it in one way, "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is a series of experiments to demonstrate how individual people perceive time. Sometimes the time intervals are short and sometimes they're excruciatingly long, and due to this occasional excruciating nature, the AUDIENCE is ALSO confronted with their individual time-perceptions: three minutes staring at a motionless line of dancers evokes all sorts of feelings, but one of them is how long three minutes can be when not a heck of a lot is going on.

THE AUDIENCE AND THE NARRATIVE.

Back to the rehearsal and my impressions of it. Early on I noticed that the director and the performers were using evocative words to describe the sixty different sections of the performance.

One section was called "witnessing," for example, and another was "the how-to's." There were movements called "abbreviations" and "acronyms," and there were also "koala" and "suicide."

These words were a convenient shorthand for the dancers, of course, but I was fascinated by the fact that the audience would never hear those words (unless they looked at the rundown which was provided at the end of the show). When I saw one dancer carrying another, belly-to-belly, in a tight and motionless embrace, my perception of the act changed as soon as I found out -- thanks to my privileged position as silent rehearsal voyeur -- that they referred to this action as "koala." If they'd called it "frog" or "Kali" then I probably would have viewed it differently.

Why do I bring this up? Because our perception of PLOT is just as subjective as our perception of TIME. "Hamlet" would give a very different impression to a 17th century barmaid, a bored highschool student, and a queer theorist respectively. No plot can contain one single, universal impression for everybody. You can say this about books or movies or any other type of public art you can think of.

Contemporary dance rarely telegraphs its narrative as clearly as a Hemmingway novel, and even if it DID there'd be the same issues of interpretation. When we see one woman suspending and holding another woman closely, what does that mean to us? Is it love? Is it trust? Is it fear or hope or disability? Hemmingway would tell us which it was -- and he'd probably wrestle both dancers to the ground as well -- but would we agree with his assertion? And would our perception of the act be richened -- or cheapened -- if we found it was called "koala?"

Contemporary dance, to me, seems largely ambiguous. The thematic clues given to the audience in "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" are not presented like they would be in an Agatha Christie novel...

...but the point of "60 Dances" is not to discover whodunnit before the pompous detective does. I suspect that the dance company would agree with me that they do not expect everybody in the audience to absorb the information provided in exactly the same way; in fact, the company might HATE that possibility. I suspect that they -- and perhaps most artists who work in relatively non-traditional ways -- want the audience members to make up their own minds.

But here's the thing: I'm not part of the dance company, I'm an audience member, so how many clues to the narrative should I be given? How much of it should be explained, and how clearly? Should there be identifiable characters in the performance with individual motivations, or are they all just "dancers," lab rats in a time experiment...a time experiment which I may not even understand is going on? While watching the rehearsal I found myself fixating on the words "koala" and "the how-to's" and "witnessing" because I CRAVED a plot. I clung to one reoccurring figure -- a girl in a parka with a subtly funny walk -- because she provided me with a sense of character that I find satisfying and fulfilling.

"What is the narrative of a symphony?" Jacob asked when we talked about this, and he's correct. And keep in mind that I was also watching the rehearsal of a performance that was yet to be completed, and watching it in the artificial environment of a closed theatre, without an audience, under bright lights, with a full bladder.

But I think this comes to the root of my general wariness about contemporary dance. I am not familiar with the concepts and history of the artform so I can't construct even a tenuous narrative like "I don't understand the literal soup cans but at least I understand pop art." I am also not privy to the thoughts of the dramaturge or the director or the performers, because they choose to remain silent or (more likely) because I hate reading the tiny print on theatre brochures.

Without knowing the concepts that the company is trying to express, I can't compare them with my own impressions. I don't know whether they've succeeded in getting their ideas across. And if my impression is the opposite of what they intended to convey, has the performance been a failure? Is there such a thing as failure in contemporary dance? Or in an abstract painting? In a symphony?

PS: I am generally confused by the symphonies as well. Sorry.

AESTHETICS VERSUS THEME

Back to the rehearsal. "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is not just an experiment in subjective time; if it were then it would be best inflicted on a bunch of undergrads in a controlled manner (hopefully with electric shocks), and not performed on a stage.

No, the AESTHETICS of this performance are important as well. It's as though the success of the aforementioned experiment depends partly on whether the experimenter is wearing footwear which compliments the style of the electroencephalogram.

During the rehearsal there were constant negotiations between the artistic director, the associate director, and all ten dancers about the smallest details of the piece. This process was collaborative and everybody offered suggestions, and while some were practical -- dealing with safety, for instance -- and some related to theme, most of them were based on simple aesthetic considerations.

The discussions about the look and feel of the piece were the only extended and difficult ones I witnessed; should the dancers who perform the "knee burn" be hesitating before they slide, or should they dive right in? When two dancers do an impromptu translation from French to English, should they do it cautiously or should they just shout over each other? And how noisy should each of them be when they all count out loud?

A lot of discussion went into what one particular dancer should do during a three-minute segment. When somebody suggested that she should run to the back wall and press herself against it, associate director Bonnie Kim said "That's great. I love the wall." And everybody agreed.

"Loving the wall" has nothing to do with the theme of "60 Dances in 60 Minutes." There is no thematic reason why that dancer, at that time, should do that particular action. It's not a plot thing, it's not a character thing. It just seemed good.

In another one of our whispered conferences, Jacob agreeed that aesthetic decisions are pervasive and important to him, and they provide another aspect of what the audience may take away from the show: does it feel right? Is it well-paced? Is there enough variety?

Some modern works are composed entirely within rigid initial constraints, which is why they may come across as dry, pedantic, and mechanical. There must always be the consideration of how much one should deviate from (or add to) the central conceit in order to appeal to form and feeling, those most subjective of audience impressions. Does it look or sound good? Does it resonate nicely? Does it move so far from the theme that the point is lost and the audience is distracted?

Sometimes yes, if you're as literal-minded as I am. When the dancers jog or slide or tickle each other, a somewhat grumpy part of my brain wants to know "why are they sliding?" because I can't relate those things to my everyday life. When a stranger walks up to me on the street and spends three minutes explaining to me how to bake a Shepherd's pie, I think he's insane and he probably wants to put me IN the pie, which is not pleasing at all. It's kooky.

Jacob whispers to me about furnishing a room: there are basic rules regarding size and clearance, but there are also aesthetic considerations. It's not generally desirable to eliminate either consideration: you end up with a fully rule-based composition (like a boiler room) or one that looks great but your friends avoid, because the couch is too far away from the coffee table, and you can't see the TV properly, and when you touch the wall it collapses.

If modern dance doesn't appeal to the eye, has it failed? Conversely, if it ONLY appeals to the eye, is it nothing more than an awkward Hokey-Pokey that you're not allowed to join?

THE PERFORMANCE

Why all this speculation? Why didn't I ask Jacob or director Michael Trent what THEY felt the audience would perceive?

I'm not lazy, honest! I wanted to develop my own ideas about the piece, and I also wanted to glean -- non-verbally, instinctively -- what they subconsciously hoped for and expected. What would be a success for them? What would failure be? Did success or failure even matter?

The primary impression I got was that they enjoy what they do, they are intensely interested in their audience, and they are confident that people WILL appreciate and understand it. During the four hours I was there I didn't actually see them debate their methods of communicating their ideas, but those discussions probably happened long ago, during the initial planning stages, before the February shows ever happened.

And me? My original plan was to go to several rehearsals and try to see the process from different angles, but I don't think I would have learned anything more than I already did, and besides I'd need a lot more exposure in order to make this really be about THEM or YOU instead of ME.

All I REALLY know is that, despite all of my kvetching and analyzing and quizzing, I'm impressed with what they're doing and I can't wait to see the show. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I won't know why, thank goodness. I think I just will.

But I'll have to take all other performances as they come, much as I would a book, or a film...or even a symphony.

Tolkien III: The Lord of the Rings et al

I am finally near the end of "The Lord of the Rings," though I'm realizing that being "near the end" of this book is like being "near the end" of a cross-border flight; you still have to wait for the plane to taxi to the gate, and the people to get off, and you have to wait for your luggage, and Éowyn needs to fall in love with Faramir.

I MUST have read this book once before. I vividly remember most of "The Fellowship of the Ring," and I certainly enjoyed the dead marshes in "The Two Towers." But other than the deep creases in the spines of my twenty-year-old copies I have little other evidence of previous reading, and I REALLY doubt that I would have survived the pacing when I was sixteen years old. Just the fact that the fellowship split into different groups must have driven me crazy; Denethor's low-key insanity in Minas Tirith would have been the last straw.

So based on whatever skimpy, skimming exposure I'd had to the books when I was a teenager, I have for years parroted the conventional wisdom that Tolkien was a terrible writer and that he didn't know how to keep the action going. And though now -- having carefully read the novel with an adult viewpoint -- I am still frustrated by his use of the word "fell" and his obsessive inability to skip any segment of a four-day journey, I have to admit that I was wrong all that time and I was talking out of my butt; "The Lord of the Rings" is VERY well-written, given its difficult task of weaving together so many different plot steams, and that when Frodo and Sam woke up to a laughing Gandalf after having dragged themselves through Mordor...yes, I cried openly into my bacon and eggs. Sob!

Given that we now have an amazing film version courtesy of Peter Jackson Fanboy And Company, the book also serves as a perfect illustration of the differences between book and script. I don't just mean in the sense of needing to cut material to fit a tidy eleven hour running time, I mean the sorts of plotting and emotional revelation that work in one medium but not the other.

To take an obvious example, Tolkien is sometimes berated for a lack of "growth" in his characters, and that's certainly true; any character changes which occur throughout the book -- Mary and Pippin's bravery, Legolas and Gimli's friendship, Aragorn's kingliness -- are due to either third-party intervention or the activation of racial traits that are in no way individualistic.

But that sort of character development is DEATH on screen. A movie adventure must swell and thump and blare, it can't just PLOD. Which is what much of Tolkien's writing does, in a good way.

There's one element in which I think the movie overreached, however, and that's the relationship between Sam and Gollum. In an attempt to turn Gollum into a more tragic figure, the movie made Sam a slightly more cruel and intolerant character, and this turned their clashes into a bit of a farce. But in the book, Sam and Gollum tended more to SIMMER, and this suits the mood beautifully. And so when Gollum sarcastically whispers that he really HAS been "slinking," it's both funny AND reveals so much about their respective characters that has previously been unspoken. In the movie, this scene just makes Gollum look nasty and petulant.

In summary, the book is long and complicated and diverse, but it's totally readable to anybody willing to put in the effort. You have to be able to love ALL the quest elements, whether they be Tom Bombadil's otherworldly aloofness or the "me Tarzan, you Jane" English of a bunch of púkel-men.

Take my advice, though...find better maps than the tiny, ink-blotched ones in the back of the '80s editions. It took me forever to figure out that the Black Gates were, in fact, to the northwest.

Embarassing Moments: The Precocious Me

Having met all of my program requirements except for a single elective course, I returned to the University of Waterloo and took a bird course called "Philosophy of Women and Men." It was dull and pedestrian...exactly what I wanted for the final course of my school career.

We were assigned to read an article about "geek culture," and the following week we returned to discuss the article. I hadn't read it, but I thought myself sufficiently interesting and knowledgeable to raise my hand and say the following:

"Not that this has anything to do with the article, but it might be interesting to point out the original usage of the word 'geek.' A geek was a circus performer who bit the heads off of live chickens. It would be interesting to find out how the word's meaning changed over the years to represent the geeks we know today."

*I* thought it was a fascinating observation, but everybody in the class just STARED at me. Assuming they didn't believe me, I insisted that the whole thing was true but not common knowledge, and told them to do some research if they didn't believe me.

Total silence. "What a bunch of weirdos," I thought, and sat back down.

That night I decided to read the "geek culture" article that I was supposed to have read in order to prepare for the class. The first sentence of the article -- which everybody had read but me -- went something like this:

"The original 'geeks' were performers who bit the heads off chickens in circus sideshows. Here's the way the word 'geek' has changed over the years..."

"The Mist"

As much as I'm annoyed by some of Stephen King's bibliography I'll be the first to admit that he has written a lot of memorable books. But my favourite King creation, by far, was "The Mist," a novella that I first read as a teenager in his "Skeleton Crew" collection.

The story continues to disturb me every time I read it. The idea of the mist alone is an innovative one, but on top of that the monsters are terrifying, the characters perfectly crafted, and the claustrophobic, slow burn setting is ideal. Most importantly, though, the actual reason for the mist phenomenon -- and the ending of the story as well -- was tantalizingly vague and open-ended. When you're finished reading the story you're left with a lot of wonderfully meaty possibilities that you can mull over all on your own. With the lights on.

People have continually promised to make a movie out of the story. The problem has always been: how should it end? I've told myself that no film studio -- at least not one with the budget to even ATTEMPT "The Mist" -- would ever allow the story's open-ended finale to stand...a Hollywood producer would HAVE to insist on a resolution, and that resolution no doubt would be super-happy and spoil everything. Better the movie never be made.

So I was worried about watching the Frank Darabont adaptation. And while I'm ultimately unhappy about the ending they finally decided upon, it's not for the reasons I'd assumed...and the rest of the movie is so wonderful as to render the actual ending almost unnecessary.

I've already said that the Stephen King monsters were unique and horrifying, but the film manages to make them even MORE bizarre. The scenes of graphic and grotesque body horror have been actually RAMPED UP in the film; maybe this disturbed me more than usual because I'd assumed the film would PLAY DOWN that sort of thing. I was very, very wrong.

What really makes the movie exceptional, however, is the pacing. The action sequences are slick and shocking, but the director knows when to pull back and just let everybody simmer once in a while, always with a barely audible score and understated performances. The Mrs. Carmody plot was a bit heavy-handed I think -- though it isn't hard to see why an American director under the Bush administration might feel particularly driven to bring such scenes to the forefront -- but even when the Carmody scenes started to drag, the quirky script and convincing performances kept me grounded.

The inclusion of Dead Can Dance's "The Host of Seraphim" -- no song is more beautiful or more heart-wrenching -- was an added bonus, though it must be one of the most overused soundtrack songs ever.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but: maybe the movie adaptation is actually BETTER than the book. I eat crow publically. If you love horror movies and you haven't seen it yet, you really really should.

Incidentally, I just realized that Darabont wrote the screenplay for the remake of "The Blob," another quirky script which went slightly "over the edge" in terms of gruesome body horror.

Yaaargh, Synchronicity! "Diversey"

In May of last year I was stuck in a hotel room with MacKinlay Kantor's book "Diversey," and it annoyed me so much that I made a beeline to Barnes & Noble to ask for something "happy."

I mentioned this in the blog and Eric replied in the comments, explaining that Kantor was actually a well-resepected author at one time. I found that hard to believe, but since Eric was a professor (and actually spent a great deal of time riding busses on Diversey street) I bowed to his wisdom and assumed that this novel was just a rare moment of badness for Kantor.

But what do I find in the August 18, 1928 New Yorker book review section?

ANOTHER book against which insomniacs are warned by the publishers with considerable justification is MacKinlay Kantor's "Diversey," based on the activities of Chicago's gangsters and their corollary network of machine guns, gin-crazed girl friends, and crooked politics...

That makes it sound a lot more interesting than I remember it, but I suppose I'll have to go back and try to read it again. The reviewer genuinely likes the book, and though the section is no longer written by Dorothy Parker, he-or-she seems to have pretty good taste.

The Joys of a Good Scary Story

In highschool, and during my first year of university, I subsisted on a greedy diet of horror fiction. I was at first mostly interested in novels, but for some reason I gradually became obsessed with anthologies of short stories, and I collected them rabidly: "The Year's Best Horror Stories," all those Charles L. Grant "Shadows" books, the sublime "Tales By Moonlight," the less sublime "Hot Blood" series, "Dark Voices," "Night Cry" magazine, "Night Visions," the seemingly endless collections edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg...

There was something fun and sort of chocolatey about picking up a new anthology and seeing the same names again and again; Ramsey Campbell, Alan Ryan, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Steve Rasnic Tem, Karl Edward Wagner, all jumbled together without any thought of transition or theme. I'd rate each story out of ten and add it to a computerized database, then go out and hunt for all the books I'd missed over the years. It was a project, an education, and a joy.

These books inspired a friend and I to start our own small-press horror 'zine called "Lost," which pulled in a few professional authors who probably didn't realize that the editors were two little kids with acne. I even got some of my own sub-par stories published. But more on that some other time.

Soon, maybe in an attempt to resurrect declining sales, the anthologies started going all thematic. Stories about vampires! Stories about freaks! Erotic horror, zombie horror, ecological horror! Splatterpunk! Bladderspunk! Even something called "architectural horror!"

Dennis Etchison coined the term "Metahorror" for my personal favourite stories, a new breed of fiction that was kind of like "magic realism gone bad." A bunch of the more successful authors banded together as "The Horror Writers of America," which seemed particularly mean-spirited at the time (and possibly was, a bit). I bought the books anyway, I loved the books, maybe I sort of LIVED the books.

But in university I discovered a whole new world of literature that I'd never cared about before, and I packed up all those anthologies into a bunch of cardboard boxes and put them in the basement. I decided I wanted to be HAPPY, not some loser kid who sat at home assigning ratings to mediocre stories by Whitley Strieber. And that was it. The end.

...

Until I picked up Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher" last week, and I remembered why I liked horror fiction to begin with: it's breezy, it has a near infinite number of themes and permutations, and when it's good it scares you. I still remember the stories and novels that terrified me the most, and I probably enjoyed reading them more than I ever enjoyed "Oliver Twist." And even when a book is BAD it is still at least INTERESTING, and you don't need to invest much in order to pick out the kernels of fun.

Yeah, I'd love to open those boxes and revisit the best stories, anthologies, and novels...and maybe I will. I even bought Peter Straub's "Floating Dragon" the other day, and I'm actually considering re-reading "It" or some of the better Dean R. Koontz books.

Darn it, I've spent too many years reading high-falutin' literature. I think I've earned the right to read some genre fiction now, no?

Uptight Reviewer Faces the Future

I recently mentioned the joy of watching the "talking pictures" creep up on The New Yorker's stodgy film reviewer ("Bergman"). Just three weeks before the below article, the reviewer had been poo-poo'ing talkies.

Now (July 14, 1928), "The Lights of New York" has arrived and Bergman is eating crow (while simultaneously being a bit poo-poo-ey in the process):

At the Strand is "The Lights of New York," the first one-hundred-per-cent talker. Conversation, action, and plot are all very poor, but you will find it interesting as a museum piece. It would have been better silent, and much better unseen. The talking films have not even progressed to their infancy yet. Bad as it is, though, the film shows what I have been very reluctant to believe, that audibility will be a great help to the movies.

Reading these magazines sixty years after the fact is occasionally like watching a blind man stepping into traffic*, though other small articles are noting the shockwave that was about to hit Hollywood (studios rushing to implement sound, actors rushing to elocution lessons).

I'd like to point you in the direction of a good scholarly resource about this topic, but instead I'll direct you to "Singin' In the Rain." Seriously.

* What's the next runaway bus, speeding towards the 1920s blind pedestrian? I guess that would be "Black Tuesday" fifteen months from where I currently am in the magazine's history.

Fatty Arbuckle

A few months ago I was forced to admit that Benny Hill -- at least, the '60s Benny Hill -- was funny. Now I'm going one further and admitting that Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton were funny as well.

I rented "The Best Arbuckle/Keaton Collection" because I was curious about life in the "teens," in this case 1917 and 1918. A collection of 20-minute short films seemed like a good way to step into the past, even if I'd need to watch a lot of people get hit with pies.

Well yes, there have been some pies, and there are also some amazing scenes of New York during that time period -- Coney Island, incredible swimsuits, anti-Kaiser moments -- but more than that...well, I'm laughing. A lot. And I'm totally amazed at Arbuckle and Keaton's physical abilities. Arbuckle can really move (and is best at actually THROWING things), but Keaton? Something was awfully strange about that man's skeleton, and I bet he was STRONG. Not to mention he's the most handsome man I've ever seen from that time period; those lanky suits and rounded hats really fit him, in a funny sort of way.

Also fascinating is Arbuckle's penchant for drag, which he seems to take a peculiar joy in (and whose sexual possibilities go surprisingly far in these films, but I suppose it WAS pre-code). "The Bell Boy" also has a blatant treatment of the mincing homosexual, similar to pretty much every other stereotypically mincing homosexual that you've ever seen on film. Black people also don't fare particularly well, as you can imagine.

By the way, watching Fatty Arbuckle mince is a very strange thing. Watching him SKIP is even stranger.

I have more to watch -- and I'll need to check out Keaton's post-Arbuckle material -- but I leave you with the "common silent comedy themes" that I jotted down while watching the first eight films.

• Something is sticky!
• Poor table manners.
• Drag.
• People fall down suddenly.
• Broom as a weapon.
• Pastry in face.
• Matron gets punched.
• Hit with crockery.
• The troublemakers foil the more dangerous troublemakers, and are rewarded.
• Employee in love with boss' daughter.
• Rivals for young woman's affections.
• Hit with food.
• Sprayed with water.
• Accidentally injure an authority figure.
• Three slapstick kooks on a mission.
• Kidnapped girl.
• Gunshot makes villain fall down, but he is unhurt.

Arbuckle's character in "Oh Doctor" is named "Dr. Fatty Holepoke." Considering the scandalous allegations that he eventually came under, that name is particularly creepy.