Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon

Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon (4/5)

Central to each essay that makes up Michael Chabon’s collected work of non-fiction, Maps and Legends, is the notion that genre fiction—including gothic horror, noir mystery, dystopic sci-fi, sword and sorcery, etc.—has been regulated to the ghettos of literature and abandoned by writers with any pretense to literary seriousness. Instead of learning to enjoy the sensation of goose bumps on our skin while reading a ghost story or the heart palpitating shock found at the end of a Victorian mystery, readers and writers alike have learned to ignore the joys of these visceral sensations for what is considered the more cerebral pursuits of the Joycian short story, replete with inner musings and epiphany inducing endings. Chabon believes this distrust of genre as serious literature is tied to the negative connotations associated with “entertainment,” which he describes as a word that “wears spandex, pasties, a leisure suit studded with blinking lights.” We have learned to distrust anything whose primary purpose appears to entertain us.

Of course, despite being tied to images of ivy covered brick buildings, stagnant classrooms and tweed jackets, even James Joyce’s short stories have immense propensity for entertainment. Chabon understands that entertainment is found not only in the unseemly pages of genre fiction but in all works of literature, despite how esoteric they may at first seem, and he proposes “expanding our definition of entertainment to encompass everything pleasurable that arises from the encounter of an attentive mind with a page of literature.” He is attempting to expand the definition of entertainment, so that it may appropriately describe both reading Poe under a blanket with a flashlight and reading T.S. Eliot in one of those ivory towers while sipping on a pipe, while simultaneously refusing to dilute the definition. It is equally subversive to describe Neil Gaiman as entertaining as Herman Melville as it is to describe Herman Melville as entertaining as Neil Gaiman.

Chabon makes this argument in the book’s first essay, “Trickster in a Suit of Lights: Thoughts on the Modern Short Story,” and it is from this essay that all others in the book spawn. Because he refuses to define genre in pejorative terms, Chabon is given the authority to write an elegiac rumination on the comic book pioneer Will Eisner’s death or discuss Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in terms of its relation to other novels of apocalyptic science fiction. The following fifteen essays serve to reinforce Chabon’s literary worldview, and it becomes apparent how arbitrary it is to regulate one genre outside the realm of serious literature while keeping other genres within the confines of literary good taste. After all, the epiphany ending short stories of Joyce and Hemingway are a genre in themselves. In the essay “The Other James,” about the ghost stories of M. R. James, Chabon points out that Balzac, Poe, de Maupassant and Kipling—no minor figures within the literary canon—all wrote ghost stories, a genre that has been shuffled, under point of gun, to the confines of the genre ghetto. While maintaining one’s literary credentials, a graduate students can analyze The House of the Seven Gables through a New Historicist framework, but don’t you dare get caught reading the latest Steven King novel on the subway.

The collection is not without its faults. And while Chabon is a consummate novelist, I feel he has always struggled in more constrained mediums like the short story or essay. Many of the works in the second half of the book feel slight, as if there was some unifying concept that was lopped off the end. Or, to use a genre metaphor, these essays feel as if the two plots of a detective noir story never converge into one by the end of the novel. The slight frame of his lesser essays seem incapable of holding up Chabon’s thickly woven prose. However, when he is at his best, Chabon’s thoughts reshape how genre is viewed by everyone from the casual reader to the acolytes of literary critics like Bloom and Frye. At the very least Maps and Legends will give many the courage to keep the book jacket on that collection of post-apocalyptic-mystery-ghost-stories when they are reading in the park.

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (5/5)

Love Medicine tells a multigenerational story that spans many decades, lives, marriages, loves, and deaths. It is an ambitious novel that both attempts to provide a widescreen view of life as it interconnects across blood and generations while simultaneously reserving the right to zoom into quiet moments that, while they may seem insignificant at the time, blossom in import as author Louise Erdrich scales back her view to reveal the intricate nature of her story. The novel centers around the two poles of the Kapshaws and the Larmartines, two families who live on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. These families are not made up of traditional nuclear units, and Erdrich must provide an intricate and looping family tree just so the reader understands who is related to whom.

Each chapter of Love Medicine presents itself as a short story, a common technique for a first novel. However, what separates Love Medicine from other novels who have taken the same approach is the way Erdrich utilizes the shifting point of view to provide a multifaceted view of characters and events. Most chapters are written from the first person and provide an opportunity for Erdrich to play with tone and voice that depends on the character. For example, Lipsha Morrissey, a teenager growing up in the eighties, utilizes videogames for metaphors. The death of a veteran returning from Vietnam is treated as an accident or a suicide depending on the author. The technique, if a bit less experimental even if simultaneously more grand, is similar to Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.

By revisiting events, and even placing some events in non-chronological order, Erdrich’s stories accumulate momentum and power as the novel progresses. As readers, we are aware that we are privy to only moments in a larger story that takes place off screen. In ways Love Medicine is like a collection of close photographs of a single skyscraper – a bird’s nest on a ledge, an American flag, the sun reflecting off a window – without ever revealing the whole object. We recognize the whole from the aggregate because of our familiarity with both, and in the case of Love Medicine the whole is life from family.

Perhaps the single most impressive aspect of Love Medicine is Erdrich’s prose. Her writing is just this side of magical realism, and while certain characters may believe in magic, Lipsha Morrissey believes he has a healing touch, because these very same characters are telling the story we are welcomed to doubt their powers. However, Erdrich’s writing is often imbued with an effervescent mysticism. In the chapter “The Island” narrated by Lulu Nanapush, Lulu leaves her home to live in a cave on an island with Moses Pillager, perhaps a more surrealist chapter than the rest of the novel. Upon consummating her romance with Moses, Lulu, who would go on to father many children with many fathers, informs the reader: “I want to grind men’s bones to drink in my night tea…I want to be their food, their harmful drink, to taste men like stilled jam at the back of my tongue.” These moments of surrealism are equally matched by a prose that seems permeable and effervescent, as if the words can barely capture the events before us.

Erdrich is responsible for populating her novel with a myriad of characters whose lives bend and bounce off one another, and while we may not condone the actions of every one of them, there is a clear understanding that their actions rise from a shared pain. Because these characters are connected through a webwork of relations, their loneliness seems that much tragic.

The Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand

The Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand (3.5/5)

The Black Lips are not for looking over the rainbow or beyond the horizon or over the next hill; the Black Lips are for looking back. This is true enough for their latest release, 200 Million Thousand, and if you are cursorily familiar with their older work then you know what to expect here: flower punk (their term) played with sloppy abandon and lyrics about cruising around in cluttered cars, taking drugs, drinking, and other miscellaneous fun. A strain of nostalgia runs throughout the album. For the Black Lips nostalgia is most easily distilled in the time of their late teens, when the novelty of owning a car hasn’t worn off and the appropriate response to screwing up is to “drink some more beers.”

The Black Lips’s sense of nostalgia has never been a drawback for the band, and if anything it has been their reason for existing. Everything from their easily recognizable influences to flat mono sounding production values help transport the listener back a few decades. Some of the songs do this beautifully, such as the bluntly titled “Drugs,” about picking up women and driving around aimlessly while, you guessed it, on drugs. Many decry the Black Lips’s snot nosed brat personas, but with lyrics that begin with the line, “my nose is a-runny” the Lips have little qualms over this guise. And why should they, it’s worked well so far? “Starting Over” melds the easy sentiments of beginning anew sung over the jangly guitars of the Byrds. Like many of the high points on this album, and there are quite a few, these songs give the appearance of an old classic, now forgotten, that has serendipitously made its way onto the radio DJs mix.

However, what do you do when a band whose rason de’etre is to shuffle through used tunes, like most of us peruse Good Will stores, starts looking to “mature”? The results are not pretty. “The Drop I Hold,” a song that drags its belly from beginning to end, is an embarrassing attempt to rap/sing over a vaguely hip hop beat. I’m all for mixing of genres and actually believe that since the nineties too many musicians have been hold up in their own musical corner, but here the song not only sounds out of place but the rhymes sound like they’re delivered through a bad cold. Missing is any sense of storytelling found in the best hip hop, or even on other, superior Black Lips songs. The closer, “I Saw God,” begins with a lengthy found sound of a kid ruminating on “God” that manages to be both pretentious and childish. Childishness is expected from the Black Lips, but I can’t think of anyone who goes into a Black Lips album looking forward to half assed ruminations on God.

In their attempt to recover sounds of old, the Black Lips have brought back something that should have stayed in the sixties: the front loaded album. It has been my unfortunate observation that too many sixties rock and rollers stuffed all the goods on side A in what I assume is the belief that when it comes time to flip the record the listener will be too stoned to stumble over to the record player. Similarly, the Black Lips may be hoping that you rip the songs you need and forget about the filler. For those of us who still listen to full albums this isn’t an option, and by the time the Lips start rapping you will probably wish they would start singing about snotty noses some more.

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Masque of the Red Death"

Edgar Allen Poe – “The Masque of the Red Death”

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” like many of his gothic tales, is concerned with the aristocracy of the old country. As the story opens, the red death is spilling over the countryside causing symptoms such as “sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores.” Juxtaposed against this grim depiction, Poe introduces the only character with a proper name: “But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.” In the midst of a national pandemic, Prospero has locked the castle gates in an attempt to form a damn between him and the waves of the red death, and the prince even plans a gaudy gala for the occasion.

Of course, because this is a gothic tale, things do not end well for Prince Prospero. After one of Poe’s typically phantasmagoric description of the prince’s seven chambers – each chamber is lit through different colored stained glass and decorated in a similar color scheme – the author introduces us to the decadent fashions of Prospero’s guests: “There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.” Throughout the evening a pendulum driving clock marks the passage of each hour so loudly that the band playing must stop until the bells have finished their toll. This carnival of the grotesque is interrupted by a lone figure whose costume far and away exceeded that of the party goers, or, in the words of Poe, the intruder “out-Heroded Herod.” When he finally summons the courage, Prospero lunges towards this party crasher but quickly falls dead on the floor. The other partiers rip at the intruder’s garb only to discover that the pieces of cloth covered no tangible form underneath, and then they too succumb to the affects of the red death.

Poe’s story deals with themes important to the new American democracy, particularly the anxiety over the old world’s titled aristocracy and whether that aristocracy exists in the United States under a different name. Prospero’s attempt to shield himself from the outside world is indicative of a society built on two tiers. Prospero assumes the atrocities outside his walled castle have no bearing on what goes on behind those walls. Natural law does not apply to Prospero and his guests. Nature, as suggested by the loud incessant clock, eventually catches up to each of, and the same is true of Prospero and his aristocratic friends. Death is the ultimate democracy because it is the only true assurance of equality. The theme of a masque suggests Bactin’s concept of carnival, whereby the natural order of society is upturned. Indeed, while Prince Prospero believes himself above those who must suffer the red death, he finds himself mired in the same bloody death as the peasantry.

Much of Edgar Allen Poe’s story seems timely today. It is easy to think back to Prince Prospero when you hear about billion dollar ponzi schemes, business men faking their own death and banks receiving taxpayer funds with little asked, while homeowners are being chastised for lack of personal responsibility. As Prospero’s name suggests, the real difference between the aristocrat and those suffering an agonizing death outside of his castle isn’t the title of Prince but rather the acquisition of wealth. There is a reason Poe’s story would have resonated in a country without such titles, and that is the fear that the double tier of prosperity still existed. And of course it did. There is more than a little catharsis found in “The Masque of the Red Death,” and I challenge anyone not to root for the red death just a little. Of course, catharsis can only go so far. What the United States needs now is a complete re-imagining of our economy so that no matter one’s class, the aristocracy cannot profit while the rest of us vacillate outside their wall.

Ted Leo - "Dancing in the Dark" (live)

It seems as if these days it is impossible to turn on the television, open the internet, flip through a magazine, listen to music without running into Bruce Springsteen. From The Hold Steady to The Arcade Fire every indie band is citing him as an artistic touchstone. He played the inauguration, released a new album out, and will play the superbowl. Not bad for someone from New Jersey. I can't say I ever really caught Springsteenitis, but I like a few bands who have, namely Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. In fact, Ted has been proudly displaying his love of Springsteen long before it has become popular, and when I saw his solo concert a month ago he did a rendition of "Dancing in the Dark," a crowd favorite. Here is a little taste of Ted Leo covering Springsteen courtesy of Bruce Springsteen's own website:

The Office - "Prince Family Paper"

The Office – “Prince Family Paper” (4.5/5)

What do you do when the TV show you based on a two season British comedy continues into its fifth season? That’s the question that must be troubling the writers of The Office. The central conceit of the British Office was a look into the life sucking world of the mid-level corporate world, and while this same theme continued in the American version, some time in season four the show’s interests detoured, like Michael’s GPS directed drive into the lake, towards the soap opera lives of the characters. Sure, I liked the “will they or won’t they” storyline between Jim and Pam, and Andy’s cuckolding at the hands of Angela and Dwight was particularly entertaining, but the show has also veered dangerously close to making it look like selling paper might be a fun job.

If the show did in fact jump the proverbial shark, it may have occurred in the episode, “Job Fair,” when Jim, Andy, and Kevin go golfing with a potential client and Jim, through pluck and determination, lands himself a big sales commission. Hey, I’m watching this show so I can laugh at the soul crushing everyday minutia of corporate America, not to watch Horatio Alger climb his way to a comfortable life of sitting in the big chair chomping cigars and, to amuse himself now and then, using a factory worker as a foot rest. Even worst than Jim’s pluck, was Pam’s contrived decision to leave graphic design school early so she could return to her once hated job as secretary. What happened to the satire of season two, like when Dwight delivers a speech by Mussolini to rousing applause? What happened to those times when we watched this show because of its keen observations on post-collegiate middle class life as well as race, gender and sexual orientation in politically correct America?

It was a bit of a relief, then, when this week’s episode of The Office, “Prince Family Paper,” harkened back to those days when it was possible to laugh while realizing these characters’ day to day lives had existential crises hidden in every meaningless paper transaction. Michael is assigned to investigate a small paper supply company set up in a blind spot where Dunder-Mifflin has no offices. The plan is to either buy out the company or run it out of business and thus take over the territory. The plan is for Michael to pose as a potential client while Dwight poses as a potential hire so both can scope out the operation. The company turns out to be a small family owned business in the post-war American tradition (of course, in this case the war happens to be Vietnam—when Mr. Prince tells Michael he started the company after returning from Vietnam, Michael replies that he’s heard it’s very nice over there). The Princes extend one generosity after another, from a cup of coco to fixing Michael’s broken car. Their penultimate act is to hand Michael a list of their clients as references for the quality of their service. What he first sees as merely the case of a “big shark eating a smaller shark” becomes a moral conundrum, and Michael is reluctant to hand over the client list to his bosses in New York. Dwight, of course, tries to convince him otherwise.

The episode is a wonderful juxtaposition of the instinctual workings of contemporary corporate America against what was once seen as not only the ideal workplace but as the expected relationship between employer and employee. That is, family—metaphorically speaking if nothing else. The episode spoke to the amorality of corporations, a welcome message in an era where someone who makes minimum wage is, in part, paying for multi-billion dollar executive bonuses at a time when those very same companies are losing money. But, it also speaks to a much older principle of comedy: tragedy and comedy are the closest of genres. After all, who can laugh at someone else when a smile is already spread across his face?

Deerhunter, Times New Viking, Vivian Girls (live)

Deerhunter, Times New Viking, Vivian Girls (live)

The evening opened with Vivian Girls, a stealth band I didn’t know was even on the ticket. The trio of, as you might guess, girls (a defining feature of rock bands that will, hopefully, become common enough so that it no longer merits mention) play a lean version of garage-punk. Rumor has it that their debut album barely breaks the twenty-minute mark. Despite their lack of numbers, their songs are punky walls of sound, which lent some difficulty discerning vast differences between songs as their set progressed. The less poppy songs utilized flatlining melodies that carried a single monotone note for as long as possible, but to surprisingly effective results. Of course, there was a brunette, a blonde and a redhead, but since that seems to be mandatory these days I’m guessing there was at least one dye job.

Seeing Times New Viking a second time this year gave me the opportunity to go back and revisit their third album, Rip It Off. While the album was on heavy repeat for months, eventually as the songs became familiar enough I relegated it to the second string. I’m happy to report that Rip It Off still kicks ass. Times New Viking debuted several new songs during the evening and just like everything else they’ve written they were easily discernible pop songs that felt familiar without heisting another style whole clothe. Times New Viking has the dubious honor of being the only band I’ve seen who sounds clearer live than on their records. I know more than a few fans who bemoan the fact that Times New Viking’s punk songs are muffled behind tape hiss and fuzz.

For me their recording practices help give their songs added texture, but that doesn’t mean I don’t look forward to hearing them live. I’m not sure if it was the fact that they were the warm up band this time, or the fact that they had a much bigger crowd waiting to hear them (instead of waiting for the band after them), but they were a more active live band this time around. It appears that the keyboardist, Beth Murphy, has realized that despite the fact that drummer, Adam Elliott, sings a majority of the songs, because she’s not trapped behind a drum set that means she is the frontman by default. It could have also been that the band was just that much more excited during this particular visit to Boston thanks to that underpublicized election. Adam at one point told the crowd proudly that they were Times New Viking from the “blue state” of Ohio.

Following two bands that were trios, it was a little imposing to see no fewer than five members of Deerhunter take the stage. There were three, count them, three guitars on stage at once. I can honestly say that with the imposing force of three guitars Deerhunter's sonic density made Vivian Girl's "wall of sound" seem more like a chain link fence of noise. The word I would use to describe Cox’s stage personality is humble. He thanked the crowd and his tone of voice suggested the look of a farm boy coming to the big city when he claimed he was surprised by how excited the crowd was.

The new songs sounded great, the new element being doo-wop harmonies dropped into Deerhunter’s already over packed sound. Of course, the new songs weren’t the only surprise. I was caught off guard when I heard what shape their old songs took. “Lake Sumerset” sounded less like Flipper and more like New Order. I guess Deerhunter are ready to show that songs like “Strange Light” weren’t anomalies and that underneath their cacophonous veneer is a real fine pop band.

The Ramones - Pet Semetary (video)

Slightly more poignant after their deaths, the video of "Pet Semetary" is a bizarre low budget affair. Many of the characters are inexplicable, particularly the couple in the coffin, but I think that's part of it's charm. It makes you question whether some one was actually in charge of the video and at what point the budget ran out and they decided to eat up time by filming The Ramones walking around an actual semetary. It's interesting that The Misfits pretty much spent their entire career mining The Ramones' horror themed songs. Of course, they were never as good at it, but The Misfits always were a one album band, but unlike The Sex Pistols they didn't have the good sense to stop there.



Happy Halloween!

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer (5/5)

Sophomore slump? What’s that?

Don’t be fooled by the three year gap between Wolf Parade’s first and second album, these guys are prolific. If I’m not mistaken (and I think I am), Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner play in ten or twelve other side bands each. This means that during those three years they have collectively written eight-hundred songs, so you’ll excuse them if Wolf Parade’s second album has only nine perfect songs instead of twelve.

Anyone who’s followed Ryan Adam’s career knows that being prolific is often more of a hindrance to an artist than a boon. Unlike Senior Adams, the principle members of Wolf Parade do not have to bear their band on a single pair of shoulders, and despite the high quality of the aforementioned side projects, there must be some kind of chemistry between the principle songwriters Krug and Boeckner that pushes both of them to the peak of their songwriting skills. Perhaps that’s even why the album is called At Mount Zoomer (actually it’s because that’s where it was recorded).

At Mount Zoomer is one of the few sophomore albums in recent years that feels like a confident couple of steps in the right direction. After listening to both albums back to back I’m convinced that the band approaches their second album with a completely different mindset than their first. The guitar is no longer required to merely produce a series of chords, and instead the vocals, keyboards and guitar all form a cyclone of melodies.

Likewise, the songs are much looser in structure. Many of the songs make their way through so many sonic landscapes that by the time you reach the end of it is easy to forget about where you began. In particular “Language” city begins as a rhythm driven march but as it continues, and the song rises with the mantra “We are not at home,” it feels more like a zephyr surrounded by swirling synths.

The inclusion of so many slower songs like “Call it a Ritual,” “Bang Your Drum,” and “Fine Young Cannibals” (a sizable sum on a nine song album) only draws attention to the band’s chest-out confidence. The conversations between the rhythm and melody segments are so deep that none of these songs feel like filler, and so confident is the band that even at excess of six minutes “Fine Young Cannibals” holds one’s interest for every intervening second.

I know what you’re thinking. Now, I’m hardly an expert regarding bands from the eighties comprised of ex-members from The English Beat, but if The Fine Young Cannibals ever, with a nod to INXS, host a reality show contest in order to replace a band member, then I think the members of Wolf Parade would give that guy with the white afro from Hot Hot Heat a run for his money. In conclusion, yes, “Fine Young Cannibals” does sound like it has some eighties influence, with synthesized horns and all, but not like an actual Fine Young Cannibals song.

The real centerpiece of the album is the six-minute epic “California Dreamer.” The propulsive drum and bass provides tension for every moment while the rest of the band ratchets up their performance. By the time the chorus of “I thought I heard you on the radio but the radio waves were like snow” kicks in, it’s damn near impossible not to join in.

When I finally get to the point where At Mount Zoomer is no longer the choice du jour on my ipod, and it gets quietly shuffled back into the mix, it’s comforting to know that there will be plenty of side projects to tide me over. Of course, even with all those side projects running around, I would prefer not to wait three more years for another Wolf Parade album. Remember Boeckner and Krug, power in numbers and all that.

Mogwai - "Batcat" Video

Mogwai's new video for the song "Batcat," from their forthcoming album The Hawk is Howling, is some sort of strange amalgam of a better version of The Village, a little bit of Eyes Wide Shut and a batcat thrown in for good measure. What's a batcat you say? Well there's only one way to find out: click below! Warning: there's some freaky shit to be had.




The song itself sounds like the band is expanding on their last album, Mr. Beast without retracing their steps. "Batcat" and their earlier release, "The Sun Smells Too Loud," have already sold me on the new album. Of course, I would be hard pressed not to be exited about a new Mogwai album.

A Buffy Who Can Give You Paper Cuts?

The internets, that wonderful dumping ground for all things obscure or obscene. Well, thrash around in that unseemly dumping grounds long enough and you just might find a hidden gem. That's what happened recently when the supposedly long rumored four minute pilot for Buffy: The Animated Series surfaced on the web. View below for the same witty banter of the regular TV show but with a much brighter color scheme:



The most surprising thing about this little snippet is not only that it's pretty damn good, but that no station wanted to pick it up. I'm a big fan of animation but I just don't find myself watching anything animated these days. In the States animation is geared towards the younger crowd with only a few companies like Pixar managing to appeal to both kids and adults, and ever since the Dini/Timm DC Universe - beginning with Batman: The Animated Series and ending with Justice League Unlimited - went off the air, television has been a wasteland for cartoons that are capable of appealing across generations. If this pilot is any indication, a Buffy cartoon might have been capable of bridging the gap between both older and younger fans of violence against the undead.

There are several problems the animated series might have run into. The television show had some pretty heavy themes, and I would imagine a certain population might be upset if their kids became interested in the live action TV show where Willow's crush on Xander transforms into girl on girl kissing. And then there's the violence. Sure, they're undead vampires but you're still sticking a steak into their hearts and watching them explode.

Of course there are also plenty of missed opportunities. In one of the myriad pop culture references the show shot at its audience, the central characters often referred to themselves as the "Scooby gang." Well, what if, like The New Scooby Doo Movies, Buffy: The Animated Series had weekly guest voices who would stumble into Sunnydale and become embroiled in the latest mystery. The "Scooby gang" could wind up meeting the actual Scooby gang. I for one would be excited for the inevitable Don Knotts cameo. Sure, he may have died recently, but wouldn't that make it perfect to bring him onto the show as a zombie? So many missed opportunities. Oh well, you know what they say: "The best laid plans of mice and men / are often fucked over by incompetent studio executives who wouldn't know a great show if it slapped their momma."

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (4/5)

Six years after the series finale of the cult hit comes the second theatrical X-Files film. The show may have ended six years ago but for those who kept with the series through the exhausted ninth season know full well that the TV show died long before the finale episode. In one of the biggest television mistakes since the introduction of cousin Oliver, the producers decided that The X-Files was really about the monsters and not really about the relationship between Mulder and Scully and decided to introduce two new agents: Doggett and Reyes. Perhaps the biggest insult to fans was how the writers tried to slip these new characters into the show like they were dealing cards from the bottom of the deck, assuming the audience would be none the wiser. Mulder went on the lam, making guest appearances every now and then, and Scully became pregnant which regulated her to the role of consultant for Doggett and Reyes. The X-Files: I Want to Believe comes off as an apology of sorts for trying to move the spotlight away from the two agents we actually cared about. Interesting enough, the film is less concerned with the supernatural mystery that it is with the relationship between the two leads.

As the film opens we discover Scully once again practicing medicine like she had contemplated several times during her F.B.I. career. She now works at the Catholic hospital Our Lady of Sorrows where she is treating a young boy with an incurable brain disease. Since the series ended Scully and Mulder have moved in together and when Scully is at work Mulder remains at home still obsessing over the death of his sister, even though he knows full well she died decades ago. In the first ten minutes X-Files creator and co-scribe, Chris Carter, proves how well he knows these characters. Scully was never comfortable at the F.B.I. and always had doubts that she was doing more good working for the federal government than working in medicine. The X-Files was never her obsession, a conflict that remains central in I Want to Believe. Mulder now sports a Ted Kacsinski like beard which hints at the anti-government paranoiac that has he has always been in danger of becoming. Scully still serves as Mulders anchor and without her one could imagine Mulder mailing letter bombs from his homemade shack in the woods. Despite the new setting one can immediately tell these are the same two characters we watched hunt monsters every week, but at the same time it’s apparent that the past six years have weighed heavily on them.

Since the trial of the series finale, Mulder has become a forced recluse wanted by the F.B.I. When a self-professed psychic and ex-priest, Father Joe, turns up claiming to have visions about a recently missing F.B.I. agent one of the lead investigators decides to offer Mulder immunity in exchange for his help in either confirming or debunking Father Joe’s abilities. There are many reasons to doubt Father Joe’s story, the least of which is that before he was excommunicated from the church he molested over thirty boys. Of course, once on the case Mulder can’t stop at just giving his professional opinion on the paranormal and begins settling into his role as an F.B.I. profiler. Scully is naturally afraid that Mulder is being pulled back into a life they both gave up long ago.

The movie takes plenty of risks, the first of which is that from the beginning Mulder and Scully are in a conjugal relationship. The obvious choice for a film like this is to fall back on the “will they or won’t they” tension that was one of the hallmarks of the television show. Instead the movie deals with all too obvious questions about how two workaholics can live together and whether Mulder should be putting himself in danger with someone waiting for him at home. The second major risk is Scully’s subplot concerning her young patient whose only chance for a cure winds up being an experimental stem-cell treatment. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with priests at the hospital.

In a film that ponders such timely subjects like God, stem-cell research, and gay marriage, perhaps the biggest taboo the film broaches is the portrayal of a sustained relationship in a Hollywood film. When an audience has become accustomed to an unrequited love between two characters it can be difficult to imagine the same two characters living with one another every day, but thanks to great performances by Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny the transition seems completely natural. The intervening years are scrawled on Duchovny’s and Anderson’s face, the former appears more world wearied and the latter strikes a more regal profile. As a couple they are reminiscent of that pair of slightly eccentric liberals who have strange stories about backpacking through the Ural Mountains and every time you come over offer up a different vintage wine that’s just right for the occasion.

Special mention must be made of Billy Connolly’s role as Father Joe. Because of his work as a comedian it’s easy to underestimate Connolly’s acting ability but here he perfectly nails the ambiguity of someone who may be either faking visions from God in order to weasel his way back into the church or he actually believes he is receiving these visions as a means of redemption. The presence of Father Joe carries some heavy implications. Are the visions actually from God and if they are then are they meant for redemption or punishment? What about Father Joe’s pedophile urges, did they originate from the almighty?

Much like The Dark Knight, I Want to Believe uses a thriller format to delve into deeper questions. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t stumble in parts. It is difficult to believe that Scully is capable of organizing experimental surgery within the course of an evening’s work and a quick search of the internet. In a film dealing with psychic visions you don’t want the science to be the least believable part of the story. Of course, this is a small price to pay for a thriller with something to say.

Judging by the box office numbers there appears to be little chance for a third film. In a way that’s all right since I Want to Believe manages to finish the story the TV show started. Not about the alien conspiracy, there are plenty of unanswered questions left over from the show, but rather about the real story: the relationship between Mulder and Scully. Now that fans of the series know the two remain together whether there’s an alien invasion or not doesn’t really matter, and even if this is the last X-Files story told it works perfectly as a tidy epilogue to a very, very long story.

I Love Being a Gladiator!

If there is one thing the entertainment industry has perfected over the past couple of years it's the art of recycling. Last summer we collectively suffered through a big budget take on Transformers and I hear G.I. Joe is looking to use his kung fu action grip on the wallets of America's movie goers. Meanwhile, original scripts are finding use lining the cat box of studio CEOs. The local cineplex's deluge of sequels and nostalgia cash-ins have almost convinced me that Hollywood is actually being run by an overly ambitious undergraduate art student whose dissertation is proving that art is dead and nothing is original. All of this would be tolerable if they picked the cartoons I actually want to see on the big screen. Where's my Exosquad film!?



That's not to say that Gen X and Gen Y (or whatever lame name they've come up with in the last month or so) don't share the blame. They are the ones buying most of the tickets after all. Beyond that most of these nostalgia mining flicks are geared towards Generation Xers who are starting to have kids of their own and want to share some of the stuff they liked when they were younger with their own spawn, not realizing that a lot of that stuff loses much of it's appeal when you're not eating a big bowl of Frankenberry on Saturday morning. Even if one recognizes that some things should stay in the past the siren song of irony can be powerful and many staunch wills have been unseated by its call. Of course enjoying the strange inclusion of Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid" in Transformers: The Movie (the cartoon) is a world away from the straight faced comedy of Bumblebee urinating on someone in last years live action version. Who comes up with this shit? When the mockery of the eighties becomes the blockbuster of the aughts, then you know we've skipped straight past farce.

The curse of the remake, reinvention, or, for the truly desperate sell, reimagining has escaped the movies and made its way to the small screen where studios freely beg, borrow, or steal from past success, and when all else fails take crib notes from the British. If capitalism is so great, then why do we have to steal from those commies at the BBC? Already The Office has crossed the Atlantic and I've heard rumors that the British time traveling drama and David Bowie allusion Life On Mars is making its way through immigration. What better way to offset all of this anglophilia than to bring back the most aggressively jingoistic show on television past or present, American Gladiators?

I'm here to tell you that the good news is they didn't change a winning formula. Two sets of contestants, one set male and the other set female, are pitted against a slew of gladiators wearing red, white and blue and sporting names like Militia, Wolf, Titan, Crush, and Helga. My guess is the names came from an extensive and highly scientific poll of middle school boys. Your favorite contests are still here. Joust proves that nothing is more fun than two people hitting each other with sticks and assault just goes to show that Nerf toys are cool no matter how old you are. The new contests are basically just variations on pushing the other guy into a pool of water. People love the splash.

The biggest revamp comes from the contestants. In the 90's the most boring part of the show was the obligatory biography of the four contestants. We got to learn that Pete was a firefighter from Chicago and Sally was a part time aerobics instructor from L.A. Taking a cue from Deal or No Deal, a game show whose apparent lack of strategy makes scratching off lottery tickets the strategic equivalent of the Battle of Austerlitz, the 2008 American Gladiators frames the contest within some sort of theme. For example, one episode pitted police officers against each other and another episode featured contestants who had recently lost a lot of weight. You see, American Gladiators is really about the human story element.

The producers have also taken some of the steroids out of the female gladiator's diet. Gone is the fear that the male audience at home could be beaten up by a girl (they probably still could but it's less obvious and thus more reassuring) and the confusion of seeing a scantily clad woman displaying her sexually ambiguous body. Here are two examples of female gladiators from the original and the 2008 version:
















The same approach has been taken with the female contestants. Unlike the early nineties there is a very strict "no femullet" rule. I'm not suggesting there's a casting couch at NBC, but here's an example of a recent contestant:



















Her biography says she's just trying to make her way through school. Hmmm, where have I heard that line before?

What about the guys you say? Well, as you can see the female half of the competition has been overhauled to attract more male viewers. I guess you could say the same thing about the male half of the competition. Recently American Gladiators had their very first openly gay contestant, Sean Hetherington. Sean appeared on an episode whose gimmick was that the contestants had recently lost lots of weight. It was a very Oprahish episode of American Gladiators and it should have been commended except that not only was there no mention of Sean's sexual orientation but the producers actively attempted to hide the fact. In keeping with the focus on the personality of the contestants, often the show cuts to the family, friends, and significant others cheering and encouraging their player. Usually the girlfriend or fiance of the contestant is the center of the human drama, but in the case of Sean his cheering section was confusingly labeled "friends." Sean's "friends" received far less screen time than the friends of other contestants, and I would be willing to bet that at least one of the friends should have had "boy" as a prefix. In fact, it would have been impossible to know Sean's orientation, unless you suspected something when he broke down in tears after finishing the Eliminator, which would not only make you right but also make you a bigot.

American Gladiators is, not surprisingly, the television equivalent of 300 in terms of unwitting homoeroticism. This may be nothing new to the series, but come on guys it's 2008. It's time to fess up. We're adults we can take it. I don't care if Wolf and Titan are shacking up. If they are then it just adds to the human drama.

"Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"

You may be wondering what's so "American" about American Gladiators? Well, bloated capitalism of course. So far the producers have been relatively restrained and the blatant advertising has yet to reach the level seen in lesser sports, like Nascar. Still, the audience is reminded just who's footing the bill whenever the announcer goes to the "Subway instant replay." About halfway through each episode it is kindly suggested that the audience go to the American Gladiator's website where you can read the bios of your favorite gladiators and find out what's their favorite Subway sub. It turns out Wolf likes the Spicy Italian with "double meat because the more meat the better." The Running Man this is not, but give it time...give it time.

The one element truly missing from the new American Gladiators, and the one element it can never reproduce is a contestant that took the country by storm and won the hearts of millions. I'm talking about 2 Scoops. His birth name is Wesley Berry but to me and the rest of America he will always be known by his moniker 2 Scoops. He gave himself this name because every time he won a competition he claimed he was giving more than one-hundred per cent. The amount increased as the competition progressed: 102%, 105%, 112%. He didn't exaggerate the number so I think he had some sort of a calculation system. Truly a great showman. More than Pete Rose, more than Jim Brown, hell, more than even Muhammad Ali, in my opinion 2 Scoops is America's greatest athlete. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for 2 Scoops I would not have the courage or determination every Monday night at eight to sit my ass in front of the TV and watch the new American Gladiators. Look at this guy go:



The secret to 2 Scoops's success is that he was everything the gladiators were not: small, wiry, and fast, with a special emphasis on fast. At times it was as if the gladiators didn't even exist. I have it from a reliable source that the special effects in The Matrix movies were in fact inspired by 2 Scoops's performance on American Gladiators. Let's see some more (you'll want to start at the 1:00 mark):



Not only is he magnanimous but he's also a Buddhist philosopher! No one is going to come along and deliver the kind of showmanship and nobility 2 Scoops had. He's the kind of guy you would love to have on your side in a bar fight and to take care of your kids if you're out on a date with the wife. When 2 Scoops was on the original American Gladiators I forgot about all of the kitsch and sat back and enjoyed a great moment in sports.

I guess that leaves American Gladiators 2008 with only the appeal of nostalgia and irony. As much as I railed against these two traps, I must admit I love the new American Gladiators for exactly those two reasons. What can I say? I can't help it, I'm a child of the nineties.

Local H - 12 Angry Months

Local H - 12 Angry Months (4.5/5)

Two Bands.

Both gained the public spotlight during the aftershocks of the nineties grunge earthquake. Both earned their success through unbearably catchy singles. Both bands appeared dead after their major label sequels failed to meet expectations. Both resurrected themselves in the new millennium after a lengthy hiatus where they lost and replaced a band mate.

That’s where the similarities end. One of these bands went on to recapture their mid-nineties songwriting skills and added a few new tricks while they survived playing small clubs and searching out independent labels for their newer albums. The other band sounded like a cheap knockoff but still managed to sell out stadiums and eat up internet chatter about their latest new release.

I’m talking about Local H and Weezer here. In my mind it is one of the great tragedies of our time that Weezer, a band who hasn’t been able to write a truly great song for well over a decade, has managed to coast on nostalgia selling millions of records while Local H, a band that is as strong, if not stronger, than they were in the alternative rock heyday, is remembered as a one hit wonder. Now that both acts are putting out new albums in the same year I wish I could claim that things are about to change and that a chiasmus shift will occur finding Local H on top and Weezer looking for a record deal. Instead, expect Weezer to put out a series of albums that sound as if they were recorded during a coke fueled all-nighter right before deadline (“Hey, remember that old Shaker song, we’ll just use that and people will think we’re being clever”), and Local H will continue to put out consistently good to great albums so long as they find a label willing to distribute them.

It’s a real shame too, because 12 Angry Months is the best Local H album since Pack Up the Cats. Not coincidently both albums emerge from the concept records of the 1970’s, but instead of the mystifying and campy sci-fi rock of Electric Light Orchestra or Styxx, Local H’s album long tales are of a more personal nature. Pack Up the Cats chronicled a band moving from the countryside to the big city and realizing that many of the same tribulations exist in both places. 12 Angry Months is a break up album that follows the despondent over a single post-break up year. As you might guess each song corresponds to a month.

What’s particularly powerful about Local H’s latest is the sheer honesty. This isn’t a collection of wistful songs about a lost love engineered to be perfect background music to sip one’s morning cup of joe. Instead, Scott Lucas realizes that most relationships end in an immolation that engulfs both participants. On “White Belt Boys” Lucas repeats “I hope you have a lonely life” and Lucas is his least sympathetic on “Jesus Christ! Did You See…” where he bluntly states, “to think I used to fuck you.” Sentiments like these are effective because of their honesty, and because Lucas realizes they emerge as much out of his hatred of another as they do out of self-loathing, as evinced by the mantra “only a groupie would ever want to love me.”

The transition from love burned to denouement backtracks from introspection to anger. Songs that hint at some sort of reconciliation, like “Simple Pleas’” acoustic guitar, are tempered by the anger evident in the industrial sounding percussion on “Machine Shed Wrestling.” The album accurately chronicles how hatred lies underneath the most sophisticated of sentiments. Lucas’s wit is underrated, and it is his sense of humor that also helps him recognize what the hell happened. On “The One With ‘Kid’” he describes the process of disentangling the couple’s integrated record collection, a task that leads him to accusatorily ask where his Kyuss records are, and to claim “you never liked them until you met me.” Later, in “Machine Shed Wrestling,” Lucas sings “As a product you would be great, and all the income you generate, but as a lover you’re just a bust, you’re not a service I can trust,” suggesting that the two first met comparing notes about their recently divorced record collection.

A rock band like Local H who openly confesses their love of Daft Punk is the kind of rock band who can write some great pop songs. This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Weezer/Local H comparisons. Despite being known as a power pop band, Weezer hasn’t written a truly memorable pop song since their second album. Skim the top four songs off of just this one Local H album and compare it to the top four songs from Weezer’s last four records and I guarantee you every Local H song will win the pop category.

But Local H doesn’t just stop at writing catchy songs, they also have a knack at writing final songs that sums up everything that came before. On “Hand to Mouth” Lucas repeats the lines “You’ll learn what really matters, you’ll know what really counts, you’ll hear the chitter-chatter, they say when you’re living hand to mouth,” with variation, on into infinity. Each intonation suggests a new and slightly different understanding of the phrase. Built upon tricks old and new, “Hand to Mouth” is possibly the best song in Local H has written to date, and possibly my favorite song so far this year.

The music industry has undergone some mighty peculiar changes since the 1990’s. I wish all of it was for the better. Despite the injustices that still exist in the marketplace, I’ll be happy if the long-tail provides enough room for a band like Local H to continue to write great albums without being forced to ride the wave of the inevitable 90’s nostalgia trend. I’ll end before you get me started on the Stone Temple Pilots’ reunion. That’s a whole other review.

Liars - Liars

Liars – Liars (5/5)

The best thing that ever happened to Liars was the one star review of They Were Wrong So We Drowned they received from Rolling Stone Magazine. What better way to promote yourself as the punk-rock-who-gives-a-fuck band of the new millennia than receive a devastatingly negative review from the magazine tailor made for the culturally shallow petit-bourgeois that choke our cities with the treeless wasteland of suburbia. Rolling Stone Magazine, who needs them. This is the same magazine that put The Eagles on the cover decades after they’re relevant, if they ever were relevant. This is the same magazine who, like most of its readers I’m sure, discovered itself during the culturally vibrant time of the sixties and has spent the last forty years skimming pop culture chum looking for the most shallow musical “artists.” This is the magazine that caters to Starbucks shopping masses who yearn for the convenience of picking up the latest Jasan Mraz, Carly Simon or Michael Bolton while simultaneously buying overpriced cappafrappalattes. When Rolling Stone published that review a very clear wall was erected and edict imposed. Play by our rules or else you don’t get in.

So naturally the Liars went on to record the equally confounding Drum’s Not Dead.

After giving Rolling Stone the middle finger twice, it appears that Liars are ready to play nice with their audience. Their fourth release, given the swanky title Liars, is their most accessible album since their debut. Of course, its accessibility is mixed with the confrontational personality of the band. One cannot help but imagine a grin on lead singer Angus Andrew’s face when he delivers the faux-metal line “sweet massacre of death” during the album opener “Plaster Casts of Everything.” This mischievous irony is heightened by the fact the momentum of the song hits a wall mid-song only to accelerate to full speed with an even more anthemic refrain. Liars make it clear that even though they’re writing actual songs this time they’re still not playing nice.

I’m tempted to dissect the album into pop songs (or at least pop songs by the Liar’s standards) and percussion experiments that recall their last two albums, kind of like how Bowie’s Berlin albums were divided between lyrical songs and instrumentals. About half of the songs are the experimental Liars where they treat every instrument as if it’s a drum. This push-pull tension works wonderfully thanks to some great sequencing. Unlike so many bands the Liars don’t frontload the album, and after the two requisite singles as album openers, there are three challenging tracks in a row. By evenly distributing the swag, they’ve made sure the listener doesn’t get bored by the half-hour mark.

Many of the catchier numbers sound like old favorites blown out through the Liar’s bullhorn. “Houseclouds” sounds like an electroclash Prince. The fuzz of “Freak Out” is reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr. The stabbing guitar and breathy vocals of “Pure Unevil” recalls New Order. Needless to say, the breadth of the sound coming from this album is impressive. At times Liars sounds like an album at a forked road. One direction is the murky swamp of experimentation obscured from the likes of lesser critics like Rolling Stone by a gripping canopy. The other path leads them out in the open with all the other indie-rock artists that have made their way onto soundtracks of quirky independent comedies. Or, perhaps the Liars are coming from the opposite direction, arriving at a point where both sides of their personality meet rather than diverge. I hope that this album is really a reconciliation between the inviting Liars and the Liars who don’t have a problem telling Rolling Stone to fuck off.

1000 Years in Hell With Mike Meyers

It has recently come to my attention that Mike Meyers is putting out another movie. After desecrating the corpse of Dr. Seuss he's gone ahead and offended an entire religion. Meyers's latest celluloid monstrosity is called The Love Guru where he plays a Hindu spiritual leader who is enlisted in a scheme to get a professional hockey player back together with his wife. Hockey? Oh, that's right, he's Canadian.

Some people are none too pleased with the movie. The Spiritual Science Research Foundation (an oxymoron on par with the organization, Jumbo Shrimp for Corporate Ethics), a group of conservative Hindus, have written letters in protest of the film. They have even created a chart illustrating how many years in hell you will receive for even watching the film. For example, if you watch the movie knowing about it's "spiritual significance" you receive five demerits and one-hundred years in the first level of Hell. However, if you are involved in making the film then you receive thirty demerits and one-thousand years in the second level of Hell. Don't worry, it's too late for Mike Meyers, he's already received at least ten-thousand years in Hell for The Cat and the Hat.

Act	Demerit	Means
Making the movie, 'The Love Guru'	30 units	2nd region of Hell for 1000 years
Watching it for entertainment without knowing the spiritual science/significance	2 units	Nether region (Bhuvaloka) for 100 yrs
Watching it for entertainment even after knowing the spiritual science/ significance	5 units	1st region of Hell for 100 yrs
Being a seeker of God/on the spiritual path, knowing about the Movie, but doing nothing to stop it	5 units	1st region of Hell for 100 yrs

I wonder how long until the studio uses this as a gimmick. "The movie that's so good they don't want you to see it." "Never before has ninety minutes been worth a hundred years in Hell." "It's sacri-larious!"

It's kind of nice to know that religious zealots exist everywhere. To be perfectly honest the hundred years of hell has me more curious about the movie than the actual preview. Is it really worth it? Not if during that hundred years I will be forced to watch Mike Meyers movies, that's for sure.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is (4/5)

The latest release from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a mere five song E.P. that is somewhat reminiscent of their pre-Fever to Tell output. If while listening to Is Is you get the feeling that these songs sound like natural descendents to the YYYs early releases, like their self-titled debut and Machine, there’s a good reason for such suspicions: these songs were actually written around the same time as those early E.P.s. For their latest release the YYYs grabbed a bunch of older songs and re-recorded them. Unlike the rest of us, when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs look under their couch cushions instead of finding loose change they just happen to find a handful of unused songs.

Working against their more recent, more polished work, the latest YYYs release feels as if the whole affair was bound by a bunch of rusty bolts. While the songs have more of an edge than the YYYs’ indie-pop numbers, they’re hardly a retread of their early days. The stuttering pace of “Rockers to Swallow” sounds as if the drums and guitar would collapse if Karen O’s snarl didn’t whip them along all the way to the finish line. There’s a sense of space that wasn’t present in YYYs’ early fits of noise, which makes it even more important for the trio to play off one another. For his part, Brian Chase takes an opportunity for more complexity and drum fills, Nick Zinner expands his oeuvre with some psychadelia on “Isis,” and while avoiding any conventional melodies, Karen O showcases her strengths as a front woman. Is Is sounds like a sort of missing link between the YYYs’ early songs and their first album.

Considering that these songs were written long before this E.P. was recorded, I don’t think the YYYs are necessarily hinting at a new direction. From “Art Star” to “Cheated Hearts” the YYYs have already proven they shriek as well as they can sing, but it is comforting to know that they haven’t completely given up on shrieking. Here’s hoping that instead of plotting their songs along a pop/noise spectrum they realize there doesn’t have to be much of a difference between the two.