culture for short-attention-span elitists
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Smoke is only black if there's a carbon involved. Oil, grease, rubber. This smoke was not black, but grey --ashen-- and anyone telling you anything else is lying. I didn't know what happened initially; I heard a crash and the windows rattling, but as a California transplant I was conditioned to ignore it. Not only a chronic sufferer of earthquakes, but Edwards Airforce Base is the alternate landing point for the space shuttle -- rattling is a fact of life. I only heard when I recieved a frantic phone call from a long-lost-friend demanding that I turn on the news.
Classes cancelled, heading through the cafeteria and through a packed mass with no access to television I turned in time to see the first tower spit flames from its side, a fine glitter of glass and steel raining down over lower Manhattan.
Becky lives on the eighth floor, and has a southern balcony that afforded me a view of the remaining tower, already looking very sick, antenna listing before erupting and dropping, down, antenna listing to the side, and another fine mist of glittering glass and steel rained down over lower Manhattan.
posted by Jimmy Mod 11:40 AM | permalink
Monday, September 10, 2001
A: In Chicago, settling in, stressing out, and suchforth. I went to a bar today, and yesterday. Today I hit the jukebox. Song one: Alison, by Elvis Costello. A woman starts to sing along. We rock out. The bartender takes my order for a Manhattan just as we hit "put out the big light". Song two: Sympathy for the Devil, by the Stones. I rock out alone. Song three: The River, by the Boss. The song and my drink finish in unison. What is this music? It is for the sad and homesick, for the stressed and worried. The bar selection is odd -- classic rock, Elvis, bits of country, and -- go figure -- Radiohead.
Then I play some pinball. Multiballs keep coming. Then I go home.
Where are the media items in review? I'm without stereo, without music, without much. Without cable. The Wayans Brothers are on TV quite a bit. Unhappily Ever After is growing on me. Self aware to the point of absurdity.
Also, Aaliyah will be missed. Somehow I cared about her in a way I don't about most pop types. She was going somewhere, you know?
Also, the economy sucks. Have any chicagoland job openings? Infotech? Data entry? Secretarial? Receptionist? Write me, yo.
posted by Sterling Clover 11:30 PM | permalink
Sunday, September 09, 2001
Watching: Get Carter (again, for some reason)
Thinking: Why do they have Rachael Leigh Cook go Hippie at the end? So NOT jerkin'...
posted by Jimmy Mod 9:49 PM | permalink
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Thinking: In this movie, Sly Stallone isn't a hero, or an anti-hero. Sly Stallone is a bully.
posted by Jimmy Mod 6:44 PM | permalink
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
"Woah... You can follow me home and sit outside my bathroom window and watch me with a zit on my face and say 'You're a Legend, girl!'"
Kathleen Hanna is as close to a legend as you can get, really. Active on the underground circut even after the death of the One-And-Only Bikini Kill with Le Tigre, the sometimes strange, but immediately familiar synth-pop-fourth-Neu-wave-womynist cabaret show. But really, who's left from the early 90's? Sonic Youth have dropped off the map following a series of curious self-released experimental [re: unlistenable] noise, thingies. Dave Grohl is happy with the Foo Fighters... so happy, in fact, that most people seem to forget he was in Nirvana. The Breeders vanished and Frank Black settled into a fantastic cycle of mediocrity, living off his cultishness.
This leaves us with Kathleen Hanna. But it always seemed, even as she got singled out as the Queen Bitch of the Riot Grrl era, she was never far separated from her band; as in "Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill is with us today...." The same is true now, and Le Tigre is the product of the sum of its parts. Le Tigre is more a title of a running Performance Art show than a band, complete with multi media [slides with slogans and lights], choreographed dance steps and costumes ["Can we get some more light on stage, 'cos we made these costumes and we want everyone to see them?"]. The music itself is classical Flock Of Seagulls new wave that is immediately danceable; and at the live show, everyone dances in unselfconcious glee like they do when they're home alone with the headphones on. She, Johanna Fateman and JD Samson all take equal turns as lead singer, guitarist, and [your favourite third instrument here; say, a bullhorn], and each command an audience as well as the other, but I'd be lying if I said we [my friends and I] were there to watch anyone other than Hanna perform.
She has a girl next doorishness about her that draws you in. She speaks with the crowd and smiles and waves to people she knows and is pleasant to listen to -- personable Rock Royalty for the masses. And then she starts yelling and snarling atonal choruses out of one side of her mouth with her head tilted to one side like a proper punk. And then you can see the veins in her neck. And then she dances and spasams around stage to a beat that might not be the one that's playing -- like some biker bitch from Hell in a skirt that screams "Cheerleader!". And just as the machine beats are heavy and the synth gets turned up too loud, she and the music stop dead.
Occasionally she brushes her bangs out of her eyes. She smiles and sez "Thanks!" as everyone cheers. At the end of the set she does a cartwheel into full split which manages to be confrontationally sexual and shamelessly girlie all at the same time. She doesn't scrawl slogans over herself anymore. She doesn't have to. If she didn't tell you what each song was specifically about, you'd have no idea as to what's happening, only that it is important, because after ten years of wearing her policy on her sleeve [or on her stomach], everything she says becomes important enough that you hear it, even when the speakers start to drop.
posted by Jimmy Mod 10:17 PM | permalink
If you were wondering...
posted by Jimmy Mod 8:10 AM | permalink
Thursday, August 23, 2001
Watching MTV2 Promo Spot featuring some Japanese band [the name isn't important] naming Western influences.
Weezer! Weezer!
[Looooooooooong clip of Buddy Holly, Weezer's worst song]
Mogwai!
[four second clip of Mogwai]
Beastie Boys! Aah!
[Looooooooooong clip of Sabotage]
Moral: No one needs to know who Mogwai is.
posted by Jimmy Mod 6:58 PM | permalink
UCSB touches us all in that special way... at No. 20. Remember when they used to be No. 2?
posted by Jimmy Mod 6:56 PM | permalink
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
"A broken seat belt, a collision with another car and hitting the wall played a role in Dale Earnhardt's death, NASCAR reported today."
Holla.
posted by Jimmy Mod 6:47 PM | permalink
Point of below post being that I will be back in action somewhere between shortly and after a lengthier span of time, so you kids are not to fret.
posted by Sterling Clover 12:23 AM | permalink
In transit! And grooving on The Geraldine Fibbers and A-Ha. They cover "The Sign" you know. And when they say they saw the sign, I always think that "The Sign" is the name of a movie which they went to see.
posted by Sterling Clover 12:15 AM | permalink
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