Lately I got a couple new records like Pink Mountaintops' Outside Love, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's self-titled record, and Tyvek's latest, but I've been bouncing back to Crystal Stilts a lot a lot alotalot:
5.25.2009
5.03.2009
5.02.2009
Calling out hipster bashing
I guess I haven't written here about how ridiculous and tacky I find most forms of hipster bashing but here's an interesting piece about it from Globe & Mail writer and fashionable man Russell Smith via Street Boners & TV Carnage's site.
In essence I think it comes down to people just not liking people who aren't them or their friends in front of them at concerts or in line for drinks or taking up table space in restaurants, or, more likely a reactionary stance against people whom one feels are looking down upon them mixed with a sense of revulsion at the recognition of someone who is "trying too hard" (these examples make up the more compelling photos on this site mentioned in the article linked above). I mean, "hipsters" or the "hipster" look has been around long enough that it's commodified to a large degree even to the point of seeping into mall culture, and that sets off alarms in the heads of people who have a sense of original "hipster" culture (how accurate their conception is, who knows, but that doesn't matter so much in terms of the way they react) and causes them to be disgusted by someone, say, donning a keffiyeh just because they're fashionable - marking them as a "poser" as they dress in that discursive drag that is "hipster" clothing - a combination of disgust at them for trying and disgust because they didn't get it right, whatever that means.
Essentially I think the worst part of the backlash against "hipsters" is that it's become a lazy label and a derogatory term that gets applied to people who are generally young and generally enjoy drinking and either making or listening to music or both and maybe want to wear something that's a little bit funny or else looks good. And I find it hard to fault that. And yes, maybe 90% of the people doing this type of thing could suck and be annoying, but basically 90% of any group you want to make sucks and is annoying (I learned that general statistic from some documentary on porn that I saw on the cable box years ago when living at home but it's pretty useful I think). So yeah, people trying to do anything that doesn't suit them to be popular or cool or feel better than other people is a bad thing, but don't do that reactionarily to someone who might not be thinking about you that way at all and doesn't really have any impact whatsoever on your life because I don't really see the point and you could probably do about a million things that are more productive or interesting or less tired than songs like this (such bad cinematography, even for an amateur video thing but maybe that's the film student in me).
In essence I think it comes down to people just not liking people who aren't them or their friends in front of them at concerts or in line for drinks or taking up table space in restaurants, or, more likely a reactionary stance against people whom one feels are looking down upon them mixed with a sense of revulsion at the recognition of someone who is "trying too hard" (these examples make up the more compelling photos on this site mentioned in the article linked above). I mean, "hipsters" or the "hipster" look has been around long enough that it's commodified to a large degree even to the point of seeping into mall culture, and that sets off alarms in the heads of people who have a sense of original "hipster" culture (how accurate their conception is, who knows, but that doesn't matter so much in terms of the way they react) and causes them to be disgusted by someone, say, donning a keffiyeh just because they're fashionable - marking them as a "poser" as they dress in that discursive drag that is "hipster" clothing - a combination of disgust at them for trying and disgust because they didn't get it right, whatever that means.
Essentially I think the worst part of the backlash against "hipsters" is that it's become a lazy label and a derogatory term that gets applied to people who are generally young and generally enjoy drinking and either making or listening to music or both and maybe want to wear something that's a little bit funny or else looks good. And I find it hard to fault that. And yes, maybe 90% of the people doing this type of thing could suck and be annoying, but basically 90% of any group you want to make sucks and is annoying (I learned that general statistic from some documentary on porn that I saw on the cable box years ago when living at home but it's pretty useful I think). So yeah, people trying to do anything that doesn't suit them to be popular or cool or feel better than other people is a bad thing, but don't do that reactionarily to someone who might not be thinking about you that way at all and doesn't really have any impact whatsoever on your life because I don't really see the point and you could probably do about a million things that are more productive or interesting or less tired than songs like this (such bad cinematography, even for an amateur video thing but maybe that's the film student in me).
5.01.2009
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds...
Thesis concerns and mango skin oil sensitivities are making me a bad blogger again, but please enjoy this 24 year-old juggernaut of greatness:
4.18.2009
EL TOPO!!!!
I saw this last night at the Mayfair with my pal Mo and WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!! Maybe one of the most incredible westerns of all time?
4.04.2009
Last Night a Zombie Ate My Brains
Last night was my first viewing of the entirety of Dan O'Bannon's George Romero-inspired 1985 punk zombie classic The Return of the Living Dead at the Mayfair.
Return takes the premise that the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead was an actual leak of an army chemical causing the dead to come back to life with a vicious thirst for brains, allowing for a certain level of self-awareness and genre play. When two workers at a medical supply warehouse knock a drum containing one of the victims it bursts open, spraying them with the contagion which eventually works its way, through the help of a crematorium and some acid rain, into the soil of the graveyard next door. There was nothing overtly disgusting in this movie other than finding out after that some of the zombie extras were paid more money to chew on actual calf brains, and the punk characters and music add some good levity and nudity, and the ending was pretty fantastic. Now I have to decide if it's worth it to follow up with any of the sequels.
Return takes the premise that the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead was an actual leak of an army chemical causing the dead to come back to life with a vicious thirst for brains, allowing for a certain level of self-awareness and genre play. When two workers at a medical supply warehouse knock a drum containing one of the victims it bursts open, spraying them with the contagion which eventually works its way, through the help of a crematorium and some acid rain, into the soil of the graveyard next door. There was nothing overtly disgusting in this movie other than finding out after that some of the zombie extras were paid more money to chew on actual calf brains, and the punk characters and music add some good levity and nudity, and the ending was pretty fantastic. Now I have to decide if it's worth it to follow up with any of the sequels.
4.03.2009
This Time Tomorrow
I just watched Philippe Garrel's Les Amants Réguliers (2005) upon the recommendation of a professorial candidate who noted that the film makes use of one of the same Kinks' songs used by Wes Anderson in The Darjeeling Limited (2007).
Garrel's placement of the song is interesting; the only real piece of diegetic music to be focused on in the film is situated almost exactly in the middle of the 3 hour film and seems to mark the happiest time experienced by the young Parisians in the aftermath of May '68. The song itself is an anachronism, not released until '70, but oh well.
Here's the Anderson usage at the end of this clip for contrast:
Special Friday bonus: here's a neat thing I didn't know about before for Criterion fans.
Garrel's placement of the song is interesting; the only real piece of diegetic music to be focused on in the film is situated almost exactly in the middle of the 3 hour film and seems to mark the happiest time experienced by the young Parisians in the aftermath of May '68. The song itself is an anachronism, not released until '70, but oh well.
Here's the Anderson usage at the end of this clip for contrast:
Special Friday bonus: here's a neat thing I didn't know about before for Criterion fans.
3.23.2009
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