Commentary: Technocratic Psychobabble

Technocratic Psychobabble

-Hunky had been going to night school for, oh, say two, three years, but he'd never seen anyone this bad-ass before.  The Masonic midget-leper gave him a high-five on the way out and flashed his ass crack to the delight of everyone.:
A delirious return to writing after some presumed sort of meditation and regeneration following “Coming Down”, I wonder how long it took for Edward to start kicking it again with his pencil and paper (perhaps not even that long).  You don’t even have to go past “Hunky” to know you’re in for a treat on this stupid joyride of a name.  I love that the narrator takes time to debate how many years he wants to say Hunky’s gone to night school, but not to get it right, just to sort of amuse himself with how each number sounds.  Edward’s secret (not-so-secret) talent was to combine adjectives, personifiers, amplifiers, characterizers, and tenderizers like “Masonic midget-leper” into actual figures to dance ambiguously across his stories, not unlike a certain Dylan (why doesn’t anyone ever ask why Bob Dylan’s songs sound so much like mine?!).  Is it necessary for such a complex sounding character to be in this sort of funky jerk-wad of a name?  Probably not, but then again, sure why not.  What’s awkward and therefore funnier about the image of this class clown in adult school (a great concept in the first place) is that because this guy’s a midget and gives a “high-five” as he walks by Hunky, I would imagine that even though Hunky’s sitting at a desk, the midget still has to jump to complete this act of yeah-I-know-I’m-cool.  The final touch of the butt crack is so good that it even earns the use of bandwagon in “everyone”, because that’s a bandwagon I want to be on (I actually will be going to night school for a photography class in a couple weeks bee tee dubs). (83%)

-Bert struck writer's block at the end of the fourth page in his thirteenth novel.  Four pages too late.:

Who are you, me?  Got enough numbers there Mr. Math Magician?  “Struck”.  And the weird apparent meaning in this (if you don’t get too distracted) is wild enough to earn this a place in my already established kingdom of strange abstract trash that will likely endure the death of everything else because it’s too complex and useless to do anything else, like Styrofoam. (54%)

-The Black Shirts confiscated my house and liberated my wife from sexual slavery.  Buncha cheeseheads.:

One where I’ll forever remember the ending line but never the beginning.  Not to say that the beginning isn’t great, because it’s ridiculous and hilarious. “Confiscated”, “The Black Shirts”. Whadafuck man.  And that it seems at first like the Black Shirts are the bad guys for taking the house until apparently you realize the narrator is sexually enslaving his wife.  Wut.  “Buncha” and “cheeseheads” couldn’t be better partners in that phrase though, regardless of any/everything that may come before it. (73%)

-"Hear me out, Isaiah.  I have a message for you," I said as we hid inside the black temple.  His finger was on the nuclear armageddon button.:

Haha, I like the mind-clearing simplicity of the direction that these names have been going (night school, domestic violence, and world destruction) as a contrast to the relentlessly deep, murky, and deceptive directions of much of Edward’s previous college writing.  This sounds like a sort of calm one might get even after the craziest of circumstances, like whatever it took to obtain a nuclear armageddon button.  “Hear me out” is such a casual phrase, it’s stupid and great.  “Black temple” may be more or less than it means here, best not to stare.  I have a weird feeling this one may get better in time. (64%)

-The old cripple wheeled himself down the grassy hill slowly, taking in every detail as if this day was to be his last, smiling at the rising sun.  Randy shot him in the face and took his wheelchair for a joyride out on Grand Street.:

It’s like I wrote the first sentence and Greg the second.  But it was Edward with the design to merge such things.  “Old cripple” is a priceless character that you can’t lose with, even (or especially) when you use the act of shooting yet another person in the face and proceed to raise the pot even more with “Grand Street”.  I feel like I could buy this name at Wal-Mart and never stop loving it. (78%)

-"Yeah, he had britches all right.  Seven thousand pairs of 'em!"  She stared at me in awe, and I slipped the five into the policeman's pocket.:

You know I’m a sucker for conversation names, and an even bigger one for conversation names with the entirety of the dialogue cut off.  It’s an absurdly simple and great gag (see Lloyd’s joke during the montage in Dumb and Dumber in the ski lodge).  My favorite part here, other than “seven thousand” is that she stares at him in awe as opposed to any other state of mind. (60%)

-The rotten cheese atheist rained on my parade one too many times.:

More cheese, but a great “depressing” name, a type I’m of course quite fond of; also like the definitive nature of the whole thing, not leading one way or another. (65%)

-"Tuesday night we're going over to the coliseum.  Should be fun.  Varsity Blues vs. Picasso's Blue Period.  The bag of Twizzlers is up for grabs!"  Veronica gave me a sneer that showed this wasn't the right time.:

This has stood out in my mind from this list (along with “buncha cheeseheads”) for its extreme and jarring structure.  It seems like another name got written over top of another and then someone just transcribed them together, a form Ryan patented earlier than we ever knew.  But if you say anything about this, you just can’t knock the fucking Blue Period, what a great damn period and concept.  “Should be fun”. (73%)

-The great artist Samuel studied twenty ugly faces and twenty attractive faces for his masterwork.  His mother scolded him for putting her in the ugly set.:

One of the great names that no one remembers enough.  Somehow combining an original conceptual piece with not just childish punchlines, but an endearing underbelly of Samuel being an artist of odd taste and intriguing skill, plus just for the choice of “scolded” is such a nostalgic term in the face of all these cold-growing-colder-world names.  Edward was always about great artists, great art, great history, basically anything that stands the test of time, whereas I tended toward the fleeting, the non-sequitor, and the abstract.  It was a fine balance, and our themes often overlapped, but I’ll be looking for Samuel some years down the road to see how he’s faired against the weathering and aging of all things. (84%)

-Jebediah felt a cold chill when he peeked under the robes of his nine-year old cousin and saw the hard, wrinkly skin of disease.: one for the disturbed audience sitting restlessly out there.  Something about describing the skin in general versus specific anatomy makes this name worlds darker, though I can’t really describe why.  “Hard”.  (“Disease”.) This shit is best kept in the drawers (and pulled out when drunk and looking for shock and/or laugh). (70%)

-I sat quietly on my stool at the Hedonist Club while a horsy looking Oriental woman gave me a lap dance, pondering the validity of the establishment's name until Big Hairy Roger came in with a pair of flamethrowers and we got to killing some Native Americans.: haha, this name is so reckless and careless it’s wonderful.  It returns to the days when writing loose held more weight than writing deep.  Not to say that loose writing can’t be deep or vice versa, but in this name, it’s all about getting your fill and getting the fuck on to the next course.  “Horsy” gives this all the credibility it needs.  I also like that the protagonist is on a stool.  Go figure.  It also feels like something out of Watchmen (the flamethrowers and nonchalant genocide). (67%)

-Frito took his daily trip to the methadone clinic and wondered what the use was anymore.: a whopper.  A too-full-about-to-burst water balloon.  This comes mostly from the sharp drop off of the whole thing after getting used to Edward stringing us a few characters, plot twists, or at least descriptors before closing up shop.  It’s hard not to look past this one’s cold eyes. (75%)

-Ray the carpenter spotted the armies of Vandals and Goths pouring over the hills towards our village.  After he warned everyone and fled to the forests with the women and children, the local defense forced readied the proton torpedoes and launched what few TIE fighters we had.  Everyone was ready to spill Germanic blood.  I could see it in their eyes.: the flow of this name from the distant background right to the face of the narrator makes the trip of this name feverish and surprisingly ambitious.  Obviously a wild take on time periods and fantasies (and a welcome one – “Vandals and Goths”), it starts out in the third person, switches to a collective “we”, and then finishes with the reader staring into his compatriots beside him.  A steady rise to relevance.  “That’s some heavy stuff Doc.” (68%)

-"Oh, yeah, he's a conformist, but he's real good with the bow and arrow."  I agreed with him.  He was a good shot.: stupid, great, and tactful. (62%)

-Osmosis Jones vs. Jones the cat from Alien.who wins?: I knew it was only a matter of time before I arrived at this name.  We (right?) all know of Edward’s feelings towards the Alien series (meaning the first two…), and none of us should really disagree. I love the ending to this though. (58%)

-Francie doll was a Persian's woman-stout, astute, able-bodied, her nipples were pierced.  We spent a few nights up studying the ancient Babylonian texts before she aborted my only child.: fuck, this one just made me laugh out loud.  I completely forgot about this name.  Although it doesn’t really stand out from Edward’s many names in terms of being thick with historically shaded descriptors, casual sex (although now that I look, the only actual reference to sex is the abortion), academia, and fun, jaunt-narratives from a first-person narrative, I just thought the quick “before she aborted my only child” ending was hilarious.  It makes the opening meticulous details into a great diversion for both the narrator and reader before slapping down an event that, in contrast to a pierced-nipple, able-bodied woman up for shagging and deep nights (is “doll” just a nickname?), is stupidly tragic.  “Only” gives the narrator a touch of longing and just makes the flip at the end funnier. “A Persian’s woman”. (86%)

-Gorilla junction*                                                                             *The gates to paradise: granted, I’m coming into this name maybe a year and a half later than when I wrote the rest of the commentary above, this name should not be denied what it is for my Twainian pauses: superbly innovative, while basically needing very little.  I imagine we’d find ourselves staring at this sign, “Gorilla junction”, with all of us starving, sweating, and looking to Gandalf to determine the correct path to continue on.  Meanwhile, in the back of one the quieter one’s heads, they know the very meaning of such a junction and can see it clearly what this junction leads to.  Yet, none of us are likely to ever see it, let alone know its meaning.  But seriously folks, that was a solid innovation of punctuation and construction in name-writing: 71%

-Ronnie had wet nightmares after Janis Joplin came into his room and tried to fuck him: you’re not going to get away from this one.  She found him, and she fucked him.  Poor, poor Ronnie and his “wet” nightmares. Haha. (68%)

-While she was in the shower, Marty McFly rummaged through her underwear drawer, found her rosary beads, and licked them with relish: distinctly absurd.  Details of this name that I wasn’t ever capable of pulling out of my hat, but Edward stumbles upon them like he’s trying to get rid of sweet clues: “rosary beads”, “licked them with relish”.  Marty McFly is the sweet celebrity of this telethon, clearly. (74%)

-Her storytelling fitness regimen was starting to wear me out.  And I had the suspicion some of the other kids were on steroids.: I began to enjoy finding storytelling as our alternate universe in both what we did with names and what we wrote about within the names.  I would’ve wanted this one to deepen or continue further on its track past where it stopped abruptly at. But then again, the narrator was worn out, so better to quit while the steroid-infused bastards were ahead. (58%)

-The half-ton silverback gorilla and I raced across the plain, his sinewy muscles rippling beneath blankets of midnight fur.  My breathing was harsh and labored, and I looked into his angry eyes for a second before pressing harder.  The dull and mighty thumps from his strides pounded in my ears as my legs were weighed down by the insidious tentacles of lactic acid.  Open sky was overwhelmed by a canopy of trees, birds chattering the triumphant cry of our arrival into their domain.  Suddenly I came to an abrupt stop, and the great beast pushed on.  I watched as its massive spinning frame plunged over the edge of the cliff and laughed at its insignificant brain.  I was a little tired, but I was going into the city to get laid by a hooker.: a great, beautiful name that has grown in time and saga with its various returns to fame.  By that I mean that Ryan was drawing an interpretation of this name at my consistent and probably overwhelming demand (I wanted him to draw any name, and I think he chose this one to my delight).  If for nothing else, I love that Edward’s beautiful and mini-epics return to some sort of ape in some sort of deep challenge, struggle, battle, or conundrum.  Meanwhile, the human proves himself smarter and therefore much more susceptible to darker depths than even plunging off the edge of a cliff.  Planet of the Apes themes always seem to resonant deeper than anyone really wants to admit.  Let me now just take a second to nod to: “The dull and mighty thumps from his strides pounded in my ears as my legs were weighed down by the insidious tentacles of lactic acid” and “half-ton” and “midnight fur”. (89%)

The Big Beesy

Get your feet licked. 
The ground’s covered 
In balcony dripped 
Saliva. 

Framed in potholes,
Your neon apparitions 
Await you. 

Enter the honeycomb 
To a melt of music; 
Here they charge you 
For deafness.

Old faces across the wall 
Sweat an elixir of gas. 
You molecule you dance 
In a hive on the drift.

The queen, she croons.

Attack the Block: A Review

Attack the Block is one of those rare, fresh-air kind of films you run into every so often. It took a novel concept, and a modest budget, and squeezed the absolute maximum out of it possible. Attack the Block is set in south London, in an area known as the "ends" by our unlikely heroes, a gang of teenage thugs and muggers. We see our protagonists at work being unsavory right off the bat, mugging a terrified woman on her way home from work. It's not until aliens start crash landing all over the "block" and these kids are forced to defend themselves and others from harm do we see the true measure of their character. Many trials and tribulations occur, along with some genuinely clever scenes and plot twists, and we are allowed to see these kids for what they really are, kids. Kids with no purpose or role model, forced to deal with a harsh world on their own terms, suddenly thrust into a situation where they realize what pride, community, and sacrifice are all about.

Attack the Block does what few (recent) science fiction films have been able to do successfully, tie a story about space into a current social issue. In this case, we see the plight of the ghetto and it's inhabitants projected against monsters and interstellar fighting. We are shown that violence begets more violence, and that it is up to all of us to decide who we are and what we want to do with our lives. That living in the projects doesn't make you who you are, that heroes do in fact come from the least likely places. Attack the Block also does a surprisingly good job of building an arc for Moses, the leader of the teenage gang, that resonates with the viewer and gives you a feeling of closure when the film ends. Add that in with the effectiveness of the monsters, with their signature glowing fangs, and the excellent direction, and you have a sci-fi film that can rest comfortably in my top 5 of 2011.

Love Exposure: A Review

Love Exposure is the most Japanese movie ever made.

What that exactly means is a bit more complex and strange, just like the film itself. Love Exposure, at its base, is a romance. But, it's a romance distilled through the diverse and seemingly incompatable influences of Catholicism, upskirt photography, cross-dressing, cults/brainwashing, coreographed fighting, and graphic violence. Spread out over a seemingly immense 237 minutes, Love Exposure follows the trials and tribulations of Yu Honda, a quiet son of a Priest who seeks out a life of sin to please his father's obsession with them. Yu begins to train to snap photos of girl's panties, not because he finds pleasure in them, but because he wants to commit a sin even his hypocritical father finds reprehensable. Eventually these actions cause Yu to become entangled in the plots of a cult-like group called Zero Church, and fall in love with a man-hating girl named Yoko while he is dressed in drag. The myriad of places the movie eventually go are unexpected, yet surprisingly touching and disturbing in equal turns.

Love Exposure explores religion in a way Japanese films only seem capable of at times. The beauty and dangers of faith are displayed equally, and both serve to further the film's narrative. We see the church become a beacon of hope and light, of comfort and care for our protagonist, then suddenly turned into an instrument of hate and guilt because of the failings of men and women. We see people who use that sense of security to manipulate and harm, and we see people who would wear the mantle of faith to give forgiveness to those who may not deserve it, but because it is expected. We see Yu transform over time as he sees sin as something to collect to impress his distant father, who is also a Catholic Priest struggling with his own weaknesses. But, Yu is never anything other than earnestly trying to find love and acceptance, from his family and from the ideal woman he desperately seeks. But, his earnestness and naivety is turned against him by a damaged young girl who operates a cult in order to hold control over as many lives as possible. She claims to be interested in him, but her own horrible and violent past leads her to show her affections more in the vein of breaking him forever versus love and affection.

The film uses a very crude, yet immediately familiar symbol to show "true love" as it were. Yu is shown to never take any kind of pleasure from the photos he snaps, to the point he admits he has never had an erection. He is told he must "become erect from the heart" and continue his search. And, as to be expected, the presence, or lack thereof, of Yu's erections becomes part of the narrative. To his first one, to his inability to control himself around the one he loves, to the cult's attempts to brainwash it out of him, the states of Yu's arousal becomes a mise en scene for the mood of the character. Even reading it in text makes it seems vulgar and rediculous, which it is in part, but there's an unabashed energy to the film that makes it all seem to fit in. Not to mention the contrast we have between Yu, whose erections are presented as almost innocent and pure, and the abusive, dangerous men in the film that shape our female cast. And, of course, the most graphic scene in the film where one man's erection is removed with a incredibly violent, cringe-inducing moment. You'll know it when you see it. And it will add a very unsettling context to the way one of our characters views men.

When viewed as an whole, it becomes very difficult to classify Love Exposure. It's a tragedy, a romance, a drama, a comedy, even a bit of a horror story. It's a film about a small group of people with repressed, abnormal views on sex, love, religion, and society. It's a film about how love shatters preconceptions, but can also reinforce stereotypes. How belonging to something larger than yourself can divide as often as it unites. And, how sometimes a boner can be the most pure sign of love there can be. There's comedy, depression, cross-dressing, weird insular cultures, and even a rampaging swordsman. So, in other words, the most Japanese film ever made.

Love Exposure is a modern classic, and I would consider it a must-watch for all cinema fans. Be prepared for a long journey, but one that is entirely worth taking. 10/10