We’re both drunk already! Let’s do this! Spoilers ahead! Wait! “Here be spoilers!”, “Spoilers ahoy!”, “Watch for spoilers!”, “Spoilers: they’re after the jump!”, “Get ready to be spoiled!”...
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
At the Mountains of Madness- Part Six: "Waldorf Stories"
We’re both drunk already! Let’s do this! Spoilers ahead! Wait! “Here be spoilers!”, “Spoilers ahoy!”, “Watch for spoilers!”, “Spoilers: they’re after the jump!”, “Get ready to be spoiled!”...
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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – The BS Strikes Back
I’m out of intros for BS at this point.
This is his third appearance on Audiosurf just this year. His first appearance, back in February, contributed heavily to my previously-nonexistent appreciation for trance music. A month ago, he resurfaced with another trio of tracks, and I gushed.
What’s else could he possibly have in store for us? I suppose if I were really interested I could tab over to his MySpace page. Sidenote: the cover image for “Artificial Dream” looks like it should’ve been an Inception poster.
Am I still beholden to my music-crush on BS or is the honeymoon over? Find out after the jump.
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Monday, August 30, 2010
A Decade of Dreck #28: Lost Souls
Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.Around the time of the dawn of the new millennium, Satanic/end of the world movies were so omnipresent that this week's feature had its release date pushed back by over a year. Wouldn't you know it, Lost Souls was pushed back so far to avoid the demonic possession fad that it ended up coming to theaters on the same day that the Exorcist was re-released!
Speaking of the Exorcist, there have been to my knowledge precisely three movies that dealt with Satanic themes well: the aforementioned Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and the Omen, all of which I watched last October for my Nights on Bald Mountain project. So if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm very well-versed in this territory, and I'm kind of sick of it.
Lost Souls doesn't really blaze a trail into any new territory as far as diabolically-centric entertainment goes. You have your character with a crisis of faith, your priests chanting spells in Latin to banish demons from human bodies, your sinister plot to give birth to the Antichrist. Yadda yadda yadda bad movie.
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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob:
Week 71 - Interpol
I find it interesting how different kinds of listening can affect one's reactions to the music. Music that works in some contexts completely fails in others. For example, I really enjoy listening to classical music. However, I rarely listen to it in the car - there's something about lengthy instrumental pieces that doesn't seem to work with driving. I can listen to this music in a concert hall, in the background while browsing the Internet, or even on my iPod while on a walk. But in the car, such music just doesn't have that much of an effect on me.
For Interpol, it was completely the opposite. Most of their music bored me if I was listening to it at home. But, in the car, their music was something else entirely. While driving, I really like to have a steady pulse, something with forward motion that reflects what I'm doing. The underlying rhythm to many of Interpol's songs is repetitive and simplistic - but while driving, it becomes my own personal metronome.
It's the equivalent of listening to a movie soundtrack on its own versus listening to it within the context of the music. Some music is elastic enough to stand on its own - other music works best when paired with images. Interpol worked best for me while driving my car, preferably around dusk. If there was a slight drizzle falling, all the better.
So Interpol basically functioned as mood music for me. I'm not certain how to react to this. On the one hand, I can't deny that there were times when the music was very effective and I found a lot to like. On the other hand, this makes the music not very versatile at all, and I'm not sure if these specific times when it worked are enough for me to say that I enjoyed their stuff.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
After the Jump: Butlers
Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us in the iTunes store!
Remember Ask Jeeves? Remember Lycos? Remember Cuil? If you don’t now, you will after this week’s podcast!
In addition to ancient search engines, we also talk about cable television, Hulu Plus, crappy e-readers, Philadelphia’s new tax for bloggers, used games, Klingon operas, and more!
See you next week!
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Sunday Reading: And You Thought You Knew How To Poop
The Internet never ceases to amaze me. Last week, the creator of 4Chan was explaining “rickroll” to a captive audience of jurors, and this week Slate’s Daniel Lametti described the various ways in which we’re pooping incorrectly.
To say “various” is a little inaccurate. He’s mostly concerned with the method favored by the majority of the world: cheeks resting on porcelain, perhaps with a magazine or camera in hand. According to more than a handful of nutjobs, this simply isn’t the correct way to go about your business. We should all be squatting, as nature intended. Lametti explains why in clinical (and inadvertently hilarious) detail:
“Before we dive into the data, let's review the mechanics of going to the bathroom. People can control their defecation, to some extent, by contracting or releasing the anal sphincter. But that muscle can't maintain continence on its own. The body also relies on a bend between the rectum—where feces builds up—and the anus—where feces comes out. When we're standing up, the extent of this bend, called the anorectal angle, is about 90 degrees, which puts upward pressure on the rectum and keeps feces inside. In a squatting posture, the bend straightens out, like a kink ringed out of a garden hose, and defecation becomes easier.”
I’m sorry, but a venerable site like Slate (it’s been around since 1996; that’s like a century in Web years) taking the time to cover the benefits of squat-pooping just makes me giggle. Usually, articles like this are prompted by current events (though what could prompt something like this I don’t want to imagine), but I can’t find any evidence of this in Lametti’s piece. He cites a Time magazine article from the 70s, as well as a number of gastroenterological texts and some websites. No breaking fecal news or anything.
Does anyone else find this as funny as I do?
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
Ghosts From Charge Shot!!!'s Past: Thirteen Ways to Kill a Zebra
This new feature, Ghosts From Charge Shot!!!'s Past, will run every Saturday and aims to bring some of this stuff - both good and embarrassing - to the eyeballs of our newer readers, while taking long-time constituents on a trip down memory lane. Enjoy!
We normally write in prose here, out of necessity - it's pretty hard to do op-ed in haiku (though we've been known to try). This week's ghost-post, from our very first week of blogging, shows what it might have been like if we had attempted the poetry tack more consistently: thirteen short free-form poems by our own Rob Kunzig, each one a mini-ode to a zebra gunned down in Far Cry 2. A sample:
Nine:Short but sweet, and fun whether or not you've ever heard of the game in question. Read the full post here. Continue...
Dart gun!
No worries:
You’re just asleep.
That is, until the lions find you.
The Fist-Pump Gazette #5: "If they end up back together, she looks like the dumbest b!*&#"
So let me tell you straight up: Sammi finds the anonymous letter left for her by Nicole and Jenni detailing all Ron's previous infidelities. I've never gone through middle school as a teenage girl, but after typing the previous sentence, I'm pretty sure I now have at least some insight into how it feels.
Sam confronts Ron, they fight, and she ends up dumping him. Point for the good guys! But then when she asks both Jenni and Nicole, point blank, whether they were responsible for the note, they adopt Ronnie's strategy from previous episodes: "deny, deny, deny." Point for the bad guys.
That's basically the plot. Read on for further analysis and predictions
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Saturday Morning TV: Marcel the Shell
From the creative minds of Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp comes this adorable/hilarious/heartbreaking interview with Marcel, a shell with tiny shoes.
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Well Butter My Biscuit: Starcraft II Multiplayer Review
Even non-gamers have heard of World of Warcraft, that online game popular among alleged shut-ins and slackers who live with their parents. It stands to reason, then, that even some non-gamers have heard of WoW's developer, Blizzard Entertainment.
Blizzard is a PC game developer from way back - they've been in business since years before 3D games invaded the living room, and they've got a reputation for quality which is richly deserved. Though gamers are sometimes frustrated by the amount of time it takes the company to release games, the amount of effort Blizzard expends to polish its products until they glow is both readily apparent and much appreciated.
About a month ago, Blizzard released another game: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, the anticipated follow-up to the original 1998 blockbuster, has gotten rave reviews and torn up the sales charts, becoming the best-selling PC game of the year in a matter of weeks. The game is the first in a planned trilogy of games that will further expand and define the Starcraft universe.
Rob, Craig and myself have spent a lot of the last month immersed in the game, and I think it's just now that we are really familiar enough with everything that's there to give it a fair shake. After the jump you can find our review of the game's multiplayer mode. You can also check out yesterday's review of the single-player mode if you'd like! Continue...
Revenge of the Nerds
I was a nerd growing up.I still am a nerd, but not nearly as much as I was during my teenage years. This is not necessarily by choice. The unfortunate byproducts of adulthood - including fun things like Earning a Living and Cooking for Yourself - have prevented me from devoting as much time to my nerdy endeavors as I used to. At some point along the way, I also decided that I wanted a social life, which hasn't been kind to the weekends I had formerly reserved purely for nerdy activity.
My nerdiest years were filled with constant reads and rereads of fantasy and science-fiction novels. I would ride by bike to the library and peruse HTML for Dummies, hoping to pick up a few tips for web design. My weekends consisted of playing board games late into the night with my other nerd friends - I have the board to Monopoly memorized and have over a dozen opening moves to Diplomacy mastered.
Even with the advent of adulthood, I still try to carry the torch for nerdiness. (I still bought the last Wheel of Time book on the release day, after all). But I've also noticed a shift in the winds over the years. Perhaps it was just the social hierarchy of primary school, but nerds used to be shunned. I used to sit at the end of the lunch table and read my Star Wars novels while the other kids traded baseball cards. In high school, when my group of friends would convince a girl to play Diplomacy with us, it was a huge event. It wasn't the hellhole portrayed in movies - most students were kind to me - but it was clear that I was not on top of the social ladder.
Marginalia 8.27.10: North Korea, Zombies, and Icy Bitches
- North Korea has a Twitter under the name Uriminzokkiri, meaning "on our own as a nation." This is week-old news, but it's so damn crazy that I just had to mention it. It's worth noting, however, that in the week since the story broke, some have begun questioning the legitimacy of the social media accounts - there's a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, too - that the country has allegedly opened. Specifically, people are wondering whether the Supreme Leader would open a Facebook account that lists its interests as "Korean reunification" (good) and "lactose-free milk" (odd, but not necessarily out of character for Mr. -Il) and posts links to shark videos. Oh yeah, and men. The original Uriminzokkiri account said it liked men. Facebook has since deleted two accounts claiming to be opened by the North Korean government, one of which was allegedly the official state account. Maybe this is an indication that the Pyongyang is finally ready to open up to the world. Or maybe they're just as insane (Great Comrade Kim Jong Il started his revolutionary leadership of Music and Dance) and delusional as they've always been. But now they're on the internet.
- Looks like the new X-Men movie might be better than anyone was expecting. I know at least one Charge-Shot!!! blogger (Boivin) who rolls his eyes at the mere mention of Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, but some recent casting announcements might be enough to warm even Mr. Boivin's icy, racist heart. I was personally stoked to hear that the initial roster included both James McAvoy (as Charles Xavier) and Michael Fassbender (as Magneto), but the addition of Oliver Platt (who'll be playing the heretofore unknown "Man in Black") and Rose Byrne (assuming the role of Moira MacTaggart) got me even more excited. But the announcement that January Jones will be playing the role of Emma Frost is just too good to be true. Yeah, her character's been a bit of a showblocker lately, but that ain't January's fault! She's still the iciest bitch on TV, and now she's going to play the iciest bitch in the Marvel universe. Brilliant.
- AMC released the trailer for its forthcoming, Frank Darabont-helmed The Walking Dead series (adapted from the absurdly great comic books by Robert Kirkman) to the general public on Wednesday. I'll just tell you that it's premiering on Halloween night and hint that Halloween parties are stupid and you'll probably just end up hooking up with someone dressed as Snooki. And then I'll let the trailer speak for me.
Plain Sight, or Ninja Robots in Space
PC gamers are no strangers to multiplayer fare. One might in fact say they invented it. But as platforms like Xbox Live and the Playstation Network cast their behemoth shadows over the dwindling (comparatively) PC market, it’s easy to forget that there’s a plethora of options for the gamer seeking online competition.
Of course, you could go with the big three – World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, or Starcraft II – but then you’d be missing out on a number of lower profile titles tailor-made for the PC audience.
Smaller multiplayer games succeed perhaps once a year on the home consoles. Last year’s Battlefield 1943 has now been replaced by the Defense of the Ancients-inspired Monday Night Combat. PC games, however, tend to build small but stable audiences willing to maintain dedicated servers years after a game’s initial release. People are still playing Quake, you guys. Quake.
Smartly, Valve’s catered to this mentality with its digital distribution service, Steam. Not only does Valve do right by older games by putting them on sale, they sometimes hand out multiplayer games for free. And their support for stuff like Killing Floor is incredible. They know that most PC games will succeed only on a niche level, but they genuinely seem to want each game to find that niche.
Beatnik Games’ Plain Sight caught my eye with its adorable killer robots and unique platforming-based combat. I struck gold the last time I ventured into Steam’s multiplayer offerings and found the addictive Altitude. Will lightning strike twice?
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
Well Butter My Biscuit: Starcraft II Single-Player Review
Blizzard is a PC game developer from way back - they've been in business since years before 3D games invaded the living room, and they've got a reputation for quality which is richly deserved. Though gamers are sometimes frustrated by the amount of time it takes the company to release games, the amount of effort Blizzard expends to polish its products until they glow is both readily apparent and much appreciated.
About a month ago, Blizzard released another game: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, the anticipated follow-up to the original 1998 blockbuster, has gotten rave reviews and torn up the sales charts, becoming the best-selling PC game of the year in a matter of weeks. The game is the first in a planned trilogy of games that will further expand and define the Starcraft universe.
Rob, Craig and myself have spent a lot of the last month immersed in the game, and I think it's just now that we are really familiar enough with everything that's there to give it a fair shake. After the jump you can find our review of the game's single-player mode; our review of the game's multiplayer portion will run tomorrow, so be sure to come back!
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Charity Music Puzzler Chime Comes to Steam
We’re a small staff here at Charge Shot!!!, and we long ago reconciled ourselves to the fact that we can’t possibly cover every game that comes out. But we’ve made up for that by shamelessly promoting the games we end up really liking.
A few months ago, I reviewed Zoë Mode’s Chime, a music puzzler hybrid of Lumines and Tetris. What stuck out for me was how well it broke up its music tracks and let the player reassemble them over the course of the game. And of course, it’s part of OneBigGame, a non-profit game publisher. Proceeds from each sale of this little gem go to charity. How can you go wrong with this?
You can’t. And the big news is that it’s coming to the PC via Valve’s Steam platform. In true Valve fashion, the Steam version of the game will come with an extra track: the Portal hit “Still Alive” by Jonathan Coulton (another guy we like, I guess).
Chime hits Steam on September 6th. If you passed it over the first time because you don’t own an Xbox, you now have no excuse. Pick it up.
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Imagination is Back: Lego Creationary Review
Let me begin this post by bemoaning the state of Legos today.
I was most enamored of the plastic bricks in the early-to-mid nineties – my interest lay chiefly with the Space and Castle-themed sets, which were seeing a particular boom during that period. Every year, the company would release a new, original, themed set of models, often with brand-new special pieces like massive laser cannons and dragons. Every holiday season was spent pining over Lego catalogs, wondering just which model would end up under the tree, and while most of the themed sets had backstories to go along with them, the company left it to the kid to fill in most of the blanks.
Now, I go into the Lego aisle, and the pickings are slim. Damn slim. Most of the models there are licensed products from evergreen franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter and SpongeBob SquarePants which, while still fun enough, are a far cry from the Lego company’s in-house creations. Imagination, an important component of the Lego experience, is traded for familiarity and marketability.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard about the newest Lego game: it’s called Creationary, and it’s a damn fun time.
Boiling Creationary down to a sentence is easy: it’s Pictionary with Legos. This doesn’t quite sum it up, but it’s enough to go on.
Among the varied rulesets that come with the game, some constants can be found: there are three piles of cards, labeled as easy, medium, and hard. On each individual card are four different pictures, each in one of four categories. There is a single die, itself constructed of Legos, which is rolled to determine which category you'll have to build. And, of course, there is a tray full of Lego bricks, which you use to construct the things pictured on the cards.
Under the default rules, one Builder rolls the die and selects a card from whichever difficulty pile he or she is the most comfortable. On the easy cards, you build things like buckets and arrows. On one of the hard cards I selected, I was tasked with rendering the fucking Parthenon in Lego bricks. The other players guess what you’re building, and both the first person to correctly guess what the Builder is making and the Builder himself gets a point. Play then passes to another Builder, and play repeats until someone has five points.
I carefully hedge my descriptions with words like “constants” and “defaults” because the game ships with several sets of rules, and encourages you to change them and make up new ones to suit your play style. The die can be taken apart and put back together any way you want – snap a question mark block on the die, says the manual, and build your own creation without using the cards. Build something using only one color of Lego brick. Build with your eyes closed. The manual has plenty of suggestions to use as jumping-off points, each encouraging you to customize the game and make it your own.
The thing I like the most about Creationary (excepting the fact that no one doesn’t like Legos) is that it so thoroughly embodies the spirit of creativity and imagination at the core of Lego’s appeal. Just as a Lego model can be built, changed, torn apart, and rebuilt again, Creationary is malleable and invites invention. The pieces remain the same each time, but the end result can be as different as you want it to be.
Likewise, the game is just as fun for a group of adults as it is for families. I enjoyed it with some friends and a few beers, while Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik went on at length recently about how much fun it was to play with his six-year-old son (scroll down).
The game’s asking price is about $35 – a bit pricey for a board game, certainly. But if you enjoy board games (or if you just want something fun to pull out at a party) Creationary is an incredibly worthwhile addition to your collection.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A Plea for SOCIAL Media
Facebook gets a lot of press. I don't have space to link stories now, but trust that if I linked to every related story from this past week alone, this and several subsequent posts would contain nothing but a long list of links.
Just in the last few days, news surfaced that Facebook censored ads advocating the California marijuana legalization measure, it is impossible to "block" Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook news feeds (good thing he isn't one of my ex-girlfriends...), and that apparently Facebook "places" (their answer to Foursquare and Yelp) is pretty pointless. These issues, alongside continual challenges like the Aaron Sorkin biopic about (The Social Network) premiering in October, not to mention Facebook's perennial "issues" with "privacy," seem to consume the technology news cycle.
News about Facebook seems to penetrate deeply. Sorkin has obviously chosen an excellent subject for his film, as the news coverage seems to be driving buzz for the movie (some might say that a biopic about someone younger than 30 might be misguided...in either case, I think I read something a few weeks ago that Justin Bieber--who looks 12, but might actually be the ripe old age of 16--is shopping around his own biopic....off the topic, but shocking nonetheless).
The media (and therefore anyone who reads or watches anything) has become obsessed with Zuckerberg. The Zucker-mania and most Facebook buzz in general prevents us from confronting the most important issues surrounding Facebook and social networks in general.
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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Sniff Sniff Gang Bang
In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is largely a fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.
Drama: We see little of the uglier Chase in this atrociously-named episode, an issue I'd like to address before I regurgitate what happened to Drama this week: Entourage has never had a way with titles, but this one might take the cake for the crudest, least artful, and most inexplicable. "Sniff Sniff Gang Bang"? First of all, the title is a reference to both cocaine and group sex, all wrapped up in a sniveling, faux-clever package that screams, "HA HA, LOOK AT HOW CLEVER I AM. I MADE JOKE ABOUT DRUGS AND SEX. HA HA." And second of all, it seems to be a reference to Shane Black's absurdly great directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. But references work so much better when they're made for a reason, right? RIGHT?! There's nothing in this episode that has anything to do with Bang Bang's noir storyline, its cast, or even its director's other projects (Lethal Weapon, most notably). Basically, it's there only to allow the creators to reference both cocaine and gang bangs in the one fell swoop.
Drama's resisting Billy Walsh's monkey sitcom idea even though the studio greenlights it even though it's a stupid idea that would never work outside of the fifties, when primetime animation consisted solely of jokes about dinosaurs eating human shit. There. You happy? That makes one of us.
Turtle: The uncle of the hot chick Turtle is somehow sleeping with is pissed because Turtle has made his tequila too popular. Yes, that is a thing that I didn't just make up. So he has to raise extra money for hot chick uncle so he can build a new tequila factory or whatever it is that makes tequila.
Why didn't the writers just work with the fact that Vince is basically a walking disaster who would sink any brand he's associated with? And maybe earlier Turtle could have sunk a bunch of money into the tequila business which he now has to pay back because Vince screwed up the promotional end of things. And then that could put a little strain on Turtle's relationship with generic hot chick, and Entourage might have ended up with, I dunno, it's second or third interesting plot line of its whole SEVEN-YEAR RUN. THERE, YOU OVERPAID HACKS. I JUST WROTE A BETTER PLOT LINE THAN YOU HAVE IN THE PAST DECADE.
YOU KNOW WHEN THE GUY WHO EXPLAINS MARMADUKE GETS SO PISSED OFF AT THE STUPID COMIC THAT HE JUST QUITS FOR A WHILE?!?!
I'M GETTING CLOSE.
...
...
Deep breath. I'm okay.
Vince: The studio producing Sidewinder or whatever Vince's movie is called wants him to take a drug test because everybody thinks he's high on coke. Vince doesn't want to take the drug test because he actually is high on coke and knows he'll fail it. Apparently, he was even high on coke when he went to meet with the director, but I had no idea because Adrian Grenier is only slightly better at acting than the professional athletes who make numerous, pointless cameos.
There's also trouble in freaky porn star paradise as Sasha Grey (Sasha Grey) announces that she's going to another porno. Not just any porno, though! This one's a GANG BANG. COOL!
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the entourage is worried because Vince is snorting coke and dating a porn star. Understandable, right?
But of course, Vince sides with Sasha - to be fair, who wouldn't? - and chews Eric out for wanting him to take the drug test. Also, Vinny wants E to find a part for Sasha in his new movie, which now has a new director because Pearl Harbor guy didn't wanna work with a coked-up actor. Also also, Entourage needs Vince to be mad at Eric at this point in the season for some reason. So this is apparently it.
Ari: Still dealing with the fallout from Deadline's release of the Ari Papers. I was happy to see that this plot line wasn't simply deus ex machina-ed out of existence in favor of another stupid celebrity cameo. I think they could have wrung more comedy out of Ari's attempts to walk on egg shells in front of his staff, though his accidental outburst at Dana Gordon in front of the whole office was funny, if a bit predictable. Again, Jeremy Piven continues to earn his reputation as the most talented member of this cast. Last week, we saw him basically melting in front of his computer screen when he saw the lede on Deadline. Now he's genuinely concerned that he might lose Mrs. Ari, the one thing he claims to love more than his job. Still a less than abysmal plot line, but I could do without the hackneyed "you're never home" complaints from the wife.
But I guess hackneyed is better than, uh, "Sniff Sniff Gang Bang."
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Wait a minute, what happened to Lizzie Grant? Did Amanda Daniels turn the tapes over to Deadline against Lizzie's wishes?
Or was she just lying to Ari about not releasing the tapes? What possible motivation could she have for that? And why would she make Ari look for a job for her if she was just going to screw him over?!
WHY AM I WATCHING THIS STUPID SHOW?!?!?!
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What The NYT Magazine Gets Wrong About Twentysomethings
Like many humanities majors who graduated in 2008, I spent most of the past two years living with my parents. I had no choice – jobs were scant, and where they existed, the paychecks weren’t enough to fund a big-boy lifestyle.
It wasn’t what I’d call luxuriant or privileged. But I missed the memo, apparently: a recent article in New York Times Magazine says twentysomethings are wallowing in self-indulgence, staring at their shoes while figuring out what to be when they grow up. And they’re screwing over the rest of the world, too.
“As the settling-down sputters along for the ‘emerging adults’” says writer Robin Marantz Henig, “things can get precarious for the rest of us. Parents are helping pay bills they never counted on paying, and social institutions are missing out on young people contributing to productivity and growth.”
The article went live last week, and it wasn’t long before Facebook lit up with reposts and angry retorts. Henig seems more concerned with twentysomethings as a phenomenon in academic psychology. At no point did she ask us about being Generation Brat.
Congratulations! You’re unemployed.
I graduated Kenyon College in 2008 with a reasonable pedigree: cum laude and high honors in my English. No magna, no summa, but still, nothing to sneeze at. By all indications, my four years of effort should have secured my future.
The market wouldn’t officially swan-dive until that autumn, but clouds were gathering, especially for an aspiring reporter. Newspapers shuttered foreign bureaus, and then were shuttered themselves. My future was anything but secure. But I kept my stuff in boxes, cautiously optimistic that the boxes would soon follow me elsewhere, to Life After College.
Then my student loans came due. I won’t share my personal ledger in print, but rest assured, they aborted any aspirations of independence. I unpacked the boxes and moved in with my parents.
After two months and dozens of cover letters, I was lucky enough to land a job at the Cape Gazette, the local paper of record (the publisher, an Oberlin grad, has a charitable soul). My ambitions were scaled back, but I had a job in my chosen profession – in this alone, I was far luckier than most of my peers.
I hadn’t consistently lived at home since 17, when I left for boarding school. Now 23, I was once again eating my parents’ cooking and using their water and electricity. I watched episodes of House on their computer and locked the door behind me when I left for work in the morning (I carried their coffee in a travel mug).
Henig calls this a “nontraditional means of support.” Sure: I was fed, sheltered and supported in other material ways. But when she says it “would seem to make the delay something of a luxury item,” she ignores the fact that many in their twenties don’t want their parents’ “nontraditional support.” We were told we’d be able to lead big-boy, big-girl, grown-up lives after achieving a degree – finding out otherwise isn’t a luxury, it’s a massive existential disappointment.
It was my home, but it was not my house: if I wanted to have friends over, I would have to ask. This was the state of affairs as I grimly yielded to my 25th birthday, playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in my parents’ living room. Any self-confidence I’d built up from four years of being pushing onward at Kenyon College was being whittled away by the simple, incredibly depressing knowledge that I couldn’t even sit on my own toilet.
Certain rough edges smoothed with time – for example, my father and I learned to avoid dinnertime discussions about religion or politics, which almost always exploded into shouting matches – but I never got used to it. As 2010 dawned, so did the prospect of marking two years under my parents’ roof.
The milestone terrified me. Desperate, I signed a lease on an apartment with two friends, not at all sure I could afford it.
With some creative budget-bending and extreme austerity, I’m surviving. I wince as I write checks for rent and utilities. I experiment with unlikely culinary combinations (barbeque sauce and linguine; leftover lamb and tomato sauce; diced pistachios in fresh, fluffy white rice) and I snap on latex gloves to clean my bathroom.
I always enjoy the view of my apartment building when rounding the blacktopped jogging path. Five months in, my semi-slovenly bachelorhood still feels like a triumph. I earned this.
Which is why I’m struck when Henig calls me and others like me privileged. Well, yes – anyone with a college degree is privileged to some extent. But I’m paying for it. At my current loan consolidation, I’ll be paying for it for the next 18 years. My monthly payment means I can’t go anywhere I’m not guaranteed a steady income. I can’t travel. I can’t embark on this vilified hajj of self-actualization (why is this a bad thing, again?). If I’m privileged, I’m also burdened with serious financial responsibilities.
In fact, I know very few people willingly stalling their rise to adultood. Several of my friends fit roughly into her schematic – un- (or vaguely) employed, overeducated, somewhat adrift – but smash her stereotype. One earned a bachelor’s in biology and is studying for medical school while working part-time as a Realtor; another holds a hard-won J.D. and is searching ruthlessly for a job.
Last I checked, neither of them enjoys the listlessness of an economic recession. They’re clawing their way to the success they were told would be the sure reward of a four-year college degree. No privilege, no luxury – just a new, unexpected reality.
At no point does Henig acknowledge the recession’s hard realities. The massive bloodletting of jobs that occurred in late 2008 meant that many recent grads were applying for employment alongside candidates with vastly more experience.
She skirts engaging the issue by saying “Of course, the recession complicates things,” but she follows that line of thought only to conclude that we’re “caught in a weird moment, unsure whether to allow young people to keep exploring and questioning or to cut them off and tell them just to find something, anything, to put food on the table and get on with their lives.”
If she looked a little harder into that “weird moment,” she’d see me and all of my friends, frowning and giving her the finger.
The view from the ivory tower
To be fair, Henig seems completely uninterested in actual twentysomethings – she cares only about the theoretical “emerging adult,” a psychological archetype developed by Jeffery Jenson Arnett, a psychology professor at Worcester, Massachusetts. Unlike Henig, Arnett has actually done his fieldwork. He comes off as warm and thoughtful, but Henig gently hints it’s all hogwash. Despite her “impressions” of the twentysomethings – garnered from an essay anthology called 20 Something Manifesto, not from speaking human beings – she writes Arnett “insists” emerging adulthood is not limited to young persons of privilege.
In my newsroom, we avoid words like “insist.” They confer judgment, and judgment presupposes knowledge we often lack. “Presuming to know is a disease,” my publisher often intones. Henig should take heed.
We aren’t enjoying an extended vacation. We’re struggling to adapt to a game in which the rules suddenly and cruelly changed.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Concert Review: Rush - Time Machine Tour 2010
With a cameo in the hit comedy I Love You, Man, a recently unveiled star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the release of an award-winning documentary about their history, Rush has been caught in the camera eye a lot lately. After playing together for nearly 40 years, the famed Canadian power trio is making a trip back into the public consciousness. So what better time than last week to travel down to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine and see the Holy Triumvirate perform live?
Actually, ANY time is a perfect time to see Rush perform live. I saw them in '07 for the Snakes and Arrows tour, and I plan to see them every time they come to LA for the duration of their career, regardless of their pop-culture relevancy.
Speaking of relevancy, I'm aware that it's been a week and a weekend since I saw this show. I chose to preempt this review last week since WWE Summer Slam was a one-night-only Pay-Per-View event, whereas the Time Machine Tour is still going strong (tomorrow they're at the Qwest Center in Omaha, NE). So even though my particular Rush experience occurred last week in Irvine, CA, most of this commentary will apply to fans until October, ALL OVER THE COUNTRY!
The gimmick of the Time Machine Tour was that, for the first time ever, Rush played the entirety of their Moving Pictures album start to finish. This is their most commercially successful album, reaching 4x platinum status and featuring four legitimate A-List Rush Greatest Hits (Tom Sawyer, Limelight, YYZ, and Red Barchetta). The other three songs on the album (The Camera Eye, Witch Hunt, and Vital Signs) are questionable selections - Geddy Lee himself admitted that the last song was thrown together last-minute during the recording process - but a gimmick is a gimmick is a gimmick.
We also heard two new songs, or rather, as Geddy specified during his between-song banter, songs that were brand spankin' new two and a half months ago, but that are just marginally new at this point. So we've got two songs from a future album, and 23 songs from past albums, with a third of those songs found on that one album. I fail to see what specifically this setlist has to do with time travel… but who can fathom the minds of the Holy Triumvirate.
I've mentioned before that Rush's career can be broken down into eras, each one comprised of a group of four albums. As you can see from Exhibit A above, which shows how many songs from each album appeared on the Time Machine setlist, the second era is clearly the most productive, or at least the one they mine for show material most consistently. Exhibit B below, tracking the setlist of the Snakes and Arrows Tour, confirms that Era 2 supplies the most songs - apart from their new album, after which the tour was named.
This is also the Era in which Rush was coming up with their most musically-interesting and conceptually risky pieces. I read in an interview with Neil Peart that he's somewhat bashful about the band's earlier formative years, and would prefer to think of Moving Pictures as Rush's "first album." That quote shocked and disturbed me, since it follows that my favorite member of Rush doesn't consider my favorite Rush album (Permanent Waves) as canon. Thankfully, in America, we're all responsible for our own opinions.If you're extra observant, you would have noticed that my tally of songs three paragraphs ago came out to 25 songs, but only 24 are represented on the chart. That's because song 25 is a non-album track: Neil Peart's extended drum solo, where he takes 8-10 minutes to showcase his impressive dexterity/ingenuity around the drumkit. Utilizing all 360 degrees of his set (acoustic drums in front, electronic drums behind, all mounted on a rotating base), Neil takes the audience on a journey through the history of drumming, flawlessly combining pre-arranged passages with bouts of improvisation, all culminating with a jazzy finale - he plays along with a recording from his sessions with the Buddy Rich Big Band. These displays never fail to leave me breathless.
After the encore (they finished the show with "Working Man," the only one of Alex Lifeson's solos to earn a spot in the Rolling Stone top 100), we were treated to a video outro featuring the cast of the aforementioned Rushophile film I Love You, Man. We open with Sidney Fife and Peter Klaven (played by Jason Segel and Paul Rudd, respectively, each wearing "show beards") hanging out in the green room exchanging silly ad-lib jokes and sharing bites of Neil Peart's personal sandwich. Rush busts in, they exchange a few awkward comedic moments, and our heroes get shamefully kicked out. But then Geddy relents, convinces the band to sign Paul Rudd's (slappin' de) bass, and everybody lives happily ever after!
If only the commute from Irvine back to civilization was as happy...
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At the Mountains of Madness- Part Five: "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword"
Konichiwa, Charujasato-san! We hope you’re the mood for suburban child scandal and advertising intrigue! Lord knows we are! And if you aren’t? Who are you, Dr. Lyle Evans? Click ahead and let the fun begin! It’s spoiler time!
Boivin: This week we got two very distinct plotlines, one being a return to the house formerly known as Draper. As I mentioned in the very clever and funny opening line to this post, we’re back to the show’s regular formula of half of the plots revolving around Don and Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s adventures in advertising and the other half dedicated to the home front. I guess we should start with the office comings and goings: Don’s got a rival! The Japanese? Those sandal-wearing goldfish tenders?
Jordan: The same. Just in time for Lucky Strike to see its bottom line drop into the toilet, Pete Campbell, who is becoming so good at his job I’m damn near proud of him, found the next golden goose in the Honda corporation. They were only manufacturing motorcycles at this time, but Pete find them as they’re looking to expand into the car market. They’ve chosen three American advertising firms to compete for the account. And they’re only allowed three thousand dollars to win over the men from the East. Piece of cake for Don Draper, right?
Boivin: In terms of cake pieces, it would’ve gone great if not for Pacific vet Roger Sterling shooting his mouth off. How’d you feel about Roger’s series of anti-Japanese tirades? I thought they were hilarious (Editor's note: Charge Shot!!! does not advocate nor does it condone Mr. Boivin's racism), and my weakness for World War II puns was in full effect. Also, I loved all the stuff about navigating the Japanese customs with the help of Cooper-sempai. About time we got some use out of his hentai fetish!
Jordan: Is there any way you can feel towards hentai that doesn’t qualify as a fetish? I certainly thought they were funny and, more importantly, plausible. Roger doesn’t often look like much more than a smug asshole, but here we see that he does indeed care about someone other than himself. There are scant flashes of his humanity, and this was one of them. Thank the kami Pete reeled him in, though. Don brought it home, but Campbell had the balls to tell him off.Boivin: I like this heretofore unexplored rivalry between Pete and Roger. I think Roger’s fired him at least once but their interaction has been fairly minimal and professional. With Roger off the rails, Pete speaks truth to power and shows what a competent and, amazingly, essential part of the agency he has become. Who could have figured that his bitchface would climb so high?
And speaking of interactions with Roger, I loved his scene with Joan. And speaking of which, how does she not fall over?
Jordan: A giant ass that acts as a counterweight. Joan has become even more fierce than she was the first few seasons. The partners still parade her about, but SCDP’s rank-and-file seem too intimidated by her to treat her like an object. She, the symbol of everything backwards about female employment in the ‘60s, has ironically become the most powerful woman in the office. Maybe more so than Peggy, who we only see a bit of in this episode. But we swap an Olson for a Francis as Betty comes roaring back into the picture.
Boivin: Peggy riding around that empty sound stage on the motorcycle: one of my favorite images ever. I think I’ll get it as a tattoo.
Regarding Henry: he’s shaping up to be a pretty swell guy. Betty on the other hand...yeesh. When you hit a child, you generally lose all the audience’s support. Betty’s becoming an almost over-the-top monster (not that I’m complaining) and is starting to be the closest thing the show has to a straight up villain. The way she deals with the, um, situation at home is really bad. She’s losing sympathy fast.
Last season, a reader of this feature accused me of harboring an illicit crush on Sally Draper so I’m going to let you take on this part of the episode.
Jordan: Oh Jesus, Boivin. Illicit would be the nice word for that.
The A.V. Club last week named Betty Draper as one of their 22 “Showblockers,” characters so grating/unrealistic that they stop an otherwise quality show in its tracks. And while I agreed totally with that conclusion last week, I actually remembered why I felt sympathy for Betty while watching this episode. She’s inhumane, inhuman even, but she really did deal with some truly heinous, alienating shit in the form of one Mr. Donald Draper. Seeing Betty slap Sally stings a little bit less when you realize Betty’s really just a child herself. But she’s certainly hard to love.
Boivin: Betty’s “Showblockers” problem comes a lot from her being separate from the office story-lines. Dealing with her takes focus off the stuff going on about accounts and such. But it’s essential for Don. I love the war between the two of them, and Betty has some good points about his piss poor child-rearing skills. Faye’s suggestion that Sally just needs to know that daddy loves her was spot on.
Jordan: You know, I think there’s something sweet and genuine brewing between Faye and Don. We both kept expecting them to jump into bed together immediately, but watching them slowly learn more and more about one another is far more satisfying. I think Don may have found his foil. But for now, he’s still the awesomest dude in Awesome Town. Him writing a check to the Japanese returning the three grand for the ad contest was one of the most fist-pump-worthy moments of the season. And it really does warm the cockles of my heart to know that, even without Lucky Strike, SCDP will be just fine, now that they’re doing things Don’s way.
Boivin: One last note before we go: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. taught me how to masturbate too.
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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – Third Time’s The Charm Edition
With the entire Internet at one’s disposal, it’s hard to imagine you’d have to revisit one particular well to find good music for Audiosurf. But just because you don’t have to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
Some artists compose music tailor-made for being broken down by algorithms and reassembled as neon racetracks, pulsing with technicolor traffic. Others never get replayed because their softer stylings don’t translate well to the challenge most surfers seek.
DJ Fire-Black knows what’s up. This is now his third appearance on Audiosurf Radio in one calendar year. He first cropped up this January – on his sixteenth birthday, no less. Then he resurfaced just this June with more solid tracks.
Hit the jump to see if Fire-Black’s still fulfilling his potential or if he and Audiosurf need to start seeing other people.
The Songs
“Hydra” is a perfect track on which to apply such game-changing tags as Caterpillar and Sidewinder. Without the modifications, I might’ve had time to pick apart the music, deride it for not being as imaginative as I know Fire-Black can be. The hook is a sound effect I’ll liken to someone constantly playing with volume knob on your stereo. Each bass groan fades in and out rhythmically, while bursts of light synth fire off in the background. He also plays with fidelity – a common trick – by receding into a tinny percussive sound only to bring the rich bass roaring back in later. Removed from the track, it’s not unlike a number of techno tracks I’ve liked well enough in the past. But the two mind-bending tags raise the crazy bar so high I’m happy the music wasn’t that complex. I’ve written before about both of these track mods: Sidewinder turns the thing on its side, turning hills into dizzying turns; and Caterpillar creates smooth streams of traffic. Both complicate the ride so much I had trouble keeping track of my grid. Plus, the rising temp makes everything buzz like old movie footage. You know how everything moves just a hair faster than what feels normal? The music may not make you play this song twice, but the track sure will.
“Frozen Sun” is dying to be set to something. Not an interpretative dance or anything like that. Maybe a documentary, something along the lines of 2 Players Productions’ work over at Penny Arcade. The repetitive sense of drive seems like it could lend weight to footage of a man toiling over a keyboard. Bass dominates much of the song, taking only a brief vacation during the middle uphill climb. I get the impression of someone taking a breath here. Or perhaps someone picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and diving headlong back into the fray as the bass returns. What melody is there is sparse but well-developed. Fire-Black teases it early and slowly spins it out into a phrase that carries the song forward above the bass cycles. Nothing too out of the ordinary crops up on the track itself, though I did find myself in a great, almost-hypnotized groove toward the end. With how long this one is (and it is a bit on the long side), be careful the humming bass loop doesn’t completely pull you in.
The word “Apodis” has something to do with Apus, the bird-of-paradise constellation in the southern hemisphere, but I’m fairly certain as a title it’s completely unrelated. I had the exact opposite experience with “Apodis” than the one I had with “Hydra.” This time I was so engaged musically I could barely focus on the traffic in front of me. Not that I crashed at every turn or anything (I actually placed on the global leaderboard for Pro), but I spent most of my rides just pondering the bizarre sounds flitting from my earphones. The percussion is a step away from the norm. It’s thinner and sounds a bit more organic. There’s a wooden quality to it, like a busker or a child of precocious musical ability rapping on crates and old chairs with drumsticks. The strobing “melody” really steals the show, however. I’m amazed by the range of expression Fire-Black coaxed out of whatever the hell this “instrument” is. It sounds like a technomancer (yes, that’s a thing…kind of) cursed a busted Moog with sentience and commanded it to sing about its feelings. (This wouldn’t sound so far-fetched if you knew that robots have feelings now.) Whatever it is, it impressed me. Ride this one to see if you can figure out what the old Moog is saying.
Author’s Note
All songs were played at least twice on the Pro difficulty using the Eraser character. Again, “Hydra” employs some crazy tags, so be aware that it isn’t your average ride.
The best comment of the week by far actually came from Lebeth, wife of Audiosurf dev Dylan Fitterer and main curator of Audiosurf Radio. In response to the crazy scores being posted for “Hydra,” she said, “I feel like we should send out some complimentary steak knives or something to all you in the 2 million point club.” Excellent Glengarry reference. And yeah, the insane traffic density made for some unreal scores. Good luck besting those.
Do steak knives, talking robots, or techno appeal to you? Then try Audiosurf here.
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Monday, August 23, 2010
A Decade of Dreck #27: All About Steve
Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.AV Club head writer Nathan Rabin coined and codified the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" to describe Kirsten Dunst's character in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown . "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl," says Rabin, "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Indeed, we the movie goring public have been subjected to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl for much of the past ten years of cinema: think Natalie Portman in Garden State or fellow Crowe muse Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is that perfect object of desire for our hero to fall in love with and realize his potential. They bring "broodingly soulful young men" out of their shell and make them do amazing things, like listen to the Shins.
It's struck me as odd that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl hasn't been the subject of intense, direct parody yet (unless it already happened in Date Movie or something): the archetype is rife for satire. For some reason, the 2009 Sandra Bullock vehicle All About Steve might be as close as we get. And it's terrible.
Steve stars your mom's favorite actress as a sort of Manic Pixie Dream Girl of her own. Mary Magdalene Horowitz (what a funny name!) is an eccentric cruciverbalist (which is to say a crossword puzzle constructor, if I took away anything positive from this film it might be learning that word) for a Sacramento newspaper. She lives with her parents and is never seen without her trademark red hooker boots. Never. I bet she showers with them on, Tobias Fünke-style. She spends most conversations she has with other human beings by rattling off useless, un-asked for trivia, much to their frustration if not outright disgust. She has zero people skills and, perhaps most crazily of all, she talks to her pet hamster! Like a person! How charmingly eccentric!
After being set up on a blind date with the titular character (Bradley Cooper)...
One second here. This has almost nothing to do with All About Steve but I had to get it off my chest: have you ever realized that Bradley Cooper essentially plays the same character in the Hangover that he played in Wedding Crashers? Because he does. We're just supposed to root for him the Hangover because he's a protagonist. He still displays the same boorish behavior as in the other film, but the story is told from his perspective. Think about it.
Now back to your regularly scheduled misery.
Bradley Cooper goes on a date with Sandra Bullock. For some reason, Mary is so overwhelmed by Steve's beauty (admittedly, Bradley Cooper is an adonis) that she screws the whole date up by trying to have sex with him in his van before they can even drive away from her parents' curb. Steve interrupts the potential pre-first date coitus by faking a work emergency (he's a cable news cameraman) to get out of the situation, which begs the question: what straight man willingly passes up having sex in a car with Sandra Bullock? Sure she's weird but I've been fantasizing about having crazy van sex with Sandra Bullock since 1994. Regardless, Mary is in love. Or at least thinks she is, and spends the rest of the movie stalking Steve through wackier and wackier situations.
This film's success largely hinges on your sympathy/relatability with Bullock's character. The chief problem is that Mary is pretty much insufferable. Now, I myself admittedly share some qualities with Mary: we're both prone to rattling off useless knowledge and we're terrible with social cues. We also both once stalked Bradley Cooper (okay, I stalked Paul Walker, but whatever). But what the screenwriter wants us to take as misunderstood eccentricity comes off in practice as unstable insanity. Mary seems less like some sort of Manic Pixie Girl (note the lack of "Dream") and more like a psycho-killer. She probably has a Steve Hair Doll and hopes to one day make a Steve Suit from his skin so she can pretend to be him.
Mary's stalking takes her to a number of weird news stories Steve and his reporter (Thomas Haden Church, playing Brian Fantana's Non-Union Mexican Equivalent) and producer (That Asian Gentleman Ken Jeong, whose character is named "Angus". Get it? He's a Korean guy named "Angus"! You wouldn't expect that would you?) are following, such as two competing protests over the fate of an immigrant girl's third leg, a hostage situation at an Historic Deadwood-esque tourist attraction, and a mine collpase. At the mine collapse site, Mary manages to fall in the said mine while pursuing Steve, blah blah blah we all learn to accept different people for the good souls they are.
There was a lot of wasted potential to make a great dark comedy about crazy people stalking the washboard du jour as well as the bizarre bleeding heart do-gooder behavior brought out by the media circus. The third leg girl protests in particular are a treasure trove of truly pitiable grotesques of Americana presented as sympathetic supporting characters. In particular I think DJ Qualls' character, who carves celebrity likenesses into apples, has probably killed children. When Mary is rescued from the mine and is presented with a massive outpouring of support from strangers who "believe in her" and all that bullshit, the deaf black girl she was down there with is strangely ignored. Read what you will into that.
All About Steve desperately wanted to be a by-the-numbers romantic comedy with a twist, it ends up being a terrifying glimpse into the mind of a dangerous psychotic and the culture that spawned her. Bullock won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress for this movie, the same weekend she won Best Actress at the Oscars for the similarly grotesque lead in the Blindside...though I would totally still have sex with her in my van.
All About Steve is ranked #96 on the Rotten Tomatoes Worst 100 list with 7% freshness. Its RT page can be found here. Continue...
Flashbacks of an Aspiring Music Snob:
Pink Floyd
Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.
There isn't enough good instrumental rock music out there.
I first became a big fan of music through classical stuff, especially the bombastic German Romantics like Beethoven and Wagner. So it's possible that I'm a little biased. But there's something about pure music, unadulterated by the human voice, the can truly carry you away. Lyrics are can be all right, but a lot of rock outfits just aren't that good at writing them, and excel far better at actual instrumental performance. It was true last week when I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and it's certainly true of Pink Floyd as well.
Pink Floyd, like a lot of similar bands, can be criticized for their musical solipsism, filtered through ridiculous concept albums with lyrics that could have been written in any high school creative writing class. But I think a large reason why Pink Floyd has become one of those iconic classic rock bands is because of their instrumental stuff. They know how to jam. From their first album to The Wall (the last album that mattered), the band inserts both instrumental tracks and songs with extended instrumental sections.
With many bands, this might be a dreadful idea. But Pink Floyd is also very good at providing their music with a certain form that a lot of unstructured instrumental jams lack. "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" always feels like it's going somewhere through its twenty-six minutes and nine parts. Themes and motives repeat themselves, and the music doesn't just limp forward, but builds. I feel that a lot of instrumental rock pieces and guitar solos are meandering and directionless, but Pink Floyd has enough musical know-how to be able to make the best of it. It's a rare gift, and one of the reasons, I think, for their continued popularity.
FLASHBACK OF THE WEEK: Pink Floyd
WHAT I LISTENED TO BEFORE: Back in early August of 2009, I listened to The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975) and The Wall (1979). Since then, I've also listened to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), Meddle (1971) and Animals (1977).
MY LISTENING: I had a thousand-mile drive last week, so I actually put on all of the above albums at some point during the journey. Pink Floyd provides a much more low-key driving experience than the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
WHAT I LIKED:
As stated above, Pink Floyd's instrumental stuff is brilliant. From the psychedelic space-surf of "Interstellar Overdrive" to the blues-rock of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" to the pop-rock instrumental of "Run Like Hell," this is a band that doesn't need lyrics to get where they're going. Their dense sonic layering and ability to play together coalesce to create tracks that feel very organic and natural, and their blues influences provide the perfect vehicle for those strange experimental twists they like to add - a song like "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" is a perfect example.
Dark Side of the Moon is justly lauded, and deserves its iconic status, being the first album in which the band was able to take their experimental blues jams and put it in a palatable format. "Money" rocks, "On the Run" terrifies me, and the climax at "Brain Damage/Eclipse" is one of the high points of the band's discography. But Wish You Were Here is my favorite Pink Floyd album, the best one they ever recorded, and the only one where I find every track without fault. There is a true sense of melancholy and worry that pervades the album, from the balladesque title track to the apocalyptic "Welcome to the Machine" to the epic "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" that bookends the album.
And, yes, "Crazy Diamond" is twenty-six minutes long, but it never bores me. Pink Floyd is one of those rare bands that can take a long track and turn it into an event, not just aimless wandering. Other examples include the twenty-three minute "Echoes" from Meddle (an underrated album, I decided this week, that anticipates a lot of the Dark Side developments) and the three ten-minute-plus tracks from Animals (an album that's a little too dark brooding for me to put in the top tier of their output). Pink Floyd knew how to play their instruments (all the solos are fantastic), but they were also masters of the studio - the songs never sound cluttered and all the tracks seamlessly meld together.
Finally, they can write a good "short" song when they feel like it. This especially comes out in The Wall, which, though disjointed, features some of the band's best singles, including the overplayed "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)," the underplayed "Hey You," and "Comfortably Numb," which ends with David Gilmour's best guitar solo of his career.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
As I said, Wish You Were Here is the only Pink Floyd album I consider flawless. Dark Side of the Moon features the dull "Us and Them," which I feel goes on top long and brings the album down. In The Wall, these sorts of tracks are even more of an issue. While The Wall has some great highs, it also has a lot of tracks that are seemingly half-finished and function only has transitional pieces. I watched footage of the original concert on YouTube, where the theatrics make this sort of music work, but when just listening to the album, do we really need "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" or "Is There Anybody Out There?" Or three iterations of "Another Brick in the Wall"?
Also, while The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and the Syd Barrett-era of Pink Floyd is praised by critics, I don't get it. Some of the instrumental stuff on that album is pretty good, but songs like "Bike" or "Pow R. Toc H." are too goofy for me to take seriously, and I don't understand the critical admiration about "See Emily Play" at all. I prefer my Pink Floyd to be bluesy and smooth, not psychedelic and raving, thank you very much.
Finally, Pink Floyd's lyrics are never truly up to par with their music. There's a few exceptions - "Wish You Were Here" comes to mind - but there's also tracks with silly libretto like "The Trial," tracks with sanctimonious preachiness like "Money," and tracks with outdated political angst like "Pigs (Three Different Ones)."
FURTHER EXPLORATION WOULD ENTAIL: There's still more Pink Floyd, including the last Roger Waters-era album The Final Cut (1983), the post-Syd Barrett era where the band was finding itself (A Saucerful of Secrets [1968], Ummagumma [1969], Atom Heart Mother[1970]), and the post-Waters Gilmour era that no one really seems to like (A Momentary Lapse of Reason [1987], The Division Bell [1994]). And, of course solo albums, the best seemingly being Roger Waters' 1984 endeavor The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.
BEST SONG YOU'VE HEARD: "Wish You Were Here"
Really, I should put all of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," but YouTube time limits make that rather difficult.
BEST SONG YOU HAVEN'T HEARD: "One of These Days"
This song is rocking and terrifying, and a good example of the underrated stuff on Meddle.
NEXT WEEK'S ARTIST: I'm back from roadtripping and flashbacking next week. I'll be listeneing to Interpol.
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