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Sun Ra

The real birthday present was dinner at a very fancy restaurant, but Eileene bought me something to unwrap, too. Well, no, not to unwrap, exactly—she didn’t wrap it. But physical objects. Two framed posters, which I liked, and a wild stab-in-the-dark CD of jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, which I didn’t like so much.

It sounds awful. Although the Arkestra sometimes plays tunefully enough to prove it can, it spends most of its time slouching among arrhythmic dissonance, the kind of jazz that evolved from getting so used to deliberate, momentary dissonance as to consider dissonance the new consonance, and the subsequent attitude that preserving jazz’s signature surprise notes must mean turning out ever more horrible blats, squawks, and plunks. It’s the kind of jazz that a casual listener can’t distinguish from a bunch of hacks banging away at random, or at times a junior high band simply unable to play at all.

Peter Schickele liked to start his music appreciation radio show by quoting Ellington: “If it sounds good, it is good.” Fair enough. The inverse isn’t necessarily true. I cheerfully admit that I don’t have the sophistication to understand some of the more abstruse jazz movements. While I enjoy Ellington and Goodman and Armstrong as much as the next guy, jazz and I part ways somewhere around Miles Davis’s appearance. His popularity is no proof of talent—people got excited about Zager and Evans, too—but the fact that people continue to talk cogently about Davis and his influence is strong evidence that there is much there to enjoy that a plebeian simply might not get. Still, if music that sounds good is its own justification, then music that sounds bad takes the burden of proof upon itself and its adherents, proof that something unaesthetic and apparently unskillful is nevertheless worthwhile. So does the commentary on Sun Ra, like that on Davis, match the burden of proof?

The ever-reliable wikipedia portrays Sun Ra as a controversial figure, talent mixed with eccentricity and quite possibly schizophrenia. The leaflet in the jewel case is much more forgiving, thick with sweeping but highly nonspecific (and especially non-disprovable) praise. Phrases like “Interplanetary Music is on the verge of the electronic frontier Ra would eventually conquer” are not a good sign Far worse are claims like “In light of recent research into Egyptology, classical Greek philosophy and science, and the music of the spheres [!], Ra’s rap [!! In the 1950s?] is finally being taken seriously [!!!], though an enormous amount of work still needs to be done to understand the elements of magic, mythology, and musical symbolism Sun Ra personifies.” I don’t need to understand Sun Ra to know that the author of that boilerplate doesn’t understand him, either. It’s the kind of blither you get with fake art posing as modern art. Like Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol, Sun Ra and his Arkestra depend a great deal on an audience projecting their expectations into something apparently directionless. Like a Rorschach inkblot, one sees in the music what one expects to see. And if, like me, one comes to the music with no expectations, he sees nothing but chaos therein.

2011 07 14 mdlake Review Comments (0) Permalink

Look What You Made Me Let You Force Me to Let You Do!

I don’t need to point out that Mitch McConnell’s plan for dealing with the imminent US debt crisis and consequent shut-down of the federal government is a total steaming pile. Others before me have (correctly) identified it as

(1)an act of ideology, placing proven failed economic policy ahead of good governance,
(2)an act of hypocrisy, seeking to blame democrats for a debt that is manifestly a product of right-wing economic ideology,
(3)the final act of a dishonest script, refusing to negotiate until all demands are met and no concessions admitted, and blaming the failure of compromise, or indeed any achievement at all, on the majority,
(4)an act of criminality, passing Congress’s explicit Constitutional mandate of responsibility over the budget to the White House,
(5)an act of desperation, seeking to do what is truly necessary without alienating his political base, after years of rhetoric encouraging that base to embrace self-destructive policy and accept no compromise, and above all,
(6)an act of cowardice, seeking to duck accountability for failing to deliver on promises that could only destroy the economy if delivered.

The complexity of the plan alone should send everyone’s alarm bells ringing: McConnell wants to write legislation denying the president power to adjust the budget, including a clause that, if the law is not passed, its negation shall be enacted, on the understanding that the president will veto the law, thus taking power to adjust the debt ceiling himself, after which Congress can draft a formal complaint at the president’s actions, which can be obstructed by the majority in the Senate and the minority in the House, thereby failing to achieve any consequences other than allowing Republicans to raise the debt ceiling while maintaining a fiction of refusing to raise the debt ceiling, yet simultaneously blaming Obama for the consequences of raising the debt ceiling, taking so long to do so, and hurting government services in the interim. That narrative is so transparently duplicitous, on so many levels, that even the teabaggers refuse to swallow it.

The only thing I have to add, a sentiment I haven’t seen but which deserves mention, is to remind everyone of the way war was declared in Iraq.

Then Republicans held the presidency and a majority in both houses. Democrats could nevertheless, by a slim margin in the Senate, block the declaration of war, another power strictly reserved for Congress in the Constitution. But Democrats couldn’t do so without being painted as weak on terror, Arab-lovers, and maybe even responsible for 9/11, in that heady “America against the world” atmosphere that reigned during Bush’s first years in office. In an act of dishonest, desperation cowardice, and the lot, Congress handed the authority to declare war to the president, thus providing cover for all those Dems who couldn’t be seen backing illegitimate war, but couldn’t bring themselves to stand up and do what’s right, either. And look how well that turned out.

2011 07 13 mdlake Politics Comments (0) Permalink

Bad Night in the Monkey Cage

For Eileene’s birthday, I got her some short skirts and short shorts. They were a good choice; twice this month alone she’d expressed a desire for skirts that (a) were shorter and sexier, and (b) fit better since she’s lost so much weight. It saves her from shopping for clothes, a task both of us hate, and she can wear all these items in the safe knowledge that I find them all reasonably attractive. But clothes, to my mind, remain a “practical” gift, and not a “fun” one. No matter how much we may mature, birthday and Christmas gifts should include some fun.

So I also got Eileene a card game. It’s called Poo, and the box art consists of a screeching monkey. Guess what this game is about.

So classy it ain’t. I have doubts about its strategic depth, too: a glance at the rules and components suggest simple mechanics to match a simple goal of piling up 6 points of poo on rivals to knock them out of the game, with predictable block, clean (heal), and lose-a-turn cards. The only explanation I can find for the Origins “card game of the year” award is the sheer naughty factor, which is definitely ripe. We’ve already engaged in some pre-adolescent snickering at the artwork. (Defensive card: “Friend’s Face.” Lose a turn: “Just a Fart.”) And really, that’s about all you can ask from a $10 deck of cards.

2011 07 12 mdlake Games Comments (0) Permalink

Librarian Angels

We watched The Adjustment Bureau last nigh on DVD. Ordinary. The reality-bending, head-game-y tone was undermined by some flagrant shortcuts, as such films are prone to. I wouldn’t bring it up at all, but for the peculiar experience of watching it through a particular mental lens.

A spoiler alert is in order here. If you haven’t watched The Adjustment Bureau, and if you think you might like to, and especially if you share some of my other interests, skipping this entry like an email from a Somali prince might be in order. Not only will I bring up movie details shortly, but—even worse—I’m going to share that particular lens, which, depending on how much you already know, will either make no sense or qualify as one of those horrible “cannot un-see” experiences. There. I think that’s elliptical enough. So, fair warning: if you don’t want anticipatory spoilers, or if you don’t want retroactive re-tooling of your own viewing, walk away now.

As for the rest of you, more curious than cautious, there is an RPG called In Nomine. Angels and demons fight a secret, supernatural war, with lots of capitalized words, over the fate of humanity, though both sides are heavily factionalized and sub-factionalized, and internal politics can be as great an enemy as the other side, and self-pity is the order of the day for many celestial foot soldiers. (If this sounds familiar, it’s Steve Jacskon Games’ attempt to jump on the enormously successful White Wolf bandwagon.) In Nomine has a robust, engaging mythological structure, well-supported with game supplements—supplements with writing and ideas good enough to be more popular simply for reading than out of an expectation of use in play. I’ve read and re-read a good chunk of this material, and found its content irresistibly re-interpreting the film for me.

Well before the script explicitly uses the word “angel”—when Norris asks whether the cadre of suited reality-benders are angels or something and gets no direct answer, the parallel popped into my head. In Nomine assigns angels to serve archangels, each responsible for some important facet of creation: hope and dreams, animal life, war, children, faith. Yves is the archangel assigned to destiny. All heaven strives directly or indirectly to help humans reach their destiny, their full divine potential, but for Yves and his servitors, it’s a full-time occupation. And Yves’ personality often manifests in libraries: he likes books, maintains a truly universal library as his base of operations in heaven, with hidden, mystical passages to every library in the world.

The guardians of reality, in the movie at least, seem to be headquartered in the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. Libraries, check, and the bureaucrats travel by magically passing from any door to any other door. The faceless supernatural bureaucratic conspiracy has a master plan to maintain…but it’s not a sinister plan like you find in beach-novel thrillers, it’s just a desire to keep everything working smoothly. Servants of destiny, check. The plan comes from a never-seen creator, the “Chairman,” though “Harry Mitchell” calls it just a label, and states that the Chairman is “known by many names.” Distant God, preserving dramatic tension through His absence, check. They take a particular interest in a young congressman, a really nice young senatorial candidate who couldn’t survive in actual politics without divine aid, and a dancer who can transform the whole art of dance—but only if they never meet. Manipulating individuals to meet their destinies, check.

And once you see the parallel, as I said earlier, you can’t un-see it. Elements of the story that aren’t particularly angelic in nature take on an In Nomine cast. The plan goes awry, and the angels have to call in the heavies, uncompromising angels prepared to destroy when necessary: malakim. “John Slattery” gives orders among the angels handling the Norris case, A middle-manager, obviously a Seraph. So when he readily adopts the strategy of just telling the congressman everything instead of trying to distract or misdirect any further, something in me jumped and pointed: “See! See! A seraph!” “Harry” shows the deepest understanding of Norris’s feelings, and at one point softly complains that they, the angels, aren’t supposed to act on emotional involvement, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. He’s an elohite. And elohite who earns dissonance when, eventually, he does act on emotion. The angels threaten Norris with a mind-wipe, but never do it; they offer no violence at all beyond a gentle ether-soaked rag, when truncheons are at hand. Obviously afraid of generating symphonic disturbance! Angels have been manipulating Norris’s life. His mother’s death? “That wasn’t us.” “Just one of those things, then? Chance?” asks Norris. No answer; an accommodating shrug. Oh, yes, if you’ve read In Nomine, you know what that means: minions of Kronos, demon prince of fate, pulled that job, and “Harry” doesn’t want to reveal any more of the secret war than he must. It might upset Dominic.

Reinterpreting The Adjustment Bureau through the lens of In Nomine is so compelling in part because they’re almost entirely compatible. There’s no real contradiction between the two, just additional elements the other doesn’t address. Unfortunately, doing so adds subtext and undertones that have no place in the movie at all. Yet I can’t help mashing the two together. And if you’re familiar with both, then neither can you, any more. You’re welcome.

2011 07 11 mdlake Games
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For Gnomeregan!

Having heard that World of Warcraft is now free to play up to level 20, I took it for a spin last night, a trip down memory lane.

It was very much like a return to one’s childhood home: not quite everything the same as I remembered it. Specifically, the gnomes now have their own starting location, which I noticed immediately since I played a gnome. I really identify with WoW gnomes on several levels, and it’s long chipped my beef that they get the shortest end of the WoW stick: fewer class choices, no healers, far fewer opportunities to earn factional approval, mounts that can’t quite clear small streams and so must be unpacked when you try, yet make enough noise to alert enemies of your approach, no home starting area. Well, upgrades since I dropped out of WoW have fixed at least two of these things: gnomes now include priests, and they have a home of their own.

It made me glad, but… stepping outside my own, exceptional and partisan frame of reference, I had to wonder whether it was worth it, in terms of man-hours from the Blizzard staff. Sure, I was glad to see a gnome village, as should always have been the case. But gnomes are an unpopular choice, so it won’t make a difference to many players; players who choose gnomes tend to be drama-free (if they took themselves more seriously, they’d play a nobler-looking race…), so the payoff is more of a momentary “that’s nice” than excitement at new gameplay; everybody interested in WoW has long ago reached level umpteen and inhabits the Cataclysm expansion, so Gnomeregan may as well not exist; and gnomes are still rapidly stuffed into the dwarfish quest lines anyway. Blizzard’s time would probably be better spent on new content, however Sisyphean the task of trying to supply content to match the players’ consumption thereof.

2011 07 08 mdlake Games Comments (0) Permalink

Hot White Trash

Apart from the equation of patriotism with militant tribalism, the other thing I noticed at small-town, middle-America Kirkwall was the chicks—more specifically, I noticed which chicks I noticed.

I’m a girl watcher. Have been since before puberty; will be after all the relevant biomachinery ceases to function. Actually, girl-watching is a lot more fun in middle age. Somewhere along the line, my hormones calmed down enough for me to look with appreciation instead of desire, which removes an unpleasant strain from the pastime. Plus it opens a broader range of beauty to appreciate: cougars and even a few over-50s don’t merely look “as good as I can hope to get anymore;” they look good, in a way I could never have appreciated at the age of 17.

So I found it strange to realize, as I scoped out the chicks in the crowd, waiting for fireworks or attending the small carnival attached thereto, that I was only admiring the teenagers. Reflexive reaction: ewww, that’s creepy. But no, teaching high school I find myself thinking of the kids as kids. The Lolita thing isn’t my thing. And again, I wasn’t really looking with desire, anyway. Okay, truth in advertizing: one gal who couldn’t have been over 17 was hawt with a capital “awt,” but that doesn’t explain why I wasn’t scoping out the thirty-somethings. So what was going on?

Well, for one thing, we were in Illinois. The esthetics are different in a hundred tiny ways from those of NYC and its satellites. I grew up in suburban Elgin, so the teenagers here looked like the teenagers of my own high school days; in part, I was reacting to cues I had forgotten exist, insofar as I was ever consciously aware of them in the first place.

But perhaps more important was the aging. Also like Elgin, Kirkland is a working class town. The strains of lower middle-class living—long hours, cutting corners on diet (for convenience or cost), money worries—they add up. Women in their twenties looked tired; women in their forties looked positively haggard. The men, too, though it took me longer to notice. It’s not a rural/urban distinction; you see the same thing in urban working class environments. It’s a rich/poor distinction. One of many.

2011 07 06 mdlake Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

True Blue

We watched the fireworks last night. Because I was sick with an airport cold, I didn’t feel up to braving the crowd and hike from parking to viewing at the Rockford firework show, so we went instead to the more modest Kirkland fireworks. It was nice, too; gradually it’s dawned on me that the immediacy of small-town shows often makes for as spectacular a show as a large city’s viewed from a great distance.

I have only one objection to the Kirkland show. Kirkland is very much small town middle America, just like you see in the Chevy commercials. And apparently it buys into the mythology of small-town middle America being the Real America. So in place of the traditional, politically neutral musical accompaniment of “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” or the 1812 Overture, we watched the rockets red glare to the strains of country singers telling us that America was about fighting on the front lines of freedom, being strong enough to stand up to our enemies, living close to God, and taking pride in our traditional values. Conspicuous in its absence was mention of American values like fairness, tolerance, and a love of peace.

The mythology of rural, working class, culturally homogenous, and above all conservative life as the foundation of America, even the only part of America that qualifies as real, is every bit as arrogant, every bit as insulting as the common Manhattanite belief that Brooklyn stands at the outer fringes of civilization, and that if you can’t have it in New York, it isn’t worth having. Having grown up in Illinois, and living now in the immediate orbit of New York City, I get exposed to both, and believe me: they’re equally repugnant. Both express a conviction that some people are just born better than others—perhaps the most purely unAmerican sentiment there is.

2011 07 05 mdlake Politics Comments (0) Permalink

Bug Hell

My folks have a Japanese beetle infestation—not exactly a biblical plague, but enough of a nuisance that they go out and scour the garden, killing them by tossing them into a jar of soapy water. So when I saw on sitting on the edge of the toilet this morning, I grabbed a tissue and crushed the little creep. Then, since it was right there, I tossed the tissue and bug together into the toilet bowl. Then I went about my original business. Dinner the previous night had been an extra-spicy jambalaya, which is why my business was so urgent.

There’s a joke about the last thing to go through a bug’s mind when it hits the windshield of a car: its ass. I’m guessing the last thing to go through a Japanese beetle’s mind as it swirls down the bowl is “Worst. Day. Ever.”

2011 07 04 mdlake Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink

The Cracked Came Back

When did Cracked get funny?

When I was a kid, maybe ages 8-12, I read Mad magazine. Its glory days were long past; Kurtzman’s successors just weren’t as good, but it was still funny, on-and-off—Al Jaffee was just crude, and Dave Berg was stiffly formulaic, but Mort Drucker did silly little things in the margins of his panels, and Sergio Aragones put (and still puts) silly little things in the margins of the pages. The basic message—“Authorities lie, and the media (including us) feed you crap, kid. Think for yourself.”—no longer had the edge, nor did it serve the same function, as it had at the magazine’s founding, in the sugar-coated fear of the late ’50s and early ’60s, but it still resonated, as it always will, with adolescents and precocious pre-adolescents.

If Mad was a deflating self-parody of a satirical magazine, Cracked was a cheap knock-off of a deflating self-parody of satire, copying the barf-and-fart jokes without snagging any of the “think for yourself” subtext. There wasn’t any subtext at all. Cracked was pure crap, and bored me at age 8, when barf-and-fart jokes were still pretty funny.

So the face-lift Cracked has received in transforming itself to online magazine is a real shock. Now, it’s still not high art. I drifted into an article titled “The 7 Biggest Dick Moves in the History of Online Gaming,” which should give you almost as good an idea of the level we’re operating at as the on-page link to another article titled “Is Shia LeBeouf and Idiot?” But it’s…literate. It uses words like “Sisyphean” as though it’s no big deal. The writers (sometimes) do their research: an article on accidents of game design contains several curiosities I didn’t know, such as the difficulty curve of the original Space Invaders being a product of the accidental shorter cycle of animating fewer and fewer aliens. It’s (occasionally) thoughtful: an article on art the creators regretted put the infamous execution photo from Vietnam into a surprising and enlightening context.

The cynicism that made the original Mad stand out in a hypocritical world has crept back into Cracked by a peculiar back door: the back door of being universal. Plenty of grown-ups today were born after Watergate; Gen-X considers it less a terrible scandal than simply business as usual. Gen-X is writing today’s editorials, and op-ed writers are even more cynical than the general crowd. The “think for yourself, kid” message isn’t just suitable for kids; it’s suitable for everyone. And if adults are reading it, I guess we can have adult writing to cater to that market.

2011 07 01 mdlake Writing Comments (0) Permalink

Flight Theme

Ella just returned from her trip to…Costa Rica? I’m pretty sure Costa Rica. Her description of a zipline adventure sounds terrific. Essentially, they rig up a line—or rather, several in series—stretching from somewhere on a mountainside to somewhere lower down. You climb into a harness dangling from the line by a pulley wheel, make sure you have a firm grip with your braking glove, and zzzzip! off you go, platform to platform, for up to an hour at a stretch. Some ziplines stretch over the jungle canopy, some dare to dip beneath it.

Determining to try it myself sometime, I realized I would be humming the Mission Impossible theme, at least for part of the trip, pretending to be an international agent slipping quietly into some mastermind’s surprisingly explosive compound. Just before I asked whether Ella did the same, she reached a point in her narrative where she admitted to singing the theme from The Greatest American Hero. Clearly everyone will have their favorite theme song, like Bill Cosby’s childhood friends on their soapbox racers—the theme from Superman, maybe, or “Up in the Air, Junior Birdmen,” but a theme song is definitely a mandatory part of the experience.

2011 06 29 mdlake Uncategorized Comments (0) Permalink