I wish we didn't live somewhere so new

Note: If you're interested in this movie at all, go read Vice’s feature on the movie, in which they interviewed much of the cast and filmmakers and describe a lot of the production. It’s a pretty in-depth look at the movie with commentary from cast and crew. If you want to know what my particular feelings on the movie are, keep reading.

A few weeks ago, I saw that Cinefamily was airing a 35mm print of Over the Edge and I was ecstatic for about eleven seconds before I remembered that my chances of being able to find a babysitter so that I can go see a midnight movie 45 minutes way were pretty much nil. It was kind of a bummer, but it also sparked me to go out and rent it. It’d felt like ages since I’d seen it last, and I thought it might be a fun thing to write about here.

So far, it hasn’t been. Not due to the film itself or anything, but more due to the countless reviews (both from when it opened and more recently) and features I’ve read about it in the last week. So many people have tied this movie to so many issues, and it has sort of blurred my perception of the film and what I’ve always loved about it. My first attempt at writing this up turned into a whole screed about city planning and the shift in parenting ideals over the past 30 years. It was as boring as it sounds. My second attempt turned into a whole thing about Kurt Cobain¹. My third attempt came after way too much research into juvenile crime trends. But since making the mistake of announcing my intentions here, I will continue to clatter away until I get something usable.

On its face, Over the Edge is a movie about teenagers in the newly constructed prefab town of New Granada. Tired of having little to do and being pushed out of sight by their parents, the kids revolt. The filmmakers based it on a growing trend in the mid-70s of juvenile crime spiraling out of control in planned communities, mostly on the West Coast². The text that opens the movie states as much:

In 1978 110,000 kids under 18 were arrested for crimes of vandalism in the United States.

This story is based on true incidents occurring during the 70s in a planned suburban community of condominiums and townhomes where city planners ignored the fact that a quarter of the population was 15 years old or younger.

This is slightly misleading, since while there was certainly a spike in juvenile crime in the mid-70s, it was on par with the rest of the country³. What is prompted concern was mostly the fact that these communities were suburban and largely white. Furthermore, while many of the city planners were shortsighted in failing to consider the youth populations of the towns they were creating, these kids at least had nominal parents⁴, right?

In spite of the dated clothing⁵ and soundtrack⁶, the film holds up incredibly well as one of the best snapshots of adolescence ever put to film. As a quasi-juvenile delinquent who was somewhat of a latchkey kid growing up about a decade later, a lot of this film resonates with me, as I’m sure it does with many who see it. I can’t think of another movie that identifies the struggles of being a teenager so succinctly⁷. Much of it is in the bravado you see these kids⁸ carry themselves with, especially when there are no parents around. It’s in the drunken swagger of the kid hosting a party while his parents are in Reno, aping I don’t know, the Festrunk Brothers? It’s in Matt Dillon’s character saying, for the second time in the movie, “a kid who rats is a dead kid” to a squealing drug dealer before throwing him into a pond (and not killing him)⁹. It’s the bullshit posturing that shows a kid standing defiantly on a cop car just minutes after you see him riding around on a bike that literally bears a flag with his name on it.

They also do a fantastic job of reminding the adult viewer just how dramatic and insane teenage love is. When the protagonist Carl sees the girl he likes making out with another guy and he stares daggers at her before leaving the party in an exaggerated huff. That feeling of being hopelessly in love and over-reading every little smile and gesture. It’s the same thing that shows up later when the two spend a clumsy night together and you know that they aren’t even considering that they won’t spend the rest of their lives together.

In the film’s climax, the kids finally get what they want (thanks largely to Carl’s plan): total freedom. Kids are quite literally running amok and wreaking all sorts of havoc. Carl looks around and quickly realizes that, as the scene rapidly spirals out of control, that he wanted something else. He decides to leave soon after.

I could write about this movie for days. I sort of already have. But there in this movie to inspect in detail, both literally and thematically. There are facial cues, and a physicality. There’s the dirtbike scene! I didn’t even get to the fact that the main character has a black eye through most of the movie! Or that all of the kids have New York accents!

In spite of my numerous lengthy footnotes, there’s so much more I could go into about the effects of suburban sprawl or parenting trends or whatever, but the fact is I don’t think I could go into that rabbit hole of research right now and still finish this thing before October.

Instead I will remind you that this is a simple teen movie, about kids that feel like a town’s afterthought. And their parents, who try everything but having an honest discussion with their kids. And about the America of almost 40 years ago. In spite of the film’s shortcomings, and there are many, I can link my own adolescence directly to several specific moments of this movie (excepting much of the third act, of course). It’s a story wrought with exaggeration and melodrama, but it is a movie that can show me a group of adolescents and forcibly remind me exactly what it was like to be that age. After all, what defines the teenage years more than exaggeration and melodrama?

Yeah, it’s just a teen movie, but it might be the best one ever made.

  ^{[1] It would seem that Cobain frequently cited this movie as one of his favorites, and claimed to have identified with the Claude character in particular. None of this surprises me in the slightest, but I’ve never really liked Nirvana all that much and tend to loathe Cobain’s status as the John Lennon of my generation (whatever that means). While hyperbolic angst and self-loathing are certainly notions that I have held, it’s just a little too much for me most of the time. ↩}

^{[2] They based it specifically on an article from the San Francisco Examiner called “Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree” that has seemingly been scrubbed completely from the internet. ↩}

^{[3] The scary thing here is that it wasn’t so much as a spike as it was the beginning of a plateau. On a national level, juvenile crime held pretty steadfast from the mid-70s to the early 90s. Within that window, property and drug crimes seem to taper off, however the scary trend of juvenile murder (and violent crime) begins to soar. I got much of this information browsing the Uniform Crime Report, as well as articles like} and this, this/ ↩

^{[4] Which is another contributing factor. The 70s featured that special form of post-hippie parenting, which relied on parents allowing kids unprecedented freedom while still expecting them to remain kids. In hindsight, this is a spectacularly flawed logic. ↩}

^{[5] Aside from Matt Dillon’s half-tees, the coonskin cap, and maybe Johnny's sunglasses, most of the clothing in this movie seems pretty tame. Even the girls are dressed sensibly. I can’t help but wonder if this was most of the cast were actual teenagers or if the studio requested it. In any case, it’s notable that the person who shows the most skin in this movie by far is Matt Dillon. ↩}

^{[6] The soundtrack for this movie is a straight up coup. It’s aged incredibly and while it seems out of place, the Hendrix song makes sense within the context of the movie. The only outlier here is the closing number, Valerie Carter’s “Ooh Child”. Reportedly, the producers wanted to use the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” with it’s “teenage wasteland” theme, but it was too expensive and/or depressing. In any case, in spite of the overexposure, in spite of the lyrical content, these songs still feel to me like the battle hymns of a forgotten struggle documented only in things like this movie, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Freaks and Geeks. It’s music for the teenagers circa 1980 whose parents didn’t get it at all. It’s the music of the neglected or misunderstood. Of course, now most of these songs are entering grandparent country and all the kids listen to Skirlix. ↩}

^{[7] That isn’t to say there aren’t any. Fast Times in particular did a great job. But it’s far from the norm. ↩}

^{[8] and there is no mistaking the bulk of this cast for actors masquerading as teenagers. They were straight-up kids. This ads such a huge weight to the movie. The difference between watching a stubbly 26 year0old brag about taking speed in school and a scrawny 13 year-old doing the same is both palpable and terrifying. ↩}

^{[9]This spurs my favorite line in the whole movie, when the drug dealer exclaims that he can’t swim, Matt Dillon’s character tells him to “grow fins, turkey.” This, and his exchange with the police officer in the first five minutes of the movie NEVER fail to make me laugh. ↩}

Comics: A reflection (a review that got away from me very early on)

I just picked up a comic book hardcover that I've been putting off for awhile and that's been part of a very conscious effort.

For one thing, I really don't buy many superhero comics anymore. It's a genre that works in cycles, which is what I both love and loathe about them. These are, after all, characters that have endured in some cases 8 decades, and have of course been written and drawn by scores of people. Each one of these characters has been retold, rebuilt, retooled and rebooted over and over again. The character is constantly being shaped according to the story that the creators has in mind, and that's fantastic. It means that I can read one book where Batman is wacky (like the great Batman '66, based on  the 60s TV series) and another where is a complete lunatic (see, Miller, Frank with mixed results).
This has become more and more prevalent in recent years, as each new creative team is asked to provide an origin story or even as the publisher decides to start over completely (as both Marvel and DC have done in the past few years). Traditionally, re-telling origin stories was strictly for back matter reprints or the flashback that occurred in almost every issue to bring the reader up to speed. Publishers have even begun to eschew the traditional numbering sequences ¹in favor of the rebooting, or in some cases treating the run as a group of miniseries.
I'm fine with that. It means that I don't feel like I have to read everything. It also allows me to hop around and follow the creators I like more than the characters I like. It also means that I'll end up picking up books I never would have imagined picking up based on the creative team. Which is great because I'd rather have a variety of titles than feel obligated to buy every single issue of a book that I feel varies too much in quality to enjoy.

Crap where was I?

Oh right. Another reason why I've put this book off is because I have a kid now. And although I certainly don't plan on foisting comic books on her, I have taken to buying titles that a) I feel that she might actually enjoy and b) provide well-rounded positive female characters. It's not like I'm buying these books for her, but if struggling to decide between two books I like, I will pick the one she might like more. This is a LOT easier than it was even a decade ago. The era of the spandex-clad superheroine with an absurdly proportioned body is sliding to a close. The evolution of comics (superhero or otherwise) has expanded to include a host of incredibly well-written and powerful female characters and storytellers. I could get into a whole thing right now telling you more about them, and I hope to someday soon.


For now, though, I want to talk about superhero comics. It's not the best way to start this hopefully recurring feature (although neither is going on about issue numbering) since I hope to mostly talk about other stories (or at least ones that aren't published by the big 2 publishers). But there are a few reasons I chose this book to start this. For one thing, starting with a superhero comic can set the tone for what I want to accomplish here. I love comics, I have since I was 12 and I spent weeks at summer camp trying to learn about the difference between the green and grey Hulks, or who Forge was². But I also hate most of the baggage that comes with the culture of comics³. I have no desire to sit around arguing which Marvel character could beat up which DC character or whatever. I love stories. I love that comics (for better or worse) represent a contemporary mythology paralleled only perhaps by Star Wars⁴.

But there's also a duality within the genre of superhero comics that is difficult to reconcile. For each supremely talented storyteller or ingenious take on a popular character, there are three garbage books about female subjugation or dumb vengeance or violence as a plot device. As a result, anyone who enjoys comics has to be prepared to dispel the notion that yes, they read comic books and no, not all of them are written for 8th graders or just about tits and gore. Comics are an art form like any other. When done correctly, they can carry the pathos of literature, the gravity of fine art, and the passion of film. Or they can just show useless pandering to sociopaths.

Like any art form, there is a spectrum here in regard to quality.

and so I, as a reader of these books, owe it to myself to possess a bit of self-awareness as I read these books and talk about them. I'm hardly an expert, trust me. But I want to present my view of these works not only as someone who loves to read comic books, but also as someone who eschews the subculture that is built up around them, and superhero comics in particular.

As I'm still typing this (and banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to create a better footnote system than the multi-asterisk hell that I've been using), I realize that this post is already WAY too long and that nobody in their right mind is still reading. Also that I have very little time left before I want to get this thing published and move on to the next feature. So I'm going to stop typing in a minute and just throw this thing up there and maybe hope my dumb little footnotes have worked out in the end. If not, I'll be doing some editing over the weekend.
Sorry I didn't get to the actual comic I wanted to discuss. I can to that later, but it seems cruel to squeeze it in at the end of a lengthy post like this, especially when I'm not all that sure how much I have to say about the book in question. It is a gorgeous book, though, and hopefully I'll get to it in a few days. As always, my ambition outstrips my abilities. I'm working on it, though. In the meantime, I got some irons in the fire.

P.S. My dusting off of html skills should convince you how seriously I want to start this thing up again. Or at least convince you how much I hate using those asterisks. It's just like how I can't use italics in twitter and it drives me NUTSO.


<sup>1. the reasons for this are twofold. For one thing, people are far more likely to start reading at issue 1 than at issue 660 (about where Captain America is about now). This is compounded by new readers brought in by the insanely popular movies. Another reason for the renumbering is because number 1 issues ALWAYS sell more. This isn't just because of new readers, but also because of the idea that they tend to be worth more on a collector's market later on. I don't know if that's true or not because I don't really collect comics, but the collector's market is massive and still drives a lot of publisher decisions.↩

2. At the time, Forge was the dumbest X-Man. Now, I'm not even sure he'd break the top 20.↩

3. This is an issue with almost every interest of mine. For nearly every one of my interests, there's a bullshit subculture that I can't stand and go out of my way not to be associated with. This is probably why I don't get out much.↩

4. It is not lost on me that both Marvel and Star Wars are owned by Disney, increasing exponentially the notion that in 100 years we might have SEVERAL corporate-owned religions. Laugh now... but watch how serious this May 4th shit gets next year.↩</sup>

Hamburger Cake

 

homemade hot dogs and sausages, chilled beer, and probably the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for my birthday.

Strange Magic

   One of my new obsessions is Joe Hill's amazing comic Locke & Key, the trades of which I've been devouring lately. Eventually, I'll get around to writing up those books for Goodreads and repost here, which is something I've been meaning to do for awhile*.The book is fantastic, but I'm not necessarily going to talk about it today. However, there's a concept within the book that's been on my mind lately. In the story, there is magic. It is old and powerful magic, and so far, it is completely unknown by the adults of the series, even the ones that dabbled in it as youths.

   This isn't a groundbreaking idea. Going back to Peter Pan (and probably earlier), the idea has been raised that if magic were real, it would only be understood or appreciated by children whose minds have not been closed by... well, prolonged existence, I guess. I think this is a natural concurrence, really.

   I feel like my childhood was riddled with this, the magic of everyday life. The night I swear I saw a ghost in a rocking chair in the top window of an abandoned house. The power of a ghost story**, an out-of-body experience... these are things that I swear all happened to me before my teenage years. There was the time I went to Europe with my grandparents at age 8, and I returned with sore, hacked-up fingers. I thought for some reason that if I left fingernail clippings all over the streets and alleys of Italy then a piece of me would remain there and imbue me the wisdom and artistry of the ages. Now, it sounds like a pretty childish and disgusting habit, but you have to think that many, many superstitions have been started by less.

   There were two places in Maryland that I was terrified of. One was an old motorcycle clubhouse that hadn't been occupied in over a decade, the other was a cluster of trees around a streetlight. These were places I was certain were haunted, or at least held the power in my mind to be haunted. Nothing ever happened there, as far as I knew, although maybe some of my siblings tried to convince me otherwise. I don't know what it was, but I would fall into a catatonic state before willingly walking through these places. Weirdly, the giant abandoned hotel down the street was more or less fine with me. But a cluster of trees.... whoo, boy.

   Obviously, things didn't stay that way. The juju of the world is replaced by cold, dry logic. Gradually, the places I was terrified of became the type of places I would venture on dares from myself and others. It was somehow a part of the maturation process. Go to the places you once feared, and once you're not murdered there, a piece of magic withers away from your mind.

   I remember the first time I worked up the nerve to check out the old clubhouse, and the worst of my fears were confirmed when I saw someone had spray painted a pentagram on one of the walls. There has been foul business here. There were sacrifices of children and unholy ceremonies in my minds eye. It wasn't until later that I realized that it was a certainty that these were put there by kids not much older than myself, and with the intent of frightening kids like me. In fact, I'd put even money on the culprit being one of my brothers, trying to secure a place where they could smoke cigarettes without me finding them.

   There's a reason that teenagers love to spraypaint that shit. Pentagrams, 3 sixes. Swastikas. These symbols all have a power unlike anything else we know. It isn't until you're older that you realize that they are just lines and mean sweet fuck all. 99% of the time you see these things, it's a dumb kid trying to evoke a gutteral response from anyone that sees them. Unfortunately, it still works for a lot of people. Remember in the 80s, there was that massive fear of devil worshipers. the story of the West Memphis Three is pretty indicative of the paranoia associated with this stuff, which now we all look at as kind of silly more than anything. I feel sorry for devil worshipers at this point, since all they can really evoke from me is a rolling of the eyes.

   Nowadays, I miss that feeling. I think that I, more than just about anyone, fought the dissipation of magic from my brain. My reading habits (consisting largely of sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, mythologies, and occult manuals) probably helped with that quite a bit. But time goes on, magic grows stale and abandons our imaginations to more material pursuits. The Wonder of the world is replaced with a much different (and scarier) kind of fear.

The more I've been thinking about this the more I've been upset. I want nothing more than the ability to continue being amazed and enchanted by the world around us. I want one day to hear my child speak and not dismiss their magic as childish nonsense. So I started raking my brain for the magic in my life, and how I perceive it. and I realized, that I never really abandoned the concept, nor did it abandon me.

There remains magic in music for me. Not in the same way I saw it as a child, where members of KISS might abduct me in my sleep, or how Jim Morrison was some kind of stupid shaman. It is more subtle than that. When I was driving the other day, one of my favorite songs, "The E Street Shuffle" came on. Not the funky album version, but the shuffling, slow version that Springsteen and the band did live. Bruce tells a story, this one about Clarence Clemons and how they met. It's a long story, and a funny one. But it ends with Bruce cowering in the doorway of a closed shop, hiding from Clarence, who he thinks is out to get him. The giant man extends his hand and, this is where Springsteen's voice is practically a whisper:

Sparks fly on E Street when the boy prophets walk it handsome and hot 

 

   and I almost had to pull the car over. I can hear, feel the magic in those words. I've probably heard that song two thousand times in my life, and no matter how many times I might've glossed over that line, it still has that power over me. It was there the whole time.  Ditto for the beginning of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin", which I was certain I never wanted to hear again until this morning when it floored me by complete surprise. 

 

There is magic in The Exorcist, when that ghoulish face appears. I know it is a special effect in a film, but that has never stopped me from shuddering when I see it. There is magic in every single episode of Pushing Daisies that drips with a charm that distills in me a nostalgia for things I've never known. 

There is magic in The Stand, when we are introduced to Randall Flagg***, and in the narrator's home (a crumbling, waterlogged hotel) in Amnesiascope.

 

As I've mentioned before, there is magic in so many comic books I don't know where to start.

 

Though fiction, these things all come from someplace very real. Stephen King has admitted that his inspiration for Walter Flagg, one of the greatest villains ever created, came Symbionese Liberation Army leader (and Patty Hearst kidnapper) Donald DeFreeze. DeFreeze was a prison escapee who convinced people to do horrible things for him in the name of justice. Horrible, but absolutely magic. Same could be said for Charles Manson or Wayne Coyne (probably not a fair comparison, but I needed good and evil, you see).

In my rambling, incoherent way, I guess I'm just trying to remind you that there is magic out there. It's not Harry Potter or satanists, but it's in the minds of you and your loved ones, and creators, and in the atmosphere at large. the next time you get a feeling, instead of listening to the adult voice in your head or to rationality, try to just go with it. Make a note of it. Tell somebody else about it. Use it to wonder at the world around us. I know it feels naive, and perhaps stupid, even. But it makes things a hell of a lot more enjoyable. Don't preoccupy yourself with life, preoccupy yourself with living.

*So I've been pretty negligent with my Goodreads account, largely because I am always reading either too much or too little. One of my hobbies lately though has been to write up graphic novels and comics, since I feel they could use a bit more legitimization. I've done a couple, and I plan to do more. Unfortunately, most of these "reviews" are just diatribes about legitimization of comic books. Anyway, maybe I'll post a few after this post.

**query: Have I told my Tockwogh Hermit ghost story story here? If not I will fix that.

One of the nicest things I've read all week

I love it when comedians do stuff like this.

Ballroom, Hellingly Hospital

There's really nothing more awesome than an abandoned insane asylum, other than one that's called Hellingly.

Here's some more pics.

The Third Man

One of the more productive things I got to do over the trip home was get some reading done. A lot of it has been a massive book about basketball, augmented with magazines, comics (I re-read We3, and it still sucks the air out of my chest), and the annotated screenplay to The Third Man. It's a movie I'd seen a couple years ago, but had for the most part forgotten, so I was happy to read through it on the flights to and from California.

One of the more impressive of the story's many, many impressive qualities is the way that the story so fittingly describes an time and a place -namely postwar Vienna- so perfectly. The confusion and disconcordance of having one city ruled by four different allied powers, most of whom not sharing a language with each other, let alone the people they are set to govern/protect. The stoic optimism of a war-scarred populace, eager to move on from the conflict but living in  system that won't let them... it's a rare thing to me, to get that sort of sense from any type of work, let alone a book and a film. I honestly don't know how they do it. Part of me suspects that it's a talent that eludes even the best of storytellers. Part of me is certain that it's more a result of my place and time. Does living in America in 2009 (yeah, I know) have a flavor that could be expressed? I could write in a story about economic peril and the hopes of a black president, but in fifty years from now, would someone read that and think "that's exactly what it was like!" Or would I have to include some veiled Rihanna reference?


Obviously, it's more than pop culture. While we (meaning, I) love to think that popular culture goes a way towards defining the greater culture, it far more often than not means sweet fuck all. With the exception of post-9/11 media, I can't really think of anything that snapshots specific American culture after the Cold War*. Perhaps it's because we as Americans have such a diverse climate of economic and social stations that it's nearly impossible to connect them without the benefit of several decades of distance to provide hindsight. It might be that most Americans tend to project their experiences and backgrounds onto the country, effectively ignoring everyone else. Maybe it's the apathy of the suburban MTV generation that has shifted our attitude to that of a vapid shrug (it's a cliche, I know, but not an unfair one). I have no idea. But as I was thinking about this, I was convinced that the most common way to get a picture of our country at any given moment is to show it in or immediately following tragedy**. It sounds dramatic, but maybe that's the only time we'll be able to look around and agree about what's going on. Or at least that's the closest we get to it.

But I digress. I want to write about The Third Man. Because it's one of those movies that holds up so damned well. I'm not one of those classic film nerds that can't watch anything made in America after the mid-70s. I will talk loads of shit about Avatar, and yet I avoid most foreign films on the grounds that they're depressing for the sake of being depressing, and I will prefer color to black & white. I don't consider myself an erudite scholar of film, but I like to think I know what I like. and I love The Third Man. I could rail on about the framework or the advancements in cinematography, but it'd be 100% bullshit lifted from other places, ass opposed to the 50% bullshit that I'm just making up. In order for me to even notice things like that, it has to be so spectacularly good or bad that my attention is taken from the dialogue, acting, and overall theme. So I don't notice that when I'm watching The Third Man. I notice the more obvious things: the Karas soundtrack, which I put on a mix at some point in college and baffled even myself with, The zither fluttering along through the scenes, almost ditzy when juxtaposed against the story. There's the drunken petulance of protagonist Holly Martins, a European caricature of an American if there ever was one***, even if the character was supposed to be Canadian****. There's the opportunists, fops, and schemers that show up throughout the story, and the distance of the Austrians, who don't want anything to do with anything that isn't getting their lives back on track. This is classic noir, and still it stands as more than just a detective story. Oh, and there's Orson Welles. He was already the major filmmaker of the world, and he had just turned his back on Hollywood. He was just the actor here, but he improvised one of the best movie lines in history (he later said he stole it from somewhere else) like it was nothing.

I don't want to get into the story too much, because there are turns and revelations that still amaze me (even if one of the biggest ones is given away by the movie poster/DVD cover).  But I would recommend checking it out. You can watch it on Netflix ad the moment, and you can probably pick up a (non-Criterion) copy for pretty cheap since it's in the public domain. But I'd suggest checking out the book or screenplay first. It won't take up much of your time (I read most of it on the worst plane ride ever), and it really is worth it. Afterwards, check out the movie, and tell me I'm wrong about this. Tell me you don't get a feeling for postwar Vienna, despite the fact that it serves mostly as a backdrop for the story.

Anyway, that's just what I'm feeling on it.

* of course, this isn't entirely true. Wall Street probably did a great job of  defining the mid-late 80s for a lot of people, despite the fact that there's no mention of the decline of American industry, the dumbest fashion sense in history, and the historic rise/acceptance of rap music. Philadelphia might also carry a distinct resonance, while Forrest Gump will always serve to remind us how fucking dumb and self-servingly nostalgic we can be.
** the other might be comedy. Of course, this is not always the case, but it's a lot easier to gain insight towards the culture of a time and place by what jokes can and can't be made and the way that they are made. Of course, 85% of American comedy disproves this entirely.
*** I still laugh every time he intentionally gets Calloway's name wrong.
**** what non-hockey playing Canadian shows up in another country and takes a swing at a cop first thing off the plane? There are Canadians that don't play hockey, right?

Oooooh fish shoes!

I want them.

(via Illusion360)

There's a great Baltermants collection over at tsutpen. Russian WWII war photography is bound to be pretty bleak stuff. But it's powerful as hell, and just incredible to look at.

This, incidentally, might be my favorite site on the internet.

Is the Indira Gandhi Planetarium the coolest looking building ever?

YES.

Not like that crazy-ass one in Bochum, Germany. Don't try to sell me the Legion of Doom! I know the goddamn Legion of Doom when I see it!

"O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin"

I've been reading some of the graffiti found on the walls at Pompeii. There's some pretty crude stuff to be found there (thought I did enjoy "'Secundus defecated here' three time on one wall"), as well as sweet sentiments and weird inanities. I wonder if anyone thought to bring this up during Koch's major anti-graffiti campaigns in the early 80s. Judging by the article I linked there, it might not have done any good.

Anyway, a nice little read to start your morning.

Watching The Friends of Eddie Coyle's Criterion edition, which I didn't even know was released back in May. It's been ages since I've seen this movie, and even longer since I read the book in college. This was released in 1973, not long before The Rockford Files started, and as I mentioned the other day, this feels like the last great era for really good crime stories that don't involve electronic surveillance, DNA tests, etc... There's a reason why Criminal (which is back, and still the best noir/crime stories being told today) is so ambiguous with the period in which it's set.

  Anyway, go see this movie. It's a great story, with Robert Mitchum simultaneously at his booziest and most judicious. Peter Boyle (who remains one of the most puzzling actors ever) meeting him step for step the entire time, and Steven Keats as the young punk gunrunner... it's really a classic crime movie, without any of the flash and pomp that seem to go with these stories a lot of the time.

So yeah, go rent that. 

Okay, I really, really need to get back to my paper.

So, I've got this real bad habit of getting wrapped up in some album or TV Series or film, and then writing the better part of a post and shelving it. It's not that my interest in these things wanes, or that I move on to other stuff before I get a chance to finish. More often than not I just can't finish or won't. I've got half-finished, long-winded posts about The Sandbaggers, Underbelly, Eye of the Needle, Friends of Eddie Coyle, three character analyses from The West Wing, and a couple others. A personal favorite is my lengthy rant on why I'm pretty sure that Guy Ritchie has never read a Sherlock Holmes story, but I'm waiting for the film on that one.
Anyway, a lot of the time it's because I'm sure these are points you might have felt, or stories you don't feel like revisiting, or that my own take on it isn't all that astute. Right now, one of the 6-7 books on my coffee table is a book of George Orwell's essays, which are both comforting and embarrassing to read, when I consider the crap dredge that gets thrown up on this thing. Because while I don't post a lot of things out of fear of appearing a self-important literary windbag, George Orwell manages to write these things in such an approachable, hospitable way that it leaves me dumbstruck.
But this is neither here nor there. Because I'm not writing about anything today that's critically adored or obscure. I'm not even writing about something that's all that unpopular. I'm referring, of course, to The Rockford Files, which aired on NBC from 1974-80. It's a show I never really watched as a kid, probably because it was off the air when I was 2, and unlike Columbo, I don't remember all that many reruns peppering the airways.
Jim Rockford fits some of the noir-ish standards for a detective. He's almost always at odds with the cops, he has a shady past (including a stint in prison as an innocent man), and he's got a real smart mouth that gets him into trouble. He's poor, and his home is a dilapidated trailer outside of LA on the Pacific Coast highway. Oh, and he seems to end up banging half of his female clientele.
He's still not quite noir, though. He generally avoids a fight, and almost never carries a gun (he keeps it in his coffee pot to avoid rust form the salt air!). He's a lot more genuine in his concern for clients than Marlowe ever would've been, and he often will end up working for free or at a reduced rate if he has to. Oh, and his dad is around all the time. I really like this last part, because his dad is a cheap old drunk who wants him to get out of the private eye racket. Oh, and unlike a lot of the old stories, Rockford isn't wearing a fedora and trenchcoat. If anything, he dresses cheap and garishly, which is to say, normal for the Seventies.
So why do I like this stuff? Why is it that after a decade of reading detective fiction and watching all those old black and whites that I find myself enamored with this program? A couple things. One is James Garner. There's just something about him that you want to root for. Ever since I was a kid and saw him as Hendley the scrounger in The Great Escape, I've enjoyed that guy. I remember going through a Maverick phase at some point, too. There's also the time period. One of the reasons that the seventies work so well for crime/detective stories, is because it's the last really good time frame for this type of story. I guess the Eighties might work as well, but something about that decade I find hard to take seriously. Maybe it would have to be all about drugs, or funny hairstyles.
But anyone my age or younger will view this show as impossible. There's no way that someone could get away with some of the things that go on here. Part of it is technology, part of it is people wising up to giving personal information out, etc... To write a good detective story set in the last ten years is to write... I dunno, to write like Ed Burns and David Simon.
The bottom line is that I'm amazed how much I enjoy a network TV show that's older than I am and isn't hosted by Rod Serling. It's a testament to our pop culture. But the best part is that you can go watch this for free right now. There are at least 3 seasons up on Hulu, and the entire run of the series is up on Netflix. So go check it out if you're bored one night and watching some shitty celebrity dance show. Seriously, you can do better than that. If you don't watch TV, hey, more power to you. But I know most of you do, and watch some pretty appalling stuff. Just my 2 cents. This show has car chases! Non-Italian mob bosses! Pretty ladies! Awesome celebrity cameos (so far, Abe Vigoda, a young James Woods, Bill Mumy, Strother Martin, Ned Beatty, Lindsay Wagner, etc...), oh and one of the best theme songs EVER.

if you haven't seen it yet, go watch an episode. It's been making my week.

Bomb shelter pictures!

These are from a book of Photographs taken by Richard Ross of one of my favorite things: bomb shelters.

While I don't have the time to ruminate right now, click on over and take a peek. They're pretty awesome.

I've been working constantly on web development and cataloging for the last... ugh, I don't even know. But I got real ambitious at 3 AM this morning and began a post about Mat Fraction's recent open letter to Philip K. Dick (as featured in the most recent issue of the comic adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Pink Floyd (particularly 1977's Animals, and the box art for the old Atari game Defender. As you can imagine, it was the sort of thing that will take me at least a few hours to write, and at the moment, I don't have that sort of time. I did get most of the ideas down, though, and I look forward to wrapping it up. In the meantime, though, I need to do some more work on Cutter numbers (seriously, I hate these things) and pretend I don't want to ram a darning needle into my ear.

I know this is kind of an empty post. Consider it a placeholder of sorts. But in the meantime, go here and check out some of the other Atari art. It's astounding to think about how much more entertaining this art is than the actual games were. Considering how many dumb movies have spawned from video games, I think we could get a good decade out of this stuff. Missile Command? Totally. Dodge 'Em? Oh, hell yes. Super Breakout? Holy shit, make it now. How did that art even come around? what about that game made you think "astronaut tennis"? It doesn't matter, I want Michael Bay's dumb ass working on it, stat.

Anyway, I'm gonna have a little break in a few weeks, at which point I'm going to flood this thing with poignant and well-considered posts. Or at least ones that don't trail off into nowhere.

This is a picture, not a painting, of the Forth railway bridge in Scotland. It's apparently the "one internationally recognized Scottish landmark", which is news to me, but looking at this picture, I can certainly see why.

warning: other views are not as glamorous.

How awesome was that Sixers game?

I have to say, every time I think Sammy D is picking up his D and picking it up again, he does something completely stupid on the court and looking confused. Right around the third quarter, it was killing me. If you had told me that a Donyell Marshall and Theo Ratliff were going to come in and make everything okay when they were down by 18, I wouldn't have believed you.

In any case, I'm going to bed a happy happy man.

Also, Reggie Evans is my favorite player to watch on the the bench ever. Not that I necessarily want him benched, but he really maintains this energy that I love. He's on the edge of his seat the whole time shouting his support and you know he's just one of those hearts of the team that goes much further than a box stat would lead you to believe.

Despite that he forgets some of the words, or that his voice has changed entirely from when he recorded the song. Despite the fact that he punches up the rhythm and sounds 50 years older... Hearing Bob Dylan play "Billy" live for the first time still excites me beyond the words my brain can summon. I've seen him twice and to be honest always felt a bit underwhelmed. Not that I should've loved it (being the staunch traditionalist that I am, I've always preferred an acoustic Dylan), but hearing this, I'm wondering if I can catch him the next time he tours the US and maybe get to hear one of my favorite songs.

It's a conundrum.

PS There's also a new Theme Time Radio Hour on that site (this one's theme: "Truth and Lies"). So it's a pretty good day all around.

DOOM

How awesome is Steve McNiven? His artwork has only gotten better and better since Civil War, and it was already pretty breathtaking by then. In addition to being one of my favorite artists to ever draw Spidey, this week he gave us... DOOM in the future! Is it a coincidence that this image was released the same week that (formerly MF) DOOM's album leaked? Probably not. That said, who cares. I love this art so much.

(queue up the Quiet Riot)

Things I like in life:

Sleepwalking dogs!

Even better is that exact moment at the end when the dog wakes up already on his feet.