Pop Culture

The sparkly Twilight loaf, it is pinched!

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I’ve seen all five Twilight movies. Knowing there is inner dialog and motivations going on that cannot be conveyed onscreen has me less focused on why everyone looks so burpy, and more often bored.

Two scenes are pretty good. When Jacob hastily strips before the grown-up audience’s proxy, Bella’s dad, to change into a wolf to PROVE to the dad there are THINGS in this world that are SUPERNATURAL he has NO IDEA about, both actors do a good job selling it as comedy.

The battle scene near the end is cathartic. The special effects are poor, but it’s delightfully brutal and chock full of “Wow, did they just do that?” For people emotionally involved with the characters, it must have been a roller coaster. For a distant observer, it was daring given the constraints.

It also serves as testimony that when heading into battle, thick wool clothing and heavy capes are a LOUSY idea when combatting people in more nimble clothing. Especially weird given vampires don’t need to keep warm. And for a collection of Eurotrash based in Italy, why no Italian accents among the Volturi? It was all that non-committal mid-Atlantic accent where you cannot pinpoint where the character is supposed to be from, other than not AMURHICA.

“Alice” and “Jasper”. They’re not really centuries old.Jasper’s head. It makes me smirk or laugh. A fixation every movie. The actor’s candid photos look normal-ish, but when he’s onscreen, you can sense him reciting to himself: “I am wise and older than I look, oh, the things my character has seen.” Whatever he’s doing, it doesn’t work.

Are the movies lazy about when vampires are pale versus sanguine? Flesh tones are all over the place in this series. If this inconsistency is explained in the books let me know.

CGI Renesme looks awful. Uncanny. They put CGI on her face as a baby, toddler, and grown-up. It floats over where the face should be and lags a tetch behind the body itself. In the baby scenes, I imagined the actors carrying around an infant baby model covered in green and little white dots they use in motion capture and started laughing.

I am the spawn of the undead and a mopey teen, but it is CGI that makes me an abomination.When it was all over, it was like finishing flavorless food. Not flavorless, more like a grilled Velveeta sammich. Took the kids, who had only seen the first movie, and reflected they could follow the story without having seen the intervening three movies.

Is there anyone watching these movies a second time? Anyone truly caught up in the romance? I’m way out of the demographic (moms, teens) but it seems the culture hardly references the films now, no quoting of lines, re-enacting scenes. Watching this “Epic Finale That Will Live Forever”, it felt like a national obligation we were all “Meh” about. Seems unlikely kids will be viewing the movies five years from now. Or two years.

Poetry, Writing

Brave raging Gummi Bear

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A jewel! A polished stone!
A dollop of sugar translucent red on a dingy sidewall in a mediocre greyish day.
I admired your defiance, rear end upward, “Dissolution may come, but I will shine!”
Considered popping you in my mouth to infuse that spirit within my watery flesh.
Left you, the gelatin ass ridge bending highest, the last part fated to melt.
So important when one can choose the manner of the end.
To leave a gem-like stain is honorable.
Will probably forget about it with the next handful of Gummi Bears.

Art, Music, Pop Culture

Andrés 3000, get your silly ass back into the studio

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Andrés 3000 from OutKast (and effectively a solo artist): enough with your primping razor commercials with professional squinter Adrian Brody and that cuddly Spanish actor. You’re so fresh and so clean, we GET IT, but we don’t like you for your grooming. We like you because you’re funny and funky in your music.

Get back in the studio and make another album. Take in Big Boi if possible, or not.

Art, Music, Politics, Pop Culture

In defense of palooka Billy Joel

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I have no idea whether Billy Joel has recorded an album in the last thirty years. The Billy Joel I know has a weird chip on his shoulder about being disrespected by critics in the late 70s and 80s for, I guess, not being Paul Simon?

New York already has a Paul Simon. It only needs the one Paul Simon. I don’t see Billy Joel falling into a sustained melancholy like Paul Simon, or at least ENJOYING the melancholy like Paul Simon. I would go eat pizza with Billy Joel without thinking. I’d have some hesitation about eating pizza with Paul Simon, though I have more of his music.

The Nylon Curtain is a favorite album. I haven’t listened to it all the way through since the 80s. The songs aren’t all great, but even as a kid listening to it on cassette what was appealing was Billy Joel making an effort to stretch. “Goodnight Saigon” is a moving song. “Pressure”, thinking about this right now, might have been inspired by Peter Gabriel. Especially the video. Oh shit. I may have to go on a walk after posting this.

“Allentown” is a hallmark song for Joel. Listening it today it’s still pretty great, and he marvelously adds seven or eight syllables in the first word of “restlessness was handed down”. He may STILL be in the studio in the middle of pronouncing “restlessness”. I remember reading in Rolling Stone mentioning the people in Allentown, PA not caring for the song. That saga is interesting.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” is a horrible fucking song. Not a horrible song for fucking (that too), but on the all-time list of awful songs. Bottom five on my list. Baby boomer apologia. If reading the mention of the song compels you to listen to it, you got a Google or iTunes, go for it. I won’t link to it. I love you way too goddamn much to be that conduit.

“You May Be Right” is a future karaoke song for me. Once done, I may expire fully content. Joel’s performance below gets cut off before the finish. He is a major dorkus malorkus here, unclear whether he knows that or if he thinks he’s being menacing. Whatever he’s doing, he’s OWNING it here, which deserves RESPECT, you mook, and you may laugh when you start viewing this, but when it ends abruptly you will feel blueballed/ovaried!

Eating, Poetry, Pop Culture, Writing

Christy Turlington and me.

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Born the same year, supermodel Christy Turlington and I share a certain kinship. We’re often mistaken for each other in public or at parties (I know, Christy. Hilarious, right?) but she lets me know she’s a few months wiser than me. Alla time.

Saw this magazine ad with the tagline “Her heart. Her soul. Her beauty. Her scent.” Thought it needed a few more lines.

Her heart. Her soul. Her beauty. Her scent.
She strolled. She sprinted. She stopped. She went:
“You gambol, you laugh, you eat, you write.”
I thought. I smirked. I held her. “That’s right.”

Eating

I’ll take care of it for you.

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Ate lunch at Burgerville, reading ‘Vamps and Tramps: New Essays’ by Camille Paglia for the third time since 1994. So, the essays aren’t that “New”, but I like reading about pop culture and harangues against the political correctness of 90s-era academe.

Order was brought to my table by a tall beefy guy with great self-assurance. He had a serious look in his eye. As he set the tray down he said: “If you need anything more from here you let me know and I’ll take care of it for you.” No irony. This was a point of honor for him. Felt like being in a mobster movie but without the racial caricatures.

The meal was tasty, and made even more satisfying knowing that if I wanted a sportscar or someone snuffed out, it could happen.

Poetry, Writing

A wished-for circus strong man

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A wished-for circus strong man

Swung his hammer through skin and fat and muscle

To clang against an iron spine.

No, not that.

A tuning fork knocked on the

Coccyx of a steady subtle spine filigreed with

Silver, the hum sang along the wires from curling toe tips to

Crackle the creme brûlée in the cup of the brain.

When the arms are held in front in parallel just so,

The bones still sing.

Art, Eating

Do I lick this?

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Part of the storytelling chocolate genre: this mediocre morsel packaged with a mini trading card about the Baorisa Moth, “arguably the most beautiful of the Noctuid moths, resembling an Art Deco, Piet Mondrian creation”. Even the Intelligent Designer is an art critic. No bug flavoring detected. Alarmingly, no ingredients listed, though cacao is referenced.

 

Activity, Art

Goodwill towards men’s fashion

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Dropped off maybe 40-50 pounds of clothes at Goodwill today. Part of the acceptance process that the 90s will not be coming back (my closet and personal history: “thank gawwwd!”).

1.) Several shirts I held onto for years because they were expensive and I liked the colors. There’s a difference between admiring colors from a distance and wearing something that makes you look like a pack of Fruit Stripe gum.

2.) My t-shirts breed like Tribbles. I’ve tagged the remaining t-shirts to track their movements and figure out what the heck they’re doing.