Spaziergangswissenschaft: Kirby & Lee = Pynchon & DFW (or maybe at least Eggers)?

I'm sure this has been commented on, analyzed, deconstructed ad nauseum elsewhere, but is there a connection to the similarity between the penchant for comic writers to use footnotes & po-mo hip lit authors to do the same? If I had a scanner this would be the appropriate time for me to scan a representative page of DFW/IJ and of late-80's marvel comics (maybe, because I was reading it over the weekend, the W.C. Avengers?) and mark up the number of times they footnote, or refer to other works, or qualify, or are generally self-aware (and therefore self-undercutting) about the overwhelming amount of history and back-story that weighs on 1) writing a marvel comic in the 80's (in the mainstream marvel universe) and 2) a novel in the 90's. That is to say that when there is either a 400 year history of the novel or 400 issue history of the Avengers it's a lot to resolve, work with, deal with, that's either burdensome or empowering. It can lead to awkward po-mo crap (see Godland, Eggers) or greatness (see the Watchmen, some (not all) DFW). It became almost the Marvel style, as even comics not in Earth 616 (google it) like G. I. Joe (my childhood fave) were equally steeped and aware of their own history and backstory. Like over the first 100 issues of G. I. Joe there is more backstory to the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow/Cobra Commander/Zartan/(and later fucking Firefly) epic story than there is of actual story!! (though the high period of Billy & the Circus Bear & early Cobra Island stuff = not so weighed down and more actual fucking in-the-present storytelling. - though you could talk about, parse out a 'what's the diff twix backstory & story?')

It also is a huge burden on the reader. What!?! you haven't read Avengers #12 with WonderMan's origin story about how he was a rival of Tony Stark's Stark Enterprise's, then later died, had his consciousness put into the Vision, revived as a villain, w/ his bro the grim reaper, was brought of of his coma/death, became a movie star, etc. etc. etc. ? OR You haven't read Dickens & Proust & Pynchon & Melville & pulp novels & etc. etc. etc.?

and as an extra - a crazy DFW bibliography

*Spaziergangswissenschaft means something totally unassociated - just marvelling at German's ability to make cool words for niche concepts.

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the future of the neighborhood (which apparently is the Prescott/Oakland Point Neighborhood - wha? I thought it was called West Oakland) I live in.

http://www.pacificcannerylofts.com/index.html

get in cheaper as a "founder" RIGHT NOW! (or is that pioneer?)

or for the masterplan... (thanks Jerry Brown)

http://www.pacificcannerylofts.com/images/central-station-large.jpg

Does anything reflect the schizophrenia of the present/future/past in West Oakland than the $.99 store sharing a building w/ the future location of the Mandela Co-op? Which one is more popular w/ the current residents of the neighborhood? the future residents?

How does the economic/housing downturn/recession effect these loft/condo plans?

All this leaves me conflicted. In-fill = good. Diversity, mixed housing = good. Urban living, better infrastructure = Good. Profiling, Rising Housing Prices, Gentrification = Bad. Ugly, non-family, commuter-friendly, gated/walled, lofts/condos = Bad. Who is going to live in these condos in ten years? twenty years? for ten years? for twenty years?

Oh well.

Sucking Blood.

To keep up the trend of projecting on this band, here goes my 2 cents on Vampire Weekend. (Like an ivy league Madonna for the oughts, Vampire Weekend lets everyone play out their expectations & ideas & passions etc. From disregard, to hate, to disdain, to love & rapture, to class warfare, to whatever see here here here here here here here, & here. And maybe like any good thing, where you stand might say more about you than anything about the band, because really, is there really that much to say about VW? They're fine, their album is good (not great), they really don't seem to have any big agenda and/or deeply insightful things to say. People like to about their look, their ivy league cred, their clean sound & their open use of world music garnish (among other non-typical indie-rock touches - these guys aren't stupid (hopefully), so i imagine they are aware the borderline offensiveness of the ironic descriptor of Upper West Side Soweto - the deeper irony being that I've heard race residential/class divisions in Manhattan described being as stark as SA apartheid aka seriously kind of fucked when you look at it). The other story pitched about'em is the internet king-making hype machine which frankly is NOT-THAT-INTERESTING. They do something a little new, pretty well, and have a concise BRAND (which might be revealed as poorly developed in the future as it gets a closer look. How willing is Ezra to put the hammer down on his phish head buddies when the brand needs to be saved and/or XL starts pitching in their two cents on their newly minted possible cash cow?)

What purpose does VW serve for their fans/critics/etc? A tough question that probably has something to do with class/structure/power & I don't know if I want to venture there (ask This Blog if you really need to know).

But what do I think? I really like their album. Are there better indie-pop bands right now? Is this better than Pants Yell! or the Shot Heard Round the World album or even close to classic B&S? Yes, No and really is that really the point? And luckily for me (and maybe unexpectedly and unlike my political allegiances) the closer I get to bands and music that I kind of like - even when based on shallow signifiers - the more I like them. These guys are actually piddling around w/ out good idea of what they're doing or what they MEAN? GREAT! Give me some more. Unless yr Cpt. Beefheart or Mark E. Smith or something, I kind of prefer fumbling to proclamations of WE ARE MAKING SERIOUS ART from my rock'n'roll (or even from my art).

Roar Lions Roar!

as a preview to intended long musing on Vampire Weekend.
Vampire Weekend Debut in the top 20 of the Billboard Album Chart

Crazy?
Crazy.

Harvard's Push Kings and Yale's Holiday never pulled off anything like that! The brothers Gerety must be steaming.

LIVE (for Nothing) OR DIE (for Something)

A couple of things re: the most recent Rambo that I've talked about a lot w/ friends: 1) my feeling that Sylvester Stallone GETS IT. That is, he understands his appeal & the appeal of his movies; shoots for that target and hits it. What do people want from a Rambo movie? Not action, but violence. Not suspense, but people getting blown up. Therefore we get the movie we wanted. A completely unredeeming movie which is really just a frame around two scenes of massacre via modern weaponry.

Is there a less redeeming movie than the new RAMBO? There's really nothing to take away from it; none of the characters are developed, it doesn't give you any reason really to root for the "good" guys v. the "bad" guys, except for the generic - southeast asians are obviously generally "bad" either because/or the cause of their constant living in squalor. Maybe there is some meta-critique about the way racists characterizations work (not to mention the wierd homosexuals are evil (or was it evil leads to homosexual pedophilia) shit in the middle) - as in why develop the evil bad guys when we already know that Rambo is going to kill them all - or maybe even a comment about the moving goers expectations. The game played in the middle by the "bad" guys being a microcosm of what the movie goer is expecting from the movie. Indiscriminate and random violence (those two scenes being the most suspenseful and cringe-worthy in the whole movie).

I've seen a lot of very violent, unredeeming movies, (perhaps i've lost my edge) but Rambo made me uncomfortable in a way a lot Zombie and Cannibal and Gore movies have not. Which nicely leads into my second talking point about this movie... 2) do you think Stallone has seen Cannibal Holocaust? It's not out of the realm of possibility, and I'd even say it's likely, given that Sly's son Sage Stallone is 1/2 of Grindhouse Releasing (also home to Cannibal Ferox & Fulci's the Beyond) that was the force behind the recent Cannibal Holocaust DVD (and limited theatrical run.) Cannibal Holocaust is a movie that I know well (the year I worked in a video store I only went to the theater three times - once to see Miike's Ichi the Killer and twice to see Cannibal Holocaust) and, depending on yr stomach, more unsettling than Rambo. On the short list of MOST GORY MOVIES EVER Cannibal Holocaust is FUCKED UP, but really, more nuanced/self-aware than most gore-for-gore's sake movies and more nuanced (though maybe not more self-aware) than Rambo.

It's an interesting question, because the similarities between CH and Rambo are there. From the plot = group of 1st world we-can-beat-the-world-with-our-1st-world superiority types go into the jungle and get fucked with & the canny world weary one has to go in after them, to certain uses of music (esp. in the first massacre scene where the symphonic music cuts in while the killing continues - see the "massacre" in CH) and other cinematic techniques. Most importantly the "BIG" question of both movies being Who is the real Savage? (obviously undercut in both movies by the exploitive/voyeuristic use of violence.) I think Stallone wants to awkwardly propose a visual connection between the two massacres esp. w/ the pan over the post-massacre bodies that is almost identical after both (which in Rambo is further undercut by the Hollywood touches of the "good guys" winning and Rambo-going-home endings.)

All that said, I think Rambo would have been MUCH MUCH BETTER if Stallone had stolen even more from Cannibal Holocaust, in particular the plot structure (but not more violence/gore). I think it could have elevated it from OK (and awkward/discomforting) to Great (and awkward/discomforting). Oh Well, His Loss.

I had planned to tie this all into another gore movie, Beyond the Darkness, the DVD extra interview that I had a life-changing effect on me, =ing my redemption/non-redemption, to now my epiphany-maturing-to-lameness re: gore movies (tied into other Stuff) but I'll save that for another time.