r.mutt's blog

6/30/05 ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE DAY from M. Lieberman of c-pedemails: we were playing a high-low hand of poker, and there was some discussion concerning the way in which one would decide just how bad a hand was. having determined that you still to take the best possible hand you could make at the end (and hope it was worse than anyone else's), and could not choose to ignore pairs and such, i observed "so, no forgetful functor, eh?" a forgetful functor, as you most assuredly know, is a mapping that takes a structured set (a collection of things with an associated ordering, or addition operation, or multiplication, or some such thing) and forgets the structure, leaving only the underlying collection of elements. i don't know if the multiple levels at which the joke works are clear from the explanation, but that's the best i can do. by the way, i have no idea what this means. in other news, i just five minutes ago finished mixing the tradition and the individual talents album, coniferous. 6/28/05 ALL THINGS MUST COME TO A TREND regarding the dischord records v. nike incident, nike has backed down and absolved wieden and kennedy* — W+K: nice art space (224 NW 13th Ave., PDX), duplicitious advertisers. whether you believe it is another story ("by skateboarders, for skateboarders" seems especially disingenuous — kind of like how, according to albini, minor threat guitarist lyle preslar became a major label A&R rep when he grew up — a nike employee is still a nike employee), but it looks like this thing is done — this time. concerning my open letter to dischord, here's what alec from dischord had to say: Hi r.mutt, Thanks for your thoughtful letter. Be assured that the band will be discussing exactly the issues you bring up before they make a decision on whether or not to sue. The fact is that Dischord doesn't copyright any of our stuff, simply because we DO believe in the common law and common sense. (ie. you don't have to be registered with the government to exist and have rights). If they do go the legal route it will be in defense of "common law" which I think could be a pretty important soap box for a little known issue. We have always encouraged people within our community to use our music in a responsible manner. We donate more songs to independent projects than any label out there. But if someone has no problem paying the Red Hot Chili Peppers $50,000 for a song and want a Fugazi for free then they can get lost. Our basic thinking is: we will do what we can for you but you can't fuck with us just because we're nice. Personally, I agree that money is too much on people's minds and I'd be happy with a very public apology. But that's me ... we'll see what the band decides. cheers-- Alec * to ease my oedipal anxiety, i'm happy to report that the story was broken by this guy's blog, not pitchfork. 6/24/05 AN OPEN LETTER TO DISCHORD RECORDS below is an email i sent to dischord records (an edited version is running in next month's fair use-themed issue of punk planet). i didn't know whom to address, so i did the whole "to whom it may concern" thing. a little tacky, but here it is: Dear Dischord, I recently heard about Nike's appropriation of the Minor Threat LP image and, like you, I am sickened by it. I understand that you are considering your legal options and, as a fan, I would like to caution against this course of action. You currently have the moral high ground and if you lose that, you've lost — regardless of whether they are ordered to pull the ad or any financial windfall that may come your way. I imagine that you, like me, don't see eye to eye with intellectual property laws as they currently exist in the United States. From where I stand, the image is and should be public domain (that they merely "quoted" the Minor Threat image instead of reproducing it mechanically should be irrelevant). Whether I want to stencil the image on my skateboard or an independent filmmaker wants to quote the image in a shot or a Nike ad executive wants to use it, it should be there to use. To put it another way: imagine if the Grateful Dead had sued the Teen Idles for parodying "Casey Jones" in "Deadhead." That said, I realise that this is the Nike corporation and that you stand against most of what they stand for: leather, consumer capitalism, big business — and what could be farther from D.I.Y. than sweatshops? But the culprit here isn't Nike. You might be able to stop them from using the Minor Threat image, but foiling them this one time is a small bandage at best — Nike is merely a symptom. We need to point our attention toward a culture in which Nike can hijack the Minor Threat image and use it for an agenda that runs counter to the spirit of the image. This ad campaign has a target market and, unless this market is educated, the ad will succeed. Take aim at a culture in which the familiarity of an image is much more important than the intended meaning of the image. It should not be up to the creator or owner of an image to set things right. The onus is on the people at large (and punk rockers to set an example because this is our culture they're hijacking) to vote with our feet and our dollars. However, you currently have the platform to rally and educate the people. Don't let them get away with stealing our culture. I’d be happy to never again hear "London Calling" in a car ad. I realise that it is presumptuous of me to offer unsolicited advice, but here it is: take what money was going to go toward a legal battle and, instead, spend it on an ad campaign to educate the people. Let them know the history of D.I.Y. and what it means. And do it our way; forget Spin, go through the fanzines and the skate rags. This is for all of us. When I make an ethical stance, I want to be able to mean it. This incident shows that I currently cannot mean what I say, that the Nike corporation can take my ethical stance and use it to sell shoes. If Dischord Records can be appropriated, what hope do the rest of us have? We have always looked to you for guidance and to set an example. I am sorry that this falls on you, but you have always risen to the occasion before and, for that, I thank you. A fan, r.mutt i was thinking about whom at dischord i could contact and only cynthia connolly, whom i'd worked with during my time in college radio, came to mind. unforunately, she's currently on leave from dischord to pursue her art career. coincidentally, cynthia showed her photographs in last year's much big-upped travelling beautiful losers exhibition, which was sponsored by none other than nike.* this brings me to a vexing question: where is the line between cynthia connolly and vice magazine? vice's photographers laureate ryan mcginley and terry richardson were in the exhibition. vice magazine, the great trivialisers of art and politics, documentors — or, depending on how you look at it, originators — of the (new) ultra-shallow pluralism, manufacturers and standardisers of cool-guy-attitude (the magazine is, after all, just maxim for "cool guys"), which turns everything it touches into fashion, which stole the trucker hat from pacific northwest lesbians and gave it to ashton kutcher, and dischord records, which, with cynthia as a primary force, helped create one of the greatest and longest lasting d.i.y. punk scenes this continent has ever seen, are indistinguishable. and both shill for nike.** this is why i'm always ragging on pitchfork and "indie rock" songs in television commercials and major label defections and hot hot heat. could there be a beautiful losers show without vice? it's doubtful. and where is that "major threat" nike ad going to run? vice fucking magazine. and what about the great art involved with beautiful losers (of which, by the way, there isn't a great deal)? well, it's been appropriated too. actually, the entire exhibition is an appropriation of disparate participants of skate, graffiti, hip-hop, and punk rock culture, packaged together with other "outsider" artists and designers under the label of a "street culture" "group show." the exhibition's nod to its "forefathers" (among them keith haring, futura 2000, and basquiat) is appropriate but unintentionally so. in showing (hijacking) the work of these artists, the exhibition is appropriating them to legitimate its younger artists, themselves appropriated in a manner eerily reminiscent of haring, futura, basquiat, et alia's first appropriation at the hands of the new york art scene of the late 70's and early 80's.*** when i saw raymond pettibon's work at MoMA, a part of me thought we won, they acknowledge us. another part felt sick to my stomach. but this is what we all deal with: we would like for the work of the artists of our culture (for me, people like pettibon, miranda july, the fort thunder collective, and khaela maricich — ironically, the latter is currently an artist in residence at wieden and kennedy, the advertising firm that created this ad) to be engaged with as thoughtfully as that of the gerhard richters and daniel burens of the world. but, at the same time, we are (rightfully) fearful of appropriation, be it at the hands of vice magazine, the new york gallery scene, or nike. there is, for lack of a better term, a new "hipster" culture out there and it encompasses such disparate but all genuinely worthwhile elements of punk rock scenes as sonic youth, miranda july, lightning bolt, and sonja ahlers (ted leo, bless his heart, is too earnest not to be scoffed at by these poseurs). it also includes interesting people like prince paul, harmony korine, and my old high school friend the vice-approved photographer asher penn, and bullshit like nike dunks. depending on which secret handshake you know, you might not be privy to a few of these things and, in their place, you'll have, say, mcsweeney's, pharell williams, or the killers. but know this: this culture does not exist. it is a myth. they're just trying to sell you shit. remember when we were kids and we would pretend that we were in a gang whose other members were limited to each and every person that we were friends with or liked or admired? this is that fantasy all over again; don't buy it. think of all your heroes being decontextualised and ranked according to the "hip" barometer, all for the sake of advertising revenue and, ultimately, lining the pockets of multinational corporations. can you imagine a worse fate? * trivia: the exhibition originated at none other than the contemporary arts center in cincinnati — you know, the one where everybody went apeshit and censor-happy over the robert mapplethorpe retrospective so many years ago. ** note: i am not calling out cynthia connolly for her involvement in the nike-sponsored beautiful losers exhibition. her choice is her own and we all draw the line at a different place. this was within her boundaries and i respect that. as stated in my open letter to dischord, i am more concerned with this culture in which fame, familiarity, and "hip"-ness count for more than context, history, and political engagement than i am with legislating how other people choose to live their lives. *** quote: "the center has invaded the periphery and vice-versa. here a strange double-bind occurs. for example, a once marginal institution proposes a show of a marginal group: the museum does so to (re)gain at least the aura of marginality, and the marginal group agrees... only to lose its marginality" (hal foster, recodings: art, spectacle, cultural politics [seattle: bay press, 1985], pp. 25-26). for more on this topic, see the first two chapters of professor foster's book, "against pluralism" and "between modernism and the media." pages 48-52 are particularly germane to the artwork and the issues at hand. 6/23/05 A PROPOS OF THIS AND THIS (12:25 a.m. PST, flipping channels waiting for conan o'brien to start) roger ebert namedropped miranda july on the tonight show with jay fucking leno. (later on 6/23/05) RED, I'M SEEING RED courtesy of pitchforkmedia's daily music news, "indie" "rockers" everywhere are waking up angry at one of the most disgusting developments in contemporary advertising. remember when east bay ray, klaus fluoride, and d. h. peligro sued jello biafra and alternative tentacles for control of the dead kennedys back catalogue when the latter refused to license "holidays in cambodia" for a levi's commercial? imagine if levi's had used the song anyways. then imagine if the dead kennedys stood for what minor threat and, metonymically, fugazi and dischord records stand for. and, of course, pile on all of the awful things nike stands for. i'm constantly writing in this space about the hijacking of our punk rock culture — generally with at least one wilful participant; (ahem) ms. hanna — by consumer capitalism. but this one scares the pants off me, if only because i'm sure in the end dischord may end up with a little cash but the ads will run and nike will, to make a huge understatement, make more than enough dollars to recoup. i may not care for the tactics of teenaged straight-edge goons, but now's a good time for them to stop stabbing "jocks" and "preps" who drink beer and wear leather basketball shoes and go after nike ad executives. marchons, marchons; qu'un sang impure abreuve nos sillons. scarier yet is that this ad campaign will work. we all know that the medium is the message, but if minor threat/fugazi/dischord records — staunch vegans one and all, progenitors of the north american d.i.y. punk ethos, who refuse to put barcodes on their records because it turns art into commerce, who refuse to make t-shirts because it turns art into commerce, who refuse to sell records at shows because it turns art into commerce — can stand for leather, sweatshops, and the most advanced of consumer capitalism, then the rest of us can make all the ethical stances we want, we still won't mean it. it's like stalin banishing us to siberia and collectivising the signifieds — and no one even noticing. (still 6/23/05) "WE BUILT THIS CITY" (from coniferous) go back where you came from where you got that bad tan where you got that mesh hat go back to your old friends go back where you came from where you got that bad tan i don't want you near me go back to your old friends go back where you came from i see you've made new friends i see you've met my friends now you look just like them go back where you came from i see you've made friends here these used to be my friends you know i just left them your hand on your door and you're closing it you used to be an orientalist — now you hang your rugs on the floor your hand on your mouth and you're covering it you used to say all kinds of shit — and it'll start to come out more and more go back where you came from these used to be my friends the things that they say now i fucking hate them your hand on the door and you're closing it while i wonder what i'm going to miss — and what we'll build tomorrow my hand on my mouth — it still surprises me when i see my old disguises on tv and no one realises it. (4:07 p.m. PST, 6/23/2005) NO COMMENT 6/20/05 I'M GOING TO MAKE THIS TAPE AND IT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST TAPE EVER me: what about the cassette revolution? calvin johnson: didn't you hear? we won. (2001) i finally got around to picking up the thurston moore edited mix tape: the art of cassette culture today (see thurston's introduction to the volume and what the village voice has to say). as someone who used to refuse to release music on any format other than cassettes, i was thrilled with this volume. my reasoning behind this stance was twofold: firstly, it was a political gesture against mass manufactured music. cassettes — at least the way we at monoculture were "manufacturing" them — are homemade, the way art should be. there's only one thing more satisfying than finally getting vinyl back from the plant, sleeves back from the printers, assembling them, and marvelling at the commodity fetish item in your hands and that's breaking out a cassette you dubbed yourself encased in an insert you photocopied yourself and listening to music you cared enough about to reproduce (be it your own or someone whose work you believed in). but why not cd-r's you ask? that brings me to my second reason: compact discs are the tool of the devil. i once was so into my shit that it offended me that anyone would skip past a song on my album, or even, for that matter, listen to a song on repeat. an album is a whole and sequencing is important (and when artists stopped making albums with sides a and b in mind, we lost something significant; when the day comes that nobody remembers there ever was a side a and b, it will be gone forever). i still believe that, though more as a music listener than as an album maker. i wanted to force the listener to engage with the album as a whole. i still want this, but, to quote alex chilton's ultimate mix tape clichι, i won't maaake yoooou. ultimately, my cassette-only stance unravelled because the monoculture universe contained precious few cassette listeners. the first crack in my kassette oder nichts stance was being in a band with a guy whose walkman broke and he couldn't afford a new one. all he had was the c.d. drive on his iMac; we had to release the album on compact disc. then nobody listened to the two r.mutt e.p.'s. seriously, nobody. couldn't be bothered to break out the tape machines. yeah, i'm still bitter. the LP offers what a cassette can in terms of difficulty and the imposition of sequencing. the cd-r offers what a cassette can for homemadeness. but not only can a cassette do both of these things, it hums. that's huge. to quote brandon stosuy's village voice article, IPods exist without souls. That's why they look so clean and perfect. Cassettes offer tactility: You collapse the tabs to ensure work isn't erased, but can bridge the indentations again with tape or crumbled paper to reuse. With its inherent noise, a cassette is a ready-made palimpsest. most of the rest of the article is vapid, but stosuy nails it right there. With its inherent noise, a cassette is a ready-made palimpsest — that was the prolepsis e.p. in a sentence. ted leo knows this. tellingly, though, i'm the only person i know who likes Tej Leo(?), Rx/Pharmacist, ted's own great, misunderstood prolepsis, and, among the critics, only douglas wolk, my former colleague at the yuppie paper that dare not drop its name (not the voice, by the way), got it. stosuy proceeds to go all "are these actual miles?" on us and drops You can learn to love its bruises: A warp in a track ingrains itself in your head so deeply you begin to think that's the way it was meant to sound. that's his other great point, though he's just echoing a sentiment from one of thurston's chapter intros. (i'll leave the technical side of the analogue v. digital debate out of this because i've delved into it before in this blog and, if you've ever talked to me about cassettes, you probably don't need to hear that lecture again. i'll just say that the pursuit of purity through perceived perfection is a wild goose chase.) but there's more: beyond cassette record labels (shrimper, simple machines' tool cassette series, early k, etc.), there are artists who engage with cassette tape as a medium. i count two of my all-time heroes, lou barlow and the aforementioned ted leo, among them. when you're recording onto normal bias tape via a tascam four track, it's not meant to sound any one way because you know laying it down that it's not going to sound like you intended. it will sound different on headphones than on speakers and it will sound different when you dub it onto a "master" cassette and, if you're going to release it on compact disc, it's going to sound different on the computer and it's going to sound different in a c.d. player. if you're going to record on cassette, you might as well release cassettes. would you touch the ball with your hands if you were playing soccer? this is what i'm thinking of these days as i'm finishing the tradition and the individual talents album. it will be on c.d., but it shouldn't be. if i have one complaint with mix tape, it's that so many of the tapes in the book are full of songs that everybody knows and, worse yet, many of them are full of full-blown mix tape clichιs. i didn't see big star's "thirteen" on my first read through, but i did see "heroin," "teenage kicks," and "blank generation" on the same tape. personally, i prefer to make tapes with songs the listener hasn't heard and doesn't already love. but that's just me — there is something to be said for creating something new out of songs readymade with meaning to the listener. there's this mix tape in my head, it begins with "smells like teen spirit" and follows it with eighty-five minutes of songs i personally know the listener has never heard. a prolepsis? perhaps. but if that listener just gives it a few honest listens... until then, my retro early nineties mix tape: side a sebadoh "gimme indie rock" dinosaur "freak scene" superchunk "slack motherfucker" pavement "price yeah!" archers of loaf "plumb line" built to spill "so & so so & so from wherever wherever" pavement "frontwards" mike watt "tuff gnarl" dinosaur "i live for that look" the peechees "tired imagery" superchunk "tie a rope to the back of the bus" sebadoh "the freed pig" helium "superball" eric's trip "follow" unrest "teenage suicide" pavement "box elder" side b the pixies "debaser" dinosaur "in a jar" poster children "modern art" superchunk "on the mouth" brainiac "i, fuzzbot" mudhoney "overblown" dinosaur "not you again" pavement "perfume-v" eric's trip "stove" superchunk "throwing things" (acoustic version) daniel johnston "casper" superconductor "there she goes" guided by voices "gold star for robot boy" poster children "if you see kay" pavement "in the mouth a desert" sebadoh "brand new love" 6/16/05 ARGLE BARGLE OR FOOFARAW? since everyone and his/her mother apparently has one, here is a preliminary list for my top ten simpsons episodes of all time. five of these should be my six through ten: meltdown, homer the heretic, monorail, duff gardens, bart's bigger brother, homer goes to college, a fish called selma, lisa's rival, and lisa on ice. my set in stone top five are as follows: 5. burns' casino 4. dental plan 3. secrets of a successful marriage 2. deep space homer 1. australia 6/13/05 CONIFER OH CONNIE click here to see the first sketch for the cover of the new tradition and the individual talents album coniferous. the artist, justin teodoro, also does a comic called devil baby, which will hit the internet sometime this week — whenever he gets around to coming to my house so i can teach him how to use the internet, to be exact. when that happens, come back here for the link. ADDENDUM (6/25/05): devil baby online 6/10/05 THOU WAST NOT BORN FOR DEATH, IMMORTAL BIRD!, or: "ANGELS DO NOT EAT IN RESTAURANTS" my favourite song in the world right now is mindy smith's cover of "a nightingale sang in berkeley square." i first came across mindy smith, the mom-rock alt-country singer with chan marshall's je ne sais quoi, on one of clearchannel's pre-programmed music stations on a plane between las vegas and portland, oregon. it's not that her music sounded particularly like sarah mclachlan — the two songs that grabbed me immediately sounded more like late-get up kids and the new amsterdams or, to be more charitable, the weakerthans, than anything else; the ones i came to love are more in line with later franηoise hardy or carol king — but her music was the stuff of soccer moms' lilith fair dreams. that je ne sais quoi, however, made smith's one moment more one of the ten best pop albums of last year, critical prejudice and generic hierarchies be damned. but smith's rendition of "a nightingale sang" is one of those covers that, like neko case's version of "christmas card from a hooker in minneapolis," shatters our conceptions of an already remarkable artist by displaying an emotional range no one knew was there. continuing her one-woman crusade to elevate the culture of squares to the lofty heights of very good, if not great, music, smith's "a nightingale sang" is incomparably better than a song from a cd called sweetheart: love songs — a seasonal impulse buy item retailed by starbucks last february, horrifically enough — has any right to be. imagine a jazz piano with a spring in its step replacing the sweeping strings in nat king cole or frank's renditions of the song; now imagine the words coming out of a voice with cat power's hesitation and, at the same time, rufus wainwright's closed-eyes showmanship. it's as if petula clark never covered "san francisco (be sure to wear flowers in your hair)" and all of those homeless people who've been pushed off telegraph ave. have roofs over their heads and never had go to 'nam. yes, i'm aware that the song is about berkeley square in london and not berkeley, california, but, even though it's pronounced "barkley" and i can't get the round mound of rebound out of my head, the song takes me to the berkeley aaron cometbus writes about, the berkeley he dreams about and probably even believes exists: an imaginary city i hold dear to my heart — so dear, in fact, that it might just be a good thing that uc berkeley holds the distinction of being the only school to reject me twice in my lifetime. speaking of the culture of squares, i just made a mixtape of songs yuppies would also enjoy: lots of songs about rain, songs about the sun, songs about summer, lots of covers of famous songs by inoffensive artists — white people with acoustic guitars everywhere. and lots of emiliana torrini. the tracklist: SIDE ONE 1. teenage fanclub "who loves the sun" (vu cover) 2. quasi "it's raining" (piano and handclaps version from their tour-only cd-r) 3. the owls "air" 4. the lucksmiths "there is a light that never goes out" (smiths cover) 5. the colorifics "747 (i see heaven)" 6. rodney graham "what is happy, baby" 7. ted leo "since u been gone" (kelly clarkson cover) 8. the yeah yeah yeahs "maps" (acoustic version from their KNDD end session) 9. emiliana torrini "i hope that i don't fall in love with you" (tom waits cover) 10. carol king "so far away" 11. tullycraft "sad, sad, day" 12. the 6ths "falling out of love (with you)" (ft. dean wareham) 13. aden "intro" 14. emiliana torrini "sunnyroad" (atom's future folk mix) SIDE TWO 1. damon and naomi "while my guitar gently weeps" (beatles cover) 2. dean wareham and britta phillips "forever" (beach boys cover) 3. emiliana torrini "stephanie says" (vu cover) 4. eugenius "indian summer" (beat happening cover) 5. neko case "buckets of rain" (dylan cover) 6. teenage fanclub "have you ever seen the rain" (ccr cover) 7. james mercer "pink bullets" (solo live version, 10/10/04) 8. mindy smith "a nightingale sang in berkeley square" (i suppose nat king cole's version is considered the definitive one) 9. billy bragg "valentine's day is over" 10. ted leo/pharmacists "many rivers to cross" (jimmy cliff cover) 11. dear nora "sarah, you're not for me" 12. claudine longet "i think it's going to rain today" (randy newman cover) 6/07/05 iTUNES THINKS I'M COOL there's this little game going around other people's blogs where you get iTunes to list your songs alphabetically and you write out the first song that comes up for each letter of the alphabet. apparently, it's suppposed to provide a random cross section of your (real) musical tastes because it wouldn't be in your iTunes player if you didn't listen to it. i don't know if that's true, but the selection below does indicate that my music folder is full of the kind of difficult music people namedrop all the time but never actually listen to, which, in some circles, might indicate that i'm cool. in other circles, i might be considered a total nerd or a pretentious asshole who downloads too many fall albums. none of the embarassing crap i listen to came up. thankfully, those bands don't name their songs "L Dopa" or "R.O.D." "A Brief Moment of Clarity Broke Through the Deafening Hum, but It Was Too Late" — Red Sparrowes "Baby's on Fire" — Brian Eno "C.R.E.E.P." — The Fall "Dad for a Song" — Hella "E-Musik" — Neu! "F.D.C. for Short" — Melt Banana "G.I. Joe" (ft. Mike Patton) — The Melvins "Half Hour Handshake (Movement 3)" — Hella "I'd Like to See You Again" — A Certain Ratio "Jack of Diamonds" — Daily Flash "Kansas" — The Wedding Present "L Dopa" — Big Black "M.I.C." — Hόsker Dό "Natural History" — Desperate Bicycles "O Green World" — Gorillaz "Pablo Picasso" — Television Personalities "Quasarsphere" — Manuel Gφttsching "R.O.D." — The Fall "Sad Mona Lisa" — Television Personalities "T.B. Sheets" — Van Morrison "U.S. 80's-90's" — The Fall "Vacation" — Holiday "W" — Hella "X" — Mitch Hedberg "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah" — The Wedding Present "Zero Leg" — Liquid Liquid 6/02/05 FOUR FRENCH/WO/MEN: CHABROL, HUPPERT, MOUGLALIS, BOURDIEU several months ago, i picked up marjorie perloff's poetic license again. i first flipped through it two and half years ago, when i was writing my undergraduate thesis on w. b. yeats. what struck me about the book this time, however, was how perloff came back again and again to how french people have much much better taste in american poetry than americans. tonight i came home and watched claude chabrol's wonderful merci pour le chocolat and it struck me that french people not only have much better taste in films than us here in north america, but that they have a much better idea of what american cinema should do. we all know that the french can make a much better art film than, say, harmony korine, gus van sant, or vincent gallo. but to those who accuse me of fawning over anything with the name "franηois truffaut" written on the front, i'm here tonight to praise a light-hearted petit-bourgeois film, a sideways if you will (or, for that matter, an amelie). chabrol takes go-nowhere source material (charlotte armstrong's the chocolate cobweb) and from it delivers a wonderful mystery about not being a mystery: no overwrought emotionally soul-searching performances and no surprise ending, nothing but subtlety and a seemingly medical aversion to the "hook" — when i worked in print journalism, "hook hook hook," my editors would scream at me via email in CAPLOCKS. i haven't seen a film with a plot arc so flat — or a film so lovingly created for the sheer joy of filmmaking — since gerry. it's not that nothing happens; on the contrary, this is the type of film whose little bits of cleverness continue coming to you throughout the day for a week afterwards. but for all the little loose ends that tie up in the coming days, there's no "message," as my brother is wont to say, just a light film for light film's sake. having recently seen the abysmal ma mθre (to those of you who accuse me of fawning over anything based on a georges bataille novel, so there), i think i might be getting over my isabelle huppert addiction. oh she was good in it, as she was in merci pour le chocolat, but, in both of these, she's playing the role she perfected in la pianiste. this is not, by any means, to say that she's a one trick pony — each character i've seen her play is richly nuanced like no other actor in recent memory — but her choice of roles hardly qualifies her as a chameleon. still, i (heart) huckabees is high on my to-watch list. anna mouglalis, however, shone. your eyes follow her around the way your eyes are supposed to follow around every heroine in the history of film. the way you could tell natalie portman in garden state and minnie driver in good will hunting (the first examples that come to mind) were supposed to look, that's how chabrol filmed mouglalis. clearly, the slicked-up, supersaturated hyperreality of hollywood's lens is to blame for the fact that no american heroine has looked this way in at least fifteen years (eva green and jessica parι, two young actresses mouglalis closely resembles, don't; winona ryder has tried the hardest and, perhaps, come the closest), but i wonder if hollywood's actresses on the most part lack the self-conscious unself-consciousness that, say, hepburn, bardot, and monroe seemed to have had in spades (sofia copolla tried to recreate this literally with kirsten dunst in the virgin suicides) and that we still see from time to time in both independent and mainstream foreign films. i'm not sure what i'm getting at with these observations other than that i really enjoyed merci pour le chocolat and i'm realising that the not unfounded but for the most part unsupported anti-commerce paranoia of the last book i read, pierre bourdieu's cleverly but misleadingly titled on television (a more accurate, albeit very dry, title might be "a structural analysis of the field of print journalism in the age of television"), is still fresh in my mind. on a completely unrelated note, check out monoculture world headquarters. albums r.mutt is listening to at the moment r.mutt's shopping list r.mutt blog archives