AHAHAHAHA, I am all back and shizzle.

2011 has proven to be highly nonconducive to blogging (if you are me, which, sadly, I am, in perpetuity).  But as of now, I have recently moved, I have much better closet space (both physically and mentally), I have a bathroom wherein you can choose from several places to stand instead of just the one, I have a dishwasher again for the first time in five years,

and all of this amounts to a new outlook on life, love, and blogging.  I sincerely hope. Now, as for what I’ve been up to, other than a disturbing amount of arts consumption:

SO, I done did went and lost my whole music collection.  To wit:

Yeah.  It began when I dropped my external hard drive — only from about a foot high, but the injury was apparently sufficient to alienate it from my laptop, which turned its back and refused to acknowledge the drive thenceforth.  Being the plucky, adventurous sort that I am, I grabbed a screwdriver, dug in, and poked at its innards menacingly until it momentarily bent to my will.  In that moment, I managed to rescue about 1,500 songs (a drop in the proverbial bucket); the device then began to smoke, and I maturely chose to call it quits.

Thanks to a brand-new terabyte, the benevolence of loved ones, backup copies I forgot I had, and the eruption of Spotify, I am now largely back on track.  Those were some dicey days, though.  My hair started to fall out, my jaw started to click, and the night sweats were grueling.  Saddest of all, between the rebuilding process and preparation for my move, I had little to no time to enjoy any music; I was too busy acquiring it.  (I hadn’t even finished listening to all of The King of Limbs yet!)  So, these days are characterized by a pathetic flurry of me trying to make up for lost time.

It has only made me stronger, though, I am sure.

So, let me know if there are particular things I should be listening to; there has never been a better time to influence my behavior with reckless abandon.  In the meantime, I’ll be bopping around to Crystal Castles and hanging things on my walls.

If there were ever a man who could turn a receding hairline into a steamy sex symbol, it might be Nick Cave.

I should clarify:  I am not really attracted to Nick Cave.  I don’t think.  

<thinks> 

Probably not.  But I am attracted to the grit of him, the idea of him, rotating smugly on the needle of his own manly brand of beautiful ugly (referring to his artistry, not his face). I am attracted to his magnificently media-spanning talent. The Proposition* was half grimy bloodbath — heavy on the grime — and half visual poem.  (Join me in pretending that I didn’t just say that.)  Its soundtrack (co-composed by Warren Ellis, to be discussed later) was murderously sweet, delicately sick.  And The Death of Bunny Munro achieved the heretofore mercifully unattempted: it made me feel a sense of attachment to a child.  The queasy seesawing between the detached, nympho- and egomaniacal Bunny, Sr., and the bright, earnest, and heartbreakingly genuine Bunny, Jr., was torturously effective, and it caused me retroactively to fear growing up.  (This introduced some conflicts to my day-to-day routine.)

So, of course I’m onboard with Grinderman, which I enjoyed live this past weekend, along with a cool and refreshing $10 gin & tonic.  (I felt I was still owed about three more dollars’ worth of refreshment afterward.) 

Opening for the group was lone thereminist Armin Ra, who warmed up — well, cooled down, I mean, let’s be honest — the audience with such hard-raging crunk classics as “Ave Maria” and “Nature Boy.”  Don’t misunderstand; I liked him.  I’m just saying the relationship between the two acts may not have been . . . immediately apparent.

But back to the Cave.  This tall drink of whiskey remains quite spry, twisting about on the stage, zigging from keyboard to guitar, testifying about demons and wolfmen and executioners — none of which one can help but imagine as Cave himself.  (Same with Bunny Munro.  Is anyone really likely to have some other mental image of the character?)  Meanwhile, off to his side is the transfixing, cyclonic insanity of Warren Ellis, who is doing everything in his power to resemble a quasi-savage cave person** — no small feat when one is playing a violin!  He spent most of “Evil!” writhing around on the floor.  At one point he began smashing a hi-hat cymbal between a set of maracas, applying all the gusto of . . . well, of a quasi-savage cave person.

I’ve not heard any of Ellis’s group, Dirty Three, so I suppose I’ll make that the something-billionth entry on my to-do list. . . .

No wacky background images or stage gimmicks, just a rich rock cacophony with a hot testosterone injection.  (Yeah, that’s right.)  At one point, the highly mobile Cave knocked over his own mic stand as he was making his way over to interact with/intimidate some front-row fans, and the hapless roadie who rushed out to right it somehow failed and had to remove it from the stage completely; I suppose it had to be quarantined.  All well and good until Cave crossed to the keyboard and found himself with a mic in his hand.  For the first electronic interlude, he just plopped the thing down on the keys he wasn’t playing.  (The indigenous musicians use every part of the instrument.)  For the second, he chucked it over his shoulder.   This gave me joy.

The low point of the show came when Cave lashed out at an audience member; he corrected him about something the gentleman had apparently yelled, then followed it with, “. . . you dumb fuck.  I thought this was supposed to be a university town.”  I should perhaps explain: it was only a low point because I didn’t catch the correction.  What if it was something hilarious?  And I missed it?  Pooh.  Moments later, Cave snidely dedicated “When My Love Comes Down” to the aforementioned dumb fuck, and there was much rejoicing.

Although they did not play my favorite Grinderman song (“Go Tell the Women,” for no readily apparent reason), I am quite in favor of the new album and found the performance delightful.  Cave is fond of letting go of his guitar from time to time and crooning a choice lyrical line while holding his arms above his head, limp-wristed, in a sort of Jesus-meets-Dorothy’s-scarecrow stance.

It suits him perfectly.

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* Danny Huston was present when I saw The Proposition, and I asked him a question at the end, and he made a joke to the audience at my expense, and it did nothing to dampen my love of the film.  Nothing!

** No pun intended.

1) One of my favorite things about the Antoine Dodson phenomenon (and believe me, it’s a tough race) is watching more and more people run around discussing memes and trying to make it sound as though this word has been a part of their casual vocabulary for years.

2) The latest title sequence for Hell’s Kitchen is inexcusable.  In all aspects.

3) I love Inspectah Deck‘s name.  I love it.  I make this face whenever I see it:
If I had my way, all rappers would give themselves similar professional titles: Comptrollah, Social Workah, Census Takah, Artificial Inseminatah. . . .

4) I so want AMC’s The Walking Dead to be good.  But I’ve been hurt so many times before.

5) The hypothetical remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is dangerous.  The only thing I dared to hope might still preserve a movie from having “tribute paid” in the form of being  rudely manhandled off of its own pedestal by copycat enthusiasts was active, fervent cult status.  I hoped studios would be too wary of these twitchy “cult” types to mess with their stuff, fearing that these people were unhinged to some degree and were likely to perform all sorts of bizarre acts of retribution involving trout.  But, predictably enough, the woefully overly inflated Glee bubble (which will totally pop, by the way, splattering everyone in its path except the unimpeachable Jane Lynch with — no, not Slushie, just garden-variety noxious goo) has fostered a sense of invincibility among its producers.  They believe they can battle the cult and win.  The gall!  Does anyone truly expect that the hallucinogenic, yet oddly mesmerizing pointlessness and perversion of the original will be maintained when, say, Kristin Chenoweth and Russell Brand are prancing around as Columbia and Riff Raff?  I think not, pilgrim.

(Believe me, I am far from a die-hard Horror fan.  I just have a sense of propriety.)

In any case, assuming this project goes through, expect the cult’s entire pantry to be raided.  The Evil Dead starring Zachary Levi, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure starring Rainn Wilson, and Harold and Maude starring Justin Bieber and Betty White.

 6) Apparently, some hoarders are also simultaneously battling other issues.  Weird.

O spotty internet connectivity, ye wretched foe of timely blogging!

O poor time-management skills, thou dost not help either!

Setting these trifles asides: This week I went to see the American Repertory Theater‘s production of Cabaret, starring Amanda Palmer* of the Dresden Dolls as the Emcee (sporting a tightly bound rack and a moderately prominent phallic lump).  I did this surreptitiously, so as not to attract the attention of a friend who has strong feelings for Neil Gaiman and therefore resents Amanda Palmer.  Love is double-edged phallic lump.

(If you’re in the market for other reasons to resent Amanda Palmer, try Googling her name along with “ableism,” and you’ll be treated to an embarrassment of riches.)

For the record, I was entirely neutral about Ms. Palmer, heading into the theater.  I enjoy the Dresden Dolls; that’s about the extent of my preconceiving.  Anyway, the casting of her in this show apparently came with some unusual strings attached, in that she insisted that the A.R.T. hire her high school drama director to helm it.  I suppose that’s better than Dustin Diamond allegedly charging a $100 penalty every time someone at one of his stand-up gigs mentions his former role as Screech.**  I suppose.  Maybe.

Cambridge’s recently minted Club Oberon theater housed this program.  Five seats per table; my party of three shared with two single, older gentlemen who clearly had far too much Personal Integrity to sit next to each other just because the rest of us were all together.  Hence, I ended up between them, because I am a trooper.  On the whole, they were far less troublesome than the even older gentleman behind us, who (drunkenly? senilely? such a fine line . . . ) complained about the staging whenever he couldn’t see something, loudly declared that the saxophone player deserved a raise, and became terribly excited when a song he knew came on (psst! — the song was “Cabaret” — weird, huh?) and began to sing (dreadfully) along, effectively murdering the dark and portentous vibe that the song was intended to nurture.

Anyway, Palmer was good in the role — buyable, and the gender-bending wasn’t limited to her, so she didn’t stand out like a sore gimmick or anything.  Needless to say, the genre is perfectly suited to her musical stylings, and the script happily showcases them.  Broadly (heh!) speaking, given the nature of the show’s content, the nature of Palmer’s persona, and the nature of experimental theater these days, I don’t think there was anything too shocking or innovative happening here.  In the Kit Kat Klub’s  ”anything-goes, pan-sexual bazaar,”*** is the Emcee character really so wedded to his testosterone?  Am I the only person who enters virtually any theatrical performance these days expecting to see people cross-dress, strip, hump, excrete, etc., whether the show is by Edward Albee or Hans Christian Andersen?  Have I grown too jaded?  I suspect my inner child morphed into a teenage runaway years ago — maybe around ’97, when I saw Northwestern University’s hypersexualized production of Into the Woods.

Meh.  Either way.  I had a fun night out that required no heavy lifting.  And I got to drink wine throughout.  Thumbs up all around.

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* Or Amanda Fucking Palmer, if you’d prefer to get technical.

** It’s unclear whether they are allowed to walk the fine line of mentioning his porn film, Screeched.  Maybe they get a discount for that.

*** Phrase courtesy of Arrested Development.

Remember Electric Dreams?  The dude buys a “state-of-the-art” computer that ends up falling in love with Virginia Madsen?  And the computer (Edgar) tries to fight him for her?  All to the soothing tones of Giorgio Moroder?

Ha ha!

Quite sure I’m not the first to use that pun.

I grew up listening to Rush.  Just not by choice.

My older brother was one very earnest Rush fan.  Like all teenagers, he had perfected a stereo volume level that was one decibel shy of disintegrating the walls, and if we wanted to summon him for something — to consume a meal, say, that would keep him alive — we did not call his name.  We repeatedly banged on the downstairs hallway wall with our fists.  My Patty Duke-like mother took to this practice remarkably passively; she would not say “Go call your brother for dinner,” but, “Go punch the wall.”  Later, said brother became a drummer who practiced in said bedroom, and to call him for dinner was to bleed from the knuckles.  We toyed with the idea of letting him starve, but it was the ’90s, and society frowned on that sort of thing.

I digress.

I didn’t come to like and appreciate Rush until college, when I worked in a dining hall. The only station that the dish room stereo could pick up reliably was I-100, our local bonanza of classic rock.  (Station ID slogan: “Ithaca spells classic rock.”  Yeah. Meditate on that one for a while.)  They mostly just played “Tom Sawyer” and “The Spirit of Radio,” but these reminded me of others from my adolescence.  I sought them out for nostalgia purposes . . . then added Rush to the pile of 832,219 groups I enjoy.

I did not watch the VMAs.  However, I did “happen on by” at one point, in time to see: (1) Florence Welch sing flat for half of “Dog Days Are Over“; (2) Lady GaGa galumph onto the stage with the help of 14 men (all right, two); and (3) Taylor Swift lay her Benevolent Fingertips of Justice upon the diminished Kanye.  Okay, she sang a song.  A vague, clichéed, and barely applicable song . . . something about monsters and fireflies and lunchboxes.  The bottom line was that St. Swift can still, somehow, see the good in the shattered Kanye that we wolverines have savagely ignored as we gnaw away at his limbs.  And lest we doubt her tidings of Purity, Truth, and Light, she sang it barefoot.* 

photo credit: torieewearsprada

(If she really wanted to send a message, she should have sung it in a hoodie.)

Oddly, the performance did not end with Taylor and Kanye tenderly making out on stage, so I abandoned the broadcast in favor of finishing season one of The Tudors.  Damn that ridiculous, intoxicating show!  I began it for no other reason than Jonathan Rhys Meyers (damn that ridiculous, intoxicating man, while we’re at it).  Never did I imagine that the cast would contain another who made me forget all about JRM; Henry Cavill, my hat is off to you.  As are whatever other articles of clothing you choose.

Season two arrives soon.

Then it was time to break the seal on the Stieg Larsson movies, as I have done with the books.  I ordered up the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on demand and settled in.

Huh.

First off, no disrespect to cinematographers Jens Fischer and Eric Kress, but the lighting in this film seemed . . . off, somehow.  It made everyone’s skin look worse than it was (and oftentimes, it wasn’t so hot to begin with).

Second, one thought I had while reading the book was that, given how research-heavy the plot’s ”action” is, it was difficult to imagine a very lively visual adaptation.  Unfortunately, it still is.  Director Niels Arden Oplev did strip out most of the phlegmatic corporate and banking details that spent far too much time stagnating in the novel (God bless him).  But even so.

Also stripped (pun intended): two of the three sexual liaisons that protagonist Mikael Blomqvist indulged in throughout the book.  A good thing, too; actor Michael Nyqvist’s problematic, semi-bowl-cut  hairstyle would have been particularly difficult to square with a steady stream of concubines.  The only babe to survive the cut (pun also intended) is the titular Lisbeth Salander, who was probably able to overlook his hair because she’s so damaged and contrary. 

I only recently learned that the book’s Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women (which, frankly, makes a lot more sense than seizing upon an only dimly relevant piece of ink).  Mikael Blomqvist is clearly intended to be the respectful antidote to this toxic and abusive portion of the population. Still, it’s worth pointing out that feminist warrior Lisbeth is only initially drawn to want to nail Mikael because he does not demonstrate an eagerness to nail her.  I am woman, hear me indulge my psychological reactance.

A friend and Facebook fan directed me to this take on the delicate interplay between Mikael Blomqvist and one Mr. Stieg Larsson.  Amusing and full of good points.  I am less irritated by the literature than the post’s author seems to be; I’ve read far worse books, but as I’ve indicated before, it’s the phenomenon that bugs the heck out of me.  I’m not angry at Stieg, I’m angry at them.  The world.  The public.  The global denizens so wholly starstruck by such a run-of-the-mill piece of fiction. 

Inked-up antisocials aren’t so exotic, hand to God.

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* Favorite (though completely un-PC) blog comment, from Gawker-reader anchower:  “Revenge is a dish best served retarded.”

Remember the Paula Abdul video for “Rush, Rush“?  With Keanu Reeves and the drag race?  Ha ha!

Listening to Caravan Palace. I feel a wicked obsession coming on.