iris cancer:

What's wc_helmets enjoyed of 2009 so far?

( click here for musiks )

When Metafilter weighs in on the "Should we take Heidegger seriously because he was a Nazi?" debate (no, not the one a few years ago, or a few decades ago, or back in the 50's-- the current debate), the stoopid comes out to play.

My take: I've read his Introduction to Metaphysics and the Reader with a red cover, and I still don't get it that much. I mean Hegel is dense, but he's saying something. I'm not sure what it exactly it is yet, but I know it's something. Heidegger leaves me with a big "I dunno?" most of the time. I like the Da Sein ontology and his take on the reexamination of being, though I don't think the being of a tree experiences its being acutely though anxiety. I really need to read more Husserl, as he seems a saner take on the whole thing. Right now, I'm too nose deep in how leaven bread played in the East/West split to give much consideration to philosophy. Still, given what I've read of Heidegger, I'm not sure I see Nazism in his writing, but I can't discount the idea that it could be buried beneath all that superfluity.

You know what I hate? I hate when the talking-head Conservatives will go after Obama for talking up his health care crap for two minutes, with a gratuitous shout-out to someone in the crowd, before he gets to acknowledging the shooting at Fort Hood. You know why I hate it? Because they will be right. It would have been pretty simple to bring this up at the beginning of the speech; instead he has his My Pet Goat moment. Not a huge blunder move, but enough to make me say, "Geez, you're smarter than this."

I'm not sure what to think of Nine. The concept sounds terrible; however, I've never seen anything about the musical, and there's the added complication that Daniel-Day Lewis's filmography so far has no bad movies. I guess I'll wait and see.

TCM had 8 1/2 on Monday at like 12:30 in the afternoon. It seems such a strange idea to have a Fellini film on in the afternoon. I've been rewatching it lately. I'd seen it many years ago, but this time around, I've been noticing all the little things that reference this film. The opening scene shares similarities to REM's "Everybody Hurts", the director does a dance in a hallway that reminds me of Christopher Walken in "Weapon of Choice", and there's another dance scene at a party where the moves and the outfit of the woman completely reminds me of Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction".

Here's the intro:



JCVD was on Spike TV the other night. I've seen mention of this film, and a friend whose father also raised him on kickboxing movies recommended it. It's a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, but I thought it was excellent, and I see why Time magazine called him the #2 best actor of 2008, right behind Heath Ledger. In this scene, Van Damme (playing himself, losing a custody case over his child, and losing film projects because Segal cut his ponytail off) becomes a hostage in a post office robbery. Suddenly, he's lifted up to the lights, and he gives this monologue that is absolutely wonderful.



As far as I know, most of this was ad-lib.

Also, the bandwagon:

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
wc_helmets goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Roberto Rossellini.
ankh_f_n_khonsu tricks you! You get a scratched CD.
anosognosia gives you 13 white licorice-flavoured pieces of bubblegum.
csberry gives you 6 green coffee-flavoured jawbreakers.
efriden tricks you! You get a wet rag.
fb_sheex gives you 15 light green spearmint-flavoured gumdrops.
lilitaly tricks you! You lose 26 pieces of candy!
midwinterspring tricks you! You lose 6 pieces of candy!
mybodymycoffin tricks you! You get a clothespin.
pastorlenny gives you 5 red-orange cinnamon-flavoured pieces of bubblegum.
seraphimsigrist gives you 8 dark green tropical-flavoured gummy bats.
wc_helmets ends up with 15 pieces of candy, a scratched CD, a wet rag, and a clothespin.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

My costume has Ingrid Bergman permanently attached to my hip while my hand is fixed on the zipper of her dress.

( something like this )

I woke up this morning and turned it to the news to see what the coverage was in regards to Ted Kennedy. I turned it to Fox and thought to myself, "How long will it take them to mention Chappaquiddick?".

18 seconds. I rewound the DVR to count it. Way to stay classy. Now they're discussing Cash-for-Clunkers with the CEO of Toys R Us as a motorcade plays out on the opposite screen. Very bizarre.

Live the life of wc_helmets for a little while. Say sometime after high school when you started your King Crimson period you discover Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks by Brian Eno. It becomes one of your favorite albums ever as you start to think about new ways of making music and listening to music-- accidental ways of music, or the music of the sidewalk, or the music of leaves rustling. You do this whole "music as sound" thing for a while, playing in a noise-band project, playing a few times in Kansas City and St. Louis, and you enjoy making a lot of sound while playing your guitar through a loop pedal. This eventually plays into your post-rock phase, though all you really listen to from that genre is Godspeed You Black Emperor. Something about the repetition and the transmutations of this repetition that you like, and it coincides with you discovering Staukhausen, Cage, Reich and other modern composers who played with the concepts of minimalism, repetition, and other stuff that bores the occasional women that enter your life. Eventually, you start to lose interest in the guitar driven stuff and spend the last few years getting into the different permutations of dance music-- disco, italo, techno, house (no trance though). Again, this repetition and minimalism thing still plays out, but in different ways that you find interesting. Still, it all centers around these concepts, and you still occasionally break out the loop pedal and guitar when your friend needs an opening act for any minimalist post-rock bands that happen to be touring and playing in town. The music you record is different now, but you still like the free-form, not quite in control of the music kind of thing. It turns out you're pretty good at it, but you really don't have any musical aspirations aside from perfecting your craft and perfecting yourself. Hell, you don't even practice that much anymore. Still, there are times when you wish more people heard what you were doing, as you can't quite shake off the rockstar aspirations of Middle School.

With that in mind, someone sends you a link called inbflat and you think, "Wow, that's pretty neat! What a good way to utilize youtube for conceptual, musical reasons. That's really compelling."

"And it looks so simple. Just get a bunch of people to play something in Bb major. Why the hell didn't you think of that because you certainly can't do it now?!"

And then you go to watching the Star Trek:TNG with Frasier running his ship into the Enterprise over and over and over again in a time loop. Later you'll watch Gilmore Girls and a Woody Allen film with a lady around 10:00, and life is pretty content. Still, you didn't come up with "inbflat". That's where you're at now.

The headline made the juvenile in me chuckle. As a teen from the 90's, any phrase with the words 'Clinton' and 'grope' will do it for me.

Because America generally fears that "boom-boom-boom-boom" unless it's a glossy, overly produced Trance remake of an 80's song.

( cut for Kleerup )

"...to make love to the mountain..."

Arguments about what constitutes Jewishness even break out in places like the comments section for Nice and Smooth's "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" video. No place is immune from this on the internets, it seems. I just went in thinking to myself that I wanted to hear "Fast Cars". Gheesh!!

I think it's "Word World" on PBS that is sponsored by Chucky Cheese's. Anyway, lately my son has been referring to it as "Chunky Jesus", and I don't really have the heart to correct him on it. I wish we did have a fat Jesus type of antique figurine, like the fat Buddha who really isn't a Buddha but a Bodhisattva. Still, that sound's like a stupid Family Guy thing, and it turns out it is. There's also a Fat Jesus comic, but none of them are as funny as The Adventures of the Confessions of St. Augustine Bear.

( cut for hippy, stoner idea that actually works well )

http://www.mattclements.com/

Guess I didn't need that domain name anyway, damnit.

I've officially decided I'm on the Lady Gaga bandwagon. Place your chastisement here.

( cut for comparing her to John Cale and that 1/16th note choppy piano thing )

Dear G4:

I assume your demographic is nerdy, sex-obsessed males between the ages of 18-35. Being that my nerdy tastes differ from video games or comics or 6 hour blocks of Cheaters, and that I'm not all that sex obsessed, it should be no surprise that I never really watch your channel. By chance, I happened to see Flash Gordon was showing multiple times last week, and this filled my heart with a particular flavor of anticipation. You see, Flash Gordon is one of those films that rank with Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark in terms of importance in childhood development. I haven't seen the movie in years, and in all honesty, I don't need to, as I can just sit back, close my eyes, and picture the Earth in a red and yellow crosshair as Max Von Sydow booms "Klytus, I'm boooorrrred. What plaything you offer me today?". Still, given I hadn't seen the film in years, it seemed like a wonderful experience. I noticed your channel allotted 2 hours for the film, and given the film is like 1:45 or something, I figured extra cuts would be made to fit into the 1:30 minutes a movie like this would be with commercial breaks. Now, there are plenty of scenes of random filler that could be cut, so I figured the movie would make it out without a butchering, but I was sadly mistaken. For starters, you cut out Dr. Zarkov exclaiming "For God's sake, strap yourselves down-- quick!", which made no sense as it was a mere 3 seconds of dialogue, and considering it's in the soundtrack, that makes it untouchable. Then you cut the scene where Flash is to be executed and he meets up with Dale for what may be the last time, which wasn't that big of a deal.

However the one that boggled me the most was that you cut the entire scene of Flash escaping Mongo City with Princess Aura to meet with Timothy Dalton. What gets me about this is that it's a pivotal scene in which Flash reaches Dale though telepathy to let her know he's alright, so when the scene comes up where her and Zarkov are escaping and she tells him Flash is alive and that she talked to him though telepathy, the audience pulls a big WTF. "This never happened!" Most importantly though, this is the scene where Ornella Muti pulls off what may be the greatest from-the-head-up seduction scene ever on film, and given your demographic of oversexed nerdy manboys, this scene is quite pivotal. To cut it out is alienating at best and blasphemous at worst. Please keep this in mind next time you show a film, and I may just give Robo-cop a shot; for now, consider you ignored again.

Sincerely,

wc_helmets

You Scored as Donatism You are a Donatist. Donatism arose following the persecution of the Early Church, in which many Christians renounced their faith. This caused controversy over minsters who had renounced their faith who wanted to administer the sacraments. As a result, the Donatists began to re-baptise people who had fallen into sin. The Donatists flourished in North Africa until they got the chop from the Roman army in the late 300s. Chalcedon compliant 100% Pelagianism 67% Nestorianism 67% Monophysitism 33% Monarchianism 0% Donatism 0% Albigensianism 0% Socinianism 0% Modalism 0% Apollanarian 0% Arianism 0% Adoptionist 0% Gnosticism 0% Docetism 0%

There. Maybe all I needed was a good night's rest. Though now I'm a Donatist, even though I scored 0%. Hmmm.....

You Scored as Chalcedon compliant You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451. Nestorianism 67% Chalcedon compliant 67% Pelagianism 58% Modalism 42% Apollanarian 33% Monophysitism 33% Monarchianism 8% Donatism 0% Socinianism 0% Albigensianism 0% Arianism 0% Docetism 0% Adoptionist 0% Gnosticism 0%

In my defense, I'm lazily going through vol.2 of Pelican's series on Christian doctrine, and it's really stuck in Syria right now, so it's all the possible the subtleties of Syria are turning me heterodox and drawing me to stuff like this. I'm usually way more Pelagianist on these, though I'm not as bad as a Mormon. I should really be way more concerned with my heteropraxy, though.

Edit: from here.

( cut for Ministry live circa '87 )