Odds and Ends

So I've got a real post in the works, but I don't feel like writing it right now, so I'm just going to share some things:

I've gone into detail before on my love of shitty political cartoons that I disagree with. In the midst of a bunch of fawning cartoons about Obama at Slate, there was this:



All the reasons that this cartoon is stupid are so numerous and obvious I won't go into them. I'll just let you soak it in. Really, cartoons that unintentionally mimic The Onion's intentionally awful editorials like the one below make me laugh. I love it when reality outdoes parody for ridiculousness. Also, no matter what, editorial cartoons are never really funny, but they can become transcendentally greatly awful when they apparently come from some paranoid, misanthropic crank who's scared of change and knows his way around a pen. I wish I could see what the artist of the above cartoon would have written about Lincoln's victory if he'd been alive then.



Today I went into city center to pick up some Xmas gifts. I got my mom some earrings and myself some CDs - among them Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs. I've always been put off by Death Cab's extreme blandness coupled with Ben Gibbard's irritatingly writerly lyrics. It's the same mixture that has always kept me away from the Decemberists as well. I took a writing class once where the teacher talked about how distracting it is to the reader when they can "hear the writing," and that's what I feel about the lyrics of both bands. The lyrics that "She can't relax with his hand on the small of her back/ and as the flashbulbs burst, she holds a smile/ like someone would hold a crying child" are beautiful and evocative but they seem too calculated and unnatural to me. There's a coat of self-satisfaction on the whole thing.

Regardless, I was won over by the feeling and hooks of songs like "Cath..." and "I Will Possess Your Heart." At least, won over enough to plop down a few pounds for a used copy. All that's a backhanded way of saying that a band that I've always rolled my eyes at put out some songs that I think are really affecting. The rest of the album still sounds a bit like the soundtrack to an indie waiting room to me, but, you know...

What does it do for my mixed feelings about the album that Ben Gibbard looks kind of like Rainn Wilson mixed with a Hobbit in this video? I haven't decided yet.



The other CDs I picked up were Exile in Guyville and Portishead's Dummy, two albums that get blessed with the "classic" label a lot but I've never really given much time. I also got Under the Big Black Sun by X, The Ink Spots' Greatest Hits and an album called The Magic Wurlitzer that I was really excited about, but I kind of underestimated the annoyingness of the Wurlitzer as an instrument. It's pretty interminable. But it was cheap and I guess if I ever buy a skating rink and can't hire my own organ player I'm set.

I'm grumpy

I haven't had much time or desire to write here lately, but this morning I slept through my class this morning, so I thought I'd catch up on my real work.
When I started this blog I was planning on steering away from the self-indulgent whinefest model that most take, but today's entry is an exception. Sorry!

The weather here has turned into pure, icy shit and my classes are superlame. I've realized that learning Old English is really hard and that I've neglected to do it. That and it's getting hard to force myself into actually working; my initiative has just gone out the window. Was it naive of me to think that we'd be reading translations of Old English and analyzing them, rather than translating them? Maybe. Either way, it's a shame because analysis takes a backseat to technicalities like syntax and gender. Being an English student, these things should be easy for me, but I'm really only an English student out of convenience - my plan committee wouldn't let me be a "liberal arts focus" because, though they acknowledged that I wasn't flaky some people chose that focus just because they were flaky and... they wanted to treat flakes and non-flakes equally. Or something? Alls I know is that Griff Maloney got the ok to be a liberal arts student and I didn't, so...
All that's fine, though, cuz I sure do like being an English major and readin' and junk. It's just that being out of my comfort zone and learning about verb clauses and the like is a real pain in the ass right now (whhiinne). How can I keep my mind from going somewhere else when this stuff is so boring! Can someone just put it all in a Schoolhouse Rock song or something?

Also frustrating: I finished The Way We Live Now (yay!) only to come to class and find that literally no one else had read it... and it was ok! (boo!) Not like it was ok because I misunderstood the directions, but just that the professor did not care. Are you telling me that I read a 750+ page Victorian novel about speculative capitalism just for shits and giggles? Yup.

Why? Because my Televising the Victorians class is not a class on adaptation (as it was billed) but a fake film studies class for lazy lit students who want to pretend they're film students but they don't want to read or take real film classes. And that includes my professor who throws out terms like mise en scene that he found in his jumbo film terms dictionary. All of the film knowledge this guy has shared with us comes verbatim from this stupid film terms book and not from actual film - which is fine, because my classmates haven't heard of films like Gone With the Wind. Not that they necessarily should, given that this is an English class, but we're not studying books here either, apparently.
So what are we studying? Amateur theories about how prop-placement and shot distance reflects character and motivation. Seriously. "In this shot they're seen together, indicating fellowship, only to be shot in seperate close-ups next, representing a fracturization of their relationship." Argh! No!

Mostly I'm just looking forward to going to Spain with my mom. We're both pretty exhausted and a break will be really nice. I'm definitely ready for the next and last phase of my overseas adventure. My plan is to grin and bear it and just gun through the remaining work I have, but it's a bit like pulling teeth. Which I guess means that my grin won't be that attractive when I'm done. (har har hurrrk) Send me a message and cheer me up!

Hey, while I have your attention, how about this funny video?:

Toni Basil Wishes You a Happy Post-Thanksgiving

I said before that if I was living in any cartoon universe I'd like it to be that of Betty Boop. Well, if I could visit any music video universe I think it would be fun to visit that of Toni Basil. The only thing is that I know I couldn't hack it. They're wildly energetic; everything's moving all the time. Toni lives in a void surrounded by theater props and her multi-racial troupe of dancers. So cool!
Until tonight I only knew about "Mickey," her super-hit. I didn't know that, like the Obama family, Toni Basil was a pixie made out of pure joy.
My favorite videos:

You Got a Problem:
A Devo cover. Holy fucking shit.



Shopping From A-Z:
Dig how they call out all the groceries ("F: fish!") and for "X" they just yell "Nothing!"



Be Stiff:
Another Devo cover. Imagine if this was your band at prom. You wouldn't know what to do. Plus they'd out-dance you and you'd just stop trying.



The Night:
In 1990 Toni Basil was in a movie called Rockula about... well I don't know. The whole movie's on youtube, but I don't think I can bring myself to watch it.
This scene not only looks like it was awkwardly shoehorned into the flick, but it features: a guy in chainmail licking his lips and scratching with a victrola; Toni doing a really awkward rap; the actors trying to act with nothing to do; a golden piano. Oh, and the song's awesome.



Extra credit - videos not embedded here to save space:
Street Beat: I don't know what to say about this. It's over the top.
Street Life: Not to be confused with "Street Beat."

Obama Pixiefish Wishes You a Happy Pre-Thanksgiving

Hey, tomorrow's Thanksgiving! I'll be spending it with some Americans that I met. They like to cook and I like to eat so, basically, I'm set. This will be the second Thanksgiving dinner I've bummed this year as two other Americans cooked me a budget feast on Saturday. We had microwave chicken, potatoes, gravy, canned cranberry sauce, apple crisp and instant stuffing. Yum!

Wanna feel warm and fuzzy? Check out these pictures of Thanksgivings past Slate put up.



While I was on Slate I had to take a look at the political cartoons featured. Favorites include this one of the religious right, who apparently have changed their name tag post-election from "the voice of real America" to "prophets misunderstood in their homeland."



And this delightfully strange depiction of the Obama family in fish/pixie form:

Paul Broun Says What We're All Too Sane To

Imagine my surprise and delight upon finding a CNN story today titled "Congressman sorry for likening Obama to Hitler." I often post CNN headlines in this blog that make me laugh by being unintentionally silly, but these stories usually have a context within the article that negates or explains the accidental humorousness they give off at a glance. Not so here! This article is pure jingoistic crazy from bottom to top. Like how Tina Fey only had to repeat Sarah Palin's own words for them to be self-satirical, this story does all the work for us. Observe:

(CNN) — Republican Paul Broun is sorry for calling President-elect Barack Obama a 'Marxist' and comparing him to Adolph Hitler, the Georgia Congressman said Tuesday.

“I regret putting it that way,” he told WGAC radio in Augusta, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that.”

In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this week, Broun admitted to calling the future commander-in-chief a 'Marxist' at a recent Rotary club meeting, and said Obama has expressed support for policies similar to those of Hitler.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Broun told the AP. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may– may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun was specifically referring to a July speech by Obama, where the then-Democratic presidential nominee said he supports a civilian force helping the military when it comes to national security: "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded [as the military]," Obama said in the speech that was largely a call to national service.

Responding to those comments, Broun told the AP Monday: "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun added. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

The Obama transition office did not respond to Broun's comments, and in his interview Tuesday to WGAC, the first term congressman said, “The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal, he has promoted a lot of socialistic ideas, and it just makes me concerned."

"Look, I guess it may sound a little crazy and off-base, but all I'm saying is Barack Obama is Satan. I mean... he reminds me of Satan. Wait, was that offensive? I'm not comparing him to Satan, I'm just saying he has potential to be Satan."
Forget it, I can't even make fun of it, it's too crazy in and of itself. Luckily for Paul Broun, it's impossible to stay mad at this face:

Shock and Sadness in Video Form

There's nothing exciting going on in my life right now, but the world is full of exciting things. Among them:

CNN inexplicably posting the whole audio of the Jonestown Massacre. It's like near an hour long, so unless you're in for about 48 minutes of bummer you can skip it.



Miriam Makeba passing away. :-(


For an even better video click here.


Also, Chris Russell has notified me that Barack Obama is actually not American/Kenyan, he is in fact Irish.

Heaven's Snoogle-Fleejer, Hell's Ying Yang

Big news in America last night: Sasha and Malia Obama are getting a puppy! Only time will tell if Obama follows in John Adams' footsteps and names his dog Satan. I was looking at the wikipedia article about presidential pets - totally fascinating.

My favorite: Jimmy Carter's cat, Misty Malarky Ying Yang, seen here with his daughter, Amy.



Also, did you know that in 1995 Jimmy and Amy Carter collaborated on a childrens' book together called The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer? Now you do.


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In other exciting news, walking home from class yesterday some old men from a fundamentalist church handed me two exciting documents! The first was everyone's favorite family newspaper, End Times, which, apparently, proves Richard Dawkins wrong about the theory of evolution. You see, in 2005 Dawkins said in a lecture that he believes everything in the universe is the product of Darwinian natural selection, but he technically can't prove it. Why? For starters I'm going to guess that cataloging everything that ever existed in the universe and proving it's origin is a bit ambitious, but what do I know?
The End Times contrasts this with a letter that Dawkins sent to his daughter on her tenth birthday.
(I'm going to give that a second to sink in)


In the letter Dawkins tells his ten-year-old daughter:

"Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?"

Ah-ha! Caught in your own snare, Dawkins! (On a side note, that's a pretty heady message for a ten-year-old, isn't it?)

The other wonderful pamphlet I was handed was an invitation to see the Christian theatrical guilt-o-rama Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames next Sunday. If you haven't heard of it before, HGHF is basically a live Chick tract where people die in the middle of overwrought sin scenarios (gay drug abortions! prostitute Eucharist smashings! I actually don't know the particulars 'cuz I haven't seen it) and proceed to St. Peter's to be judged accordingly. I'll let this youtube clip do the rest of the talking. Either way, I'm totally psyched about going. Now I just need to find an Irish friend who appreciates irony. "Right on, baby! I hear this is Snake territory!"



"Joey you can't die! I didn't tell you about Jesus!" Here's a full trailer for more sweet, sweet madness.

Tuning-Peg Carrot vs. Lumpy Sack: Election Megapost in Three Parts

Hey did you know you can leave me comments on my blog just using your AIM screen name? You don't even need a blog! There's no excuse not to love me!



In other news, did you hear? There's apparently an election today. Some black fella is running against a greased-up baby. Or is it the lovechild of an apple-head doll and Mr. Potatohead?



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Speaking of elevated political discourse...

When I was young my parents subscribed to Newsweek. When it came I always turned to the page that had three political cartoons on it. I read them because I liked cartoons not because I cared about politics or really understood them all the time. That I understood them at all is really a testament to the nature of political cartoons, not intelligence on my part; even an 8-year-old gets the basic message of, say, a man crushed under a thousand lb. weight labeled "taxes."

Political cartoons are often unfunny, unclever metaphors scrawled by some grumpy, old, sectarian fuck who only goes outside his house to drop off his latest ravings at a publication. Despite (or because of) this, I really enjoy them. At their best they are funny and at their worst they are much funnier.

To catch up on the latest political cartoons I usually head over to Slate Magazine's website, where they're compiled in a little unwieldy ghetto of a page by subject. You can troll through the issues, scoffing at the bad cartoons from the far right, feeling vindicated by the also-bad cartoons from the far left and scratching your head at the cartoons from other countries.

Some of my latest favorites:




This representation of Palin is just mind-blowingly bad. Jesus Christ, Gary Markstein, have you ever seen the woman? You didn't even get the hair right!



Speaking of bizarre Palin drawings, what happened to her face in this Irish cartoon? She's like some malevolent ape. Which might explain the bone in her hair.



Heinous.



By contrast, this guy makes most political cartoonists look like Michelangelo. He's turned these three recognizable men into bizarre simplifications of themselves. Barack Obama is a carrot with tuning pegs for ears. John McCain is a lumpy sack. George Bush is a... butterfly on a stick? Or, like, an angel for the top of a Christmas tree without a head...? Or...?



This one is not only unfunny, but it also telegraphs pretty clearly that Joel Pett is some kind of self-loathing racist who thinks that his inner conflict is common within the reading public. It really says nothing about politics but volumes about it's artist. Sad volumes.

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But maybe the most baffling to me are the Obama-alarmist cartoons. I understand disagreeing with the man, but surely he can't be as scary as these cartoons make him out... or is he?


Subtle.


He's really malevolent when you take his head off.


I like how, here, McCain looks like Joe Everyman while Obama is like the Nightmare King of Black Supremacy.


"Hey, I'm Gary Varvel! I can do caricatures! Available for birthday parties and street fairs! What, you don't want to leaf through my portfolio?? What about just one cartoon?"


In case you missed it, Obama is Stalin, the devil is a liberal and Batman is George Bush.


Just like Obama, always playing the race card.


Obama's not just Stalin, he's also Dr. Moreau.



It just goes on and on doesn't it? Don't forget to vote!

7th Graders Debate the Election in Song Form