Monthly Archives: May 2005

Playlists

Friends Mix 05/05

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This double-set of playlists is for the month of May. I felt that I had been listening to such good new, recent music lately that I had to devote one mix to just that, hence “May I.” The “May Tu” mix is just random.

As for the titles, I thought they were extremely clever, but I’m not sure other people do. See, “May I” = “May 1” and “May Tu” = “May 2.” Likewise, “I” = me and “Tu” = you (in Spanish). I thought I was being smart. You can be the final judge.

May I

  1. “All Alone” by Gorillaz from Demon Days
    I think one of the reasons I love this song is its randomness — it’s almost like three or four songs all in one. My favorite part is the change that takes place about 2:00 into the song and then at 2:29 when the speed picks up a little bit. For some reason this sound haunts me and touches me. It also reminds me of the book Mysterious Skin which I read at the time I got the CD.
  2. “I Told You So” by New Order from Waiting For The Sirens’ Call
    When I first saw the title to this song I was like, “Um, that is a really lame title.” The music totally makes up for it though. I’m still unclear about what it is New Order told me, but I guess I should’ve known?
  3. “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay from X&Y
    My favorite story about Coldplay is how it was the only CD we could listen to at the Trail that everyone liked. Let’s hope the next album, X&Y is as good as A Rush of Blood to the Head.
  4. “Ghettochip Malfunction” (8-bit’s Hell Yes Remix) by Beck from the “Hell Yes” single
    My coworker found this song on iTunes. I love the talking computer.
  5. “Get Him Back” by Fiona Apple from Extraordinary Machine
    I’m not sure whether “I’m going to get him back / and he won’t have a back to scratch” is a good or bad thing. Nonetheless, the rocking back-and-forth keyboards of this song are awesome, and sorta mimic the lyrical content.
  6. “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem from LCD Soundsystem
    I don’t get this whole “LCD Soundsystem is such a great band! We love James Murphy!!” (maybe I’m exaggerating, but see Pitchfork). I just love the idea of Daft Punk playing at my house.
  7. “DARE” by Gorillaz from Demon Days
    This is probably the catchiest song I’ve heard since… well, I don’t know. But it’s damn catchy! I love the falsetto.
  8. “Human After All” by Daft Punk from Human After All
    One critic (I forget where?) reviewed Daft Punk’s Human After All album by noting that the album itself proved that Daft Punk were human after all (and not anonymous robots) because it was so erroneous (i.e. bad). Nonetheless, the song “Human After All” is kinda cool.
  9. “Guilt Is A Useless Emotion” by New Order from Waiting For The Sirens’ Call
    I’m not sure whether guilt is a useless emotion or not, but I know this song makes me wanna dance. Especially the part where it’s building up to and repeating “I need your love… I need your love… I want your love…” etc. etc.
  10. “Used to Love Him” by Fiona Apple from Extraordinary Machine
    “Why did I kiss him so hard last Friday night?” Good question. We’ve all been there, yeah? Even if we haven’t, I think we all have regrets, and this song touches on that.
  11. “Losing My Edge” by LCD Soundsystem from LCD Soundsystem
    My aforementioned note about how a certain web site I read loves LCD Soundsystem was made evident by this song, which they claimed was the third best single of 2000-2004. Sound-wise, it doesn’t do much for me, but I do love listening to the story of the lyrics and bathing in the irony of Pitchfork loving it so much.
  12. “Dracula’s Castle” by New Order from Waiting For The Sirens’ Call
    The thing I love most about this song is the introduction. It’s sorta like a fading pulse. And, of course, I like vampires and I do think it might be nice to visit Dracula’s castle just for kicks. Oh, and the lyrics are cheesy and lame, but that’s new order.
  13. “Not About Love” by Fiona Apple from Extraordinary Machine
    … but if it’s not about love, what is it about? Ohhh Fiona, you are so angry I love it,
  14. “Robot Rock” by Daft Punk from Human After All
    This song is about to be remixed, so expect to see a different version on another CD. Anyway, if robots do indeed rock out, is this really what they would enjoy? Mayhaps. Appreciate this song for its lyrical complexity (no, I’m kidding… don’t). “Robot rock.”
  15. “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz from Demon Days
    If there was indeed a Feel Good Incorporated somewhere, this is what I would want it to sound like. And I would want Damon Albarn to be there singing this song playing with windmills. This is Gorillaz’s first single from Demon Days and I think it’s way better than “Clint Eastwood,” the first single from their first, self-titled album, Gorillaz.

May Tu

  1. “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by The Flaming Lips from the Yoshimi Wins: Live Radio Sessions EP
    Kylie Minogue’s original version of this song was probably the first pop (or, rather, non -indie, -alt. rock, -indie, etc.) song that I actually liked. What makes this cover extraordinary is that it doesn’t mock the song at all (which could be a pretty easy thing to do considering its poppiness and whatnot. It actually comes across as somewhat sad and longing in this version.
  2. “Yeah Is What We Had” by Grandaddy from Sumday
    I’m not sure what I like about this song, but I suspect it has to do with the ambiguity of what having “Yeah” means, exactly. It could be a casual “eh, yeah…” type of boring thing, or it could be an exciting “Yeah!” type of exciting thing. What do you think we had?
  3. “The Athlete” by Erlend Øye from Unrest
    The beep-bopping or whatever beat that this song has reminds me of running, and athletes run, so this is another neato example of electronic form-fits-the-fiction.
  4. “Clocks” (Röyksopp Trembling Heart remix) by Coldplay from The Remixes
    The original version of “Clocks” was the first Coldplay song I loved (despite the fact it went on to win tons of awards at the Grammys) so it will always have a place in my heart. Röyksopp is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite remixers (Felix da Housecat — see below — being one of the main contenders with Röyksopp for #1). Their remix of “Clocks” makes it even more bittersweet and beautiful than the original. Far better than most of the generic “techno” remixes I’ve heard.
  5. “Happy Together” by Danny Chung from the Happy Together soundtrack
    Wong Kar-Wai is my new favorite director (yes, probably dethroning David Lynch). At the end of Happy Together, the first WKW movie I saw, this song plays. I think it may be live or something, but it’s great nonetheless. The end of the movie, I think, is pretty sad, and the juxtaposition of a sad situation and a happy song always blows me away (the best example of this is probably Michael Moore‘s Roger & Me when “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys plays during a survey of the empty, depressed city streets. Ever sine then “Good Vibrations” has become a bittersweet song for me. Now “Happy Together” (originally by the Turtles) falls into that category as well.
  6. “The Big Hurt” by Miss Toni Fisher from The Big Hurt
    They play this song as bumper music for Coast to Coast AM and I’ve always liked it. Nothing more to say. It’s old.
  7. “Sex Born Poison” by Air from 10,000 Hz Legend
    Air collaborated with Buffalo Daughter on this song. I think it’s one of the more “dreamy” songs from 10,000 Hz Legend, an Air album that I have total mixed feelings about. I love how the song sorta changes gears a few times, first being a total mellow soundscape, then about 1:40 into the song it changes into something you’d expect to hear in a haunted house with strange people singing, then it goes back to the mellowness. Finally, around 3:55 a strange sputtering noise returns along with vocals and descends into something sounding sorta epic. Mmmm the song makes me melt. And oh yeah, what is sex born poison??
  8. “Gossip Folks” (Mousse T’s Original Alternative) by Missy Elliott from the “Gossip Folks” single
    I love this song and recently bought the single so I had to throw in this remix. It’s good. Maybe not as good as the Fatboy Slim one (which isn’t as hip-hop as this one).
  9. “American Life” (Felix Da Housecat’s Devin Dazzle Club Mix) by Madonna from the “American Life” single
    Hear how Felix da Housecat totally gets the bass beating? That’s his signature remix style, and although it’s pretty much the same on all of his remixes (“Toxic” by Britney, “Get Yourself High” by the Chemical Brothers,
    “Y Control” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs [see below], etc.), it’s fun and bouncy. Of all the “American Life” remixes I’ve heard (which is maybe six or seven), this is my favorite.
  10. “Novacane” by Beck from Odelay
    I first heard this song on a compilation called Buy Product 2: Brief Encounters. The song, of course, is also available on Odelay, which is my favorite Beck album (though I’m really liking Guero, his latest, as well. This song just has a hissy, feedbacky, noisey sound that I love.
  11. “Land: Horses” by Patti Smith from Horses
    When I first bought the album Horses, I intended to give it to my mom for some reason or another. Then, since I bought it used, I decided to give it a listen. I was blown away by how awesome it was, so I ended up keeping it for myself and gave her something else. “Horses” is, I think, the most epic part of the album (and part of the “Land” trilogy).
  12. “The Crystal Lake” by Grandaddy from The Sophtware Slump
    Does anyone know where “Crystal Lake” is? And who lives there? And what happens there? I doubt Grandaddy intended the title to be an allusion to Friday the 13th, but since I’m Jason and the bad guy’s name is Jason and I just recently watched the first two films, I wanted to included it. Oh yeah, and the song is all awesome and rockin’ too.
  13. “Love Is Blue” by Paul Mauriat from Love Is Blue
    “Love is blue. Not white or red or yellow. Love is not green. It’s blue. That is the brilliance of this music… It makes me so mad when people call this elevator music. See, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, they could never compose this music… Only the truly gifted can understand. You’ve felt blue.” — Lucy Butler, the representation of absolute evil from the television show Millennium.
  14. “Y Control” (Thee Majesty Remix) by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs from the “Y Control” remix EP
    “Thee Majesty” is codename for Felix da Housecat. Since I’m including two of his remixes (see “American Life” above), it’s obvious that I love him, yeah? Even without his remixing, though, this is a cool song. The Faint remix is also really good, if you are so inclined.
  15. “Secret Girl” by Sonic Youth from Evol
    No, my mother never told me that I was the boy who can enjoy invisibility, but I wish I was. I forgot how much I loved this song until it came up on my iTunes’ party shuffle. It’s so dark and mysterious — very early Sonic Youth, if you will, before they became the “grandparents of grunge.”
  16. “Three Miles” by Heather Duby from Come Across The River
    Normally Heather Duby’s stuff is very soft and ethereal, and I love it. Maybe that’s why I like this song so much — because it demonstrates her ability to be somewhat poppy. And, of course, sad at the same time.
  17. “Remind Me” by Röyksopp from Melody A.M.
    In case you were wondering, yes, Erlend Øye (from earlier) does do the vocals on this song. If you weren’t wondering, now you know. I love Röyksopp all around, but his would have to be my favorite song. In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, I love bittersweet songs, and I think this is yet another. One of the things that sucks about living in one place for a long time is that you start to build-up memories — happy and sad — that become associated with things around you. As the lyrics say, “and everywhere I go / there’s always something to remind me / of another place and time / where love that traveled far had found me.” I feel that almost daily. Maybe it’s a sign of me being too nostalgic, but I don’t know. The ultimate irony, however, is that now this song itself reminds me of another place and time where love that traveled far had found me.
  18. “1969” by Boards Of Canada from Geogaddi
    Listen carefully, kids, for Satan himself is hiding in this song. Seriously, this song mentions the Branch Dividians (“Although not a follower of Quick Facts about: David Koresh, she’s a devoted Branch Davidian”, song length = 4:19 = April 19 = day of Waco Massacre) and 1969 is, of course, the year of the Manson murders. The group is known for strange sampling and this song has to be one of the most surreal.
Dallas

Double Ds

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What is it about primetime soap operas that make me love them so much? The double-crossing? The affairs? The oil businessmen? The absurdity? I just can’t say. Today I started watching season one of Dynasty and I’m hooked — just like Dallas and Knots Landing before them.

But seriously, Dynasty is hardcore. Maybe more hardcore than Dallas? I’m not sure.

All I know is that during the three-part first episode there was a scene between Blake Carrington and his son Steven that was so hardcore I’m still recovering.

It turns out that Steven may be gay (though, by episode four, his interactions with Claudia seem to indicate otherwise). Being 1981, this is a major problem for his dad, a super-rich oil tycoon (how original, yah?). During their argument, Blake breaks-out some philosophy!

I’m about as Freudian as you could hope for in a capitalist exploiter of the working classes…

After that statement, Blake goes on to tell Steven that he understands that Steven’s homosexual experiences may cause hostility toward his father, but that, ultimately, Steven is still a faggot. He also laments the fact that the American Psychiatric Association had declassified homosexuality as an illness and that he won’t have an opportunity to open a homosexuality treatment center in his son’s name.

Granted, the fact that Steven is gay is a major problem and it (so far) isn’t accepted at all, but I still think it’s a pretty brave thing for 1981. The same issues crop up in television shows today with only a smidgen more of acceptance.

In addition to being gay, however, Steven also appears to be a bit of a socialist. During the aforementioned fight (as I recall), Steven accuses his father of selling-out his own country in order to develop oil resources abroad and complains that the country is too dependent on natural resources and should focus on renewable energy. His sister, Fallon, however, is totally opposite and quite willing to make “a dollar and a half” using her father’s money and business.

Dallas (which debuted a few years earlier) that it feels extremely unoriginal. For some reason I can’t stop imagining Blake’s new wife Krystle as Pam Ewing (both being unaccustomed to their husband’s wealth and status). And for some reason I keep seeing Cliff Barnes in Matthew. I also see Lucy in Fallon because both seem somewhat sexual and very close to their rich uncle/father. Confusing Ray Crebs (Dallas‘ farmhand) and Mike (the driver) is the only one that really makes sense.

Anyway, I can’t say yet whether I like Dynasty or Dallas more so far. I’m inclined to say Dallas since it spun-off into Knots Landing (and I loved Knots Landing as a kid) and since I know my mom likes Dallas as well. Nonetheless, Dynasty is way hardcore and I’m loving it for the time being.

SIFF 2005

Review: Izo

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Izo
Have you ever seen a movie that you think has some deeper meaning but you just don’t get it? And then after some consideration you wonder if you did infact miss something or whether the movie was just fucking with your head the entire time — trying to be all pretentious and meaningful but really just trying to be self-consciously showy?

I’m still not sure what Izo is. But I liked it, nonetheless.

I’m not sure how I can summarize it. Izo is some sort of guy who kills a lot of people. Toward the end of the movie he begins to turn into a demon. After the movie I heard a lot of people complaining that the movie didn’t have a plot. They were probably right. Mostly Izo kills people. At first, the people he kills are ghosts/reincarnations of people he killed in the past. Then he just starts killing everyone.

The movie is, for lack of a better term, very postmodern. Movie is very aware that it is a movie. For example, there is some random guy who appears throughout the film and plays guitar and sings (in a very insane/punk voice) some bizzare song. Nobody seems to notice to care about him. Additionally, Izo is frequently in one place then suddenly appears in another. Plus, the amount of blood and violence is so over the top, that it almost feels like a parody.

My working theory throughout the movie was that the character Izo was a physical representation of the idea of abjection. He is a formless form, a souless soul, he is living but his life is death, etc. Plus there is some line about how Izo is basically disruptor of the system and a contradition.

Furthermore, all of the blood and vommiting allude back to abjection — both of which are common ways of relaying the theory.

There is also some group of men who seem to somehow be behind Izo’s existence. I think they are related to war?

In my Postmodernism and Japanese Mass Culture class the professor suggested that pretty much every aspect of Japanese culture post-WWII is somehow influenced by the fact that they were defeated and the fact that the nuclear bomb was dropped on them (twice). Assuming that is true, Izo is a perfect example. In addition to strange conspiracy of men, there are also numerous cut-ins containing footage of the war and occupation and soldiers and Hitler.

Thus, I think Izo, in addition to being a manifestation of the theory of abjection, is also a manifestation for the guilt/pain/hypocrisy of war.

The film is filled with pretty profound one-liners, and I constantly wish I had a notebook with me so I could jot things down. Overall, I gave the movie 4/5 and will definitely be seeing it again (on DVD, though).

Music

Another CD Buying Binge

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I really need to stop myself, but after seeing Childstar last night, I went to Tower Records (well, first I went to American Apparel and bought two shirts) and picked up eight CDs… and it only cost me like $35 (though a lot were singles). Somehow they had some massive clearance thing on a bunch of the CDs, and then there were a few CDs I’ve been wanting for a long time in the “just in” bin, so I couldn’t help myself:

  • “Nothing Really Matters” single by Madonna
  • “Sparks” single by Röyksopp
  • “Insomnia” single by Faithless
  • Camber Sands EP by Fatboy Slim
  • The Pimp EP by Fatboy Slim
  • Uh Huh Her by PJ Harvey
  • Echoes by the Rapture
  • We Love Life by Pulp

The really shitty thing is that my iPod is totally maxed out. After putting Demon Days on, I have only 18 MB left (and for the past 4 months, every time I add music I have to delete a bunch). I’m not sure what to do. Since a lot of the CDs are singles and I just wanted some of the remixes (especially the Kruder and Dorfmeister remix of “Nothing Really Matters”), I probably won’t put many of these new CDs on my iPod. The whole thing is silly. I’m such a junkie.

SIFF 2005

Review: Childstar

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Childstar
The main reason I went to see Childstar was because Jennifer Jason Leigh was in it. The review said something about it being a movie about a Macaulay Culkin-esque child actor who is abducted.

Really, though, this film is about the Hollywood exploitation of child actors.

But I’m not sure what the ultimate message is, and that is probably the main weakness of the film. In the end, I wasn’t sure whether it was more a critique of the movie-making process or a argument against using child actors in films… and if it was about child actors, it’s rather ironic that in order to make the film, the filmmaker had to exploit the actor who played the child actor (Mark Rendall, who was amazing “for a kid”).

The story itself was rather uninteresting. The kid actor is cast in a joke-of-a-movie about the first son (which the kid plays). His dad, the president, is kidnapped by “European terrorists” (who are funny). Since his dad is gone, the first son has to be “the man of the house,” which, apparently, involves taking on the terrorists single-handedly and saving his dad. (The movie itself doesn’t show the sub-movie in its entirety — we are briefed about the plot in the opening when some agency is pitching it to a production company.)

What I found most interesting were the rather intertextual themes of the movie. The fact that it was a movie about a movie was pretty interesting and meta. I also liked the fact that one of the main characters was the driver for the kid actor and that the driver was also an aspiring director… and the fact that that character was also the director/writer of the film, Don McKellar. I just loved the fact that the director played a driver who was a wannabe director.

Also, I must add, that I’m always terribly delighted whenever Jennifer Jason Leigh is on the screen. Yes, she pretty much always plays the same role (kinda neurotic, possibly substance-abusing, etc.). She plays the kid actor’s mother in the movie and seems to be exploiting him pretty hardcore… plus, she hooks up with the driver, which is just weird.

Overall, I gave the movie a 4/5. In retrospect, it was probably more of a 3, but oh well. I also liked that it was Canadian.

Language, Veg*n

Word of the Day: Veg*n

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Vegetables
At work we have quite a lot of random list-serv type “groups” that we can join. My coworker, who is a vegetarian like myself, has been a part of the vegetarians group for quite a while. On a whim, my another coworker and I joined the group yesterday as well.

Let me say, it isn’t at all what I expected. I figured there might be two or three e-mails a week with tips on eating in the cafeteria, places in Seattle to eat, etc. Instead, I got something like 20 e-mails in the first day alone, with topics ranging from PETA’s recent crusade against Tyson to raising kids vegetarian to trying to convert others to the blood type diet.

These topics are all nice and fine to read about, but everything becomes a total flame war. People write huge multi-paragraph responses/rebuttles to every e-mail. It is quite intense!

Nonetheless, I did manage to pick up something useful: the term veg*n. The * (asterisk) in the middle is a wildcard symbol meaning “anything can go here,” so veg*n can refer to vegetarian or vegan. I love the term and intend to use it as often as possible.

Environmentalism

Kunstler vs. Lovins

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Salon.com has an interesting (and somewhat catty) exchange between James Howard Kunstler and Amory Lovings: “Sparks Fly.”

I don’t know much about Kunstler, save the Salon.com interview “After the oil is gone” from last week, but I have read Lovins’ Natural Capitalism and found it to be a really inspiring and thought-provoking book.

I’m not sure I would say I totally agree with or disagree with either Kunstler’s or Lovins’ arguments in the Salon piece. They book make valid points. I wish that their little back-and-forth dealt more with the deeper issues than technical/petty things (e.g. how Lovins’ paper “Winning the Oil Endgame” was peer-reviewed, the technical benefits of Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute campus, etc.).

Nonetheless, I’m always interested in reading about the new urbanist movement so the article was slightly informative.

Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Blue Skin

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A U.F.O.
Mysterious Skin is broken down twice: First by colors (I just finished the “Blue” section), and then by characters (“Brian Lackey”, “Neil McCormick”, “Wendy Peterson”, and “Deborah Lackey”).

So far, this book is amazing. I’m usually not a fan of “gay literature” (and I wrote about why a few times during my Lesbian and Gay Literature class — I should post those journal entries sometime soon), but this book is different… it’s more “queer” than “gay” (again, something I theorized about in my journal entries).

Often times, marginalized literature tries to show people who aren’t in that marginalized group that the marginalized people are just like everyone else — they fall in love the same, they have the same hopes and dreams, etc. Mysterious Skin seems to be playing it both ways.

Brian Lackey is the “acned, bookworm” (96) who, within the first pages of the book, blacks-out during a Little League game. The same summer that the black-outs begin, Brian, his sister Deborah, and his mother witness some strange lights that they assume to be UFOs. The initial encounter propels Brian into a UFO obsession.

The black-outs, the obsession with the paranormal (Brian receives a book about the Loch Ness Monster for Christmas), and dropping-out of Little League creates tension between Brian and his father (who is obsessed with baseball and plays on a local team). Brian’s dad doesn’t think he is manly enough and somewhat girly.

Although it hasn’t been explicitly stated yet, it’s fairly obvious that Brian is gay. In addition to his awkwardness and shyness (which could also be due to his nerdiness, though), when him and his sister are watching a baseball game, he explains:

We watched the players’ bodies (7).

I once wrote a paper about the obsession with bodies within gay literature. I found it really significant that Brian noted watching the players bodies — not the players themselves or their swings or anything like that, but the players’ bodies. Additionally, Brian notes that other kids tease him by calling him “four eyes” and “pansy” (49). Pansy is pretty gay, yeah?

So far, the most striking incident from Brian’s childhood (to me) was the “initiation into manhood” that his father put him through. After returning from somewhere (church? a ball game? I cannot remember…), Brian’s family comes upon a large snapping turtle in the middle of the road. Brian’s dad gets excited about the idea of of turtle soup, so he manages to get the turtle into a bag in order to bring it home. Once home, Brian’s dad tells Brian that he wants Brian’s help with something — killing the turtle. Brian notes that he had carved fish before, but nothing had been as gruesome as killing the turtle. The whole scene comes across very violent and brutal. I kept thinking, “This is a very masculine thing to do — father and son slaughtering a snapping turtle.”

So basically, Brian is a nerdy, shy, quiet kid who loves UFOs and has a tense relationship with his mother and gets along really well with his sister (who ultimately moves to San Francisco after high school graduation). Although he seems like a nice kid, he seems pretty “normal” and ordinary. If he is indeed gay, he’s one of those “gays are just like straight people”-types, it seems.

Neil McCormick, on the other hand, is totally different. When he narrates there is a certain edge to his language — shorter sentences, more profanity and slang, etc.

Neil realizes pretty quickly that he is gay. One night during an intense storm, he crawls under his mom’s (who is single and dates a lot of different men) bed and finds a Playgirl magazine. He begins to fantasize about having sex with men (men with mustaches, hairy chests, etc. — which I find somewhat funny and gross at the same time).

Shortly after Neil figures that he likes men, the coach of his Little League team (which his mom signs him up for so she can spent more time with her boyfriend) takes interest in him — in a very sexual way. Neil notices this the first time they meet and it excites him — he likes being looked at and objectified as an object of desire:

His gaze paused on me. Desire sledge hammered my body, a sensation I wasn’t sure I had a name for (22).

The coach’s desire for Neil is realized pretty soon thereafter. The coach tells Neil that the team is going to watch a movie together. It turns out, however, that the coach lied and it was just him and Neil. The fact that the coach deceived Neil’s mother seems to turn him on:

It surprised me that he would like to Mom, but more than that, it excited me (27).

After the movie they return to the coach’s house, which is a total kid heaven (bean bag chairs, Atari, travel-sized cereal boxes [the kind that parents never buy], candy, etc.). The coach manages pretty quickly to get inside Neil’s pants and sex ensues:

I knew what was happening. Half of me realized it wasn’t right. The other half wanted it to happen (35)… It happened, I told myself; it happened. And I had liked it (37).

The book almost dares to ask: sometimes when a child is molested, does he/she enjoy it/want it to happen? Besides all of the potential issues of power and creepiness, it is something to ask (and something Foucault touches on in The Use of Pleasure. Of course, their relationship doesn’t last because the coach transfers to another Little League team (and then leaves town amid suspicions of his behavior). Neil longs for him, nonetheless. Oh, and every time the coach did something to Neil, he gave him a $5 bill.

The introduction of Wendy, Neil’s best friend, brings an interesting perspective. She basically fetishizes Neil as a gay boy and loves him because he is different. She sees him as something exotic that will spice up her life. Even the way he talks excites her:

From Neil, all those fucks and shits were more than just throwaway cuss words. They adopted some special meaning (55).

My favorite story that Wendy tells is about a “séance” where Neil makes a move on another (straight) boy. After Neil seduces/”hypnotizes” the kid, he gets on top of him and basically dry humps and then kisses him. This, of course, freaks the boy out. Despite being all macho, though, the boy cries. I just love the irony of it:

“Queer,” Robert P. said, plus something in Spanish. He was crying (57).

As for Wendy’s strange obsession/exoticization of Neil, at least she seems very aware of it. When she finally musters up the courage to talk to him, she recalls:

“You are a queer, aren’t you?” I said the Q-word as if it were synonymous with movie star or deity. There was something wonderful about the word, something that set him apart from everyone else, something I wanted to identify with… I was falling in love. Not so much with him, though, as with the aura of him (59).

I also loved the way Neil reacted (as explained by Wendy) to sex education in class. I’m also impressed with the fact that Neil knows he’s gay by fifth grade and isn’t afraid to be vocal about it:

“Ridiculous,” Neil whispered. “Not everyone fucks like that.” Some kids heard him, glared and sneered. “Some people take it up the ass” (62).

The story about Halloween is pretty traumatic. Neil and Wendy “kidnap” a retarded kid and nearly kill him when they put firecrackers in his mouth and light them off. When Wendy freaks out (rightly so) about the kid telling his parents about what Neil and Wendy did, Neil remedies the situation by giving the kid a blowjob. Neil explains:

“When I was little,” Neil said, “a man used to do this to me” (71).

That revelation disturbs Wendy:

Where had [Neil’s mother] been when the man from Neil’s past had put his mouth on her son like this? (72)

But ultimately she realizes the risk Neil took by revealing this to her:

Neil had shown a part of himself I knew he’d shown no one else. I reckoned I had asked for it. Now I was bound to him (74).

Deborah (Brian’s older sister)’s chapter mainly involves her observations about her brother (shy, no friends, etc.). It also tells their parents got divorced. Neither Brian nor Deborah seems too sad when their father leaves.

The final Neil chapter of the “Blue” section finds Neil becoming intrigued with the idea of hustling.

The idea of money for sex thrilled me like nothing before (85)… The idea of their wanting to pay for me rendered me breathless, thrilled, delirious, flustered (86).

When Neil manages to find a client, he can’t forget the coach, who treated him better:

While Coach’s fingers had “caressed” me, Charlie’s merely “touched” (88).

As Neil cums, the man swallows his load. The man notes that it wasn’t safe for him to do, but that since Neil was a kid it didn’t really matter since he knew Neil would be clean. Neil notes:

It was the first time I’d heard a man say that, but it wouldn’t be the last (89).

I can’t help but think this foreshadows, but who knows. Neil later discovers that when the guy swallowed he sorta bit his dick a little, causing it to bruise.

… so as the “Blue” section ends, it’s not at all clear how Brian is related to Chris and Wendy. We also don’t have any explicit proof that Brian is gay, but it seems rather obvious. I totally love this book. I haven’t been this excited/enthralled with nonfiction for quite a while (I loved The Handmaid’s Tale, but it didn’t get me excited and happy like this one does — it wasn’t joyful and funny like Mysterious Skin). I can’t wait to get further into the book and finally see how Greg Araki translates it to film.

Philosophy

On Depression

2 Comments

Over at Salon.com there is an excellent piece about depression: “Van Gogh on Prozac.”

The piece actually goes into some things I’ve been wanting to post about for quite a while actually, especially based on some recent conversations I’ve had with various people about the nature of depression, the definition of “normal,” the use of prescription medicines to treat mental “illness,” and so on.

First, as a bit of a disclaimer, I am not on any medication. I do not consider myself depressed. At times in my life, I think I probably was (so was it really depression? I don’t know) and considered seeking out therapy and/or medication to help me. That said, I have quite a few friends who are either taking medication, once took medication, or decided not to take medication. I also had a friend in college commit suicide after starting an antidepressant. I also know someone who is a psychology graduate student who seems convinced that I have quite a few psychological problems and is a strong proponent of cognitive behavior therapy.

All that said, I think it’s fair to say that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about mental health issues and have given a lot of thought to the intricacies and whatnot of the issue. Also, the next book I plan to read is Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (which may not have to do with depression, necessarily, but, I imagine, involves some similar modes of thought).

The most enlightening conversation I had about antidepressants was with a friend of mine who has been taking them for years. I would consider him to be an “artist” (he is currently getting an MFA) and an intellectual. I asked him once whether he felt the antidepressants affected his ability to get in touch with his feelings and produce art. I was, at the time (and maybe still am?), enamored by the idea of the “tortured artist” who is depressed and lonely and all that, sitting alone somewhere creating great works of art that speak to the human existence and the truth of the world and stuff. My friend, however, said that since he started antidepressants, he found he was able to be more prolific because he was more focused and not so blasé about life. He also said that prior to antidepressants, he was more interested in imagery and poetry and that now his poetry isn’t as much like that. (The conversation was a while ago, so I don’t remember many of the specifics.)

Another conversation I remember took place during college. One of my friends was talking to another friend who was on antidepressants, and the friend who wasn’t, but would probably claim that he had some sort of depression, kept talking about how he was glad he wasn’t on antidepressants because he was afraid that they would affect his artistic integrity. As I recall (or maybe this is me being dramatic), my friend, who was on antidepressants, made a comment about how if it weren’t for the antidepressants, she probably wouldn’t be alive and functioning, so he should shut up and stop being pretentious.

Both of these little stories touch on the common belief that somehow equates a depressed person with an artist who is in touch with the truth and brutality of human existence.

The author (Peter Kramer, who wrote Listening to Prozac and Against Depression) interviewed in the Salon.com article strongly disagrees with this point. The article makes his point clear:

Depression, in many people’s minds, is integral to the creative temperament. We might lose some of the triumphs of art and culture if it were wiped away.

This vision of depression [of “the depression was not her fundamental self, or a window into buried feelings”] flies in the face of the common belief that the depressed are deeper and more authentic than the cheerful rabble. Kramer rails against the notion that depression is the only honest, thoughtful response to a cruel world, that we must choose between despair (or a kind of sardonic brooding) and a plastic, smiley-face mask of denial.

The psychology student that I know makes a claim like this. He says that because, he claims, I am so aware of the “cruel world,” that the only way I know how to cope is with “sardonic brooding.” So this example really struck me.

Based on the article, it sounds like Kramer advocates a combination of antidepressants and therapy. I’m willing to bet that the “therapy” involved would be cognitive therapy.

Cognitive therapy, based on my understanding, basically means making the patient self-aware of small things that he or she can do in order to make his or her life more livable. That is, make the patient cognitive of negative behaviors so that the patient can change them.

To me, and based on the psychology guy’s attempt at using cognitive therapy on me, this can be pretty torturous to the patient. Imagine feeling depressed or insecure or anxious and going to a therapist and having him or her tell you that the key to being happier is being more social. Well duh, you probably knew that already… but you don’t feel like being social. So as part of the therapy, the therapist tells you to go to a crowded mall every weekend and spend an hour walking around. Gradually over time, increase that to two hours, three hours, whatever.

As far as I can tell, when cognitive therapy doesn’t work, the blame seems to fall on the patient because he or she wasn’t trying hard enough to change or whatever or worse yet, that the patient “doesn’t really want to change.” This really pisses me off.

Cognitive therapy, in my opinion, is just trying to candy-coat one’s condition (if that metaphor makes sense?). Rather than really treating the underlying issue (anxiety, failure to get over some trauma from the past, etc.), the therapist just tells the patient to “be more happy” and “try harder at life.” If that doesn’t work, the patient is blamed (not explicitly, but rather indirectly) and probably ends up feeling more anxious.

One of the reasons I think I still like psychoanalysis, from some perspective, is that it looks to identify some “core” or “kernel” of a problem (“my mother was distant”, “I saw two dogs fucking when I was three years old”, whatever) and goes to that root in order to deal with your current problems. Yes, a lot of these root problems are ridiculous, so maybe it’s the belief that there is something deep down that can solve (not cover) the problem.

This loops back, again, to my overall theory of therapy. The psychology major I know argues that the goal of psychology is to allow the patient to live a happy life and function in society. I, on the other hand, think that psychology should solve the problem that makes the patient unhappy.

All this said, I’m no expert on any of these topics — like I said, I just think about them a lot. If this ever gets picked up by Google, I’m sure I can expect a barrage of angry psychology students debunking my thoughts. Oh well. That’ll just make me more anxious anyway.