MDMA Films: Bebe Zeva Preview 2

               Usually a movie doesn’t get a second trailer. The first one ought to be enough. MDMA Films is no ordinary company. How many film companies decide an entire movie will feature the actors doing drugs the entire time, real drugs, not faking some response. I’ll tell you: precious few. Actors wait until after the filming has ended before acting in such a manner. Just ask Charlie Sheen, ask him how hot that’s working out for him.

                Bebe Zeva comes out March 20^th, 2011. Tao and Megan Lin tend to every one of Bebe’s needs, and not needs. Feeding her ice cream, using positive re-enforcement when she does a good job, it seems they are getting in touch with their kind selves. Playlists apparently seem to be a specialty of hers, a gift not all people are granted. I’m glad they came out with this second trailer, which upon first viewing seems pointless (names of people are tightly edited together) but actually makes quite a bit of sense.

                Names pass by, whirling in your mind. References are edited to become only references, perhaps a nod to our culture of constant referencing of other pieces of information. Sure, this did exist before the internet, like political satire, but I feel a lot of information has become ‘ghetto-ized’ meaning people can better and more effectively live inside their own interests with no interaction whatsoever of anything else. For examples, just see how writers cater to a particular crowd, TV caters to a crowd, and music you can hide yourself away in forever. Though I am partial to Tao Lin's work, so I guess I do this to some degree.

Writers are mentioned besides Tao, Travis McFarland in particular. Carles of Hipster Runoff is mentioned multiple times. Whether or not this is deliberate or a conscious decision on her part is unclear. Editing it in that way shows how she originally started her online career at his infinitely ironic website. 

                Honestly, I get the impression Bebe would’ve been internet famous no matter who she met first, whether it was Carles or some other, possibly nicer blogger. Tao appear to be a far kinder person towards her than Hipster Runoff’s master ever was. Even though Carles is funny and provides occasional insight, keep in mind writers aren’t all kind. William S. Burroughs shot his wife in the head and neglected his son. Despite his failings, he managed to produce some fantastic work. Clearly Carles isn’t this bad, but his treatment of those he features on his blog show a certain callous mean streak. He wants you to ‘get vulnerable’ with him since that’s the easiest way he can break you down. Tao, on the other hand, is the natural friend of Bebe helping her along by doing legitimate work on her documentary. Critics of Tao’s books state his writing allows for a reader’s interpretation, it doesn’t enforce a particular emotion or way it wants you to feel. MDMA Films works in this interpretative vein. 

                All of MDMA Film’s other films lack multiple trailers. Watching this kind of trailer, with all its references, shows off exactly a specific type of culture. Each mention suggests a particular kind of haute indie taste, the kind that I obviously am more than partial to, I embrace it. References take up a larger and larger portion of our lives, allowing for people to sort of create their own universe where they can interact with others.                

                I’m not sure how many more trailers these guys are going to put out for Bebe. However many they are, they are worth it. She deserves it.

100 Records That Set the World on Fire….While No One was listening

               Lists are helpful. The Wire put out this list before the turn of the millennium, so there was bound to be some stuff too recent to get an accurate appraisal on. Some of the stuff they recommended on here ends up being pretty good, with maybe a bias or lean towards jazzier stuff. Thankfully they avoided the fate of Nurse with Wound list; their selection includes a fairly diverse group of artists and genres.

                Browsing quickly through the list, there are some great picks. Charles Ives would be one of them, even a century later he’s yet to receive the attention he deserves for his groundbreaking work, in the early 20^th century no less! Part of my adoration for Ives has to do with how he balanced a professional career with his more artistic inclinations. Maybe that’s a bit of an inspiration of how I could do the same thing.

                Unfortunately, like many of these “Look at our Great Taste” lists, there are a few expected mentions and some dullards. Faust gets mentioned on virtually any music snob’s taste, as does Captain Beefheart and a few others. Though these lists ostensibly are a reaction against the monotony of having the Beatles and the Beach Boys plastered everywhere, they fall into similar habits. Jazz gets a huge amount of attention. Some of the selections of the artists seems accurate, but their precise recordings a bit questionable. For the Residents, they pick an EP of theirs rather than one of their full-length weird-outs, like “Fingerprince” or “Not Available” which are more easily available.  A few other artists suffer from this, the “we listened to their whole discography and picked the most obscure release” syndrome. Sometimes this is a good idea, since it attracts attention to something which normally gets overlooked, but in some of these cases that’s just not the case. 

                The dullards are quite dull. Esquivel isn’t a great innovator by any means; even his most experimental stuff probably gets played in your local elevator. Choosing a William S. Burroughs audio tape from the 60s seems a bit silly too, especially considering how he did more interesting stuff later in life with bands. Oh, he’s dryly reading. How exciting. I’m a fan of his work too, but I can’t see myself being wowed by his voice alone. This might be more of a personal preference of mine. 

                A great deal of these I haven’t heard. What I will be doing for these will be tagging whichever ones relate to the list with the phrase: “100 Records that set the world on Fire” for easier navigation. I hope by going through these I’ll stumble upon some excellent material and edit out the dross for you, the listener. Despite some of my reservations about this list, I feel this is probably one of the more diverse ones I’ve seen. Their emphasis on a wide range geographically and time wise gives it a broader, better perspective, and they at least try to avoid the obscure of the sake of being obscure, though they fall into that pit a few times. 

                Finally, I do enjoy these lists and if you have any others I should pay attention to, let me know. Wire has the added bonus of including other sites’ reviews of the albums. Of particular note was Q Magazine calling “Metal Machine Music” one of the 50 worst albums of all time, thus confirming their status as old fogies who don’t “get it”.

Poetry Review:"Thee Constellation is Off Deck" & "A Short Sleep Taking Effect"

Joshua Nilles is a poet in the best sense of the word. While so many writers have been co-opting new ways of being charming you with cutesy phrases and framing of the day, Joshua doesn’t do that. Thankfully uninfluenced by the minimal style gaining so much ground lately, his work at times feels reminiscent of William S. Burroughs’s (who gets a mention) cynical style. Largely focused on pop culture through diffuse means, his poetry is hyper articulate, employing a vast vocabulary. Yet this language, though extremely specific, leaves things cloudy. Having multiple perspectives and a narrative style doesn’t help the reader. My suggestion would be to give up and let the language take you where it may. 

He has two collections of poetry coming out on Amazon on 12/08/10: “Thee Constellation is Off Deck” and “A Short Sleep Taking Effect”. Going through it, I notice a few wonderful details. One of the best features of the writing is how much is implied. Nothing here is directly spelled out for you. Reference-dropping barely exists in this territory, with music references to Elephant6, Flying Saucer Attack and Sufjan Stevens.  Besides those few references, you have to feel your way around. Although you can get the mood, the poems require by their very nature multiple readings to fully grasp what is going on. It works as mood fodder anyway, since the open-ended nature of the writing allows you to project your own feelings towards it.

                The language is forceful, direct, and paranoid. Little attempt is made to sugar-coat anything. Paranoia runs deep through each piece, either through the narrator’s doubt or worrying about what’s going to come. Illusions are made constantly to death, pain and weapons. Yet just as often are descriptions of the lulling lethargic laziness that makes such horrors possible. Watching MTV, being bored, napping and other non-productive habits is described with stunning accuracy. 

                Usually the phrase “overwritten” implies something bad, something awful. I don’t adhere to this. Being a fan of overwritten stuff, I counter that including so much details allows the reader to come up with their own scenario of what the words means. An obvious (and extreme) example of this would of course be “Finnegans Wake” which is written for and against the English language. Despite the obvious limitations of this approach, I ended up tearing up, especially towards the final pages of the book, as it felt like the dreamers were waking up.

                Somehow, these poems achieve that hard to reach location. Mood seeps through in each line, but what exactly is happening? By using so many different words in bizarre contexts, Joshua forces you to construct meaning. I know most poets aim for this, but Joshua hits it. Lines like 

“losers branching out in females to grow shit

males becoming fish to forget

their red coats exchanged

the city benefits

tha' sentence at a time

finds work for the plot carrying this faction”

Imply several different scenarios. Multiple visions like red coats, welfare, warfare, evolution all come flooding into the mind. Even continuing with the rest of the poem (Pete The C-Cast Bomber) does not clarify things. Parts of this are reminiscent of Pynchon’s better writing, of his work in creating moods and obscuring the truth behind the words. Remember “Gravity’s Rainbow” where Tyrone Slothrop searches for the 00000? While he’s searching for this, it is only implied that he is slowly losing his mind. Only after he becomes a member of the band “The Fools” does this become readily apparent.

                This isn’t trendy writing. It isn’t even happy at all. But it is blunt, direct writing lacking any of the pseudo ‘just kidding’ stances that so many writers have been taking lately. Most writers of late have been hiding behind layers of irony; a few writers are able to avoid the fate that TV has dealt them. A few are able to move away from the mass conformist, almost copy-cat styles that permeate our society. I’m thankful to say that these two books of poetry do just that. Avoiding references is difficult, since it usually acts as a way to make a reader feel clever and the writer to feel smart. It is a joint operation on both ends. Somehow these two books are able to create an almost alternate reality. 

                What shocks me most is how absolutely flabbergasted I am at finding any comparison to this without going way far back. Musically, I guess I would state Whitehouse’s more recent lyrical output might give you some idea of what you’re up against. Brutal as it might be, I haven’t had this sort of reaction to poetry for quite some time. Please make sure to read this late at night with little distraction. I read these aloud in a gruff, almost broken voice. I suggest doing the same.