Friday, September 03, 2010 You Are Here: film/book/music reviews  | 
The Regulars
Browsing Netflix Instant Watch Part 3: Jesus vs. the Serpent
 
I am concluding my series on Netflix Instant watch with two more well known features: Anaconda and The Last Temptation of Christ. If it seems like the two films have nothing to do with one another, that is because they don’t, but this is the last issue of Culture Voice and if I ever want a platform to give my two cents about both of these movies, now is the time.
 
First, let’s deal with Scorsese’s Oscar nominated The Last Temptation of Christ. This film was hugely controversial when it came out because it dared to posit the idea of Jesus as an insecure, neurotic, sexual being who was as freaky looking as Willem Dafoe. Christian background be damned, I was looking forward to this movie. I avoided it when I was younger because I thought I’d be excommunicated, but upon seeing that it was available on Instant Watch, I no longer had to worry about anyone seeing the Netflix sleeve lying around betraying my waywardness. Christian organizations fought to ban this film as it was deemed an affront to their faith. I think it should have been banned because it was about the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. 
 
This movie is terrible and it breaks my heart to say that. To my knowledge, there has yet to be a good movie about Jesus; essentially the greatest story never told. Jesus movies are usually made by directors who can’t help but pour melodrama into the work as a bizarre form of reverence. Even Mel Gibson screwed up The Passion with one dimensional characters, a pornographic scourge fest, and a glimpse of a terrifying hairy baby which may have been intended to represent the Antichrist, but all it succeeded in doing was creep me out to no end. Seriously, I could have watched another 30 minutes of flesh tearing brutality than one more second of that slow motion beast child. But I digress. With LTOC I figured Scorsese might be treading on contentious waters, but at least he knows how to make a film, he couldn’t fuck this up right? 
 
Wrong. Way wrong.
 
Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot? I appreciated the curly orange wig that looked about as natural as say, Harvey Keitel in a curly orange wig but it is going to take more than fake hair to convince me that Judas grew up in Brooklyn. At least try to hide your accent. As if Little Orphan Judas wasn’t enough, Dafoe’s Jesus was about as over the top as anything I’ve seen this side of Liza Minnelli. When he was troubled he would sway back and forth, lamenting to the sky, when he was thrilled at the idea of God’s kingdom he acted less like he was delivering the Good News, but more like he was tripping on ecstasy. The rest of the cast was questionable as well with Harry Dean Stanton as a very confused Apostle Paul who at times seems like he thought he was playing Dennis Hopper. I honestly couldn’t tell if Barbara Hershey was a good Mary Magdalene because all I can remember from her performance were her gigantic nipples that seemed to cover most of the screen. They were like Olive Garden coasters. David Bowie was good as Pontius Pilate if only because of my man crush for David Bowie. 
 
Scorsese had a great opportunity to really dive into the idea of Christ’s humanity but after a while the lousy performances and poor directing actually had you rooting for crucifixion. There is one point where Jesus visits John the Baptist who is like some crazy old Assembly of God pastor surrounded by naked chicks who were shaking and twitching like they were doing the Humpty Dance. I couldn’t tell if I was watching a spiritual revival or clips of Burning Man. The scene where Jesus heads out to the desert to face temptation is especially ridiculous as Satan talks to him in the shapes of fire, a cobra, and a lion. Apparently Jesus was simultaneously being tempted and guest starring on the New Zoo Revue. 
 
In Scorsese’s defense, I read that bad weather and sand storms wreaked havoc on the production and they were forced to try and get things done in one take. That said, a film of this magnitude might have been better served to not be directed in a style a la Ed Wood. As if all this wasn’t enough, Peter Gabriel provided the score to make the whole thing even more pretentious than it was already destined to be. The absolute worst part of the film happens in the very beginning when Scorsese pusses out and inserts a disclaimer that suggests that this film is intended to be a work of fiction so as to ease some Evangelical butt hurting. Stand by your art Marty, if you were so concerned about audience reaction, you should have concluded with an apology: “I set out to make a provocative film exploring alternative elements to Scripture, but instead I made something that sucks on ice. Sorry that this film is a piece of shit, but remember, I made Raging Bull.”
 
Now on to Anaconda. This movie is bad, but not Last Temptation of Christ bad; a watchable bad, yet thoroughly enjoyable mind numbing cinematic romp. This movie has everything you want in a movie about a giant snake. First, there is a giant snake, which seems pretty essential to a giant snake movie. Second, you have scenes of nonsense like the one where Owen Wilson asks the age old question, “Is it just me or does the jungle make you really, really horny?” Third, the cast is chock full of familiar faces that are either up and comers (J-Lo, Ice Cube, Wilson), on their way out (Eric Stoltz), or leveraging their remaining semblance of name recognition into a credibility shredding performance of epically unintentionally comedic proportions (Jon Voight). Throw in an uptight Brit, the hot chick from MTV’s game show Remote Control, and a lightning quick screaming snake and you have a fantastic excuse to waste 89 minutes.
 
The story is simple: Eric Stoltz is a scientist or something and wants to film a documentary about a mysterious tribe out in the jungle somewhere. Jennifer Lopez is a documentary film director who doesn’t mind wearing wet tank tops. Ice Cube is her camera man who claims blue but is not opposed to hugging. Owen Wilson is the randy sound engineer whose trouser snake has its sights on the Remote Control chick. Along the way they run into a shipwrecked Paraguayan Jon Voight. Voight, as you may already know, is not Paraguayan and he does nothing to dispel this fact by attempting an accent that is more like Dana Carvey’s impersonation of Al Pacino as Tony Montana. All hell breaks loose when a poison wasp attacks Stoltz and the crew must now follow Voight’s lead to a hospital, though all he wants to do is catch the biggest snake in the world. Voight will let nothing get in his way as he seeks to trap the snake, ALIVE!
 
I couldn’t get enough Voight in this movie. If they had decided to change the title from Anaconda to Voight in which a documentary crew is stalked by Jon Voight and his killer accent, it would have been the greatest movie ever. 
 
On a side note, every time I see Eric Stoltz, all I can think about is the movie Mask. I believe that he would have had a much more notable career if he played every role with the Rocky Dennis makeup. That would be some kind of wonderful.
 
I watched this movie with my wife, and I wanted to share some bits of commentary from her:
 
When Wilson and Remote Control go out into the jungle and decide to get it on: “Nothing like bug covered sex in the middle of nowhere.”
 
When Voight is scowling: “That made Angelina Jolie?”
 
When Ice Cube refrains from attacking Voight: “Ice Cube is a pussy.”
 
The movie is illogical and all kinds of fun. It is especially enjoyable to watch a flaming giant snake hell bent on devouring Jennifer Lopez for what seems like an eternity. Apparently, this anaconda don’t want none unless you got bun hon.
 
So if you are looking through the Instant Watch library and have a hard time deciding between an Oscar nominated film by one of the medium’s most renowned filmmakers or a movie where you can see a giant snake vomit out the carcass of Jon Voight with a ponytail, I think the choice is quite obvious. I never thought I would feel comfortable saying it, but in this case, follow the serpent for Jesus will only lead you astray.

 
 
Where the Wild Things Are: One Last Hurrah
 
“Anxiety blocks sympathy. When we view a new form that opposes the values that make us comfortable, we see only its outer shape—its apparent, literal meaning—and we can’t feel what it means to the people who created it and the people who love it.”
                                                                        —Gerard Jones from Killing Monsters
 
In the mid-seventies, Bruno Bettelheim was already a pillar of child-psychology having exposed the destructive patterns of emotionally unavailable mothers. His theories on autism were soon to become passé, but his more general impact on parenting was to expose the consequences of the “refrigerator mom”—the parent who was “there” but not much more emotionally functional than a kitchen appliance. When he wrote The Uses of Enchantment (1973), he surprised many by extolling the virtues of (often violent) disturbing images in pre-modern fairy stories. Such gore, argued Bettelheim, served a valuable role in the emotional development of children. In contrast, he argued that all modern children’s literature was insipid, void of imagination, and altogether useless for the development of children. Ironically, there was a debilitating blindspot in Bettelheim’s research: He had never read Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, already a decade old (1963).
            Maurice Sendak is a favorite in my household; not only for his most celebrated book, but for his reoccurring resuscitation of Brother’s Grimm imagery. However, it would be disingenuous not to admit (double negative for you Moe), that we love Sendak first and foremost for Wild Things. Where the Wild Things Are may be perfection in a picture book.
            The hardcover opens to a crosshatched binding that is wild with a colorful jungle, drawing in imaginations and promising more of the same. The title page, albeit simple black font on a white page, foreshadows the final page of the story. At the same time, the title font is bold and uncouth. It is off-center and is just descript enough to be suggestive. Finally, Sendak’s illustrative power is revealed on the publisher’s page where two, hulking ghouls are cowering in the face of a small, decorated boy—a fearless boy.
            The story begins with Max, a mischievous boy in a wolf-suit wreaking havoc indoors. Max has the look of a terror, every parent’s nightmare, complete with a hammer and a scowl. Sendak’s opening line is an incomplete sentence. For years this was disconcerting to me. It was hard to read it aloud and capture the sense in which it was intended. At page one of the story, both parent and child are slightly off kilter. The wide, white margins on this page are almost three inches. This centers the small illustration of Max and his scowl.
            As the story progresses, the wide, white margins become marginalized. Each successive illustration gets bigger as Max is sent to his room without supper. Once in his room, Sendak’s illustrations expand as if revelation is afoot. Max closes his eye, “That very night in Max’s room a forest grew” …and slowly, over the course of three pages, Max’s room evolves into a wild place. My daughter is especially fond of the mid-morph, where Max’s bedposts grow out of his grassy floor and branch out into high, leafy trees. Max, eyes still closed, giggling. Soon, there no margins at all as Max sails away to where the wild things are.
            I will not tell you how this fantasy climaxes here for the same reason that I subtitled this essay One Last Hurrah.
            Last week I noticed that my favorite picture book had been made into a movie. The movie poster looked fantastic. A pang of sorrow rang through me when I realized that Sendak’s book would soon be obsolete. Such is always the case with children’s literature. Adults can reread their favorite book after seeing the film (with modest imaginative success), but children rarely can.
            Don’t get me wrong, I am a movie lover. When I saw the shire on the big screen for the first time, I almost cried. But something, something essentially beautiful is lost once the CGI trump-card has been played.
            Bruno Bettelheim, after denouncing all modern children’s literature, was asked about Sendak’s masterpiece. He admitted to having never read it, but summarily dismissed it because Max’s mother sent him to his room without supper. She obviously embodied the “refrigerator mom.” Bettelheim refused to see the same depth of imagery in Sendak that he argued so ardently for in the Brother’s Grimm. …so I begrudgingly accept the end of an era. Who am I to judge the film summarily?

 
A Fat, Lazy Ass Reflects on Mulligan’s Defense
 
Michael Mulligan’s series on nature poetry was written for people like me. In his introductory essay, Mulligan writes, “My primary audience is people who see no point in Nature poetry.” I heartily raise my hand and declare myself present.
            While I’m a great nature enthusiast, I am not what you would call “outdoorsy.” Moreover, although I love poetry, I readily acknowledge that I have no eye or ear for the stuff. So I have two strikes against me from the start. In this space, I will reflect upon both my deficiencies and offer a critique of Mulligan’s series.
            When I call myself a nature enthusiast, I mean that I really like what I see out my window. If there happens to be a mountain out there, I will wonder at its awesome and awful nature. I think to myself, “It is so awesome not to be climbing that awfully big thing!” When I see an ocean out my window, I marvel at its power and beauty. I like being close to the ocean, but I feel no need to try to harness its forces.
The snow is something altogether baffling to me. In my book, the snow is a colossal rip-off. Firstly, there tends to be a whole lot of driving to get there. Secondly, there is the expense of buying clothing that keeps the snow off you. Thirdly, there is need of a shelter that allows you to get out of the snow. In other words, people go to all sorts of trouble to go to the snow, but upon arrival do everything they can to separate themselves from it. Perhaps I’d feel differently if I was able to balance on objects strapped to my feet. Alas, God did not give me any penchant for sports that require balance. I kick some serious ass on Tetris though. There is just something about that traditional Russian music that makes me feel competitive.
To me, hiking is the ultimate affront my hedonistic sensibilities. Walking up hill is fine by me, as long as there is some worthwhile destination up there. But walking up hill for its own sake does nothing for me. Thus I tend to avoid hiking unless I’m with a group of people who are hiking and I can’t get away. This, of course, is the worst kind of hiking, because I am a fat, lazy sumbitch. My idea of exercise is upon a treadmill set to a zero-grade incline. Hiking with “friends” is not a good idea for people like me because these so-called “friends” tend to walk up hill faster than me.
I tend to bring up the rear ruminating on my weak, burning lungs and staring at my chaffed, plodding feet. I know that there must be natural beauty all around me, but I would happily burn it all down for an escalator. Every mile or so the folks ahead will stop and wait for me. Now, normally when you work hard at something there is a reward at the end of the endeavor. However, when hiking, my reward is usually a group of smugly grinning shitheads reminding me that I’m going to die before I’m sixty.
Look, I’m no mallrat; I don’t take my wife for dates at Costco, but my need for natural beauty can be sated with a Sunday drive and a picnic (preferably with lots of saturated fat and refined sugar). So, no; not outdoorsy.
Nor am I a poet. I know this because when I try to write poetry, I have no idea whether it is good or not. When I write prose, I have some idea of when I’ve just wasted an hour of my time. I know that I like Whitman. I know that I like Milton. I know what I like, but I cannot tell you why I like it.
They say that the basest form of art appreciation is the recognition of subject matter. Hey, I like little cottages in the woods AND I like Bible verses! Thomas Kinkade must be a genius! So I am predisposed to like poetry about travel, dysfunctional institutions, and sex. Hence, Whitman is my man and I am fully aware that I probably like him for all the wrong reasons. Conversely, I am fully aware that nature poetry doesn’t ring my bell because I’m not outdoorsy. Of course, this is an inane reason to not like nature poetry and probably reveals that I am a card-carrying Philistine.
Enter Michael Mulligan and his blasted Defense of Nature Poetry! Mulligan begins with a closer look at the alienated self by reading Whitman:
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on the little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
 
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres
          to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile
          anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my
          soul.
When I read this, I felt deeply alienated from myself because, while I like Whitman, I hate spiders! Still, by beginning with Whitman, I was ready to be wooed.
            I am a theologian by trade, so I am sympathetic to any argument for interconnectedness, for the restoration of humanity to her environment, for finding authenticity in creation and right-relationships. And yet, nature poetry (inexplicably) was outside my interests. That poetry can bridge the alienated self to the ecological self now seems intuitive. I honestly can’t understand why I didn’t see this before. I consider myself fully converted.
            As I read each fortnight’s offering, I slowly let go of my apathy and ignorance. By the time he unleashed the sub-theme of “vociferations”, I was already a member of the choir. Mulligan criticizes activist poetry in that it tends to speak only to those who already agree. However, when set within the context of nature poetry at large, I was able to appreciate the progression. By embedding vociferations within the larger genre, Mulligan contextualizes this particular outworking of the genre. In short, Mulligan does well to tell the larger story of the nature poet and thereby renders the unintelligible, intelligible.
            Finally, Mulligan argues that nature and culture are not opposites. He convincingly argues that one informs the other, spurs and constrains the other. He demonstrates that (for both) meaning is found in the convergence of culture and nature. As someone who launched and co-edits a webzine called “culture-voice”, I stand humbled and a bit shamed by my former self. To be sure, Mulligan’s series ought to be published beyond this garden. It would serve well as a beacon atop a high hill. Well, perhaps not that high, perhaps at sea level, for people like me. Tetris anyone?

 
 
The Nature Poem: Expanded
Rebecca L Stull
 
            A Defense of Nature Poetry by Michael Mulligan is about expansion, specifically the expansion of the term Nature Poetry and the applicability of such poetry in current academia and the public at large. Mulligan turns the old definition of nature poetry on its head by identifying the modern dilemma and detachment the American public from nature.
            Nature Poetry is loosely defined in the Art and Craft of Poetry by Michael Bugeja as, “A poem in which nature plays an integral role, emphasizing terrain and life (including humans) in a natural setting, season, metaphor, symbol, situation or theme.” Mulligan expands this definition – emphasizing the integral role or aspect that nature must play in nature poetry, or lack of an integral role as Mulligan might put it. (In the same vein, he also highlights the lack of a natural setting as well as the inclusion of one.)  This particular example is most evident in his “Section VII: Shaking the Toxic Gaze” where he takes a close look at the use of trash in Wright’s poem “Ohioan Pastoral” and Stone’s “In the Next galaxy.”  Artfully, he illuminates the way trash replaces grasshoppers. Mulligan points out the satirical tone of “Trash is so cheerful, flying up / like grasshoppers in front of the reaper…/ …In bits blown equally everywhere” but fails to mention the prophetic message behind both Wright and Stone’s work: what will remain is trash. Trash is our legacy and human-made objects will gradually replace the entire natural world.   The words “bits blown” and “reaper” also point to not only ecological destruction, but destruction by violent (nuclear) means. This foreboding message is equally clear in Wright’s poem “Ohioan Pastoral”, a clear message of doom rather than marvel. 
            It does not appear that the poets are, as Mulligan states, “help[ing] the reader shake off the toxic, narcissist fixation upon all of our stuff.” Rather, both poets demand that we as the reader are fixated on our stuff (our trash) and that we fully acknowledge its deep, disturbing immortality. Therefore, Mulligan further expands the idea of the nature poem by elaborating on the absence of natural elements (grasshoppers) and the presence of their sinister replacement (trash). While Vociferations is a crucial part of A Defense of Nature Poetry, the Nature Poet as a prophetic force should also be included, and perhaps in this section were Mulligan delicately and rather optimistically touches on such dark poems.
            Mulligan makes a crucial move by including the great W.S. Merwin, perhaps one of the most ecological poets of our time. Merwin is the epitome of every voice embodied by the Nature Poem. Merwin dances between dark predictions to silent adoration within a single poem. Mulligan’s strongest section, “Section III: The Language of the Earth” articulately explores the “The Cold before the Moonrise” by Merwin. Mulligan’s connections between the use of punctuation in Merwin’s work and the concrete move on Merwin’s behalf from the speech patterns (constructs of punctuation) to the ineffable language of nature is marvelous and well said. Merwin’s power as a Nature Poet is expansive, and this is Mulligan at this best. He explains the “non-language” of nature in a way that is both understandable and inspired. His observations on moving from de-action to action through understanding the language of nature are profound, and they left this reader to ponder: then what? How do we learn speak both the language of industrialization and the quiet turnings of the frost?

 
 
The Arco Station Men’s Room at the I-80 N. Texas Exit, A Review
by William McCoy
 
Sometimes, the best things in life are free. This was indubitably true of my most recent bowel movement. I am a firm believer that the quality of a number-two has as much (or more) to do with the environment as it does with mere physicality. With this in mind, I stumbled upon a rainbow of sensations last night as I drove home from the baseball game.
 
Leading up to my arrival at the Arco Station at the I-80 N. Texas exit, I had meandered off several previous exits only to find no room at the inn. Although, the road from San Francisco to Sacramento appears to host several pockets of civilization, there is much less hospitality than one might expect. Nature had been calling for over forty minutes and this humble pilgrim was about ready to find some nature. Thanks be to the venerable St. Barbara that I found Arco when I did.
 
When preparing to use a public depository, the first rule of etiquette is to find the proprietor of the establishment and make a formal inquiry. In haste (with expectation of waste), I respectfully endeavored along these universal lines of protocol. “My good sir, do you have a bathroom?” said I with so many words. The large, tattooed, skin-headed gentleman answered with a single finger point toward the outer corner of the building. I was quite pleased, as the nonverbal yet abundantly direct way was the best way to meet my needs at that moment. I bowed graciously and wished my ink-decorated associate health and long life (or at least this is how I intended to bid him farewell—mine is a tenuous memory).
 
Now, I have entered many a public depository in my day and know well the many odors that occasion such establishments. This is just personal preference, but I prefer the steamy, woody aroma of fresh soft-serve over that of unattended, days-old urine. I can even appreciate both if my needs are of the stand-up-and-point variety. My requirements at that moment, however, were of the sit-down-and-wait variety. I imagined that I would not have to wait long, but stopping my respiratory intake was not an option at this juncture. My olfactory senses were fully sensitized.
 
To my pleasant surprise, I smelled neither fecal matter nor urine! Rather, this locale featured a deceased and decaying rodent aroma! The purveyors of this lieu had obviously decided upon a bold and risky stroke. Risky though it was, my hosts’ innovation made this experience unique and yet did not depart from the general spirit of the gas station restroom tradition.
 
I also quite appreciated the glassless window opening above the entrance. This gave the place a more rustic outhouse feel and also tempered the rodent smell. This subtle combination of environmental concerns complimented each other well. This feature also made my vocalizations audible to the fine gentleman on the corner puffing on his tobacco stick. This fact reminded me that I was, in fact, in a public place. Community can only be a good thing, after all.
 
The seat was placed high allowing my posture to remain erect while my feet were planted firmly on the floor. This is very important to me as posture is to be associated with nobility. If one does not sit like a gentleman, one simply is not a gentleman.
 
Carrying the rustic theme further, this Arco restroom did not bother with paper seat covers or paper towels. My hosts adhered well to the notion that the odd bacterium serves to strengthen one’s immune system.
 
Even though my stay was short, I partook of the entertaining offerings. Written on the wall to my right was a humorous message which read, “SUCK THIS!” These words were accompanied by the depiction of an erect penis. It was quite lifelike and yet exaggerated just enough to produce a clever caricature effect.
 
After a brief manifestation of primal humanity, I washed my hands with brisk water and a smattering of liquid soap. I wondered at the foresight to include a cleansing agent! After wiping my hands with single ply toilet paper, I departed refreshed and grateful.
 
I extend my highest compliments to the good people of the Arco men’s room at the N. Texas exit. I recommend their services and facilities enthusiastically and with no reservation. There truly is a pot at the end of that rainbow!

 
Havin’ a Highball: A Review of Mad Men Season 1
 
 
Oh, to be an American businessman in the sixties. Still clinging proudly to the patriarchal ideals of the previous decade, gulping whiskey at 10:00 a.m., and just generally exuding magnificence. Living like there’s no tomorrow because… well… tomorrow’s gonna suck worse than today.
 
I’m currently finishing watching the first season of Mad Men, a smart, moving drama that’s been playing on AMC for a couple years. I usually begin watching television shows late, after one has received real praise from both critics and a general audience before devoting my time to it. Mad Men, I have discovered, is an excellent television show, one that’s definitely worth my time. I’m caught up in the lives of the characters, enthralled by their stories, charmed by the show’s style. But most of all, I want to take a long break from it.
 
Set in the 1960s, Mad Men’s central character Don Draper is a fast-talking, arrogant man who runs the creative department of a big New York advertising agency, Sterling Cooper. Draper is a cool, quick-witted man who seems destined for greatness in the ad world. Among his many talents is the ability to play the game of advertising better than anything else, which earns him respect, admiration, and (sometimes) jealous hatred from colleagues. He thrives on persuading people to spend their money on things they don’t need, to live beyond their means, to consume anything in sight. In Draper’s game, a person’s worth is calculated not in dignity or love, but in a lifetime value in purchases. Say what you will about the positive elements of advertising, but it’s pretty obvious that men like Don Draper inspired Hitler.
 
But beyond being a dickhead advertising exec, Don is also a terrible husband (don’t worry, it’s okay for me to be judgmental — I work in advertising, and I’m a husband). 
 
Don is a workaholic who basically stops by the house for an occasional conjugal visit and a nap. He neglects his children, arrives home late, if ever. He keeps a floozie in the city while his wife Betty raises the kids in the country. His mistress is a New York artist who appears to keep at least a few lovers, none of whom mean much to her. Strangely, it’s this woman’s lack of commitment to Don that drives him to seek yet another woman, the rich young daughter of one of the agency’s clients. And if that isn’t enough, Don is also hiding a murky, sad past from his employers and family. This, my friends, is broken-family viewing at its finest.
 
There is, of course, much more to Mad Men than Don Draper’s affairs. A host of colorful characters are constantly striving to rise above, or dig below, the muddy waters of this world. There’s a young man who seems well on his way to becoming just like Draper; a young woman whose talent is causing people to shift their views about women in the workplace; a man achieving literary success despite everyone’s utter surprise that he could have any real talent. And then, there is Betty Draper, a very pretty, young woman who is obsessed with staying beautiful. She is, on the surface, sweet and loving, but also depressed and terrified of spending her life alone.
 
More than any other character, Betty causes me anxiety. She’s the reason I so desire a long break from the show, even as I enjoy every moment of it. And it’s not just because I keep thinking, “Come on, Don, go home… your wife is hot!” It’s because when I think of Betty I think of my wife: staying at home with our daughter, cleaning and cooking, while I’m off at work. I think of how, if I’m not careful, my wife’s life could easily become just like Betty’s.
 
Every weekday, I leave home in the morning and travel downtown to the office. I devote roughly nine hours of my life each day to this job. Plus, I work with some attractive women, and see many more when I take a break to go for a walk outside. Between the hours I give up each day, the women who catch my eye, and the soul-sucking obligation to earn a certain monthly income, I can understand why Don Draper lives the way he does. As a working husband and father, it’s easy to get distracted, jaded, and even convince yourself that you live two separate lives: one cold, detached, downtown at work, the other warm, loving, at home.
 
But I don’t want to become Don Draper, the bastard. I don’t want his Brylcreemed hair. I don’t want any women other than my wife. I don’t want to spend my nights in the office or drinking with coworkers instead of having dinner with my family. (If I were completely honest, I would I say I don’t want to want any of these things.) Yet, many people don’t agree with my family-first philosophy.
 
Nearly fifty years after the time of Mad Men, the same bad habits still threaten to derail the lives of many American workers (only now, it’s both men and women): our careers govern everything we do. We identify ourselves by our jobs rather than who we are or whom we love. And before we lose our way in this maddening world, we may want to ask ourselves: from where do we receive our identity?
 
Is this too much to glean from a television show? Perhaps. I am well aware it’s a little ridiculous to hope the show’s writers and producers will help us solve society’s problems with putting work before family. But if nothing else, Mad Men might help a few people realize Don Draper is not so much an American hero as a tragic foil to our society.
 
Then again, maybe I should just stop analyzing it and just enjoy the show. Leave the worrying to the weaker vessel, right? For now, I’m going to stop writing, go pour myself a big glass of whiskey, neglect my family, and enjoy being magnificent.

 
 
Browsing Netflix Instant Watch Part 2: Masters of Horror
 
As mentioned in my first installment, I am not a horror fan per se, but here I am discussing the genre one more time. There is an endless surplus of horror films in the Instant Watch library, so much in fact that they seep into the other categories. If there is anything remotely humorous at any point in the fright flick, it can be inserted into comedy. If there is sexual intercourse or the discussion of such you have yourself an “erotic thriller.” I suppose if someone hums a tune while hacking the limbs off an unsuspecting coed Netflix would file it under musicals. With that, I was destined for more horror whether I wanted it or not, and what I stumbled upon is a series of hour long short films belonging to something called the “Masters of Horror.”
 
The idea is that a group of renowned directors of horror films have put together mini-gorefests to show off their blood spurting/boob exposing prowess. I took a small sample size of said series and will give you a brief rundown of what to expect. 
 
The first film I came upon (I did not literally come upon it in a sexual sense, though it was considered one the aforementioned “erotic thrillers) was called Deer Woman. This was written and directed by the Master of Horror, John Landis. Landis, as you may recall brought audiences the bone chilling Spies Like Us and the terrifying Three Amigos so clearly his “mastery” is well documented. The plot for Deer Woman is relatively simple: a trucker is mashed to a pulp while in a state of arousal (autopsy revealed a fractured boner), he had been seen with an attractive Native American woman prior to the accident, and the local police animal attack specialist suspects he was killed by repeated blows from a deer hoof. Said animal attack specialist is played by Brian Benben, who is sort of like a poor man’s Mark Harmon which is saying something because I can’t imagine Mark Harmon is all that expensive. Landis provides clues to Benben’s character by giving us brief and completely irrelevant information about him being separated from his wife and apparently being prone to streaks of violent outbursts such as the one involving a would be mugger and Benben going all Batman a la Michael Keaton with a counter attack and message akin to “I want you tell all your friends about me!” Deer Woman was only 57 minutes long, but Landis has so many non sequiturs you get the feeling that the quasi-narrative he was constructing could have been completed in less than 12 minutes. You only actually see the Deer Woman for a few moments in the film, and most of those moments involve her bare breasts. I don’t want to spoil all the Deer Woman fun for you the reader, but suffice to say there is a legend about a woman/deer hybrid spirit that lures men into a bonerfied state and then royally pummels them from the junk up. Her motive? Well to paraphrase a character in the film whose main function was to speed up the plot, “you white people always want a motive when sometimes there is none.” You see, Landis didn’t know what the hell was going on either and was able to sidestep the issue of plot with a well placed dialogue gem like that. Stupid white folk.
 
More on Benben. Apparently this guy is like four foot six and Landis was undecided on whether to put this guy on a box or not. For some reason they cast some guy over six feet tall to be his partner and in every walking scene, Benben comes up to this dude’s chest. It might have been more dignified to have Benben carted around in a BabySling. In every scene where they’ve stopped to talk, Benben is inexplicably just a couple of inches shorter than his partner demonstrating that Landis may be a Master of Horror, but he is a relative novice when it comes to attention to detail. It wasn’t like Benben’s partner was a great actor either, they could have cast someone smaller to avoid the issue altogether. Of course that assumes that it had to be Benben* in the lead – how tall is Mark Harmon? 
 
As a horror film, Deer Woman is not very horrific and as an erotic thriller, it is neither erotic nor thrilling. It is, however, a fun watch and at under an hour, worth the wasted time. 
 
I watched three other MOH’s to get a handle on the series and here is what I can tell you:
 
  • Family (also by Landis) stars Norm from Cheers as an unassuming serial killer who kidnaps people, pours acid on them, and creates a family of skeletons that he interacts with. This might be frightful if the skeletons weren’t the yellowish types you’d find in a Biology class and if the killer weren’t Norm from Cheers. It is sort of like Psycho - if Hitchcock decided not to make a cinematic classic but instead film a giant steaming turd.
  • The Screwfly Solution (directed by Joe Dante who made Piranha, The Howling, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action) stars Jason Priestly and Elliot Gould investigating a virus that makes men want to kill women. This is grotesquely brutal toward women and Dante makes 58 minutes feel like 17 hours. Priestly is unable to redeem this mess – mostly because as an actor, he sucks ass.
  • The Washingtonians (directed by Peter Medak of Zorro: The Gay Blade fame) is about a family that inherits a house and in it is a portrait of George Washington where they discover, hidden in the frame is a note from the founding father himself confessing that he loved to eat children. The rest of the film is the turmoil that ensues now that a secret group of cannibalistic Washington followers will stop at nothing to get that note and preserve their icon’s legacy. A must see if for no other reason than to see the main character shout out to save his family, “EAT ME! EAT ME YOU SONS OF BITCHES!” Sheer brilliance.
 
My conclusion is that the Masters of Horror series is a mixed bag, but your best bet is to find the most ridiculous plot lines among them and enjoy the hour long ride. These Sultans of Schlock seem to be at their best when the concept is at its worst.

* As you can no doubt surmise, I just love the name “Benben.” It seems fitting that the toddler-sized man’s last name sounds like a nickname that you’d give a little boy. Oh my little Benben, you’re so cute when you try to reach things. Benben, put that down, that’s a chokable. 

 

Browsing Netflix Instant Watch Part 1: Lost Boys, The Tribe

by Gordon Gartrell

 

Welcome to the first installment of my journey through Netflix Instant Watch.  As I mentioned in my introduction, I will be scraping the sides of the Netflix hash pipe to see if there is any cinematic resin worth smoking.  Our first step on our travels brings me to the horror genre, an area where Instant Watch certainly has no shortage of options.  Horror isn’t really my bag, but there was a title that caught my eye because of the sheer nostalgia it invoked.  Lost Boys, The Tribe is the follow up to the delicious 1987 vampire flick, Lost Boys starring the Corey’s and Jack Bauer with a mullet.  The original Lost Boys was not particularly fantastic, but it was dark, gory, and not without its charm and humor.  Plus it was another vehicle for Corey Haim and Corey Feldman to do their inexplicably popular thing.  I won’t break down the plot for the original because I assume that everyone over the age of 30 has seen it already (if you’re younger than that, you wouldn’t like it anyway, there is no CGI to be found). 

 

Fast forward 21 years and you have a sequel that seemed to slip under most modestly erudite moviegoer’s radar.  This sequel has a fairly simple, though mostly absurd plot:  A brother and sister move into some shanty by the beach after their parents die or some shit like that.  The brother, Chris is overprotective and the sister, Nicole, is hot.  Chris is a surfer who is kicked off of the surfing circuit which is not nearly as important to the plot as bloody necks and naked chicks.  Anywho, there are vampires in the area and eventually Nicole will become one and Chris will have to be become a vampire himself to save her which seems odd because as a vampire Nicole is almost powerless to thwart the effects but Chris seems to have no trouble because he is an ex-surfer and there is blood and boobs so who gives a shit.  The leader of the vampires is an ex-surfer along with the rest of his clan, more on him later.  Oh yeah, and to reverse all the vampire effects you have to chop the head off of the main vampire while the rest of his body sprays blood around like a Willy the Water Bug.  There may be more nuances that I am forgetting but ultimately the movie is a load of guano so you aren’t missing out on much. 

 

You’re probably wondering, “How does Chris figure out how to stop the motorcycle riding vampire surfers?”  Well, he would need the help of an expert vampire hunter of course.  Enter Feldman, as if this is doing anyone any favors. Oh my God, he was available?  He wasn’t overbooked by his myriad washed up celebrity reality shows?  How fortuitous.  Feldman reprises his role as Edgar Frog, the comic book store owner who defends the coastal town of Luna Bay from the undead.  He brings less personality to this role twenty one years later then his last go around but he makes up for it by being more squinty.  He also took a page from the Christian Bale book of character acting by invoking a raspy voice that makes Batman seem articulate. If this movie was his attempt at raising his career from the underworld, then stick a wooden stake in him, he’s done. 

 

Chris and Nicole are especially bland, so I won’t go into detail about the characters or the actors that play them.  The real gem in the movie is the villain, Shane, played by Angus Sutherland.  Sutherland is the younger half-brother of Kiefer so the connections to the first film continue. Kiefer’s vampire was cocky and at moments actually a tad bit scary, whereas young Angus delivers a brooding intensity manufactured by an attempt at producing a slow sinister speech cadence that becomes less frightening due to it’s similarity to listening to a deaf person speak.  The result is this Shane character that comes off like a pretty boy doing an impersonation of Marlee Matlin.  A really spooky Marlee Matlin, mind you. 

 

As far as the directing they really upped the gore factor.  The original had a lot of blood to be sure and there were some off putting moments, but this version brings a lot more splatter and spurts.  I’m no anatomist, but I was unaware that our guts are just itching to bounce out of us like novelty snakes in a can of peanuts.  One stab and SPROING!  The vampire surfers are constantly stabbing each other in the stomachs and videotaping the response.  Apparently when you live forever, you run out of ideas relatively quickly.

 

In addition to the added grossness, they upped the boner factor as well.  Within moments of arriving on the scene our protagonist is at a vampire party shagging some jailbait in a shower until they are interrupted by some sort of vampire hijinks.  Later said jailbat shows up back at Chris’ hovel, gets naked again, and tries to eat Chris to which he responds by throwing her into some antlers they had lying around giving the director an opportunity to draw out a scene of a topless young woman bleeding to death.  The director now establishes a theme that will play out for the film’s duration: I love boobs, but I hate women.  There are some very uncomfortable scenes where sex and violence are played out as if the message of the film is that women should be punished for being women – the aspiring feminist in me was very put off by much that took place.  I felt a lot of confusion to be honest: like in the one scene when Nicole has sex with pseudo-Kiefer.  With his flowing locks and the soft camera filter it is hard to tell where he ends and she begins.  This caused me to question my sexual loyalties as I didn’t know when to be aroused, but somehow I managed through it.

 

All in all this movie is bad.  Not bad like so bad you should watch it bad, but bad like atrocious bad so avoid at all costs.  Not even the mid-credits cameo of Corey Haim can save this film.  Wow, I’m not even sure that the idea of Corey Haim helping a movie has ever been conceived before this.

 

Important note: Though the movie is a sequel, it is not “Lost Boys 2” though there will be no mistaking this movie is in fact, number 2

 
Letter to the Editor

As was mentioned last week, a gentleman known only by the moniker, “El Conquistador” has been writing to Culture-Voice to express his displeasure of our decision to suspend Banality Smith.  I eventually responded to him and suggested that he provide a full critique of our site so that we might better understand how to meet our readers’ needs.  The following has been copied directly from his e-mail.  Normally, it is my duty as Editor in Chief to correct any typographical errors or grammatical missteps, but in this case I felt that it would be best to leave the work alone.  As Ted Turner has taught us, colorization of black and white films often detracts from the enjoyment of the piece.  I believe that to truly appreciate El Conquistador, we must hear his voice in its purest form.  SA

 

Dear Mr. Ausburne,

 

As I have stated before in my earlier correspondences, I am and always shall be El Conquistador.  This is the name I have earned and have given myself because I earned it.  I am living proof that you don’t have to be Spanish to be of great virtue.  Enough about me.

 

I happened upon your webzine one April morn and I was disappointed and impressed by what I saw but mostly disappointed.  The writing was mostly about things that held no interest to me and worse yet the writers seemed to be more interested in writing than they were in saying anything interesting.  For some reason I kept reading more and more articles, probably because they were almost good and I was left almost excited by reading them.  I suppose being almost excited is better than not excited at all but perhaps I am wrong. 

 

Week after week I click on your site and hope for something great.  I don’t know what you are supposed to be.  Are you funny?  Are you thought provoking?  Are you religious?  Are you communist?  Are you dangerous?  I don’t know.  Maybe you are everything and nothing all at once.  Maybe that is why I read.  To figure it out.  I don’t always understand the words you guys use and often have to look them up.  Sometimes I don’t even understand the definition and I have to look up words in the definition making me feel like I’m on a never ending voyage to conquer the dictionary.  That is something you should do.  I have been on websites that give a word of the day (Yahoo, etc.) and I think you would be well served to offer something similar.  I believe there is much about the dictionary that we don’t fully understand and to discover it in its entirety is a worthy goal for any aspiring person.

 

Let’s talk about your writers.  I won’t comment on your writing because that would be a conflict of interest because I would like you to consider me as a regular contributor in the future.  CC O’Lorin is kind of a snob and always is trying to say something big but in a way that is smug like an overanxious stepfather.  I could probably like him more if he wrote differently.  Gordon Gartrell is mean, plus he swears a lot.  I’m not against swearing all the time but I think he just likes to shock people.  Katie Burke and Christin Rice sound cute but kind of sad.  If they were to write less poetry and more about fun things they would be really great instead of kind of great.  You know how I feel about Banality Smith, he seems to be the only one that speaks for the majority of America.  He says it like it is and isn’t afraid to say it.  I don’t know what to say about Curtis Kuhn because I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him so I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably isn’t very good.  Michael Mulligan is like a nature poet or something and he seems like a reasonable person though pretty defensive about things.  Ivan Goddard said something bad about Canadians once so he is ok in my book.  Erin Dunigan writes on some interesting topics but I just don’t get him.  I think the rest of the people take pictures so they don’t count.

 

So why do I keep reading, because deep down I think you are pretty good even if I don’t like what you do.  I also think that if you had me write for you sometimes, your other writers might understand what people want to talk about.  I might not have a thesaurus by my side at all times but I have a proliferated way with words.  I also can paint word pictures by talking about things in a way that is unconventional, I suppose you could say that I paint words with a brush made of my brain (an example of clever).

 

The bottomline is that you guys work hard and probably took more than just the required English classes in college, and for that you should be proud.  I think you need to open your minds a little more to include some of the people that you might not always realize have a lot to say.  I think you could expand your audience too.  I ask my friends if they ever read your site and the response is always “no” except for the friends who don’t have internet access.  They say “Hell no” but they are kind of negative people anyway. 

 

Please consider my being a contributor some day and you will be grateful.

 

Sincerely,

 

El Conquistador

 
Netflix Instant Watch: A Cornucopia of Guilty Pleasures
Introduction
 
 
I love movies. I thoroughly enjoy sitting in a theater and I hate walking in late. I want the previews, the reminders to turn off cell phones, and the digital cartoon letting me know just how earth shatteringly awesome the sound system is. I collect DVDs and I will watch and rewatch them with unfettered glee. Imagine my ecstasy when my beloved Netflix gave me yet another option for my movie watching excitement. Instant Watch. Sweet Jesus, could it get any better?  No more waiting for the discs to arrive, no more hassle of tearing off the sticky strip and folding it over to send it out, no more running around the house looking for that damned specialty envelope. Now, all I would ever need would be a few mouse clicks away.
 
Or so I thought.
 
It turns out that only select titles are available to the Instant Watch list. And on top of that, they will inexplicably evaporate into the cyber-ether after a period of time. The window of opportunity opens and closes at the Netflix Gods’ discretion and I have become a slave to the beast. You see, there are thousands of movies available, but maybe only dozens that anyone has ever heard of. I find that Instant Watch has not only changed the way I view films, but it has also altered the type of film I will watch.
 
I am usually discriminating about what I watch. I reserve only the must see movies for the theater, I only purchase the movies I know I will watch over and over, and I try to fill my queue with movies of trusted recommendation. Instant Watch with its convenience provides me an avenue for something different. That something is the shitty movie that I can freely dispose of after ten minutes (i.e. Ghost in the Darkness) and replace with something slightly less shitty but more entertaining (The Edge - Hopkins!  Baldwin!  Bart the Bear!). You see, the majority of movies available that I would consider A-List are movies that I already have purchased. It’s like flipping through radio stations and listening to a song already loaded on my iPod and feeling like there is nothing new under the sun.  I would rather settle on Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel in order to feel like I'm taking advantage of the variety. 
 
So I find myself slumming it when it comes to Instant Watch, taking in B and C list films and occasionally dipping into the dreck that is reserved for insomniac meth addicts watching the USA Network in the wee hours of the night. For every Goodfellas, there is Xanadu. For every Cool Hand Luke, there is Toxic Avenger 3. For every Gandhi, there is Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. 
 
In the upcoming weeks, I invite you to come on a journey with me to the cinematic bowels of the earth. I will be reviewing films that went straight to video, films that went past video stores and directly to the Wal-Mart bargain bin, and films that feature former classmates of mine and Lou Diamond Philips (you can’t make this shit up).   Join me, won't you?  If after a few paragraphs you find my reviews juvenile, you can switch over to something else, like nature poetry. 

 

A Book Review of Jane Alison’s The Sisters Antipodes

 

 by Christin Rice

When I first encountered Jane Alison three years ago during my first week of an MFA program I thought: that woman has scary intimidating, perfect posture.  During a panel discussion on book proposals she described a meeting with her editor that resulted in the challenge of writing her memoir.  It was to be the book to explain what all her previous novels had been about.  The story was simple and awful: she was the daughter of a diplomat; her family met another diplomat’s family.  They all became close friends.  There was a girl in the other family who shared her birthday and almost her name.  Then one day, after a picnic of the families, the parents swapped partners.  And she left to live life with her mother and her friend’s father, and the subsequent voids.

I sought Alison out as a thesis advisor because of her book proposal.  I wanted the opportunity to work closely with someone whose novels were both directly and indirectly written from great personal pain that had shaped her life.  Her posture was a good indication of how she handled the craft of writing: precise, and at times uncomfortable.  I felt continually challenged to take more risks, to push much harder, that anything less wasn’t worth anything at all.  It was bearable because I knew it was nothing compared to how she approached her own writing.

I’d been waiting for her memoir for three years.  I was not disappointed.  True to the writing in her novels, her prose is supremely well sculpted and lyrical at every turn.  If it were not as artfully written, I’m not sure the book would be readable: heartbreak is felt in every page and if not contained in perfectly executed sentence structure, it would be too much to endure.  It is hard to be artful with the retelling of your life.  It can feel insincere to do anything other than report the facts.  But isn’t the living of life so much more like art in its mess and mystery than simple fact followed by fact?  Alison does an excellent job in writing a painful story beautifully.

Throughout the book there are sentences that stand out, that are full of truth told in a fresh way.  For example, she states: “Sometimes I think we all have embedded in the brain a personal place like a home we’ve lost that lingers in our skulls, and a pantheon of people who’ve so imprinted us when we were young that we see everyone after in a contrast.  This place and these people—they’re like elements or primary colors, forming and haunting our lives.  She was the original green, and this woman is like her but a touch more blue.   He was the first red, and this man is like him, but darker” (p. 5).  These perspectives make me sit up a little straighter and my brain tingle with the beauty of language and image.

Alison acknowledges several times in the book that there are those who don’t want it written, and you can sense the risk it took to write the book.  But she concludes with the acknowledgement that memory is imperfect and what is truly critical is that she claims the story of herself fully and finally.  To explain, she writes “…there’s no point speculating how they [her family] would fashion their stories, as I can’t ask.  It would be stealing, asking to have something not mine, whereas what I remember and think is my own” (p. 259).  I hear these lines as something of a mantra repeated as she forged deeper and deeper internally to write the story which couldn’t help but expose the external drama and mess of life.

Despite the fact the book seems a quest to claim her story for herself, there is also an undercurrent struggle of how to tell her sister’s story, her antipode.  Several sides of the story are told at once, as reported through the reactions of Jenny’s mother and her own, absent father whom Jenny lived with.  There is Alison’s reporting of Jenny’s continual drug use and boyfriend stealing.  And then every once in a while Alison drops into the mind of Jenny, trying to imagine what she felt, how she saw the world.  These empathetic journeys I find the most painful as you can feel the loss of Jenny throughout the book as she’s no longer there to pull or push against.  Ultimately, the entire book is about loss: loss of a home in her many transcontinental moves; loss of her father and the decades-long denial she employed to cope.  In the midst of this loss, she was shaped and emerged surprisingly strong.  Writing has become a type of home for her, and her risk-taking, carefulness and artfulness make it a wonderful home to visit in this memoir. 

 

Mad Men: A Review

by C.C. O’Lorin

 

Somewhere along the way the quality gap between film and television narrowed. The old adage that TV is mostly crap is still true. But the same is now true of the silver screen. You now have about the same chances of finding a well written, acted, and directed product in either medium. The jewels are difficult to find but they’re there. And while it may be true that the best films still reach a bit higher than the best television programs, the television series Mad Men is a jewel by any standard.

           

Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men achieves with plurisignificance. It is, at the same time, social commentary, psychological study, emplotted mystery, and tragedy. Alongside Weiner, writers Bridget Bedard, Andre and Maria Jacquemetton do what I’ve never thought could be done with dialogue. They write the 1950’s with uncanny authenticity and bizarre alienation. There is no mimic of Hollywood scripting, there is very little Wonder Years nostalgia—it is a window in a social psyche that has been altogether lost for two generations.

           

The story is set at an advertising firm on Madison Avenue, New York. This setting allows the story to follow various themes which are manifested in particular products. Questions like how do you best market tobacco? are juxtaposed with questions of the overlay of social norm and institutional lie. As the characters succeed in landing corporate accounts and perpetuating unethical consumerism, you watch with equal parts admiration and shame. Every figure on the canvas is both sympathetic and grotesque.

           

Three overarching themes reach from episode to episode: gender roles, vice, and infidelity. Each is striking in its own way.

 

I can honestly say that I never understood sexism until Mad Men. From beautiful wife to frumpy secretary to confident heiress, all of the women in the show live in the world of margins. From smarmy cat-caller to chivalrous gentleman, all of the men act unconsciously superior. Most striking of all is the way that both genders accept their roles unwittingly.  Often, the subtle forms of sexism seem more monstrous than the overt clichés. Even so, at least once every episode my jaw drops at the horrific normalcy of it all.

 

I think I might have contracted lung cancer and kidney failure just by watching the show’s cigarette and gin consumption.  Pregnant women, housewives, switchboard operators, social elites—they all smoke with ignorant bliss. I’ve actually started to worry for the health of the actors.  I will say nothing of the infidelity theme so to avoid spoiling any plot twists.  But I will say that this theme runs deep and explores the problems of duality and hiddenness.

 

The main character is Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), a topflight ad executive who is on the fast-track to firm partnership. All of the other men want to be him and all of the women simply want him. He has everything. But we soon learn that Don’s past is almost a complete secret which he reveals to no one. The first season is spent unraveling this mystery as he vacillates in dark duality. While Don seems at first to be the one enlightened character in a sea of chauvinism, it doesn’t take long to realize that he is deeply flawed.

 

One of the most interesting characters is Don’s new secretary, Peggy (played by Elizabeth Moss of West Wing fame). Peggy is easily the most likeable character on the show, but one of the most complicated. What is brilliant about her character is how she quickly transforms into a compelling psychological profile. The show reveals this profile subtly at first; so if you’re not careful, you might mistake her for a simple, wide-eyed female. “The new girl”—exactly how most men would have seen her in the period. I have to admit that I was fooled from the beginning.

 

Peggy fast becomes a key player in the drama as the company men reluctantly recognize her intelligence, creativity, and talent.  At one point, one of the men tries to express just how impressed he is by her. After seeing her talent for the first time, he says, “She was amazing! It was like watching a dog play the piano!” I laughed out loud despite myself—absurd, and yet reflective of an all too near reality. Like I said, most of these moments are much more subtle.

 

The period design is wonderful! No detail is overlooked: costumes, cigarette case, and couch. No anachronisms are apparent—at least to the untrained eye. I imagine that folks from that generation will feel a bit of superficial nostalgia because of it. However, I also imagine that any notion of “the good old days” will soon give way to realism.  Mad Men is a poignant reminder that we are just barely emerging from an ugly and shameful patriarchy.  Whatever one thinks of the current feminist agendas, the alternative is shockingly abhorrent.

 

Finally, Mad Men does a tremendous job of mirroring 1950’s problems of politics and society with contemporary ones.  You can’t miss the parallels between corporate American then and now.  Presidential campaigns then and now.  Mad Men is the Baby Boomer education I never received in school.

 
Extra-loud bus singer: A listener-response critique
 
 
 
A couple months ago I began commuting to work on the bus. I wasn’t excited about the long ride, but imagining all the potential characters I could meet thrilled me. One of my recent favorites was the Obama Spokesman, which graced your reading eyes in March. He still has a special place in my heart — but maybe not quite as special as the Extra-Loud Bus Singer.
 
Nestled in the back, right corner, a young black man with very short hair and headphones that covered half his head was swaying back and forth with his wide-set eyes closed. That’s a fairly normal sight, so as I took my seat in the middle of the bus, I was completely unprepared for the magic that was to come.
 
Two stops later, the man burst out singing something like, “I wanna kiss you, I don’t wanna miss you.” Shockwaves rushed through the bus, and then there was silence. I couldn’t see him, but was certain the man was blushing, embarrassed for belting out what he had intended to sing silently. But then, as if channeling Michael Douglas in Falling Down, the man just let go. He started singing the entire song, a hip-hop gem that was likely produced by Timbaland in a drunken stupor. 
 
After about a mile, the man’s choppy singing was obviously annoying our fellow passengers, who all seemed to shift uncomfortably in their seats while looking back to see the source of the travesty. But Extra-Loud Bus Singer crooned on, and on, from one song to the next, proudly singing about guns, cash, and bitches, but also about crushes on girls. I wish I could have recorded all the lyrics, which sounded like a thirteen-year-old who learned to read and write by Hooked on Ebonics. But it wasn’t the lyrics that made the performance transcendent — it was the fact that the guy sang like an ostrich in labor. For the next mile, his voice creaked, cracked and croaked a bizarre mix of romance and thuggery, even as people shot him furious glares or mocked him silently.
 
But despite their obvious discomfort, none of the passengers approached Extra Loud Bus Singer. They just rested with their heads bowed, as though he held a power over them that had gone dormant since R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet.”
 
As I sat there absorbing this man’s shrill voice, I wondered what strange force was causing me to enjoy the performance. In fact, I was delighted by the whole scene. It’s not every day you get to experience such a spectacle for free, outside of YouTube. And, I realized, it was finally proof that American Idol has failed at its one redeemable duty in this world, that is, explaining to humanity that only a few, select people have the talent to perform in public.
 
But then, as I scribbled half-witted mockeries of Extra-Loud Bus Singer (gems like “This is what it sounds like when doves die;” “if I had M.C. Hammer, I’d Hammer in the morning;” and “Singing in the Pain”), I realized that this man, whether by some freak accidental outburst or by cold, calculated world premier, was putting on an amazing and rare production. Not just because he sucked, but because of two important things. First, he had full, artistic control of his act. If he skipped a few lyrics to stare out the window at a girl passing by, who cares? No director, no manager, no image consultant could contain his genius. Second, he held his audience captive with such power — this man they had assumed would be just another insignificant extra in the movie of their lives now dominated their every thought on the bus. They were unsure what he would sing next, unsure if they should approach him, unsure why their souls seemed so shaken.
 
It wasn’t just my fellow passengers whose hearts had been pierced by Extra-Loud Bus Singer. There I was, still letting go of the expectation that I would read for forty minutes on the way to work, realizing that this man’s performance was everything I had not yet accomplished.
 
Here I am, nearly 30 years old — past the age Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and just about every other major author published their first great work — and I’m beginning to fear I may have missed my chance at having any real success in writing. I used to think I would have at least a few stories, and maybe a novel, published by now. I wish I could write the stories I so clearly see in my head, and find an audience I could hold captive, overwhelmed by the power of what they were experiencing. But the truth is, I’ve barely even tried to submit stories for publication. I keep telling myself I’m not yet ready; the work isn’t good enough.
 
But my work probably is good enough; I’m just terrified of someone saying it’s not.
 
As I exited the bus, my smile faded like the screeching voice still on board. Questions swirled in my mind: Can I ever capture an audience like that? How does one manage to present their work to the world with unflinching confidence?
 
I wanted to be like him, so unafraid to sing out and annoy the hell out of everyone around him. I thought, maybe I shouldn’t be mocking a man like that — if nothing else, he gave me a chance to examine my own life, my own talent, my own lagging productivity.
 
But then again, Extra-Loud Bus Singer sang like shit. As I crossed the street, I realized that while I may never be considered the next Hemingway, I’m sure I can write better than that guy can sing. Most heroine-addled hyenas could sing better. So I say to all of you struggling artists, writers, and, well, especially struggling musicians: be sure to catch the next performance of Extra-Loud Bus Singer. Though you may be temporarily caught in the mire of introspection and self-loathing, you’ll emerge from it knowing that, if nothing else, you’re better than someone.
 
C.C. O'Lorin has responded to the above:
 
Thank you Mr. Kuhn for this essay. I rarely giggle (except sometimes in the tub), but I needed a giggle and you tickled me, sir.  I would gush on, but I have an investment in this here webzine and gushing is rarely interesting.
 
I will say this though: You, Curtis Kuhn, are that man. The talent disparity aside, you are the literary equivalent to Extra-Loud Bus Singer. Extra-Loud Bus Singer let go of his inhibitions and found his accidental audience. It happened to be on a bus. For all we know, he may hope to cut an album some day. But he's not waiting; he's dropping his verse on a bus in Seattle.
 
Culture-Voice.com is quite similar to a bus in this respect. We're not HarperOne. We don't operate at 20,000 feet. We are your bus, Mr. Kuhn. Entertain us! We will be your accidental audience until you outgrow us.