the wolf part five

here is the wolf part five - I changed how I do dialogue boxes, mostly because a) it fit the minimalistic style I was going for and b) I suck at making box dialogue clouds.

the wolf part four

the wolf part four:

Letters from Neo-Tokyo:

“Living Fast in a Viral Video World or How Idiocracy Taught Me How to Love the Bomb”

Spoiler: This is a random rant

Far back, in the summer of 2006 a little movie came out called “Idiocracy.”

It was made by Mike Judge who was made famous (or infamous) for his previous work: Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space.

The movie had one simple premise:

Instead of getting smarter in the future, society will get markedly dumber.

Why?

Well, the movie hinges on the premise that smart people have fewer children than dumb people.

The film shows this by illustrating that Nobel scientists are too busy furthering humanity while trailer trash has nothing to do but each chips, watch daytime television, and oh yeah, have lots of sex. So, eventually, say roughly 500 years in the future the world is so dumb that the following occurs:

- Everyone drinks Gatorade instead of water (because it has electrolytes!)
- Nearly all companies have merged into one – one ATM machine called the AT&T, Taco Bell, Goodyear, United States Government cash machine.
- The most popular TV show is called “Ow, My Balls” which consists of a half-hour of a guy getting hit in the balls.
- The Academy Award winning movie is “Ass,” which is just a farting ass for two hours.

What really struck me about Idiocracy were some of the parallels the movie made about society today, and the dystopian one pictured in the future. While I’d like to think that humanity is progressing (and don’t get me wrong, in technology and some levels of science, I think we are), there’s a nagging part of me, pulling at my shirtsleeve that says we’re also regressing.

What, with recent movie trends where films such as “The Queen” or “Last King of Scotland” barely make adequate viewers while other movies such as ‘Norbit,” “Wild Hogs” and yes even “300” (don’t even get me started on why this movie is terrible) do spectacular business. What’s stranger still is that each of these three latter movies took a critical drubbing, and frankly, should have – while they have some redeeming points, for the most part, they are poor facsimiles of better movies.

Which leads to the question why?

Is it the nature of the movie industry where viewers are left with little choice?

Or is it the nature of movie viewers themselves – have movie studios figured out something that critics haven’t – that people aren’t as interested in films that are unsettling, difficult or slower-paced. Do viewers simply want commitment-free, concentration-light entertainment?

I don’t have a concrete answer – but my hunch would be the latter.

I would say that in the past 10 years and probably the next 20, we will begin to see the full impact of the online generation. Arguably, the recent trends in movie viewing might be a bellwether for the coming cultural shift.

Having everything accessible immediately online means people are getting accustomed or attenuated to wanting information now, wanting satisfaction now and wanting entertainment now. In some ways, viral videos kind of reflect our society’s new viewing habits – we want something that entertains us to be immediate – flash bang – that quicktime video better be less that thirty seconds and make me laugh. How can this sort of mentality not make the transition over to other forms of entertainment?

So what does that mean – well, it means that we get “300” instead of “Spartacus.” We get intense visuals, outlandish special effects and overdriven language in favour of setting, tone and dialogue. Instead of “Trading Places” we get “Norbit,” both movies are comedies, but the former trades in cultural satire, razor sharp wit and decent characterization. The other, is simply full of bizarre characterizations as though that is the same thing as being funny. Maybe I’m being judgemental (I probably am), but it’s hard not to notice the shift from movies like “Airplane” which parodied/satirized cultural tropes for comedic effect to movies like “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie” that simply trot out someone dressed as a movie character and have him say “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow” and that’s supposed to be funny.

Well apparently it is; Epic Movie came in number one its first week, so that’s saying something isn’t it?

While Idiocracy’s premise is not a heart-warming one – I mean, who really wants to watch a movie that basically scolds you (or most people in the middle class) for not reading enough, for not caring enough or not volunteering enough – it doesn’t diminish the movie’s potent point.

Perhaps, we are getting culturally dumber and perhaps it’s a product of our over-commercialized and materialistic lifestyles.

The entertainment industry, for better or worse, is like a mirror – it makes its money by reflecting the cultural values we want to see. When movies don’t reflect our interests, they simply don’t do well. With that in mind, there’s a lot invested in the Norbit’s of the world – the popularity of these movies can longer be seen as aberrations, but as growing trend.

It’s a disconcerting thought (at least to me) that these films will be the new language of our cultural exchange. No doubt, Mike Judge is rolling in the inherent irony that his low-brow satire about our low-brow culture didn’t do well.

Like Private Joe Bauers, I fondly want to recall our enterainment of the past - "Reading wasn’t just for fags. And neither was writing. People wrote books and movies. Movies with stories, that made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting."

Me? I think I’m going watch some classic movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Duck Soup and Yojimbo. And how will I watch them? I’ll download them of course.

Other interesting articles:

http://www.slate.com/id/2150627/

http://www.the-declaration.com/index.php?issuedate=2007-03-22&showarticle=1669

the wolf part three

The Further Adventures of Bevan and Keen

Welcome to the Further Adventures of Bevan and Keen, a semi-real take on the lives of two guys living in Calgary, and their demented pet rheseus monkey, Ryan.

Today's episode: "Facebook is another way of saying I love you."

Recent Reviews

Fall Out Boy – Infinity on High

My inner indie cred says I should hate this, nay, it commands that I at least show a passing dislike. I wish I could, but I simply can’t. And this despite hating-on the ever-smirking Pete Wentz and knowing the album is about as deep as a half-empty kiddie pool. I’d like to look at the album, raise my nose and sniff, and then tighten my plaid scarf ever tighter, but I just can’t.

There’s simply no resisting Fall Out Boy’s dark powers, which manifest themselves in soaring choruses that are ridiculously hooky. Like any good pop culture nugget, Infinity on High revels in the nether between high and low-brow. Really who’s keeping score though – all that matters is getting the kids to dance. As I look in the mirror, I’ll tell myself over and over that Fall Out Boy is a guilty pleasure. Then, I’ll open a fresh copy of the latest Hinder record and start to cry.

Crime in Stereo – The Troubled Stateside

I guess this is the third album by this New York group – but the first to move away from a hardcore approach into something more melodic. From what I’ve read, some of their fans were a little dismayed. I’m not sure why since all punk bands become U2 eventually, unless of course, you are U2 and then you try to become more like punk bands – it’s the U2/Punk Band circle of life - it’s tragically beautiful, like a hungry lion leaping on a gazelle in the Serengeti. While it won’t give you ear-boners, The Troubled Stateside is pretty solid for its fist-pumping factor. Combine this with the rarest of animals, “I, Stateside”, a political protest song that actually feels heartfelt and we’ve got a winner here.

Angel Witch – Angel Witch

I have no idea how this found its way into my Ipod, but I’m all the luckier for it. Angel Witch is guitar porno with handlebar mustaches attached. This 1980 release hardly sounds dated, but perhaps that’s because bands like Wolfmother and Early Man are wantonly strip-mining the same mix of power metal and D&D tropes. As opposed to current trends, Metal Witch isn’t about blastbeats and cookie-monster vocals but Bruce Dickensen howls, Sabbath drones and scorching dual solos. It’s totally ridonkulous and about as subtle as a dinner theatre run of Grease, but it’ll put a smile on your face and make you wanna scream like a warlock in the night. That is, if they scream. Maybe they just chant and in that case, Angel Witch will make you wanna chant like a Warlock in the night.

the wolf part two

Here is the next installment:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Sunday night I finished reading Haruki Murakami’s “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.”

It’s one of those books that you come across in the bookstore by total serendipity and turns into an instant favourite. I found this book while combing through an ‘Author Recommends’ section in the bookstore. I think it was Dennis Bock who put this on his favourite’s list.

As Jackie can attest as soon as I started reading this book, I was hooked. The set up’s fairly simple, a man Tora Okadu goes in search of his missing cat Noboru Wataya. Where the story goes from there is astoundingly complex invoking a myriad of oddball characters, elements of macabre magic realism, Japanese pop-culture, pseudo-transcendentalism and historical politics circa World War II with Japan’s Manchuria campaign.

How Murakami brings these elements together is seamless, but at the same time, he’s equally adept at letting all the heterogeneous pieces fall apart just as easily; the image that comes to mind is a giant lego tower, a self-consciously unstable pop-culture artifice that could come crashing down at any time.

Where Pynchon seems willfully post-modern as though consciously attempting to deny meaning, Murakami’s writing seems totally unaware that the purpose of writing is to distill a kind of meaning. In some ways, Murakami plays each character and angle of his story as though they weren’t interrelated parts realized into a whole, but simply separate strands of stories that occasionally come together through, well, serendipity.

While I can see how some might find this unsatisfying, I found it mesmerizing and am still thinking about all the directions “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” went. Fortunately, for my early birthday, Jackie bought me a bunch more of his novels. A great author I’m glad I discovered.

the wolf

the wolf

This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time and finally got up the nerve to start doing. I can't promise it's going to be perfect (or even within throwing distance of perfect), but progression is something tangible too.

I've been toying with writing this as a short story while also missing the feeling of writing a comic, so I thought, why don't I do both.

Here's the first panel with plenty more to come - I promise, I will update probably weekly, with perhaps other comic ideas thrown into the mix as I drawn them.

Reviews por vous...

Glad my limited learning in french came in handy somehow. I should've known that learning french (kind of) would only be useful for smart-alek titles and reading the back of cereal boxes.

Here's some recent reviews of music I've been listening to:

Zozobra
Harmonic Tremors

Not quite a cobra, not quite a zombie, Zozobra is named after a fictitious bogeyman set on fire every year in Santa Fe. Like this hideous monster, the band’s first release Harmonic Tremors comes alive through a frightening patchwork of metal, hardcore and noxiously good sludge. Sharing members of Cave In and Old Man Gloom, the band spews menacingly thick guitar drones that ooze more toxin than Du Pont into a small town’s water supply. On Levitate, distant tom fills stomp through a black cesspool of guitar drones like the personal soundtrack for the Swamp Thing. Likewise, on Silver Ghost, singer and bassist Caleb Scoffield furiously howls as the song completely breaks down around him, leaving only a brittle pulse of feedback that echoes off tin can walls. Ironically, don’t go hunting for harmony on Harmonic Tremors because it doesn’t live here, but if heavy slabs of wet-dirt riffs are your thing, look no further.

Dolorean
You Can’t Win

An organ breaks the silence, a piano coldly chimes and someone chants “you can’t win” over and over. The balance between despair and hope is delicate, and it’s the crux Dolorean deftly explores on their third release, “You Can’t Win.” Vocalist Al James digs into the psyche of paycheck-to-paycheck labourers, mining out the helpless and powerful truth of their circumstances. With Holy Sons’ guitarist Emil Amos in tow, Dolorean paints dustbowl landscapes with a restrained acoustic backdrop, distantly plaintive vocals and plenty of space for the songs to exhale. On Beachcomber Blues, James sings “I let the rising tide rinse off this dead end hotel haze” while Amos plucks through solemn minor chords. As the album closes, the tempo picks up and by the time “One Bottle Can Do” ends, Dolorean lifts itself above a sepia-soaked veil of emotional turmoil to find something more resolute, an optimism grounded in the everyman’s will for hard luck survival.

The Postmarks
s/t

If music were clothes, the Postmarks would be a slightly oversized maroon turtleneck. Approachable, yet sophisticated, The Postmarks’ debut is a nuanced blend of baroque-touched pop that’s both classy and wistful. Chanteuse Tim Yehezkely doesn’t sing so much as whisper in a small, sweet voice that sounds as though it was caught in a perpetual daydream. Multi-instrumentalists Christopher Moll and Jonathan Wilkins provide lovingly crafted backdrops that have one foot in cool French lounge and the other in Brian Wilson’s mini-concertos. While the lyrics sometimes stumble into precociousness as Yehezkely stretches her metaphors to match the album’s weather-tinged theme, she’s saved by the subtle touches of theremin, clarinets, flutes and violas in the musical accompaniment. On “Watercolour” Yehezkely’s breathy vocals, “paint my heart black and blue, in the portrait you said you’d do” come together perfectly with the stinging sincerity of a melancholy vibraphone to give this album its swooning heart. Airy, yet warm, this debut is perfect for a cloudy day.

More Sketches

Here's some more random before meeting drawings:

Early Disappontments

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Some bands have a distinctive sound so, when you hear it, it’s unmistakable. With Neon Bible, the Arcade Fire proves that this isn’t always a good thing. The band’s latest sets its sights on all things religious, which is commendable for its audacious ambition. Unfortunately, the music’s tone and approach are so narrow that the lyrical content could be on just about anything and it would still sound like Funeral. The same insistent drumming, the same vocal inflections, the same mid-jangle tempo and the same kitchen sink instrumentation that starts small and builds into white noise strings. For any other band, maybe this works, but with Arcade Fire’s patent set of grandeur, monotony comes too quickly. Perhaps it’s too much to be asking, but this sophomore release doesn’t better what the band has previously done.

Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City

There’s no avoiding it. This album is a clunker. Bloc Party tries to go big or go home on A Weekend in the City and they fail miserably. Every song turns into an epic with devastating lyrical precision. The only problem is that the band forgot to make the music interesting. A Weekend in the City is plagued by mid-tempo yawners that are either hookless or simply too distant or too cluttered with self-seriousness to go anywhere interesting. If I wanted to listen to Coldplay, I would listen to Coldplay. By the way, I don’t want to listen to Coldplay, and after a few spins of this record, you won’t want to listen to Bloc Party either.

Quickie Reviews

Here's some of the stuff I've been listening to this/last week.

Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow

So, this is what it sounds like dripping acid into your eyeball.

Albert Hammond Jr – Yours to Keep

The lead guitarist of the Strokes writes his own album, betters anything Strokes have done in last five years.

Angela Desveaux – Wandering Eyes

Sometimes I’m in the mood for roots music. With a song like “Bury Me Deeper” it’s hard not to be. Pretty, gritty, hard luck tales.

Bert Jansch – Black Swan

Without going too much into backstory, Jansch is an old-hand folkie making a return after a number of years. His sound certainly isn’t updated as it’s filled with that throwback feel of 60’s slash 70’s folk rock ala Donovan or Nick Drake. Not that it’s a bad thing. A little meandering guitar and fond recollection goes a long way.

The Bicycles – The Good, The Bad and the Bicycles

Where the Kooks are a little too smart for their own good, but play incredibly catchy pop tunes, the Bicycles are a little too sweet to be enjoyed on endless repeat. Sorry boys (and occasionally girls), but any good recipe needs a little sour to go with the sweet. There’s some great songs here, but it occasionally takes cute to stomach churning levels. Maybe next time folks.

The Blow – Paper Television

Catchy girl-sung indie-rock played over farty keyboards. Thomas Moog meets Kelly LeBrock circa Weird Science. Soulfully bent, bargain basement pop songs by your friend’s bratty younger sister. You know, the one you always crushed on.

Oh yeah...

I did make a non-exhaustive list of things I liked; in no way does this reflect everything.

The Dudes – Brain Heart Guitar

The Cape May – Glass Mountain Roads

Wood Pigeon - Songbook

Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Shearwater – Palo Santo

Agalloch – Ashes Against the Grain

Junior Boys – So This is Goodbye

Midlake – Trials of Van Occupanther

The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America

Ladyhawk – Ladyhawk

Jacob Kirkegaard – Four Rooms

M. Ward – Post-War

Misery Signals – Mirrors

Tussle – Telescope Mind

Supersystem – A Million Microscopes

Mastadon – Blood Mountain

I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours

iPOD This!

I realize this is an incongruous title, but after spending some hours researching website design and eye-tracking statistics, I’m learning that the key to a good webpage, and invariably a good blog, is a good title and sub-heading.

So, in light of the fact I didn’t publish my favourite music from last year (not out of effort, but out of the sheer inability to remember everything I really liked this year, er, last year), I’ve decided to publish what I’m listening to and liking as I go for this year. That way, come this same time next January, I can recall all the audible delights.

So here goes:

Tim Hecker – Harmony in Ultraviolet

Droooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeee thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat iiiiisssssssss gooooooooooooood.

Converge – No Heroes

Somewhere between Noise, hardcore and metal sits Converge. I haven’t anything that delicately plays the balance between catchy and anarchy quite like this record, or their previous records actually.

The Golden Dogs – Big Eye Little Eye

Sort of in the same vein as Hold Steady with piano/guitar boogie rock with some decent lyrics. Not especially special, but still enjoyable.

Misery Signals - Mirros

A DNA splicing of hardcore and metal. It sounds like it would suck, but honestly, this record kicks my ass. Love it.

Insomnium – Above the Weaping World

Like Agalloch, it’s metal with a touch of class. Melodic, yet punishing. Like a fine bottle of Baby Duck drunk from a brown paper bag behind a convenience store.

Eminem Presents the Re-Up - Music Review

Various Artists

Eminem Presents: The Re-Up

Shady Records

The holiday season is truly a paradox. It’s the only time of year we embrace the most unwanted of things: drunken relatives or a seasonal filler album like Eminem Presents: The Re-Up. Surprisingly, the record isn’t as bad as its premise, as long as you discount the fact Eminem barely appears on it. Aside from a couple of singles and short verses, Eminem’s absent. It’s a good thing though since new Aftermath members Stat Quo, Cashis and Bobby Creek bring a hunger that’s been missing from the label’s bigger names. The standout here is the oft-forgotten Obie Trice who lays a vicious set of lines on the menacing “Pistol Pistol.” It more than makes up for the abysmal Eminem and 50 Cent duet “Jimmy Crack Corn,” which features the worst use of a nursery rhyme in a rap song ever, a true feat in itself. Only on the scathing closer “No Apologies” does Eminem redeem himself with a fiery rebuke to critics for blowing up his personal failures (drugs, divorce). The Re-Up is as inconsistent as mix tapes go, but oddly, it delivers just enough punch. Lower your expectations and you won’t be disappointed.

Upsell Working Draft

Upsell

privilege a kind of sieve,

gaps or sieges

score, in the exegesis.

it excises it,

daylight.

stultified

by broader fugues,

survivalist ethos

returns with don’t

egg them on.

hands across

America,

then gradually,

scissors.

married to the

revival,

whose Ohio

had ceased.

villainy can

plateau,

soften than

old rhubarb

all the oil in heaven

won't move me

Sketch Head

Another work-related sketch while waiting for a meeting to start. The notes at the top are my reminding myself to download Tom Wait's Nighthawks at the Dinner for my girlfriend.

Early Day Miners - Offshore - Music Review

Early Day Miners
Offshore
Secretly Canadian

Perfectly suited for winter’s bleak early nights, Early Day Miners’ moody soundscapes offer post-rock odes to the indeterminate grey of snow-covered cities. On their latest, the band re-imagines the previously released Offshore by adding it into a six-song cycle full of restrained melancholy devoid of highs or lows. Instead, the band opts for plaintive drums that plow through washes of pensive reverb white outs. While contemporaries like GSYBE or Mogwai eventually fall into cacophonous crescendos, Early Day Miners strive for a different payoff. Moving from the opening instrumental of Land of Pale Saints to the desolate Deserter and finally into the glowing Return of the Native, the band maintains a tight focus on tone, which underscores the subtle shifts in melody. This propulsive effect infuses Amber Webber’s lyrics “losing you to your desire, in rooms with ocean views” with aching vulnerability. On Offshore, don’t mistake subtle for slight. This brief song-cycle packs an emotional wallop.

You Am I - Convicts - Music Review

You Am I
Convicts
Yep Roc

While they’re a mystery stateside, You Am I are already rock legends in their homeland Australia and abroad. Convicts is the band’s seventh release and finds them searching for footing after a few years of label battles and a few too many public meltdowns by lead singer Tim Rogers. Out to prove they still have it, You Am I fire off Thank God I’ve Hit Rock Bottom with a squall of feedback and the line “I’ve got dime bags lined up like trophy wives.” The band keeps the throttle maxed across the album’s brief 36 minutes with Roger’s punchy verses on Nervous Kid or the chiming guitars and organ on Gunslingers. Yet, among all the hooks and verve, the band also exorcises four years worth of bitterness through slow-burners such as the patently ironic The Sweet Life. Convicts was recorded in 16 days and it bears this mark by being hardly perfect or consistent. Despite its flaws, or perhaps because of them, You Am I’s latest has plenty of thuggish charm though to make it memorable.