Dear Jim Henson,

I’m sorry you’re dead, wherever you are. Your life was, and is a great inspiration to me and many I know, and you have made many a boring night a magical experience through your various works. I hope someday that my future children will appreciate your work as much as I do. Also, thank you for keeping your “Storyteller” series obscure enough for it to go completely unnoticed by me until I signed up for Netflix. On that same token, shame on you for keeping me so distracted from my studies.

Rest in Peace,
Colin Flanigan

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In the summer before my first year of high school, everything changed for me musically. After years of listening to album after album of Christian ska, punk, and hardcore, I finally started to branch out. I discovered Brit-pop via internet radio stations; bands like Pulp, Muse, and Blur. I started to listen to more of The Beatles and less of The Insyders (if you don’t know, don’t bother, they didn’t stand the test of time anyway). After making a near daily habit of spending my afternoons searching MySpace and iTunes for new artists to enjoy, I arrived at home in the wide world of Indie-Rock with some albums that are still some all-time favorites of mine – namely Arcade Fire’s “Funeral”, The Fiery Furnaces “Blueberry Boat”, and Andrew Bird’s “Mysterious Production of Eggs”. And before too long, the slow, cold hand of pretension started to grasp the tender meat of my adolescent throat, and squeeze.

Throughout high-school I was known for having both good taste in music, and a crippling intolerance for any music that I didn’t deem “worthy” of my ears. I shamelessly belittled anyone who didn’t “understand” the music that I so dearly treasured, and in turn belittled their musical tastes. There was no “good country music”. Rap was only good when it was from the 80′s or early 90′s. And I would have rather died a tragic death than to have been caught listening to an artist even vaguely supported by the Disney corporation.

But now I’m a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and have a lot less of an innate need for superiority over others. I have been becoming less and less bashful about my musical “guilty pleasures”. And, while I still may not understand some aspects of the Michael Jackson phenomenon or the Brittany Spears mania of my early adolescence, I feel it necessary to give an apology to those many pop-fanatics that I so wrongly judged in the past. So, consider this list my apology: a short list confessing the many artists that I once enjoyed only in secret, and those that I have only recently added to my iPod knowing that my high school self is rolling in his metaphorical grave. These, my friends, are my guilty pop pleasures, complete with a painstakingly composed playlist at the end of the post. Enjoy.

*note: for optimum reading experience, start playlist now

10. Backstreet Boys
song of choice: The Call

Let’s start this thing off with a bang – a never-before revealed confession: when this boy-band, and the rest of the boy-bands that nearly completely dominated Radio Disney back in their heyday (O-Town, N Sync, 98 Degrees, even Plus One) first appeared on the scene, I was flabbergasted. A youngster still tightly gripping his DiscMan with a calculator watch on one wrists and a studded bracelet on the other, I had never heard of a “boy-band” before. It was not long before I learned that they were something to be loathed and feared, because they could turn the meekest of young girls into screaming fan-girls more impassioned than even the most passionate Star-Wars fan. But then, one fateful day in my seventh-grade year I heard a song about a dying cell-phone battery and a slanderous tryst while channel-surfing at a friend’s house. And I liked it. And I didn’t tell anyone I liked it until just now.

9. Abba/Madonna
song of choice: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight)/Hung Up

I’ve been hiding this opinion in the deepest depths of my musical intelligence for a long, long time, and I’m only going to say this once: the synth riff on the song “Man After Midnight” is one of the catchiest, most incredibly awesome synth lines I’ve ever heard outside of a Daft Punk, Digitalism, or Justice song. Madonna’s use of it in her song “Hung Up” was absolutely brilliant. Kudos to her producer. Also, her song “Like A Prayer”, while it’s something my inner-conservative hopes any future children of mine never take a liking to, has long been a favorite of mine. Ok?

(deep breath)

That said, if I never see the film (or stage, but especially film) production of “Mamma Mia!” ever again it’ll be too soon. Way too soon.

Anyway, have a listen to the song on the playlist. You’ll know the synth lead I’m talking about when you hear it. It’s extraordinary.

8. Britney Spears
song of choice: Womanizer

Honestly, who didn’t like Britney back in the day? She enchanted even the most stoically un-bubblegum of us, and did so ferociously. When I think back to my early high school days, she was everywhere! Pepsi ads, superbowl halftime shows, splattered all over MTV and various films from the era – it was incredible. I had no chance; resistence was futile. I am a Britney fan. Her last few efforts have some really dark punch to them, almost entering into Michael Jackson territory (Smooth Criminal), and the remixes from her last album provided me with literal hours of entertainment searching them out on the internet. Heck, they still do.

7. Miley Cyrus/Justin Bieber
song(s) of choice: Party in the U.S.A./Somebody 2 Love

I know I really shouldn’t lump these two into the same category, but here’s the thing: I only really like one or two songs by either one. In that respect, I think it’s fair enough to do this. Their marketing brackets are similar, their approaches seem somewhat similar, and though their styles are pretty wildly different there’s a certain funk to these songs of theirs that is similar enough to excuse any potential oversight I might be making here. Plus, it’s Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. C’mon. Way to go, production teams!

6. Lady Gaga
song of choice: Paparazzi

A friend of mine has been a huge Lady Gaga fan from her early days, and spent a good deal of time defending her honor as I looked the other way in vague disinterest. But as he sang the praises of Lady Gaga, I started to listen. Honestly, I still don’t totally appreciate her music – I find some of it grating and obnoxious. But there are those stand-out songs that I absolutely love, and I truly respect the reverence she has for classic trends and tropes in modern American pop.

5. N Sync
song(s) of choice: Justin Timberlake – Lovestoned/I Think She Knows, N-Sync – Girlfriend, JC Chasez – Blowin’ Me Up (With Her Love)

Justin Timberlake’s solo album Futuresex/Lovesounds was one of the first albums ever to land in my library consisting of pure radio pop. The year it came out, I was determined to dislike it. The song “Sexyback” drove me near literally up a wall every time it came on the radio (and to this day, though I’ve softened, I still think its beat is incredibly annoying). But I’ll be honest here. I love that album. And that song “Blowin Me Up (With Her Love)” that JC Chasez released in 2002 provided a giant hole in my anti-pop defences with its heavy beats and deep grooves. And when I think about it honestly, I always liked their songs. I remember “Girlfriend” being stuck in my head a lot back when the video was playing on MTV, and even their song “It’s Gonna Be Me” had a certain draw for me. Plus, JC Chasez released a song post N Sync entitled “All Day Long I Dream About Sex”. I mean, come on.

4. Beyonce’
song(s) of choice – Single Ladies, Halo

I never really had anything against Destiny’s Child. I definitely never had anything against her collaboration(s?) with Jay-Z. And when her most recent album came out, I must admit, the songs “Single Ladies” and “Halo” were instant hits with me. Plus, and I’mma let you finish in a minute, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of ALL TIME. ONE OF THE BEST VIDEOS OF ALL TIME!

3. Robyn
song(s) of choice: Dancing on my Own, and nearly everything off of “Body Talk” Pt’s 1 and 2

Swedish pop sweetheart Robyn has been popping up all over the place lately. From playing the VMA’s to being on pitchforkmedia.com’s front news page at least once a month, the girl has obviously become something of an indie-pop darling. The weird thing about that is that she doesn’t really sound that much like an indie-pop artist. She sounds a lot more like…well…a pop artist. Because that’s what she is, and she is doing great, great things for the world of pop production both for today, and for the future.

(Included in the playlist is a remix of her song “Dancing on my Own” that might be the second most incredibly hard-hitting remix of any song I’ve ever heard. Enjoy.)

2. Ace of Base
song of choice: All That She Wants, The Sign

I actually recently got a hold of Ace of Base’s “Greatest Hits” album and have been working my way through it. I think that’s enough description – let’s face it, we’ve all seen the sign.

1. Kylie Minogue
song(s) of choice: Can’t Get You Out of My Head, Come Into My World, Wow, Speakerphone

This one, much like the artist, goes way back. And I mean way, way back. From her first hit in 1988 which I heard on the show Full House when I was nothing more than a young sprout, my interest was piqued. But when she released her single “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” in 2001, I was instantly hooked. Of course, at the time I dared not tell a soul that I loved that song with all my heart, but now that I’m older and my juvenile fears of judgment have been almost entirely chipped away by the collegiate spirit of social apathy, I proudly proclaim myself a Kylie Minogue fan. The entirety of Fever, the album on which that single was featured, was great, and the video for the album’s other single “Come Into My World” directed by Michel Gondry was simple and phenomenal. And even though I completely overlooked her next two albums until only a few years ago due to my increasing hipster-fueled pretension in high school, both of them were phenomenal pop albums as well. The song “Wow”, a fan-freaking-tastic dance anthem was even remixed by MSTRKRFT, one of my favorite underground production teams (even though it stands firmly on its own). And as if a constant stream of fantastic pop hits wasn’t enough to bring you over to her side, she is also a cancer survivor, beating cancer before her album X was released. It’s unfortunate that I’m only now catching up on what she’s been up to, but there’s a lot to catch up on and I’m definitely enjoying it.

This post dedicated to Jordan Thomas.

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Have you ever had a day when everything just seemed to pile up on your back? When life handed you a big basketful of lemons, and there was no sugar and water to be found? When, after you’ve eaten your mediocre lunch and been through the first half of your mediocre day you’ve wanted nothing more than to wrestle up all of your problems, throw down your lunch, get up on the table and sing?! When you’re a giant anthropomorphic turtle with a mask who’s troubles seemed so overwhelming that you decided to take a break from fighting crime-loving ninjas, throw down your weapons, and pick up a guitar and express your true feelings? If you’ve ever felt like any of the above statements before, then this album is for you!

Something Terrible, Vol. 2: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in “Coming Out of Their Shells!”

This month’s selection comes from our wonderful Nate Gass. When he first told me about it, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I use no hyperbole when I say there’s nothing that could have quite prepared me for what I was in for when I pushed the “play” button in my iTunes playlist. I was expecting something terrible, and what I got was…well, we’ll get to that. For now, some history.

In 1990, fictional characters the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were climbing quickly to the height of their first wave of immense popularity. Their animated series had already been running for three years, various playsets and action figures were selling like hotcakes, and children the world over were already beating the ever-loving spit out of each other and justifying their actions by referring to themselves by the names of classic Italian Renaissance artists. In short, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael were taking over. And, coincidentally, so were those who owned the rights to said fictional characters. As one would imagine, they had already earned literal gobs of cash through the aforementioned merchandizing and various other ventures. But in 1990, it was finally time to really rake in the cash with something bigger – something better. That’s right, you guessed it: an Off-Broadway Concert Tour.

Coming Out of Their Shells premiered at none other than Radio City Music Hall, featuring all four turtles as a bona-fide rock’n'roll band complete with saxophone (as “played” by Raphael), alongside other characters from their universe including April, Shredder, and Master Splinter. Pizza-Hut sponsored the whole shindig, including a release of a “Behind the Shells” VHS tape, as well as other premiums involved with their business including posters, audio-cassettes (such as the one belonging to Nate Gass, used for this very article), and official “Tour Guidebooks”. As far as a plot synopsis, there really isn’t one. Suffice it to say that April is, as usual if you’re familiar with the franchise, kidnapped by Shredder, who instead of focusing on his usual dastardly deeds has instead decided to “destroy all music.” Oh yeah, and he raps.

Which brings us to the actual music of Coming Out of Their Shells. According to Wikipedia, the musical genre of the show “was closest to hair metal/power rock.” According to this reviewer, it was closest to “confusing”. From the beginning track, which shares its title with the name of the production, we are treated to one of the turtles singing about the boys coming out of their shells with a voice that sounds like Bon Jovi guesting on a Journey record while an acoustic guitar plays in the background.

“because when there’s music inside inside of you, you know that one day it’s got to come through. That’s why we’re here, and we’re telling you true, we’re coming out of our shells…”

And, lyrically at least, that’s really the general idea of the whole thing. I have to be honest, when I heard the first track I was somewhat impressed. It wasn’t half as bad as I expected it to be – initially, that is. But that was only the beginning.

The rest of the album hops between some grey-puce area between world-music, hair metal, the worst old-school hip hop you’ve ever heard, new-age, and, well…Pizza Hut advertising. It’s overarching theme is that when you’ve got troubles – like, say, some sort of ancient, half-mechanized, evil samurai and his entire posse of anonymous death-ninjas kidnapping your beautiful news-anchor friend just before the start of your concert – all you’ve got to do is sing about it and your troubles will melt away. Oh – and if that doesn’t work you can always eat a metric ton of pizza (and sing about that, too). “Sing About It” is actually the name of track 2 on the cassette, and the climax of the track where Leonardo hits his high note made me laugh out loud in the middle of a coffee shop full of people. The album is full of amusements like these.

Track 3 (entitled “Tubin’”) gives us a sega-genesis sounding midi beat and is all about playing in sewers. According to Michaelangelo, “you might be diggin’ California days, but tubin’s got no ultraviolet rays!” There is a distinct M.C. Hammer meets The Beach Boys feel, and the rap near the end of the song is nothing short of priceless, as are most of the hip-hop breakdowns and intros on the album.

The next track, Splinter’s solo, is called “Skipping Stones” and provides us with an alternate method of dealing with our troubles (see the title of the song). Splinter sings lyrics resembling something written by Kate Bush in her third-grade poetry class. Splinter himself sounds something like a 90-year-old Meatloaf impersonator with a fake asian accent. Once again, as the track comes to a climax things only get worse, as the lyrical stylings shift somewhere closer to a duet between Tom Waits and a food processor, and the music gets less world-y and more…well, bad.

Elsewhere on the album we find such lyrical gems as “Pizza power! A flying-saucer food-delight!”, lists of various foods that the turtles don’t like as much as pizza, “I can’t hear you, nunda!” (the meaning of the word “nunda” is still a complete mystery to me), “Walk straight! No need to mutate!”, “Walk, talk, be, see, hear, think straight!”, “No treaties after the war!” (which comes WAY out of left field), and “A turtle is a friend – a friend ’till the end”.

I have to admit, even though it was ultimately worth it, I had to tackle the album in segments. On track 8, entitled “Cowabunga”, I had to remove my headphones and pause the track because I was laughing so hard. But in the middle of the next song, I had to remove my headphones for a completely different reason – the Turtles had ground me down, and I was getting legitimately weary. My eyelids were heavy. I was developing a headache. Every so often I would catch myself neglecting my note-taking for the review, instead letting my eyes wander around the coffee shop I was sitting in. I then realized that I had actually been tuning the music out, and had to re-start the track, near tears.

And when I finally reached the end of the album, mentally and emotionally exhausted, I removed my headphones and uttered a breathless “wow.” Without trying to sound mean-spirited, this may have been the most difficult album to listen to I have ever experienced (when listening to it all the way through, at least). The experience was something akin to watching a guy who claims to bend spoons with his mind but can’t actually do it try to bend spoons for an hour and a half straight – was, in a word, painful. A week after writing the review the thing was still on my iPod, and songs from it would keep coming up on shuffle in my car, causing my passengers to protest loudly and fervently. It is, truly and beautifully, an absolutely awful piece of work, and even though it may have brought joy to thousands of children when it was on the road I completely understand why it has since been forgotten. Still, as bad as it was, I’ve found that it has had several side-effects that could be interpreted as being positive, which are as follows:

1. I will never again complain about anything played on the radio as being “The worst thing I’ve ever heard,” because this album’s track “Cowabunga” has taken that title.
2. I have vowed to be open-minded about such musical acts as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.
3. I now have the knowledge that if I’m ever in trouble, if I skip some stones the turtles will arrive, friends to the end, and I can be assured that we’ll grab a slice of pizza, crank up the jams, crawl into the nearest sewer, and sing about it! The music is within!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cleanse my palette with some Pizza-Hut and Phil Collins. See you next month.

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An original piece by GRTM contributor Colin Flanigan

As I sat in the bathroom cubicle,
	which was like a beehive,
but without the bees (which is an abstraction)
	my heart
felt, (after a line break)
	like a white-hot iron.
	(which is a simile, signified by the word "like")
A white-hot iron,
	which,
in its fiery rage,
	was personified -
by my insinuating that a laundry iron could feel rage -
	spat sparks upon the laundry
and the fabric (which is a synonym)
	of my soul
because you said
	"I love you-
but I am sick of your explaining everything."

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I have been an absentee poster to our dear website for a few weeks now, but I assure you I have been hard at work on future material for your reading and listening pleasures.
In my temporary absence, please take solace in the knowledge that I am thinking of you.

In the spirit of such thought, I was driving to university this morning with my iPod on shuffle, and by its tiny electronic divine providence it provided me with a perfect playlist – one that I would like to share with you today. No inspired thoughts, no fancy rhetoric, no sarcasm, irony, or wit. Just some songs that happened to play together in a particularly pleasing order that I thought you might enjoy.

I hope you like it.

Sincerely,
Colin Flanigan

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And I’m not talking about normal, every day terrible. Not some commonplace children’s-television-show dreck. I’m talking about something truly unique in its ability to be bad. Something so poorly executed, so poorly thought out that it defies nearly every well-regarded law of its form; logic and craftsmanship, talent and skill. Something so pure and truthful in its misguided creativity that you cannot bear but to stare at it like it’s some sort of horrible car-crash or one of those faces that truly only a mother could love. I delight in finding these hidden gems of wonderful badness, and there’s nothing quite so refreshing as trolling through a thrift-shop or used media store and finding that one completely unnecessary object that will sufficiently make my day, sometimes my week.

And so, I bring you Something Terrible, a column I plan on writing every now and then, perhaps monthly, about a work so terrible that it can only be appreciated when examined as a work of total genius. Hopefully, by reading it, you too will find enjoyment in these frankensteins of art and culture I’ve learned to love so dearly, and maybe even be inspired to take up your own study of the banal and insipid in search of something truly inspired.

Now, without further ado – Something Terrible, O.F. [Object of Fascination] #1: Bad as I Wanna Be: The Autobiography of Dennis Rodman.

As any of us growing up in the 80′s-90′s know, Dennis Rodman was – oh, how to put it – that weird and wild man who played for the Chicago Bulls, lived constantly and bizarrely under the shadow of the almighty Michael Jordan, and was widely regarded as one of the strangest men in the world of sports at that time. I knew kids on my block growing up that were Dennis Rodman fans, but back then I generally imagined that those kids must have been simply unaware of just how utterly bizarre he was. After all, the man married himself, didn’t he? He’s a basketball player, not Salvador Dali – he’s not supposed to be that eccentric.

But, like most of us who grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, I am now grown up. As a young man of some experience, I have dealt with my fear of the bizarre creature that is Dennis Rodman, and have come to appreciate him as both pop-culture icon and as a figure of strange and inscrutable wonder. Which is why I have a hard time not discussing his autobiography as anything less than some bizarre form of literary genius – however misguided and accidental it may be. Allow me to elaborate:

From the very first sentence in the very first chapter (titled “New and Improved: One Night, One Gun, One Decision”), Dennis promises to be nothing less than real with you when he states:

“On an April Night in 1993 I sat in the cab of my pickup truck with a rifle in my lap, deciding wether to kill myself.”

Here, the reader is notified of several facts about this book in the following order:

1. This is serious.
2. Dennis Rodman is serious.
3. Dennis Rodman is seriously overdramatic.
4. This sentence of the book is printed in 16-point Bold Impact font.
5. The next few paragraphs of the page are in uniform 12-point Times New Roman font.
6. …What?
7. *turning the page
8. There are three different sections on this page where for the duration of a sentence the font changes to sometimes 14, sometimes 20-point font ranging between Impact, Arial, and…is that Comic-Sans?
9. Dennis Rodman has no idea how to write a book.
   And finally,
10. This book is genius

Although it might be appropriate to say that the book begins with “guns blazing”, it is perhaps even more appropriate to say that it begins with “guns being held in a truck and pondered over to a sound-track of Pearl Jam and a sincerely laughable amount of self-pity”. It outlines Dennis’ decision not to kill himself while sitting in his pickup truck and listening to Pearl Jam (his favorite band, a fact to which he refers to about thirty times throughout the course of the text) outside of the Pistons’ stadium in Detroit, MI. He was playing for the Pistons at the time, and tells us that though he was following his dream of being a star basketball player and making a ton of money on a winning team, he simply wasn’t being his true self. He tells us how he used to be a janitor at an airport, and how he, in a strange way, misses that sort of life. He tells us how his life is incredibly and seemingly irreparably screwed up because of his fame and his money and whines incorrigibly about the same things that every incredibly successful person seems to complain about with an air of melodrama and self-pity that is the trademark of only the most insincere of writers.

But in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t so much the raw content of the book (the melodrama of Rodman’s struggle with success, drugs, sex, romance, etc.) that is so entertaining. It’s all pretty standard fare, in that respect. But the over-production and shameless hyperbole of it all, the schizophrenic typography and relentless way in which he constantly refers to the reader as “bro”*,

(“Everyone was gone. My teammates were gone. My child was gone. My coach was gone. I was alone, bro, all alone.”)*Chapter 1, p. 4

alongside other incredibly entertaining tendencies that all filter into what I like to call “the Dennis Rodman experience” make this book an incredibly unique read.

It is more than apparent to the reader that Rodman, as many stars do for their autobiographies, has dictated his story to a ghost-writer who wrote down what he said, then went back and filled in the blanks, plugging them all into some semblance of a cohesive order. The result of this method of writing is that every few pages there is a paragraph that just doesn’t seem to fit; a place where the ghostwriter has obviously tried to squeeze in an artfully crafted description or relaying of events which inevitably falls flatly and dumbly on its face, tripping over the long and dirtied shoelaces that are the rest of the text. This all ads to the aforementioned schizophrenic nature of the text, and when all of these elements are tied together it results in a work that is instantly humorous, loathsome, shocking, and so self-sabotaging that one cannot help but describe it as utterly endearing. At times, despite this book’s many faults, it even manages to be strangely inspiring.

If you’re looking for something provocative to make you think and write and experience the world around you in a better way, something profound to mull over for the next several months, there are many better suggestions that I could make to you. If you’re looking for something uplifting and inspiring that speaks to the irrepressible human spirit, I have no suggestions here for you. I hear Julia Roberts is in a new movie and it’s based on a book – look into that. But if in the midst of reading those surely classic selections that you are choosing for the above reasons you find yourself over or under-whelmed, I would thoroughly encourage you to take a minute to indulge, to jump into the giant vat of self-sure insanity that is this book and just stand a while, basking in the glory that is this beautiful, abhorrent monster of a biography. I promise, you’ll feel rewarded when you do. It may not be a work of genius in quality, but – much like its author – in terms of absurdity it is head and shoulders above the competition.

*Author’s Note: If you’ve enjoyed this article and would like to read more editions of “Something Terrible”, please feel free to comment with suggestions of terrible things to be reviewed (Films, Music, Artwork, Literature – anything, really). They are much appreciated.

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July 22, 2010

Laramie, Wyoming – A long-term study has finally yielded some solid results. According to Dr. Andres Welk of the Scientific Institute for Social Equality “It’s true. Everyone’s crap really does stink the same.” Over the past four years he and a distinguished group of scientific researchers have been working on a study of perceptions and factual data regarding the smells of fecal matter across differing cultures, socio-economic demographics, and most recently, political groups.

“The most recent set of experiments we conducted were with Democrats and Republicans. We had a control group of about a thousand and an experimental group of about twice that. We focused mostly on a series of blinding tests where the subjects of the experiments would have several control samples and only one or two from the experimental groups. The results were overwhelming – they had no idea whose drek was whose!” Additional data proves the scientists theories, as similar studies with different opposing groups yielded almost the exact same results. According to Dr. Welk “We did studies with whites Vs. various other ethnicities, those same ethnicities pitted against each other, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, religious groups, you name it. We even had the work force of an entire office building operating nearby come and join the study. They were surprisingly enthusiastic.”

Andres said the research group had no difficulty in finding subjects for the experiments. “People were lining up at the door. Of course, we didn’t disclose all of the requirements of the study when taking in applicants, but they got the general idea. When we asked most people why they were joining the study, most said they had something to prove to someone outside of the experiment. Exes, colleagues, etcetera. It wasn’t really all that scientific, from that standpoint. A lot of them were mostly interested in finding out about their own crap. These folks in particular were dramatically displeased with the results.”

He’s not kidding there. As I was conducting my interview with Andres there was a throng of protesters outside the institute rallying together to defend their feces. “The ‘facts’ that these guys claim to be finding are just not true.” Said protester Mark Warberg, 24, of Kendall, Wyoming. “Believe me, I know myself well enough to tell you that near everyone else’s s–t stinks way worse than mine. And that’s what we’re about, here. Hell, I’ll send ‘em samples if it’ll prove it to them!” Warberg argues that it is “downright wrong” to try to equalize everyone on grand a scale and says he takes great offense at being compared to certain other groups, which he left unspecified. “I’ve worked hard in my life. I’ve educated myself, kept an open mind, and by now everything that I am and everything that I know is something I’m sure I’m right about. And now these closed-minded, idiot scientists are trying to tell me that I don’t know my own s–t?! It’s unforgivable.”

But Warberg’s battle is not new – since its inception, the project has been a fight for the scientists. Two years into their study they lost backing from several of their supporters due to the developing results. Apparently what the researchers were finding did not match the desired results of many of their contributors. To add insult to injury, several organizations sprung up in order to stop the research. These organizations (who asked not to be named in this article) say they resent being told that they are equal to literally the entire rest of the world, particularly in such a serious respect. They don’t see at all how everyone could possibly be equal in this particular sense. Said one unnamed supporter of an opposed organization “It’s as if these researchers can’t even smell it. And you know what? That makes their’s stink the worst.”

Regardless, the psychological implications of the study have proven very interesting for the researchers, and as well to the psychological community. I’m told that they will undoubtedly get involved, eventually. Says Catherine Boyle of the Institute “It’s not as though the subjects of the experiments necessarily all denied that their own excrement stank, but they would insist – even after they were shown the results of their experiments – that their group’s stank less. It was fascinating at first, but it quickly became incredibly annoying to our purposes. In our de-briefing sessions we would argue our results with experiment participants sometimes until both parties were blue in the face. It’s as if the whole world is simply incapable of being reasoned with.”

According to the recent findings of this study, he couldn’t be more right.

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Prediction: Approximately a week from now, perhaps sooner, there is going to be a war. Not a serious one, but an internet-based, opinion fueled FaceBook mud-sling between people arguing that Inception is either “the best film ever” or “a complete waste of time”. The arguers claiming that it is the best film ever will likely be hobbled by a severe deficiency of knowledge of classic cinema. Those who argue that the film was a waste of time or “too difficult to understand” were, frankly, just not paying attention.

After just seeing the film, I can by no means deny its brilliance, and for its time I do consider it at least the best film I’ve seen all year, if not the past five or so. The ease with which it presents to you ideas that should be intensely difficult to understand, with which it weaves itself serpentinely around your brain and squeezes with python strength to bend you to its will is intensely impressive. As far as films go it nears perfection, and I am not kidding when I say that as I was walking out the doors of the theater I felt welling up in my eyes tears of pure joy. No movie has ever made me do that before. It’s not that I don’t cry at movies – I’m known for regularly getting teary-eyed at the end of particularly emotional films (Where the Wild Things Are, Lars and the Real Girl, etc.) but no film I’ve ever seen before has made me cry tears of joy, of awe at its sheer brilliance. I was dumbfounded – stunned. It’s not a perfect film – but it’s incredibly close.

But then, why is it so close? I was talking to my girlfriend (with whom I saw it) about this as we were driving home from the theater, and I’m convinced it is because of not only Christopher Nolan’s skill as a director – his ability to interpose action, intrigue, and plot – but also his skill as a writer. Granted, he seems to rarely write alone and is often aided by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. But as his most recent film proves, the man is just as strong a writer on his own – perhaps even stronger.

My position in the discussion was and remains this: Christopher Nolan does not simply create movies as everyone else does, but gives what seems to me a strangely self-aware nature to every film he makes. Take, for example, his 2006 film The Prestige – a film about two magicians who go to great lengths to best each other’s acts. Without spoiling the film for you if you haven’t seen it, the plot-line is (like most of our boy Chris’ films) chock full of twists and turns. Turn being the operative word. Throughout the film there is a lot of dialogue included about the anatomy of a magic trick – narrated descriptions of the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. These bits of dialogue and narration about how a magic trick works are not in the script simply to add intellectual depth to the film or prove that the writers did their research, but are – we find at the end of the film – totally necessary pieces of information needed for the audience to fully understand what has happened by the end. The film in and of itself is, arguably, a magic trick. And a slick one, at that.

Nolan’s other films operate in much the same way. Memento works backwards and reveals to you its mnemonic devices one by one, catching you totally unaware by the end. Nolan doesn’t allow the viewer to “figure it out” in that film as well as he does in The Prestige, because it’s not necessary. The visceral experience in Memento comes from not being able to figure out what’s going on, furthering our connection with the film’s protagonist because we have no more idea of what’s happening than he does up until the end of the film.

Nolan’s Batman films don’t conform to this trend in as many easily definable ways, probably because his function here is more purely directorial – the stories for these films are already written. Still, they are expertly produced and that self-aware feeling is not lost in them. Simply put, they know they’re movies so that you don’t have to; so that when that film effect kicks in and the picture starts to warp when we are seeing things through the eyes of a victim of the Scarecrow’s serum we don’t think “wow, what a great effect” so much as we shift uncomfortably in our seats and wait for the bad trip to pass. After Batman Begins came out in theaters I asked my pastor – a film buff and a Batman fan – what he thought of it. He replied that he liked it, but he had a really tough time watching it because of some previous experiences he’d had with drugs as a young teen. The film gave him flashbacks. If that’s not experiential filmmaking, I don’t know what is.

At the heart of Christopher Nolan’s ability to make films that are inexplicably tangible, affecting, and visceral is, I think, his ability to understand his craft. Just as a composer attempts to express deep emotions, specific settings, and everyday sounds through music, Nolan makes movies that are truly about their subjects – so much so that they mirror those subjects and become them. Inception isn’t just a film about dreams – it is a dream on film (not a spoiler, don’t worry). It’s not as though this is a new concept to the world of film, but due to the skill of the writer/director I would argue that it has never been done so thoroughly and successfully. An hour after seeing Inception I found myself examining the wooden frame of a painting on the wall of my girlfriend’s house and doing my best to appreciate just how intricate and real it was. Inception made me at first question my reality, and then appreciate the realness of the world around me – the universal truths of physics. It is a powerful film made by a powerful director, and Christopher Nolan undoubtedly deserves an Oscar – if not for the fact that he created such an incredible film, then because of his obviously deep love of what movies are, and his contribution to demonstrating what they should be. Now, excuse me while I pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

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Cat and Girl is one of my all time favorite webcomics for many reasons. It has the philosophical wit of Calvin and Hobbes (a favorite since childhood), the strong social commentary of Doonesbury (without being incredibly boring, like Doonesbury), and enough quirk and pop-culture referencing to satisfy even the most seasoned culture-lover – some so obscure that I don’t understand them and have to look them up in shame. The writer (Dorothy) is also incredibly creative with her merchandising, and makes some of the best pro-National Public Radio merchandise I’ve ever seen in the form of bags and shirts that say “I listen to NPR and I’m terrible” on them. In short, it’s brilliant.

But one of my absolute favorite things about this comic is its honesty with its audience. It’s a webcomic, which means it is already aware of the fact that it takes a special kind of audience to read a webcomic religiously. But the references that it makes – educated ones about art and philosophy, indie music, crafts, National Public Radio and so on are references that it cannot make without knowingly appealing to a specific sub-culture currently prevalent our modern times: Hipsters. And as a result, Dorothy is crushingly honest with her audience, as referenced in the above comic. And what’s great about that is that I feel the same way – I loathe hipsters.

But then, who wouldn’t -

when they walk around with their American Apparel deep V-neck T-shirts with the cut down to their navel, 80′s-inspired Nike hoop-shoes, disturbingly well-groomed (or un-groomed) facial hair, and the worst part – their up-turned noses. A nation of self righteous neon pseudo-bourgeois, marinated in self-indulgence, pretension, pachouli, and pop-art mania. A culture based on the mangled in-breeding of bohemian aesthetics and present-day unconcern – and yet somehow they find the strength to feel “passionate” about their veganism. Not that I have a problem with vegans. It’s the insincerity of approach with which I take issue.

But the biggest problem I have with hipsters is that I live in constant fear because of them. Not because I fear that they will ruin the things I love or change the moral standing of our culture for the worse or any sort of rational fear like that – no, I fear something much worse. I fear that, like some perverse anthropological re-invention of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, they are turning me into one of them. In the film, if you remember, the body-snatchers steal people’s identities in an effort to take over, and do so by capturing their DNA and sealing the victims in pods, re-creating themselves to look and act like those they have ensnared. Hipsters have a much more subtle approach.

My girlfriend refers to it as “appropriation”. Every time I show up on her doorstep and ask nervously “Wait…am I dressed like a hipster today?” she’ll pause and say “…sort of. But don’t worry, honey, you’re not a hipster. Hipsters have just appropriated your sense of style and made it ‘theirs’.” Which is more or less true. I wear fitted straight leg jeans because I like fashions from the 1950′s-60′s. I wear lots of button-front shirts and plaid for the same reason. I like hats from the same periods, but I wouldn’t dare to sport a fedora in public – I’d most certainly be mistaken for “one of them”. And the most recent development this summer – the V-necks. I was shopping for shirts and realized that a V-neck was kind of like a button-down shirt with the first two or three buttons undone – something I wear all the time because it’s super comfortable in the summer heat. So I put on a V-neck and liked it so much that I bought it, even though I know that this most-certainly would cement my encroaching hipster-dom.

And I must admit, it adds up. I like their music and their film because they like art, and even if they like it for completely different reasons than I it still cements me as a part of their culture. I wear glasses that are on the bigger side because the thin ones make me look either like an archaeologist or a female schoolmarm. I like to wear well-fitting clothing because I have a small frame and in larger clothes look like I’m a drowning twelve-year-old. My best defense against being a full-on hipster is my passionate battle against hipster-like pretension. I play music because I have demons to exorcise. I read because I like to learn. I write because I have something to say. And what I have to say, currently, is this:

I hate hipsters –

because I was this way before it was cool.

…Oh, no. That’s something they say, isn’t it?

*crap

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The other day I put together a list of fifteen songs that make me “lose it” so to speak, along with my favorite lines from each. After looking at it for a while and trying to think of an interesting way to present them, I thought that it might be a fun exercise to try to create a word-collage (a-la Burroughs) from bits of their lyrics to accompany them, which is found below, along with the songs themselves. I hope they do as much for you as they do for me.

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