Titularly Oriented, I Promise

I came back from Virginia and proceeded to watch no less than three movies: Rockers, Boyz n the Hood, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The first two I hadn't seen, and thought that Rockers was probably cooler than The Harder They Come as far as stylized and basically plotless movies seemingly designed for viewers to watch hip Jamaican people in the 70's simply exist go; the strength of the patois alone was almost enough (there were subtitles!). Also, great cameos/appearances by Gregory Isaacs, Burning Spear, Jack Ruby, and a bunch of others in that crowd. Actually, a very beautiful scene of Burning Spear singing a capella on the beach, too.

Boyz n the Hood was good, but I probably should've seen it before the whole narrative and every type was irrevocably assimilated and subsumed into the general cultural conversation about "The Hood." Maybe its familiarity is just a testament to its quality, I dunno. The fall guy with the pacifier almost seemed to anticipate parodies like Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, whose particular brand of cheeky, relaxed racism is one of those phases of american cinema that has passed on to bigger, better, more subliminal things. (Sadly, cheeky, relaxed racism isn't the only variety there is to deal with. Case in point, the recent oh-my-god "tribal dance" visual analogy in the otherwise decent Rize.)

Fire Walk With Me is a distaster (and I knew that), but I love Twin Peaks too much to have resisted watching it. I won't bore you with my thoughts otherwise.

Not much in the way of words around the hut today. About to watch another movie (I need a break from music, but not a break from cultural consumption), but HERE>>> is the part where I say "listen to 'The Boy With Bosoms' by Harvey Milk." It is yawning and wonderful: 7 inch Black Sabbath played at 33 RPM (for real), mixed with Bach counterpoint drowning in cough syrup, a stumbling baroque-core. Bedhead's Transaction De Novo is the only other thing I can think of that does what this song does, all sinewy bass pings and ridiculously skeletal harmonics, but Bedhead didn't really do the fuzz thing all that convincingly. "The Boy With Bosoms" just does it, a monolithic quasi-yuletide colossus. Thanks to Robbie Mackey for the initial exposure and the recent reminder.

Also, big up to Brad Shoup for a really nice personal history (I guess?) about Contemporary Christian Music on Stylus.