The Middle East’s debut is the sonic manifesto of a group eager for distance from oppressive categorization. I Want That You Are Always Happy (Spunk, 2011) blends the Queensland natives’ folk flair with post-rock and slowcore nuances, producing something entirely neither-nor. Impressively self-sustaining, the hour long album does not sacrifice coherency for eclecticism. That is, […]
[Continued from Part I.] III. The Black Leather Womb Refn did two more films in the Pusher series – following first Frank’s sidekick Tonny and then his boss, Milo – and the films grow slowly but increasingly towards a dark kind of comedy (in Pusher III, Milo is simultaneously struggling with the violent mechanics of distribution […]
A harsh wind is blowing off the lake, cutting straight through your coat. Seems like there’s a Do Not Walk sign at every intersection, but you don’t want to think that this is true because to notice and keep track of something like this would make you obsessive, and you’re not obsessive. Everything is normal. […]
The Instructions, by Adam Levin (of Chicago novelist fame, not Adam Levine of Moron 5 fame), is the bibliophile’s book. But I’ll get to that later. First, business: On my way to work this morning, I noticed a woman on the train de-purse her e-reader. A fairly typical early-morning L ritual. Based on empirical evidence, it seems […]
I. The Black Suitcase Full of Cash The Russian writer Viktor Pelevin once suggested that the real protagonist of western culture as a black briefcase full of money. Pelevin’s metaphor is one of those ostensibly off-the-cuff, Zizek-esque film-studies truisms that gnaws at you, prompting you to poke around your personal collection for counter-examples and leaving […]
