The Cruel Whimsy & Whimsical Cruelty

So this is absolutely amazing. I've honestly never read the books - they came just a tad after my time in terms of elementary school reading lists, and were ultimately overshadowed by Harry Potter. But frankly, this trailer makes me want to go check them out. It really is a flawlessly executed little piece, immediately setting the tone for the series as a whole as mysterious and fantastical, with its tongue planted firmly in cheek.  Above all else, including Patrick Warburton's astonishingly perfect turn as Lemony Snicket, the setting is really what makes it.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for Old Hollywood-style studio lots and the meta-narratives they imply, but count me in for this one.  Hell, maybe they'll even have Jim Carrey stop by and do a cameo.  That'd be cute.

Stay Positive Sunday: There Is No Escape

Normally, I'd have some kind of long-winded explanation here about not posting and falling in and out of productivity and how busy I've been.

Fuck all that bullshit, here's Metallica.

The Joy in Daniel Bryan's Retirement

Last night, live on WWE RAW, a wrestler named Daniel Bryan announced his retirement to the world.  To a huge percentage of the population, this is almost entirely irrelevant.  But to wrestling fans (and I count myself among them) it hit like a punch in the gut.  Bryan, a stellar ring technician who rose to the top of the WWE two years ago in a story-book coronation at Wrestlemania 30, was more than just a beloved wrestler; he was a symbol of something far greater.  He was the underdog that never quit, never gave up.  He was the guy who was too good to be ignored.  He was, simply, the best to ever step foot in the ring, at least in this era of professional wrestling.  I've been thinking about his retirement all day, and it's a complicated mix of emotions.   But I keep coming back to two photos.  Here's the first.

CM Punk (left) and Daniel Bryan (right): Two indie schmucks

Life Enough For A Thousand Lifetimes

In the past 24 hours, there have been untold eulogies of David Bowie.  There have been articles written about what he meant to the countless worlds he affected; music, film, art, the LGBT community, Science Fiction, and just general weirdness.  A metric ton of digital ink has been spilled, and while it seems overwhelming, it makes sense.  This was a man who transcended boundaries, essentially for a living.  Since the late 60s, it seems he never met a line he wasn't willing to cross.  He meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and of course he meant something to me as well.  I wouldn't be here otherwise.  But I'm not a Bowie scholar, or even a particularly devoted acolyte.  But on the eve of his death, I think it's appropriate, if nothing else, to appreciate the sheer breadth of an impact the man has had on the world today.

SPS - I Needed A Surprise

I'll admit, I've been in something of a rut these last couple weeks; not keeping up with habits and practices that I've worked very hard to develop.  Writing consistently was one of those habits.  There's countless reasons WHY I was in that rut, but frankly that's not really what I talk about on this blog.  All that really matters is that I was thoroughly prepared to not write an SPS for this week.  And then this happened...

Echo Chambers

As a fair warning, this is probably the most old man-esque post I've penned thus far, and that might be saying something: I wrote about The Eagles of Death Metal.  And I'm not particularly a luddite.  In fact, I've got what comedian Eddie Izzard called 'techno-joy'.  I love gadgets, and I absolutely love tinkering with them and figuring out cool new tricks.  But new ideas have a tendency to create new problems, or at least awaken old ones, and the Internet is no exception.

50 years ago, if you had a minority opinion, that was simply it - you were the minority. You had to be persuasive, and sway people to your side, or you had to temper yourself, and frame your beliefs in a more palatable way. Now, there are some obvious downsides to this, and there's some upsides to 'truth' without compromise. But in this new technical age, it seems as though there's no reason to ever change your beliefs. Even the most minority opinion can find its fellows thanks to the world-linking power of the Web.

SPS - I Want To Dream

I'm well aware that my song choice this week is not going to garner a lot of new fans.  Black Metal is, at its absolute best, a divisive genre, and even beyond the massive barrier for entry, we're opening ourselves to the frightening world of subgenre nomenclature in heavy metal.  "Is Deafheaven truly Black Metal," you say?  "Maybe they're post-metal?"  "What does that even mean?"  "No, they're not Metal at all, they're just an indie band pretending to be metal," chimes in the purist.  "Have you actually heard them?  It's metal!"

The point of all this is that there's a good chance you won't make it through the nine-minute runtime of "Dream House," and if you do there's an even greater chance you won't make it through the full album's winding hour.  And while that's fine - it's not for everyone - it's also a shame.  Because Sunbather is a masterpiece, and beneath its craggy and off-putting exterior there lurks something poetic and even, dare I say, beautiful.