2010 June « Feminist Music Geek

Archive for June, 2010

Jun

Things I learned at Girls Rock Camp Austin: Session #1

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Take to the Streets
Tags: 5678s, Act Your Age, David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Elton John, En Vogue, Free Your Mind, Girls Rock Camp Austin, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga, Lady Sovereign, Mika Miko, Wanda Jackson

Yesterday, Kristen at Act Your Age and I did our music history workshop for Girls Rock Camp Austin. This is our second year to do it, and we’re proud to be facilitating the workshop for Girls Rock Camp Houston later this summer. This time, we slightly updated the version of the workshop we did for the Girls Now! conference last fall and organized it by genre. Happily, the girls respond well to images, clips, and mix CDs. I always like to recount what I learned (as you can read here and here), so here we go.

1. Be willing to improvise. Kristen and I had some interactive projects planned, but the technology required for such activities wasn’t available, so we had to adapt accordingly. This involved taking deep breaths and telling each other that the workshops were going to be fine and that we’re awesome.

2. Never underestimate the power of pooling together resources. Right before our first workshop, nothing was set up. But thanks to some awesome ladies pitching in and thinking on their feet, we got everything put together and put on two great workshops.

3. Some girls wonder if the female musicians we highlighted are alive. A few girls kept asking if each person was dead. Thus, it was a pleasure to tell them that folks like Wanda Jackson are very much alive.

Wanda Jackson at SXSW 2010 -- I was in attendance for this show; image courtesy of wandajackson.com

4. Some girls are obsessed with wigs. I’m okay with this.

We didn't get to talk about The B-52s, but they looove wigs -- Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson wear them all the time and the band actually wrote a song called "Wig"; image courtesy of wikimedia.org

5. Allow room for girls to come back to a question you posed earlier when they have an answer. For example, our icebreaker for the older girls we taught was about the first album they remember really liking. One girl didn’t have an answer until we started talking about En Vogue. Her eyes lit up and remembered that she loved “Free Your Mind.” This is a very exciting moment.

This album blew at least one camper's mind; image courtesy of wikimedia.org

6. Some girls know who the 5678s are, which is awesome.

7. Allow room to include the counselors sitting in. In addition to the personal insights they can offer, they may also be able to explain why Dolly Parton plays her guitar in open tuning.

8. There’s always at least one girl who knows almost every artist you’re talking about. She may get a little embarrassed that she’s monopolizing conversation. Let her know you appreciate her enthusiasm and encourage her to keep talking.

9. With little effort, girls can make astute connections between artists like Lady Gaga, Elton John, Janet Jackson, and David Bowie.

10. They also seem to respond if you tell them that some musicians change instruments, as Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon did when she switched from bass to guitar.

Kim Gordon shredding with the boys; image courtesy of forums.epiphone.com

11. We should combine genres a bit more in terms of racial diversity. The first half of the workshop had greater emphasis on genres associated with women of color (blues, pop, jazz) than the second half (punk, riot grrrl). We could offset this by pairing seemingly dissimilar genres, like hip hop and country music.

12. It’s okay if the girls don’t like an artist or group or aren’t sure about what to do with them. They may find Mika Miko abrasive or aren’t sure what Lady Sovereign is saying. But by opening the door, they may walk through it.

Jun

Listen to Helium’s The Magic City

By Alyx Vesey 6 Comments

Just got back from teaching music history workshops with Kristen at Act Your Age for Girls Rock Camp Austin, which “rocked.” I will post about what I learned from the experience tomorrow, but I kinda need to recover and eat some dinner. I happened to have a review of Helium’s 1997 album The Magic City in the pocket. I was obsessed with the album a couple of months ago after I snagged a used copy signed by leader Mary Timony during a rediscovery period prompted by the 120 Minutes Archive. So let’s talk about why Helium was an awesome band and why this album exemplifies that. Because, if indeed this decade will revive music from the 90s, I hope those who rediscover indie rock stalwarts like Pavement pay equal consideration to fellow Matador act Helium.

Helium's The Magic City (Matador, 1997); image courtesy of amazon.com

As a proper follow-up to their debut, The Dirt of Luck, and a sonic and conceptual expansion of their murky sound, 1997’s The Magic City tends to be overlooked despite being well-regarded in its time. However, the band’s prog-influenced sophomore (and final) effort is often cited as a fan favorite, perhaps prompting artists like Ben Gibbard to name-check singer/guitarist Timony in Death Cab for Cutie’s “Your Bruise.” The band’s legacy lives in contemporary acts like Austin’s YellowFever. Furthermore, Timony is still active. It may make more sense to revisit The Dirt of Luck, particularly for the inclusion of breakthrough single “Pat’s Trick” and its accompanying music video. But The Magic City is a clear artistic achievement that deserves further consideration.

Prog evokes ideations of the concept album. Yet it’s hard to ascertain what this sophomore effort is about. Some may think the album is about Timony’s then-boyfriend Ash Bowie. Others may consider her lyrics as evidence of Timony’s affinity toward hippie spiritualism, nature’s ephemera, space, Christian and Pagan iconography, and stoner poetry.

Having revisited Joanna Newsom’s auspicious sophomore full-length Ys, which is also heavily shrouded in symbolic language, it’s still a jolt when she makes mention of an “awfully real gun” amidst the romantic turmoil of “Only Skin.” Similarly, it’s shocking how often the real world intrudes in Timony’s lyrics. Opening track “Vibrations” opines about astrology while reminding the listener that she’s always available for a chat on the phone. Single “Leon’s Space Song” finds her telling an adversary that her Los Angeles friends like her better. “Aging Astronauts” includes weary mention of perennial air travel. “Ancient Crymes” reveals how Timony finds power in being rude and that she’s down for a party. That Timony is able to incorporate the spiritual realm into the mundane is no small feat. She conveys this in large part through the evasive yet surprisingly expressive qualities of her deadpan alto.

The Magic City also reveals itself to be a relic of the album’s cultural wane. Though some carry the mantle of the full-length, less care has been given to sequencing and cohesion. This cannot be said of this album. There’s a concerted effort to project grandeur, primarily through Timony’s virtuosic guitar playing on songs like the 8-minute opus “Revolution of Hearts Parts 1 and 2.” It repeats musical themes and returns to certain lyrical images while subtly suggesting variance with a diverse assemblage of instruments and compositional stylings, indicating the era’s interest in hybridity.

Mary Timony, I love you and want your guitar; image courtesy of brooklynvegan.com

Instrumentals like “Medieval People” also suggests the band had more in common with agit-pop acts like Brainiac (another band in need of a revival) than Yes. However, I’d like to think one of Helium’s key contributions to indie rock in their brief career was that these acts could co-exist on one beguiling album.

Jun

Ariel Schrag’s Awkward and Definition

By Alyx Vesey 5 Comments

Cover to Awkward and Definition; image courtesy of amazon.com

Last night, I cuddled on the couch and read Ariel Schrag’s Awkward and Definition. I needed something to do while my computer burned the mix CDs for Kristen‘s and my Girls Rock Camp music history workshop, which we teach tomorrow. As session #1 is in full swing, it seemed fitting to read two graphic novels from a queer girl cartoonist and avowed rock music fan.

For those unfamiliar, these two books document Schrag’s first two years at Berkeley High School in the mid-90s. She composed them during the summers between each school year. Potential, which follows her junior year and Likewise, which captures her senior year, were published later. If you weren’t aware of Schrag’s work, perhaps you can recall her name being mentioned in Le Tigre’s “Hot Topic” or recognize her as a writer on The L-Word. But Awkward and Definition put her on the map.

I find these two books interesting for a number of reasons. For one, the visual style changes dramatically. Awkward is sloppily put together, with characters resembling melted Precious Moments figurines. Definition has cleaner lines, surer plotting, and better defined character composition. Not that Awkward‘s messiness is in any way a disadvantage. While it may cause eye strain at times, the sheer exhilaration of a girl putting this together was enough for me. That cartoonist and chemistry enthusiast Schrag already had her own voice and vision at such a young age is inspiring to me.

"Whoo! Ariel Schrag!"; image courtesy of timeoutnewyork.com

There’s also the matter of Schrag’s fandom, which is a key aspect of her queer girlhood. It’s evident in who she idolizes. Evincing the era, Schrag is a big alternative rock fan who loves going to shows and acquires a Fender Stratocaster from her mom on her 16th birthday. Her idols cover her walls as well, as her bedroom becomes a shrine to L7, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani, and Juliette Lewis. It’s also interesting how she uses language to possess her idols. An early male love interest is called “my L7″ because of his coveted band t-shirts. Application of glittery make-up is referred to as “putting on my Gwen.” And Juliette Lewis is simply “my Juliette.” I find it particularly interesting that Scrag watches anything with Lewis in it, but has a particular affinity for Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers.

Schrag is also girl-crazy — identifying as bisexual, but will later come out as a lesbian — and surrounded by girl companions who fall in and out of her social circle. This is refreshing, in part because I grew up in an area where bisexual, lesbian, and transgender girls assuredly existed, but primarily remained in the closet. So perhaps I sound like a West Coast outsider, but it’s staggering to me that Schrag had so many queer and queer-friendly girlfriends she could crush on, but also call upon as friends. Having just read an article about two gay teen male friends in New York who were voted king and queen of their prom by their peers further instills me with hope.

I was also pleased by the depiction of drug use and Schrag’s engagement with the street. I didn’t do drugs in high school and received fairly strict parameters from my parents, who wouldn’t let me go to punk shows in Houston until I graduated from high school. This was primarily because gigs usually weren’t close by and because my mom worried about what dangers could befall a young girl. And while I’m more than a little surprised by how permissive Schrag’s parents were (or perhaps how little they knew about their daughter’s social activities), I’m also pleased that Schrag’s drug experimentation isn’t sensationalized. Pair this against, say, Larry Clark’s Kids, a movie I hate in part because it promises to be transgressive in its representation of urban teenagers but actually espouses a cautionary, conservative ideology (note: I dislike Requiem for a Dream for similar reasons). This isn’t to say that I approve of how often she hits the pipe. I just like that we can see a girl character partake of drugs without dying, getting raped, or contracting a disease. It’s refreshing.

Similarly, I like that Schrag and her friends are sometimes put in scary situations, but are resourceful enough to work through them. This is best exemplified when Schrag and her friend Julia attend a Bush concert (No Doubt cancelled! NO!) for Julia’s birthday. They get dropped off at the wrong venue and have to figure out how to get to the show and get home. This requires the two girls — who are also high — to walk vacant streets, take the bus, ask for help from the useless police, attempt to hail a cab, and finally get a ride home from Julia’s dad. Again, this situation is far from ideal. Yet I like to see girls be tough, resourceful, and successfully get out of bad situations.

Of course, I can’t review the two graphic novels without mentioning the exnomination of racial and class privilege. I’m not sure of Schrag’s socioeconomic background, but she does come from a politically progressive area that appears to be predominantly white. Thus it was probably easier for her to grow up queer than it is for rural, working class young people. That said, I’m still pleased that she possessed the confidence to declare her teen years important enough to capture in self-made panels teeming with wit, anxiety, and glee. I only hope Potential lives up to its title.

Jun

Revisiting Gwen Stefani’s Wonderland

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Recently, I rewatched Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” during a workday lull.

I remember when this song came out, which was her debut single as a solo artist, I was surprisingly into it. I’ve never been a huge fan of Stefani’s work. I liked that she took pride in her athletic body, though has kept her physique slim since she played Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. Her music is fine and at times feminist-friendly (though she of course denies being one, even when she’s on the cover of BUST Magazine). She tends to whine about boys, though.

Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow; image courtesy of movies.yahoo.com

But hummina does she take a page from distant relative Madonna and graft racial signifiers on her somewhat de-ethnicized Italian American body. In her career, she has appropriated from South Asian and Latina cultures, and also juxtaposed her bleached blondeness against African American masculinity. I also believe that she’s directly responsible for the glamourous pan-ethnic white tomboy Black-Eyed Peas’ hook girl Fergie perpetuates. Miley Cyrus recently appropriated the chola during a performance on the Much Music Awards. With Love. Angel. Music. Baby., she brought the Harajuku Girls into her supposedly post-racial bricolage. I didn’t realize the Orientalism going on until I sang the single at a karaoke bar and discovered the seemingly celebratory line about these young Japanese women possessing amazing style. I didn’t see a problem with it until she assembled a quartet of wordless minions.

Fergie; image courtesy of fanpop.com

These girls got my back . . . because I put them in a subordinant position; image courtesy of virginmedia.com

That said, I do find the music video interesting. I like how the clip seems to poke fun at the music industry’s willingness to shower its talent with millions of dollars in order to maximize their product’s market potential by showing Stefani go to a retreat to fight writer’s block that’s funded by unseen manager Jimmy (Iovine). I like how it also situates this culture in a specifically West Coast milieu, as Los Angeles has long profiteered off spiritualism from chi chi new age feelgooderies (for more on the subject of how this may dovetail into the emergence of priv-lit, I highly recommend reading Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown’s Bitch article on the subject).

But I wonder what it means that Stefani casts herself as the heroine of Alice In Wonderland in her unconscious in the Francis Lawrence-directed clip. Is the music industry a hallucinatory simply a place that preys upon and infantilizes female artists? I also wonder how the music video relates to Tim Burton’s recent attempt to adapt the story. Assuredly, the clip does more interesting and potentially progressive things with the source material than the misogynistic music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” But I wonder if there’s more going on through the looking glass.

Jun

Musical cameos: Heartless Bastards, Friday Night Lights

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Categories: Feminist Music Geeks Turn on Their TVs
Tags: Austin, DirecTV, Emo's, Erika Wennerstrom, Friday Night Lights, Fun Fun Fun Fest, Julie Taylor, Matt Saracen, NBC, Stay, SXSW, The Black Keys, The Heartless Bastards, The Son

The Heartless Bastards' Erika Wennerstrom; image courtesy of brooklynvegan.com

Last night’s episode of Friday Night Lights, rebroadcast on NBC falling season four’s original run on DirecTV, was noteworthy for a whole host of reasons. ”Stay” followed ”The Son,” an episode that broke my heart with its focus on Matt Saracen, the character who has consistently broken my heart throughout the series’ run. While in some ways less heavy than the previous episode, “Stay” drew attention toward two young Dillon couples whose relationships are in jeopardy. One couple –frustrated Dillon townie Saracen and senior Julie Taylor — left town for Austin and came back uncertain if they could remain a couple. Refreshingly, this dischord came not out of a lack of love but from a mature realization that one of them will be starting college next fall and the other really needs to get off a sinking ship.

I had a few quibbles with the episode, of course. One involves Saracen and Taylor’s destination. The couple go to the generically named Austin Indie Music Festival, which seems like an awkward collusion of Fun Fun Fun Fest and South By Southwest. While I believe the show does an acceptional job utilizing the capital (including my neighborhood) as a stand-in for fictional West Texas rural suburb Dillon, it has a habit of clumsily shoehorning in references to the city, its music scene, and the University of Texas. The festival is an example, as is the location for one of the shows Saracen and Taylor attend. To an outsider, seeing a band play the courtyard at Emo’s may not warrant objection. But most regulars will tell you that the atrium is usually a communal space between the venue’s indoor and outdoor stage areas. In the nine years I’ve lived here and the numerous concerts I’ve attended at Emo’s, I’ve never seen a musical act perform in that particular area. I’m sure the spot was chosen because it was easier to light, stage, and film. But the location does kick some folks out of the text, perhaps suggesting the limitations of trying to doggedly capture and recreate actual spaces for television.

That said, I enjoyed that The Heartless Bastards were featured so prominently in the episode. For one, they can wail — especially guitarist and lead singer Erika Wennerstrom, who took up residency in Austin a few years back. For another, their gritty sound has a crossover appeal that evokes fellow Ohioans The Black Keys as well as Friday Night Lights‘ handle on candid performances and Dogmaesque cinematography.

Also, the inclusion of a band like The Heartless Bastards lines up with the series’ interest in aligning with indie and indie-friendly musical acts through their characters and as a marketing strategy. And regardless of what happens to this young couple, I take comfort in knowing that Wennerstrom’s band might help them get through it.

Jun

There’s hardly anything proper about my British accent: Ludus, Marine Girls, Broadcast

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Readers of this blog know I love me some post-punk, as there were so many interesting female artists who came out of this varied experimental reaction against punk’s formal rigidity. Evincing my Western leanings, I’m particularly keen on British post-punk. Much of the reason for this — and perhaps it suggests othering on my part, though it’s not my intention — is that these acts’ singers tended to highlight rather than downplay their accents.

While the British Invasion certainly made it acceptable for English artists to use their accents, many adopted unaccented (re: “American”) vocal styles. Some channeled affectations of the cadences, phrasing, and pronunciations of Southern Delta blues artists. I’d imagine that Scottish, Irish, and Welsh accents were not regarded as favorably, something Alan Cumming addresses when discussing a song by The Proclaimers on KCRW’s Guest DJ Project.

I’m a big fan of accents. I was never much of an actress, but I have something of a knack for mimicry. I have no real discernible accent myself, despite my Southern heritage. I suppose my accent is something of a nonregional Midwestern amalgam inherited from my mother and honed by voice lessons. My southeast Texan accent can sometimes come into play, usually when talking to another Southerner, launching into a rant, claiming something to be “real good,” or dismissing it as “stewpid.” But I’m also quite fond of how some New Yorkers refer to canines as “dawhgs,” Southern Californians snarl and flatten words, and Georgians drawl.

As a music fan, I’m especially drawn to the seemingly patrician British accent employed by many female artists associated with post-punk. As an outsider (a Yank in the UK, a Texan in the states), there’s something fascinating about the uneasy juxtaposition of women’s deadpan singing in a supposedly proper accent against throbbing bass and angular guitar cacophony. It seems to go against English sensibilities of proper decorum, thus making the vocalists sound like they’re using cultural assumptions about their national identity to subvert conventional notions of white British femininity. As many of these artists were feminist and sang about sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, gender, and sexual politics, I think the function of accents should be considered.

Admittedly, there are some shortcomings to discussing accents. Regional specificity and class position in relation to educational training inform accents. I’m also not sure how much of this is an act, as playing up the working class Cockney accent has become increasingly commonplace in popular music (see also: Blur, Lily Allen, M.I.A., The Streets). And of course, there are a panoply of notable British accents — the singular Cockney permutations of East London’s grime scene most immediately comes to mind. But I often have this “proper British” accent in my head, so today I thought I’d briefly draw attention to a few other vocalists who employ it. We may be familiar with Ana Da Silva and Gina Birch of London’s The Raincoats and Julz Sale of Leeds-based quintet Delta 5. But what about Linder Sterling of Manchester’s Ludus; Tracey Thorn, Gina Hartman, and Alice Fox of Hertferdshire’s Marine Girls; and Trish Keenan of Birmingham’s contemporary act Broadcast? Let’s listen.

Jun

My thoughts on Sabrina Chap’s “Oompa!”

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Sabrina Chap; image courtesy of localcorrespondents.com

A few weeks back, Sabrina Chap (born Chapadijiev) contacted me to see if I wanted to review her new album, Oompa! Never one to turn down a free meal from female musicians, I obliged and she mailed me a copy (with a hand-written letter, no less — thanks, Sabrina!). While the item was in transit, Kjerstin Johnson at Bitch reviewed it for B-Sides.

Having not heard Chap before, the article gave me a good idea of what I’d be listening to. The cabaret sensibility of “Never Been a Bad Girl” suggested Dresden Dolls (though not Evelyn Evelyn’s super-problematic crip drag) on first listen, as well as Inara George and Jolie Holland in louder moments. The emphasis on classical and ragtime instrumentation also recalled Squirrel Nut Zippers’ dedication to jump blues, jazz, polka, and swing. Both the Zippers and beloved Austin mainstay White Ghost Shivers have cultivated antiquated aural aesthetics to undermine nostalgia with biting observations, sly asides, and at times bawdy lyrics about the realities of modern life. Finally, Chap also seems to share similar feminist camp sensibilities with fellow New York-based retro revisionists Menage à Twang. I haven’t heard Chap on KOOP’s “What’s a Girl to Do” program, but I think she’d be a perfect fit.

I don’t offer these artists up to slight Chap as derivative, but rather to put her in a larger context of artists. I believe Chap’s talents stand up on their own. I’m also interested in pursuing her written work. She’s penned some plays and edited a ‘zine called Cliterature. She also edited Live Through This, an anthology about women who use art to work through self-destructive tendencies. The book contains interviews from Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, Eileen Myles, and Annie Sprinkle. That’s a helluva dinner party.

Cover to Live Through This; image courtesy of feministing.com

Most of Oompa! charmed me. The songwriting is sharp, the melodies are catchy, and Chap’s band possess the sort of musical precision that allows them to really swing. I especially liked the self-effacing opening track “Blueprint for Destruction,” idyllic “Carolina,” reflective “Illinois,” spunky “Never Been a Bad Girl,” and the uncertain but defiantly optimistic “Boat Song,” which closes the album. “Failed Waitress/Failed Astronaut” may rank as my favorite track, as it turns the all-too-relateable subject matter of being college educated yet maligned by limited career prospects into a fun little jig. The slinky “Idiom,” which documents a clandestine hook-up with a sexy female stranger, is a close second.

Unfortunately, there are two songs on Oompa! that I can do without. “Little White House” brings to mind the nuclear family idyll espoused in Little Shop of Horrors‘ “Somewhere That’s Green,” which feminist-minded pop stars like Paula Cole critiqued in “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” I’m of the mind that Chap is doing similar work here, as the minor key and stately pace suggest compromised expectations. However, much like I felt with “Cowboys,” it’s hard for me to not hear this song as being condescending to its subject. I also cringe when I hear “Ze Paris Song,” a song about a tourist trying to fit in with her surroundings while eating baguettes and brie as she reflects on the tragic men who love her and eschews the Eiffel Tower. That Chap delivers it in a put-on accent doesn’t help matters. Much like “House,” I believe Chap is being critical here. The results just rub me the wrong way.

Yet despite those minor grievances, I’d still recommend Oompa! Give it a spin on the ol’ Victrola.

Jun

Music videos for QueerBomb solidarity

By Alyx Vesey 2 Comments

Austin Pride is going on as we speak. This is also the inaugural year of QueerBomb, put together by a group within Austin’s LBGTQIA community who want the festivities to be more inclusive and economical. Some of my friends are involved, including the veritable Curran Nault, who is giving a talk today at 3 p.m. on Bruce LaBruce at the Long Center. Ricky Hill and Andy Campbell also contributed to Austin Chronicle about the normative aims of the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the financial constraints of attending Pride. In solidarity, I thought I’d post a few music videos by some awesome queer-identified artists. Enjoy, and feel free to share some of your faves in the comments section.

The Shondes
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”
The Red Sea
Directed by Nicole Witte Solomon

Antony and the Johnsons
“Epilepsy is Dancing”
The Crying Light
Directed by AFAS

Gravy Train!!!!
“Ghost Boobs”
Ghost Boobs
Directed by Ryan Junel

Jun

Scene It: Elisabeth Welch and The Tempest

By Alyx Vesey Leave a Comment

Torch singer Elisabeth Welch captured a wide fan base in the UK and stole the show in Derek Jarman's "The Tempest"; image courtesy of npg.org.uk

Following a screening of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark at my friend Karin’s house, I plopped down on my couch, strummed on my Mako, and watched Derek Jarman’s The Tempest. I’d been meaning to watch it for some time, as an acquaintance Tweeted about the scene that captured my interest and will comprise the focus of this post.

Before getting into my thoughts on Elisabeth Welch’s scene-stealing performance, I should preface by saying that I have a tentative grasp on Shakespeare. Like many of my generation, I was certainly aware of various contemporary adaptations following the commercial success of Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, which moved Jane Austen’s Emma down Rodeo Drive. Unlike many of my peers in media studies, I was not an English major at any point during my college career. I was a jourstory student (a portmanteau in circulation when I was an undergrad that refers to folks who double major in journalism and history). I never had to take any classes on Shakespeare, which I believe is a requirement for English students at UT. As an outsider, I think this is ridiculous, as contemporary literature has been responsible for numerous innovations as well.

But I have no problem with the Bard himself (or Christopher Marlowe, depending on what story we’re telling). In high school, I read Romeo and Juliet, horrifying my English major-Shakespeare enthusiast mother by highlighting passages in her hard-bound, gold-leafed complete works anthology. I read the regressive The Taming of the Shrew, own 10 Things I Hate About You, and played showgirl Lois Lane, who portrays Bianca, in a high school production of Cole Porter’s backstage musical Kiss Me Kate. We read Hamlet aloud junior year in English class. I later saw a woman play Hamlet in an Austin-based production early on in college, but decided against seeing Ethan Hawke’s slacker take on the doomed prince of Denmark.

I did my senior term paper on Titus Andronicus to the chagrin of my teacher, who deemed the play inappropriate and of lesser quality. I read the part of Celia As You Like It for theater class. I played Adriana in a high school production of The Comedy of Errors, which our director regrettably set as a tacky mash-up of 60s kitsch (Laugh-In meets Beach Blanket Bingo!). I liked Emma Thompson and hated Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. I vaguely recall Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, as well as Shakespeare in Love (which time also forgot). I read Othello during college for, you guessed it, an English class. And I didn’t find the Henry V portions of My Own Private Idaho completely distracting.

I also have a tentative grasp on Jarman, having only seen Jubilee. I’m totally willing to get to know his filmography better, as I like how he juxtaposed classical imagery with punk elements. For me, his movies evince the work of a mutual friend at a party who’s charming, smart, arch yet cheeky, and has awesome taste. I’m determined to become besties.

The late, great Derek Jarman; image courtesy of vertigomagazine.co.uk

But Jarman is tricky, as I noted upon my screening of Jubilee. His work recalls a conversation I had with my friend Curran about Todd Haynes’s early work, and not for icky “hey, gay filmmakers!” reasons. Apparently, Haynes set out to queer his films in a number of ways. The most obvious of these was through foregrounding gay or queerable characters or putting ostensibly straight women in camp environments, configuring them as allies, or having them cede from the heterosexual marital unit. But Haynes’s key contribution to queer cinema was in challenging audience expectations, experimenting with both the formal and narrative elements of cinema to leave folks unsure of what they’ve seen. To that end, Haynes and fellow Queer New Wave director Gregg Araki are clearly indebted to Gus Van Sant and Jarman.

Todd Haynes; image courtesy of brown.edu

This brings us to The Tempest , a 95-minute adaptation of the classic play. I’ve never seen or read it, and frankly the movie didn’t help me gather much information. It’s about a magician named Prospero, who was to be Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda who are stuck on an island after his brother Alonso set them adrift for several years and became the King of Naples. The pacing and commitment to location — in this case, Stoneleigh Abbey — suggests a stagnant insularity from a life in exile. Prospero, the protagonist, is served by a spirit named Ariel, who helps to set right all of the familial discord.

Many old wounds seem healed, as the group set out to return to Naples, and Miranda marries her cousin Ferdinand. But the ending is evasive. In the final scene, Prospero takes it upon the audience to applaud for them in order to determine if they can leave. This makes it one of Shakespeare’s more ambiguous plays, which may have attracted Jarman to the material. At the wedding reception, a goddess appears. Here, she’s played by torch singer Elisabeth Welch in her final screen performance. Somewhat obscure in the states where she was born, England adopted her and she replied in kind by becoming a citizen. Like many chanteuses, she had a significant gay male following. Here she serenades the young couple with a peculiar song.

Yes, Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s 1933 standard “Stormy Weather” is strange in its anachronism. It’s also cryptic in its message, thus subverting the role weddings traditionally provide in Shakespearean comedies as a means of tidy resolution. This scene also reminded me of a wedding reception I attended where the band played inappropriate songs like The Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You.” Delivered in a clear, bright tone, Welch conjures up relevant imagery of turbulence while reflecting on lost love. Notably, she’s doing this in front a young, straight couple. Jarman plumbs wedding receptions’ camp potential and indicates the singer’s fan base by surrounding Welch with a chorus line of sailors, masculine figures long integrated into gay culture and iconography. For this perplexed viewer, it’s the stuff that dreams are made on.

Jun

Lisa Simpson, saxophone player

By Alyx Vesey 1 Comment

Lisa Simpson; image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Recently, my partner got season nine of The Simpsons on DVD. Perhaps suggesting our age, this was the last season either of us watched in its entirety upon original broadcast. We’ve caught episodes from season ten on in syndication, and I marvel at how the show has maximized high definition’s potential. We also saw The Simpsons Movie, which was more remarkable for the assuredly bombed woman who sang loudly to herself, yelled at Maggie for being a “cunt,” and called us “asshats” for telling her to be quiet before being escorted out of the theater. But for both of us, the ongoing series peaked 13 seasons earlier. The show may be sporadically hilarious and subversive, but like many successful television shows that go on for too long, it has also exhausted premises, developed a frantic tone, got further away from the family’s class struggles and feelings of mediocrity that made the show especially poignant in the early seasons, and dispensed with much carefully-crafted character development.

This last point seems especially true of Marge and Lisa Simpson to me. The show was never especially savvy with what to do with the tower-coiffed matriarch, who has dumbed down considerably in my estimation. The show’s predominantly male, Ivy League alum writing staff admit as such in several episode commentaries, noting that they rarely provided her with friends, struggled with ideas for a character so doggedly sensible, and sometimes relied upon female personnel to give her character development and narrative action (ex: season seven’s “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield” was written by Jennifer Crittenden).

But the family’s spiky-haired middle child prodigy was always the show’s center for me growing up. What’s more, Lisa episodes were penned by male writers and rank among the best of the series for me, though they tend to focus more on her relationship with Homer than with Marge. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein’s “Lisa Vs. Malibu Stacy” is my absolute favorite, but it’s in rich company with Jon Vitti’s “Lisa’s Substitute,” Dan Greaney’s “Summer of 4 Ft. 2,” Mike Scully’s “Lisa’s Rival,” Greg Daniels’s Emmy-winning “Lisa’s Wedding,” and David S. Cohen’s “Lisa the Vegetarian” (note: Oakley and Weinstein were show runners from seasons 7 and 8 and were replaced by Scully for 9-12 to develop the animated series Mission Hill; Greg Daniels went on to co-create King of the Hill and adapted the American version of The Office). So you’ll excuse me if I get snotty and say that Lisa has no business lip-syncing Ke$ha’s butt-stupid “Tik Tok.”

Much of why these episodes work so brilliantly, apart from the writing, is to do with the animators and animation directors working in accord with voice actress Yeardley Smith, whose distinct performance captures so much nuance around the heartache, loneliness, and ironic detachment that often comes from being the kid sister of a popular kid and is too smart for her surroundings. As creator Matt Groening often points out, Lisa is the only character he envisioned leaving Springfield. He and many other show personnel counter this by claiming her as the show’s tragic character whose ideas and actions are often thwarted or go unnoticed. Several smart girls can relate.

However, while I have noticed a slight lapse in Lisa’s all-too-precious perspicacity as the series has gone on, I recognize that she’s still a smart girl committed to change. To echo Jonathan Gray’s claims in Watching The Simpsons, Lisa remains the longest-running feminist character on television.

One thing I especially like about Lisa is her interest in music. Assuredly, she’s motivated in many other areas, including environmentalism, writing, and film-making, among others. But I always delighted in seeing Lisa strut out of Mr. Largo’s band practice while belting out a saxophone riff, as the director clearly doesn’t know what to do with free-thinking talent who have exceeded his teaching abilities. She has also used her musical aptitude toward political change, rallying her father Homer and his co-workers with her acoustic guitar and an impassioned protest anthem when they staged a strike at the power plant for better health benefits.

Having recently watched season nine’s “Lisa’s Sax” (written by past and current show runner Al Jean), I was touched while relearning the origins of how Lisa came to the jazzy woodwind instrument. Unable to afford admission into a ritzy private day care for their accelerated toddler, Marge wracks her brain for a way to encourage her daughter. Homer ends up forking over money he was saving for a new air conditioner when a chance visit to a music store presents Lisa with her artistic calling. I think it was a wise investment.

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June 2010
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Archive for June, 2010

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Lisa Simpson, saxophone player

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