@cassmilne.bsky.social
I was on the veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion. @cass_milne on Twitter. https://letterboxd.com/Cassmilne/ My Substack, Unconscious Corridors: Signals Through Culture https://cassmilne.substack.com/
The Mets as a secular church. Harvey Keitel as a fallen believer. And a city where miracles only happen in baseball. I wrote about Abel Ferrara and Catholicism. An essay for anyone already pining for Opening Day.
cassmilne.substack.com/p/queens-of-...
![Lyrics
The lyrics of "Whip It" are disjointed and nonsensical. (121 For example, its central theme revolves around the ability to solve one's problems by "whipping it"; other lines include motivational statements like "go forward, move ahead" and "it's not too late" [121 Casale wrote the lyrics, which were intended to satirize American optimism. He took inspiration from communist propaganda posters and Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, a 1973 novel that contains satirical limericks about capitalist can-do clichés. 131 Casale incorporated lyrics that would sound like motivational clichés if taken out of context. 14] Ultimate Classic Rock critic Dave Swanson interpreted the lyrics as being "an observation...on the struggles of the
common man, woman and mutant." [15]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7wahbjtwrzax37q4tn3ygpih/bafkreidws22nea7qsg6i3xkln5xxguqz6kr3627jh34x52rzsx4caiaqqi)
![Mothersbaugh offered a different
interpretation of the lyrics, saying they were written in the form of a subtle pep talk for United States President Jimmy Carter during
the 1980 presidential election. The members of Devo supported Carter and feared the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan would win the election. 16] Mothersbaugh jokingly once said in an interview: "Come on Jimmy, get your shit together". (17) Huey notes that despite the song's novelty, there are violent undertones in the lyrics. He describes the process of whipping it to solve one's problems as "a sardonic portrait of a general, problematic aspect of the American psyche: the predilection for using force and violence to solve problems, vent frustration, and prove oneself to others". (12]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7wahbjtwrzax37q4tn3ygpih/bafkreiaeyzmpq66u7vel4rc3edtiwjropll5lhihm5r676tsm2jlb3k66m)
Like, this is what DEVO had to say about Whip It, lol
"32 live performances of Sonic Youth’s 'The Diamond Sea' plunderphoniclly orchestrated by John Oswald (of Grateful Dead 'Grayfolded' fame) – providing two distinctly new experiences of the classic track from Washing Machine."
Just finished. Delillo's short, clipped, and staccato sentences containing a great sense of rhythm propel the pace masterfully. The analytical style plus haywire lyricism creates a surreal juxtaposition that ushers historical footnotes into a grander narrative of hyper-reality.
Sister Irene O'Connor's Fire of God's Love is going down a storm here today!
First authorised reissue of this holy grail since 1976; the album restored and remastered. Sincere, soulful, and unconsciously psychedelic.
reissue made with loads of love: monorailmusic.com/product/fire...
Horoscopes, astrological signs, Ouija boards, Christ like imagery of pizza being served at a last supper like gathering, along with the virtues of Eastern and Native American mysticism clash with vampiric, satanic, and other darkly occult like allusions.
The Golden Fang drains the counter culture through a vertically integrated scheme that foments despair, traffics heroin, and provides rehab facilities with the addition of dental services to recovered addicts.
Doper’s memory along with images of fog, desert dust, pot smoke, and the choice to employ ubiquitous dissolves that bleed scenes into one another conveys the hazy nature of the hippy lifestyle. Nostalgia also plays a huge role, and its sway is as narcotic as any drug.
#InherentVice
Sortilège is aware of truths she couldn’t know, and one character who exists outside of doc's head mentions her in the final dream-like scene but Doc breaks the fourth wall by looking directly into the camera , signaling that the ending and Sortilège may be imaginary.
#Pynchon Many have speculated that Sortilège is an incarnation of Doc's mind and intuition, providing him with a platonic sisterly quality he does not get from his relationships with other women in the age of free love. She is an oracle for the decaying era of counter culture.
boxd.it/cKFGP3
I argue that Inherent Vice is the stronger Pynchon adaptation while emphasizing how obverse and reverse forces existing within individual’s souls reflects the duality of our flawed world, and that internal contradictions lead to the decaying of all things.
Pere Ubu
R.I.P to Bob Weir, one of the most unusual rhythm guitarists in rock. I saw him once do an excellent version of the Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows with the back up of Wilco in Nashville, and I owe him something because my Dead Head parents named me after one of his songs.
boxd.it/czh9af
I laud Kurosawa's stunning blocking and spacing, while exploring how he viewed hatred, resentment, and inner emptiness as their own forms of poverty. I also make connections to Fritz Lang's M and Bong Joon Ho and David Fincher's modern procedurals.
he looks like a faded guy from an 80s punk band getting upset at Zorak
all time great email reply, rip
I explore Miyazaki's quietly subversive world without heroes and villains, and laud the translucent ardor of his water color palette.
boxd.it/cufDLh
I engage with Bergman's themes of fractured identity and dream logic while connecting its influence to Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Altman's Three Women.
boxd.it/cr84uJ
It remains one of the wildest things in the world that Disney paid late-career Hunter S. Thompson to write despairing columns about the sickening depravity of American empire and, to a slightly lesser extent, Skip Prosser's Wake Forest. www.espn.com/page2/s/thom...
smoking marijuana and reading my manga in this ball
I recommend people watch WALKER by Alex Cox. Forgive the trailer, they had to market it somehow, but it’s a minor miracle that Universal Pictures even theatrically released such a strong indictment of US foreign policy in Latin America at all. It’s on Internet Archive
youtu.be/XImi7fT7-J0
A character study of people living on the edge that becomes a deglamorized crime film--call it Bonnie and Clyde by way of Bresson. The line three hamburgers no garbage on them is worth the price of admission alone.
boxd.it/cpmpfv
boxd.it/cokDr3
I engage with the themes of elemental nature, transience, and the importance of humanism and mercy in Kenji Mizoguchi's painterly Sansho the Bailiff.
boxd.it/cl4P5f
I dissect Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, and give nods to its psychological understanding of Fascism, the alienating nature of Mussolini's architecture, and praise the sophisticated cinematography that would influence the Godfather films.
