I remember that day as if it was yesterday...
...white cake with black and orange candies whipped into the batter, with a modest glaze of cream cheese frosting and featuring some season-appropriate decorations. We do plan on using a sacrificial skull dagger to cut it, though, as some traditions are worth observing.When it comes to keeping Binky's affections from straying, Peggy uses a carrot and stick approach....only minus the "carrot" part:
From the letters page of the October 1983 issue of Fangoria magazine on comes this transatlantic appel du coeur:
I wonder if any of Fangoria's three or four female readers (which, like dark matter and the Higgs boson, are a purely theoretical supposition) took this Charles Boyer du cinéma d'horreur up on his offer, and exchanged passionate letters about their shared love of The Beast Within and I Spit on Your Grave.
"Oh, mon ami, when saw I the photo of you in red food coloring and corn syrup covered, my heart, it lept. Someday soon together shall we be, Basket Case watching and searching Fulci zombie films from street vendors du bootleg video...."
Les Beatlettes - C'est Grâce À Toi (from Girl Group Power, Histoires de Filles: Quebec 60's Go-Go Music) - If I hadn't posted a Me First & The Gimme Gimmes track recently, I'd have gone with their cover of Johnny Lee's "Lookin' for Love" in a heartbeat. As it is, you'll just have to settle for this Francophone rendition of a Supremes classic, which shows that it is possible to have some infectious girl group fun without diluting one's sense of cultural identity.
Comix - Touche Pas Mon Sexe (from BIPPP: French Synth Wave 1979-85, 2008) - I learned about this compilation of vintage French synth wave from Joe over at Last Days of Man on Earth, and I owe him big time for the heads-up, as it has become my hands-down choice for favorite album of 2008. (Its melancholic electronic futurism was also responsible for dislodging the "Philadelphia Freedom" earworm I picked up during my second dental abcess of the year.)
Erasure - Oh L'amour (from Wonderland, 1986) - There's nothing Gallic about this one apart from the title, but we could all use a bit more confectionary synthpop in our lives. (If you responded to that with "not me," then I especially mean you, buster.)
Note: There's a new post up at the other blog in which I tackle a work of classical literature at the behest of a friend.
There a right way and a wrong way to woo Jonni Thunder.
That would be the wrong way.
Ever wonder how Moonlighting would have turned out if Maddie had a pet rabbit and power to electrocute people with her touch? Well look no further than Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt #4 (August 1985; by Roy & Dann Thomas and Dick Giordano). Stilted references to Raymond Chandler's works, the cutting edge of 1980's pantsuit technology, tenuous links to a Golden Age superhero, the ever unreliable flexographic printing process -- this underrated mini-series had it all.
Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You (from Gorgeous George, 1994) - Retro-licious pop without peer, courtesy of the man who gave Orange Juice its distinctive tang. I don't care that it took the excremental Empire Records to bring this gem to the attention of the American listening public; it was a price well worth paying.
(All hail the MC Cosmic!)
My wife and her friend were browsing the stacks at the local chain bookstore when they came across this fine work of high literature...
I realize that there is a detailed science behind romance novel cover design. In a genre based on disposability and formula, marketing is everything and the ideal state exists between comfortable familiarity and enticing difference. Call it the "impulse purchase zone."
The intent behind the cover to Midnight Treats is fairly obvious -- the promise of softcore titillation. The couple posed in a way that the focus is on the man, whose focus in turn on the potential buyer...not his partner in monkey-lovin'. "I'm really thinking of you, not this hot blonde I'm spooning," his expression suggests. Or perhaps, "This hot blonde could totally be you."
Intent is not the same as execution, however, and Maura and her pal saw things through the filter of a Medford, Massachusetts upbringing...
For full effect, it really needs to be read in a Medford accent, which is a testosterone-heavy variant of the Boston accent with Vinne Barbarino tossed in for good measure, and delivered with a slight nod of the head. You can take a girl out of Meffa, but you can't take Meffa out of a girl.
(That comment could very well get me killed once the wife reads it. She insists that the whole "Meffa" thing was a joke constructed in neighboring communities, and that no one in Medford calls it "Meffa," despite ample evidence to the contrary. I can't be too hard on her, though. It's not her fault she didn't grow up in the green fields and wastepits of Woobin, as your humble author did.)
Missing Persons - Words (from Spring Session M, 1982) - An excellent slice of American new wave, featuring the talents (and distinct Medford accent) of singer Dale Bozzio.
Today is something of a proud day for me, as a routine check of the referral logs has revealed that Armagideon Time is currently the #1 Google result for "how to tell if you are wasting your time on a man."
Eat my dust, Dr. Phil!
I suppose that celestial concordance of specific phrasing and keyword usage obligates me to address the problem in question. With mild power comes mild responsibility, after all. While I do not possess any fancy formal training or a string of high-falutin' degrees, I do have a modicum of empirical wisdom which can be brought to bear upon the matter.
According to the immortal Bard (in Sonnet 116, which was incorporated into our wedding vows):
Love is not loveIt sounds lovely and dreamy, but it's actually a load of horseshit. Horsehit that smells like roses, but horseshit nonetheless. True love is a paradox, a mutagenic constant that threads all manner of alterations and revisions around and about the ever-fixed mark of loyalty and affection.
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
The brief but tempestuous courtship of Doll Man and Madame Diablo, from Feature Comics #98 (May 1946):
"It's like they're whispering to you, and you alone," says the wife about what she calls the Sexy Voice Men, an exclusive group of vocalists capable of seducing with a song.
I, on the other hand, have been stuck with a not-quite-as-sexy voice -- unless one's turn-ons include a nasally alto overlaid with an occasionally impenetrable Boston accent.
Alex Kapranos: Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinée (from Franz Ferdinand, 2004) - Yesterday's darlings, long on splash and short on ripples as the critics' Eye of Sauron moved onto a succession of other, fresher subjects to overpraise and subequently abandon.
There's supposedly a new album on the horizon, though I have to wonder if the ship hasn't already sailed for FF and the cluster of other acts tagged with the overreaching "postpunk revival" label. I suppose the label did fit, providing you define postpunk as "overproduced Joy Division knockoffs, countless riffs on XTC's back catalogue, and the post-Japanese Whispers version of The Cure." There were some jewels, such as the above track, amidst the dross of wishfully derivative marketing, though.
Casey Spooner: Fischerspooner - Sweetness (from #1, 2001) - Elaborate prank or work of genius? I'm still unsure what to make of the provocative synthesized pageant that was #1, which was equal parts Marcel Duchamp and Marc Almond. I do know I was resoundly disappointed by the band's 2005 follow up album which jettisoned the confrontational quirkiness in favor of a more sedate dance pop template.
Jarvis Cocker: Lush - Ciao! (from Lovelife, 1996) - Goodbye, dreamy shoegaze! Hello, lackluster Britpop! To prove their trendhopping bonafides the band even enlisted the velvet-voiced Prince of the Common People to join vocalist Miki Berenyi on this iteration of the tired-and-true "He said/she said" formula. Works for me.
This is supposed to by the final day of the heat wave that has engulfed the northeast in its suffocating blanket of haze and humidity, but part of being a Bay Stater born and bred is learning to take what the meteorologists say with a fifty-pound bag of salt. New England weather admits no master, and takes a preternatural joy in confounding expectations. I won't believe we've managed to wiggle out of the Devil's Armpit until I actually see the barometer drop and the feel the cool breeze on my face.
Whenever the temperatures begin to spike 'round these parts, I find myself thinking back to the scorching summer of 1993, back when I used to work the Saturday shift at the college library. Apart from the intrinsic lousiness of having to get up early on a Saturday, it was excellent work -- a 9-to-5 shift in an air conditioned building at a commuter school during intersession.
I worked the circulation desk and the number of patrons I had to deal with during a given shift could be counted on the fingers of both my hands and two of the toes on my right foot, and all phone inquiries answered with one of three standardized responses:
1. No, this isn't the Boston Public Library.
2. No, this isn't Boston University.
3. No, this isn't Puritan Pizza.
The rest of my my time was spent doing some light shelving, surprising the occasional mastubator during a floor sweep, and reading stacks of books and periodicals on whatever subject currently had my fancy. I'm not exaggerating when I state that the bulk of what I learned in college came from my at-work reading. The amount of time I had to kill, combined with a half-dozen floors packed with available reading material, allowed me range far and wide subject-wise with minimal distractions.
History (cultural, social, military), sociology, film studies, art, literature of all stripes, biology, astronomy -- all there for the studying, with no pesky tests or essays to harsh the learning buzz. Plus, sitting under a tree and reading The Stranger and The Plague during a lunch break in triple-digit temperatures really adds to Camus's Algerian je ne sais quoi in a way that can't be imitated in a classroom environment.
(I'm not knocking formal pedagogical methods, as there are certain things, like critical thinking methods, that benefit from the insight and guidance of a skilled second party. The problem is that too many of my college classes were more about gaming the instructor's system than about the actual transfer of knowledge.)
Some of the books I spent the most time with were grabbed from the reference section, which was blessed with an oversized encyclopedia of international horror films, an annotated bibliography on nuclear war fiction, bound volumes of film reviews from 1981-83, and (astoundingly) a copy of the Who's New Wave in Music directory. Taken together, they form an excellent snapshot of my predominant interests circa 1993.
After my shift ended, I'd walk to the bus platform in the late afternoon sun and catch the shuttle to the JFK/UMass Red Line station. From there, I'd take a northbound train to (the pre-gentrified) Central Square, and hike up Mass Ave to Harvard Square on foot, stopping at the various used record stores along the way.
Though I had fallen away from buying vinyl at that point (thanks to Maura's birthday present of a CD player and the emerging flood of CD-only imports and reissues), old habits die hard. There were still plenty of deals to be had on albums that either had missed the reissue bandwagon or weren't worth spending fifteen bucks for the CD version (as opposed to two bucks for a used LP).
My musical tastes were also in flux, gravitating away from punk/hardcore/industrial exclusivity and towards the pop, wave, and postpunk (and by extension, gothic) end of the spectrum. Flipping through my record collection, it's easy to notice the split -- from Sham 69 and company to The Lexicon of Love to Sex Gang Children in a few short steps -- even if I can't remember the specific instances of purchase. (In hindsight, I wish I bought a lot more records than I did.)
When I was done dilly-dallying over yesterday's musical castoffs, I would trek up Mt. Auburn Street to meet Maura at the cafe she waitressed at, where I'd swig discounted Italian sodas and lounge in the Cantabridgian twilight as I waited for her shift to end. From there, another short jaunt on the Red Line and a longer one on the ever-unreliable 96 bus would bring us back to her place, where we'd spend the rest of the evening watching The Kids in the Hall and Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Comedy Central while her rabbits ran riot around the room.
Good times, indeed.
Here's a mini-sampler taken from the aforementioned albums I purchased and listened to back in those days:
INXS - The One Thing (from Shabooh Shoobah, 1982) - A case of partner-to-partner musical osmosis. She taught me to appreciate INXS, I taught her to appreciate the Abrasive Wheels.
Bauhaus - Dancing (from Mask, 1981) - Spasmodically gyrating around the borderlands of postpunk, pop and perentiousness.
From Frank Castle's Guide to Shared Intimacy (a.k.a. The Punisher's Love Journal):
1. Communication between partners is essential.
2. Try varying your foreplay routines to keep things exciting and unpredictable.
3. Always carry protection.
4. After the deed is done, indulge in some post-poital "cuddle time" with your partner.
Fighting and fucking, it's all the same in the Punisher's sad little world.
I used to to be a fan of Marvel's flagship sociopathic vigilante back in the late 1980's, but media oversaturation and the wisdom that comes with getting older killed my affection for Frank Castle and his one-man war on crime. Like butterfly knives and heavy metal music, the Punisher falls into the category of things that seemed really bitchin' to my teenaged self, but just feel embarrassing to me these days.
The above sequence of panels originally appeared in a story titled "Accounts Settled, Accounts Due!" which ran in Marvel Super Action #1 (January 1976), one of several attempts by Marvel to launch a more adult-oriented comics magazine. It was written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Tony DeZuniga and Rico Rival, and while I have an immense amount of respect for the late Mr. Goodwin's contributions to the comics industry, I have to wonder if he was freebasing Mickey Spillane manuscripts while he was scripting the story, which falls into the common comics trap of confusing "adult" with "lurid, titillating, and disturbingly violent."
The story does feature this panel though, so it's not all bad...
Looking for love in all the wrong places? Perhaps this will help:
The wise Saint Burt of Bacharach once said "what the world needs now is love, sweet love," citing a noticible global shortfall in that wonderful (and occasionally painful) state of bliss.
There has been a trend among the cynically hip set to denounce this day's holiday observances as nothing more than an market-driven grab for consumer's cash, but that bit of sour grapes masquerading as "getting wise" fails to consider that there are plenty of people out there who celebrate the meaning of the day without expending large sums of money. It's a perfect opportunity to reflect on things romantic, things that perhaps might have been back-burnered by the hectic schedule of everyday life. (It shouldn't happen, but it does.)
It doesn't need to involve a couple dozen long-stemmed roses or an overpriced shiny bauble. A handmade card made of construction paper and paste (proving again that the skillset I acquired in pre-school is of more daily use than my degree in English Literature) and a spontaneous hug can be just as, if not more, meaningful.
Still, if you want to know if he (or she) loves you so, it's in the kiss....
But, as communication in general tends to break down more and more, the existence of love becomes increasingly precarious. It is threatened on every side. Everything tends to reduce lovers to objects - Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life
A panel from a 1971 issue of Date With Debbi:
A sample letter from the advice column in a 1971 issue of Date With Debbi:
An excerpt from a feature on actress Maureen McCormick from a 1971 issue of Date With Debbi:
(The article also states that the then fifteen year old McCormick was 4'8" and weighed sixty-eight pounds "dripping wet".)
An advertisement from a 1971 issue of Date With Debbi:
In which we tune in to find space-mercenary Erin O'Rourke-Singh (a.k.a. "Dart") and her lover/partner, Blackjak, at that uncomfortable "Who do you love more -- me or the embodiment of cosmic evil who spared your life in order to use you as a weapon against my friends and family?" stage of their relationship. (Hey, it happens more often that you'd think.) Let's see how it works out for those kooky kids...
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