Oh! You Pretty Things

The cold feels like I've moved to Siberia.  Every dark morning last week, I drove to work with Godflesh cranked to 13 (naturally).  There's an unrelenting, funky pulse that often (re)animates the angry sludge of these songs.  One of my favorites is the unfortunately-titled "Circle of Shit".  The dance it makes me do is like a film loop of Grover from Sesame Street having an epileptic fit.

The stew of the week:  Godflesh, David Bowie, The Hateful Eight, Providence, Nameless, my own weird dreams, the "news" of the world, all bubbling in the mix.  Space Oddity through Ziggy, anticipating [Blackstar].  Dialogue & death in a widescreen blizzard.  Madness induced by unpronounceable Lovecraftian demons.  All preferable to another day at the Skin Factory.  My job is turning me into an asshole.

Chai Shai & Alamo Drafthouse with JMC.  An unhurried pakora curry with a mysterious salty, pickled, stemmed lump that I should ask for two of next time.  A 20-something woman to my right baby-talking to her boyfriend throughout their meal.  I took a deep breath & imagined she was a Manga character.  The couple who replaced them held hands & prayed out loud over their food, then commenced an "honest" conversation about their relationship.  They seemed to be new to each other.  I was struck by how beautifully cultish their public praying was to me.  I think I've finally gotten over the childhood trauma of Midwestern cross-wielding psychos, and I can accept Christianity as being just as valid as any other religion.

I enjoyed The Hateful Eight as much as any Tarantino film.  I have a sort of pact with the ghost of a friend, this is what I'd be doing if you were still here.  But amidst all the casual elbows-to-the-face, human beings reduced to splattered gore, and copious use of the word "nigger", I have to ask myself why.  Especially, when a young black man is setting my beer down in front of me at the exact moment the word is eliciting laughter from the audience.  I was mortified & felt like running from the theater, screaming "black lives matter!"  I want art to provoke an emotional response, questioning, reevaluation, etc., so...there you go, am I part of the problem or the solution, or both?  The score is good.  The bit with the door is hilarious.  I like how "pocket universe" it all seems--three hours of these characters isolated by a blizzard in a shack in Wyoming.  The closeness of it makes me think of Sartre's No Exit.

"What is human?"  It's a question that repeats in issue four of Nameless.  As the demon/alien takes away limbs, eyes, sex, dignity;  as it drives people to rape & murder;  as our bodies are digested & become worms' bodies. "What is human?" as I read of a certain "presidential candidate" urging his supporters to strip protesters of their coats before throwing them out in the cold. Seeing his claim that he's a victim of hatred, rather than an instigator, I feel the disgust grow in me, knowing he's going to get away with it.  "What is human?" as North Korea pretends (or not) to have a hydrogen bomb, and daily shootings have made going to a restaurant an act of courage.  The terrorists & Trumpies are a cancer popping up on an overpopulated, polluted Earth where all the resources are being perverted & misappropriated by a handful of people.  Every time I turn on the news, I think "gotta make way for the Homo Superior!"

On the flip side, Berkley Breathed's new Bloom County is a wondrous thing.  Neil Gaiman's baby is super cute.  And a flock of starlings are squabbling on my lawn, sounding like rain when they all take off at once.