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The Drunken Odyssey

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The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: October 2013

Loading the Canon #12: Ars Moriendi

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Loading the Canon

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Helena-Anne Hittel, Loading the Canon

Loading the Canon #12 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Ars Moriendi: The Art of Dying

Happy Halloween, Drunken Odysseans! Loading the Canon is taking a deathly turn today, as I examine all things… well, slightly morbid, actually.

Ars Moriendi

People have been making offerings to the dead since time began. They can be things as small as a few flowers to entire terra-cotta armies to protect you in the afterlife. Art historians love grave goods, because they say so much about a culture. Markers, tombs, statuary, pottery all seem to point towards an afterlife. The ancient Egyptians, for example, had some of the most lavishly given gifts buried with them (if you were of a certain station).

When given the words “ancient Egypt,” terms like “mummy”, “pharaoh”, “pyramid” and “sarcophagus” usually aren’t far behind (fun fact: sarcophagus translates to “flesh eater”). It’s true. The ancient Egyptians had, perhaps, one of the most recognizable burial cultures in the world. They were known for the preservation of bodies through mummification, gold funeral masks, colorful sarcophagi, and, of course, constructing giant pyramidal tombs to mark the graves of their pharaohs. The most recognizable (and intact!) of these is the Tomb of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. This tomb, in particular, contained over 5,000 ritual and funerary objects, all of which are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Tut mask

The Greeks were well-known for their temple complexes, statuary, and pottery. Certainly the pottery. Vessels were used as household items, trade goods, grave goods, urns and grave markers. The Dipylon Cemetery in Athens, for example, contains graves from as early as 1200 BC to the Hellenistic Period. Many of these graves were marked with various large-scale decorative pottery. Different shapes also noted who was buried beneath each one. A krater, which is a large vessel out of which wine is served, was commonly used at symposia and therefore associated with men. Thus, this would most likely mark a man’s grave. Vessels such as a lutrophoros (literally, “Carrier of Washing Water”) were used fro a bridal bath before weddings, and would mark the grave of an unmarried woman.

Krater

The ancient Etruscans, predating the Roman civilization, had a similar idea as to what to put into a tomb. This idea, however, was made completely robber-proof. The Egyptian tombs held such expensive gifts and were so ostentatious, they basically waved a flag and called out, “Come loot me!” The Etruscans remedied this situation by carving all the objects they thought their loved ones would need, in relief, in the walls of the tomb at Cerveteri. Rob me now, sucker! I dare ya.

Etruscan

Fast forward to the Late Middle Ages. It wasn’t a “Dark Age”, and it probably wasn’t a bad time to be alive. It was just a short time. Religion was one of the most important things back then, and your faith dictated where you would go and what would happen to you. In 1415, a Dominican friar sought to make passing a little bit easier for the masses with the Ars Moriendi (roughly translated from the Latin as “The Art of Dying”). This text was a book of prayers written for the dead and dying and was published in two versions, with the shorter, more condensed version easily accessible by many. These were printed in black and white, but there were also hand-colored “deluxe” versions, if you could spare the expense. These books contained mostly illustrations for the illiterate masses, and could be read to you in Latin by a cleric.

Nobody really wants to die. I definitely don’t, but it’s like taxes: you really can’t avoid it. (Well, you can avoid taxes. It’s just recommended that you don’t.) The ancients knew this, too, but like today, they made cultural offerings to those they mourned. That way, when you woke up in your afterlife, you knew you were loved and it would be business as usual.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Gutter Space #13: On Taking Webcomics Seriously

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Gutter Space

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gutter space, internet culture, leslie salas, social media, webcomics

Gutter Space #13 By Leslie Salas

 On Taking Webcomics Seriously

This week on Gutter Space, I don’t have a comic review for you. Instead, I’d like to take a moment to muse on something a talented former intern of mine mentioned. She saw my column on The Oatmeal, and noted that it was, in her words, “really refreshing to see him [The Oatmeal] considered as a serious storyteller rather than a just guy who makes funny pictures on the Internet.”

I don’t think she realized it, but my talented former intern really nailed what I’m trying to do here with Gutter Space. I review literary and independent (print) comics alongside webcomics. I put them both on equal footing, give them both equal critical attention. Each comic has something it does well—some element we can learn from to use in our own craft, regardless of the medium we work in. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and what we might take away from each of these things.

I like to think of this column/blog as a place where we can look between the cracks and find something valuable lying in the gutter. Indie comics and webcomics don’t really get as much hype and attention as more mainstream superhero comics have (at least here in the US), but I’m hoping we can build some awareness of the fact that there’s some really awesome stuff going on with independents publishers, imprints, and on the Interwebs.

The latter of which—comics created and “distributed” over the world wide web—are the most fascinating to me because of the sheer volume and diversity of what the Internet has to offer. There are many self-published webcomics which have amassed and retained a massive platform of readers and fans over several years. There are occasional updaters, there are beautiful projects that have been abandoned mid-plot, and there are archives of writers’ and artists’ personal and creative growth through their art. It’s a fascinating study in the evolution and power of the medium.

And perhaps what I enjoy most about studying webcomics is that they’ve become a staple of Internet-culture. We see rage-comics and memes; friends post links to poignant, funny, sad, or enlightening webcomics on Facebook and Twitter; the best ones go viral on Tumblr and Reddit. If you’re on the Internet (ahem), then you’re already exposed to webcomics in some way or another. So if this field is becoming such a large part of are continually shifting and growing culture—why shouldn’t we be taking it seriously?

 ___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Heroes Never Rust #13: What if the Villains Won?

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman

Heroes Never Rust #13 by Sean Ironman

What if the Villains Won?

Since last week’s post was about a Mark Millar comic (Kick Ass) that I found frustrating, this week I’ll look at one I like—Wanted. The miniseries’ first issue came out in 2003, and, while Mark Millar had been writing comics since the ‘80s, this is the comic that solidified his comic stardom for me. Over the years I’ve noticed that if a writer does great independent work that doesn’t necessarily mean that writer will do great work on a corporate property (X-Men, Batman, etc.), and vice versa. I had read Millar’s run on Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates, and Superman Adventures, and I enjoyed his work, but Wanted really took me by surprise (and in a good way, unlike the film adaptation).

Wanted

The comic tells the story of Wesley Gibson, a loser with no drive in life. One day, he’s visited by The Fox, an assassin who reveals herself to be a member of The Fraternity, a secret organization of supervillains who rule the world. Wesley’s father, The Killer, the greatest assassin in the world, has been murdered and Wesley is called to take his place. After being trained and inducted into the secrete society, Wesley learns that living in a cubicle isn’t the way to live. The basic story isn’t anything new. And if that’s all there was I wouldn’t be writing this blog post. Millar really runs with the concept of a world run by supervillains secretly and there are many twists throughout the six issues. I’m not going to be delving too much into the later half of the series here.

One of the biggest reasons I love this comic is that the characters are clear reconstructions of DC Comics characters. One thing that can grow tiresome in comics is when one comic book rips off another’s characters. There are so many versions of the same characters floating around out there. But what Millar did well is make versions of DC characters that are capable of standing alone, for one, and he puts them through the ringer in a way DC would never do. It’s not a rehash of a DC tale. Millar uses the characters to tell a story they would never be featured in. For example, The Killer is Deadshot, The Fox is Catwoman, Mr. Rictus is the Joker, Fuckwit is Bizarro Superman, Shitface is Clayface, and Professor Solomon Seltzer is Lex Luthor.

Rictus

Millar got the idea when he was a child and asked his brother, Bobby, what happened to Superman. He thought Superman was real. His brother told him that Superman disappeared, along with the other superheroes, in a great war with all of the supervillains.

In Wanted, years before the series begins, the supervillains had decided to combine forces, and in a great war, succeeded in killing most of the superheroes. My favorite part of the comic is when it shows what happened to the heroes that the supervillains couldn’t kill. Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. Using all the science mumbo jumbo comics have to offer, the supervillains bent and folded reality into itself, until the superheroes (and the general public forgot about them. Well, not quite forget. In the Wanted universe, Christopher Reeve is Superman. Adam West and Burt Ward are Batman and Robin. In every other story where a superhero is made to forget that he or she is a superhero, there’s always that little nugget in the back of their head telling them the truth. By turning the superheroes into actors who portrayed the superheroes, that curiosity is squashed. The curiosity that would normally send these heroes on a path to become who they were is satisfied. In the saddest panel ever, Christopher Reeve sits in his wheelchair staring at the sunset.

Superman

One fear I had when I read the first issue was that the superheroes would eventually come back, that at some point Wesley would reject this new life and the heroes would remain triumphant in the end with Wesley leading the charge. Thankfully that never happens. Millar sticks by his idea here (unlike in Kick Ass, see last week’s post). The superheroes are mentioned briefly, but other than Mr. Rictus (the Joker) killing Adam West and Burt Ward, they aren’t mentioned again and play no importance in the remaining portion of the story. This is a story of supervillains.

By keeping superheroes out of it, Millar is able to study the difference in supervillains. There are supervillains like Lex Luthor and Ra’s Al Ghul who are villains because they want power, money, knowledge, or all of the above. Professor Solomon Selter (Lex Luthor) seems to enjoy staying the background, letting the world go on, while keeping trophies like Superman’s cape. While other villains, like Mr. Rictus (the Joker) are just psychopaths and want to kill and rape and just cause destruction wherever they go. This isn’t a comic of good versus evil, but bad versus evil. What’s the difference between a bad person and an evil one? Even if they are both murderers? Is there a difference?

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

 

In Boozo Veritas #13: Remembering Lou Reed

28 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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Tags

Lou Reed, Velvet Underground

In Boozo Veritas #13 by Teege Braune

Remembering Lou Reed

lou

“I’ll be your mirror
Reflect what you are,
in case you don’t know”
–Lou Reed

 I was planning on writing an article on horror, Halloween, the supernatural, or some other seasonally appropriate subject, but had put off the endeavor until the last minute because I couldn’t think of a cohesive thesis. Then something horrible happened. Rock legend Lou Reed died. Never has the death of a musician, artist, or celebrity hit me as hard as the passing of Reed. I’m shocked that the loss of a man I never knew, never spoke to, never even saw in person can leave me so heart broken. In the next few months, many more qualified people will tell you about Reed’s legacy, his cultural import, and his monumental influence on the face of rock ‘n roll. I don’t claim to be a music critic and will leave all that to the experts. I just want to share with you what Lou Reed meant to me.

As soon as I became aware of the Velvet Underground, I was fascinated by Reed’s ultra-cool signature scowl. Having only heard the song “White Light/White Heat,” I included a picture of the band in a collage of things that were important to me for a middle school art assignment. I was obsessed with 1960s culture, but didn’t quite get the distinction between Warhol’s Silver Factory art movement, San Francisco hippy culture, and English psychedelia. Nevertheless, I noticed an obvious gap between The Velvet Underground and the other bands I loved. Lou Reed’s sound and persona didn’t fit in alongside the peace/love generation. There was a violence to the Velvet Underground’s lyrics and dissonance that felt far more dangerous.

Sans titre18

My freshman year of college I met Nat Evans who has remained one of my best friends to this day. At nineteen, long before the invention of iTunes, Nat had the biggest and most diverse music collection of anyone I’d ever known. With a pair of wraparound sunglasses on, he also looks like he could be Reed’s long lost son. Our friendship was initiated by a mutual love of Zen haiku, Miles Davis, Philip Glass, and other things that no one else at our midwestern liberal arts college seemed to appreciate, but sometimes Nat would scowl at me, shocked by the cultural elements of which I was clueless.

“You’ve never heard the song ‘Heroin?’” he asked me one day hanging around in our dorm.

It had come up because I was reading Dennis Johnson’s Jesus Son for freshman creative writing, and Nat was stunned and appalled that I didn’t get the reference. After all, I was a fan of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. How could my knowledge of Lou Reed be so limited? He put a pair of earphones on my head and popped Velvet Underground & Nico in the CD player. I listened to the song on repeat for almost an hour as I smoked cigarettes and flicked the butts out of my third floor window. For the rest of the semester I didn’t go more than a day without listening to Velvet Underground & Nico. It was the only album I listened to while writing term papers, playing it on repeat as the sun came up and I typed out the work I had inevitably put off to the last possible minute.

From there I asked my parents to get me the Velvet Underground box set for Christmas and played every album that came with it until I knew them forwards and backwards. Then I got Transformer and played the hell out of that. Then Coney Island Baby. Then every time some girl broke my heart, I played “Street Hassle” over and over again until I finally felt better. Ecstasy came out between our Freshman and Sophomore years, and it was amazing to hear an artist so iconic to a bygone era continue to record new music that was exciting and relevant. Over ten years later and despite a liver transplant earlier this year, Reed, in his seventies, remained an influential figure in art and music and was even scheduled to participate in a discussion of Edgar Allan Poe in November. Tickets were sold out at the time of his death.

Lou2

Instead of completing the chores and errands we had planned for the day, Jenn and I sat around our apartment dusting off and replaying our old Velvet Underground albums and mourning the loss of a cultural icon that meant so much to both of us. I still can’t hear the song “Heroin” without thinking of Nat, so I texted my old friend to see if he had heard the sad news. An incredibly talented and accomplished composer in his own right, I think Nat took Reed’s passing even harder than I did. As a musician, perhaps Nat could say better than I how Reed has specifically influenced his own work. For me, Lou Reed’s music taught me that things don’t have to be pretty to be beautiful, that the most interesting work, what we can truly call sublime, lies in the synthesis of beauty and dissonance. His music was my first foray into the avant-garde. Through it, I learned to embrace the weird, the uncanny. He left us an oeuvre so rich that we will never exhaust its mysteries. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Lou Reed, but I remain eager and excited to rediscover him.

___________

stylishbartender

Teege Braune is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

Like a Geek God #10: A Dreadful Double Feature Triple Threat

27 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Like a Geek God

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Alien, Alred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Donnie Darko, John Carpenter, Like a Geek God, Mark Pursell, Mulholland Drive, Ridley Scott, The Birds, The Thing

Like a Geek God #10 by Mark Pursell

A Dreadful Double Feature Triple Threat

Halloween in the Information Age always sees a glut of “favorite scary movie” lists clogging up your feeds and repeating the same recommendations over and over again.  The thing is, if you’re a horror geek or a fan of scary movies in any way, you already know and love classic, foundational horror flicks like The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, Halloween, The Exorcist, Carrie, and more.  You’ll also see plenty of lists from self-righteous horror geeks, directing you to their favorite under-the-radar splatterfest gems (many of which are meritorious only because of a certain flair for cringeworthy gore and not because of strong storytelling or atmospherics).  The truth is that, somewhere in the divide between the standards and the schlock, any number of deeply frightening films often get lost or overlooked as horror movies, even if they are famous or have followings for other reasons.

I wrote last time about the nature of fear, and how truly successful horror movies foster an unbearable sense of dread as opposed to jump scares and shock tactics.  So, in that spirit, I present six must-see, truly scary movies for your Halloween viewing pleasure.  These are all movies that only occasionally pop up on Halloween-themed “scariest movie” lists; they also do not self identify as horror (with the possible exception of The Thing) but are more truly terrifying than most movies that do.  The movies in this list not only craft strong, complex stories with memorable characters, but also and most importantly create an atmosphere of tangible dread.  Danger imbues every frame of these fine films.  And, just for extra fun, they are paired together in ready-to-view double headers.  You’re welcome.

Jaws and The Birds

            Nature is rife with terrific and unstoppable forces that threaten our existence at every turn, but there is something so specifically disturbing about our fellow living creatures turning against us that bone-chilling tales about marauding animals are a media staple in genres ranging from adventure and drama to straight horror.  Maybe our fascination with these stories stems from a sense of Biblical betrayal: Judeo-Christian philosophy describes “the dominion of man” over the earth and its other inhabitants, and as a race, we certainly seem to take that to heart.  No wonder, then, that stories about our supposedly subservient and non-sentient cousins in the evolutionary chain rising up like avenging spirits make us clutch the blankets closer, look askance at the neighbor’s cat, refuse to go swimming.  Of course, straightforward stories about wounded, unhinged, or otherwise marred animals acting out against humans because of exploitation or mistreatment inspire pathos instead of fear, but the movies where our bestial intelopers seem to embody a force much more terrible and destructive than simple animal behavior hint at something insatiable and apocalyptic that lurks just beneath the surface of the natural order.

jaws

Jaws and The Birds both embody this idea, and make use of surprisingly similar contexts—beleagured seaside towns, with one threat coming from the waves and the other from the wide blue.  However, they elevate themselves beyond your typical “creature feature” by building complex human characters whose welfare we are made to care about long before the trouble really gets going.  Jaws in particular folds its air of panic into a small-town human drama that accentuates the movie’s anxiety, pushing the plot and the characters into ever more reactionary places until, with a sense of inevitability that is the beating heart of all true horror, the three heroes—grim, resolved—put out to sea to face their nemesis.  They carry with them the burden of not only having to find and defeat the great white threat, but also the knowledge that doing so will save their livelihoods and the existence of Amity.

birds

The Birds is, of course, closer in tone to classic Hollywood with its chilly, Hitchcockian beauty, but what makes the avian threat equally as terrifying as the maw of a shark is its unexpectedness and uncertainty.  A man-eating shark is not necessarily anomalous in the real world, but hundreds of birds inexplicably turning on us mammals creates fear because it is such a disruption of the “natural order”, a feeling which is only enhanced by Hitchcock’s (wise) decision not to address the reason behind this event.  With a slyness that has only become apparent to me on repeated viewings, Hitchcock and the script imply a mix of factors which might, at least thematically or metaphorically, be the cause—the unwed Tippi Hedren’s sexual independence, perhaps, or the mysterious pair of lovebirds she takes to Bodega Bay as a flirtatious sally fired at Rod Taylor, and which the survivors (probably unwisely) take with them when making their final escape.  The uncanny nature of the birds’ aggression mixed with this teasing lack of explanation create an atmosphere in which, like Jaws, the laws of nature seem to no longer apply, and the invisible structures we cling to to make sense of the world fall away from us, leaving us exposed and with no place to hide.

 

Alien and The Thing

            Aggressive organisms from our own planet are one thing, but aggressive organisms from the uncharted bournes of outer space are another matter entirely.  The universe beyond our fragile atmosphere is a Rorschach sort of canvas on which humanity has projected its capacity for wonder and terror since our infancy as a race.  Small wonder, then, that some of our most hair-raising tales concern themselves with the nigh incomprehensible horrors that might one day come slithering out of the void.

alien

Much has been made over the decades about Ridley Scott’s Alien—it is a seminal science fiction work—but I rarely see it described as a horror movie, or lauded as one.  Which is odd, because that is essentially what it is.  It’s not even really a creature feature—it has less in common with something like Jaws than it does with slasher flicks, the methodical slaying, one by one, of an isolated and fearful cast of characters.  Much like Jaws, though, Alien builds its feeling of dread by keeping the titular aggressor out of sight as long as possible, allowing our imagintions—always more powerful than the most dazzling special effect—to work overtime and juice up our adrenaline and anxiety as the fiend’s nature is slowly, sickeningly revealed.  (It’s worth noting that both Jaws and Alien employed this type of restraint not because of the initial intent of their respective directors, but because the special effects for both creatures were not as effective as desired, forcing both Spielberg and Scott to keep their monsters out of sight as long as possible).  The DNA of Alien’s particular flavor of dread—the run-down blue-collar spaceship, evoking a grim lower-class future; the oral rape and violation metaphors, mixed with the sexual aspects of the xenomorph’s life cycle and design; the overwhelming hopelessness of pitting oneself against the whims of a powerful corporation, a particularly relevant thematic strand for today’s America—all of these things have been written about and analyzed.  But perhaps the most chilling aspect of the movie is the xenomorph’s bloodthirsty aggression itself.  Possible to explain away the behavior of a rogue shark; possible, even, to form thematic explanations for unnatural avian aggression (the encroachment of man, perhaps).  The xenomorph’s predations, though, are as unfounded as they are nearly unstoppable. It seems to exist for no other reason, and to want nothing, other than to destroy life, and the movie leaves us dangling in desperation at that unexplainable fact.  Faced with such unreasoning destruction, what is there to do but run?

The Thing

The Thing, for its part, is not set in outer space but in an equally desolate, isolated setting: Antarctica (a nod, perhaps, to Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”).             It exchanges Alien’s mixed-gender cast of interstellar truckers for a gruff assortment of male scientists, headed up by a scruffy Kurt Russell, but much like Alien, the titular organism infiltrates the group by subterfuge—in the case of The Thing, the creature takes on the likeness of a dog, and by the time the scientists realize all is not well with Rover, it is practically too late.  The Thing is largely the same “type” of movie as Alien, a series of suspenseful encounters that gradually escalate into pitched battle, but one element that distinguishes the Thing and makes it terrifying in its own right, and not just by default of its alienness, is its protean nature.  It can shapeshift, yes, but it’s also the intermediate forms it takes in transition (which show off some amazing special effects and makeup work that, though dated, still dazzles almost twenty-five years later) that inspire in us human beings—fixed as we are in our forms—a deep and queasy unease.  The idea of a living organism that seems to have no “true” shape, jumping from copy to copy like a macabre chameleon, is so anthithetical to our view of the world that we reject it outright, shrinking away from it with revulsion at its unnaturalness.

Donnie Darko and Mulholland Drive

            Space, as a frontier, overwhelms with its vast and unknowable reaches. The frontier of our own minds, though—and the way that we build our relationships with time, with dream, and with memory—is no less mysterious and no less full of potential danger.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko presents at first as the simple tale of a troubled teen.  But as the movie winds on and becomes more complicated, bringing in subtle flavors of science fiction and true horror, it turns out that Jake Gyllenhaal (a breakout performance in the title role) is right to push with adolescent rage and frustration at the boundaries of his cozened suburban life; his feeling that all is not quite right with the world, that there is a flaw in reality hovering just beyond his ability to define or grasp, turns out to be the only thing that can avert tragedy and bring him to his ultimate fate.

Mulholland Drive

There is a similar sense of ultimate inevitability laced through David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, as Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring struggle to piece together an unsettling mystery, racing towards a revelation and an outcome that, we realize as the credits roll, was actually racing towards them all along with the inexorability of a freight train.  In Mulholland Drive, though, it is not our heroines who sense the “wrongness” of their world, even as they struggle to piece together an unsettling mystery; it is the audience who senses this wrongness, a feeling that this version of reality is alternate, somehow, and when the final revelation plays out and our worst suspicions are confirmed, it makes our ability to understand time, dreams, and memory seem not only suspect but traitorous, that attempting to get a fix on ourselves in relation to the ever-flowing forces of time and the limitations of our own perception is a battle that can’t be won and, if pushed too far, can boomerang on us in strange, frightening, and ultimately fatal ways.

___________

Mark Pursell in Orange

 

Mark Pursell is a lifelong geek and lover of words.  His publishing credits include Nimrod International Journal, The New Orleans Review, and The Florida Review, where he also served as poetry editor.  His work can most recently be seen in the first volume of the 15 Views of Orlando anthology from Burrow Press.  He currently teaches storytelling and narrative design for video games at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

 

The Curator of Schlock #12: Phenomena

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Dario Argento, Donald Pleasance, Jefferey Shuster, Jennifer Connelly, Phenomena, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #12 by Jeffrey Shuster

Phenomena

Many will cite Suspiria or Deep Red (Profundo Russo) and Italian director Dario Argento’s cinematic masterpieces. To be sure, those are fantastic films, journeys into the macabre shot in glorious Technicolor, the last of their kind before the process came to an end in the late 1970s. Many think that Dario Argento never achieved such perfection again. They are wrong.

phenomena06

In 1985, Dario Argento’s Phenomena was released, a horror movie about a young girl who had a telepathic powers over insects. The movie was released in North America heavily censored and re-edited under the title of Creepers. The resulting changes destroyed Argento’s vision and many of his fans regard Phenomena as one of his lesser efforts. I would argue that these fans never saw the original cut or were so jaded by their first impression of the film from Creepers that they were unable to give Phenomena a chance.

I was more fortunate. I had never watched Creepers and was able to benefit from the DVD boom of the late 90s and early 2000s, a boom that had several Italian classics being released uncensored for the first time in North America. My view of Phenomena is untarnished by that hack job and Phenomena remains to this day my favorite horror movie of all time.

Jennifer Connelly plays Jennifer Corvino, a young American girl who’s been sent Switzerland by her movie star dad to attend The Richard Wagner school for girls. This would be swell if not for the fact that there’s a psychopath on the loose with a penchant for killing young girls around the same age as Jennifer. In fact, he’s murdered some students at the very school Jennifer has been attending.

phenomena01

It’s also around this time that Jennifer starts having sleepwalking episodes. This is problematic because she keeps sleepwalking on the decaying rooftops of Richard Wagner’s estate while the killer is on the prowl for his latest victim. Eventually, Jennifer winds up at the house of a kindly old etymologist named John McGregor (Donald Pleasance). He’s wheelchair bound, but he has a live-at-home chimpanzee “nurse maid” named Inga to help out. Professor McGregor’s insects are rather fond of Jennifer and he tells her she can stop by anytime.

The following night at school, Jennifer’s roommate Sophie (she’s French!) is murdered by the psychopath. A firefly leads Jennifer to a maggot-infested glove. Jennifer determines that the glove belongs to the killer since one of the maggots psychically shows her the dead body of Sophie. When the maggot matures into a fly known as the Great Sarcophagus, Professor McGregor has the bright idea of sending Jennifer out with the fly to catch the killer. Jennifer travels on the bus a young Danish tourist travelled on before getting her head chopped off by the killer. The idea is the fly will lead her to where the dead bodies are hidden. This sounds like an excellent plan except for the fact that Jennifer may actually run into the “vicious killer.”  Funny how neither of them thought that through. I won’t spoil the end for you, but let’s just say there’s a chimp involved.

Ten Things I Learned From Phenomena

  1. Chimps like to play around with straight razors.
  2. Italians throw out razor blades in trash receptacles where wandering chimps can find them.
  3. Headmistresses don’t like American schoolgirls who sleepwalk and can talk to insects.
  4. Maggots can be a girl’s best friend.
  5. If you find maggots under the soap in the bathroom of someone’s house, get out of there.
  6. If your host tries to feed you poison pills, get out the house.
  7. If every mirror in a house is covered with bed sheets so your host’s son doesn’t have to see his reflection, get out of the house.
  8. If your host flips a switch sealing you into their home by barring the doors and windows with ten-inch steel, now would be a good time to panic.
  9. If you discover the police detective who’s trying to find the killer, bloody and chained to wall in an underground dungeon, now would be a good time to panic.
  10. If you find yourself in an pit of water surrounded by floating body parts while a psychopath laughs maniacally in front of you, now would be a good time to panic.

___________

Jeffrey Shuster

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

Loading the Canon #11: Return of Third Thursdays

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Loading the Canon

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Art, Loading the Canon

Loading the Canon #11 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Return of Third Thursdays: By Design

Thursday’s offering at the Gallery at Avalon Island is both aesthetically pleasing and architecturally sound.

October 17th was the Downtown Arts District’s monthly gallery hop, Third Thursdays. If you didn’t attend this one, you’ve missed out. The Gallery at Avalon Island’s Patrick Greene curated a knockout show, composed of nine artists with various studios (all over Florida). The concept was one of pure design and composition. These artists focused on the line and structure in their artwork, how the materials interacted with each other, and the use of new and innovative materials and forms of art.

For instance, let’s look at the art of Henning Haupt. Mr. Haupt is a painter and professor of architecture at Florida Atlantic University. A few of his “Blind Drawings” were featured in this show. These might not look like thoughtful studies of line and plane at first. However, get a bit closer, and it’s easy to see. Haupt’s works, done in oil paint and crayon and drawn with his eyes closed, explore the division of space and the different ways in which it can be divided. His titles explain his intentions, too-there’s no room for confusion in “Verticals alternating Density and Width—Green, 2012.” Haupt’s works are both structured and free-form.

Another artist also explored division. Rachel Wronowski’s shadowboxes exhibit an almost stained glass-like quality, from the angular lines and compositions to the rich, bright colors. It’s like a Tiffany lamp in a little black box. Wronowski’s works pack all the color and plenty of backbone into small, visually-pleasing doses.

Art, though, comes in many forms, some even wearable. Case in point, Iris Ledesma’s structural and stylish jewelry. Her works feature leather and metal constructions. One leather piece in specific, a bib necklace, strives to work with the look of the female form. From her website: “This design family ventures to combine modern day stylings with a subtle flair of antiquity. The combination of hand worked, riveted leathers and concentric geometric design lends itself to an elegant accent line sure to accentuate the female lines.”

Art and design are one and the same. It’s nothing without composition. The materials it’s made of and the ways that they’re used are the basic components of the greatest works hanging in every museum. Those in The Gallery at Avalon Island are no different. From paintings done with a palette knife to the use of hibiscus and red wine as artistic mediums, art is rapidly evolving. It all starts with design

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) is an Art History Major at the University of Central Florida and Intern at the UCF Art Gallery.

Heroes Never Rust #12: A Frustrating Superhero Comic

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Heroes Never Rust #12 by Sean Ironman

A Frustrating Superhero Comic

So far I’ve only talked about superhero comics that I enjoy. I thought it would be interesting to highlight one that I don’t. Now there’s superhero comics I hate, storylines that I feel were huge mistake, characters that I can’t stand, but I didn’t want to rail against something that I in no way enjoy. So I chose a comic that I find frustrating, frustrating because of the talent involved and the many good ideas that can be found in it.

I chose Kick Ass written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita, Jr.

(This isn’t Millar-bashing. Next week, I’m going to cover a comic that I love by Millar.)

Kick Ass 1

Many of you have probably heard of Kick Ass because of the two films starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Chloë Grace Moretz. The story asks the question (a common one these days, although not so much at the time it was created), What if a regular person decided to become a superhero? I find this question to be a good one in a society where violent video games are sometimes thought to make people violent. If video games can do that, wouldn’t superhero comic books make people want to become superheroes?

(Funny side story: Many years ago, well not that many, like five, a friend of mine introduced me to a woman to see if we would hit it off. Somehow the comic book character, the Punisher, came up in topic. I told this potential girlfriend that I wanted to get married some day and have kids just so that they would be killed in a mob shootout so that I could have a reason to become the Punisher. We never dated. But as I say, if they don’t support your dreams, then they shouldn’t be in your life.)

Before the comic’s release, I was very much looking forward to it. John Romita Jr. is one of the best artists in the industry, and I was a big fan of Mark Millar’s work on The Ultimates, Chosen, and Wanted. While not a good comic, I even respected him for changing up his usual punk style with lots of graphic violence, profanity, and sexual content to write the teenage romance Trouble, which is for those who don’t know a kind-of Dirty Dancing story.

Then, the first issue of Kick Ass came out.

I loved it.

Kick Ass Page 1

It opened with a man in a costume with wings on top of a skyscraper. In narration, he spoke about wanting to be a superhero. Then, he jumped.

His wings failed to open. He died crashing into a car.

Millar then introduced us to Dave Lizewski, who’s a normal high-school boy living with his father after his mother’s death, a death not by a mobster or a villain but by an aneurysm. He became a superhero not so much to save people but to do something important with his life. He was searching for something like every teenager.

On his first mission, he just walked the streets looking for trouble. He came across three graffiti artists, not the biggest of villains, and ended up getting stabbed and as he wandered away bleeding, he walked into traffic and was hit by a car, a car which drove off.

The comic was everything I had thought it would be. Great art. Great writing. It was really tackling this idea of what a plebian superhero. How would you find the bad guys? Well, just walk around and look. Millar was approaching the comic in a realistic way.

The second issue opened with Dave in the hospital. He didn’t have some high tech gadgetry that helped him heal faster. It wasn’t a black eye and a little soreness. He was hooked up to a ventilator and most of his body was in a cast. It was months before he was able to walk again, nevertheless get back out there on the street.

The end of issue three was the turning point. The introduction of Hit Girl. Now let’s get this straight: I love the character of Hit Girl. She was a lot of fun. But after she was introduced, the comic seemed to fall apart for me. For one, Hit Girl was more fun and interesting than Kick Ass. It’s a problem with a lot of stories, especially fantasy stories for some reason, but once we want to spend more time with the supporting character, the main character’s story loses it’s interest and momentum.

Kick Ass 4

But most importantly, the comic seemed to lose track of its original premise. The story started to get large. The action scenes grew into what we’d see in other superhero stories. With characters like Hit Girl and Big Daddy, the action and villains needed to get more intense because those two were so well trained and prepared. The mob was introduced. The story got so far beyond Kick Ass. It even stopped really focusing on Dave’s attempt to be a superhero. He got caught up in the mob versus Big Daddy and Hit Girl story.

I know much of my problem with Kick Ass lies in expectations. As a writer, I hate when stories are judged by the expectations readers had coming in. Once a writer writes something, it seems that everything they do after is judged not on its own but based on what the writer had already done. I came into Kick Ass expecting one story, and it ended up being something different.

I wonder though if what we as readers expect to get does matter. When I watch Thor: The Dark World next month, I’m not expecting the quality of Chinatown or Schindler’s List. But when I go see 12 Years a Slave soon, I expect more.

With Kick Ass, I wasn’t disappointed in the quality. The art is fantastic, so is the writing, coloring, inking, lettering. Every technical aspect of the comic is well made. No one was phoning it in.

Based on marketing, interviews, even the first two issues, I expected a different comic. A comic that tackles the idea of a regular person, a person in our world, trying to be a superhero.  I’m uncomfortable with my dislike of the comic based on expectations. I want to be able to judge a work based on only the quality of that work. But I do think there’s a difference between expecting a certain quality and expecting the premise to play through. I’ve read Kick Ass four times and each time it feels as if once Millar created Hit Girl and Big Daddy he lost interest in what he was writing and changed it to something else. Something akin to Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Something over the top.

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

Gutter Space #12: Trauma and Watercolors

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Gutter Space

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David Small, gutter space, leslie salas, Stitches

Gutter Space #12 by Leslie Salas

Trauma and Watercolors: Stitches, by David Small

Many of us have our own ways of dealing with stress and trauma. Some of us paint, write, sing, play an instrument. Others may run, play a sport, go to the gym. And some turn to cigarettes, booze, brothels. For David Small, though, he deals with a traumatic medical condition and his dysfunctional home though a blank canvas and his pen.

In his watercolor memoir, Stitches, Small envelops us in his world of lies, deceit, horror, and loneliness, and the escape into illustration.

This book is undeniably beautiful—and rightfully so. The author is an award-winning author and illustrator of picture books for children. When I first saw this graphic novel as my friends and I browsed through the (then) small section of sequential art, I flipped through the pages, wondering what they would hold.

I could not put it down. I sat on the carpeted floor and devoured the memoir while my friends left me, and came back, and left again before I finished. And I had to sit. And wait. Before I was okay enough to try and find them.

Given Small’s profession as an artist and illustrator, it makes sense that much of his story would be told without words. Small relies on the power of quiet images strung together, allowing the reader to make his or her own sense of the sequence.

This memoir is filled with many things. Anger. Frustration. Misery. The struggle of overcoming barriers, or being oneself, of being heard. But this memoir is not pedantic. It does not ask me to feel sorry for him, it does not tell me to loathe a particular character. It is the essence of “showing,” rather than “telling,” and therein lies it’s power. With all of the sadness and all of the hardships, there is also hope, and a tentative trust for the future.

Read, and find out why.

 ___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

In Boozo Veritas #12: 10 Things This Bartender Loves About You

21 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

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In Boozo Veritas #12 by Teege Braune

10 Things This Bartender Loves About You

I cringe every time another article entitled “10 Things Every  Bartender Absolutely Hates About You.” It is a tired, formulaic trope employed by every bartender who has ever fancied herself a writer. Snark is typically substituted for actual wit, and the same “you” this bartender/writer is fuming over encompasses all the people who literally pay her bills. I know that bartending is an often stressful and inglorious job, and we all need to blow off steam sometimes. Furthermore, I understand that men will treat female bartenders like objects simply because they are in the service industry. I can’t imagine how demoralizing this must be. It is a behavior that is never acceptable and no bar should tolerate it from its customers.

That being said, the problem I have with this kind of article is that it’s just so damn depressing. Every job has its frustrations. Most of them just don’t occur in public. Bartending can also be a lot of fun. In fact, my brief stent as a sales rep for a beer distributor proved to me that the average drunk person is kinder and more reasonable than the average bar manager. After four months of that stress, I am thrilled and grateful to be bartending once again. So instead of telling everybody everything I hate about them, I am going to offer an alternative to the never-ending flow of negativity that makes up the majority of the internet and present you with this: The 10 Things This Bartender Loves About You.

10. I really appreciate it when you leave a little something extra.

The truth is you aren’t obligated to tip. Legally you can walk out of any establishment without leaving your bartenders a single dime. Nevertheless, we do live off our tips. Most people know this and recognize that it would be unkind not to throw us a few dollars for our service. That’s why it really makes our night when someone goes beyond the call of duty and leaves a few dollars more than one would expect.

9. It is awesome when you guys give me food.

Last night a guy I didn’t even know offered me a slice of pizza. I was really hungry, hadn’t brought dinner to work, and didn’t have a clue what to eat. It was delicious pizza, and he gave a slice to every bartender without anyone asking him for one. People seem to give us pizza all the time, and the amazing Blue Bird Bakery down the street regularly drops off boxes of cupcakes. It is a very generous thing to do, and we always appreciate it.

8. Sometimes people even bring us booze.

I’m always very grateful when someone offers to buy me a drink. Once in a while, patrons have even brought us really nice bottles of liquor, wine, rare beers, or their own home-brews. It is completely unnecessary, but such a thoughtful and considerate gesture to do for your bartender.

7. I really like my regulars.

It is a great feeling when, in the middle of a busy, stressful night, someone stops to say hello and ask me how I’m doing before shouting their order at me. To be able to, in turn, know a customer’s first name and hear about their week always breaks me out of a funk. Even if the exchange only lasts a moment, it helps to make my night more fun and enjoyable.

6. I love helping people pick out a beer.

I know a little bit about beer, which is convenient because Redlight Redlight carries over three hundred varieties. This can be an intimidating selection for some people, and I genuinely enjoy helping them to navigate through our many choices. You even made my name a word on Urbandictionary.com. It always makes me feel really good when someone turns to their friend and says, “This guy knows more about beer than anyone else in the world.” This is hyperbolic to say the least. I know lots of people who know way more about beer than me, but it makes me feel good anyway.

5. I really appreciate it when you take pity on me.

Conversely, there are nights that are so stressful attempting to guess what beer might please any given stranger is just too much for me. When you have several customers behind you waiting for a drink, I really appreciate it when you know what you want and have your I.D. and credit cards handy.

4. This city has an awesome community of service industry workers.

Whenever I see my fellow servers and bartenders from the other numerous and incredible establishments around Orlando come into Redlight Redlight, I know we are going to have a good evening. This city has an amazing community of people who know how to have fun and take care of each other. Service industry people are some of the best people in the world.

3. You know how to make a guy feel appreciated.

When I made the mistake of leaving bartending for sales, everyone gave me the warmest farewell I could hope for. When I came back to the bar because sales was not something I enjoyed, you made me feel very missed and welcomed. It has been delightful to see your drunken, smiling faces again.

2. You voted me best bartender in Orlando twice!

There are a lot of bartenders in Orlando, but two years in a row you people voted me the best! If I haven’t told you what an honor that is, I’m doing so now. And I don’t even know how to make a proper cocktail. I just pull tap handles, and still you voted me the best. That is so amazing.

1. Redlight Redlight’s patrons are some of the coolest people I have ever known.

Just about any night of the week I overhear intelligent and informed conversations about all sorts of topics from music to art and politics. No bar in the world has a clientele with a better knowledge of the very thing that brings us together, that is, of course, craft beer. I have met many of my closest friends and my fiancé while bartending. It is great to be able to look forward to going work every night. I have a blast working alongside my awesome colleagues and interacting with all you wonderful people, so give yourselves a hand. You make bartending the most fun and exciting job I’ve ever had.

___________

stylishbartender

Teege Braune is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

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