Jeff Dizmang…RIP

I found out this weekend that someone I knew passed away.  He was only 30 years old.  We had some weird times, a falling out in the early 1990s.  But in 1995 he came to a store I worked at and I got him a job.  It was a CD store in Wichita that was going out of business.  All that stuff we had against each other faded away.  The shop closed, we still hung out for awhile but come the next year he became busy with college and the fraternity he joined and I became busy with other things.

When I went back to college in 2003 I saw an old college newspaper that mentioned the fraternity that he had belonged to, how the house had been condemned.  I assumed that he had graduated and moved on to other things.  Little did I know that he ran the sound board at KMUW, the radio station that I could have walked to from my job at the Holmes Museum of Anthropology in 5 minutes.

I could have walked there in 5 minutes.

I had no idea he worked at the university.  If I would have known I would have said hello, I would have caught up…I would have said hi.  He was a friend to me in a really dark time, at a point where I really needed a friend.  I had really screwed up my life, I was feeling like the biggest joke in the world;  embarrased at what my life had become but unable to really excuse myself for the mess I had made for myself.  He helped alot with that.  When I came across the obit it hit me really hard, that feeling like my stomach had iced over and my arms have gone numb.  The shock of the death was bad.  But the knowledge he was here all along and I didn’t know that really hurt.

I could have been over there in minutes, if I would have known he worked there I would have.  He should have came to my wedding.  We should have hung out.  We should have known each other more.  But I had no idea he was there.  When I did think of him I assumed he was off teaching music somewhere.  I should have just googled his name.  When I started school I asked a few people if they had heard of him, but no one had.

But now I am sitting here writing this, having trouble sleeping and feeling so sorry that I didn’t know until it was too late.  Makes you feel like you really wasted something that would have been great.

I’ve got no answer and I’ve got no excuse.  I would give anything to have found out he was over there at KMUW when I started back at WSU.  I would give anything for a conversation with him.  We all want that I guess, but I really would have liked to tell him how much I owe him.  He didn’t do anything out of character, he didn’t do anything but be himself and be there, but that was probably the most beautiful thing in my world that year…and it was not something I forgot.

I have done some thing since going back to school I am really proud of.  I met my wife, I did field work in New Guinea, I’ve worked on some projects that I am really proud of.  But now I know that the one thing that I really should have done was just looked in the campus directory to see if Dizmang was in there.  Makes everything else feel really small now.  Puts it in a perspective that makes you realize that there are some things that should probably mean more than the stuff you pour all your energy into.

I cannot thank that guy enough.

Nergal of Behemoth Interview at Headbanger’s Ball site

Really good interview with Nergal of Behemoth over at the Headbanger’s Ball blog:

http://headbangersblog.mtv.com/2008/05/16

Ian Edginton’s Kingdom of the Wicked

One of the more interesting things I have read lately.  It is an unapologetic children’s book for adults.  The thing that makes it really unique is that instead of having a story where some adult discovers the world of the imagination that they had suppressed in growing up (like countless movies such as Drop Dead Fred), this book takes a character who has maintained some of his childhood life of the imagination and reintroduces him to what has been going on in his first creation…a creation that is under siege by evil forces he has been unaware of.

Basic plot: a children’s book author in England is very talented but he has a problem. It seems he is prone to blacking out. The black outs bring him to world he invented in his imagination as a child, a place called Castrovalva. In his absence the place has gone to hell, having been taken over by a cold and evil despot who is a real monster. Our hero learns this from Fuzzbox, his old teddy bear who is a character in this, a leader of the resistance who has a very emotional death in the beginning of the book.

As our hero tries to understand what is happening to him he suffers a black out while driving and almost dies, managing to slip into a coma. Now he is in Castrovalva full time. He discovers that the evil monster who took over this imaginary world is his unborn twin, a fetus sitting at the base of his brain with intentions to take over our heroes mind. That provokes a battle for who will be in control, which is the basic theme of this book – the battle between innocent imagination and the childish meanness that harms other. The meanness in this book is far from harmless. The fantasy elements are balanced by a certain child’s wonder tempered by violence, gruesome acts that really seem even more powerful in that setting. The prologue of the book features the childhood of the land’s evil despot doing things like putting poison in babies milk and razor blades in candy. That is not kid’s stuff.

This book is for adults, that much is for certain. It has nothing superhero about it. It is a graphic novel based on imagination. I don’t think kids will enjoy this too much, unless you have an 8 year old who reads Sandman. Teddy bears with gas masks and bayonets on the cover should be a clue. The story has a lot of passion and is one of those books that has the uncompromising edge that you get from such creations. Credit goes to D’Israeli for the art work as well. I admit I am not familiar with that artist’s work, but it fit well with this story by using a rough draftsmanship that brought forth a children’s book sense rather than art that we tend to associate with super hero comics. I think something too slick would have detracted from the story, the idea is that this is a children’s book author’s world. The art contains that idea.

Paolo Parente’s Dust TPB Vol. 1

This is a trade paperback collection that collects the first two issues of Dust plus some concept designs and extra material. Since only two issues are printed you only get a little over 50 pages worth of story, though the extra art is excellent. That being said it is worth the 10 dollar price tag, but it is unfortunate because this just wets your appetite and after I read it I really wanted to read more.

The basic premise is one of alternate history. The story is set during WW II, but the Axis nations have gotten ahold of alien technology that changes things. The allies have some new technology as well. Our main character is Koshka, a female soviet military officer who is in charge of a robotic division and is quite a warrior. She also has a habit of losing chunks of clothing, which the panty shot on the cover will attest to. It seems she has problems keeping the zipper on her pants up. Well, in this issue she leads a team that is attacking a German castle installation which is getting ready to launch a rocket attack. She needs to destroy the rocket and capture one of the bionic genetically altered super apes that live in the basement of this castle (yeah, I said that). Beyond that the Nazis also have zombie soldiers and all kinds of horror and science fiction themed soldiers.

Well, short as it is I enjoyed it alot. It made me wanna read alot more of this title and that is a success. The art work is incredible, highly detailed stuff that has a certain dark feel to it but carries a definite WW II feeling despite the high tech nature of many of the designs. It is high class stuff and the coloring is awesome. The art really adds to the story and if it weren’t for that then the story would have been far less as enthralling than it was.  This is the kind of art that I was hoping for in the Silent Hill:  Sinner’s Reward books, though the art that is there was good, I just wish it was as defined as this.  This book deserves high ratings.

Pigeons From Hell #3: The Backstory Issue

I’ve been following this series since it is based on Howard’s story of the same name. It has been pretty good so far, though there is always that feeling that if I go and read the story now the visuals from this comic might become what I see in my mind instead of anything from my imagination. But I digress…

The first couple of issues dealt with the arrival of our protagonists to this house, the discovery of the dead pigeons and the resurrected zombie attacks as well as the souls of the slaves (you just have to read it, there is a lot of stuff going on here). Our heroes make it to the shack of a local guy, claiming to be 150 years old whose job it has been to contain the evil in the house using hoodoo magic. There is a long section of revealed information, and indeed this is what the majority of this issue is. The info is needed, because the unknown horror has been explained and is now a known horror with a name and a weakness. Without that info there can be no resolution beyond the death of our heroes or their escape from the area without any steps taken to stop the antagonist. For that I don’t mind an issue low on action and high in story/backstory content. Wish Secret Invasion #3 would have been that way instead of a series of short action sequences. Secret Invasion will make sense in context and that issue will fit in the whole, when the trade comes out, but I think the art of storytelling is often more important than pure action. Pigeons From Hell has been a good story in that sense.

Crawl Space – Xxxombie TPB: Porn Stars and Zombies

This is an awesome collection of a very humorous and inspired comic series. Great art by Kieron Dwyer and great writing by Rick Remender. Basic story: a group of 1970s degenerates are in an LA house in the hills to film a bunch of porn films because the porn director owes a lot of money to the mob, who decides to come looking for him. In addition to that one of the girls he has hired is being looked for by her father, who has vowed to save his daughter and kill all of the pimps and pornographers (much like that film “Hardcore” that had George C. Scott in it).

Now, in addition to all of this action there is a zombie outbreak. There is some good comedy to the zombies, because as they show up at the mansion our pornographers don’t know that they are zombies so a zombie gets used in a porn scene before his schlong explodes. Other scenes of zombie gore are combined with comical situations in a way that makes this a really funny book. You have to be at least a little degenerate to enjoy this.

It captures one of those things that I noticed whenever I watch a zombie movie. We as an audience know a zombie in a zombie film when we see one. It is because we are watching a zombie film, we know something that the characters don’t. We know what zombies are, how they act, what they look and sound like…but the characters are ignorant of all of that and the reveal of that information, going from confusion to action is what makes the zombie attacks interesting. In the opening scene Night of the Living Dead it is that way. The creepy guy in the cemetery is a zombie and we know this but it takes Barbara walking by him and the zombie attacking her to make her know that. This comic captures that effect and uses it for comedy purposes with great results.

The trade also uses glossy paper that is printed with a pattern that looks like worn newsprint. That is a neat effect. It adds a bit of that texture found in newsprint and makes Dwyer’s art really stand out. It may be a personal preference, but comic art looks better on newsprint type paper in a lot of places, such as the Vertigo trades, and it was nice to see it here.

Conan The Cimmerian #0: This Series Might Be One To Watch

Special 99 cent zero issue. The story was alright, just a short half sized issue, maybe 12 pages of story. The basic story is that Conan got into a fight with some viking types who are raiding into his homelands, which he is returning too. He kills all of them except for a young musician. That is the whole story. Really.

This issue does well as a teaser, but even at 99 cents it seems like it’s not the greatest deal in the world. I like the art by Giorello, he is quite good at taking that Conan feel that was established by Frazetta and the stuff from Savage Sword of Conan and fitting within that model without looking like either. That is a nice touch. The book ends of the story that are also a nice touch are the Robert E. Howard panels that never really show him, some longhand text on notebooks, a type writer, his car parked out in the country. There was also a bit of biographical info, notes at the end of the story about the context surrounding this particular story. It is something I would like to see in more issues.

Secret Invasion #3: Skrullduggery…Someone Had To Make That Pun

Just finished Secret Invasion #3. It is a mess. As a single issue it sucked. There was just a mass of things, only about 2 pages in each of the storylines. The skrulls have attacked everywhere. The issue just shows the chaos of the synchronized attack by the skrulls. I did not really like it too much because it seems that only one page of real content existed. The whole issue was a mass of confusion, which was intentional and I don’t mind that. When they put out a trade this issue will sit well in it, but this issue has a very low level of content with its huge combat scene.

The most interesting revelation/play is the scene between Spiderwoman and Ironman. His armor has a bunch of system viruses and he is cracking up. Spiderwoman shows up and tells him that he is a skrull. Spiderwoman is a skrull, but is Ironman? Would explain alot and I would like to go back to the times when superheroes were out on the fringes and not government employees.

Yellowjacket has been revealed as a skrull. A massive onslaught of super skrulls with tons of powers have attacked everywhere. Jarvis, the Avenger’s butler is a skrull. Captain Marvel is a skrull. There are a lot of theories out there. Comic Geek Speak has put forward a good one that has Spiderwoman being a triple or quadruple agent. That would be wild. There also seems to be some hints that the skrulls might have engineered the whole Civil War thing with the purpose of making the superheroes easier to deal with. That would be great, but I think I am wishing this event will undo Civil War. That might be too much to ask, like the return of the asterisk footnotes.

Nick Fury shows up on the last page. I think that might be cool. While I am not feeling this series too much, because it is really spread thin over all the books, I think there is something interesting in it…mainly because the way the event is going is in such a way as to allow the reader to really use their imagination conjecturing about it all.

Millicent Marcus – Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism

An unpublished book review I had lying around. This is as good a place as any for it.

Princeton University Press, 1986. 443pp.

The prospect of understanding another culture by means of a media such as film is a difficult task for many ethnographers. Can we attempt to draw inferences about the anthropological lifeways of a specific group from their cultural productions of films? While this book is written from the perspective of a academic film critic: that rare creature which often draws out interpretative statements about the director and source material’s view of the culture in ways which often parallel Clifford Geertz’s well known “onion layer” approach to social events. As anthropologist Robert Lawless is always ready to admit, “When Geertz’s writing is good he is terrific, when he is bad he is terrible.” This statement is all too true when it comes to academic film criticism.

When the book was written in 1986 foreign film in the English speaking countries amounted to a very limited availability. To subtitle a film produced in Europe and put out on VHS (different kind of video cassette than the PAL format used in most European nations) was an expensive prospect. For those who later invested in laser disc players a few Criterion Collection transfers of the better known auteur directors such as Fellini and Kurosawa were available. The introduction of DVD technology provides a format that is at once universal and utilizes low cost production. Add to that the internet’s ability to make a large selection of film available in ways that were previously unknown, be it the mail based distribution of Netflix or the more recent additions of video on demand and bit torrent downloads.

A book like this would have been more use to the specialist with access to costly film prints as well as places to project them. This and other thoughtful books about foreign films that are centered on interpretations of films as cultural texts have much greater relevance when the films that are discussed are far easier to view.

Italian Neorealism is an interesting, if difficult to describe cohesively, movement of film making that had considerable popularity in Italy from the end of World War II up through the 1950s. Much of the country was in ruins following the death of Mussolini and the film studios were mostly unusable since the massive sound stages were being used to house refuges. The movement itself was based on the influence of realism from the French as well as the economic restraints which resulted in using streets as settings, keeping post-production visual effects to a minimum and the necessity of using low paid non-professional actors in supporting roles as well as random people off the street in lieu of extras to fill out crowds. The subject matters of the films were usually centered on the nation’s poor and working class. From this cluster of conditions arose what is usually considered and artistic movement in both aesthetic and narrative qualities.

Marcus does a good job of exploring the Italian Neorealist Movement by utilizing an interpretive framework based on a selection of 17 films, each of which is treated as a chapter, arranged into four 4 sections. There is a wealth of information in the introduction, where the author deals with the difficult task of presenting the various arguments about what Neorealism should be considered: association, school, historically based movement, catch phrase, guild, etc. The author wisely makes no statement that allies him with any of these academic diatribes about labels and approaches the project by defining within his individual film examples the relative qualities of the Neorealist descriptor.

The first section of the book, Neorealism Proper, deals with the historically significant period right after the war and into 1950. It uses primarily canonical works (such as Rossellini’s Open City, De Sica’s Bicycle Thief and Umberto D) to bring the reader into an understanding of the groundbreaking aspect of Neorealism as a force in film-making. Much of the critical analysis is based on how these films are the “text book” examples of Neorealist theories and the roles that their directors had in promoting the Neorealist aesthetic.

Part II deals with transition in Italian film, as Neorealism was an influence on the work of others but not in an all consuming allegiance to the method of the concrete Neorealism that find’s it purest expression in the films of Part I. Fellini’s La Strada is examined in this section, easily the Fellini film that is closest to any concept of realism. This section also features a discussion of the Visconti film Senso and the political injection that the film maker made into this retelling of the eponymous 19^th century novella by Camillo Boito. The analysis of this film is an examination of how the political realities of postwar Italy have a considerable impact in the presentation of source materials that predate the war, particularly with respect to socialist/communist ideologies of class.

This issue is developed in the next section, Return to Social Commentary, by looking into Petri’s psychological thriller about police corruption Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion. The corrupting influence of power is a central theme to the analysis presented in this chapter. This film is often considered giallo (and Italian genre of crime-based films that are often considered violent and sadistic, somewhat like the American Silence of the Lambs) and the inclusion in this collection may seem at odds to some film historians. This section also attempts to deal with Pasolini’s often considered self-indulgent works by looking at the disintegrated familial relationships in Teorema as an allegory of failed political movements in Italian society.

The last section, titled Fascism and War Reconsidered, deals with films that present their story in the pre-war era of Mussolini. This section deals with films that attempt to portray the moral issues that come from the nation’s fascist past. These are always difficult issues to deal with in films where one is harkening back to their nation’s own dark times with the hindsight to comment on the events which took place. The shifting morality of youth under fascism is the core of the Marcus chapter about Bertolucci’s The Conformist, as the main character turns from idealist liberal to fascist conspirator.

This book was very insightful to those who attempt to understand Italian Neorealism. The best thing I can say about the book (and I mean this as a deeply sincere compliment) is that after I read it I knew what Italian Neorealism was and how it would later influence and inform American films such as Easy Rider. Often books that deal with film theory, particularly of the historical kind which this one is, fall apart under the weight of conflicting arguments and generally vacuous blanket terms such as Neorealism. Though I had only seen 5 of the 17 films which are analyzed in this book previous to reading it, I made the effort to watch most of them before reading the chapters which dealt with them. This is essential in understanding this book.