Tricky Kids

In 1996 Tricky released his third album, Pre-Millennium Tension. Then the whole Y2K bug hysteria blew over and we all lived happily ever after. Psyche! There are still bugs and glitches - maybe more than ever. And there are hackers, crackers, cracker-jackers, phreakers, sneakers ... sorry, I'm getting carried away. I know Tricky's better than me when it comes to spitting rhymes.

Anyhoo, the whole album is full of paranoia, discomfort, and doom - if you don't believe me you can check Wikipedia. If you don't trust Wikipedia, well, join the club ;) Or you can decide for yourself. Here's a taste:



I was fascinated when I first heard this line from "Tricky Kid": "everybody wants to be naked and famous." It's a popular ambition for kids to be famous someday, even if they don't care what they're famous for. Some would be happy to be infamous! And then there's the naked part. You can interpret that to mean anything from literally to figuratively naked, and it's the figurative that fascinates me. Naked can imply honesty, vulnerability, apathy - lotsa stuff, really. As far as the internet goes, I think people want to get to a point where they have countless friends (or "friends") and don't worry who they offend, who sees their nipples, or what information gets leaked or money gets stolen.

When I listen to "Tricky Kid," the desire to be "naked and famous" feels like an ugly disease. Isn't it better to be happy, or kind, or an asset to society? But too often I think we fantasize about fame, wealth, power, and/or comfort. I've written about it before, and I don't mean to beat a dying horse, but ... mo' money -> mo' problems? How do you count and measure problems? Why do rich and powerful people whine? Why do we let them? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind ... (btw, I may be a bigger fan of Jay-Z than Bob Dylan.)



I don't really know how to wrap this up without trailing off again, but here goes: my advice to anyone who might be reading this is to give Pre-Millennium Tension a try, buy it if you like it, and then take a walk :)

Mary and Max

I just saw a great movie: Mary and Max.

I wrote a couple of movie reviews in college that I was really proud of, but I've never written one outside an academic setting, or one that didn't relate to some other book or article I read or should have read. Is this my first?

(what makes a good movie review? should it be limited to how great - or lousy - it is, or is it better if you analyze other aspects like themes and relevance and stuff? is it ok to throw in a bunch of "I feel"s? who even reads this shit?)

I was talking with a friend - I'll call her "Mary" - who recommended the movie to me. She told me she watched it with a kid, and we were talking about what movies are appropriate for kids. I'm really not sure about this one, but I don't have any kids of my own, so I guess I don't have to worry about it much. Maybe it's just because I'm sleep deprived or something, but it felt really heavy, especially for claymation. I cried a couple times - which is not to say that it's a constant downer; it's got some hilarious and cute scenes, but it wasn't a movie like Bio-Dome or Plan 9 From Outer Space where you can just laugh it off and go about your day. On the other hand, I have a friend whose ex was bored by Todd Solondz's Happiness (spoiler alert: Happiness was an amazing movie, but it probably won't put a smile on your face - at least not a smile you'd feel good about.)

So - was Mary and Max uplifting? Kinda, although it was full of drab colors - a lot of grays and browns. It also had a lot of deaths in it, so that might be a reason to keep it away from kids. But "Mary" told me the kid she watched it with wanted to watch it again several times, so who knows? Other deep or adult themes: drug addiction, religion, fate, sex - some of these things are spelled out in print, so maybe it's safer for babies or illiterate people. Maybe especially babies, although even babies might get scared. But babies are always crying for no obvious reason, right? Babies are crazy ;)

I found the plot refreshingly unpredictable - there really wasn't an Act I, II, and III. It was also full of weirdness and non-sequiturs, which I'm a big fan of. There's a lot of lines I want to quote, but I'm not going to because I'm feeling spent, and I can't decide what to quote and what to leave out. Hysterically funny stuff, profound stuff...

Overall, I'd recommend it to wierdos and people who struggle to fit in and work out what to do with their lives - which is a lot of people!