Premise: A tactical military group gather together before a final battle against the boss bad guy.
Continue reading “Writing Prompt: Sci-fi Movie Final Battle Parody”
Weekly Fiver #1
Welcome to the Weekly Fiver, where I’ll pick five recently released songs of varying degrees of quality and thoroughly break them down for you. No two songs will be on the same tier, and they’ll be listed from best to worst. The top song will be an excellent must-hear tune, while the bottom song will be one you ought to stay away from or else you will make your ears sad. It’s all very scientific.
The Five Rules of Modern Consumerism: Introduction
About ten years ago I wrote an essay in which I posited that modern consumer culture (and by extension, society at large) was dictated by five maxims:
The Best Of
Everything
All The Time
For ME
Right Now!
A decade later, these ideas have not only maintained their stronghold over the public, but have become increasingly important in corporate strategy. To decry them would be to cast aspersion on the notion of convenience itself, but they’ve nurtured several problematic tendencies of the human spirit that ought to be brought to light. Among these are a massively deteriorated wellspring of creativity, a pervasive laziness, and perhaps most harmful, a dangerously burgeoning sense of collective entitlement.
To cover them all within one article would make for an incredibly dense read, so each portion will be covered separately. Here’s a cursory look at what each post will cover:
Continue reading “The Five Rules of Modern Consumerism: Introduction”
Japandroids @ Danforth Music Hall/ Jan. 17 2017
Noise peddlers Brian King and David Prowse– better known as Japandroids– made a stop in Toronto on January 17th and managed to shake the very foundation of the Danforth Music Hall with their stacks upon stacks of amps. A barrage of light and sound, the two unleashed their visceral brand of west coast rock on a crowd more than ready to dive into concert season. Opening was Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn and his side project The Uptown Controllers.
Having recently finished anniversary tours with the Hold Steady, rambling poet Craig Finn decided to do some solo work. The material still sounds very much like it’s from the same author of Boys and Girls in America, but it’s more concise and focused. The riffs are more distinct; the structure is tighter. Finn spoke of staying positive and upbeat, even as he extolled the virtues of disconnecting from online life. It was a relatively short set, but Finn promised to be back within the next year for a headlining show, presumably after the upcoming record is released.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what genre Vancouver duo Japandroids fit into. The band is frenetic, loud, and mercilessly fast. But they’re too experimental for punk. Too polished for garage rock. Too upbeat for emo. They bear all the hallmarks of different styles but slotting them into any particular one will cause debate.
The most apt label would be a cross between noise-rock and folk-punk. They take the sonic sensibilities of the former and the chord progressions and lyricism of the latter and blend it all up into a cathartic blast of sound. Even then it doesn’t factor in the hints of 80s modern rock that pop up on the latest record Near to the Wild Heart of Life, but it’s as close as we’re going to get.
The title track from that record was the first to hit the stage, followed by barnburner “Fire’s Highway” from 2012’s massive breakthrough Celebration Rock. The rest of the show was a solid mix of newer and older material, all varying degrees of intense. As frontman King predicted, new song “North East South West” was a hit with the crowd because he “says “Toronto” about ten times”.
Most of the other songs were similarly received though; it was one quick jolt of rock after another. Two exceptions were the climactic “Arc of Bar” and the closest we’re going to get to a Japandroids ballad, “True Love and a Free Life of Free Will”. A lot of the songs from the new record revolve simply around King being…really happy that he’s in love. It’s strangely endearing.
The show finished with Craig Finn joining the duo onstage doing a cover of The Saints‘ “Stranded”, a song that splits the difference between the two artists. It was a nice use of common ground that ended the show on a communal note.
The For Better or For Worse Face
Long before Bryan Lee O’ Malley became Canada’s prime exporter of hip comics, there was Saturday paper OG Lynn Johnston. I’ll let the ol’ Wiki tell you all the pertinent facts about her.
Johnston’s comics were most well known for taking on a socially conscious pallet of issues while maintaining the feel of suburban family life. FBFW wasn’t a wacky strip, but it did have a more lighthearted side, particularly when Johnston wrote about young parenthood.
The jokes were pretty well-crafted and stuck to a traditional comedic structure, but the punchline had a very distinct companion. About 90% of the strips featured one of the characters making a specific facial expression:
A cross between dumbfounded, bewildered, and shocked, the face makes an appearance in the vast majority of FBFW comics. There’s a few telltale characteristics to it:
- the droopy, elongated face
- mouth right at the bottom of the face
- eyes widened
- stress lines outside the eyes
- the bizarre motion lines above the back of the head that make it seem like the person is wibble-wobbling back and forth like one of those springy door-stoppers that’s just been flicked.
They’re not always all present, but you do get the holy grail sometimes:
It’s the mom that seems to be affected more often than not:
But the dad does his fair share of facin’ too:
Here we see the dad’s whole body is quivering in disbelief
Sometimes you get two in one strip!
Even the dog’s afflicted with it!
And it’s not just the Patterson family either:
Medically minded professionals might call this Johnston Syndrome, but I just call it: The For Better or For Worse Face.