#beavis as carrie goes so hard

[thr3ap3r]

carrie beavis SAVE ME CARRIE BEAVIS

[melovez]

time to post about farwhey i have a substantial amount of art

more info about everyone below the cut :^)

this is Andie Spatcombe, a euman shepherd that tends to a flock of sheep not far outside of The Cloaked Wood, between the Good Euman Kingdom and the Good Animal Kingdom. andie is the successor to the boy who cried wolf, taking his position after his predecessor’s blunders lead to Winston running off with as many sheep as he could carry.

andie is very serious about his work, and willing to do anything to defend his flock. his dedication to his new line of work stems mostly from his hatred of wolves, admittedly… he doesn’t have a very good history with wolvenkind.

this is one of his prized sheep, who’s name is Curly. unfortunately for andie, curly has a certain sort of curiosity that’s hard to correct. many of the times curly trots off to explore, he lands himself in trouble. thankfully, so far “trouble” has only meant feet stuck under roots or lost in a towering wheat field, but it’s almost certain he’ll find himself in a situation more dire as time goes on.

as for how he acts in the face of danger, it’s always a “bleat and plead as loud as possible until someone comes and saves me” type of thing. he’s not very brave, believe it or not. absentminded curiosity does not an adventurer make.

in another part of farwhey, lives a creature known simply as The Beast. yes, he’s the lonely reclusive beast from the story you’ve surely heard before, although he is unique in the sense he’s a first generation fairytale figure. unfortunately for the beast, his destined beauty never did take an interest in him, and he’s been stalking the halls of his aging castle for hundreds of years.

in time, he will meet his match, although it won’t be any old Beauty. a fifth generation cinderella will come along, the youngest to take the title, and seek shelter in what she thinks is an abandoned fortress. little does she know, the beast is inside, and be will be eager to have her as his company.

and here is Drake the Dragon, a living symbol of the Evil King Teufel’s court. drake, though, despite who he “belongs” to, does not align himself with evil. like Buford, he considers himself morally Gray, although this too is kept a secret from his peers. it’s quite unusual for any dragon to identify outside of evil alignments, and because of this, drake yearns to live in a much more open minded kingdom.

still, he must admit, having free range over the livestock and riches of Teufel’s kingdom is hard to pass up, so it’s there he’s remained. the euman’s of the surrounding villages know they only need to worry about their livestock, food, and treasures, as Drake takes no interest in preying on euman lives. at the end of the day, he returns to teufel’s dungeons, which are littered with gold, chests, and other trinkets.

finally, i made a proper ref for Beavis. despite being the only Good aligned wolf among his Big Bad brethren, Beavis still struggles with his reputation. truthfully, although the taste of fish and animal flesh does appeal to him, he’d eat a vegetarian diet if he could thrive on it.

he keeps rather odd company for a wolf, the only other meat-eating friends he has being the wolves he’s related to. otherwise, he much prefers the companionship of rabbits, deer, songbirds, and other herbivorous forest fauna. he hasn’t yet earned the trust of local farmers and herders, although that is on his to do list.

in time, he likes to think he might be proof that species doesn’t make one’s nature. if a lion can lay with lambs, why can’t a wolf lie with rabbits?

[trashartandmovies]

Berlinale Film Festival 2021, Industry Event, Final Day

There was an added bonus to our originally scheduled plan for five days of press streamings. On the weekend following those five days, the winners of the Competition program would be available on Saturday, and the winners of the Encounters program would be available on Sunday. Winners from Generations and the Shorts programs would also get a second screening.

Since I’d made a point of seeing the Competition films, I decided to focus on the ones from the Encounters lineup that I hadn’t got a chance to see. (In case you’re wondering: here are the lists of award-winners for Competition, Encounters, Generations and Shorts.

First up was Lê Bảo’s Vị (TASTE), a film that cites six countries in helping with the production: Vietnam, Singapore, France, Thailand, Germany and Taiwan. It won the Special Jury Award in the Encounters program, and it’s not hard to see why. The film is legitimately striking; a bold visual poem about a Nigerian who comes to Saigon to play football, breaks his foot, and begins working a mysterious job with four middle-aged Vietnamese women. There isn’t much more plot than that, very little is explained, there’s hardly any dialog, but the film evokes a lot of different feelings through its artfully staged tableaus of bodies at motion and at rest. The color palette is severe — greys, blues, whites and rusty earth tones — but also beautiful. There is the periodic burst of sunshine that enters in through a window or doorway, and small splashes of color that come from the ingredients of the food they spend a lot of time preparing. But mostly, we’re in a chilly underground location that has little else besides a few beds and an old television.

It’s difficult to parse out the meaning of TASTE, but I’m not sure such an endeavor isn’t foolish. You could say there’s something about worker exploitation here, but if you squint and tilt your head, there could also be a message about the transcendence of work as well. Ultimately, this is an art film. It wouldn’t feel out of place in the halls of MOMA or wherever else you find eager minds for the abstract. One of the appealing things about the film is that it is freely open to interpretation and can be read in different ways. The only thing that’s for certain is that TASTE is about connections, those we make with our surroundings, our food, and those we work with. It’s about the ceremonies we create to forge those connections and help us through our days.

It’s not easy to make a film that truly feels like a dream. Sure, TASTE has a lot of unresolved mystery to it, but as a foray into dream logic, it is comfortably consistent in its mood and atmosphere. This is a plus and a minus, because TASTE is also quite effective in lulling you into a kind of heavy-lidded hypnosis. It taps into a very different part of your brain than the average movie.

The last feature film I caught up with was the newest film by Ramon Zürcher, this time co-directing and co-writing with his brother Silvan Zürcher. Ramon’s previous film, THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT, was a hit on the film festival circuit back in 2013. I still need to catch up with that one, and I will, even though I found little to enjoy in the Zürcher Brothers’ THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER.

The set-up is pretty interesting. Lisa, a young woman, is moving to a new apartment and leaving behind a few roommates. One of those roommates, Mara, isn’t taking it so well. In fact, she seems to be rather heartbroken and bitter — and maybe a little self-destructive. But mostly she seems to be intent on making barbed, passive-aggressive comments at Lisa and everyone who has the misfortune of getting close to her. You see, Mara is like a spider. She’s alluring and mysterious enough to draw you in, but once you get close, you just become trapped in her abusive mind games. As I mentioned, pretty solid set-up for a tricky, dark relationship movie. There’s something to it, and the movie kicks around the idea of lonely hurt people hurting other lonely hurt people, but we don’t get very far.

One problem is that as the movie goes on, and we meet the other roommates that Lisa is leaving behind, we start to get the idea that maybe Mara has always been this mean manipulator. Maybe her heartbreak over Lisa leaving isn’t that much of a motivator. Maybe her other roommates are also passive-aggressive emotionally damaged loose cannons. Why can’t anyone say what they mean? Must everyone be so aloof? Must every line of dialog cryptically dance around true feelings? Why must someone be eavesdropping behind a door during every other conversation? To me, it just comes across as sub-par writing. Before long, it felt like the only reason these people were talking this way was because if anyone spoke honestly the movie would be about 15 minutes long. Instead, it slowly drove me crazy over a very long 98 minutes.

Now, some of these choices are understandable. I’ve lived with roommates. I know that these situations can be passive-aggressive nightmares where no one feels comfortable enough to say what they really feel. This too, is a good set-up for a movie, with plenty of interesting angles to explore. But again, we only dance on the surface. None of the characters open up, everyone’s motivations are fuzzy. In the end, these people remain more or less as we found them. Mara comes closest to revealing a little bit about herself, but it’s all very frustrating. On a few occasions, the film takes detours, cutting away to visualize a story being told. Sometimes it involves an elderly eccentric neighbor in the building, other times it’s a fantasy about the previous owner of the piano that sits in the apartment. Immediately, the protagonists of these stories become way more compelling than the dreary twenty-somethings that we’re stuck with the rest of the time.

Aside from my issues with the writing, the movie looks great. The Zürcher’s have a good eye and they know how to observe misery while luxuriating in icy detachment like, say, Michael Haneke. There are also good rhythms going on here. From the little I know THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT, it would appear that Ramon Zürcher is still interested in capturing the details of interiors, and paying attention to the animals that are running around people’s feet. Scene’s often end with still-life portraits of items on tabletops, knocked over bottles, subtle signs of life and little punctuations upon the preceding scene. It’s a nice touch. I only wish those scenes told a more engaging story.

Thoroughly exhausted, with the last remaining hours of the streaming schedule dwindling away, there were a few award-winning shorts left to watch. Feeling like animation might be a nice change of pace, I went for EASTER EGGS, a Belgian/French/Netherlands production, written and directed by Nicolas Keppens. In some ways, it was a perfect little finale.

Even though EASTER EGGS could be a contemporary story, it feels like a tender look back, maybe some twenty years ago, at a painful teenage moment. It’s a story about two kids, Kevin the bully and Jason the enabler, and their woefully unhealthy friendship. There’s a vague plan to capture some valuable birds that were left behind when a local Chinese restaurant closed down — and there are some laughs to be had — but mostly it’s achingly sad to watch Jason pine for Kevin’s attention and approval, while Kevin just walks all over him. But given the gentle hand that this story is told with, that sadness is more poignant than depressing. Keppens shows a love and sensitivity for these characters. They’re way more than just some Belgian Beavis and Butthead. They represent something many of us have gone through in our youth — longing for friendship and someone to share your imaginative, ambitious plans with. It’s not exactly a feeling that goes away, which is why EASTER EGGS still carries a lot of weight.

Let me just add a few more thoughts to this First Round of 2021’s Berlinale Film Festival. Despite my longings for more time to spend with such a quality lineup of films, I’m impressed that everything went so smoothly. The streaming platform worked incredibly smoothly (even if it was a bummer I couldn’t cast that stream onto my TV), and the quality of the films was excellent — both in picture and sound as well as moviemaking craft. It wasn’t ideal, but it was great to be a part of. I’ll also take a sentence here to recommend visiting the Berlinale Meets page, as well as the video section, where there is an impressive collection of conversations with this year’s filmmakers for more viewing enjoyment.

While there’s a lot from this festival that I’m still hoping to see, judging from the Competition and Encounters films that I have seen, this was an exceptionally strong year for female voices and female-led stories. This was clearly one of the most impressive things about the 2021 Berlinale. PETITE MAMAN, A COP MOVIE, MEMORY BOX, I’M YOUR MAN, HERR BACHMAN, WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY, BALAD OF A WHITE COW, BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN — each of these films, which are just from the Competition section, were either directed by a woman or told stories about women. In the case of WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY, there were three stories and three female protagonists. (You could probably make a case for adding WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY?, but I digress...) And you know what, those were the best films in the main lineup. I’ll also throw in the strong entries in the ENCOUNTERS category, Dasha Nekrasova’s THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST and the best film winner of the category Alice Diop’s NOUS (WE). Personally, I especially liked the connections between PETITE MAMAN and MEMORY BOX, which both dealt with making connections between mother and daughter in unique, cinematic ways. I hope this level of representation continues in the years to come.

Now, let’s keep our fingers crossed for Part Two of the Berlinale, the Summer Special. See you June 9th.

[enzoendoplaylistchallengo]

Endo Enzo Playlist week 8: Episode 34: The episode that will make you feel weird for the rest of your life.  Sigmund Freud Singalong.

8 weeks camped out, lets roast up some marshmallows and get ready for some smore content.  Wait don't leave.  I'm so lonley in the woods and you brought the map...but not my computer so lets stay up through the night with stuff to watch and listen too.

Hello everyone, we are not broadcasting from Nick Studios in Florida...Wanna see something that will make 90's kids hurt inside. Look at what the building looked like back in the day with the slime fountains, colorful painted building on the outside, artwork from cartoonists on the walls and how corporate it looks now.  Hey cheer up though make some slime, don't say that on t.v., get ready to listen to some tracks I hand picked for our enjoyment.  

Help I'm Alive by Metric

Ava Adore by Smashing Pumpkins

Stupid Girl by Garbage

Why I'm Here by Oleander

Super Mans Dead by Our Lady Peace

Wonderwall by Oasis

Where is my mind? by The Pixies

Skeleton by Bloc Party

Now for a commercial break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYp6fsBOhAk

I really want to get some tradebacks.  Pretty good comics mentioned in this commercial.  Before I start talking about ninteys comic books and shoulderpads lets move onto two shows from...the 90's...Okay I swear this was not meant to be a 90's themed post!

To some it may be a surprise I mention the spin off of one of Mike Judges hit cartoon of the 90's Daria.  Lots of people seen this show and thumbed their nose at it having such a different humor then Beavis and Butthead, being centered around a apathetic Daria while she delivers a dead pan reaction to the antics of her family and school mates around her.  The character of Daria has more layers then she sounds like, its really almost neccesary for her to help make satire of highscool life, and thats what the series does at times it satires various things in highschool life.  The show has enough lampoons of popular culture and trends at the time too, I would recommend if you want a throwback hit or a high school parody that holds up well.

A similar show with a cult following is Mission Hill.  When a nerdy younger brother moves in with his hipster slacker brother in the city of Cosmopolis the two strife with one another and other issues within their life, all the while the cast of characters that live with them or around them have their own adventures to them.   Keeping up with trends, maturing, reality t.v., unemployment and stuff like that play a part in the series.  The show I believe would do so much better if released today then the time period it was released back in 1999-2000 era.  Theirs not many episodes so you can probably watch it in two days with breaks.  

Airing in the theater this week is one that flew under many peoples radar but it does have some accuracy which is what I enjoyed about the film.  SLC Punk follows three punk in Salt Lake City as the dieng lifestyle and trend of punks fade out.  During the mid to late 1980's the three fight (Not a action film.), live, party, and vandalize during the decade.  Theirs drama and friends drifting apart from this fringe culture.  The film does a decent job of showing all these subcultures and groups during the 1980s with some jokes on like animal kingdoms and people but theirs a huuuuuuuge downfall with the film.  They do these cuts to the sky to sort of eat up film time and it feels pointless.  I'd recommend this film if your interested in the subject, with some comedy, and a dramatic story.  

Vs:

Our two compatants for this week are both maleable, both deadly, both out to kill.  

The T-1000 terminator unit from Terminator 2 made of a material that is like a liquid metal.  He can regenerate, use weapons, disguise himself, melt down, even turn himself into sharpened blades.  

The machine faces off the alien symbiote that travels through the blood of a seriel killer that goes by the name of Carnage.  He can also regenerate, form blades and change hardness of his texture.  He also carries the abilities of spiderman as well such as web slinging but will the killers tenedrills and webs be enough to stop the T-1000?

T-1000 vs Carnage

That wraps up this weeks transmission I’m going to go walk about the forest for a while in the dark, to tell people of music and things to watch as they go from awkward backing away to full on sprint.  Next week will be week 9 and will probably find my way out of the woods by then.  See you then.  Be careful of what goes bump in the dark.

26 12 22 11 12 6 18 24 15 7 23 18 24 21 23 11 8 26 18 21 15 7 25 12 4 5 18 4 23

[swimintothesound]

Artistic Integrity and Commercial Success | Part 4

This is the fourth, final, and most speculative in a series of four posts on the combative relationship between artistic pursuits and commercial achievements. View the first post here, the second one here, and the third here.

Features Aplenty, Featuring Apathy

Unlike Drake, Travis Scott has yet to release an album in 2017. As a result, the final entry in this four-part series will now shift from a post-mortem into (admittedly) premature evaluation. While Drake isn’t quite out of the woods yet, he’s it at least trending upwards artistically. Meanwhile, Travis Scott has been trending upwards in terms of sales and popularity, but I feel like I’ve seen the inverse in his music. And because he hasn’t released a full project yet, all we can do at this point is look at some of the features and individual songs that Travis has worked on since the release of Birds.

Most recently, Trav dropped a trio of loosies on his SoundCloud: “Butterfly Effect,” “A Man,” and “Green & Purple.” Truth be told, none of these songs did anything for me, and for the most part, they feel just as devoid of life as Birds. Reading shitty comments online is what originally prompted me to think about this intersection between artistic purity and commercial success, but this recent drop of songs really inspired me to start getting my thoughts out on paper. If these songs are indicative of what Trav has in store for us on his 2017 album, I’m genuinely concerned.

But the bigger topic here is “what comes first: art or success?” I think most people would say the first one, and then those creations go on to achieve success (however you define that). However, once you reach a certain point, I think you can start creating from the other end of the spectrum and just let the money be your guiding light for creation. That’s the battle.

But maybe this is all just Travis Scott Fatigue at this point, so let’s look beyond the man’s own tracks at some of his 2017 features. If there’s anything that sparks inspiration, it’s working with other artists and jumping into some more varied sounds, right?

Even without an album drop, 2017 has been a banner year for Trav. With guest appearances on everything from Major Lazer to SZA and everything in between, it seems you can’t officially be a part of the music scene in 2017 without a feature from Travis Scott. One of the weirder tracks is the collaborative effort “Go Off” from the Fate of the Furious Soundtrack. Sure, it’s generic as fuck, but it’s hard to judge anything based off a watered-down lowest-common-denominator platform like Fast and Furious.

Even still, the most offensive Travis Scott feature (and quite frankly my tipping point) was his appearance on Migo’s CULTURE at the beginning of the year… but before breaking that down, I’d like to give some additional context on ad libs.

Get Hyped or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ad Lib

For those unfamiliar, ad libs in hip-hop are distinct phrases that rappers interject within individual lines of their own lyrics. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an ad lib-loving hypebeast (you have to be to start a Desiigner subreddit.) It’s nearly a facet of my personality at this point. Ad libs just get me fired up, and I love how much rappers have been utilizing them lately.

Adlibs are typically used to emphasize a point, excite the audience, or flex after a particularly impressive rhyme. Some artists like Migos use adlibs after nearly every line just to add context and extra texture to their bars. Meanwhile, other people like Chance The Rapper have developed their own repertoire of noises that act as a calling card.

As explained by Pigeons and Planes, ad libs at worst represent “a space-filler, a moment that allows for a word to be repeated, emphasized, or followed by an "uh-huh" or some other bland affirmation.” and at best act as “an opportunity for unique self-expression, a brief moment outside of the lyrics themselves to show character, expand the meaning of the song.”

One of my favorite examples of ad-libbing is Young Thug’s “Halftime” in which he drops a lung-collapsing 12-second “SKRR” forty-four seconds into the track. The prolonged cry lies relatively quietly beneath Thug’s yelped rhymes and just above Kip Hilson’s booming bass-drenched beat. After that, Thug goes on to discuss his eccentric fashion choices and throws off his own rhyming couplet by dragging out the syllables of “recycles” to which he laughs. He’s keeping the listener on their toes. Immediately after that subversion, Thug “winds up” into an increasingly-speedier set of overtly-sexual bars, each of which is punctuated by a series of escalating ad-libbed interjections which Thug himself then interrupts with a reserved “no��� right at the rhyme’s climax. The fact that this is all happening in between rapped lines makes the track a treat to listen to and rewards repeated listens. Thug is literally his own backing track. On top of that, this barrage of ad-libs is surrounded by hilariously over-the-top lyrics like “suck my dick like Beavis no, Butthead” and “I just want that neck like a giraffe.” It’s an intoxicating display and one that all happens within the space of a minute on a single verse. Blink and you’ll miss it, but “Halftime” is an absolutely flawless example of ad libs flirting with (and improving) a song as a whole.

I’ve always been a fan of Travis Scott’s adlibs. From the hype-building Straight Up! and It’s Lit! to his trademarked La Flame! He’s made a career (and a name for himself) out of expertly-deployed soundbites. So imagine my surprise when I found myself listening to Migo’s world-conquering CULTURE at the beginning of the year and made it all the way to the album’s penultimate track “Kelly Price” which featured Travis Scott.

I entered hesitantly, given how fresh in my mind Birds was, but I remained optimistic since Travis and Quavo have had a near-impeccable track record up until that point. The song starts with a haunting beat and a hook that finds Quavo running down the typical Migos list of favorite things: Cars. Money. Drugs. Women. Pretty standard stuff so far. Then Travis Scott comes in.

He lazily floats the track by sputtering two words: Flash. Dash. and then drops a “straight-up” adlib. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe I shouldn’t be as offended at this as I am, but I was amazed that this dude just hopped on a track, said two words that barely rhymed and then dropped an ad lib as if he’d just spit some world-shattering bars. It called to mind “Biebs in the Trap” off of Birds in the Trap where Trav opened a verse in an almost identical, but even lazier way. The verse in question reads more like an unrelated grocery list of things that kind of rhyme but just sound cool when thrown together over a particular beat.

As mentioned before, I don’t go to Travis Scott for lyrical bars. So it feels weird to criticize him for verses like the two above… but at the same time, they’re just so far below his already-low bar for lyricism. I’m mainly surprised that he seems to be regressing towards such a simplistic style. One in which he relies almost entirely on production and v i b e s to carry him and his lack of personality or technical skill.

It’s also disappointing because I loved Days Before Rodeo and Rodeo so indescribably, yet I haven’t fully enjoyed anything that he’s put out since 2015. This all ties back to the first post in the series, because right now I’m just bitching that I don’t like the direction an artist is taking.

I Guess That’s It

I guess if there's any theme to this series, it's been about expectations, disappointments, and hope. I was expecting a lot from both Drake and Trav in 2016, and they both let me down in different ways. Since then Drake has really bounced back in my eyes, but Travis seems to be continuing down a different path. I know I started this series complaining about people online wanting to dictate artists art… so I won't do that. All I can do is hope. Hope that he has something grander and more experimental in stock for us.

I believe that Travis has it in him to create more albums on par (and better than) Rodeo, but he could also continue down the “easier” path that’s already laid before him. And I realize it’s a shitty thing for a fan to just say “their old stuff was better.” You can’t expect an artist to just keep remaking an album forever. To do so is to wish stasis and artistic malaise on someone that you’re supposedly a fan of. It's also hard when Rodeo and DBR are tied to such positive memories in my past, and Birds has no comparable equivalent, but it’s unfair of me to judge an album based on something external to itself.

Earlier this year I actually saw Travis Scott live at Portland’s Moda Center. It was a pretty great show (even if I wasn’t able to snag floor tickets) and oddly relevant to this topic since Drake made a surprise appearance at that show. It was a wild show, but the difference between Travis’ old and new material was night and day. It’s odd because he wanted Birds to get “straight to the meat.” The album was created with stadium tours in mind. According to Scott he quickly learned what songs from Rodeo did and didn’t work live, and that influenced his creative process while making Birds. Maybe I just like the more “intimate” feeling of Rodeo as opposed to the “broad” nature of Birds in the Trap.

Never Taking a Break

Even more recently, Travis Scott did an interview with SHOWstudio. HotNewHipHop had an interesting take on the interview, positing that he would “take a break” from music after the release of his upcoming third album. Travis Scott personally replied to the speculation on Twitter claiming “Nigga I'm never taking a break.”

Reading this exchange filled me with different emotions. First, honestly, a pang of sadness. Despite the recent perceived decline in quality, I would have been extraordinarily sad to see Travis take a break from touring or new material. At the same time, the more I thought about it, maybe a break is just what he needs. I mean, he’s released an album every year since 2013 with one (technically) scheduled for 2017 as well. On top of persistent touring and features, that output has to take a toll on even the most prolific of artists.

Working so tirelessly can be draining. I’ll be a fan of Travis till the end. The man can put on a hell of a show, and he’s released two albums that are absolute classics in my eyes. A true fan is along for the ride no matter what. The albums may vary in wildly in quality, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Even Weezer still has fans, and in 2016 they released their best album since Pinkerton. I’m not saying Travis is scheduled for a 20-year stretch of disappointment, but I’m just hoping he carves out a niche that inspires.

And when I say “inspires” I’m talking about both himself and fans.

I could just be “aging out” of his music, but I hope not because even through the darkness and malaise of Birds he still dropped “Pick up the Phone” and “Goosebumps” which were some of my favorite tracks of the past year and ones I still spin on a near-daily basis.

I’m a fan. I want the best for Travis. Both commercially and artistically. The hard part is maintaining both without losing yourself.