#scmods

[4749-82]

[sakuracentric]

Hello everyone, I hate to say it, but I'm going to be putting this blog on indefinite hiatus. As you guys may have noticed, activity for this blog has dropped considerably, and there's really no way of putting it otherwise, but my interest in Naruto has waned considerably lately. Now, I doubt this will be permanent, as this happened years ago before interest rekindled later on, as Naruto is a fandom I can't quite keep away from. However, I'm in one of those low periods and have to face facts. I will be back, this won't be forever, but for now I am going to take a hiatus until my passion returns. When it does, I'll see you all then. - Mod Calis

[foone]

Trick or Treat!

You can have some SCMODS

[giantmonster]

[sistervee]

Elwood’s info on SCMODS

[lesliekane1]

They’re in there, checking on the SCMODS #icrackmyselfup #onamissionfromgod #whoswithme #joliet #scmods #uptownchicago #uptowntheatre #uptowntheater #chicago #bluesbrothers #ripjohnbelushi #chicagopolicedepartment #blueskies #lawenforcement #leslielovessunrise #lesliekane1

[garbsafari]

Saturday night SCMODS #scmods #bluesbrothers (at Joliet Correctional Center)

[scmodsims4-blog]

[bluesletter]

17 — Rockin’ the Suburbs

“You got us into this parking lot, pal. Now you get us out.”

Being chased by the police — squealing tires and flashing lights and all — means very little to Elwood, who will never, throughout the course of the film, lose his composure. Jake lists the ways Elwood’s already endangered and betrayed him, and Elwood soberly gives the movie it’s first Mission-from-God:

They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God

He invokes their spiritual quest, and then wheels the Bluesmobile into the most ordinary and secular 1980 location possible: a shopping-mall parking lot. 

By 1980, the shopping mall was a well-established American hangout. The rise of cheaper automobiles and flight from downtowns to suburbs gave rise to the shopping mall after World War II, but even through the mid-1990s, malls were being built at a growing rate. This is not the first or last thing in The Blues Brothers that now serves to date the movie, but it is one of the more significant. One the end of the making of the film, the mall is like SCMODS — a novelty of its time that represented the shiny and new. On our end, it’s a relic.

I should add an aside here: it’s easy to think of the Blues Brothers as a product of the 1980s, because it was released in the summer of 1980, but it is closer in heart to the mid-70s — SNL’s debut was 1975, the real-life band founded in 1976. It’s easier to see Aykroyd and Landis as nostalgic for a period ten years prior (the R&B of the mid-60s) in their casting and musical choices than as stewards of the coming 1980s. The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona could call The Blues Brothers (and Animal House!) an antecedent in this regard. These movies aren’t really period pieces, but they are reverent toward the way things were, like, five-ish years ago.

Anyway, as a connected, typically indoor arrangement of shops, restaurants, and big-box anchor stores, the mall can stand in, for American optimism and upward (outward) mobility. The things orphans in inner-city Chicago are deprived. The extra space outside of downtown that allowed for large parking lots are one of the ways malls rose to prominence in the 60s and 70s, and here the parking lot is a wily choice. So close to something so glamorous, the Blues Brothers are dogged by cops and trapped in a maze. To continue the close read: Elwood and Jake are always leaping from one conundrum to the next, until they run out of runway. The whole movie is a Chinese finger trap. The harder they struggle, the tighter their circumstances squeeze them.

There is also always an attempt in this film to reject the material for the holy, whether it be explicitly holy (orphanage, church) or with reference to the spiritual project that is the blues. So Jake and Elwood’s only way out of the mall is by going in — destroying the mall is a metaphor railing against materialism. Or, well: it is equally likely that Aykroyd and Landis wanted to just destroy an entire shopping mall, you know, because they could. 

At any rate, the destroyed mall (which was played in the movie by an already-abandoned mall) now represents something else entirely — an abandoned part of our national consciousness, an arbitrary, imaginary “community” built inward-facing and not around community but commerce. An mistake of the American landscape that has only been supplanted by a more vile and corrosive fake-community online. And so as The Blues Brothers ages, we have lost many of its stars and some of its references make less sense, but we can also appreciate the upcoming car chase as it was likely intended as in the first place, before irony became a dominant cultural mode — a loving, earnest celebration of the shopping mall.

[sakuracentric]

So, just as a little update, but Sakuracentric is no longer dash-only and has a theme, tag page, and more! Remember: if you want specific ship tags, enter them after the URL (ex. https://sakuracentric.tumblr.com/tagged/sasusaku). Otherwise, this blog and its content should be much more accessble from here on out!

[giantmonster]

[scmodsims4-blog]

[bluesletter]

15 — Karma, Police

“The light was yellow, sir.”

Sorkin’s got nothing on Dan Aykroyd. As Elwood notices the cop lights in his rearview:

“Shit.’

“What?”

“Rollers.”

“No.”

“Yep.”

“Shit.”

Not much to say about that except it’s 24-karat pristine pure-gold poety. And I mentioned this earlier, but the moment that Elwood hands his ID to the cop, the music changes, from “Soothe Me” to the more rambunctious “Hold On, I’m Comin’” — The Blues Brothers is nothing if not a collection of perfect needle drops and musical queues.

But while they’re awaiting their fates with the police, Elwood posits:

“Man, I bet those cops’ve got SCMODS.”

Jake: “SCMODS?” Elwood: “State. County. Municipal. Offender. Data. System.”

The movie was filmed in 1979, the very first year database computers were put into some police cars as tests. It would be years before the practice was widespread, but it was a presumably well-know eventuality.

It’s easy to apply your present-day sense of humor and understanding when you watch something old. I saw Babe Ruth mentioned in a Faulkner novel once and figured it was an intentional “old-timey” reference. Then I checked the publication date, and realized it was a modern reference at the time, only made old-timey by, well, time passing. 

SCMODS sounds like something funny Dan Aykroyd made up to describe the computers we all know are in cop cars. And it is funny, and funny to say. SCMODS. You say it. SCMODS. Of course it’s intended to be funny. But the reality is that at the time, the notion of searchable warrant databases was cutting-edge cop stuff. 

So: we’re back to the collision of the old ways with the new. Before Jake went into Joliet, SCMODS were part of a science-fiction future, and somebody like Elwood could amass ticket upon ticket before ever being caught or found out as delinquent. The Blue Brothers’ (and Chicago’s) old ways, including musical inheritance, are constantly challenged in this film, and SCMODS is a part of this.

When Elwood’s record is searched, the viewer uncovers that he has 116 parking tickets and 56 moving violations. His license is suspended. 

116 parking tickets. It’s a new car since Jake went to jail, so Elwood would have to have bought it at auction with an unsuspended license. And if Jake has been in prison for 3 years, that’s about 1100 days, so probably a parking ticket every nine-and-a-half days. And a moving violation every twenty. I love these numbers. This is some seriously bad driving coupled with some pretty tremendous delinquency. 116! Amazing. 

Thinking Elwood’s 172 tickets sends you wondering: wait, so if he’s not in a band anymore, where’s Elwood driving to, to get all these tickets, anyway? And how’s he getting away every 20 days when he picks up a traffic ticket? Does he run away in a car chase every time? One wonders if the original Bluesmobile wasn’t in fact impounded as part of this incredible feat of ticket accumulation.

Hey, wait, what’s Elwood’s job? Where would he be driving to so much, anyway, without the band?

We’ll get to it.

The look Elwood flashes Jake before gunning it and running away from the cops, presumably for the 57th time, is evidence that Elwood and Jake have been here before. It is not their fault. They do their best, but It’s almost as if it’s the responsibility of the world to close in on them. This is the relationship they’ve learned from the beginning. Get chased, get nabbed.

They don’t fit in the Penguin’s wooden little chairs and they ride in a decommissioned version of a car that represents authority, but theirs is ragged and worn. Doesn't fit in with the new way of doing things. Like their music, like their suits, like their plan, and like SCMODS.

[sakuracentric]

Hello everyone! As a little update, but since Multisaku content features so heavily on this blog, we decided to add a Ship Masterlist for easy browsing by ship! 

Feel free to suggest more pairings if you’d like!

[sakuracentric]

About

Sakura-centric is a fan-run blog dedicated to the strongest kunoichi, Sakura Haruno! Here you’ll find fanart, fanfiction, meta, edits/graphics, meta, and more dedicated to the cherry blossom of the battlefield, as well as Multisaku content. This will also be a hub to promote Sakura-centric or -friendly fandom events, as well as other blogs. Additionally, we’re also here to provide a creator-friendly place for the Sakura fandom where we’ll only reblog or post original content. We’re a kunoichi-friendly space and you’ll never find any anti-content to speak of! This blog is currently run by Calis.

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[sakuracentric]

So, just a fun little announcement, but it looks like Sasuke Retsuden is getting a manga adaptation next year! Along with the official English translation, Sasusaku fans have a lot to look forward to next year! (Original image)