I went ice skating for the first time in, I don’t know, eighteen years or something, two weekends ago. It was an ideal day for it at Bryant Park. The NYC area was having its first snowfall since the weekend of Halloween—freakish conditions that made me believe tiny ghosts were floating down from the heavens. The snow, cool temp, and jazzy tunes of the ’40s and ’50s—only interrupted by a pair of songs: the always-welcome “Do It Again” by Steely Dan and the less-welcome-but-preferable-to-the-bygone-blah “One of These Nights” by the Eagles—had fluctuated my space-time continuum into thinking it was the Christmastime of a month earlier. But, thanks in part to the Rollerblade-like design of modern skates, much better than the old Chuck Taylor’s-with-a-kitchen-knife-on-the-bottom, I kept my bearings in space-ice-time.
While I was coasting round and round the rink (barely quelling my desire to body-check the “Official Kodak Photographer”, who was walking into oncoming traffic, and say, “Ya bankrupt!”), I realized a couple of things: 1.) Skaters in a state of constant-near-falling are always having the best time, and 2.) I don’t know the etymology of any of the figure skating terms (Axel, Lutz, Salchow) and I don’t wanna know.
I’m a competent skater so I can slide around those unfamiliar to the ice, but am I, in my little thought rink, having as much fun as the incompetent as they totter and slip? Definitely not. They’re laughing their asses off in the somewhat-secure grasp of their guide. I’m bored or dissecting myself or trying to reach some blissful non-thought which leads me sliding back into the first two. Let me skip right to it: never learn to skate. Just when you’re about to get the hang of it, get off the ice. Preferably by a fall. When that wobble in your ankles is about to stop, when the comfort of learning something new is about to warm your bones, do a face-plant. It’s the very best when you can get some momentum and target yourself at the exit so that you face-plant and slide across the ice and out the rink. Wait a decade and do it again. Repeat until death (by Zamboni).
The Axel, Lutz, and Salchow—they’re probably just names. But goddammit don’t you tell me. I wanna maintain the mystery. If I wanna believe that, back in the Middle Ages, some Merlin-like high wizard, in an emerald unitard rather than a cloak, magically leaped and spun upon a frozen moat, running his sharp fingers through his long white beard in contemplation after landing before saying, “I shall deem that the Lutz!”, then that’s what I wanna believe. ‘Cause if we’re being honest, though technically impressive, figure skating’s pretty boring. Telling me that a Double Axel comes from some eastern European dude named Axel who could jump and spin around in the air twice is not gonna help it. However, thinking that it was created as an ode to Eddie Murphy’s character from Beverly Hills Cop? That’s interesting.
What a Fool Believes
"What seems to be is always better than nothing."
It's That Delightful Psychosis of Josh Luft
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Noise:
Virago
Admiring
lucaluca: ameaningfultitle: adeandabet:
When I was still living in Oshkosh, WI, about twelve years ago, my cousins would drive up from Crystal Lake, IL to visit. My brother and I would hang out with them the entire visit, all of us staying at our grandmother’s house. We spent most of the time in our youngest uncle’s old room, which was exactly how he’d left it before going off to college seven years earlier—sports car-patterned curtains; photos from his high school track and field days; a one-wall panel of a cityscape in sections of alternating primary colors; dresser drawers filled with ski goggles, a Rubik’s Cube, and other 80s artifacts. In our uncle’s room we’d watch TV, listen to CDs (various volumes of the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks, Wesley Willis’s Greatest Hits, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, and Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats were in rotation at the time), secretly drink now-warm Rolling Rocks smuggled in socks, and play video games.
One of our favorite video games to play was Mario Party (2 & 3). We’d walk the few blocks to Hollywood Video, smoking cloves, talking, and rent a copy for the weekend. For those unfamiliar with the Mario Party franchise, it’s basically a four-player board game, featuring the characters of Super Mario, made up of different mini-games where you’d collect coins to obtain stars, which would then unlock more mini-games. It’s all about the mini-games. Some examples: “Bobsled Run”; “Rainbow Run”—players shoot cannonballs from a cloud at another player walking a rainbow tightrope; “Bumper Balls”; “Face Lift”—where you pulled a character’s face around to match a still of its expression; “Slot Car Derby”. We’d play it for hours, keeping ourselves awake with copious amounts of Mountain Dew. And, despite the game being targeted at eight year-olds, the four of us, eight to eleven years older, loved it.
Much of Mario Party consists of battling the other players in the mini-games. As the maker of the above photo can no doubt attest to, that can lead to fighting that spills out of the cartridge and into real life. My cousins, brother, and I never really had that problem. There was definitely a lot of trash-talking—and some charlie horses to the arms and legs of my brother (who deserved it)—but no ruined relationships. This was due to our collective goal to unlock more mini-games, a team spirit that pervaded our playing, sweetening even the most sour mini-game three-on-one gang-up. We even had “The Honesty Rule.” There was one particular mini-game that consisted of nothing but slapping the buttons to pillage the coins from another player. We were all for winning coins through competition, but outright thievery was unsportsmanlike. Thus, “The Honesty Rule” was invented and, during this particular mini-game, the player would enact it by refraining from stealing a single coin, receiving a warm round of applause from the other players. Who says video games create monsters?, we thought. Behold the ethics of Mario Party players!
Prince and the Revolution: “Computer Blue”
Alternate Conversations Between Wendy & Lisa in “Computer Blue”
Actual:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Is the water warm enough?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Shall we begin?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #1:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Is the water in Prince’s gigantic hot tub, which is dyed purple in preparation for the ceremonial orgy we are about to have with Prince and seven other women, something that he does on a daily basis because he has an insatiable appetite for sex, warm enough?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Do you think that question could be edited down to something more succinct, yet still suggestive?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #2:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Are you going to Target later?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Could you pick me up some more Vivacious Violet nail polish?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #3:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Have you ever heard doves cry?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Do they really sound like what Prince says they sound like?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #4:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Have you ever eaten squab?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Do you think I would like it?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #5:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Do you know how prescient this song’s implication of the personal computer’s effect on sex is going to be?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Wait. You already knew that?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #6:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Did you hear about the party?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Um, I think I’m gonna go but, um, my friends don’t really wanna go. Could I get a ride?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Alternate #7:
Lisa: Wendy?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: Have you ever thought about just going up to Prince and asking, “Where do you come up with this stuff, man?”?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Lisa: But do you always stop yourself just before because you get this sudden, overwhelming feeling that the answer is going to be something so profound, something like the Burning Bush speaking to Moses, that, at best, your hair turns gray, and, at worst, your brain explodes from the pyrotechnics of the mystical demiurgic fire ignited?
Wendy: Yes, Lisa.
Roxy Music: “Love Is The Drug”
You’ll notice that the video, from when—‘75 or ‘76—and where—The Old Grey Whistle Test? Top of the Pops?—we’re unsure, fades out well before the song’s completion. We at WaFB, baffled, wanting, contacted the uploader of the video, EMI Music, to find out why. We can only paraphrase their response—due to their rushed explanation: “It’s too sexy.” We tried to press further, mentioning the bubbles, flight attendants, hips, and eyepatch, but all we heard in return were clipped sighs and unmistakable moans.
Album:
8. Flesh and Blood
7. Manifesto
6. Stranded
5. Avalon
4. Country Life
3. Roxy Music
2. Siren
1. For Your Pleasure
Album Cover:
8. Flesh and Blood
7. Avalon
6. Manifesto
5. Roxy Music
4. Siren
3. Stranded
2. For Your Pleasure
1. Country Life
Butter Face
Paula had to accept the abuse. She read and listened to how much she deserved disease for her “egregious indulgence” and all she could do was rest inside of her stainless steel vessel and take it. The disease was one of the last steps in her transition. But they couldn’t know, couldn’t understand. Not yet. It would be soon.
Paula adjusted the vessel’s temperature. The bath of fats and oils warmed around her skin. In a few minutes she’d feel, maybe even see her skin loosening, beginning to meld with the fats and oils. She took the carafe of sweet batter and drank it down. The sugary concoction clung to her interior passageways, softening them up to gently succumb during the transition. It would be soon.
Paula slipped down to fully submerge herself in the bath. The fats and oils kissed her face, their bubbling love filling her ears. She focused her mind on the meld. She would be better than bacon fat, better than duck fat. When the transition was complete, she would become Deen fat, what she’d been striving for her entire human existence: pure delicacy, the most delicious substance ever consumed. Once rendered, she would mix with potatoes, pancakes, and pastries, then gormandized to become a delicacy, a form of being, even more pure: the glowing warmth of a satiated belly. They would take back their abuse then, they would understand, they would accept her. It would be soon.
“As its name suggests, Forgottonia was a region of Illinois seemingly forgotten by the rest of the state. Lacking infrastructure funding, this western area of Illinois was isolated by the Illinois River. Federal bills that would have funded an interstate through the area, connecting Kansas City and Chicago, were defeated in 1968 and 1972. Eventually parts of Interstate 72 were built in the late 1980s, but the region still suffers from loss of business, poverty and populations leaving (including Carthage College relocating to Wisconsin).”
Sadly, Vandalia was not a territory of mischievous inhabitants who gleefully defiled and desecrated the properties of neighboring regions.
STOP PIPPA
Being Queen-to-be Kate Middleton’s sister doesn’t give one the right to censor the Internet!
So, so many of them do. Let’s go with the first few that pop in my head (which you could argue are the ones that stand out the most, but I’m the type of person who’ll forget a few in the face of this kind of question, so let’s not make that argument):
Don Delillo—White Noise: This is the late twentieth century. Right on target. With language alive and fascinating. A favorite writer, a favorite book.
James Joyce—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Exactly what I needed at exactly the right time (18). Should be required reading for everyone around that age. Plus, the prose matures and gains complexity as the protagonist does. Simple, brilliant.
Donald Barthelme—Sixty Stories: Whoa. You can do that? Awesome. I can do this then.
Leo Tolstoy—Anna Karenina/Fyodor Dostoevsky—The Brothers Karamazov: The greatest novels I’ve ever read. I always want to describe them as effortless, but that’s not the right word. The plots, characters, structures, and prose are air-tight. To get that you need skill, hard work, effort. No, not “effortless”, they’re natural, they’re life.
Vladimir Nabokov—Lolita: I love a good unreliable narrator and Humbert is one of the best. You should not want to listen to this dirty old man tell a tale of his dirty old lust for a “nymphet”, but you do. You want to listen. You even, kind of, it’s ok, you can admit it, like him. That’s because Nabokov, despite the fact that he’s often a grandiloquent sonofabitch, wrote the hell out of this story.
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Skip to the 9-minute mark for one of the warmest moments I’ve ever seen on television.
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I am celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fluxblog with a series of survey mixes for each year the site has existed. First up: 2002! 140 songs on...
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Terrifying horse mask has the greatest customer image gallery on Amazon
Over the course of editing today’s “When The Commentariat Attack” Inventory...
