Tante Astrid

I realized a few years ago that I don't qualify as an authentic Marxist. Not because I deny that wealth needs to be redistributed. It does. For me there is a moral imperative involved as well. Rich people need to be punished. We all know they didn't get where they are through hard work (I am talking the rule, not fictional exceptions to the rule), and probably fucked someone over, probably many people, in their transcendence of sustainability. Not only do I think there is a moral imperative that the rich be divested of their wealth, punishments for them ought to escalate geometrically according to amount of wealth. A sadistic component infuses my belief system. I saw Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, and while I was charmed by its innocence -- perhaps a little too swayed by the equation of Eighteenth Century French Royalty with 80s New Wave musicians who looked back to the Eighteenth Century for hair styles and inspiration -- I still think that Louis the 16th should have been publicly castrated before he was decapitated and his wife slowly burnt at the stake.

That said, in my ideal purge one rich woman would be spared. That is my Aunt Astrid.

My previous blog posts might give the impression that I was raised without a legitimate mother figure. If that were true -- if my biological mother were the sole parental figure in my life -- I'd be a raving psychotic or at the bottom of a river somewhere. In reality, my cold Swedish, aunt, was often there for me.

My uncle Samir was of the first post-Nasser generation to be educated in the Egyptian school system. This is back when Egypt sought to create its own, authentic, intelligentsia. Like his 8 brothers and sisters, Samir was trained in multiple languages in school. I know for a fact he knew German and Dutch. Another one of my uncles was a fluent speaker of Russian. My mother came out of high school sounding like a native speaker of French and English (this wanton influence deluded her into strutting around the streets of Cairo, avoiding the steaming brown piles of merde who were her countrymen, while she acted the role of a young Catherine Deneuve). After college, Samir was hired by Honeywell for whom he was constantly on the road. One morning, on a business trip to Stockholm, he passed by a shop window. Astrid, nubile and fresh, was in the middle of putting together the latest display of wares. Samir looked at her, did some quick calculations, and decided "I want that." He quickly wooed her and brought her back to Egypt. In Cairo, they had a daughter, Sue, and then five years later gave birth to my cousin, Ali, back in Stockholm. Shortly after he was born, they all moved to the United States and learned English together.

I once asked Astrid why she was so quick to get married and move to a foreign land where the language must have been utterly incomprehensible. In her lingering Swedish accent, she answered, "Sweden is boring. I was bored."

Astrid is always bored. Boredom has been the monotone that sustains her. She flourishes in boredom. Every summer, whether she and Samir, as well as their kids, Sue and Ali, were in Cairo, Alexandria, or later their homes in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, or Singapore, my mother would get "sick" of my brother and I and give herself a vacation of two to three months by mailing us off to Astrid.

Astrid does not hug. Astrid does not smile. Astrid does not read. Astrid shops, gambles, chain smokes, drinks her Heinekins, gets face-lifts and watches her money on MSNBC. I can understand why my cousin is so traumatized by having such an apparently cold mother. I, on the other hand, needed Astrid's boredom as a relief from my own mother's constant state of upset. I breathed in her second-hand smoke like it was pure oxygen.

Out of crazed, overt, bitterness, my mother enforced absurd restrictions. As little kids, she strictly forbade us from watching two shows: Three's Company and The Love Boat. I'm sure she found Three's Company lewd and of The Love Boat, she would angrily shout, "That's not how love works!" Astrid knew of these rules so during our summers with her she would actively encourage Ameer and I to sit with the family to watch The Love Boat. Having moved to Egypt when my mother was only 11, Astrid was intimately aware of how full of shit she was.

Once during a road trip to Malaysia from Singapore, we hadn't eaten all day long and stopped at a mall. Astrid led my brother and I straight to Kentucky Fried Chicken and ordered a meal for each of us. I remember my mother throwing a fit about this. "They can't eat chicken here. They're going to get dysentery." For several minutes, she ranted about dysentery until Astrid put down her fork, looked my mother straight in the eye and asked point blank, "Are you having your period?" At that initiation of hostilities, I yanked my little brother away from his food and cheerily announced, "we're going to take a look at the record store."

Astrid and my mother had conflicting beliefs over food. Astrid's ideology was that we should be allowed to eat. During our summers with her, Ameer and I were always given fresh blueberries with our cereal and chips and raspberries with lunch. We would help Astrid pick tomatoes before she'd send us off to gather berries. She was no normal suburban housewife. She did not socialize with the neighbors or practice fake public warmness. Sure, Samir, on the rare occasions he was home from business trips, would sit down to watch Barney Miller or Welcome Back Kotter and shout out, "Astrid get me some falafel and turkish coffee!" and she would agreeably oblige. Yet she always acted the equal. Once, my mother left us with Astrid while she went on a business trip. It was the usual with a visiting Astrid at our house. Ameer, Astrid and I transitioned into our annual symbiosis, but when my mother came back from the trip early, and caught us in flagrante eating the steak and eggs Astrid cooked us, she began to harangue my aunt: "If you cook them food, they'll never learn to be independent," said my Libertarian, Ayn Rand worshiping mother. "They are 8 and 10, retorted Astrid." "They can make themselves breakfast," countered my mother. "Not when you don't leave them with any groceries," snapped Astrid. It was a seminal moment for me as Astrid stood up for our human right to eat breakfast in peace. With our mother, we never received lunch money or had groceries to use for school lunches. We'd simply binge eat on the rare occasions that she chose not to go to the gym and did some goddamn shopping instead. Eventually, I'd learn to just go do it on my own.

Of me, Astrid will be complimentary: "Looks have never been his problem." During OJ's trial (she pronounces it Ooooh Jjjay), she was absolutely convinced of his innocence. She would argue fiercely that OJ had been framed. I used to think this was the most ridiculous thing ever, but at one Thanksgiving I saw how she wielded her OJ love as a deadly weapon. My cousin Sue, now married, still a bitch, had invited the Joneses over. The Joneses were the couple who used to own an identical townhouse down the street and were now invited to the huge new house to stew in thoughts of nowhere-mobility. Every time we saw them, the husband would get sloppy drunk and sentimental. He would blather on to my brother and I how we should learn to appreciate one another because one day we would be the best of friends. He'd tear up talking about how inseparable we would become. Ameer and I were united in our hatred of this guy and our queasiness whenever he spoke to us. There was something vaguely homosexual and incestuous about his fantasy-tinged speeches to us. While he was a disgusting old softie, his Mexican wife was a true barracuda. I would watch her scan the house with her eyes, pricing the furniture and knick-knacks, jealous of the wealth Astrid brought to her daughter's home. At this Thanksgiving dinner, she sat across from me rattling with jewelry and making a spectacle of herself at the table.

"Did you hear about the blacks and Pioneer Chicken?" she asked everyone. I saw Ali tighten up and look at me. I was the darkest person at the table, and particularly interested in where this was going.

She began to tell us of the latest controversy involving "the blacks" and their social complaints. Apparently, the blacks were complaining that "Pioneer Chicken is making their men impotent." She commented that this might be a good thing. I remember Sue's Japanese mother-in-law, Momo, a former Geisha girl during World War II who had been seduced from her husband by a Swedish-American GI, speaking up and asking "Who? Who is the black?" "The BLACKS!" loudly explained her son, Paul. "The African-Americans, Ma!" Ali was wincing, my mother blithely eating, and I, while mentally cursing my brother for being off at Yale and having Thanksgiving with friends, was formulating something especially bilious to say in response. Astrid beat me to the punch. "Do you see that ham you are eating? That ham comes from Oooh Jjjay. It is from his company, Honey Baked. It is a Honey Baked ham." While I'm sure many at the table probably considered it one of Astrid's usual non sequiturs, it was obvious she had deflated the rampaging racist across from me. I recall seeing one of Astrid's rare private smiles almost break out.

It was in Las Vegas where I came out to Astrid. She wasn't really interested. Pretty bored by it, actually, and wanted to go shopping at Kenneth Cole. The only time I've ever seen her animated and happy, though, was a few minutes later when I asked to bum a cigarette off of her. "You smoke? You smoke!?" It was in the parking lot of the Bellagio, where Ali and his ex-wife, Laurel, and I tried to figure out where Astrid belonged in the world.

"What place did you like the best?" we asked. Copenhagen. No. Cairo. No. New Jersey. No. Pennsylvania. No. Singapore. No. California. No.

"Las Vegas. I like Las Vegas. Here I can have my own room, gamble, smoke and eat at the buffet."

Astrid's needs are simple. Dat once told me after a dinner with her, "Your aunt smells like money." "Yeah," I told him. "When I was a fat kid she'd bribe me to lose weight. A dollar a pound." Of course, she was totally cheating me. She now lives with her daughter, Sue, son-in-law and three grandkids. She and Sue have made a profession out of shopping. The house is filled with stuff, pelf. She goes to the third world and snaps up Praying Men by Thai artisans, orders rugs woven by poor Indians, covers every square inch of the walls with paintings by Chinese artists, and spends thousands on gifts to her daughter, such as an auctioned Bruce Springsteen guitar. Spending her inheritance makes her happy, or, it fills up the time. She can't stand being made aware of wasted time. If a hostess ever makes her wait at a restaurant, Astrid will tower above the waitress, simply standing there, glaring through her sunglasses, until the waitress panics and finds a table.

Her views have always been Enlightened but heavily mediated. Ali tells me that at Mother's Day lunch, she announced, "America is ready for a black President because of the President on 24. His name is Palmer." Ali told me this, proud that she no longer uses the word "Colored."

Principles be damned! I have decided that from now on, every Mother's Day belongs to my Aunt -- the only rich person whose life should be spared.

Crazy

Alanis didn't always elicit my respect, but after her cover of of "My Humps" and now with her rendition of Seal's "Crazy," I am experiencing a VH1 Moment! New Respect, Alanis. I can now retroactively appreciate your act of popular terrorism with the song "Ironic," for there was irony in not all of the examples of kinds of irony being ironic.



Her weave in this is especially sexy. Make sure you watch all the way through to see the part where Alanis goes crazy on an ex in the video and has to be dragged out of a party. Watch out for the twist at the end!

Does Kitty Pryde Need Her Mouth Washed Out With Soap?

I was recently involved in a skirmish on the Comic Book Resources Forum by asking a tongue-in-cheek question about a serious issue.

The following is the post I made, and then I will discuss responses to it.

Kitty Pryde is one of those smart-mouths who shoots their little potty mouths off at their elders. It started off with her calling the man who saved her life a "Jerk," but it certainly didn't end there.

This is how she speaks to her ballet teacher.


Oh, you better run little girl!

Then she dropped the n-bomb on a fellow student.


Which, I guess, was okay. Kitty is allowed to be racist when others are close-minded?

Of course, there was her famous eulogy where she decided to try to offend and shame everyone in the audience.

OMG, INAPPROPRIATE!

How do you feel about Chris Claremont using a 13 year old girl as his racist mouth piece?

Should Storm have washed her mouth out with soap early on? Wasn't there a Commandant Kitty in Excalibur? I know I remember CC crossing the line with alternate reality, Concentration Camp Kitty.

And now in New Exiles, we have Blackface Kitty.

Enough is enough! When a teenager crosses the Language Line like that, punishment is required. Otherwise, you'll get bratty little adults who think it's ok to smart off to the boss!


.......................................................


The reaction to this was legendary.

The Europeans accused me of political correctness:

I knew abou faggot, but Spic is new to me... I wonder if as a spanish I get to be a Spic or do you have a special insult to europeans?

To write n**** word does not make sense to me... Is it that bad that you can not even write it when talking about the subject?

And,

America is the most PC nation in the world...

There must be a different, more radical, kind of youtube in Europe.

Many of CC's black fans were up in arms about my "carefully cropping" and selecting the images. Yes, I only used images where she says "Nigger."

Context was all important. When Kitty uses nigger, spic, etc., she's at the funeral for a mutant student who had killed himself because people had called him names. Awwwww. Thanks for your very special funeral speech, Kitty. It was practically the Gettysburg Address. Honestly, Claremont, under no circumstances does one speak that way at a funeral unless one is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. But "context" is king. It pre-exists my panel selection.
Here is CC's wisdom on display:

Who was he then, that we gather together to mourn him? Who am I? A four-eyed, flat chested, brat, chick, brain, hebe, stuck up Xavier's freak! Don't like the words? I could use nicer. I've heard worse, who here hasn't? So often, so casually, maybe we've forgotten the power they have to hurt. Nigger, spic, faggot, mutie, the list is so long and so cruel. They're labels, put down-downs. And they hurt.

I've heard that spicy food makes a man's cum taste sweet. Same with context. Enough of it and CC is able to drop a palatable monthly load down thousands of reader's throats.

Of course it went out of control when I suggested that CC himself, Guardian of POCs (People of Color), was a racist. After all, why couldn't I see that Kitty was just trying to show that the word mutie, in the context of the story, was just as hurtful as nigger? Never mind that mutie ridiculously sounds like "cutie." It's a good thing she can go intangible, because that kind of pedagogy is a good way to get your face broken. Obviously, I must have been "trolling" the discussion with that kind of willful misunderstanding of CC's wonderful intentions.

I objected to CC's shock tactics to make a trite, after school special, point, viz., "intolerance is bad," as well as to keep his comic in the number 1 slot. Do you really think he was trying to spread peace on earth and good-will towards men?

Yes, of course, CC, black people should continue to bear the burden of representation for all minorities, even fictional ones! Claremont is the only comic writer I know who can script the word "nigger" and still delude himself into thinking he's Martin Luther King Jr.

His African-American following is especially disturbing, but I was glad to see that a few black comic fans found these panels unacceptable "in context" and out.

At an early point, we explored the question of Libertarianism since CC is a Libertarian who over-privileges the autonomy (ooops, I mean "sovereignty") of the self. It upset some people when I called Libertarians a business-worshipping religious cult, and suggested that Slavery was a business the Libertarian Party would have had no problem deregulating. 'How dare you discuss politics,' came the outcry! Those Sado-Libertarians LOVE blacks, though they do not agree it's OK to regulate forms of discrimination, such as Whites Only Signs, etc... .

One guy with a Heath Ledger in Joker mascara avatar felt qualified enough as an arbiter of aesthetic judgment to suggest that it was in "bad taste" to attack CC for what he had written 20 years ago. The 20 years ago thing came up again and again, as one defender of CC wrote:

You guys do realize these stories were told 25 years ago, yes?

Do you know what comics were like at that time, let alone society...

Ah yes, comics 25 years ago. I remember. Every week I'd go hiking in Santa Monica to look at the latest paintings on the cave walls.

When I had the temerity to suggest that the context-lovers were ignoring their viscera and sublimating their reaction to the panels in a futile quest for some consolation, an undergraduate had the nerve to lecture me on Anthropology! He objected to my use of the word hymen in reference to ethnographies. "Hymen is not a technical anthropological term," he cried out. Foul! Foul! He would know since he's read 8 ethnographies and his professor is widely published. A Jean Grey fan with a Greg Land drawn avatar was angry that I would use sexualized language like Hymen. Yes, someone represented with Porn Star Jean Grey felt that I did not sound sufficiently professorial and objective. Hymens have no place in academic speech!

Claremontian Scum lecturing me on literary/anthropological criticism? It's really too absurd.*

I feel I need to cleanse my palate. Discussing Chris Claremont and Reginald Hudlin recently has been like a toxic overload. I can feel my T-Cell count plummeting in the vicinity of their comic books. Thank God, I just read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Margaret Atwood, you are the AZT to my Claremontian auto-immune deficiency! More on her lovely piece of fiction shortly.

*special thanks to Ben and Josef F. for standing up to retarded Creator Worship.

Lecture Notes

X-Men: Legacy #211
Mike Carey - Writer
Scott Eaton - Pencils

GeNext #1
Chris Claremont - Creator/Writer
Patrick Scherberger - Lowly Penciler

I've never read a comic before that left me feeling as if I should have taken notes. However, "Mister Information," Professor Mike Carey just gave another intricate lecture. I thought class wasn't going to be in session for two more weeks, but we seem to be on an accelerated schedule here as Marvel tries to power through the slog of Professor Xavier's search for himself.

I didn't realize that Professor Carey was a scat fetishist because I feel like he just took an info-dump all over me. "Novaya, I think I missed what he just said. Can I see your notes after class?" "Tucker, we should all totally have a study session before the final!"


This issue was all over the place while nothing really happened. Yet, as Professor Carey likes to stress: true scholarship is in the details. Charles Xavier's step-brother, Cain Marko, feels someone ominously trying to enter his mind and vows to get revenge in the morning. It's important to get a full night's sleep first before going out to fuck your enemies up. In the meantime, Charles wet-dreams about his sexy twin sister, Cassandra Nova, leading to a flashback depicting their brief fetus-hood together....

Look Whose Talking

Wait? A sexy dream about Cassandra Nova?

Cassandra's soft, aerobicized, side?

In fact, yes. Cassie calls Charles "sweet" and instead of her usual safari wear and mustache, we get a sexy, waxed, Cassie all done up in a skin-tight pink unitard.

This just isn't right. Where are the signature khakis and pith helmet? Cassandra Nova does not call anyone, least of all her brother, "sweet." She smack-talks them into submission while looking absolutely terrifying. She is an angry, psychotic, adult-fetus hell-bent on revenge. She does not walk around in pumps!

Cassandra is Terrifying

Cassandra does get in a couple of bitchy lines. One about how Charles woefully neglected his now dead son and she ludicrously brings up the alien brood baby that Charles was infected with. He had the alien monster baby aborted before it came to term. Cassie's aim is to drown him in Paternal Shame. Why he would feel guilt over aborting a disgusting parasite, I don't really get? Understandably, Cassandra would have strong feelings about abortion since Charles did try to murder her in the womb, but I can't imagine why he would mourn the death of his worm-looking alien baby. Despite her critical tone, none of the dialog captures Cassandra's truly menacing voice.

At the end of his dream, Professor Carey writes in a revelation for Charles. Cassandra asks, "Perhaps you are more comfortable with monsters. Because they absolve you of any duty to care. And reduce everything to your favorite dialectic of control." Suddenly, Professor Carey's lecture was interrupted by this stuck-up bitch in the front row. She raised her hand and all snottily asked how Xavier's life "is bound up in a 'dialectic of control,' when it seems to me that he's experiencing classic Freudian fort/da -- back and forth, loss and mastery -- without the synthetic experience of psychoanalytic therapy to transform it into an authentic dialectic." You should have seen Professor Carey shoot that bitch down. "This is neither the time nor the place to explain the Hegelian Dialectic to you properly. May I continue with my lecture?"

Next up, Charles goes to visit his old childhood friend Carter Alexander Ryking in a mental asylum. This is really too much. Carter, a.k.a. Hazard, came from one of the worst X-Men stories of all time. It has been relegated to a footnote not because it's too much to get into, but because it's just stupid. This was the 90s, when they were moodily alluding to ominous pasts for all their characters instead of writing beefy stories full of content. Well, thankfully Professor Carey is here to flesh out the Ryking story. It was all a little above my head but it seems that a supervillain named Mister Sinister may have worked with Ryking and Xavier's fathers at the nuclear power plant when they were boys. Their parents knew they were mutants and allowed Mister Sinister to conduct medical experiments on them... Hey! Are you awake? I'm not done reviewing the lecture with you! The action is just about to heat up.

Because when Charles leaves the mental hospital he "senses" a sniper aiming at him. In one of the most original uses of telepathic powers I've ever seen in a comic book, Charles telepathically controls a flock of pigeons to disrupt the sniper's concentration while he books it to his rental car!

High 2D Action!

Isolated and deranged, as usual, Charles muses some more about his past... ... ... ... ...

We cut to a board meeting at the Hellfire Club. Business is conducted.

Oh, and at the end he senses "some holes" in the "mental landscape" and realizes that more people are trying to sneak up to kill him. Luckily, Gambit shows up in the last panel to stop the killers and save the day.

Yeah, Gambit. I'm not really fond of him. I used to think it was a sign of nascent mental retardation on his part that he would start a sentence in English, but finish it off with a word in French such as "cher" or "homme." Professor Carey explained it to me in office hours, though. By naming the gender of his interlocuters in a foreign language, Gambit is "troubling" their sense of gender identity. By verbally rocking their foundations -- in this scene, questioning the masculinity of his opponents -- his enemies are much more apt to get hurt by the playing cards Gambit uses as weapons.

Furthermore, Professor Carey showed me that Gambit is clearly a Russian Formalist in the tradition of V.N. Volosinov and M.H. Bakhtin. Gambit's patois demonstrates that all language is hybrid. His every utterance shows that one language relies on assimilating another for that vernacular flavor we crave. "Gambit's speech patterns are by no means stupid, or stereotypical, or contrived. Rather, they show us the 'contamination' of one language by another that is masked by standard, authoritarian, thought balloon. Gambit shows us the fluidity in our rigid language."

I don't know... Sometimes I get uncomfortable about Professor Carey's work. I know he's an acclaimed indie writer, and, sure, I did defend him even after he wrote Confessions of a Blabbermouth -- a graphic novel (from the MINX imprint by DC) for teens that alludes to incest, which he co-wrote with his fifteen year old daughter. It's just that he seems so influenced by his dissertation adviser, anti-writer, Chris Claremont.

Claremont's wild theories and unrestrained fetishism have made him a laughing stock. Still, he someone how got two new comics out this week that his fantards are gobbling up. Let's discuss his #1 issue, GeNext. Some background is necessary. A couple of years ago, Marvel Comics polled its readers to ask what new X-Related series they'd like him to write. Several options were presented, even though there was no "None of the Above." The option that won out was "What if the X-Men had Aged in Real Time? What would the new students look like 30 years later?" Or something inane like that. The Chris Claremont decided he would not be bound by mere poll options and decided to write what he wanted anyway. His creative genius fell upon a unique idea. He would turn the new series into a continuation of his bloated, 18 part, X-Men: The End, which followed the X-Men on their excruciating final adventure. Apparently, 18 issues entitled "The End" were not sufficient for him to complete his opus. So now we have GeNext. Carey learned to write sprawling epic at the feat of the master, CC.

GeNext is such blatant sequel abuse that Sylvester Stallone looks like a petty criminal in comparison! Moreover, it's an opportunity for Claremont to wreak bloody vengeance upon those who have wronged him. A couple of years ago, editorial yanked Claremont's baby, Storm, out of his hands for a mandated wedding with the Black Panther.

The ad-campaign for the wedding reeked of desperation. You could see the marketers emoting the private editorial discussions of the marriage. Savvy readers could hear Joe Queseda screaming at the underling who objected, “But they have nothing in common. Storm and T’Challa are from different parts of Africa. She grew up as a pickpocket while he was a prince.” “Idiot!,” retorted Quesada, “I don’t care if they have nothing in common. Haven’t you ever seen Aladdin? They’re both niggers! They don’t need anything else in common!”

Storm belonged to CC. He took a virginal girl-child from the mountains of Kenya who had never worn clothes before and who hid her boobies behind rain clouds. He taught her how to fist, gave her a mohawk, paid for the motor oil injections into her lips and buttocks -- transforming her into the transsexual, chicken-sacrificing, alterno-kink, Claremazon Goddess she is today.

Now Storm is being written in The Black Panther comic, by B.E.T. (Black Entertainment Television) executive, Reginald Hudlin. He's by no means a more god-awful writer than CC though his personality and politics are, it's difficult to believe, even more grotesque. I'm convinced that he doesn't actually script the comic himself. Scripting is done by Hudlin's office temps and delivered to Hudlin with his morning latte. If there aren't enough scenes with Storm shrimping T'Challa or ironing his underwear, Hudlin loses his shit and throws his hot latte back into the lackey's face. Then he goes back to publicly feuding with Aaron McGruder.

That diva, CC, was outraged to be dispossessed of Storm. In the final issue he wrote of her, he had his pet characters voice their reservations about the wedding. In an act of revenge, Hudlin wrote a scene in The Black Panther where T'Challa has a nightmare in which he catches Storm at a jungle orgy with all of Claremont's pet characters.

Their feud continues with GeNext #1. Here we are introduced to Storm's daughter, Becka Munroe. Becka is a sweet girl who wants nothing of the violence of the X-Men's life (There is an implication that Beast is her father. Yes, Storm once rolled around in the kitty litter with him). Even though her wig looks taped on, Patrick Scherberger's drawing of her is adorable. Becka is a tulip rising from between the buttocks of a slain rent-boy. It's a shame that CC is going to violate the living shit out of her.

Becka Munroe is clearly a weapon in CC's long-term revenge plan against Hudlin for stealing Storm from him. Outwardly, this book is packaged as a teen-love story, and I'm sure Marvel will market the completed product as such. In fact, it's a seedy piece of teen sexploitation. One of the "straight" boys at the school -- Gambit's son, Olivier -- already slipped her the tongue on the last page. I'm sure he'll be fingerbanging Becka by issue 3. What completes the revenge is that CC has taken Storm's daughter, and in a blatant act of racism he has literally made her into a spear chucker!

I would not be surprised if the original script called for a banana in Becka's left hand here, but Scherberger tastefully attempts to hide CC's excesses. Not that he could do anything about the dialog tics. As usual, straight guys use the word "girl" on several pages. There's no "Give it to Mama" this issue, but don't rush CC. He'll fit it in.

I'd Tap That

Josef F. ignited controversy yesterday when he casually mentioned that he'd "tap that," in reference to Anthony Stuart Head's Rocky Horror performance.



I support his declaration, and I, too, would tap that. Head's got loads of sex-appeal in those fishnets. I wouldn't object to some intergenerational copulation with him. Even if only for the bad puns.

However, the question arises: What is his agent thinking? Absolutely, there is a good living in only having sub-cultural cachet, and Head doesn't seem infected with the torrid disease of ambition. Is it intentional, though? I wonder, did Head give strict instructions to his management to stick to coffee commercials, free cable channel cult television shows and Rocky Horror revivals?

Out of Treatment, My Mother's Vagina Came First

Michael the Therapist asked why I had to go to the dentist.

-- Because of the Conference on Depression, I cracked a tooth.
-- How did a conference crack your tooth?
-- Sigh...

There was a Conference on Depression that I decided to attend -- because I am depressed -- even though I was not presenting. Normally, I don't go to these things unless I'm involved somehow. Anyway, I knew a few people from the Art Institute who were going to be giving papers. I met them when I interviewed that Palestinian Journalist a couple of years ago for their video archives. I decided to arrive early and mingle with them.

"You're not usually so social," commented Michael.

"I can be a butterfly when need be," I explained.

-- Plus, I was bored with sitting around at home watching Star Trek re-runs.

When I got the conference, I saw that they had a tray of bagels sitting out. The university provides the same food for every event, and I knew they'd have these. I hadn't eaten breakfast. I was talking to someone I knew when I bit into the bagel. The bagel was so hard that it cracked my tooth. I felt this sharp, intense, pain and shouted out. Then I asked around if anyone had a Tylenol or aspirin on them. But none of them had one. The two people from the Art Institute acted all aghast that I wanted an aspirin. They harangued me for "dependence on the Pharmaceutical Industry."

-- Because you wanted an aspirin?

YES! Assholes!!! I even asked Kat, an acquaintance who helped organize the event. I thought all women carry painkillers around for their periods. No one had one. While the speakers were all condemning me, including some lady I never even met from Austin, Kat gave me a sad, condescending, look. As if I were "the problem." I was furious! I can't remember ever being so angry. I already knew what this conference was going to be about. "Depression is socially constructed," or something equally insipid. I was ready to start yelling, "Fuck all of you! If you people hadn't taken your Prozac this morning, you'd be huddling in the corners of your hotel rooms, weeping."

-- You didn't say that, did you?
-- No. I was in too much pain. But I was right about the conference. I walked out on the first paper because she was delivering the same Foucauldian line about mental illness being a social construct.
-- I take it you don't believe that.
-- Obviously, neither do you. I was in the suicide ward, remember? I've seen true mental illness, and it sure as hell wasn't socially constructed. Plus, I hate hate hate everything Michel Foucault ever wrote. It's all eloquent gibberish. He's the kind of thinker with a Humanities training who instrumentalizes any other field he can get his hands on, even if he doesn't fully understand it.

At this point, I stopped talking.
-- You've gone quiet.
-- Oh, I was just thinking about when I was in the suicide ward, and Michael called but refused to visit. How he told me "I was about to get back together with you, and then you go and do this to yourself. I could never be with anyone who could try to kill himself."
-- You never told me he said that.
-- Yeah, it's what he said.
-- That's fucked up.
-- Yeah. What bothers me about it was that he made the whole attempt about him. It was his way of taking even that away from me. When it was really about me. It was my thing. My act. He's too narcissistic to understand that. He's such a fucking asshole!

I began to cry.
After a couple of minutes Michael the Therapist said, "I've never seen you cry before. This is the first time you've cried in session."
-- I never cry.
-- Really? Are you exaggerating?
-- It's true. I don't cry. It doesn't do any good. I was raised to believe crying is 'manipulative.'
-- Still, children cry.
-- I didn't.
-- That's difficult to believe.

When I was about five or six, I explained to Michael, my mom took me to the dentist for a cavity. I don't really remember the incident -- probably because I was anesthetized -- but the dentist screwed up; he drilled into my gums. He was fairly panicked about it. I remember, afterwards, he was trying his best to placate my mom. I don't know why he bothered. She was very blasé about it. I guess he was worried she would sue him or something. Knowing her, she probably bartered my missing piece of gums for a discount. In the car, on the way home, my mom blamed me for the accident.

-- How was it your fault?

It's because, according to her, when I was a baby I would cry a lot at night for my bottle. She never got up. 'Crying was your way of manipulating me and your father. Your father always fell for it. All that milk he would give you rotted your teeth. I used to tell him not to indulge you so much.' I guess, while she sat in bed, my dad would bring me the bottle. She thinks that this caused milk-rot. I think my dad, being an obstetrician, knows how much milk to give a baby. But she thinks that her assessment is objective since my brother never ever gets cavities, and my dad was already out of the picture shortly after he was born. I have no memory of them at the same time. I remember my father, and then I remember my brother. Never both of them at once. I really don't know why she thinks Ameer got any more or less milk as a baby than I did since Ameer was my Aunt and cousin's pet project, not hers. I didn't have "milk-rot." I was just lackadaisical about brushing my teeth, whereas Ameer -- because is a robot in all ways -- is very methodical about brushing.

-- So your mom blamed your cavity on your crying as an infant?
-- Yeah, she used to go on about how I've always been manipulative since I was a baby. And she'd rant about how I cried. Gawd, she's a total bitch. Oh! Also, her other line is "you've always been aggressive. Ameer never punched me when he was in the womb." Get that? I didn't kick. I was 'punching' her. I guess even as a fetus, I knew how to throw a punch.
-- I can see why you don't talk to her.
-- Which doesn't stop her from butting into my life. Lately, she is convinced I am bi-polar. She keeps sending me "literature" on bi-polarity.
-- You're not bi-polar.
-- Really? I'd hate for her to be right for once.
-- If you were bi-polar you'd have experienced severe and immediate side-effects from the Adderall.
-- Other than the side-effects I am experiencing?
-- Far worse.
-- I see.
-- Why does your mom think she knows anything about psychiatry?
-- Because that bitch is a know-it-all. Also, she became a nurse in a mental institution after she married my dad. Can you imagine? She worked there while I was in the womb. Think of the level of neurosis I was exposed to even before I was born!
-- I'd like to discuss your feelings about how your mother put her needs before yours.
-- What's to discuss?

Ever since I was a little boy, I understood that my mom's vagina came first. She never let my brother walk around alone. I always had to walk him to Little League. But me, even when I was very young, she always sent to the store whenever she was having her period. I was supposed to go there by myself and "ask for ibuprofen." It was always very ominous. She'd be sitting in her room with the lights off, and would scream my name. I'd come running into the room and she'd ask me -- either politely or angrily -- to go to the store to get her some ibuprofin.

-- How did it make you feel when she asked you to do this?
-- Oh, I suppose at the time, I was glad I felt needed and important. I think, at first, I was confused because I didn't know if ibuprofen was an English or Arabic word. She would use Arabic with me, but not Ameer since he never learned it as a kid. This would lead to difficulties if I, for example, were to ask for something in Arabic at the store and not be able to pinpoint an item in English. Yeah, so I felt important. Later, I remember being annoyed at her lack of preparation. The annoyance is what helped me learn to start standing up to her. I mean, why did she wait till she got cramps before getting the stuff? Since she was raised in Egypt, from a cultural perspective, it was very slutty and inappropriate for her to involve anyone in the business of her cramps. She was pretty trampy when I was a kid. She'd be out for all hours, staying out till 2AM a lot. I'd make dinner for brother and I, and make sure he went to bed. I once walked into her room one Saturday and found some guy in her bed. Come to think of it, he looked a lot like the dentist who cut my gums. They both had a Magnum P.I. look. I wonder if it was the same guy?

For a long time, we lived in terror of her. Whenever Ameer and I would hear the garage door open, we'd start throwing all our toys and action figures into a blanket. Then, while he wrapped the blanket up into a sack and swung it into the corner of his room, I'd be wiping down the kitchen counters. He'd come back and switch the channel from cartoons to the news. We had a system. Sometimes one of us would make the mistake of speaking to her when she was opening the mail, and she'd scream that she didn't need to be assaulted right after she walked through the door.

My mother always complained that my father -- who delivered me -- gave her a never-ending episiotomy after I was born. He kept sewing her tighter and tighter. Eventually, she had to warn him that if he put in one more stitch, he would never touch her again. She always told this story. I would say her vagina was central in my childhood imaginary.

-- I think we made some progress today. How do you feel?
-- Vague. I'm surprised I cried. I don't feel embarrassed about it.
-- You shouldn't.
-- And you shouldn't tell me how to feel.

Coming Soon in Out of Treatment!

The End is Nigh!

Sicko de Mayo

I called in sick yesterday after sleeping my weekend away in a flu haze. I'd been sluggish for a week, probably due to constant exposure from a sick co-worker. He has children. I believe children are the root of all disease. They all go to Chuck-E-Cheese together to roll around in those germ filled ball-pits. Then they give their hybrid, mutated, diseases to their parents. I would be a very unpopular parent, I think, for I would ban Chuck-E-Cheese from my children's lives.

The thing is, I never call in sick. Even at my worst, I usually drag myself in for a while. I do not have the cojones that the rest of the American work-force does when it comes to just blowing off work for the sake of their health or for personal reasons. In fact, I am so neurotic about it, that I worried that I did not sound sick enough to speak to my boss in only a semi-sick state. To remedy this, I sprinkled cayenne pepper and black pepper into a plate before calling him. Then I threw that mixture into the air and breathed it in. My glasses acted as goggles to protect my eyes. Though I did not succeed in an on-call sneeze, I did certainly sound fucked up. I also learned that cayenne pepper is the way to go should I ever want to kick my caffeine addiction, because that stuff cleared my head fast!


The flu truly impaired me last week. I could not think clearly. My reactions to everything were dull. I kept trying to think of a good image of how sick I felt. Then I remembered the issue of New X-Men when Cassandra Nova, Professor Xavier's evil twin sister, injected various diseases into herself and then traded bodies with her brother. He looks like how I felt.

What did Charles do to deserve such mistreatment as the hands of his sister? Good question, reader! After many issues of sadism directed from his smack-talking dandy of a super-villain of a sister, we eventually learn that in the womb, Charles's first act as a conscious being was to try to choke her to death with an umbilical cord.



The panels of the battling feti are my favorite comic book images of all-time. Poor Cassandra defended herself with her first use of telepathic abilities, but self-defense only led to her tragic miscarriage.* Room only for one of them in that womb. Cassandra spent the next forty years as a conscious slime-mold on a sewer wall, plotting revenge against her brother. Seriously, that psychotic fetus is the best comic book creation ever conceived. Just looking at that rage-filled fetus gives me the strength to venture out in the world today.

Cassandra Nova Xavier, I love you, baby. You are my aesthetic cayenne pepper.


*Edit: Upon a closer look, it seems as if fetus-Charles is the one telepathically attacking, and not the other way around. Cassandra is completely victimized by her pacifist brother. It's almost enough to make you want to send mutant hunting robots to exterminate 16 million mutants to make a point.

Positions

While I work on longer entries, I considered posting something about Chris Claremont's latest masterpiece, New Exiles #5 -- the issue where Sage gets drunk, takes a bath and (seriously) wonders where her vibrator went.

With two sexually aggressive shape-shifters on the team, I'd make sure to double-check that vibrator if I were you, Sage. Fortunately for me, other bloggers have already addressed this issue in detail, from Sage throwing her bath towel aside and diving into a fight, to Captain (Kitty) America, to bestiality and black-face Kitty Pryde. I will fore-go exploring the real question New Exiles #5 poses for Art History; whether Chris Claremont's work should now be treated as an extreme form of Outsider Art -- beyond the normal confines of social normativity -- aside the likes of Henry Darger and Michael Jackson? I'll leave that question to simmer, but in the meantime, let's see what Claremont's successor on the X-titles has been up to.

Has it really been an entire month since Mike Carey saved me money on my ambien prescription? Today, I'd like to revisit X:Men Legacy to see how Professor Xavier and Co., are faring. I know you're wondering if the pace has stepped up. And to your query, I will respond that you clearly know nothing about modernist, avant-garde, "comix." This issue, even though Charles has taken a bullet to the brain, a silver-age icon refuses to be kept down. With his brain repaired and memories shattered and splintered, Charles steps in just in time to save a de-powered Magneto from Exodus. If you'll recall, last month Magneto blinded Frenzy in her attempt to execute pacifist Charles Xavier before he could wake up (presumably, Frenzy is still writhing around on the ground. We don't see her). For this crime, leader of the Acolytes and former magnetic-obsessive and toadie, Exodus, decides to execute Magneto for the "human" crime of harming a mutant. This issue is the psychic battle between Charles and Exodus. Basically, it consists of page after page of Exodus trying to guilt Xavier into submission by throwing one bad memory after another at Charles. Yeah, so nothing really happens. All this is a re-mix of fragmentary moments from over the years, as we've been getting for the past few issues.

This socio-political analysis rivets me

Clearly, the editors knew this schtick would be wearing on readers, so to spice things up, they mixed shitty Scott Eaton art of the present-day moments with Greg Land art on the memories. If you don't know Land, you should. His work is a testament to Post-Modern Porn. Land has made a name for himself by working on high profile comic books by tracing images for his photo-realistic art. Sure, I know that artists trace. They have always traced and no modern day artist works without some form of photo-reference. I hang out in an animation firm where one of the guys specializes in 2D. He once brought me to his desk after proudly showing me his reel and book. He wanted me to know that the Victoria Secret catalogs "are there for a reason," and to assure me "I'm not a pervert. These are just so that I draw women anatomically correctly." He was so proud of his research efforts that I couldn't burst his bubble. Land is different. He doesn't just trace other people's images. He's been shown to have traced other artist's work in the most shameless fashion. He also traces porn.

Yes. He traces.porn.for.comic.books. Just think about that for a second, because it blows my mind. Clearly, his work is in-demand for specific demographic comic book marketers have in mind. New readers are the goal, but these readers are to be the same straight dudes in their early 20s, probably who work in IT, and who have some spare cash lying around after buying the latest Grand Theft Auto release. When I say he traces porn, I mean something beyond the Disneyfied fauxrotica of Sage shaving her legs in the tub and looking around for her dildo. When I look at Greg Land art, I no longer see the story. I only see the positions.

Here Charles recalls the brutal death of his student Suzanne Chan, also known as Sway.

Deep-Throated to Death

The in-story reason for her existence was that before recruiting the All-New, All Racist and National Stereotyped X-Men, such as Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, etc., -- all of whom have become iconic -- to save the original X-Men on the living island of Krakoa, Xavier sent a team of untrained teenagers into action. This led to a massacre. Sway's death, along with her team-mate, Petra, is supposed to be a tragic moment in Charles' life. The way it's depicted here, though, all gravitas is lost when laminated to this moment of blatant cock-sucking. Charles also sees a vision of Petra and Sway accusing him of murder.

Death by fire is orgasmic!

Except Petra and Sway actually look like their having fun. Perhaps they are singing karaoke? Dying is a party, especially when it involves a faux-lesbian dance. Land's replay of Jean Grey's tragic death made me LOL (then again, I have lol'd on the multiple occasions of Jean's death).

Anal?

LAAAAND!!!! Jean Grey is not a porn-star! Jean Grey is the worst, and it amuses me to think her character "takes it from behind." However, when I was a little boy reading the original story, this interpretation would not have occurred to me. And, really, a young kid doesn't need to be prompted into thinking of this. While Jean Grey's death could give a higher profile to sodomy, plausibly opening a few teenage minds about their closed orifices, I think there are some unhealthy side-effects to this kind of imagery.

Comic books make a mockery of death. Fictional characters come back over and over again. It's like Nietzsche's principle of eternal recurrence. The universe, according to Nietzsche, is eternal. We should treat life as if it is something that is going to happen to us in exactly the same way, on repeat. So, get it right the first time, -- get out of first gear now -- because you're going to run through this routine infinitely. In the tee vee show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this was actually mined in an interesting way. Buffy was resurrected twice -- both times against her will. She felt her sacrifice had been cheapened and that life had become mere show. Comic book resurrections of characters run them through the same dynamics for each new reading generation. Jean Grey has died 11 times? I will have to check some comic book forums to verify that number. Mike Carey is supposed to be writing Charles' big redemptive wake-up call, but these pastiches of the deaths he's caused completely undermine the narrative goal. It's not just that something is lost in the tracing -- porn is about faking the "little death," -- but a trace of something passes through the porn. Instead of seeing true death out of the corner of your eye, what comes through the trace is a fetish instead of the real thing. Cheap death passes through.


I actually felt something when I first read the deaths pictured above. Now all I can do is roll my eyes and flip the page a little harder than usual. Also, the story does not mark how ego-centric it is of Charles to blame himself for all these deaths. He's not the center of the story! He's just some fat ass who sat in a wheel-chair for twenty years and graded report cards!

No one dares fire THE Greg Land! An editor who refuses to give Land work should fear that he will trace their wife or daughter into his latest porn set-piece.

Back to the comic: Charles ends up winning the fight (as if that was ever in doubt). And nothing else happens. Oh, wait, there's an epilogue. Rogue shows up again at the end. She's been missing from comics for an eternity of two months. We close in on Australia, and in this action-packed scene, Rogue pumps gas.

Scott Eaton drew this scene, so all we get are Rogue's blow-job lips. If Land had been given this page, she'd literally be blowing the guy. But, Rogue, listen to the gas station attendant. You can't fly anymore. Buy an extra can of gas.

Carey is clearly CC's successor in that he's plotting for the long-term and isn't fearful of boring readers. This epic story-line is plotted out for 'at least' the next twelve issues, and might continue onwards if he's given the thumbs up.

Please, no thanks.

Listen to Death From Above

It's not new, but this video refreshes me. CSS sings Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.



Videos were the quintessential art-form of my youth, however it surprises me that they continue to be made. I can't remember the last time I saw one on tee vee.

The Dreamwork

Movies I watched this weekend produced in me, last night, a near overdose in paranoid dreams.

Typically, I only dream of Sean Young. Ever since I broke up with Michael the Ex, Sean Young has been a recurring cast-member in my dreams. I could not fathom why for the longest time. She would simply appear and whisper-talk me into terrifying dream stunts. There was the time Sean Young explained that to overcome my fear of heights, I would need to climb down from the sky in a hot air, steampunk, balloon via a rope ladder. Eventually, I would see the VH1 True Hollywood story on Sean Young, where it was revealed to me that she attended the same arts high school, Interlochen School for the Arts, that the ex attended (as did Jewel and Meredith Baxter Birney). I suppose I should be grateful that my mind chooses Sean Young over a visit from Elayne Keaton or any of Jewel's boobalicious pop-wisdom.

I had a NIGHTMARE last night that felt like it was an after-effect of M.S.G. poisoning, except I had eaten nothing with M.S.G.. I think it was a result of having seen Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror.

In the dream, I was working for a secret agency. We had a security alert. Someone was posting important secrets on the Internet. I *knew* this someone had to be my ex-roommate, Cameron. In real life, he was a 20 yr old, self-proclaimed punk, stoned out-seeming, video game player with a drinking problem when I lived with him. In my dream, he had also worked at the agency and had been fired. Now he was a bitter drunk, who, in his soused outrage, was risking his life to reveal these secrets. I wanted to warn him to knock it off, but knew our security people would track my emails to him and both of us would be executed. Before the execution, our balls would be cut off (I think my brain lifted this directly from Planet Terror). I tried contacting a mutual friend, then I woke up!

I woke up sweating with a swollen lip which I had stress-chewed into hamburger meat. It was midnight. I washed my face and then went to my computer where I saw some new emails. I also saw Dat online.

12:13 AM darknessatnoon: I just had a dream that scared me awake

Cameron was giving away national secrets on the internet

Dat: lol

darknessatnoon: I was working for a secret agency (he had been fired from)

12:14 AM and I couldn't warn him to stop in his bitter drunkeness, because the agency would track my email to him and kill us both

I was trying to get Omar to meet me and save him.

Dat: what...like how to get to the secret potion in 3 moves on legend of zelda

i'm surprised this would scare you enough to wake up

darknessatnoon: It was intense. My lip is all swollen because I was stress chewing it in my dream

Dat: wow

12:15 AM me: I saw Planet Terror this weekend

I was afraid someone would chop our balls off and put them in a zip-lock baggie.

I think I was also experiencing some sort of contact high from having just watched Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I'd seen most of this several years ago after the break-up/crack-up, when I was at my lowest point. This was a period when I was on multiple prescription meds, but no longer had health insurance, so had gone into withdrawal shock. A couple of times, I even resorted to using heroin to mitigate some of the more intense symptoms, which of course was not a sane decision since heroin withdrawal is worse than Aderral, Lexapro, Xanax withdrawal (though, actually, it's not much worse than Xanax withdrawal). During this period of time, my IKEA bed-frame was broken from rough sex with a former model... he had been the bartender in those famous beer commercials from the nineties with some spotted dog... I can't recall the name of the dog. The model had rape fantasies and kept shouting that "We're not supposed to be doing this. We're not supposed to be doing this, [darknessatnoon]!" I kept hissing at him to lower his voice since I was on the first floor and there were children playing right outside my window, who were probably trying to coax George into meowing at them over from the kitchen window. Because of this, I'd had to drag my mattress to the living room floor until I could repair the bed frame. Empty prescription bottles everywhere, a guy I knew had stopped by while I was in the middle of watching Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. I sucked down the bottle of wine he'd brought over as he alluded to my current state by saying, "your apartment looks like the apartment of people I know with drug problems." I nodded sagely and drank more wine.

I suppose my mind may have been flashing back on this period as I finally watched the movie all the way through this weekend. My impression of it was that it was, much like Planet Terror, a sneak-attack on Caucasian Hollywood. In the case of Harold & Kumar, the underlying claim of it is that non-white people can be functional, stoner, fuck-ups too! We can make claims to comedic failure ourselves, and don't necessarily have to be the bit-players in other people's Romantic Comedic stories (as the opening scene teases that this is what the movie might be about; how a white yuppie gets over a break-up and learns how to talk to girls again).

I look forward to seeing the sequel this coming weekend, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, but in the meantime, I think I'll calm my brain down with a romantic comedy such as My Best Friend's Wedding. The only sub-text that movie sets off in my brain is that Julia Roberts consciously plays a transsexual in it. Then again, I always think she's playing a tranny in every movie she stars in. Julia is path-breaking and fashion-forward. I would much rather be drinking martinis with her in my dreams than having Sean Young dare me to overcome my past with idiotic and extreme stunts.

A Double Wedding

Congratulations to Tucker Stone and Nina Miller!

I only know this pair from over the Internet. But they have completely won me over. They're both staff-writers at the offices of The Factual Opinion. Tucker writes on a variety of cultural products, though he is best known for his column Comics of the Week (the really mean column), as well as This Ship Is Totally Sinking (the "industry" column) over at Comixology. He also conducts fascinating Stunt Casting interviews with non-comic book fans who are given a comic to read and then are questioned about their encounter with sub-cultural weirdness.

Nina is not-a-comic-book reader who writes The Virgin Read.* Every week, her editor assigns her new reading material for which she conducts a first time reader-analysis. Her struggle with the rules of superhero book and indie book styles is always cheerful and enchanting. I fear what might happen once she loses her virginity. Maybe she can whip up a Gary Coleman effect with some married virginity? Tucker's columns are a lot more abrasive than Nina's, but he's a long-time comic book reader and with familiarity comes contempt. His contempt never fails to entertain. Sometimes he actually likes a comic or two, but that's less entertaining for me. I eagerly await their return and look forward to a Special Issue Feature in which "Nina Goes to a Comic Convention."

Apparently, in a massive coincidence, they are both getting married this Sunday. Who they are each marrying, I have no clue! How will they make it to each other's wedding? Perhaps it's a double-wedding?

In principle, I Am Against Marriage. Marriage should be outlawed for gays and straights, for only then -- when nobody can do it -- will it ever be truly sacred. Yet, I am willing to feel happiness for such talented writers and exceptions can be made in their cases.

*The label links need to be tweaked since only one of her columns appears to come up. But there are many great ones already posted.

Out of Treatment, Interlude (Routines)

If you follow the comments, then you know that a reader pointed me to Dead Ringers for a transferential scene par excellence. It shamed me as I don't know Cronenberg's work as well as I should. Finally, last weekend I got around to watching this. Of course, of course, of course, Jeremy Irons's portrayal of twins was fantastic. That should go without saying. What needs to be said, though, is that Geneviève Bujold completely steals every scene she's in from Irons.

I have been extremely promiscuous. I've never even used contraceptive devices. I've never even thought contraceptive thoughts.

Well, she's obviously a genius. A Lena "Fucking" Olin caliber actress. I'm angry now. I could have watched this movie instead of wasting my time with countless episodes of Law & Order. I need to change my life.

Change yours first, though. Watch this clip for the scene with Bujold and Irons playing footsie on the couch.



For me it's all about the récit, a term from French narratology. It could be translated as "a telling of events," or "story," but I think the best term for it is "routine." In the only good essay he ever wrote, pussy-flasher, Jacques Derrida pointed out that the récit perfectly demonstrates the "Law of Genre." A genre piece, such as a novel or a bit of theater, can never tell you what it is. It functions by telling you what it is not since every variation in a routine differs from previous ones. Variations mark their differences from previous occurrences (becoming re-occurrences. Of course, David Hume basically said this, but you're supposed to quote Derrida). That is why Claire Niveau (Bujold) finds something "subtly schizophrenic" about the Mandel twins who are both fucking her while pretending to be the same guy (her gynecologist). To get it up with women, Bev needs to hear how his brother screwed her. Elliot also needs to hear how Bev did it, for "you [Bev] haven't had an experience until you've told me about it first!"

The French word "genre" also refers to gender, so the interchange about Bev's name is particularly delightful; "It's not a woman's name. It's spelled differently." At which she teases, "Does your brother have a woman's name, too?" Of course he does, though he seems to prefer the more masculine-determinate Elliot to the gender-bender, "Lee."

I consider transference a good outlet for frustration when routines go bad. Once a decent therapist starts to see the patterns of your routines and has the balls to call you to the carpet for them, it's convenient to raise a big emotional fuss to distract everybody. 'I've just pooped my emotions onto your carpet. Now you sympathetically pooped yours. We have to clean this mess up. There's no time for you to touch my routines. Our emotions are stinking up the room! We'll never get these stains out!'

Out of Treatment, the Relationship Episode*

darknessatnoon meets Michael the Boyfriend after a particularly traumatic incident. he has had to kick his bartender roommate, Becky, out of the apartment. she had been a good friend, but was out of work for seven months out of the past nine. during this time, her usual cynicism has transformed into a deeply bitter depression. she lays on the couch glaring at darknessatnoon as he types out conference papers, angry that he is hogging his computer. with nothing to do, she takes his cordless phone and sits on the porch, smoking, running up his phone bill to complain about darknessatnoon long-distance. when darknessatnoon finally forces her to leave, he discovers $500 in long-distance charges. $500 worth of complaints about him for which he will never be compensated, as well as nine months of rent he has had to cover for her. several of his friends are angry at him for no longer supporting Becky. now they have to support her. they refuse to speak to darknessatnoon for shedding himself of his burden because now they carry the burden.

then darknessatnoon meets Michael, and they become boyfriends. they have achieved happiness.

darknessatnoon is happy for the first time she has known him, according to his friend, L.,. according to his friend, C., he behaves like a born again christian. C. claims that a blank moon-face has replaced his personality. but darknessatnoon, the prescription drug addict, has to be happy! so he disregards the born-again comment.

Michael the Boyfriend finds expressions to communicate his loud feelings at world hunger, human rights violations and injustice. His MAC homepage is the guerilla news network. earlier, he had to give up his career as a cellist because he was poor. he did not finish college because the republican governor of Michigan ended his scholarship. darknessatnoon is impressed that his boyfriend survived victimhood at the hands of powerful and corrupt men. now, at a young age, his boyfriend is a successful IT director at an investment bank. he prefers to discuss poverty and injustice instead of internet technology because Michael feels no internal relationship to the internet, but feels kinship with the poor. Michael the Boyfriend, himself, is related to many poor people. internet technology is unsatisfactory to Michael who boasts that he would rather be humble and bag groceries than make several hundred thousand dollars a year from the investment bank's dirty money. darknessatnoon is proud of Michael the Boyfriend, for Michael the Boyfriend has abased himself before technology and mastered it. the Boyfriend boasts a fluency with machines that darknessatnoon admires because it is a fluency he will never possess. darknessatnoon, nevertheless mocks his IT-guy soul patch, privately praying for Michael to shave it off.

when they are in london, darknessatnoon's friend, C., a trust-funded WASP who has a research grant at a british library, mocks poor people over dinner. Michael the Boyfriend experiences a feeling of offense because of this and demands that darknessatnoon keep C. out of the apartment when they return to the states. Michael the Boyfriend feels that if he shows that darknessatnoon rejects his snobby, elitist, friend, it will show that darknessatnoon loves him. darknessatnoon feels no opinion either way about the poor, and, in fact, enjoys his friend's frivolity as she sneers her contempt for them over expensive drinks, but agrees to humor his boyfriend's wishes though he does not realize that by indulging these wishes, he validates the jealousy behind them.

after the first month, Michael the Boyfriend says he loves darknessatnoon. he had a dream that darknessatnoon fucked someone else, and he dreamed of killing the person darknessatnoon fucked. darknessatnoon does not say he loves you back. he will eventually say he loves you Michael the Boyfriend while he is ejaculating. Michael the Boyfriend's spirits soar when darknessatnoon ejaculates with semen and I love you.

darknessatnoon tells his therapist that Michael the Boyfriend experienced a crisis of faith when his two sisters died one month apart from another from breast cancer. darknessatoon's therapist is unmoved by this touching story and asks a pointed question: "so?" darknessatnoon tries not to laugh at his therapist's hateful insensitivity since he feels that laughing at Michael the Boyfriend's grief is taboo. he would prefer to remain an emotionally manipulated person than to break this taboo. Michael the Therapist warns darknessatnoon not to be absorbed by his lover's story since he is not his boyfriend's property, claiming that he knows darky well enough to know that he is only trying to convince himself that he is sincerely touched by the Boyfriend's confessional, daytime television, patois. darknessatnoon, says Michael the Therapist, is not usually driven by taboo. darknessatnoon snaps shut his thoughts so that Michael the Therapist can no longer share his interior.

Michael the Boyfriend has his own therapist, named Julie or Janet or Jeana. repeatedly, darknessatnoon's Boyfriend complains that his therapist is a straight woman who cannot understand him. when darknessatnoon's boyfriend complains, darknessatnoon swings his hand behind Michael's head, pretending to be a puppeteer yanking his boyfriend's mouth open and shut. he mimics his boyfriend's complaints with a shrill puppet voice. darknessatnoon briefly dated a puppeteer from whom he developed an admiration of the craft. darknessatnoon privately dreams of producing an interpretation of Jacques Lacan's "Signification of the Phallus" essay using lesbian puppeteers. darknessatnoon calls Michael a "puppet head," as a nick-name. Michael the Boyfriend fumes when his problems are belittled by darknessatnoon's impromptu puppet shows.

Michael the Therapist despises Michael the Boyfriend. he prefers Boring Jim or Tom, the Nutcase with the Psychosomatic Multiple Sclerosis -- former darknessatnoon boyfriends who were degreed professionals without a history of driving their old boyfriend's crazy. darknessatnoon ignores his therapist, thinking of what nice intercourse he and his boyfriend just had, again! Michael the Therapist points out repeatedly darknessatnoon's own words: his boyfriend's three immediately prior ex-boyfriends have all gone crazy.

1) Punjab or Punit or something, is an actor whose headshots Michael the Boyfriend refuses to return because the Boyfriend does not want to deal with him. Punjab or Punit's headshots sit in a manila envelope on top of the refrigerator. this Indian constantly tries to contact Michael the Boyfriend, to retrieve his head-shots. he cries out for them like a jackal. perhaps he wants more than the head-shots? perhaps he spent a lot of money on his head-shots and only wants them back? darknessatnoon wonders why the Indian hasn't made more copies unless these are the negatives. he doesn't feel like intruding into the manila envelope to investigate. darknessatnoon volunteers to hand over the head-shots himself because he feels for Punjab or Punit, but to no avail. having grown up in California, darknessatnoon understands how important it is to an actor to be able to think he is pursuing his vain ambitions by making several career oriented calls a day, and sending out head-shots to punctuate those calls. but his Boyfriend does not wish to discuss it and the head-shots remain on the refrigerator.

2) down the street lives another Michael, who is Michael the Boyfriend's Ex-Boyfriend. Michael the Boyfriend's Ex used to be an executive, who, after being dumped by Michael, went crazy and gave an ultimatum to his employers. 'promote me by the end of the day or consider this my letter of resignation.' his employers accepted the resignation. to make enough money to eat, he cleaned Michael's house and cooked dinner for months. darknessatnoon laughs and says he will never cook Michael's dinner like some servant. Michael the Boyfriend's Ex sold Michael the Boyfriend his collection of Bette Midler VHS tapes. darknessatnoon says to give them back. when are you ever going to watch Bette Midler movies? Michael the Boyfriend shrugs. Michael the Boyfriend's Ex, Michael, is incredibly rude to darknessatnoon whenever opportunity arises. darkness's Boyfriend, Michael, claims to never notice this, but darkness can see that even though he has argued on behalf of the ex's Bette Midler repossession that he and the ex would gleefully beat one another blue if the opportunity were to arise. darkness tells his therapist that he would like to smash Michael the Ex's rude, fat, face into a wall. he discusses his glee with his therapist that the Ex-Boyfriend is health food freak who doesn't eat enough iodine and has been growing a goiter. darknessatnon and Michael the Therapist spend several minutes discussing the fact that Cleopatra also had a goiter. darkness and Michael wonder how did Cleopatra blow Julius Caesar with a goiter in the way?

3) Michael the Boyfriend also