[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_2qjzj73Y]
“Theme from S’Express” (1989) – S’Express
This is from the period when house reached the public consciousness in Europe. It was released one year after Coldcut’s Doctorin’ The House. Both tracks featured nervous “acid” bass lines. A similar track from that same era is Stakker by Humanoid.
See previous entries in this series.
[Youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=A_jXxHeVpMQ]
If… (1969) – Lindsay Anderson
Go on. Look at me. Look at my eyes. I’ll kill you. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and my eyes get bigger and bigger. And I’m like a tiger. I like tigers. Rrrrah!
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[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JpD5skqGOo]
Knights of the Jaguar (1999) – DJ Rolando
See previous entries in this series.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKtRmBZPmPg]
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) by Wes Anderson
When the kids ask if the split is their fault, he replies: “Obviously we made certain sacrifices as a result of having children, but no. Lord, no.”
Tip of the hat to Cactus.
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[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwUuEN2NTts]
Bamboozled (2000) by Spike Lee
It has been a while since we featured an American film. Although almost all of Spike Lee’s films are better than 97% of American cinema, I chose Bamboozled, a 2000 satirical film about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the violent fall-out from the show’s success. A hilarious film.
Did you know that whiteface is also a comic trope?
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Utopia in the United States
Founded by Charles Fourier, died 170 years ago today
François Marie Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837) was a French utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier coined the word féminisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued that the extension of women’s rights was the general principle of all social progress. Fourier inspired communism, situationism, 1960s countercultures and Hakim Bey. He was the subject of a study by Roland Barthes Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971), is mentioned in André Breton‘s Anthology of Black Humor (1940) and has a whole convolute dedicated to him in Walter Benjamin‘s Arcades Project.
Previous Icons of Counterculture.
See also: Knots of indecision
Over at ArtandPopularCulture book of the month is:
Anthology of Black Humor (1940) – André Breton
While I am antipathetic to André Breton as a person – his misogyny, his homophobia, his arrogance, his misguided tyranny – I have learned to appreciate his work of tracing the literary and artistic antecedents of surrealism. In this book he successfully delineates a corpus of writers that have shaped the sensibilities central to cult fiction.
Today, on the occasion of Grandmaster Flash‘s 49th birthday:
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6e9G-ump3Y]
The Message (1982) – Grandmaster Flash
“The Message” is an old school hip hop song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released in 1982. The song’s lyrics were some of the first in the genre of rap to talk about the struggles and the frustrations of living in the ghetto. The song’s chorus of “Don’t push me ‘cuz I’m close to the edge” has become one of the most well known choruses in rap music history.
See previous entries in this series.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdFjxhDOKNQ]
sex, lies, and videotape (1989) Steven Soderbergh
sex, lies, and videotape (the title is always given in lower case letters) is the film that brought director Steven Soderbergh to prominence. It tells the story of an impotent “voyeur” who films women discussing their sexuality, and his impact on the relationship of a troubled married couple.
This clip features the unforgettable quote: “being happy is not that great … I mean … the last time I was really happy … I got so fat … I must have put on 25 pounds”
In 2006, sex, lies, and videotape was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
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