Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for September 2009

WWMD?

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When I’m being overly fussy about anything musical, I have a special mantra I use to get focused. It goes like this:

What would Madonna do?

That’s “WWMD?” for short.

Madonna, 1982, from the 9/09 issue of Italian Vanity Fair.Last night I was not feeling musical. I was tired. My right arm felt flabby, and wasn’t keeping up with the quick, hard strikes on “Regenerate.” My breath-support was wobbly, and not getting me through “Shake It Off.”

I had promised to stop by an open mic, but I wasn’t feeling it.

WWMD?

In 1982, when Mad was still being labeled a one-hit wonder, she told Dick Clark, “I wanna rule the world.”

It was a lofty, laughable goal for a potential one-hit wonder to have in 1982, but she’s come as close to achieving it as any entertaining non-dictator could ever come. Her rule-the-world mission drove her every decision for over a quarter of a century. If you start counting from when she started playing in New York bands, she’s been driven as long as I’ve been alive.

Of course, Madonna is also known as a control freak and a perfectionist – but that didn’t stop her from breaking into clubs as an imperfect singer in the early 80s.

If she stayed home she couldn’t rule the world.

I take that as a lesson – not only from Madonna, but from all of my favorite paradigm-changing artists. From David Bowie to Ani DiFranco to Lady Gaga, what they have in common isn’t their talent and training. Their commonality is wanting it bad. Tenacity.

That’s a clarity of vision I lack. If voice, arm, and body are all tired, I want to pack it in. My songs don’t sound focused. Why play, I ponder, if I’m not at my best?

WMMD? I know what Madonna would do. What about Gaga, or Ani, or my glam idol himself?

David Bowie struck out as a pop star, actually became a one-hit wonder twice – on a novelty single, and again on “Space Oddity” (another novelty single, you could argue). He released two largely-unheard discs before he unearthed Ziggy from his collection of personalities.

WWDBD? He wrote one of his finest discs, Hunky Dory, and when its popular reception was soft he went directly back into the studio to record The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, one of my three favorite albums of all time.

So on those nights where I feel tired, or tuneless, or lazy, what should I do if I truly care about music as much as I claim I do?

WWMD? WWDBD?

Go out and play.

Primer, Primest

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I love Primer.Primer Poster A

You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s an obscure, indie, sci-fi movie that’s 77 minutes long with a single special effect, shot on film for under $10,000.

It’s also the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury prize winner, critcally acclaimed, and maybe the best story about time travel ever conceived.

I found out about it in 2005 from Rabi on the day we first set up the DVD player in our house. I bought it that night and watched it three times consecutively.

It’s that kind of movie. I’ve watched it twenty or thirty times since then, almost always two or more times consecutively. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. I want everyone I know to see it, so I can debate it endlessly with them.

(If you have Netflix you can watch it right now, online, for free.)

The problem is, it’s challenging and obscure. For almost half its running time it seems to be about a needlessly-detailed, grown-up, science fair project. The final seven minutes introduce information that alters the rest of the film. By the time you realize its true intrigue, it’s over.

It’s a harder sell than any Nolan film – even though Memento and The Prestige each sketch a close iteration of its plot. Nolan gives the answers and lets you figure out the question. Primer gives you the concepts and let’s you figure out the question.

The answer is not given.

In interviews, writer / actor / director / composer Shane Carruth would say only what the movie was not. He also provided a forum on the movie’s website, where a steadily-increasing number of fans could debate the finer points of the film’s chronology.

(You could also check Wikipedia, but the answer given there is wrong. Maybe. Keep reading.)

Four years went by. Shane closed the forum to new registrants due to a flood of spam and porn. The debate kept churning. And then, something interesting happened: someone solved Primer.

Maybe.

In July 2008 a user posted to the forum that he had solved the Primer puzzle after many dozens of rewatches, and that he was writing a book about it – A Primer Universe. He claimed that he was receiving thousands of requests for the book (never mind that the forum – Primer ground zero – has only 1094 registered users). He claimed that he sent it to Shane and co-star David Sullivan, who both confirmed his theory in its entirety.

Eventually, he posted the book to a blog, leading to other forum users swearing fealty to his theory.

Primer Poster BI read the book. It only makes sense if you have the movie committed to memory. And if you do, it is mind-altering. Game-changing. It completely re-writes the movie, making significant some details that seemed routine and expository. It increases the perceived depth of Shane’s careful plotting exponentially.

If it is real.

This will be the single, most-detailed response to A Primer Universe registered on Google – and I haven’t given any details at all! All other references are mostly on social bookmarking services,a and could have easily been placed by the author. There are no reviews. There is no third party confirmation that Shane or David have read it. There is no evidence of a physical copy ever existing, though he was selling them for some time. The Primer forum users affirming it could be a series of accounts maintained by the author for this exact purpose.

The book itself is a riddle. It could be a fraud. It could even be written and maintained by Shane himself, frustrated that his fans never quite figured out his enigma.

Just like the movie, the riddle of the book is: what is the most prime? It is better to be primer, more prime than the competition.

It’s best to be primest – most prime.

And, when it comes to A Primer Universe it’s as hard to discern its primacy as it is to unravel the cinematic riddle it describes.

the sitch

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As with any big event in CK-land, the Blame-a-Thon required some recovery.

I can get into the whys and wherefores of the recovery some other time. In short, I stayed up for something to the tune of 32 hours, we raised tons of money for LiveStrong, and by the end of the night I was a meandering, sobbing wreck of good intentions.

The following week I saw partner-in-musical-crimes Gina perform in the Fringe Fest show Fefu and Her Friends, and it was wonderful. Even though I have forsaken acting for music, Gina will always be an actress, and it was inspiring to see her in her element with a cast of other outstanding actresses. (and, those aren’t the idle words of a fan – even the local paper highlighted the strong acting in the show).

In the meantime, Elise’s band Filmstar has gotten good. Really good. Like, each new song is a pretty solid single. And, as of last night, they were voted The Deli Magazine’s band of the month for October.

Pretty wild.

Behind the scenes of all that awesome, though, there is a slightly different story. I’m getting a little frustrated with all of these team successes I’ve been a part of. Yes, the teams are cool, the successes have been memorable. But, I need to find some of my own success. I have this nine year old blog, and I’m the only guy on the team. I have my own 250 songs, and I’m the only guy on that team too.

My birthday passed by with little event this week. Twenty-eighth. I managed to make it through 27, to die without dying, and here I am on the other side.

I think it will be an interesting year.