THE GREAT GADFLY:

Whogivesaqatsi



Yesterday I purchased what was packaged as "The Koyaanisqatsi Value Pack". Such packaging is one of those bizarre little synchronicities in which the creature comforts of my idealized fantasy world meet up with the surroundings of real life. Only, this product would not be a bundle of art-film DVDs - no, it would be a fast-food full meal deal consisting of a big gulp of espresso, a big bowl of brown rice heaped with a steaming fresh pile of macrobiotic veggies (slathered with yummy mushroom gravy), and for dessert, a sinful ice cream brownie sundae concoction sprinkled liberally with finely crushed Paxil tablets. Et voila - the Koyaanisqatsi value meal!

Anyway, back to reality...or something resembling it...

Ever since I caught wind of Godfrey Reggio's brilliant "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi"'s eventual release on DVD, I've been drooling like a saint bernard on the beach every time I hear Tibetan monks droning Hopi prophecies - which ain't too damn often, but that's okay, because I don't produce a lot of drool; it works out in the final calculation somehow.

And now, I can salivate to my heart's content, cuz I got me my 'Qatsi Value pack. Yummy yum yum.

For those of you unfamiliar with what the heck I'm talking about, get thee to your local artfaggy video store haste-post-haste, or better yet, click it on over to your favorite online DVD pusher and procure your own copy - they're selling for cheep right now, and you won't be disappointed.

In the meantime, the quick capsulized blurb of these movies is as thus:

"Koyaanisqatsi" is Hopi for "life out of balance". Director Godfrey Reggio collaborated with blippy-beepy composer Phillip Glass to create a montage of nature and technology that's both hypnotic and disturbing, spiritual and empty, beautiful and grotesque. It's not a typical film with actors, but it's also not really a documentary. There's no dialogue whatsoever, but there's definitely a narrative. It's a film that makes the viewer fill in the blanks - it's a movie that invites you to talk all the way through it if you like, or simply sit there and take in all the whirling imagery as it wraps itself around your brain.

"Koyaanisqatsi" is the first film of a trilogy that started in the late '70s and ended only recently, with this year's final installment, "Naqoyqatsi", which recently opened in a handful of arthouse theaters and the title of which roughly translates to "life as war". The middle installment, released in the mid-80s (and which is also now available on DVD), is called "Powaqqatsi", which translates to something like "life in transition" and offers a collage of southern hemisphere cultures as old world clashes with modern life.

If you're sadistic enough to appreciate films that you might hate on the first viewing, but can't get out of your head for weeks afterward until you're finally forced to admit to yourself that you liked it after all, these are required viewing. Heck, Madonna liked these films enough to appropriate the imagery for her "Ray of Light" video. But don't let that ruin your expectations.

MEANWHILE...

I took yesterday as an ever more rare opportunity to go on a spendy-binge, browsing book stores and wrecka stows for some much-needed consumerist therapy. Among the bootay acquired was a copy of Amy & David Sedaris' play "The Book of Liz", the Sahara Hotnights album, the book "Savage Girl" by Alex Shakar and - treat of treats - a ticket to The Residents' "Demons Dance Alone" show at the House of Blues next month. Whee! Being a fan of the eyeball-heads since high school, I feel like a damn fool saying that this will be my first time encountering these nutjobs live; by the same token, their new album is the first absolutely jaw-socking Rezzies disc I've been able to thoroughly masticate since first discovering their old-skool toy-instrument-and-feedback weirdness. It'll be a deliciously indulgent evening of oogie goodness - and a long time coming, at that.

And OH HOLY CRAP, I almost forgot to mention the fantabulafreakintastic flick I caught at the uber-artfag moviehouse last night - an installment of a series called "Nightclubbing", documenting the punk/modern music scene of the late '70s and early '80s. More on this later, to be sure, but I'll suffice it to leave you with the grainy videotaped image of John Cale performing in hospital scrubs at Max's Kansas City circa lord-knows-when, his nose scraped and bleeding, his big-assed aviator sunglasses hiding a black eye, and his foot in a filthy ragged cast...and performing none other than the Repo Man chestnut "Pablo Picasso Was Never Called An Asshole".

Now that's what I'M talkin' about.


2003-10-14 - Last Haiku
2003-10-09 - Don't Cry Out Loud
2003-10-09 - Sit Down, You're Making Me Nervous
2003-10-08 - I'm Sure Miss Thing, I'm Sure
2003-10-07 - Carbonated Water, Caramel Color, Aspartame

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