Kavalier Attitude

Immediately after finishing Lolita I began reading a book that has doggedly pursued me for several years, practically begging for my attention. I was first told of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon not long after I arrived in Korea in 2005 and then heard from several people in subsequent years thereafter that it was a brilliant book that I would especially enjoy. They were right, obviously.

At the time of this writing, I have not finished reading the novel but I have been moved to comment on the extent to which I feel invested in the fate of one of the fictional characters from the title, Joe Kavalier. Perhaps it is the particular books I’ve read prior to this one, but I don’t recall caring so much about a character in a novel in quite some time. Of course, it helps that Humbert Humbert, as amusing and sophisticated as he was, was ultimately a total fucking dick. Before Lolita there was J.G. Ballard’s The Day of Creation, whose protagonist was laboring under a seething tropical psychosis for almost the entirety of the novel, and I wasted valuable reading time on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy last year, his characterization in particular being so crap as to increase with each passing day my shame at having been suckered by a trilogy of glorified airport novel shite.

Nymphet in the Bud

SCHLUCK! That’s the sound of my puncturing the dreadful hymen of bloggers block that formed around these delicate parts since the beginning of the new year. The tumescent cock of inspiration has risen, dear readers, and it is poised to resume plowing away once again!

Last year I set myself the literary goal of reading Nabokov’s Lolita before the end of 2011. I failed, and not even in a spectacular fashion, but in a quiet and rather dull way when the remaining third of the book wasn’t consumed until around one full week into January. I’m hesitant to say much more here about the classic novel without embarking on a side mission of secondary reading and rigorous contemplation beforehand, however, I did want to throw out a wee note in passing. It is said that Vladimir Nabokov coined the term nymphet to describe the girls that his protagonist Humbert Humbert is attracted to and that both that term, and the name of the title, have entered the lexicon thereafter. Now, whilst I can accept that the meaning of these words is now widely understood, is it actually possible to utter them in everyday usage outside of any discussion of Nabokov’s novel?  How exactly could you use the term nymphet, without referring to the book Lolita, given that the term denotes a girl between nine and fourteen years of age that is considered to be enchantingly seductive? If you describe a girl as a nymphet you’re basically saying, “she’s around a median age of 12 and exceedingly fuckable” and even in this liberal age that’s not quite a sentiment one can express in polite company.

You see, it’s Humbert’s word, and he goes out of his way to explain that he’s a perverse and twisted madman. “Nymphet” functions as a kind of apology for his illicit sexual desire, attempting to introduce fairytale notions of female children as irresistible enchantresses.

Hogmanay Giblet

Can I refer to New Year’s Eve as Hogmanay far beyond the bonnie shores of Caledonia? Let’s assume I can. Mah hoose, mah rules and all that.

For the coming year I hope to write far less about arse-to-mouth horror movies and more about censorship. A friendly, albeit impassioned argument in a pub with a friend a few weeks ago has inspired me to articulate my opposition to censorship more fully and at length. I also hope to get some stuff out about post Kim Jong-il North Korea and return to those lighthearted trips to the K-Pop Korner.

There is of course that impending Mayan Eschaton, End of History thing that we’re all plummeting toward like 7 billion merry crash test dummies. That should be sufficient to light a fire under my lazy arse.

Wishing all of you gibbering loons out there , and your hideous families, a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Gibberonica.
I hope Santa gave you all a lovely treat from his big red sack!

"You made the list, kid!"

 

K-Pop Korner: IU (아이유) – You & I (너랑 나)

Yeah, yeah, Kim Jong-il’s dead and loads of folk are wondering what in gibbery-fuck is going to happen, and there’s a lot of fresh reading and research to be done on that, but let’s just forget all about it for a moment and see what the Korner has in store for us this Kristmas.

Aye, you!

IU (real name: Lee Ji-eun) started her music career in 2008 at the tender age of 15. Although primarily a singer, she is known for doing a substantial bit of acting in Korean TV drama and is notable amongst her peers for being in possession of a decent singing voice. She proves this by occasionally whipping out an acoustic guitar and covering popular contemporary Korean tunes for live studio set broadcasts. IU recently released her second full album, entitled Last Fantasy, the lead single for which has a lengthy and elaborate music video that kind of has a tenuous Christmassy feel to it, hence why it was selected for the Kristmas Korner entry.

This video is about a girl who lives in a big clock tower with her pet goose and an inexplicably unconscious boyfriend. It’s a welcome change to the vast majority of K-Pop videos I’ve subjected myself to, with muted Tim Burton undertones sans the stripes, a smattering of sepia, and the faintest trace of steampunk affectations. I have no idea why the guy is unconscious but I have been assured by teenage girls that he is famous and therefore of inherently great value whatever his status. When not tending at the bedside of her comatose beau, IU diligently busies herself constructing a clockwork device at a workbench that is later revealed to be a clockwork and cylinder-powered, Tardis-esque time machine! (No bullshit folks, I thought that was pretty cool.) After bidding farewell to the benumbed boyfriend, she gathers up her pet goose and departs for the future, her plan to presumably meet up with the guy when he’s recovered and they can be together properly (or so I’ve managed to glean from K-Pop sites and the translated lyrics). Later, we see the now-awake boyfriend shopping in an ornate chocolate shop only to realize, upon turning to leave, that the cashier is none other than his long-lost love IU sporting a grown up hairstyle.

For Shame

Those fortunate enough to have been in my company of late may have heard me lament the extent to which I’ve devoted time on this blog to covering centipede movies and other oddball horror fare. I’ll be looking to redress this in the coming year for, despite the time and energy devoted to these gruesome amusements here, they are by no means the films I take the greatest pleasure in watching and that has been as true this year as it has always been. I’m not a horror fanboy.

One recent film that I’m eagerly anticipating is Steve McQueen’s Shame, starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. I thought it hadn’t yet been released but apparently it opened in limited cinemas in the states on December 2nd. The consensus opinion is that Fassbender is excellent in it as a sex-addicted yuppie in Manhattan steadily fucking his life up with implacably empty promiscuity, and the previews promise a tone that is both intriguingly grim and beautifully composed. Visual artist-turned-director, McQueen, apparently had final cut privilege on the film and refused to change a frame of the sexually explicit content resulting in Shame earning an NC-17 rating in the states. Normally, this rare rating, equivalent to “adults only”, can be a huge obstacle to a film’s commercial success in America (and, ergo, overall) as, astonishingly, both large home movie distribution franchises like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video refuse to stock NC-17 films as a matter of policy and major cinema chains AMC and Regal will not show them. Such policies, of course, are merely cowardly compromises in the face of the bullying and interference by organized religious fundamentalists who seek to control and deny precisely what other people can consume for entertainment.

Kim Jong-il Dead

Bye-bye!

Yikes, I was planning to put a few words up here about the death of Christopher Hitchens but looks like events have taken a rather dramatic turn in my neck of the woods. Breaking news coming from north of the 38th parallel and hitting the rest of the world is that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, died on Saturday, December 17th 2011.

North Korean State TV says Kim Jong-il has died

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died Saturday on a train trip, a tearful state television announcer, dressed in black, reported Monday.

The announcer said that the 69-year old had died of physical and mental over-work on his way to give “field guidance.”

He had suffered a stroke in 2008, but appeared to have recovered.

It’s a tad too early to tell what any of this is going to mean but hopefully we aren’t going to see some crazed, random attack as a propaganda exercise to solidify the position of his son, heir apparent Kim Jong-un. I’ll try to update this post as and when I know more.

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)

This one probably needs no introduction. When Tom Six announced his intention to make a sequel to his notorious 2009 body horror film, The Human Centipede (First Sequence), he promised that the follow-up would contain “all the blood and shit” that was largely absent from the first film. Filmed in the UK, and made with a mostly British cast, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) not only fulfills the director’s promise, but also delivers what is essentially another elaborate joke lurking mischievously behind the facade of a gross horror flick. As documented here at length, the BBFC initially refused a certificate for the centi-sequel, citing what they felt was the excessive sexual violence and potentially illegal obscenity of the film, with the result that it couldn’t then be legally supplied anywhere in the UK (a de facto ban), before eventually relenting on this decision and granting it an 18 certificate following a substantial 2 minutes and 47 seconds of demanded cuts. It’s difficult to imagine that this tabloid-scandal sideshow did anything other than bestow free publicity on Six’s demented product but it is worth noting that the BBFC seems to have missed the crucial joke running throughout a film that, in all things, is hardly subtle. That joke being how ridiculous the notion is that someone would actually try to make their own human centipede after being inspired to do so by a horror film. Tom Six, in turn, was reportedly motivated to realize this idea after being repeatedly asked by journalists following the release of The Human Centipede if he feared his film may cause copycat behaviour amongst the viewing public, an idea so ludicrous he opted to parody it at length in his sequel. In doing so, he also quite deliberately chose to rebuke the horror fanboys and critics who pointed out the extent to which the first film was actually lacking in visceral shocks and gory imagery by stuffing the new movie with a truly inordinate amount of bizarre violence and explosive shit-shocks. Easily one of the single most absurd movies ever made, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) may work as a grotesque 90 minute prank, but it offers up very little in the way of a satisfying film experience.

Impeded

Destined as I was to bring word to you all of the centi-sequel, The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), it is with a heavy heart that I must also sound a note of defeat. For not only am I late to the party on this, but I also had to settle for a censored version of the film, despite earlier expressing a confident belief (here) that I wouldn’t have to and later railing against the British censors defiantly and virulently (here). I can’t help feeling that they won, the bastards, not only by forcing me to settle for a film that has been cut “for my own good” but also by suckering me into watching two utterly shit horror movies that they also refused to certify, Grotesque and Murder Set Pieces. I hunted down and viewed those turds purely out of what I now recognize as an ill-judged sense of last-gasp adolescent rebellion so in future I shall be satisfied to simply assert my right to watch any old trash I please rather than actively putting that right into practice. Due to lax blogging habits, I also neglected to mention here that the British Board of Film Censors performed a U-turn on their decision not to grant The Human Centipede II a certificate and instead passed it with substantial cuts to what they deemed the most objectionable scenes. At present, this version of the film appears to be the only one currently available to view and, in conclusion, fuck the BBFC.

Sea of Fire Care

Is today’s pun title a tad too subtle? Bear with me folks, I want to fulfil my personal quota of at least four blog posts per month.

Light 'em up!

*Yawn* The nefarious Norks have officially threatened yet another “Sea of Fire” on South Korea for the egregious crime of not quite putting up with their shit.

North Korea threatens ‘sea of fire’ on South over island military drills (Guardian link)

North Korea has threatened to turn Seoul’s presidential office into a “sea of fire” after South Korea conducted military drills near an island attacked by the North last year.

The exercises marked the first anniversary of North Korea’s artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong that killed two marines and two civilians.

The North Korean military warned on Thursday that “a similar sea of fire” may engulf Seoul’s presidential Blue House if South Korean forces ever fired a single shot into North Korea’s territory. The warning was carried by North Korean state media.