MONDOmagazine

Clara in the Pines, detail. XPACE's basement

By Kerry Freek

Walked down the stairs into the dank, dark basement (complete with low ceilings, and a dampness that clung to my skin). Caught the first of several doppelgängers (sleeping, hanging) in my peripheral vision: nearly turned back, bumping into the next viewer in the queue. These doubles (triples, quadruples) of Yuula Benivolski caused (well-contained) panicked chest flutters. Why? Human shaped, for one. Forced to enter their primitive forest-nest. The stillness and resemblance is sinister: uncanny and uneasy, something I can’t really explain. A new tribe, a base instinct: first fear, now fascination.

Yuula Benivolski, the subject of a past MONDO artist profile, spent some time answering my questions about her most recent exhibit, Clara in the Pines (XPACE, August 1-30).

MONDO: Clara’s got an E.T.A. Hoffmann connection — Clara is a character in “The Sandman,” the story in which the protagonist (Nathanael) retains a childhood fear of the legendary eye-stealer. You’ve done work with your childhood fears before: I’m thinking BOB from Twin Peaks. Is Clara a sort of confrontation of these fears for you?

Yuula Benivolksi: I think the work began as a confrontation of fears and then quickly morphed into something else. I was afraid of using myself in my work for a long time. My own image seems very foreign to me, probably because I always feel like a foreigner. Maybe it’s a common feeling among people who went though immigration. The dummies became a way to use my body in a kind of depersonalized way. I started building the dummies to surround myself with more of “my kind,” to get comfortable within that environment. Then I started moving them around with me and suddenly they needed their own living spaces wherever I went. Eventually it became more about migration than the dummies themselves. I became interested in the spaces that the dummies left behind. They were left behind as once-lived-in spaces, but in reality no one had ever lived in them. Julia Kristeva talks about the “foreigners” and how “they are frightening to us, because we can’t trace back their origins.” The dummies are the ultimate foreigner. Not only that they’re unreal, synthetic, but if you look closely, all they have is a face. The rest is only a faint attempt to resemble a human.

Installation on Toronto Island

In regards to Clara and childhood fears, I think that most people have a collection of Real Life or fictional moments that influence their work. I started reading at a very young age, with minimum supervision, so it created the perfect conditions for elaborate nightmares. And in a way, Clara and BOB are representations of a greater, more ambiguous evil. It’s certainly something that could scare an adult, not just a child. I’m generally a very frightened person!

The Clara reference in my work is slightly different, though. Through Hoffmann I became interested in the idea of a double, physical or imaginary — frightening because it represents an alternative form of something familiar. Thousands of years ago people created doubles to become immortal, by preserving their own image after death. Amy Lam told me that there is a kind of spider that builds dummies of itself in order to not get attacked by predators. That’s crazy! I feel like these days people are afraid of the double because it reminds them of death. Many people who know me said that the installation disturbed them because it looks like a dead version of me. My mother asked me not to make any more dummies of myself. It’s hard to make a dummy look and feel “alive”, and it’s not the point of the work, but I could see why someone who knows me and loves me could feel uncomfortable.

MONDO: Outside of Clara, parts of you were replicated for a recent Yoko Ono piece. I’m reminded of an old friend who used to broadcast his goings-on from a webcam in his room, (close to) no-holds-barred. This sort of exhibitionism seemed like a way for him to further detach himself from dealing with his real problems. How does putting your body on display make you feel? Is it way to release inhibition? Does it protect you from confronting the real issues? Both? Neither?

YB: The Yoko Ono thing had nothing to do with me personally, and I wasn’t even there to see it. So I really had no feelings about it. I saw photographs of people groping my body parts, but in reality it’s just a piece of silicone. You learn to accept that it’s not you. Yes, it’s easier for me to deal with my body when it’s so removed from me. It’s easy to deal with problems, or nudity, when it’s on the wall. While I was making a Yuula-shaped human piñata this summer, I never really felt weird about the physical aspect of it. Emotionally, I felt protective over it, the way I feel about the dummies. At the time, seeing myself naked hanging off a tree and knowing what’s next didn’t make me feel like I’m overcoming some serious issues, or that I’ve successfully avoided dealing with them. But when it was over, it left me feeling completely blank, which I think is the outcome of a very emotionally loaded situation, ending. So I guess it is a way of dealing with problems. A very intuitive, subconscious way.

Yuula-shaped human piñata

MONDO: In the grander scheme of things, the Yoko Ono thing was mostly anonymous (no face, I think?). But your Clara dummies bear such a close resemblance to you. How do you feel about Clara? What’s it like to create — let alone be in a room with — several almost-Yuulas?

YB: It’s actually alright, kind of comforting. I’ve lived with them for long enough to get used to them. When I first moved them from the studio into the house, I felt really weird. I had to disassemble them at night. Not because I was afraid, but because I felt guilty to leave them alone for the night, in the dark living room. I also had to disassemble them for the sake of my roommates. It took some time, but now I’m able to see them for what they really are, which is rubber and stuffing. Now I treat them the way you would treat a favourite painting or photograph – with caution and familiarity.

There’s still (a very short) time! Yuula’s exhibition closes on August 30.

How the past informs the present

By Ben Robinson

My grandmother is a lover of men. She has been married five times. Three of those times, it was to someone named Bill. My dad’s name is Bill. Creepy.

Currently, she is married to a Bill. He has 20% of a stomach and a huge nose. Huge because when he was in the army, he got some polyps up there. A polyp is a row of beads. It kept him from breathing and stuff. You gotta breathe. Wise men once said, “You don’t breathe, you don’t live.” So he had to get those buggers taken out. So the army doctor reaches down into his nose and pulls out the polyps. The procedure permanently enlarged his nose. So he sits there on the Lazy Boy with his large belly – somehow bigger than his small television despite the fact that he only has 20% of his stomach intact – he sits there on the Lazy Boy, with his large nose, he sits there in front of the television, and when he’s awake, he talks about grandfatherly things.

Things like how things nowadays cost too much money. He bemoans the value of his house. “My house is worth $80,000! I wouldn’t give (sic) anyone $80,000 for my house!” Now keep in mind, this is a grandparent house, so it’s nothing fancy, but if this same house were sitting in Toronto, it would be worth at least $200,000. It’s got a decent front yard, a large backyard, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room, a spare room, a living room and a kitchen. It’s a good house. It ain’t got no internet (grrr) but one can’t complain when you are in grandma territory. Oh, by the way, did I mention the bomb shelter in the back yard? Alright, I’d make a joke about the absurdity of owning a bomb shelter, but bomb shelters are pretty cool.

He’s there on his Lazy Boy, watching the TV, and asks me if jobs are scarce in Canada. “No, not really…”, I edge. My mother comes to my defence.

“He doesn’t work because he has health problems…”

“Health problems!?” Then he remembers that I’ve been hospitalized five times for mental disturbances. “Well, jobs are scarce here. It’s the Mexicans. They’re taking all our jobs!”

My jaw drops. Did he actually say that? Do people actually say that outside of late-night television satires? I have encountered an endangered animal. The American Racist. I thought they had gone extinct, or were forced to live on the fringes of society. Perhaps I really do live in a bubble.

CNN comes on the TV. “Ack, that Barack Obama! I’m not voting. John McCain is just going to increase the price of gas and that Obama will get killed as soon as he’s elected.” Because he’s black. He’s not not voting for Obama because he’s black, but because he’ll be killed because he’s black. Sure, Grandpa. What’s the point? He’s just going to die anyway. In a way he’s standing up for the black man, because he’s keeping him from being killed. He’s keeping him safe.

The telephone rings. It’s his daughter, from another marriage. “What? Again?” His daughter doesn’t have a job, no doubt because the Mexicans took it. She needs more money to pay her bills. Apparently there’s not much of a social safety net in the United States. “Greatest nation on earth, I tell you those Japanese woke up a sleeping giant in WWII.” He’s mad as hell at his daughter for asking for more money. “What does she think I am? A bank? Geez, next time she calls her I’m going to tell her to put her mouth on a gun.” Oh yeah, that reminds me, I’m in America. Land of cheap guns.

While I am writing this, my grandmother just walked in to put some clothes away in this room. Can these Americans read my mind? Do they know what I am writing? By the time this is published I will be back in the safe arms of Canada. The safe arms of my girlfriend, where I will impregnate her with my half-American seed, and will raise big strong children who will leave Canada for France. 65 years from now, their children will come to Canada and post on their version of the internet (“Ah, grandpa Ben’s internet, what an antiquated notion”), about what a backward, perverse beast I am. Then they will ask to borrow $6.2 billion dollars to pay their cell phone bill, and I will fly into a dizzy rage because the Germans took all our jobs.

Pricks on the internet, please take note.

By Jenny Bundock

All my life I have been involved with charities, volunteer organizations, and activist groups. Nothing irks me more than the thought of some section of society’s needs falling to the wayside. I have a strong compulsion to help when I feel someone or something is being ignored. I come to you today with something that has been pressing me most of my life. I am talking about assholes, their lack of alternative activities, and their being pricks to the rest of us. It is this that has prompted me to start a community support group, called “Assholes Who Need Hobbies” or AWNH. The goal of this group is the regrouping and reassigning of assholes to tasks which neither affect nor bother the rest of us.

Ever since grade school, people have noticed the quality of their own lives improve once the assholes around them have a hobby. The kid that used to wail on me, for example, was passive and almost pleasant during free-play, when he could play ninja turtles in peace.

In high school, I again observed the powerful quality activities had on assholes when a dozen or more assholes suddenly were neutralized by hockey practice, and we were free to walk to our cars, lockers, and homes in peace. There were these hick assholes who used to throw pop cans at people on their way home for lunch unless they could hang around in the auto shop, and then everything was clear and safe.

Assholes need hobbies. They crave activities almost constantly. When assholes are not preoccupied with something they enjoy because it satisfies their propensity towards prickery, they turn said prickery outside their social group and everyone suffers. (The asshole suffers too, as an outcast, a pariah, and a spectacle of embarrassing, outlandish aggression.)

Now, there is one hobby that often gets supplemented as a sort of “self-medication” for assholes, and that is the internet. The fundamental problem with using the internet as a hobby for assholes is that the primary function of the internet for many people is social networking, either in the form of Facebook or Myspace, or message boards, forums, or comment sections. This does nothing to actually occupy the asshole, but rather allows them an efficient outlet that veils them in the safety of anonymity, thus eliminating our only recourse against the asshole, which is exclusion.

The real problem we face as a society trying to deal with assholes is that they have nowhere else to turn to meet people they can relate to, people who are total shit-heads like them. Previously they had organized sports, classes that everyone knew better than to take, weird clubs, or fraternities with hazing rituals. Now the only way for them to feel connected to their community is to branch out into ours, look for whoever else is making a belligerent idiot of themselves or calling strangers names, and join in.

This is why AWNH is so urgent a group right now. We need to start rallying behind these twits and encouraging them to gather into groups again. We need to then assign tasks to the groups that allow them to channel their superiority complexes, aggressive attitudes, macho-posturing, feigned intellectual superiority, and insecure soft cores towards a common goal – whether that be getting a ball into something, restoring a really crappy car no one else wants, winning at “Magic” cards, or drinking themselves into a coma while watching all of the American Pie movies. They need activities. We need them to have activities. It truly is win/win.

So next time you see someone being an asshole, instead of getting upset, think like an AWNH volunteer and recommend that they take up football and stop harassing the rest of us. In the meantime, let’s just hope that this charity gets off the ground before we have a real problem on our hands.

Give peace a chance.

Love, Jenny

A long awaited thank-you note to our shared extra parent.

By Shannyn Kornelsen

My partner and I indulged in cable.

There, I said it.

Judge if you will, call me a sellout, a hypocrite, a low-life noncreative who would rather waste my hours watching restaurant/home/people makeovers or CSI marathons than — well, anything else really.

Well we did it nonetheless, and I am a better person for it. Not only am I current in all things pop culture, which will help me survive many a Christmas or Easter visit with the family, but I have mastered the fine art of shutting off my mind. While many would argue (especially my Buddhist buddies) that this is actually rather damaging, I am quite confident that my overall stress levels have decreased after submitting to cable television. Put me on a poster, gimme the mic in a public school assembly — but I think cable is good for us.

Now, before you start ferociously responding — let me elaborate. I don’t think commercials are good for us. The no-money-down furniture outlet or Bounty quicker picker upper or Ford-planet-hater SUV monster cars have no place in my heart. I don’t think perpetuating unfair beauty standards for women and men or marketing to children is anything other than sick. (And this is when the mute button comes in real handy.)

I wouldn’t even go so far as to say 70% of the shows on television are particularly good for us. But I think we forget the original reason for television: It is bloody enjoyable!

No, Jack Bauer doesn’t demonstrate interrogation tactics in agreement with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights — but neither does the US government! It doesn’t make for good entertainment to have Jack Bauer as anything other than an automaton of the American government. You aren’t supposed to like or believe in anything that the characters are doing. It is supposed to be fun! A theatre in your living room. Will Grissom be cited at the dinner table? Probably not, but that does not mean that what he offers you is less valuable. A 44-minute brain nap while you kick back and watch beautiful crime scene investigators collect the bloody jigsaw puzzle pieces of a glamorized homicide? Or double suicide? Or seeming suicide with homicidal undertones? Come on!

Let us compare television with food. You know that you should eat twelve servings of fruits and veggies a day, and maybe you usually do, or at least pretty close. Let’s say that fruit and veggies are your books, shows, lectures, art exhibits, or plays. Or if you’re more of an outdoorser, they’re your hikes, canoe trips, your gardening. Your metaphorical fruits and veggies serving is really any socially acceptable form of higher learning and meaningful entertainment. Cable and the gifts it offers are your desserts, and within this we could go even a step further.

While a show like Weeds or Six Feet Under is a homemade artisan crème brûlée, CSI or Law and Order: SVU may pass for a café-quality chocolate cake. Maybe if the episode is good. And while CSI may be a decent enough piece of cake, the show 24 is a chocolate sundae from Dairy Queen. While you may never see yourself interacting with said thing, when it finally happens, you have to admit you do kind of enjoy it.

This is how we need to look at television. It does not make sense to shun channels like Discovery, History or National Geographic in an all encompassing generalization of cable being for losers like me. It makes even less sense however, to put your children in front of it, as a virtual babysitter — though I attest to this day that it made me the person I am. My friend Jenny and I distinguish the “cable/neighbourhood kids” from the “camp kids.” While the camp kids had counsellors, brightly coloured infrastructure, an endless supply of Crayola crayons and construction paper — neighbourhood kids had Nintendo, cable television, a city block, and a note with lunch details left on the counter. If we were particularly unlucky, we also had an uninterested teenage babysitter whose entire goal for the summer was to finally get to second base.

Point being — we were left on our own, to shape our own world view. And sometimes cable gave us the ability to critically assess things from the safety of our living room. We learned that walking up to a stranger’s car when he asks directions is going to end with the resounding “Bom Bom” and a bunch of cops from Law and Order standing over your mangled tween corpse, wondering where your Mom was when you were talking to strangers. Teen pregnancy, gang violence, all the things a child really needs to know in a rural community in Ontario — cable gave it to us.

Sometimes cable would jump start our own creative endeavours, as I remember many a day that I would get a bit cocky, turn off Ghostwriter [word!] and decide I could write a much better story. Or my cousin Rebecca and I would pretend we hosted our own talk show in my backyard. We were a self-sufficient little group of neighbourhooders, we were.

In a way, cable raised me (sorry Mom). And I don’t think I’m worse off for it. I can do crosswords faster, I’m a Trivial Pursuit whiz, I learned to multi-task (eating while watching television), and I can still beat almost everyone I know at the original Mario Brothers on Nintendo. More than anything though, cable was an escape for me, when my small town felt too small and I needed to remind myself that an entire world — from the dark ocean depths explored on the Discovery channel, to the bitchy cliques of Beverly Hills on 90210 — was waiting for me to explore it, and then re-explore it years later in syndication.

Miles’ Book

Jack of Fables #25
Written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges
Pencilled by Russ Braun
Vertigo, 2008

Sometimes the first page of a book is enough to know that you’re going to love it. In this case, a strikingly composed shot of a woman in white sitting in a room, introducing the story with humourous narration, while a painting of the page sits above her left shoulder, and in that picture there’s the page and so on to infinity. In one page, with its combination of quirky and crafted, I knew that I was in the right hands.

Luckily, I knew enough about the Fables universe not to be intimidated by the curious mix of fairy tale and human characters intermingling. I must admit, I’m not following Vertigo’s flagship book at the moment. Many would call this a serious lapse in my judgement, but I just didn’t get into it the first time I tried. I don’t know anything about these characters from what little I have read of Fables, and in particular I don’t remember Jack, but, honestly I didn’t need to – there was enough good in this issue for me not to care about the past.

First, the art is to my taste: it’s clean and thoughtful; his characters are expressive and district; but, most impressively, the characters who are cartoons don’t look cartoony. There’s a respect for all the fables, animal or man. It’s touching, really. And I must plug that opening page again because it’s so wonderful.

But the real highlight is the witty script. A friend of mine called Jack of Fables “fun, silly stuff” but I don’t agree with that. It’s fun, for sure, but the word “silly” undermines the cleverness of the story and dialogue. It’s a well crafted comic and I really should address that lack of judgement problem I have when it comes to Fables.

Isaac’s Book

Ultimate Iron Man Vol. 2 #5
Written by Orson Scott Card
Art by Pasqual Ferry and Leonardo Manco
Colours by Dave McCaig
Marvel Comics, 2008

It’s important to keep in mind that Orson Scott Card is more of a novelist than a comic book writer when reading this book. In novels, you can write ten pages describing a scene to the reader, capturing our imagination, and leading us carefully forward in the story; in comics, there’s an image and an artist (or two) to convey the scene. So in this issue of Ultimate Iron Man, without the descriptive buffer zone a novel would have between action scenes, we’re left with non-stop action.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing — no one wants a really slow story to follow — but it does result in a very different pacing to this comic than you’ll find in most anything else on the shelves. Although, I haven’t read the previous four issues in this series and couldn’t say if this pacing irregularity is consistent. It is also possible that Card is just in a rush to accomplish everything in the story that needs to happen for this to be the miniseries’ last issue. I prefer my first guess, which gives Card the benefit of the doubt.

I love Pasqual Ferry as an artist; there’s a youthful energy to everything he does, which was a great fit for Ultimate Fantastic Four, his run on Superboy (back in the day), and yes, this incarnation of Iron Man who is a very young guy playing the hero in the suit. A problem though is that, with so much happening, often the scene changes without getting a chance to really see what’s around at that moment; it’s the quickest glance at emotion, or the setting, before we run off somewhere else. It can be pretty limiting for the artists to work that way. Sure are a lot of cool drawings of Iron Man though.

Speaking of cool drawings of Iron Man: the cover. Non-ultimate Iron Man doesn’t need a gun, his suit is weapon enough for anything, and the same is really true for the Ultimate version. Then why does Ultimate Iron Man have a sweet looking gun on the cover of this comic? Because it’s awesome! I know I wouldn’t argue with his choice of accessories.

This was a really cool comic, but if they could have slowed things down a bit, maybe made an issue six in this miniseries, spent some more time with cool sci-fi settings, it could have been more. Really cool cover though.

James’ Book

Black Panther #40
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Jefete Palo and Lee Loughridge
Marvel Comics, 2008

Black Panther always suffered from “Superman Syndrome” in my eyes, inasmuch as he seems to have a dearth of flaws. The perfect king of a perfect nation, he doesn’t even have a kryptonite allergy. That said, by the second page of this issue, I wanted to move to Wakanda. Why? Because apparently, the military uniform there is a panther costume. That’s right, not only does their king dress like a panther, but every single soldier does too. If I had known that, I would have been reading Black Panther since it’s relaunch.

I want you to think about how awesome this idea is for just a minute longer. Think about the psychological brilliance of having every single soldier dress like a giant cat. Think about seeing that on a battlefield. It’s no wonder Wakanda won every war it ever fought. I’d start killing my own men if I saw that.

This issue takes that level of rad from the second page and carries it pretty well through the whole thing. The main plot follows the Black Panther fighting a couple new Super-Skrulls. The main event has the powers of Wolverine, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Bullseye, and Moon Knight. And by Moon Knight powers, I mean he has some crescent darts. Also, though it does nothing but announce his power, he has Bullseye’s bullseye on his forehead. Like I said, rad.

Aside from the ridiculous parts, I really enjoyed how Black Panther fought smart in this issue. Something you learn in even the most basic writing class is to show, not tell. By having T’Challa take down the Moon-Skrull with his wits, Aaron lets us infer everything we need to know about the character. It’s a nice, quick way to reinforce what we know about the protagonist.

There’s a definite animation influence in the art. It has a nice, simple look, that, when taken with the stark backgrounds and the solid colours, evokes a fable. It’s a good fit for the book, and actually might be my favorite part of it. And I’ll say this for Palo: he can draw one hell of a panther soldier.

"The wonders of nature collided with modern art during the whole of the concert."

Radiohead with Grizzly Bear
at the Molson Amphitheatre
August 15th, 2008

By Alice Moran
Photographs by Bernardo Pacheco

You have to be a pretty diehard fan to endure standing on a hill in thunder and lightning, with mud sliding down on you non-stop. Thankfully, this was a Radiohead concert.

Lighting crashed all around the Molson Amphitheatre while Grizzly Bear opened the night (by simply introducing themselves as “the opening act” and playing on with nothing more). Fans with lawn seating huddled together under ponchos, blankets, and garbage bags that generous vendors had handed out freely. By the midpoint, the sun had come out and two perfect rainbows arched across the horizon, as if the powers that be wanted to let the fans know that the rain was meant for the CNE rather than the Radiohead concert. Grizzly Bear were blissful, despite the weather — and the hordes of fans who chose to keep dry and skip their performance. Toronto’s show was their last on tour with Radiohead, and they seemed more focused on taking in the moment rather than hyping their album. Their cover of the Carole King-penned tune “He Hit Me (It Felt like a Kiss)” was a personal highlight, and the beat was perfectly timed to the slow trickle of the last bit of rain.

"... two perfect rainbows arched across the horizon, as if the powers that be wanted to let the fans know that the rain was meant for the CNE rather than the Radiohead concert."

Obviously, Radiohead was phenomenal. They cut out the clichéd, awkward between-song dialogue between band and audience, and instead focused on delivering the most intense music fans could hope for. The 25-song set list was absolutely perfect, giving fans a generous mix of everything: “There There,” “Morning Bell,” and “Planet Telex.” I found myself lost in “No Surprises,” and couldn’t help but gently sway, in the sea of studded belts and hipster scarves.

More astonishingly, they didn’t perform any of the overplayed Radiohead songs (“Creep,” “Karma Police,” “Just”) — much to the dismay of the preteen girls behind me, who seemed only to care for those three. Long-time fans of the band were rewarded with old gems like “Talk Show Host,” which you may remember from the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack.

Radiohead’s stage setup consisted of a stage-wide panoramic screen and dozens of rectangular lights dangling above the band’s heads. The screen allowed everyone a closeup of the music-makers: for instance, a tight overhead shot of the drumkit during “There There” that highlighted Phil Selway’s amazing drumming.

The wonders of nature collided with modern art during the whole of the concert. During Radiohead’s finale, dozens of seagulls spontaneously flew from the back of the stage out towards Lake Ontario. Combined with the unbelievable light show taking place onstage, the birds seemed to catch each colour as they flew off toward the full moon.

There’s no praise that could be written about this band that wouldn’t be rehashing what music fans have known for years. They’re simply one of the best bands out there.

Sleepercar
West Texas
Civil Defense League Records, 2008

By Nathan Hoffman

As if founding an independent record label wasn’t a daunting enough task! Sparta frontman Jim Ward managed to top it with the release of the debut album from side project Sleepercar. Released on the newly launched label, Civil Defense League Records, West Texas is a collection of alt-country and Americana songs. The disc may be a shock to some fans who expect another Sparta record. But that isn’t a bad thing, as the songs hold their own by giving listeners a new perspective on Ward’s delicious musical taste. The crunchy distortion, delay-infused guitars, and growling yells of Sparta have been traded in for acoustic and pedal steel guitars, pianos, electric organs, and soothing, low-key harmonies.

Sleepercar has been a seven-year-long venture for Ward, which began during a sound check in Japan while playing at At The Drive-In. While messing around on his guitar, he wrote the opening notes to what would become the song “Fences Down,” which features slide guitar and Americana piano that makes you want to pull out your cowboy hat, hop on your steed, and head south. During brief moments of solitude while touring with Sparta, and down time at his home in Texas, Ward continued writing songs and eventually had enough material to cut a record with a few pals: West Texas features guitar and farfisa played by Ross Godfrey from Morcheeba and vocals by Maura Davis from Denali.

The opening track, “A Broken Promise,” is a musically upbeat song with just the right amount of cynicism. What sounds like an effects-laden triangle at the beginning is quickly replaced by the sort of guitar lick that’s usually found in your typical ska song, but it actually fits in nicely. With quiet vocals and single notes picked on an acoustic guitar, “Wednesday Night” is a gorgeous, well-crafted song that could put newborns to sleep at night.

A couple songs are more forgettable than others: “Wasting My Time” is just that and is my least favourite song on the disc. The fuzzy effects on the guitars just don’t seem to fit the laid-back country feeling of the rest. But West Texas is generally an impressive debut that’s perfect for people who enjoy the calm just as much as the storm.

Well, I guess it could be both

You see what they did there with the letters. Pretty clever, Playstation Network

By Miles Baker

When Masthead magazine, the magazine about Canadian magazines, reviews a new publication they always base it on at least three issues. So, I figure, if it’s good enough for Masthead, it’s good enough for me.

Introduced in June 2008, Qore is a download-only, Playstation Network-only magazine about all things Playstation. It features HD video; interviews with developers about upcoming PS3 and PSP games; and a downloads section where you can get exclusive game demos, wallpapers, and beta trials. This would all be great if it wasn’t a pack of lies.

There is HD video, but it is so compressed that often backgrounds are so pixelated that it looks like they are filming inside a building made of Lego. There are interviews, but they feature puff questions like, “So how much are gamers going to wet themselves when they play this?” and the developer says, “They’re going to need buckets.” You can download some “exclusive” demos and beta trials, but all the beta offers are bogus in that you can’t download them yet. You can sometime in the future, I guess, but not when that issue comes out.

Speaking of downloading, what a pain in the ass. As the file is between 1.3 and 1.8 gigabytes, it takes a few hours to download. I’m not sure why the file is so big; there’s only about 30 minutes of video content in each issue, which makes the “time to get” versus the “amount of time enjoyed” ratio extremely small.

There are also some serious problems with editorial/advertising splits. In print magazines, if you have an article about an advertiser, you try to put that article far away from their ad so it doesn’t look like it was bought by the advertiser. Qore, however, is uninterested in this. In the most recent issue, between interviews about the latest off-road racing game, I was treated to an ad for that exact same off-road racing game. It just reeks of bought content so I stopped watching the rest of the feature.

To be fair, there are signs that Qore will get better. For one, the pixie-cute host is getting better and has begun to ask questions that aren’t soft. It really was the perfect casting on Sony’s part; Veronica Belmont is perfectly girl next door — pretty, but not too pretty. And she knows her stuff and seems genuinely enthusiastic about some of the titles she profiles, which is good.

One thing, and maybe call me crazy, is I think this magazine could benefit from writing. As in, I’d actually like to read parts of Qore. For example, I think it would be cool if there was a feature about how a game is shaping up, with some video of that game used to illustrate the point of the article. There are tons of examples of this online, and I think it would also work here. This would also solve that slim-30-minute-watching-time-for-such-a-large-file problem I was talking about because text is smaller than video. It might also help me feel like I didn’t just swallow a heaping bowl of self promotion.

Newspapers and magazines are looking hard at the future of their mediums. They’ve reacted to the internet by offering video, adding comments, and whatever Web 2.0 they can wrap their heads around. I’ve even heard that some major newspapers are sending their reporters out with video cameras so they can have more video content online. But mostly, they have a keen eye on digital distribution because it’s ever so cheap. Qore presents the model that magazines have feared for so long, but Qore is nothing be be feared. It’s nothing to be bought.

And you thought he'd have regular clothes or ribs under there, you were wrong.

Miles’ Book

Amazing Spider-man #568
Written by Dan Slott
Penciled by John Romita Jr.
Inked by Klaus Janson
Marvel Comics, 2008

I’ve talked a couple times about this series, but to recap I generally like Amazing Spider-man in 2008. With the exception of Bob Gale’s issues, which are cheese-filled and I no longer buy, the series has been telling fun Spider-man stories and sticking to a fantastic three-times-a-month schedule. And I swear to readers of this column, this issue was chosen for me by the random number generator and not by an editor looking to comment on the biggest Spider-man story since the devil ate his marriage.

The hype has been building for months: the return of Spidey’s classic villains, the return of Norman Osborn, the return of Venom, the return of John Romita Jr. You see, common reader, superhero comic book readers like it when characters return over and over again, and then we like to complain that they’ve returned too many times; it’s our thing, make peace with it. The surprising, and great, thing about all these elements returning to the series is that they don’t feel like they came out of nowhere. It really is a continuation of the many, many plot threads that the writers of Amazing Spider-man have laid down, and it looks like many of them are about to pay off.

Slott has a real mastery over Peter Parker inside and outside of the costume. Peter’s character, especially, is well-written in this issue: you get to see him act like a smart man for a change. He goes to his friends for help, he listens to their advice, and he does the right thing right away, instead of doing a few douchebag-y things first. It’s refreshing. He’s getting it together. Of course some things are going to fall apart, and that brings you to the nice cliffhanger at the end of this issue, but it was nice to feel proud of Peter and not shake your head at him in the interim.

Speaking of shaking your head at someone, prepare to do it at me — I don’t like Romita’s art. I know he’s a superstar but I don’t get why. His art has its moments, but there are too many inconsistencies from panel to panel. That said, for Romita, I think this is a good issue. You can tell he took his time with it (his style is often called “the deadline style,” meaning that he was good with whatever he got out in time for deadline). Most of the characters have a unique look to them, and he’s working on strong panel composition. I have a couple of nitpicks, but that’s exactly what they are so they aren’t worth mentioning.

So, I think if you like Spider-man and are making a trip to the comic-book store, you should buy this series. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but its batting average is really good. In general, it features good writing and better art. Forget about the insult that was Brand New Day and give Spidey a try. Come on, you know I’m good for it, you know the web head’s good for it, what’s the problem?

A Classic in the Making

Isaac’s Book

Guardians of the Galaxy #4
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Pencilled by Paul Pelletier
Marvel Comics, 2008

I get tired of the introductory page a lot of Marvel comics have these days. The graphic on the Avengers: Secret Invasion tie-in stuff hurts to looks at, all swirly and magic-eye-like. And in my more cynical moments, the intro comes across as nothing more than a way to package and sell a graphic novel before it actually becomes such.

In my opinion, the paradigm of a “classic” comic doesn’t need any intro, it tells you everything you need to know in that issue as you go along. Often this results in cheesy, expository dialogue, which I love. With a little luck you may even end up with asterisks in your word balloons that lead to editor’s notes in boxes, which then tell you how “It’s true! It happened in issue such and such!”

There is just such an asterisk to be found in Guardians of the Galaxy.

The first thing you see when you open up Guardians of the Galaxy issue four? A punch is thrown, followed by a retaliatory shield to the face. That’s pretty awesome. The third physical page of this issue is a “what has happened before” intro page, so if you love it, it is in fact there, but it has no bearing on this issue whatsoever. I read the pages around it, find it seamless, and concluded that the inclusion of the intro page was an editorial mandate that serves no purpose in the issue. I don’t need to know about the Guardians fighting with the Universal Church of Truth in the previous issue, cool though it may have been, when it has nothing to do with this issue at all. It never comes up; the characters have more than enough trouble walking down the halls without getting attacked by crazy-looking aliens to bother going back to fighting off this Universal Church business.

But you know what else is on that intro page? Little pictures of the main characters’ faces with their names written underneath. Knowing who your heroes are is pretty important for a comic book, and it can be difficult for a team book to get across, so this is a pretty classic touch that I’m glad to see. It could only have been better if the faces had been plastered along the border of the page with this issue’s opening title and credits, which happened to be a page with a giant explosion! Maybe if they did that in the new New Warriors comic I would still be buying it. Though it would probably still suck. Anyways…

I love this character Star-Lord, he’s like what the storm troopers would look like if they were created by the rebel alliance — and he’s the team leader! I dared not hope for that, but he is! He’s not even a jerk of a leader — he seems like a cool guy. I’m quite happy about that. Plus, while defending one of his teammates (a temporally displaced Lance Astro, from the original Guardians of the Galaxy comic!), he says, “Touch him again and I’ll turn that baton into a concealed weapon.”

Oh, now I get that.

The Abnett and Lanning team just does great comics. I’ve been picking up their Nova book (though I missed the last issue for some reason), and it’s great, and I would have loved to get their large Annihilation books if I had money.

What I’m saying is, if YOU have money, you should get this stuff.

I don't get it. I mean, they didn't even get on a plane or a train in this issue.

James’ Book

X-Men: First Class #15
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Karl Kesel and Val Staples
Marvel Comics, 2008 

I think you could probably replace Fist Class with Adventures in the title of this book and no one would really notice. That’s not a bad thing. Parker gives us a nice, self-contained issue with a simple plot that takes place in-between classic Fantastic Four stories. It’s a little slight, but, hey, it’s a kid’s book — right? 

That said, it does have some decent character insights that you might not expect. Young Iceman shows that he’s always been an insensitive jerk with a tirade against women drivers, and we’re shown the first seeds of Angel’s deep-seated fear of commitment. Sure, they’re treated as joke, but us adults know the truth. 

Speaking of jokes, this issue is pretty funny. My favorite touch is the way Medusa, this issue’s very special guest star, used her giant opposable hair for everything. From pouring tea to opening doors, it was like she didn’t have hands. It felt like a nice throwback to the days where a character was completely defined by their powers. 

This book actually reminded me of the Adventures books Marvel and DC put out in the 90s along with their animated series. Karl Kesel’s clean, unremarkable art also feels like a throwback to those days. Again, I mean that as a compliment. Kesel’s not going to win an Eisner for this issue, but he presents the story well. 

Obviously, I don’t wish every book was this simple and lighthearted, but it’s a nice reprieve from more serious fare. And it’s nice to know there are still books out there for kids.

Steph Perkins is an organized thinker. She is living proof that even the most organized among us enjoy occasionally employing a phrase like “cock sock.” Trust her advice.

Q: I’m a single guy trying out the dating scene, and I’m having trouble scoring. I like to think I’m handsome and sufficiently engaging; I can be pretty shy, however, and I’m not really the type to hit on someone. Any tips on how I can go about getting a lady, or at the very least a night of fun with a girl looking for the same thing?

Oh you poor sods. I’ve been out in the scene too, and I’ve been watching you, and I’ve been listening to you, and yes I’m pretty sure I can help you guys score. To maybe, in turn, even help me score. Like, you can pay this forward. Help me help you, help you help me. Got it?

It’s frustrating seeing you guys struggle. Single girls are easy to get, waaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy. Trust me. Being shy isn’t going to get you laid. It’s just not. I guess it’s cute and everything, and I mean if you want to take your sweet ass time and risk the chick getting bored and wandering off to seek bone elsewhere that’s your choice, but satisfaction is just so much more likely if you use your balls. ME TAKE YOU DINNER. Give it a shot. We’re nice you know, and we’re experts on the male ego too, so even if we’re not into it I promise no one’s gonna kick your nuts in. What have you got to lose? Another lonely night with your cock sock? Your pride? It’s overrated. And just think, every time you practice hitting on someone your game improves. And yes, your game NEEDS improving.

Pretty much the only way you can screw it up is by being a creep. Don’t lurk and don’t stare. Try, “How are you liking the tunes tonight?” as opposed to “Your ass is ripe.” Also, if the girl you’ve got your eye on at the bar appears to be having a balls-out girl fest that night you might wanna let that one go — we don’t tend to take kindly to some random dude moonwalking into the middle of our dance circle.

And another thing, if you’re interested in someone, you have got to go out on a limb and be OBVIOUS. Frankly speaking, we don’t have time for wishy-washy and we don’t have the patience for deciphering any ambiguous advances. To put it as romantically as possible — shit or get off the pot. Coy is fun for about five seconds. It’s pretty simple — you want it, GO FOR IT, you don’t, tell your story walkin’.

Here’s a little secret from the enigmatic world of the single female — *most* of us are a sure thing. I’m sure I’m offending some percentage of my population when I say that but whatevs, single people want to get laid, period, it’s biological.

So just loosen up man!

By Miles Baker

Two weeks ago I wrote a review of 100 Girls by Adam Gallardo and Todd Demong. The day after, Adam Gallardo linked to it on his blog and posted his reaction. One thing led to another and we sat down last week across time zones to talk about the book, reactions, and violence in comics.

MONDO: Can you talk a bit about how 100 Girls started; what was the first inspiration?

Adam Gallardo: Primarily, I wanted to create a series that someone would want to publish. Not very lofty, but there it is. Secondly, I wanted to create a series that featured a strong female main character. Something that’s lacking in mainstream comics, I think. So I Iooked to sci-fi films, which do a pretty good job of portraying woman. Films and TV shows like Alien, Terminator, and Buffy served as major inspiration.

MONDO: Were there any series that you looked at as missed opportunities or as “Yes! That! More of that”?

AG: I really liked Y: The Last Man, which I think actually started after we started publishing 100 Girls. Or around the same time at least. That’s a series that has no choice but to feature strong female characters. Greg Rucka’s work, White Out and Queen & Country, and Jim Rugg’s Street Angel also stand out.

MONDO: One of the reasons we’re sitting here right now is because you saw my review and posted this response: “The review’s author takes issue with both the pacing of and the violence in the comic. I wonder if he’d believe that I take issue with both of those things, too.” So let’s talk about that. Sylvia becomes pretty violent pretty quick — what was your thinking behind that?

AG: The violence in the story and Sylvia’s reaction to it play a large in the stories that are to come and I hope that readers will stick with it through the end to see the grand (or not-so-grand) plan that I have in mind. They both serve a purpose and aren’t just there because they look cool.

MONDO: Did you think anyone would have the reaction that I did, or worry about the reader’s ability to relate to Sylvia?

AG: I think it’s entirely possible. And I’d welcome that discussion, actually. You are the first person, however, to point it out. In a review that I’ve seen, anyway.

MONDO: Is part of it to show how Sylvia was bred to be a weapon? And were you at all worried about getting caught in any women-as-weapons clichés?

AG: I guess I’m not familiar with the woman-as-weapon cliché. I’m used to women in comics being either vixens or victims. And the rest of the question will be answered in the fullness of time.

MONDO: I took a horror film class where we looked a lot at female sexuality and motherhood as the elements that drive the horror, which I was trying to get at, but this segues nicely into talking about your main antagonist.

AG: Hit me with it!

MONDO: I thought Dr. Carver was a really well-rounded villain; were you conscious of bad mothers creating monsters — we see that a lot in movies like Psycho and a plethora of other horror movies.

AG: I think I see her as a stand in for a corporate sell-out, actually. Peter Chase, her male counterpart and lover, is guilty of the same things she is, remember, but you’re not asking about him being a father that has created monsters. If anything, Tabitha is the individual who is willing to sell her soul in order to get ahead. Of course, she has qualms about it.

MONDO: I thought Chase was a great character too — and their affection for each other really sold me on them. In a way, you gave your antagonists the more human story in this book. Was that your way of dividing the reader’s sympathies?

AG: I wasn’t trying to do that consciously, but I see how you could take it that way. With Chase and Tabitha, I just wanted to explore their characters. I had no interest in making them one-dimensional characters that were only evil. So, I guess I could say that they ended up the way they are because I had more fun writing them that way.

The first cover to 100 Girls when it was published serially by Arcana Studio

MONDO: Switching gears a bit, one thing you said over at Girl-Wonder.org was that you didn’t want to hyper-sexualize Sylvia — which I think you do a good job of — but why does she spend the last third of the story wearing a shirt that says, “Porn”? I found that a bit of an odd choice.

AG: Oh, that damned shirt! When I had Sylvia dressing in Carla’s trailer, I wanted Carla to be the kind of girl who you see nowadays who wears really inappropriate things at too young an age. So in the script I told Todd to put her in a shirt that said something inappropriate, like “Porn” or something. And there it was. And given the fact that the last three or four issues all take place over such a short period of time, there was no time to stop the action and say, “Hold on while I change out of this shirt that annoys Adam so very much.”

MONDO: That’s hilarious. I was going to ask you about some of your work-for-hire writing: what’s it like getting to write Star Wars comics?

AG: It was exciting to have that be my first published work. The approvals process on the plot outline was a bit of a bear, but once that was done, the process of writing the script just breezed through.

MONDO: One series I saw that you did was a bit “mirror” universe kind of thing. Did you get to write out any of your story frustrations in the originals?

AG: Really the only thing that I changed out of a sense of frustration was the Ewoks. There is like 90% less Ewok in my story. And I made them murderous little guys, too!

MONDO: Any plans/hopes to get to cover Episodes I through III?

AG: Umm, no. Not really.

MONDO: I know I want to re-write them. If you ever hear about that gig pass it on to me — I have ideas.

AG: Done.

MONDO: With 100 Girls, has there been something that you think people missed or “why has no one asked me about that?”

AG: The violence thing was one. And another reviewer last week picked up on the theme of choices. I was surprised it took so long for both those things to surface.

N.E.R.D.
Seeing Sounds
Interscope, 2008

By Sajae Elder

In 2002, when N.E.R.D. released their debut album, In Search Of…, for the second time, it was damn near flawless. The reworking with live instrumentation by the band Spy-Mob gave it a new edge, since the core members (Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shay Haley) stated they didn’t have time to play live for their debut album. Unfortunately, the group stumbled through their sophomore release, Fly or Die, to much less critical acclaim.

Luckily, the former high school band geeks have been working on their playing chops for Seeing Sounds. While Pharrell provides lead vocals and piano and shares the drums with Shay, Chad plays lead guitar and a pretty mean saxophone. Also, aside from their usual hip hop/rock/soul/funk fare, the band did some crate digging in the drum ‘n’ bass section.

The album is based on the idea that when your sense of hearing is taken away, you can still understand music with your other four senses, though mainly with sight. Somehow this inspires songs that play out like three-minute stories and touch on subjects such as the state of the world, being a peeping tom, friends with benefits, and girls who can’t take a hint.

As with their previous work, the band steered clear of the formulaic synth and bassline-heavy sound perfected by members Williams and Hugo in their production work as The Neptunes, favouring a far more colourful and eclectic palette of largely rock-inspired songs. Standout tracks like “You Know What” channel lead singer Pharrell’s inner-soul god, and Chad’s penchant for producing funk-laden beats shines through. “Sooner or Later” is on the edgier end of the album’s spectrum, with guitar riffs lacing between Pharrell’s purposely off-kilter falsetto. The jazzy “Yeah You” sounds like somebody pissed off Thelonius Monk, with bitter yet brilliant results.

Lyrically, you either love the imagery or you hate it. Or don’t get it. While most succeed, the metaphors on “Love Bomb” sound like the awkward ramblings of someone getting high for the first time. But if the chorus of “Anti-Matter” doesn’t get stuck in your head, you have a brain made of Teflon.

Although Seeing Sounds has minor drawbacks, N.E.R.D. continues to seamlessly fuse genres into one all their own, and this album delivers. Gym Class Heroes, take notes.