This is the second of the pinky violence flicks I got recently, along with Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams, while trying (hopelessly) to fill the missing slots in my collection. The films and series are difficult to keep track of, but I’ve made an attempt (trust me ~60%): this movie is from the Girl Boss series with Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto, which includes two Girl Boss Blues entries. It is different than the Delinquent Girl Boss series with Reiko Oshida, which, though that series contains a “reform school” entry, is different than the Terrifying Girls’ High School series with Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto. And these have nothing to do with Delinquent Girl Boss from the Stray Cat Rock series.
Continue reading Girl Boss: RevengeEgregious lies believed by those in technology
Over the past few years, probably longer, I’ve encountered in the tech industry many too many people who are technologists in name only who believe ideas that even 12-year-old me, wide-eyed at Erich von Daniken‘s wondrous mania (which fancifully inspires my music), would have been embarrassed to admit. These are generally older individuals, sadly my age, and not any of the new kids coming into tech. That’s cause for hope. But old white men are still force majeure and so quirky flaws are amplified.
Continue reading Egregious lies believed by those in technologyNotes: Outlaw of Gor
I just watched this on MST3K. Their marathon station on PlutoTV (channel 385) is constantly on in the background when I work from home, and so it often bleeds over to the weekends. The humor of the series is not as frequent as when I originally watched in college, but the banter between Joel, Mike, and the robots is like TV comfort food. Even just looking over to see Crow gab at the screen can lighten an oppressive day. That charm is their staying power.
There were 35 books from 1966 to this 2019 (!), and two movies: Gor (1987) and Outlaw of Gor (1988). The books are well known for their S&M and misogyny and are an egregious rip-off of both Conan the Barbarian and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series. The latter is pretty dated and contains its own “quaint” views of women, but those views are explained by the early 20th century publishing date. The Gor novels began being published during the heyday of 2nd wave feminism, so they are more of a push toward for a more subservient time rather than a “grandpa just doesn’t know better” moment.
The main character is a college professor (Tarl Cabot) who gets transported to a parallel Earth that is stuck in some Conan world. There, he becomes a brave warrior saving/having his way with slave women and generally alpha-maling it up. The author (John Norman) of the books is a college professor (John Frederick Lange, Jr.) who has decidedly not been transported to the land of subservient slave women, but can at least Mary Sue his way there.
Reading randomly through the Goodreads reviews, I found Jason Pettus’s review of Outlaw, which linked to his review of Tarnsman, the first Gor novel, and why he started reading them. He had been the owner of the now defunct Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, author of a few books, but took on the noble task of experiencing all that is Gor. Or at least all he can stomach:
I’ve decided to finally tackle John Norman’s infamously sexist series of “Gor” S&M erotic fantasy novels, which I first developed a fascination for in 2006 when I spent a year playing Second Life, and met a group of literally hundreds of people (men and women, young and old) who were there specifically to persistently roleplay in a Gorean setting 24 hours a day, in some cases to supplement a quasi-Gorean lifestyle they were living in real life as well. I’m basically going to be reading as many of the books as I can stand before I get sick of it all (I doubt I will make it through all 34 [ed. now 35] of them)
Links for reference:
- Goodreads
- Goodreads (book series)
- IMDB (Gor)
- IMDB (Outlaw of Gor)
- Wikipedia (movie)
- Wikipedia (book series)
Bonus: their song about the almost-nudity in the film.
Tom Servo: Hey fellows, there sure is a lot of skin in this movie.
Mike: There sure is!
Crow T. Robot: Yet despite all the acres of flesh in this film, I just can’t come up with a word to describe it.
TS: Well I can!
CTR: You can?!
TS: Sure…
High Art ensues:
Update 30 Jan 2020:
I couldn’t help myself because I’m a 14-year-old boy:
Tom Servo:
Iiiiiit’s
Breastica boobical
Chestica mamical
Pendular globular fun.Mike Nelson:
Fleshical orbital
Mombula scupula?TS:
Right, all of that’s the one!Crow T. Robot:
Is it guleal maximal
Tushical crackula
Buniona morning till night?TS
Well you’re absito glandular
Fanny fantastical
Mastica fleshular right!All:
It’s an aereological auto-erotical
Tubular boobular joy.
An exposular regional
Vagical pouchular
Fun for a girl and boy.
Oh it’s sisimal dorsical
Hung like a horsical
Calavaligical ball!CTR:
The most bunula funula…MTN:
Fruita baloobula…CTR:
Frenchical toungular…TS:
Wabida boobular…(unintelligible closing chorus while Tom Servo sings:)
Bunula funula
Fruita baloobula
Frenchical toungular
Wabida boobular…
Orchestral Study #11 (a crowd, disassembled)
- Orchestral Study #1 (flowing and hymn-like)
- Orchestral Study #2 (driving and chaotic)
- Orchestral Study #3 (adagio with melisma)
- Orchestral Study #4 (allegro)
- Orchestral Study #5 (variations)
- Orchestral Study #6 (space)
- Orchestral Study #7 (dialogue)
- Orchestral Study #8 (toccata)
- Orchestral Study #9 (seven interludes)
- Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)
- Orchestral Study #11 (a crowd, disassembled)
- Orchestral Study #12 (thesis)
My original intent (which, if all previous intentions are any model, was destined to be diverted) was to open with quiet statements, work to a “tapestry of sound,” then return to a variation on the initial statements. I saw a horizontal shape, expanding and then returning.
I watched Berg’s Wozzek when I was in the middle of the piece (needing the insight but contradictorally worried that it would dilute any originality), and was reminded of its brilliance. I know many of the melodies from college but it’s also notable theatrically. It did end up giving me some ideas to break out from repeated-eighth-note lines and try to be more rhythmically varied.
- Theme A in eighth notes, varying between 2/8, 3/8, and 4/8, with the melody in flutes, oboes, and violins.
- Theme B as a chord progression, transitions blurred with exaggerated anticipations and suspensions and non-harmonic tones (of a sort, without a reference key). Melodic decorations in the winds as call and response or a shared melody, ending with repeated note decorations.
- Theme C as melodic chattering, call/response/shared melody between winds and strings.
- Theme A repeated, modified with extended phrases injected.
- Theme B repeated, modified with extended chords at the end. Repeated note melodic decorations.
- A short canon.
- Theme C repeated in style, but with a single voice, spaces left for the absence participants.
(ABCABC)
I am starting to be more conscious of when I need to let silences and scarcity fill a statement. It takes close listening to know when and where those silences need placed. I’m better at not letting percussion take over a section. Less/more and all that.
Next up: The last one. I honestly have no idea what direction I’ll go. Although it sounds silly, a new piece every month has been somewhat exhausting. I think about Wozzek (and am now re-watching Berg’s Lulu, produced by William Kentridge, amazing for different reasons) but also feel like I need to go back to tonality. The first days of the month are always a pause to clear the head.
orchestral-study-11Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams
I started watching pinky violence films of the 60s/70s a few years back and over time built a large collection of DVDs of probably the most popular, and most accessible. The genre is listed as sexploitation, but they’re really just female gang oriented with little content that’s erotic or even erotic-adjacent. Many films in the genre are part of different series, each showcasing the same lead character across films. The DVDs I have include some complete series, but certain entries have been impossible to find. The two I just obtained were this one, the first of four Delinquent Girl Boss (Zubekô banchô) movies, and Girl Boss: Revenge [ 1973 | Wikipedia | IMDB ], the fourth of seven Girl Boss (Sukeban) movies. Somewhat confusing, I know.
Continue reading Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams