Seven Movie Reviews

January 12, 2021 in Story, Feature

A D Jameson

1.
At the stroke of three-thirty the missile lurches from the ceiling and forcefully imbeds itself inside the giant globe. Only the missile is the prong of a fork, and the globe is a sugar gum-drop. Welcome to the miniature world of THE MICROS, a likeable little people whose adventures are recounted in this amazing series of family films. No more than one centimeter in height, the Micros experience one exciting adventure after another, as they make their way in a world so much larger than they are. Now, experience that adventure and dream about being as miniscule as a Micro. In the first tape, we are introduced to the world of the Micros, in which many of the everyday objects we take for granted are shown to be treacherous hazards for our miniscule heroes, because they are so small. A drop of water is a giant pond, a speck of tin foil a dangerous open blade. We meet various prominent Micro citizens who serve as the major characters in the series. In the second tape, Scrunchy is discovered to be missing, and the other Micros fear the worst. Meanwhile strange new objects keep appearing in Lothar’s hut. In the third tape the Micros confront their murderous arch-foe Pepperton, who has sworn to rid the earth of what he considers “disgusting, disease-causing Micros.” In the fourth tape, the Micros must work in concert to save an orphaned boy from the bitter reality of life on the street. Through their efforts, a new home is found for the boy, but not before many exciting adventures are had. These and other wonderful videotapes form the collection of MICRO films now available for home viewing by you and your family. Welcome to the miniature world of THE MICROS, where the people are small in stature, but big in caring, and in courage.

Live at the Pie House

January 12, 2021 in Product

The Mannerists

This is a recording of a remarkable evening in which Malcolm Felder, Gabriel Boyer, Jeff Black, and the Eugene Community Choir joined hands to recreate the magic of our favorite jazz standards, but how was it to be done? Were they going to play them straight or in a curlicue? Boyer’s velvet voice was offset by his angular piano stylings, while Black wailed on his clarinet in a manner reminiscent of some extinct bird of paradise, the Eugene Community Choir backed up Boyer with their eerie a capella renditions of some big band instrumentation, and Felder rapped his hands round his kit in a series of giddy runs. That man can tease the rhythm out of a lame dog running for its life.

For these were to be free jazz versions of the below standards, performed as they had never been performed before, and here at the notorious Pie House, the crowd was getting violent for the players had yet to arrive. Only the Eugene Community Choir was in attendance, and conductor Joe Ullula was frantic. Then, just a moment later the other players were running onto the stage, their eyes glassy with some feverish drive to transform sound into something inhuman. The evening was underway.

Performed by
Gabriel Boyer: Vocals, piano
Jeff Black: Clarinet
Malcolm Felder: Drums
Oregon Community Choir: Backing vox

Recorded in Eugene, OR
Production by Malcolm Felder

Live at The Pie House by The Mannerists, released 24 September 2009 1. Baby, It's Cold Outside 2. The Ballad of the Sad Young Men 3. Night and Day 4. Willow Weep for Me 5. A Love Supreme 6. Isn't it Romantic 7. My Funny Valentine 8. What the World Needs Now 9.

1. Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Loesser)
2. The Ballad of the Sad Young Men (Wolf/Landesman)
3. Night and Day (Porter)
4. Willow Weep for Me (Ronell)
5. A Love Supreme (Coltrane)
6. Isn’t it Romantic (Rogers/Hart)
7. My Funny Valentine (Rogers/Hart)
8. What the World Needs Now (Bacharach)
9. Band Introductions
10. My Favorite Things (Rogers/Hammerstein)
11. Where or When (Rogers/Hart)
12. God Bless the Child (Holiday/Herzog)
13. Georgia on my Mind (Charles)

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Listen

Ephemera Revealed

January 12, 2021 in Isstillcools**t, Feature

In the Mutableye

Recently we here at Mutable were introduced to a website full of all sorts of neat goodies from the image-making world of the past. Above is an example from their collection of prints from the Russian underground, circa 1905-1906, but you can find everything from tibetan anatomical drawings to vintage matchooks. Peruse some of our selections from this wonderworld below.

Thunder, Lightning, Rodeo, & Radio

January 12, 2021 in Article, Letter from the Editor, Feature

Letter from the Editor

A friend of mine once said that Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt fame did for drums what Jimi Hendrix did for guitar. And there have been conversations I have overheard in garden parties where people spoke of Lightning Bolt in general as if they were talking of the risen Christ. A Noise duo, bass and drums, with the driving force of a Led Zeppelin but with a minimalist Philip Glass bent and the psychedelic experimentalism of a Sun Ra. I remember a night long ago and myself in a throng of adoring fans pressing against the invisible bubble surrounding Lightning Bolt as they performed in the direct center of the warehouse floor.

But Chippendale is not just a risen brother of Jimi Hendrix on his kit of clouds. He is also a comix illustrator and one of the founding members of Fort Thunder—a warehouse space in the Olneyville district of Providence—a place he moved into with his friend Mat Brinkman in the mid-nineties. The space eventually came to house a number of local avant-garde artists and musicians, was the home to Paper Rodeo, Paper Radio, and of course, Lightning Bolt, until it was shut down in 2001.

Video: The Governator!

January 12, 2021 in Article, Isstillcools**t, Austrians in April, Series

Austrians in April

Perhaps the most famous Austrian next to Hitler is Arnold Schwarzenegger, current governor of California, former heavyweight champion of the world, and Hollywood film star, known for such memorable lines as, I’ll be back, and more recently for lines like, She’s either Puerto Rican, or the same thing as Cuban, I mean they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it, while talking about California Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, the lone Latina Republican in the Legislature, or, To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say, Don’t be economic girlie men, but back in the late 90’s, when none of us foresaw this turn in Schwarzenegger’s career, he was an idol to some. (True, he’s still and idol to some, but who are these people, and why?)

I remember, a friend of mine, Chris Huggins, had a Scharzenegger concept band, in which he sang songs of tribute to the man, and did body-building training throughout the show, a wiry little redhead with a Schwarzenegger mask and t-shirt. He was my roommate at the time and would occasionally break one of the panes in my wall of windows facing the hallway in the midst of a demonstration of his skills as a black belt, but I’ll never forget that performance he did in a loft in Brooklyn, his legs straddling the weights bench, a lifesize Schwarzenegger cut-out by his side, or how I vomited through a woman’s underwear that night because she wasn’t quick enough climbing off the toilet seat.

It was from Chris that I first heard about Pumping Iron, the 1977 documentary about Schwarzenegger and the larger world of competitive body-building. He was inspired by the innocent, youthful, athletic Arnold, waxing poetic when he started in on the man’s great feats of the past. He talked of Schwarzenegger quite a lot in those days, as Arnold were indeed Hercules or Conan, as opposed to a Kindergarten Cop, and eventually Governor of California, although perhaps Schwarzenegger’s shift towards politics began with True Lies. Enjoy the peak into a younger, kindler, and gentler Schwarzenegger below.

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Requiem for Christian Loidl

January 12, 2021 in Article, Austrians in April, Series

William Levy

In a way, the Austrian poet Christian Loidl’s demise was an Icarus action, radical as was his life. Chris’ partner wrote me—“It seems that he had taken mushrooms and jumped out the window, out a of a closed window, so he had to break the glass first, and then he fell or jumped and broke his neck. That’s all.”

People who are afraid of heights are not afraid of accidentally falling. They are terrified of their inexorable urge to jump, to fly, an abyss-merge-craving-rapture as a triumphant exit strategy to Zion, the highest region. Chris called himself an “airpoet,” he lept at life—in the faith that he could grab it. He believed: Let’s be realistic and demand the impossible; and, The only thing worth contemplating is that which cannot be contemplated.

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

January 12, 2021 in Austrians in April, Excerpt, Series

as translated by Charles Kay Ogden

The family of Karl Wittgenstein, who was one of Austria’s richest men when he died, in 1913, may deserve some gloomy sort of prize, the Palm of Atreus, perhaps. His youngest child, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, once asked a pupil if he had ever had any tragedies in his life. The pupil, evidently well trained, inquired what he meant by “tragedy.” “I mean suicides, madness, or quarrels,” replied Ludwig, three of whose four brothers committed suicide, two of them (Rudi and Hans) in their early twenties, and the third (Kurt) at the age of forty. Ludwig often thought of doing so, as did his surviving brother, Paul. A budding concert pianist when he lost his right arm to a Russian bullet, in 1914, Paul was imprisoned for a time in the infamous Siberian fortress where Dostoyevsky had set his novel “The House of the Dead.” Ludwig later claimed to have first entertained thoughts of suicide at around the age of ten, before any of his brothers had died. There were three sisters: Gretl, Helene, and Hermine. Hermine, the eldest child (she was born in 1874; Ludwig, the youngest, arrived fifteen years later), and the guardian of her father’s flame, never married. Helene was highly neurotic, and had a husband who suffered from dementia. Gretl was regarded as irritating by most people, including her unpleasant husband, who committed suicide, as did his father and one of his aunts. Bad temper and extreme nervous tension were endemic in the family. One day, when Paul was practicing at one of the seven grand pianos in their winter home, the Palais Wittgenstein, he leaped up and shouted at his brother Ludwig in the room next door, “I cannot play when you are in the house, as I feel your skepticism seeping towards me from under the door!”

Monochrom: The Art of the Prank

January 12, 2021 in Article, Austrians in April, Series

Austrians in April

Monochrom purports to be what hydrogen atoms are capable of when you give them 15 billion years to evolve, but what does this mean? For one thing, we know that this means an arts collective where all members work together to create multi-media projects that are often presented as absurdist attacks. From Marxist puppet shows to Nazi petting zoos, a virtual soviet village called Soviet Untersoegersdorf to bar-bots and Arse Elektronica. Projects abound at monochrom, but monochrom is also a blog about the political and the pop, the absurd and the outlandish, e.g. Indiginous leaders brought to Quito to watch “Avatar”.

Considered Austria’s “art-pranksters”, they call themselves an “art-technology-philosophy group of basket weaving enthusiasts and theory do-it-yourselfers,” but who are they really, or are they even really at all? In 2002 they were invited to represent Austria at the São Paulo Art Biennial, and decided to manufacture a non-existent artist to represent them for the event. “People would ask, ‘So where is Georg Paul Thomann? I’d like to meet him again; I think I met him twenty years ago at an art fair in Dusseldorf,’ or whatever. We would reply, ‘He’s just sitting in his hotel room. We’re rather happy that he doesn’t show up, because he’s quite an asshole.'”

This is Not a Review: of Michael Haneke's Perverse Cinema

January 12, 2021 in Article, This is not a Review, Austrians in April, Series

Gabriel Boyer

I was working at the Film Forum in NYC when the original Funny Games was released—as in the one starring Susanne Lothar and not the shot for shot remake starring Naomi Watts. This was in 1997 and here in America we were still suffering from a quaint post-apocalyptic ethos in which the world as we know it was bound to end any moment now. We were hopeful that things as they stood couldn’t go on much longer. And then we saw Funny Games.

Funny Games is a perverse vision largely because it presents a human view of persons we at the time could only despise and envision skewered on the meat-hooks of industry. Georg and Anna are upper middle class and middle of the road, off to their summer retreat when two unexpected guests arrive at their door asking for eggs, two youths wearing white gloves who they were introduced to just a while earlier by an oddly anxious neighbor. The youths proceed to break the eggs, and work their way into the home, first through a play-acted buffoonery and then through acts of violence, sadistic games, the family strung up and forced to go along with their captors so as to keep each other alive just a little while longer.

We were those youths.

3 Pieces by Gert Jonke

January 12, 2021 in Austrians in April, Story, Series

as translated by Vincent Kling

Gert Jonke, who died last year just shy of 63, depicted with grace and mad humor what his fellow Austrian Hermann Broch once called the “jolly apocalypse” (“die fröhliche Apokalypse”) that accompanied the collapse of Europe from 1914 to 1945 and that’s anything but past and gone in the era of the European Union. The three short works here are a farewell tribute meant to show various related aspects of Jonke’s art. The first is a letter to his baby son Hans, who died suddenly at age four months, and is taken from a book that mingles fiction, autobiography, reminiscences, tributes to friends, and brilliant essays on music. “Hyperbole 1,” from a series of snapshots or vignettes in drama form called Insektarium, is one of several studies by Jonke showing the social origins of perception and memory. In his last few years, “Leavetaking” became Jonke’s much-anticipated signature piece.

ZOCK: Outlaw Manifesto of the Age

January 12, 2021 in Austrians in April, Manifesto of the Month, Series

William Levy

My first contact with the Vienna Action Artists was through the DIAS, or Destruction In Art Symposium held in London during the autumn of 1966. Gunter Brus, Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch, and also Gustav Metzger, received a lot of publicity during this season. By art critics and underground newspapers, of course. Why not? Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York blew itself up at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960, watched by a distinguished audience. Robert Rauschenberg had just spent a month slowly erasing a Willem de Kooning drawing. First there were Constructivists, then there were Destructionists. Yet even Time magazine was not outraged. In the article they wrote about these events, the Wiener Aktionismus, or Vienna Actionists, were grouped favorably within the in vogue international Happenings movement. And it became well known among certain circles that the then famous Pete Townsend, lead guitarist of the pop group The Who, had seen the DIAS actions. He adapted them to his guitar smashing performances that became a moving icon, the kinetic ideogram, of a widespread artistic ferment against the frame, the gallery, the museum, all received genres and the proscenium itself in its many manifestations. Transformed into a swank craze, indeed, the influence of the Vienna school became almost a leitmotiv of London’s Swinging sixties. Destructive art was featured again, and used as such, in the nightclub scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up. Jimi Hendrix showcased destruction art in his Monterey Festival performance.

Austrians in April!

January 12, 2021

We had this thought here at Mutable.

Recently we’ve been hearing quite a bit about Austria and Austrians, because things don’t start coming to the surface in one’s and two’s, but in clumps upon clumps. From Otto Muehl and his ZOCK manifesto, to Michael Haneke and his theater of the perverse, from Wittgenstein to Monochrom, we’re all about Austria this month.

Perhaps the most famous Austrian, unfortunately, is Adolph Hitler, who we will not be writing about this month, not from some fear of shying away from those gritty issues keep stations like HLN, CNN, and FOX on the air, but because our history happens on the cutting room floor, in the studio, and at a writing desk, not on a battlefield or in parliament. So keep your eyes on Austria this month. It’s worth the look.

Levi Fuller

January 12, 2021 in Isstillcools**t, Feature

In the Mutableye

Levi Fuller, who played in the little-known soul band Extra Play with Kevin Micka, Gabriel Boyer, and Malcolm Felder, all members of the Mutable universe, and played everything from stand-up bass to saxophone on A Journey to Happiness Island, has released a new album, Colossal. You can buy the vinyl at sonicboomrecords.com or buy the mp3s from iTunes, or read more at Levi’s website, denimclature.com.

Colossal by Levi Fuller, released 27 October 2009 1. Colossal 2. The Mall of America 3. Pigeon Feeder 4. The Hunter Surrenders 5. Wheels within Wheels 6. Mouse on Fire 7. (God Is) Just Like Santa 8. Seaplanes 9.

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Episode 27

January 12, 2021 in Podcast, Series, Twilight at the College

Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies

The year is 1903 and something has happened to the narrator, and Satan is very definitely in control of the story. Simone is floating above her bed and saying horrible things in a strange voice, while down below Butcher Billy is receiving a warm welcome in the front hall. Also, in case you’ve forgotten, Grammar Instructor Gundrun is slowly transforming into a more demonic being, and Handyman Jack is a cannibalist. At some point in the below episode, Archibald the Professor of Arcane Knowledge uses his powers to transport Butcher Billy out onto the moors. Keep this in mind.

Mutable Sound Chicago, Illinois Mutable Sound is an online gallery for sound and word located in Chicago, IL. We are dedicated to publishing works in all genres, from the dense and inextricable to the light-hearted and absurd, and release albums that are experiments more than anything else, without being particularly experimental.

A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.

This is Not a Review: of Transformers 2

January 12, 2021 in Article, This is not a Review, Feature

Gabriel Boyer

Transformers. More than meets the eye. Although in the case of the most recent Transformers film the reverse is true, that everything is in full view, it’s just that there’s so much of it. The camera flits from shot to shot with the agitation of a hummingbird on steroids, thereby leaving the audience no room to question or even think as images wash over them at brainwash speed. It’s like someone’s raping your mind.

Three second cuts with impossibly intricate robot disappearing acts? A bevy of beautiful women? (Every woman in the film is either super-model status or the main character’s mom.) More explosions than I care to count and characters who are always just about to burst an adrenal gland in their excitment? Two gang banging illiterate autobots with large ears and gold teeth who speak in some painfully stereotyped street slang? Welcome to the world of Michael Bay.

From within the Animal Hospital (2)

January 12, 2021 in Article, Interview, Feature, Press

2 of 2

(Below is the second of a two-part conversation we had with Animal Hospital concerning what he [Kevin Micka] has been doing with himself these days, in the distant past, and the elusive future, discussing both his signature sound, and the pivotal part that all variety of metal, from boxes and genres to genres of boxes and boxes of genres, has played on that aforementioned signature sound of his, as well as many other topics of interest. Please do not be alarmed at the shocking content of this interview. Trained professionals were at the ready, as will you be, for this is Animal Hospital as you have never seen him before.)

GABRIEL BOYER: Well, I’m thinking that there’s these two memories, right?

ANIMAL HOSPITAL: Yeah.

GB: You put them together do they? Do they STAY as those memories, but in but in relation to each other, or do they become a brand new thing, or?

AH: Again, I think it was more more like uh an emotion more than a specific, this makes me think of this specific moment.

GB: So, you’re saying at that time you were going through a specific emotion.

AH: Yeah.

GB: You were like swimming through it.

AH: Yeah, I was just trying to get through this.

Providence

January 12, 2021 in Article, Excerpt, Series

R. Sachs

Something about the fact that each of us is the product of several billion years of successful reproduction tempts me to believe that there is a kind of providence at work in mating. That for each of us, our perfect mirror exists. For the fat, the ugly, the hopeless, the deranged there is their compensatory fetishist and mate. Me, I’m lazy—or something like it. I have my interests, but I pursue them with the intensity of one watching goldfish. I think about having a perfect sex life, what it might be like, how it work, but I do little to make it a reality. Do I really want to spend that much time brushing my teeth, washing my hair and combing my pubes? And so I have fallen into a kind of romantic complacency—a sort of challenge to the women of the world that they will have to be more desirable than a night alone, or I will remain, prized gem, undiscovered.

Episode 28

January 12, 2021 in Podcast, Series, Twilight at the College

Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies

The Narrator is acting strangely, but why? Don’t worry. It’s unimportant. Even if you think it’s actually the most important thing, you are quite wrong. Actually, what you should be paying attention to is the portal that’s opened up behind the young scholar Simone’s head for it is a portal into Hell itself, one that is crying out for it will have the girls Simone and, dare I sat it? Boo Boo?

A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.

This is Not a Review: of Sheila Heti

January 12, 2021 in Article, This is not a Review, Feature

Gabriel Boyer

On the woman’s first day at work the poet helped her with her boxes, but as he was helping he was looking away.
“Do you know this is my seventieth sick day since I started here?” he asked.
“But you’re here,” she said.
“Yes, I know.” And he went to the bathroom and peed blood.

—from, The Poet and the Philosopher as Roommates

We here at Mutable first heard of Sheila Heti some six or seven years ago, when she went on tour with the event she founded, Trampoline Hall, while promoting her first book, The Middle Stories, put out by McSweeney’s. We were taken by her stories, and she has continued to tickle and tug at our interest both in her own writing and in the projects she involves herself in.

From within the Animal Hospital (1)

January 12, 2021 in Article, Interview, Feature, Press

1 of 2

(Below is the first of a two-part conversation we had with Animal Hospital concerning what he [Kevin Micka] has been doing, what he will do, what he sounds like, metal, and other topics of interest. Please do not be alarmed at the shocking content of this interview. Trained professionals were at the ready, as will you be, for this is Animal Hospital as you have never seen him before.)

GABRIEL BOYER: So there was was was was. What made you decide to start start Animal Hospital?

ANIMAL HOSPITAL: Um. The girl’s dating at the time. We wanted. We were planning a trip. Um. To go to a comic convention and go visit her family.

GB: Mhm.

AH: So we were planning on going to San Diego and Santa Fe.

GB: Mhm.

AH: Um. So. [Clears throat.] Thought I would try to come up with something to do on the tour. On the trip. To play some shows and help pay for some gas.

GB: Mhm.

AH: See some friends and stuff on the way.

GB: Mhm.

AH: So I um. Started booking some shows.

GB: Mhm.

AH: Before I had like a real plan of what I was going to do.

GB: [Enthusiastically] Mhm.