Monsters Ink

kind of a mixed bag, all things considered, but, y'know, you don't find gold if you aren't willing to dig in the muck. notable highlights:

girl with hyacinths (depressed antifascist lesbian noir),

resurrection (exhausting, exuberant fairy tale collection by the director of the transformative long day's journey into night),

gilda (a bisexual hate triangle that simply must be seen to be believed),

thunderbolts (the mcu gets its groove back in a shockingly kind movie)

blood & donuts (indie canadian vampire movie that is neither fish nor fowl)

the sweet smell of success (tony curtis in a creepily psychosexual relationship with burt lancaster)

a little behind schedule because i got too sick for movies but here's the list for february

notable highlights:

underworld beauty: early seijun suzuki yakuza flick with just impeccable vibes

olivia: lesbian schoolgirl/teacher melodrama that manages to have both the obligatory death and ruin AND an ambivalent happy ending, if you're rooting for the student/teacher thing to last

cannibal mukbang: incredible vibes cannibalism movie that doesn't *quite* stick the landing, but my god if you want a triple bill with ravenous and raw, here's your huckleberry

miami connection: way better than it has any right to be, despite its reputation as one of the Worst Movies of All Time

m butterfly: real slow burn anti-romance from david cronenberg that's body horror by way of the closet. surprisingly blunt in its anti-colonialism

This was my first sweater knitted in the round, first stranded colourwork project, and my first time steeking. It was definitely my most challenging project so far, and a lot of learning and research was involved. I used a colourwork chart created by the very talented Molly Gifford, which is available for free on Ravelry

For reference, this is one of the fragments uncovered from the gravesite:

Some scholars think that the Oseberg tapestry includes the earliest known artistic depiction of Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn. So I added them to the sleeves as a little Easter egg.

Why do you think aromanticism could save them?: “I think he struggles more than he should with outside perception of himself in regards to his interest in women. I mean his boss Suggests he likes a woman in Yakuza 0 & it suddenly twists his entire perception of how he's been interacting with her but not in a natural way. And he makes sure to step away from her life completely after the game. Also the only woman he ever had a serious relationship with, his wife - that relationship burned big time after only a short period.”

I wanna make one of these that is like a literal curtain of worms

384

I can’t tell if this is meant to be positive or negative but I’m going to interpret it in good faith because I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about country music.

As I said in my tags, I love country music. For argument’s sake, we’re casting country as a very broad genre, including bluegrass and rockabilly and blue yodeling. We’ll leave folk music in a gray area—people can get touchy if you call folk country or western but you can’t deny that country has a lot of roots in folk music, from instruments to themes. Hell, one of my recommendations in those tags, Knoxville Girl, is adapted from a 19th century Irish ballad adapted from an English ballad adapted from an Elizabethan ballad. Some folks consider zydeco to be country but I’d argue it’s closer to jazz, but it’s directly related to Cajun fiddle music which I do consider country, so. A lot of it is pedantry, really.

I get really frustrated by people who hate country music solely for being country, there’s a lot that can be criticized both musically and politically, but “country sucks” isn’t any of that. Toasty has a very justified criticism here—a lot of country breakup songs by men, for the last 20 years or so, have been specifically bro-country. You know, all the songs about drinking and hot girls and having a good time? Most of those are bro-country, and pretty much all of them are country pop, so they get a lot of radio time. Some of them draw from hokum, and a lot of those are fun, because of the time honored tradition of innuendo and committing to the bit.

(For example, I’m Gonna Miss Her is a fun breakup song because it’s got some hokum styling. The girlfriend presents an ultimatum—her, or fishing. If he goes out to fish, she’ll be gone by noon. The next verse begins “well I’m gonna miss her / when I get home” with a nice beat of comedic timing that lets us know he chose fishing. It’s playful and it’s not demeaning, and it’s not bro-country.)

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard a bro-country song before, no matter how into country music you may be. A lot of those hyper-patriotic country songs are bro-country, too. A non-exhaustive list of bro-country you’ve probably heard or at least heard of:

* Red Solo Cup

* My House

* Courtesy of the Red White and Blue

* Cruise

* Hillbilly Bone

Maddie & Tae have the song “Girl in a Country Song” which is a direct criticism of how bro-country talks (sings) about women. “Like all we’re good for / is looking good for you and your friends / on the weekend, nothing more” and “get up in the truck / keep our mouths shut / and ride along,” and maybe most damningly, “being a girl in a country song / how in the world did it go so wrong,” and the bridge mentions Conway Twitty and George Strait, saying they never treated a girl like this. Country didn’t used to be like this, and not all modern country is like this, but it’s invading country pop so it gets a lot of radio time.

Some bro-country songs are fun, I can and will admit. I recognize Honkytonk Badonkadonk is objectifying and kind of forward, but it’s no more so than Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls. Shaboozey’s “Bar Song” is very much bro-country in theme and lyrics but musically it’s closer to R&B than country pop, so it may be debatable. Good Time by Niko Moon makes you wanna have a good time. Arguably, Talladega Ten is a bro-country, but it’s also a song about a woman knowing she’s hot and feeling it. Just because it’s bro-country doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, but there’s a lot of bro country that ranges from moderately annoying to kind of sickening.

It didn’t used to like this. Even most of the pro-military country wasn’t so… patriotic, we’ll say. Private Malone is ostensibly about a military man, but it’s more about a young man who died young whose memory lives on in the guy who bought his car 30 years later. It’s a story about grief and memory, for all that the only named character is a guy who fought in Vietnam. And that’s not to say that there isn’t highly patriotic and kind of objectifying country music that’s older than the 1990s, there absolutely is, but it wasn’t what defined the genre for people who didn’t really listen to it the way it does now.

There’s a certain kind of man that perceives performing to be feminine, so they overcompensate with aggression and shallowness. It’s emasculating to be emotionally vulnerable. So that’s birthing a lot of those terrible and annoying country songs, especially those awful breakup songs. These guys have heroes in classic country artists but don’t seem to want to acknowledge that a lot of them are crooners who cared about the difference between the pop-influenced Nashville sound, the rock-influenced Bakersfield sound, the Neo-traditional Texas sound, and the folksy Tulsa sound. They wanna be country stars without the heart that ties country, roots, and blues together. A lot of folks like country because of the grit of it—gravel in the throat, beat up guitars and banjos, wearing out your fiddle strings—and some people interpret that as very masculine and tough, but what makes all that grit, and makes it good, is passion and emotion.

I’m gonna get a little soppy here, so forgive me. Nothing makes me believe in love, or grief, or community, or myself, quite like country music. My heroes have always been cowboys and coal miner’s daughters, farmers and union workers, truck drivers who tear through police barricades and talk all night to kids who miss their dad. In my heart, a good country song tells a story. You keep listening because you get invested in what happens next. The murder ballad is a hallmark, and they’re so good, but there’s so many more stories. As a genre, country is full of love and humour and heartbreak, murder and moonshining, holding your hand out to neighbors and strangers alike when they need a little help. It’s about living slow because you have to grow with the seasons, and getting old too fast as you break your back for scrip and shoes on your kids feet. It’s standing and screaming about how you can never settle down, and the joy of front porch sitting to watch the day go by. It’s life on the road desperate to get home, just 20 more miles, and wanting desperately to get out and make your name far from your small town roots. It tells you that being an outlaw means something. That being a rebel without a cause can be lonely but being a rebel with one isn’t. That if you’re gonna stand for something you better stand with your chest out, shoulders back, and head high.

I’m not unaware that part of my fondness is nostalgia. I remember catching crawdads in the river mud. I learned to ride a tractor before I ever got in the front seat of a car. I had friends who raised chickens and goats. I’m, to an extent, the intended audience of the genre. I grew up on it. The right country song at the right time makes me feel like I’m 7 years old again, sitting in the car with my dad, not yet aware of my body or the world or what it feels lose someone.

Having said that, I think people don’t really give country a chance. Preconceived notions, memes, the country pop radio stations, classism, there’s a lot of reasons, but if all you hear is songs from whiny men who are trying to make themselves feel better, you’re not really experiencing the genre. Some folks have there exceptions—“I hate all country except Dolly/Miranda Lambert/Shania Twain/Willie Nelson”—but that’s still not really giving the genre a chance. Do you like rock and roll? Post punk? Midwest emo? I’ve got some country songs for you. Jazz? R&B? Soul? I’ve got some country songs for you. Musical theatre and theatrical pop? Oh boy do I have country songs for you. Rap? I’ve got some country songs for you, too, though some of them will be more talking blues. Reggae? I’ve got a whole subgenre for you that pulls from calypso and reggae, and while Jimmy Buffett may be the most well known artist he’s certainly not the only one. If your thing is industrial or electronica or metal, I’m gonna have a harder time but I’ll try. The Afro-fusion scene in country is woefully thin, especially considering how much of it is rooted in music from enslaved Africans, but the Latin-fusion scene is pretty good, especially the blending on the Texas sound and Tejano music. Point me in a direction and I’ll do my best to find something for you. I’ve got some issues with country pop, which I think is obvious, but I’ll plumb those depths too if you want. If your thing is classical I’ve got maybe 2 fiddle heavy recommendations but I’ll look for more. You like tearjerkers? I got plenty. You want something silly? I’ve got it. You wanna party? Don’t worry.

Furnace Room Lullaby by Neko Case

Long Black Veil (covered here by Joan Baez)

Banks of the Ohio (covered here by Joan Baez)

Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (covered here by Anne Briggs)

If It Hadn't Been For Love (covered here by Victoria Day)

Mannington Mine Disaster by Hazel Dickens

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (covered here by Reba McEntire)

Down by the Willow Garden (covered here by Sophie Hearn and Peter Mark Kendall)

The Unquiet Grave (covered here by Jean Ritchie)

Silver Dagger (covered here by Paul Mescal and here by Joan Baez)

It's also worth pointing out that this genre is what Suzanne Collins was pulling on when she wrote "The Hanging Tree" for The Hunger Games. In fact, a lot of music from the Hunger Games books/movies pulls either directly or indirectly from preexisting folk/country songs (which makes sense within the context of District 12, which is strongly implied to be located in some future version of present-day Appalachia). A few examples of this:

Straight-up preexisting country/folk songs:

Hickory Dickory Dock (CF)

Down in the Valley (TBoSaS, referenced in THG)

Oh My Darling Clementine (TBoSaS)

Keep on the Sunny Side (TBoSaS)

Ladybird, Ladybird (SotR)

Adaptations of preexisting music:

The four-note song Katniss teaches Rue is the Dies Irae, a 13th-century Gregorian chant quoted in many movies to warn of danger/foreboding (THG)

The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird is set to the tune of "Streets of Laredo," a late 19th/early 20th century cowboy ballad & pulls its lyrics from a poem by William Wordsworth (TBoSaS)

that sounds like the kind of pat criticism of country that txtapollo was trying to move away from, but i mean it in a very technical sense. country as a folk genre is vast and draws from the same wealth of cultures and people as any other genre of US music. as a cultural force and a business, country is very much the White genre, and that's enforced by an entire infrastructure of tastemakers, radio stations, record labels, etc. there are a lot of bro country songs that are explicitly about being white, that are carrying water for white supremacy, because (a) we're in a period of white fascism and (b) that's the formula. that's the formula that has existed since the singing cowboy days. country as a folk style is vast and hard to pin down. country as a business has been repeatedly used as the white counterforce to any burgeoning genre that gets coded as Black, or to a culture that is too diverse, too ethnic, too feminist or queer or whathaveyou.