Ideological Pubic Hair: Zizek Enjoins you to Kill All Hippies

Yes, I'm deferring grading, and my super-ego is raging about it.
But you can take a little break with me. Watch the YouTube video below. It is Slavoj Zizek, talking about toilets and pubic hair, and how they both reinforce (or at least symbolize) ideological constraints.
No, honestly, that's what he says.



and yes, I am teaching him, and themes just like these, in my class. Right now -yesterday, tomorrow, which added together are today- in my introduction to philosophy class.
I got the book for free too: B O O M .
I said for a while too that I must be Zizek's secret (whoops, typed "sextet": Freudian Slip!) love child. Because we are both hyper.
I also declared, since he has a bit of a tic where he touches his nose all the time, that he had sucessfully passed through oral, anal, AND phallic stages. Where does that put him?

The Nasal Phase!

Serious Serial Vol. 2: Titular

OH PART TWO!!!
As I just posted, new things happened (which is, of course, the same old story: new things Just Keeping Happening).
I got some new-old books, all with great titles (hopefully, they read well too):
Middlemarch, by Georg Eliot. (Georg is a GIRL!, by the way.)

Diary of a Madman, and other stories: Gogol. This is the actual cover of the book that I bought: used, very, I'm sure you can see.

N. Gogol is well-known for his novel, Dead Souls, ahem:



An Even Better song, everyone's new favorite Joy Division song, is below. Be a deary and listen to both, why don't you? You ask: why put both then? I reply: because the theme of today's blog revolves around TITLES- that is what 'titular' means, you little dirty- and so I was compelled to post the song enTITLEd "Dead Souls". You recognize the decisive and deciding logic now, I'm sure.



More Books. Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man.

Flounder, by Günter Grass. The Flounder of the title is a character:

a talking fish.

I started watching movies again. Recents: Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter, and Hour of the Wolf (another great title); this movie is a little more serious than the other. It is directed by Ingmar Bergman, and deals with
Love,
Art,


and Madness.


Oh, how very Euro.


Both were worth watching. Well, JJ VS FD is worth it, if you are me (you aren't) and were sick (you might have been). Don't tell me if you were- I don't want to hear about it. I get enough detailed descriptions of my students' illnesses, thx.

Serious Serial Vol. 1: Decisive

Lots of news on my end. Really important stuff has been going down, such as:
New Toilet and Toilet-related Environs!
New Records!
New Books!
New Lifestyle: watching movies!
----- I'll be talking about these in a two-part installment. Exciting, this serial blog action, correct? -----



(download Willie Hutch: "Get Ready For the Get Down" )

The above Willie Hutch track, or jam I should say, is in the vein of the Supafly and Black Caesar jams I posted back a little bit. (back a bit'tle?) It's from his album, "Mark of the Beast" (nice title...)
But on the toilet front (even though this song is decicedly and decisvely NON-TOILET), I got a new toilet the other day. Mine was cracked... don't know how. But now I am repainting my bathroom, which means that we have to say goodbye to the bathroom art.
No more classic chalk line-drawings, a la the Lascaux caves.

At one point, the above drawing morphed into the one below...


Here is Jeffrey's thoughful contribution:

Like normal Jeffrey Stuff, it appears to be merely scatological. Now, it is that, but it also has other aims: The Eternal Question, "Why do 'I' Exist?" has been thoughtfully integrated into the three headed Penis Monster. Thus, the Penis Monster has achieved its own species of eternity.

Willie Hutch has achieved his own species of eternity, through sampling. He's been amply sampled by West Coast hip-hop producers; horns, a little swagger and swing, a lightly dark cinematic feel. Tracks called stuff like "Vampin'" and "Mack's Stroll". If I were a producer, I'd be into it. He wrote songs all over the place; he partly wrote the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There", which is so very a stone cold classic. (If I were a jungle producer, I would have sampled a little of The 5, and lots and lots of Diana Ross and the Supremes; just getting that out there.)

Roughly on the topic of me being a producer (I would be so good at it: true, obvious- I'd be decisive, you see?)-
There is one more, as-of-this-moment final AMX mix in the pipeline. It is giving you the soulful tunes a la Pulp Fiction. Soul comes in two varieties here: sad old country and soul jams. Quick heads-up: James Brown, Ricky Nelson, Dionne Warwick, Al Green, and of course, my recent favorite, Jerry Butler. It'll devastate ya; decisively, naturally.

Get Loose, Philadelphia

This weekend, Love Train pulls into town. Love Train will have tons of great soul and RnB acts (about many of whom I've dropped knowledge before) playing, all under one roof. All represent the classic "Philly Sound"; smooooooth jams from mostly the 70's and mostly penned/produced by legendary producers Gamble and Huff.


Download "Get Up Get Down Get Funky Get Loose" by Teddy Pendergrass

You should go, but you can't: tickets start at $55. (One site selling tickets insists that the cheap tickets have "awesome" views though; the mid-price tix have merely "great" views, and the most dear tickets have "brilliant" views.)



Love Train is a concert supporting the recent compilation of the same name, which aims to put the musical descriptor "The Philly Sound" into people's minds, right up there with "Motown" and "Stax".
Playing are Jerry Butler,
The O'Jays,

the Delfonics, the Jones Girls,

Harold Melvin's Bluenotes (which used to have Teddy Pendergrass in it), and the (new) Stylistics.

I've told you about Jerry Butler multiple times before; Internet tells me that he has an album called "Sings Assorted Sounds With The Aid of Assorted Friends and Relatives"

and Internet implies that he is a Freemason.


The Delfonics had a bigBIGbig hit with "Didn't I Blow Your Mind (This Time)", which I believe the New Kids on the Block re-recorded. So, you've heard the song before, guaranteed, whether old or "New" (Get it?). You also might have heard it when I included it on this mix, which is about how I am the best thing going these days.

The Stylistics were the first of these bands that I knew by name, way back in college. Not surprisingly, my knowledge/ownership of "The Philly Sound" much expanded once I actually lived in Philadelphia.


The first song by the Stylistics that I loved is called "Pieces"; I still love it but am usually annoyed by the rest of their jams. A little saccharine, a little cloying, a little treacly. All the lead singing is done in a falsetto, FYI, which you either like or don't (I like).

WanderLust

Albert Camus famously (well, even "cliche-edly") wrote that there "is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
I take this problem much more seriously when grading student papers.

Likely, the best option would be to somehow lead the papers themselves to commit suicide, instead of myself.


( Facebookers, view "Lovers Who Wander" by Dion on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buP1_OhjP5o )

([{Download "AMX: Unsafe at Any Speed", my most recent mix. It, of course, includes the above song.}])

Ah, but a reason to live! Like a crocus, leaping forth from the earth in earliest spring! Like an olive branch of peace, borne across vast oceans! Like a jellybean, delicious if artificial, rolling about my mouth!
Like a drumbeat built for speeeeeeeeeeeed!
.....! with handclaps, even !.....

The above song is by Dion, not Dion and the Belmonts; small detail, except that with the Belmonts, Dion made much less rokkin' tunes. This one swings, really has some of that ol' pep that this mix, friends, has in spades.

Oh papers, your weight, carried it seems for millennia, nearly grinds me to dead dust. And yet the waters of life flow from the ever-renewed spring that is
"AMX: Unsafe at Any Speed":

Healing waters which consist of doo-wop, early rock 'n' roll, "guitar freakouts", and all manner of leather-clad rebels, plain white tees and jeans, and a 'little sis' who can do the Mashed Potato.



Yes, 'Teachers who Wander", wander from the flat affects of required classwork, toward the NeverNeverLand of the Internet. A Musical Mecca to which The Teacher is guided by a profound wanderlust. Oh verily, these papers
"broke my heart, I really showed it,
Look at me now [after downloading "UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED"], you'd never know it
Now my story can be told with a smiling face
I'm the luckiest guy in the human race".

Yes, I traded drudgery for funnery, poorly constructed sentences for expertly-wrought musical mixes. I now pass on the possibility of your own, similar transition. Listen, learn, love, licent, etc., all with the help of "Unsafe At Any Speed.zip", the lovely and lively zip file that contains the above song, as well as many others.

Felicitous Salutations!

I walked past the Abbaye the other night; someone was karaoke-singing "Feliz Navidad".

AMX: Bringing Forth the Fruit of Earthly Delights

OH!
MY!

I pridefully present another installment of AMX Mixes !
This lil' monster goes by a number of names. Technically, the ZIP is called "Unsafe at Any Speed", but alternate names include

DeathProof (remember, the distant paternity of all AMX mixes is Tarantino movie soundtracks)
Only the Good Die Young
Attack of the Leader of the Pack
Rebel Beat

Profoundly intrigued- that's what you are!
Here is a youtuby from one of the tracks, the very movie, very driving around, very mod "Il Giardino Delle Delizie" by Ennio Morricone.



Hitherto, for these mixes, which come in at around 15 songs, I have described TheWholeThingAllAtOnce.
Which many found, reasonably enough, to be a bit overwhelming.
So I will now present a few songs, every now and again, and each one will come with a little posty-clicky for downloady, for the whole mix.

Here is the tracklisting, but in alphabetical order. Wanna know what order they really go in?
Better download it then. AMX: Unsafe At Any Speed

(the symbol between title and artist?: it's a car, with skidmarks behind and headlights in front! Pretty good, what?!)

Attack of the Ghost Riders €< The Raveonettes

Boom Boom €< The Animals

Casseurs de Raison €< Pierre Rapsat

Down by the Riverside €< Bill Haley and His Comets

Down the Line €< Ricky Nelson

Guitar Freakout €< The Ventures

Hitchhike €< Martha & The Vandellas

Il Giardino Delle Delizie €< Ennio Morricone

Land of 1000 Dances €< Cannibal and the Headhunters

Let's Go €< The Routers

Love Is A Deserter €< The Kills

Lovers Who Wander €< Dion

Rebel Rouser €< Duane Eddy

State Trooper €< Bruce Springsteen

Teen Beat €< Sandy Nelson

Lots of rapid-fire snare drums. Provocative organ work. Teenage harmonies (teenagers like cars).
You'll see: a perfect mix for driving and for being driven.
AMX: Unsafe At Any Speed

Oh Boy! Obey the Oboe

Just wanted to mention that, because of my 'research' for the last post, I knew that mayflies have two penises.

2!

And at Quizzo in West Philly last Sunday, we were asked about it! And I knew! And we got a point!

Other than that though, you could say we were 'down and out' in West Philly.



youtube got it: James' Brown - Down and Out In New York City

This is from the James Brown-scored movie soundtrack I mentioned last time. See, he's using 'movie-style' instruments here- orchestra, flutes, etc.
Say which you prefer: Curtis' Junkie or James' ...Out In.. in the comments

I think somebody is rocking the oboe?


Which is of course a vaguely phallic instrument. So, if you had two of them, battling it out, dueling banjos style,
or a la "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (which is a song I like, but do not like at Oscar's, which you can no longer smoke at, at all),
then it would look a little like a mayfly.
Because they have

2!

Oh, and please do not ever forget that oboe players have a posse: