SPINDLE #1 ~ May 98 "Exploring (and sometimes poking fun at) the culture of the late 90s." Contents ________ * Preface by Geoff Gresh * "Manifesto of another Psychopath", a rant by Nam Woo Kim * "Education Within the Cleansing House", fiction by Ji Young Yoon * "Museum Space", a rant by Geoff Gresh * David Holmes: "Let's Get Killed", reviewed by Sam Kendig [preface ~ may98]___________________________________________________________ I've been known to do some thinking, on occasion. I once criticized my uncle Wendel for thinking about life too much, and then I realized that I think about life alot, too. I usually just keep it to myself, rationalizing life, like figuring out an equation in your head and realizing math just works. I had never really thought about opening up these thoughts until about a week ago, when I was watching an interview with Scott Weiland on MTV. He was talking about how he was mistakenly identified as an artist of the "grunge" movement. He slammed the movement a little bit, criticizing the clothes, etc. It then dawned on me that "grunge" was dead, and we had moved on into the "alternative" era, which was basically mainstream, anyway. I started to get a little worried. Where was pop culture going? I forgot about it for a while. Then, about a week later, I started to think about pop culture again while I was walking my dog in the park. (By the way, walking your dog is an excellent time to think. It's one of the only times of day that you can afford not to concentrate.) So, I'm walking through my neighberhood with my dog and just thinking about how my life has changed in the past few years. And then a word pops into my head: "spindle." Huh? What the hell does a spindle have to do with pop culture? Well, apparently, a lot. If you think of a spindle as a graph of culture over time, it starts to make sense. The fat parts are periods with lots of trends and fads, while the thin parts are periods when culture is individualized, and pop culture doesn't really exist. This thin part is the post-pop culture, and we're living in it right now. I say that the late 90s is a post-pop period because it is a time when we are unable to truly define our own era. It's not really the "Age of the Internet." Most of the world's population is not online. It's not even really the "Information Age." Most people now find it comfortable to not be trapped by technology. (Have you ever met somenone with a beeper that didn't want to throw it out the car window in rush hour traffic?) It's this lack of an official name for our age that first made me nervous that day. But then I realized that perhaps a society without a universal trait is better than a homogenous world. As we enter the new millenium with a post-pop culture, it seems important to let others know what people are doing to change and diversify our culture. This is Spindle's purpose. To provide a space where culture can be observed and examined, appreciated, even criticized and laughed at, but hopefully not emulated. For once everyone jumps on the "alternative" bandwagon, it is no longer truly alternative. Diversified culture can exist in a media-driven society. Spindle will prove this. So put your feet up, grap a coffee, and get ready to dive into the world of post-pop culture. -Geoff Gresh, Editor [rant ~ Manifesto of Another Psychopath by Nam Woo Kim]_____________________ Hmm, culture, culture, culture. What is there to write about culture anyway? I'd rather be talking about the Knicks v. Heats game. Well, anyway, since I'm such a nice person, and because Geoff has chained me to his desk, I guess I'll have to talk about it. I was wondering, isn't culture what defines you and makes you and individual from other people? Beliefs, religion, characteristics. Is it really? Think....now, culture is nothing more than how you are dressed. (Are you trying to argue that? If so, you're an idiot. Go ahead, throw that can of soda at the screen.) Want an example? Look at any asian kid in high school. You'll see widelegs where you can bury corpses in, EMS's(Those are the book bags with lots o' straps) with straps strapped to straps that are strapped to other straps, etc, etc. The way I look at it, culture has become superficial. Perhaps not to our parents and the few remaining kids who wear tapered pants, but you have to admit that our culture, every culture, has become nothing more than empty tradition. Okay, I thought I was done, but Geoff just gave me the shock treatment. I have to write more. Uh, uh....yes. If you remember your medieval English history properly, there was a hierarchy, an order to culture. The mandate of heaven, king, prince, warlord, uh, (I really want to read my Spawn comics) Well, anyway, the asian people (or the asian mafia or collective) has a hierarchy as well. The peasants, which would be the asian people wearing tapered pants and without EMS backpacks. They are the most smart and hardworking. Yet that is all they do. And then, there are traders and merchants and artisans like me. I have no real place in the asian mafia. I do not wear wide legs. I carry a normal sized two strapped Manhattan Portage book bag. (Well maybe the portage gives me a place somewhere, but I ripped the emblem off) I associate with white, black, hispanics, etc. Not only them, but the asians as well. So I'm technically a twinkie with multi colored filling inside. Anyway, after the merchant class, there is the warrior class or the legion. Take a look at the typical asian guy. All of them, I mean ALL the asian guys. Bangs covering their faces like some helmet, wide legs with semi ripped bottoms, like some kind of army uniform or fatigues. And those bookbags....they're like some kind of armor, like breast plates or something. Then there are the middle class. Usually consisting of "not fly"(pardon me, but that is the term they use) girls and guys who don't wear size 40 Jncos or EMS backpacks. Then there is the upper class, consisting of "fly"(I use that term loosely, only difference I see between these girls and the middle class girls is that the upper class tends wear that fuzzy black jackets and Mud jeans) and those guys that wear black(tapered) pants and jackets with a white shirt underneath and a gold beeper chain around their necks. Oh yeah, they pretend to smoke to look cool, but all they do is puff and cough and make wastes of good cigarettes. Then, like an Aliens movie, there is the almighty queen. I don't know who the hell this monstrosity is, and have never seen it. But you have to admit, there has to be a queen. The one that eats royal jelly and lays eggs all the time. Of course, all hierarchies and empires have your rebels and hybrids. The hybrids are those who are asian, but live in Manhattan, and never really "hang out" or "chill" with the Asian Hive (for all you Starcraft players out there, let's call the asians the Zergs). Then there are your rebels, those heroically holding out against the Zergs. Resisting assimilation. You can picture them in your head, like some guerilla unit; ragged clothing, dirty, worn out, civilian clothing, etc, etc. They are sometimes called the rejected asian mafia, but they are in fact the anti-thesis, the very bane, of the Zerg's existence. In a way, they remind me of those gypsy people in the Hunchback of Notre Dame hiding out in the catacombs. Well there you have it. The hierarchy of the Collective in a nutshell, or a two page piece of crap taking up more internet space. It all depends on how you look at it. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff. Must kill Geoff..... {Disclaimer: Geoff is a nice editor, not a slavedriver. He just has a strong work ethic and an ego the size of a medicine ball.} [fiction ~ Education Within the Cleansing House by Ji Young Yoon]______________ "The problem with this system," Mind twists me around, "is education." Like some startling memory, her eyes flash very green and very bright. "Hey-- Wake up," she snaps. "Take a look at this place!" Her fingernails dig into my shoulder blade; I feel the pain surge down my stomach and jolt through my eyes. Mind is very much like mother, isn't she? Mother used to warn us about dangers in the new society with that very tone. With the same green pair of brimming, lively eyes. "What is it, Mind? No, never mind. Just get back to work." "Look! Look at everyone!! We're just kids, Notion! They're doing something to us.... We're not learning how to keep our people healthy, we're learning how to get the most marks. We didn't come here to get good grades, Notion. We came here to learn! But look what's happened to us! There's not one of us here that wouldn't kill to scrub the slightest stain. There is no skill being mastered.. in a couple of years we'll be too old for this work... then what will happen to us!!" "Quiet down and get back to work. You'll be taken to the Dean if the teachers find out what you've said." "Go ahead... TELL. I hope somebody would kill me." "You'll really be dead if you don't start scrubbing. Hey, if you're not going to take that toilet, I will." A drop of sweat trickles down and slips into Mind's eye. She rests her forehead against her sleeve. "We used to have adults, didn't we? By the blessed Dean, where are they now...." My neck muscles go cold. Her words have roused something in me I do not like. Why must things be so confusing? The Dean is right; the one path to understanding is cleanness.... "Truant!!! Mind is a truant!!!" There is already a breathless lunge for her scrubbing space. She is forced up by two nine year old teachers. And in all the foggy mist of the shower stalls, out appears our majestic five year old Dean, as if to guide us from the confusion and haziness. The Dean scrawls a check plus across my shoulder, with one of his play markers, and catches me with his childish grin. His eyes are transparent and extraordinarily clean. At that startling sight, I feel an heavy ache in my heart and tears begin to swell up in my eyes. Why am I crying? It can not be that I am sorrowful... "Dat was really good work, Notion. I want evybody to know Notion is good boy. He gets good mark for today. Yayyy!!" There are all around envious glares from my fellow students, yet I am sure (I must be!) pleased. For in that split second, I have found a direction. I have found my wonderful skill. No one else can catch truants as well as I can. I long to please the Dean; so wise and steady in his guidance. Dean speaks. "Evybody knows bad people get killed, yea?" Some of us whimper while others try to show off how clean their areas are. "Good. We gonna throw lots of food at Mind or something. It will be fun. Big girls like her make me really mad." Mind jerks her developed body in frustration and contempt. Her eyes flare at the Dean. "Why can't you JUMP him?!! He's just a little KID!! We can do this, if we want to!" The shining green eyes grow dim then rotten as they search hopefully, now pleadingly, for some spark of life in the eyes of myself and the other students. At the lack of response, Mind collapses in failure and starts weeping. She sees too much for such an old age. We have been misguided, by our mother, so I must strive to clean up all excess thinking. It would not do to end up like Mind. Whatever we were taught to believe is incorrect. Little kids are powerful! The younger they are, the stronger.... My eyes crawl up the Dean's pink toes, his scrubbed belly... his pure eyes. With just one blink of that eye, the entire world could crumble at his feet. "So.... Cleanup time comes soon. I wish you could finish fastlier. Lots of people come here tonight. And Mind... " Mind looks like a heap of miserable impurity, against the clean white tiles. "Mind, I want to play with!! And today for her, I think, is a good day for bath day." The Dean slaps down a little foot and one of the workers immediately escorts him, on piggy back, through the shower stalls. The workers jerk wearily back to their cleaning areas. We must get our work done as soon as possible. The shower stalls and the toilets will soon be teeming with hairy, smelly, civilians from the outside world. Today Mind will be cleansed among them. In no time at all there will be screaming girls, stripped to the ugly pointy spines and pale green shoulders. They will be shoved into glass shower tubes and locked in tight, so that the impact of the hot, cold water will not spill them out. It is harder with the reproduction workers, girls with babies; they have to be folded in and the glass pressed tight over them. Their kicking bellies squeeze to get out and only round white flesh is visible behind the steaming glass case. Boys will be sandpapered down; thick growing hair is the most disgusting sight in this world. Chlorine solution will be pumped down their throats, and a flexible stick shoved down to scratch out any dirtiness, any impurity. Hollering, they will regurgitate the solution and beg in the name of the Mighty Dean to please, please stop the hurt... I am so pure, they say. My teeth and tongue and lungs and brain are clean! No dirty residue! This scrubbing must get done as soon as possible. The sooner it is done, the sooner we can wash our people. The sooner we can purify them. We will be rid of all hair, all nastiness, all grease or grains of dirt. In due time, we will be happy. [rant ~ Museum Space by Geoffrey Gresh]_____________________________________ To most teenagers, museums are serious places. They're in the same league as libraries. You're sometimes obliged to go to them and you have to be quiet while you're there. Most art museums fit that description. They are mostly stuffy places that showcase the art of dead white europeans. Wait! Don't start sending those angry letters yet. There are a few good exceptions. During winter vacation, I went to Paris. I like to travel, and I was looking forward to seeing some good, money-grabbing tourist attractions. Hey, I thought, millions of people come to New York and spend millions of dollars on t-shirts and miniature Statues of Liberty. It was time to give something back. So the first thing I went to see was the Louvre art museum. It was right across the street from my hotel, so I knew I wouldn't get lost and have to pull out the French phrase book ("Are your underpants fresh today? Hey, that's not what I meant!"). At first, it was kind of pleasant. You enter through a nice big glass pyramid, and go down into a large hall that connects to the different parts of the museum. It was spacious. Living in a Manhattan apartment, I really like space. So now my expectations were high. I start walking through the museum, not really looking for anything, mostly just taking the whole thing in. That's the way I like to experience art museums. I never really stop for more than a few seconds at any individual artwork. While I'm walking around, it quickly becomes apparent that I have absolutely no idea where I'm going. I'm lost and I'm okay with that. I like to wander, anyway. But then I entered the Egyptian wing, and withheld a gasp. Sure, there were a lot of nice artifacts there, but it was the wrong environment. Every room was very ornate and frilly, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. Imagine seeing the Sex Pistols at Carnegie Hall, or the Spice Girls playing with New York Philharmonic. It was just wrong. The building was not designed with the artwork in mind. Most of the Louvre was like that. Crowded rooms with way too much artwork and no context. I left the museum relatively disappointed. And then I crossed the street... On the same side of the street as my hotel was the D'Orsay museum. It showcases the art of the Impressionists. The museum is a converted train station, which is obvious the second you walk in the door. It's a huge hall, and stretches a few city blocks. Now, the D'Orsay adopts a whole new perspective on museums. There is a lot of space in that building, and most of it is not used. This is not a bad thing. I don't like to feel cramped in a museum. Like I said, I like to wander. This museum was designed around the artwork, and it shows. The progressions from one piece to the other is natural. The design is perfect. Now, for my fellow teenagers that are reading this little rant, I am not a complete cornball. Like I said, there are lot of museums I don't like. Think of the D'Orsay as an art theme park. It is not spaced in and you can actually breathe. Museums should be that way. You shouldn't feel like you're in a library. The information (art) should be presented in as interesting an environment as possible. You should be able to walk around these environments and be comfortable. Imagine an art museum as a place you would go to read a book or just relax. In some ways, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim are able to accomplish that. But they've just started. Interactive elements can still be blended with architecture to form a complete artistic experience. The space is as important as the artwork itself. More teenagers would go to museums if they didn't feel like museums. I plead with you, art museum curators! Pay attention to your architecture. It shouldn't be utilitarian. It should be enjoyable and interactive. Or else the entire teen population will eventually be forced to turn museums into parking lots and Burger Kings. Anyway, I left Paris with a better feeling after visiting the D'Orsay Museum. And I got a nifty little Eiffel tower key chain, to boot. [review ~ David Holmes:"Let's Get Killed" reviewed by Sam Kendig]___________ I've never really written a review before, so excuse me if this seems a bit unlike others you've read. I realized after deciding to write this review that I don't read reviews of music. I'm one of those people who just listens to the radio, and gets what they like. But anyway, back to the review. I think I first heard David Holmes while listening to Solid State one night. It's a techno-electronica program Saturday nights, and I find its great to just relax to, to leave in the background. The problem I've found, however, is that techno has become music for the musically challenged. While truly an art when it first started, its become so that anyone can take a synthesizer, a drum beat, and a little mixing know-how, and call themselves a techno band. Generally, Solid State focuses on some of the better techno as the show starts, but once it gets beyond midnight, they'll start to play some of the newer, not-so-popular stuff. This was where I first heard David Holmes. So as I was saying, I heard David Holmes one Saturday night, some time after midnight. I was half asleep, and only marginally listening, I think I was probably surfing the web without really paying attention to what was on the radio. This one song came on, it wasn't quite the synthesized beat that they'd been playing for the past hour. I think it was probably the first and only time I'd heard orchestral strings in a techno piece. I was only listening with half a brain, yet the strings caught my attention, and I waited attentively for the name of the artist. Later that night, I heard other David Holmes pieces, which were also pretty cool. Probably the best way to describe the genre is ambient. The album really captures a sense of NYC, and for most of the songs, associate a neighborhood. The songs put into music a pocket of the city, something done with amazing success. To anyone who doesn't live in the city, or for those who do, but don't know it that well, the album may still be cool, but it loses its full effect. The casual tourist can't understand. There's a certain experience to really have walked the streets of the city, just taking in the surrounding areas, and soaking up the culture. There's a certain something that New York has that no other city has, and David Holmes has captured that on his CD "Let's Get Killed." I played one track for my friend from out of town, which had a clip from a public astrologer in Washington Square Park. He thought it sounded funny, which it did. But there's a different experience if you've actually been to the places, heard the people. Its the difference between looking at a postcard of an unvisited monument, and seeing the picture you took when you went there. For those of you who know the city, "Let's Get Killed" comes under great recommendation. It collects sounds of the cities varied cultures, from the high class club scenes to the small corner bars, from a downtown Broadway intersection to the street musicians of the lower east side. David Holmes has managed to find wonderful examples of the sounds of the city, and merge them with an electronic beat to produce an amazing amalgamation of the city. If we can't fit the city in a bottle, here are the sounds on tape. ___________________________________________________________________________ Visit the Spindle website at http://www.bway.net/~macman/ ____________________________________________________________________________ If this issue of Spindle was forwarded to you by someone else, but you would like to subscribe to the monthly edition of Spindle, send an email with your email address and "subscribe" in the subject area to macman@bway.net. To unsubscribe, send a message to the same email address, but include the word "unsubscribe" in the subject area. ____________________________________________________________________________ Contents of this email are copyright 1998 option.clique entertaiment. All rights reserved. Sure, go ahead. Forward this issue of Spindle to whoever you want. See if we care. Just don't reprint it, or we'll sick the German Sheperds and our crack team of expert lawyers on ya. ____________________________________________________________________________