This morning at 3:10 A.M. I was awoken by the sound of my son singing/groaning, and I quickly realized that he was performing a startlingly faithful rendition of the repeating vocal sample used in the classic Arrested Development song “Mr. Wendal.” I went in and there he was, happily sitting up in his crib awake, continuing his homage to that great philosopher-hobo. It sounded exactly like this:
In our family, we also make it a practice to slightly modify the lyrics of “Mr. Wendal” to refer to one of Virginia’s heroes, Sister Wendy. Perhaps this is how the young lad has developed such a love for the song.
This morning at 3:10 A.M. I was awoken by the sound of my son singing/groaning, and I quickly realized that he was performing a startlingly faithful rendition of the repeating vocal sample used in the classic Arrested Development song “Mr. Wendal.” I went in and there he was, happily sitting up in his crib awake, continuing his homage to that great philosopher-hobo. It sounded exactly like this:
In our family, we also make it a practice to slightly modify the lyrics of “Mr. Wendal” to refer to one of Virginia’s heroes, Sister Wendy. Perhaps this is how the young lad has developed such a love for the song.
Man’s Search For Happiness (1964). 13 min., sound, color. USA: Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
They don’t make them like this anymore. I came across this when I was a Mormon missionary, circa 2000. It was dubbed onto an old VHS I found in a ward meetinghouse library in Reynoldsburg, OH. I’ve never been able to find it again, but I recently was reminded of this movie and thought to check for it on online, and found it in seconds. Weird to realize that in 2000 there was no such thing as finding or streaming a video online; now you can find almost anything.
The church remade this movie in the 80s and I think they still distribute that version, but it fails to match the weirdness and mystery that you will see here. I love the surrealist/proto-psychedelic moments. To a 21st century father, the scenes of the birth and the babies in the hospital feel almost dystopic, but I guess that’s just how they did things back in the 1950s and 1960s in America. There’s many other priceless moments, such as the awkwardness and bad acting of the old moustached guy as he is welcomed into the afterlife by his various kindred dead.
Plus, as weird as it all is, I think it’s also true. I sometimes have a desire to be both ironic and sincere at the same time. At no time is that feeling more relevant than as I watch this film.
Man’s Search For Happiness (1964). 13 min., sound, color. USA: Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
They don’t make them like this anymore. I came across this when I was a Mormon missionary, circa 2000. It was dubbed onto an old VHS I found in a ward meetinghouse library in Reynoldsburg, OH. I’ve never been able to find it again, but I recently was reminded of this movie and thought to check for it on online, and found it in seconds. Weird to realize that in 2000 there was no such thing as finding or streaming a video online; now you can find almost anything.
The church remade this movie in the 80s and I think they still distribute that version, but it fails to match the weirdness and mystery that you will see here. I love the surrealist/proto-psychedelic moments. To a 21st century father, the scenes of the birth and the babies in the hospital feel almost dystopic, but I guess that’s just how they did things back in the 1950s and 1960s in America. There’s many other priceless moments, such as the awkwardness and bad acting of the old moustached guy as he is welcomed into the afterlife by his various kindred dead.
Plus, as weird as it all is, I think it’s also true. I sometimes have a desire to be both ironic and sincere at the same time. At no time is that feeling more relevant than as I watch this film.
If an ice cream truck rolls up a residential street on a quiet Saturday Afternoon and no children run out to buy ice cream, it does still make a sound. And that sound is by turns nostalgic, melancholy, excruciatingly slow, and ultimately quite creepy. And now it’s stuck in my head.
Leave our kids alone, we’ve got all the ice cream we need around here.
If an ice cream truck rolls up a residential street on a quiet Saturday Afternoon and no children run out to buy ice cream, it does still make a sound. And that sound is by turns nostalgic, melancholy, excruciatingly slow, and ultimately quite creepy. And now it’s stuck in my head.
Leave our kids alone, we’ve got all the ice cream we need around here.
I realize in retrospect that my last post, although it made perfect sense to me, may have been slightly confusing without some context.
It was in fact a record review of sorts of the album Rolling Blackouts by Brighton, UK band The Go! Team. However, I’m a little tired of/uninterested in writing traditional record reviews (see A Change in Focus), so instead I opted for a sort of extreme-reader-response criticism/fan fiction type of record review. I hope to do more such non-traditional record reviews in the future because they are a lot more fun for me than regular record reviews. Besides, you can find good regular reviews all over the place, so why do I need to bother with them, too?
I also would like to state for the record that Rolling Blackouts isn’t anything like my favorite album of 2011 or anything; it’s just a record I had a quick desire to write about in this method. I hope to add more “reviews” to the site, including those written about albums that actually are my most favorites, but we know I have a poor track record of providing steady content and publishing all the things I intend to publish. So, I still have to add this disclaimer about Rolling Blackouts in case I never getting around to posting about any other albums and in their absence it appears as if it is my ultimate all-time-favorite album because it’s the only one I’ve written and published about.
That is all. Thank you for your time. We now return to our regular Froz-T-Freez programming, still in progress.
I realize in retrospect that my last post, although it made perfect sense to me, may have been slightly confusing without some context.
It was in fact a record review of sorts of the album Rolling Blackouts by Brighton, UK band The Go! Team. However, I’m a little tired of/uninterested in writing traditional record reviews (see A Change in Focus), so instead I opted for a sort of extreme-reader-response criticism/fan fiction type of record review. I hope to do more such non-traditional record reviews in the future because they are a lot more fun for me than regular record reviews. Besides, you can find good regular reviews all over the place, so why do I need to bother with them, too?
I also would like to state for the record that Rolling Blackouts isn’t anything like my favorite album of 2011 or anything; it’s just a record I had a quick desire to write about in this method. I hope to add more “reviews” to the site, including those written about albums that actually are my most favorites, but we know I have a poor track record of providing steady content and publishing all the things I intend to publish. So, I still have to add this disclaimer about Rolling Blackouts in case I never getting around to posting about any other albums and in their absence it appears as if it is my ultimate all-time-favorite album because it’s the only one I’ve written and published about.
That is all. Thank you for your time. We now return to our regular Froz-T-Freez programming, still in progress.
