Majikthise

Jazz police are looking through my folders

A Spanish jazz fan called the cops when he decided that a performance by jazz saxophonist Larry Ochs wasn't really jazz:

Police decided to investigate after an angry jazz buff complained that the Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core group was on the wrong side of a line dividing jazz from contemporary music.

The jazz purist claimed his doctor had warned it was "psychologically inadvisable" for him to listen to anything that could be mistaken for mere contemporary music.

According to a report in El País newspaper yesterday, the khaki-clad police officers listened to the saxophone-playing and drumming coming from the festival stage before agreeing that the purist might, indeed, have a case.

His complaint against the organisers, who refused to return his money, was duly registered and will be passed on to a judge. [Guardian]

Scout's honor: Founder of Boy Scouts executed a POW

First Tiger Woods, and now this. Role models are dropping like flies.

Lord Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, may have illegally executed a prisoner of war--according to documents sold at auction this week. The papers indicate that Lord Powell, then colonel in the British Army, ordered the execution of a captured African chief during the Second Matabele War in 1896. The chief had been promised that his life would be spared if he surrendered. The record states that Powell knew this, but had the chief shot anyway. In his own defense, Powell claimed he had the prisoner killed in order to "save lives." An official inquiry cleared him of wrongdoing, mostly because his old school chums swore up and down that he was a good guy.

Bad Mommies Jump the Shark: Mom let cop taze her 10-year-old daughter

This story should put the annoying "bad mommy" confessional genre out of its misery. Nothing can top this. Bad mommies have officially jumped the shark:

An Arkansas mom allegedly allowed a police office to taze (link fixed) her 10-year-old daughter because the girl was having a tantrum. The girl will face disorderly conduct charges. The head of the Arkansas State Police says he isn't sure if the officer made a mistake when he shocked an unarmed child who wouldn't take a shower.

Maurice Sendak tells hand-wringing parents to go to hell

Bravo, Maurice Sendak:

Parents who think the new film of Maurice Sendak's picture book Where the Wild Things Are is too frightening for children can "go to hell", the author has said.

Telling the story of a naughty little boy, Max, who is sent to bed without his supper only to journey by boat to a land where wild monsters live, Sendak's classic tale was first published in 1963 and has captured children's imaginations ever since. With a film version adapted by Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze out later this year, Sendak told this week's edition of Newsweek that he would "not tolerate" parental concerns about the book being too scary.

"I would tell them to go to hell," Sendak said. And if children can't handle the story, they should "go home," he added. "Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered."

Contrarian Double-X hires sociopath as friendship expert

The self-proclaimed feminist website Double-X shrewdly hired noted sociopath Lucinda Rosenfeld to write its friendship column. This is precisely the kind of fresh, contrarian perspective we've come to expect from the Slate/Double-X brand. 

Double-X racks up a lot of hits by hiring anti-feminists to diagnose the ills of contemporary feminism. Retaining a psychopath as a friendship guru is the logical next step.

Before taking the gig at Double-X, Rosenfeld produced a substantial body of anti-friend literature, including a novel about friends who despise each other (the official website even lets you stick pins in a flash voodoo doll!). She's also the author of How to Dump a Friend (2001) and Our Mutual Friend: how to steal friends and influence people (2004). Clearly, she's perfect for the job.

Decorated surgical masks in Mexico

When swine flu struck in May, Mexicans tried to protect themselves with surgical masks. Some people turned their masks into canvasses. Designs ranged from the whimsical to the ghoulish to the political.

Plushie entomology

Motherly love, originally uploaded by weirdbuglady.

I just stumbled across an amazing artist on Flickr.

Weirdbuglady's plush work is a combination of crafting, cartooning, fiber arts, sculpture, and popular science.

Check out her plushie invertebrates, sea creatures, and reptiles and amphibians.

She's even got an Etsy shop.

Darcy and Lindsay in the Wall Street Journal

Martin Johnson of the Wall Street Journal has a great piece on New York's burgeoning neo-big band scene featuring Darcy's band, Secret Society, and one of my photos.

Review: Observe and Report

So, I saw Observe and Report, the new Seth Rogen vehicle written and directed by Jody Hill...

On Friday, I posted about the movie's appalling trailer which shows the main character raping an unconscious woman, who wakes up just long enough to indicate that she's enjoying being raped.

I was repeatedly reassured that I was interpreting the trailer out of context and that I couldn't possibly judge the movie until I'd seen it in full. That seemed like a reasonable argument, so I did.

Director Jody Hill on the "Observe and Report" rape scene

Here's what Jody Hill, the writer-director of the new comedy Observe and Report, told the Onion A.V. Club about the film's notorious rape scene:

AVC: Did you get a lot of studio notes on Observe And Report?

JH: Sure. It’s like anything. There’s discussion involved. That was a big difference between The Foot Fist Way, where if Danny and me and our friends were laughing, it stayed in the movie. With the studio, you have to explain it to them. There was a lot of times—like the sex scene. [Rogen has sex with an apparently passed-out Anna Faris, who belligerently moans for him to continue at the very end.] I put it in there, and they were like, “Well, this is too far.” And I said, “You know what? It’ll just be one shot. Let’s just shoot it and see what happens. Then if you don’t like it, we won’t put it in the movie.” Then we put it in the movie, and they were like, “That goes too far.” And I was like, “Well, let’s just put it in front of the audience and see if they like it.” You know what I mean? You just gotta talk to people. I feel like you can argue passionately—as long as you don’t insult anybody, it’s okay. I think that goes a long way.

AVC: In the Times piece, they describe the scene you’re talking about as Seth Rogen’s character forcing himself on Anna Faris. Is that how you perceived that scene?

JH: [Pause.] I dunno. I’ve always kind of liked scenes that you talk about how fucked-up they are. I would have been happy without any dialogue in that scene. I wanted to show them just having sex and her passed out, and I thought that would have been funnier. But I think I have a darker sense of humor than most people. So at the end, [Faris’ character] is okay with it. [Laughs.] And that was like, “I’ll shoot it both ways.” So I actually shot it both ways. I just kept the camera rolling. There’s like a line that’s “We’re okay laughing, and you’re pushing the envelope.” But you’re not really pushing the envelope until you cross that line where a lot of people don’t go along with you. I tried to do it in a few scenes in this movie, where a lot of people aren’t going to go along with the film or with what we’re trying to do. Hopefully that means we’re actually pushing the envelope. [Laughs.] You know what I mean by that? I think if you’re really pushing the envelope, you have to not include everybody, if that makes sense. Or else it’s not really pushing the envelope.

The interviewer invites Hill to say whether he thinks he shot a rape scene, but Hill doesn't give a straight answer.

His reply seems to confirm my theory that Faris' "motherfucker" line is a cop out--a ploy contrived to keep the scene "funny" instead of taking it to an even darker place. 

It's also pretty clear that Hill thinks the rape scene is funny, not merely shocking.

Rape in movies isn't inherently offensive. Even rape jokes might have a place in a dark comedy. What's really offensive about the rape scene in Observe and Report is that someone thought that having Faris wake up in the middle and act "okay with it" made the sequence funnier or more user-friendly.