What Is The Deal With Lana Del Rey? A Timeline

By Less Lee Moore

I never even heard of Lana Del Rey until I saw this posted on a friend’s Facebook wall on January 14: “What is this Lana Del Rey shit?”

It was, of course, a reference to that infamous, scandalous, controversial, polarizing (pick one or come up with your own) Saturday Night Live performance. I don’t watch SNL so I didn’t see it.

The next day, January 15, another Facebook friend posted a link to Lana Del Rey’s video for “Born To Die.” I listened to it. I loved her voice and I thought the song was rather intriguing and different. Del Rey was certainly beautiful, with a distinctive look and sound. I watched a few more videos of hers “Blue Jeans,” “Video Games,” and “Mermaid Motel.” They were all good.

Then I started reading online about the backlash before the SNL backlash. How Del Rey was an indie poseur, blah blah blah. I felt bad for the poor girl. I felt like if everyone was going to hate on her, I was going to like her just to spite people. (I can’t help it; it’s what I do.)

Other than posting a link to the “Born To Die” video on my own Facebook wall and a link to the January 16 Brian Williams email article on Gawker, I have not posted much about her online. Yet I couldn’t escape the haterade that everyone on the Internet seemed to be drinking. It was everywhere I looked and I wasn’t looking for it. Within about a week, she came up in a real-life conversation and that’s when I started Googling her.

New York Magazine‘s Entertainment section has a nice timeline of events that you can check out here. I admit it looks like I’m copying them with my own timeline below, but mine is a bit different.

Rather than try to dissect and comment on each and every blog post I’ve read about Lana Del Rey (which would surely require at least a week and I do have other things to do) or even the ones I’m linking below, I’m just going to include some salient quotes and let you be the judge.

At this point, you’re going to think what you want to think about Lana Del Rey so maybe you’re thinking “why bother?” I will point out that these links are available to everyone with a computer and an Internet connection. It seems like people (including music blogs and others) are content to follow the meme of the moment without questioning it (or the biases of the blogosphere, much less their own biases) or even doing their own research. I wanted to do my own research and decide for myself. So here you go. (more…)

You Are Not Your Browser History

Visual representation of
the Internet from
the Opte Project

Over the last few weeks, the blogosphere was in an uproar over SOPA and PIPA, two pieces of proposed legislation set to appear before the House and the Senate in January. While the alleged intention of the legislation was to thwart online piracy of movies and other media, opponents expressed concern that the actual effects of the bills would be far more insidious and damaging to the Internet, claiming that it would drastically change not only the structure of the Internet, but the way people use it. Although both SOPA and PIPA are US legislative proposals, there was an overwhelming fear that they would cripple Internet usage on a global scale.
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Valerie Solanas: Who Shot Andy Warhol?

By Less Lee Moore

In June of 1968, a woman named Valerie Solanas rode the elevator up to The Factory, Andy Warhol’s loft. In the elevator with her was Andy Warhol himself. In the Factory’s office was Mario Amaya, an art editor from London; Fred Hughes, one of Warhol’s assistants; and Paul Morrissey, Warhol’s executive producer. Morrissey walked into the bathroom. Within a few minutes, Solanas pulled out a .32 caliber gun and shot Warhol three times. She then shot Amaya in the hip. Hughes begged her to stop. When she fired the gun at him, it jammed. Just then, the elevator doors opened and Hughes told her get on. So she did.

Screencap from I Shot Andy Warhol, 1996

Soon after, Valerie turned herself in to police. When questioned by the media outside of the police station, Valerie said that her reasons for shooting Warhol were “very involved. Read my manifesto and it will tell you what I am.” Solanas served a three-year sentence for attempted murder and died in 1988.

Over forty years have passed since the shooting, but people are still asking the question “Why?” (more…)

Bonnie and Clyde: “You Made Me Somebody They’re Gonna Remember”

By Less Lee Moore

“Why? What’s you mean, ‘Why?’ Because you’re different, that’s why. You know, you’re like me. You want different things. You got somethin’ better than bein’ a waitress. You and me travelin’ together, we could cut a path clean across this state and Kansas and Missouri and Oklahoma and everybody’d know about it. You listen to me, Miss Bonnie Parker. You listen to me.”
—Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

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Catfish: Beyond Real And Beyond Fake

By Less Lee Moore

Living on the Internet means that you often have to dodge spoilers. Luckily, the Internet is also so crammed with information there are enough things with which to distract yourself.

Such was the case with Catfish, a 2010 documentary that caught my attention via its unsettling trailer, which seemed like a faux documentary horror movie along the lines of The Blair Witch Project or the Paranormal Activity series. It was clear that an appreciation of the film was a case of “less is more,” so I added it to my DVD queue and successfully avoided spoilers for almost two years.

When I finally watched Catfish earlier this week, my stomach was in knots for at least 45 minutes until the movie completely . . . I’ll stop here because if you haven’t seen Catfish, you should watch it, and you should watch it not knowing any more than I did.

Catfish is a remarkable film and one that is thrilling, upsetting, disturbing, and moving. It makes incredible use of technology in its presentation of the Internet persona through GPS, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and all the other forms of social and searchable media we use every day. Such technology is so easily accessible and so widely used that it becomes a part of our lives that we take for granted, even though we assign it so much importance. We take all the veracity it reveals to us on faith.

As far as Internet personas, it’s common knowledge that we want to show everyone the best of ourselves, even if that means we make ourselves seem better than we are. But there is always a gap between our “real” selves and our Internet selves.

The width of this gap will likely determine how you treat your Internet friends. Do you treat them the same as your “real life” friends? Better? Worse? Do you subscribe to the “It’s just the Internet” theory to make yourself feel better about what you see and read there? The width of this gap will also determine how much Internet interactions affect you when you’re not on the Internet.

These were the ideas swirling around in my head right after I watched Catfish and right before I started looking up reviews online. Then, much like the film itself, everything changed. SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT! (more…)

Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter

By Less Lee Moore

When you think of banned books, you might think of Henry Miler’s Tropic of Cancer (1934), J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye (1951), Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). However, the practice of censorship and banning books reaches back to Socrates and the fifth century BCE. As Pearce J. Carefoote’s Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter explains, the practice did not end when the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance.
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Best Of 2011: Less Lee Moore

As always, I wish I’d had the time and resources available to experience more, but here are some of the things that made 2011 memorable (in alphabetical order, to be fair).

À l’Intérieur (Inside) at TIFF Bell Lightbox, August 20: Though I’d already watched this film three times on DVD, I felt that I needed to see it on the big screen. I’ve probably said this a few times already, but it’s still true: it manages to completely transcend the horror genre to become a bona fide work of cinematic art. It is indescribable and powerful and if you haven’t experienced it yet, you should.

Adam Ant: For all those folks who thought he was a crazy, bloated has-been, recent live performance clips on YouTube will more than prove those half-baked theories wrong. He’s so much more than the guy who did “Goody Two Shoes” and any and all adulation for him is well deserved. His descent into madness, fall from grace, and subsequent return to form (used in the truest, most non-cliched sense ever) are remarkable achievements. He remains, after thirty years, a huge inspiration to me. (more…)

The Stooges: Head On, By Brett Callwood

By Less Lee Moore

The Stooges are legendary, but that word implies events from long ago, where the facts are less important than romantic myths. At this point in time, Iggy Pop is famous, while The Stooges have always been more infamous than anything else. But even if your mom has heard of Iggy Pop, she may not know much about The Stooges. Brett Callwood’s book, Head On, seeks to enlighten those who don’t know much about the untold history of this essential and influential Detroit band who came into being well before the so-called punk movement of the mid-1970s.
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Homesick For Sadness: The Night Porter

By Less Lee Moore

As a film exploring the sadomasochistic relationship between a former Nazi officer and a concentration camp survivor, The Night Porter has received its share of controversy. In an article about The Night Porter called “Ideas of Sex,” writer and film scholar Nick Impey describes how its “detractors accused [director Liliana] Cavani of exploitatively using the Holocaust as a backdrop for salacious spectacle.” At times, watching The Night Porter feels less like an erotic journey than a particularly gore-free horror movie. It is frequently almost difficult to watch. Yet, persistence provides evidence that The Night Porter is not “Nazi porn” but an examination of the grey areas in a black and white world.
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Too Much Perfection Is Not A Mistake: Sound And Landscape In El Topo

By Less Lee Moore

Preface

For those who have never seen an Alejandro Jodorowsky film, describing one seems a daunting task. Furthermore, once you have seen a Jodorowsky film, such descriptions prove to be a poor substitute for the experience itself.

At present, Jodorowsky is 82 years old. With a life full of many artistic accomplishments, a description of them all is beyond the scope of an analysis of his films, but some introduction is needed in the hopes of illuminating how his background has informed his art.
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