about locker room talk

Shaquille O'Neal sits in shadows. The dimly lit locker room bench cold beneath his mass. A drop of sweat escapes his crown and slithers down his thic face skin. He lifts his chin and locks eyes with you. Opponents. Now you can prepare. Now you must prepare. Shaquille pulls out a two-gallon bucket of Icy Hot. He tactically pulls off the lid. He begins rubbing luxurious handfuls of Icy Hot on his arms. You maintain eye contact.

 

a review of a death metal album that sounded pretty good

I'm not a death metal guy. It all kind of sounds alike to me. But "Ashen Womb," the latest album from Copenhagen's Phrenelith, immediately stood out.

The best part is the Mesozoic sound. It's so expansive. The band sounds charged and vicious, but the music's drama and ferocity are directed. Songs zig and zag with intention.

The bass fills out the bottom-heavy, beautifully echoed guitars that lay waste to all and sundry with drubbing riffs. Vocals, if you can call them that, belch from the dead's aching guts. And the drums attack from all directions, often building to where everything is cracking under the weight.

I wanted to learn more about Phrenelith, but the band did not respond to my interview request because they were too busy with other interviews, according to the public relations contact.

"Ashen Womb," released February 7 on Dark Descent/Me Saco Un Ojo Records, is Phrenelith's third album. The band debuted in 2017 with "Desolate Endscape" and followed up in late 2021 with "Chimaera." The songs on "Ashen Womb" are not unlike those on "Chimaera," but the new album just sounds better.

 

 

something about a peacock

The sun dominated on the last day of spring. See the peacock coming, her flag folded, her flag of war, which looked the same as her flag of love, so you never knew whether she was flying the one or the other. She marched all the way across the clearing, as she often did in the hours when shade was short. Her space—her destiny—was where the sun meets the earth, all mass and energy.

 

about impossible standards

She was added to an email thread that began 24 hours ago, and she jumps into the shit show. Her favorite thing to do. She wants to be involved. She likes to be in the fray. 

She pounds out a long email that tries to get at the heart of the issue. She wants to know what is happening. What is happening!? More importantly, How did this happen?! 

Her initial dive into the breach is executed with a lot of force. Exclamation points. Italics. Maybe even underlining.

Punctuation and formatting choices nobody in their right mind, in most situations, would make. You might say the tone is—hysterical.

But it gets a response. She’s involved. And now she has more context, more background information. But the information isn’t good!

She needs to set people straight. Here are the rules, and here is how it should be done. More importantly, here is how you all deviated from The Right Way To Do This.

It takes a few of these kinds of emails—plus some separate emails she fires off to some other people—but she gets through.

Okay, they say. You are involved now. You are a part of this. Help us out, they say. Make this right.

Hold on now. It isn’t her problem. And she says so. If this is how they do things, and it works for them, that’s fine. Just let her know what’s what from the get-go. Just copy her.

They are confused now. They thought she wanted to be involved in this thing. They thought she needed to be involved. There has to be a process here.

Not exactly, she says. She has guidance to offer. A perspective. A wealth of experience to draw from, to impart. And that is what is happening now. Not some other thing.

That’s what this whole thing was about.

But—it’s her obligation to point out now that something else is wrong with all this, with what they are doing, with how they are going about it. There is a whole other side to this thing. Another box they need to check. Have they checked it? She doubts it.

Emergency. Or hysteria. Email traffic dies down. Everyone is ready to go about the business of finishing this thing and go their separate ways.

Now that all the excitement is over with.

Note: Was thinking of a Raymond Caver style.

good quotes from reviews of "The Iron Claw"

I never did see "The Iron Claw," the 2023 biographical sports drama about the Von Erich professional wrestling family out of Dallas, but I had read these contemporary reviews in The New Yorker.

In short, Fritz creates a spotlight too big for his sons to escape and too bright for them to endure, and tragedy ensues—and ensues and ensues—and Kevin, as the oldest living son and a paragon of responsibility, takes it very hard when he can't prevent it.

And,

The work of a sports drama is, in some sense, to transcend the easy marvel of athletes' physiques in favor of other, deeper stuff, like inner strife and sentiment. But in "Iron Claw" the body is relevant for how it testifies to the hard life of the family's chosen sport. The three oldest Von Erich sons gain renown wrestling as a team, and for a time they triumph. Traveling across the country to compete, they are Texas fabulous: beef-fed boys in velour and lamé, carousing in tight tanks and tighter denim. Durkin, working with the cinematographer Mátyás Erdély and the costume designer Jennifer Starzyk, wants us to see the body as a hewn product: a vascular, clenching, clothes-busting display. Erdély's handheld camera chases Kevin's nimble, ultra-tan form around the ring, catching flashes of heaving muscle and theatrical grimaces framed by He-Man hair.

 

Notes: (1) The spotlight quote is from "'The Iron Claw' Is a Combustible Family Drama of Love, Loss, and Pro Wrestling," Richard Brody, December 20, 2023. The second quote is from "The Poignant Physicality of Zac Efron," Lauren Michele Jackson, December 22, 2023. (2) I still hope to see the movie. (3) I recently cancelled my subscription.