In Which True Blood Contains Multitudes

Tears of a Clown

by ALEX CARNEVALE

True Blood

creator Alan Ball

While the sheriff of Area 5 Eric Northman is all sad about his maker dying, the town of Bon Temps, Lousiana has been overcome by a maenad. The god Dionysius in the person of Michelle Forbes, called Bacchus by the Romans, has had her way with the town, and the only person who can help matters is Sophie, the Queen of Louisiana.

True Blood has a funny way of introducing major characters when you're not looking. What's never explained is why this show doesn't have all the characters it needs. When the only chance Hoyt Fortenberry has to shine is trying to keep his Mom occupied while she battles zombies on Bill's Wii, you know this show has sailed clear of all meaning to a darker place.

When Alan Ball gets tired of finding motivations for deep characters of color, he assembles them into a makeshift army with their oppressers and consumes their leader with the idea of locking up Sam Merlotte. It's hard not to lack confidence in the abilities of the Jason Stackhouse-Andy LeFleuer-Sam Merlotte triumvirate. Like Sookie, we've resorted to calling Biiiiiiiiiillll in a really shrill voice until our vampire arrives to comfort us.

On the other hand, turning Andy into the hero is best thing this show has going right now, and his inspired nonsensical musings about the pig he saw have now given way to the man he saw disappear. Andy isn't going to like that his fridge buddy defies the laws of physics — cops rarely do.

It was only a few weeks before that Sam Merlotte was having sweet, savory sex with another one of his barmaids. Randy Newman might hate Merlotte's kind, but I love little people. Why must happiness for Sam Merlotte be so fleeting? Dionysus turned the love of something at the expense of all else back on Midas, why not to those who believe that workplace romance will take them to the promised land?

The maenad replaces the need humans have for expressing themselves; they killed Orpheus after all. The idea of a destructive, impossible to control God runs throughout the spine of history. Gods were born vengeful, or didn't you know?

The vampires can only extract their fangs and try to make the entranced humans cower. Sookie, for her part, has an ability that repels it. She is part-fairy, or nearly so. Bill's like, "Hey Sook can you do that again?" When he bites a maenad, he becomes infected with her vile poison. "Don't call Biiiillll so much anymore Sook. I can't come everytime you call."

Instead True Blood simply picks on the simpler ones, those of us more susceptible to life's torments. Ex-soldier Terry, for example, is a lot more emboldened as a possessed lunkhead than he ever was as a short order cook. It's fascinating to watch how each group deals with their deluded friends and family. For example, I suppose it really is true that videogames keep families together.

I used to have a similar expression on my face when I played Wii Tennis. Lafayette and Tara's mom, however, prefer the bitchslap method. To each his own is what the first disciples of Dionysus said to one another before they descended into the fury that was to come.

In Donna Tartt's classic first novel The Secret History latin students venture in the Dionysian beyond for beautiful experiences and sometimes painful ones. It is a learning process that allows humans to achieve enlightenment, see George R.R. Martin's A Song for Lya for another example. We all ache to belong to a fugue that exceeds the bounds of the possible.

Bill gets really mad when humans sell vampire blood. Lafayette cares enough to send some a really pretty coed who needs V for finals. Men and vampires are obsessed with worldly concerns that do not trouble the entombed, or Hoyt Fortenberry. The afflicted give themselves over to the deadly haze, but at its epicenter it is a wonderful mask to wear.

In our dreams we find ourselves waiting to be overcome.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here. You can find past True Blood reviews here, here, and here.

"John, At The Reception" — Borrowed Beams of Light (mp3) highly recommended

"Party at the End of the World" — Borrowed Beams of Light (mp3)

"Thousand Year Power Nap" — Borrowed Beams of Light (mp3)

"You Have a Sun!!" — Borrowed Beams of Light (mp3)

Borrowed Beams of Light myspace

In Which There Are Robots For All The Wrong Reasons

Mechanical Brides

by JEFFREY MAX

In March of this year, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology demonstrated its latest humanoid robot, the decidedly female HRP-4C.

OMG so kawaii!

While not the first android to feature a lifelike Asian woman's face, I find it odd that HRP-4C was created and touted as the “Fashion Model Robot,” especially considering all prior HRP models seemed to be aimed more at helping humans with menial tasks and general assistance.

Japan claims its furious robot developments are to mitigate a looming national crisis wherein something like 99% of the population will instantly be old and unable to do anything for themselves.

Thanks, slave.

Is there a less practical type of robot than fashion model robot? I suppose someone could make a robot that identifies and shreds money or something. But until that happens, I think HRP-4C is winning.

Left to Right: HRP-2 Promet, HRP-3 Promet MK II, HRP-4C

It’s not that I don’t think fashion is terribly important, but well…actually, I don’t think fashion is terribly important. It should certainly take a back seat to helping the elderly, right?

Girl, you looks good. Won’t you back that ass up?

Many of these humanoid robots incorporate features and functions designed to make the robot seem more human. They blink and breathe and have hair. Why? Again, all fingers point at society’s burden, the elderly. The claim this time is that old people are frightened of cold, faceless, metal beings. They’re about to die. Can we try not to scare the shit out of them too much? Etc.

I’m generally not fearful of the future. I’ve mostly come to terms with the notion that artificial intelligence is on pace to point and laugh at human intelligence by the time I’m fifty. Yes, it’s kind of startling, but I’m supposed to believe that if geriatrics don’t get robots with eyelashes and flesh-like silicone skin, they’ll have a million heart attacks and die?

Boobs on a robot. Makes sense.

Let’s get real. Consideration for the elderly is a more legitimate-sounding justification for robotic advancements than this poorly veiled sentiment: men are lonely and desperate. I wonder if a man designed HRP-4C (sarcasm). Every dope on the Internet is chiming in about how the robot looks like a walking, talking Real Doll. Not too subtle.

You’ve never been in love. You don’t know what it’s like.

This is darker and more disturbing than some dude somewhere defiling a Fleshlight. This goes beyond sexual gratification. This is abandonment, an affront to what makes us human. This is giving up.

We’re supposed to be superior to robots because we can love.

Heartbreak.

Then why would I ever choose to love something that can’t love me back? Superior indeed.

Jeffrey Max is a contributor to This Recording. He is a dude currently living in Los Angeles, and one half of internet video making superstars Fatal Farm. This is his first appearance in these pages.

Major Lazer "Pon De Floor" video,Directed by Eric Wareheim

Edited and Animation by Zachary Johnson and Jeffrey Max

"Keep It Goin' Louder" — Major Lazer ft. Nina Sky & Ricky Blaze (mp3)

"Bruk Out" — Major Lazer ft. T.O.K. & Ms Thing (mp3)

"Jump Up" — Major Lazer ft. Leftside & Supahyp (mp3)

In Which We Confine Ourselves To District 9

Space Age Sign of the Times

by ELEANOR MORROW

District 9 is about what happens when starfaring men become quarantined with a virus and send the ones they couldn't cure to Earth. Or perhaps this is only the most probable explanation for why a group of indigent aliens took hold of a ghetto in South Africa. District 9 takes the sf cliche of every alien species coming to America and imagines if they ignored America entirely, as it is far more likely they'd do. A parasite preys on the weak, after all.

The city of Johannesburg houses the contaminated populace, who love cat food and use a technology that surpasses humanity — except they can't use it to get home. Our hero is a bureaucrat, just another sad sack who shovels up the shit the government's been serving. He becomes contanimated himself upon attempting to evict a particular enterprising pair of aliens.

The bureaucrat's journey actually glorifies violence as a solution to human problems. This is at least in comparison to more diplomatic methods, which are death by an increasing series of steps according to the filmmakers. The bureaucrat goes into individuals hovels demanding a signature for eviction. This is implausible; what rights would aliens have on U.S. soil except the dignity granted to animals?

If this really happened, you can be sure there would be an alien commentator on Fox News before the day was out. This would be the most important political issue of a generation. In fact, the U.S. would probably feel responsible, even to aliens in South Africa. There's nothing our politicians love more than a messy international situation, for some reason.

Once infected with the virus, the bureaucrat finds his priorities changing rather drastically. He wants to reunite with his wife, but as what? Some alien scumbucket?

In real life, a smoldering, useless ship doesn't metaphorically represent a moral injustice. There is no ship over Johannesburg, no more reminder that whites enslaved blacks anywhere in the world. It is quite shocking that apartheid existed, but slavery also existed, very recently, in the country where we reside.

Slavery is a human custom, and a fairly old one. It's an aftereffect of religion; separating the haves and the have-nots for spiritual reasons. Men are often delighted to find something to wed themselves to closely, like a baseball team or a Democratic politician. And of course it is only ourselves we enslave, is the basic point of Neil Bloomkamp's movie.

We have pens that hold humans; seen the Palestinian territories lately? Go to North Korea — there are camps worse than Disctrict 10 in our world. I suppose my earlier charity towards U.S. aims grows cynical after all.

Eleanor Morrow is the contributing editor to This Recording. She tumbls right here.

"Fascination Street" — Metronomy (Cure cover) (mp3)

"Catch" — Art Brut (mp3) (Cure cover) (mp3)

"The Lovecats" — The Futureheads (Cure cover) (mp3)