Letters, Year Six (March - June 2004)

03DavisR, 01/03/2004
Could u send me da game spank the monkey?????????

Um, no. Unless you were looking for a link to this thing.

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 01/03/2004
[re: T.M.F.Y.T.T.F.T. competition result]

Spank, my lord Attenborough, assembled ladies and gentlemen, and fellow members of the academy.

I would first of all like to thank my parents, for all the sacrifices they made to bring me to this point. Also (if I have time), just to say thanks for all the great people I work with (you know who you are). I feel a little bit of a fraud picking this up, because without them I would be nothing. In fact I can only accept this on the basis, that this award is on behalf of everyone and for all the work they put in.

I guess when I was younger I couldn't even dream, that one day I would be getting recognised in this way, for what is after all, mere words. In fact if I have a message for all you kids out there, it is never give up on your dream. You can do it, because if I can, well you know what I mean.

So anyway do I get to snog Nicole Kidman now or wot?

"...for what is after all, mere words." Yeah, eight of them. Seven of which were wrong.

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 03/03/2004
Pop Trivia Moment & Alternative Competition

Okay for those of you who can be bothered, check out my suggested Sheryl Crow video moment, on Spank's competition results page. Now check out this classic Suzanne Vega video.

The first one of you (as published in this letters page) who can tell me what is the link between the two videos, will have Spank's competition winning CD forwarded onto you (who says you don't get a second chance in life).

Incidentally re: your reply to my 05/02/04 letter: Purely anti-Spursetic only (re 1981 cup final and all that). I didn't invent their nickname. Also re: the Man United game, we intentionally gave them a three goal lead as well, until like the playground bullies that they are, they started cheating by scoring a fourth.

I should point out that at the time Suze wrote this, he hadn't even received the bloody CD yet, never mind heard it. Still, I'm happy to comply with his wishes, so send your answers to suzecomp@spank-the-monkey.co.uk and I'll pass them on.

Larry Baum, Hong Kong, 04/03/2004
[re: mail from Dora Casso dated 19/02/2004]

Like you, I also received a strange message from "Dora Casso":

"Hi there! Sorry for an e-mail out of the blue, but I just did a search for the term Movie Rental Ideas on Google and found ideaexplore.net ranked 31. Since I publish a related website about Entertainment - Movies (it's strictly informational, so I'm definitely NOT a competitor of yours), I'd like to link to your site."

The rest of the message is identical to yours. Dora sounds fishy to me.

I've had a huge number of hits over the past week from people searching on Dora Casso, so we're obviously not the only people she's contacted (here's another one, entry dated March 5th). Maybe we should start a support group.

Ian, Canada, 05/03/2004
[re: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates]

You have appeared to forget to read Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction. It too is a very entertaining book. Another one you have missed is Fuck Yes by Reverend Wing Fu Fing, Robbins' nom de plume.

Good site though. No lawsuits from me!

Three surprising things arising from this mail. First, I'm somewhat surprised to discover that Another Roadside Attraction is the only Robbins novel I didn't namecheck in my review of Fierce Invalids (apart from a passing mention in the links section). It's as rough-edged as you'd expect a debut to be, but it's notable for being a contemporary chase story with the best McGuffin in the history of fiction (the fossilised remains of Christ).

Second, I'm rather surprised to hear about the Wing Fu Fing book. A quick Google on the subject reveals that its subject matter and philosophy are definitely Robbinsian in style, though there appears to be a lot of uncertainty as to whether its author really is Robbins himself.

And third, given my statement in the Fierce Invalids review that Robbins only writes one book every five years, I was incredibly surprised when I walked into a bookshop this week and found that he's turned around a new one in three years. Villa Incognito is out now. Yay!

Stop Hate, 08/03/2004
Abolish/Boycott Racism & Stereotyping: Traditional Masculinity in the Hong Kong Action Cinema of John Woo

[http://www.fl.ulaval.ca/celat/acef/kovena.htm]: Hong Kong Chinese filmmaker John Woo has been "misread" and his work "misappropriated" by exoteric factors in the methodology of Western film studies. His films, specifically his gangster genre films, have been labeled by Western film critics as "homoerotic". This is not a derision of Woo's crime thrillers, per se, in so far as none of these critics have used "homoeroticism" in a negative fashion, that homoeroticism in film is a bad thing, but Koven does believe that to read Woo's gangster films as homoerotic misses the cultural producers' point. Woo's films certainly deal with male-male relationships, but to see these relationships in terms of erotic desire "misreads" the Hong Kong Chinese understanding of the codes of masculine behaviour. Instead, the author posits an alternative reading, alternative, that is, to the hegemony of the Western cultural studies discourse; John Woo's action cinema can be approached as experiential phenomena regarding the construction of a kind of traditional masculine behaviour among the Hong Kong Chinese.

[http://www.kibby.org/masculinity/filmcrit.html]: In a subsequent essay, Sandell (1996) seems to have reconsidered her violence as displaced homoeroticism thesis, reinterpreting Woo's images of male bonding through violence in relation to the structure of values (honor, chivalry) found in Chinese literature and martial arts films. Based on a reexamination of Woo's Hong Kong Films, as well as an close-reading of Woo's first two Hollywood films, she goes on to argue that Woo's 1986-1992 films express a "cultural fantasy about gender and sexuality in which intimacy is valorized and celebrated as important and necessary to all relationships - both sexual and platonic"

[http://www.sizemore.co.uk/killer.htm]: Much has been made of the homo-erotic elements of the movie. The onscreen charisma between Danny Lee and Chow Yun Fat is remarkable and yes they do have a habit of holding guns on one another. The character of Sidney can be seen also to be quite camp to western viewers but then again you have to relate this to how homosexuals are often portrayed in HK action films. Take Pantyhose Hero for example, also known as Pantyhose Killer, the plot revolves around two cops, Samo Hung and Alan Tam, who go undercover in a gay subculture in order to track down a serial killer, helped to fit in by a female officer who teaches then how to be feminine. Hardly PC. Then there is the outrageously camp / sadist figure of Judge (Simon Yam) in Full Contact. If the characters in The Killer are intended to be homosexual then they are very restrained by HK standards. There is not one single instance that is as suggestive as say the scene in In The Line of Fire when Malkovich 'swallows' Eastwood's 'piece' and yet that movie is not referred to as homoerotic. Yes, there is an attraction between the two men but it goes somewhat deeper than a flirtation and seems to be more grounded in their mutual respect for each other as 'brothers' rather than potential lovers.

I'm not quite sure why I've been sent this: is there some sort of implication that I've crossed a line on the occasions when I've talked about John Woo's movies here? Curiously, this arrived just before I was due to publish my review of the Heroic Grace season of Chinese films, like some sort of pre-emptive strike. For what it's worth, I think Woo's always trodden a very careful line between Eastern notions of chivalry and Western notions of male bonding, and this is what leads to the confusion. Now if we're talking about Chang Cheh's homoeroticism, on the other hand...

toneus agev, Brundtland, 08/03/2004
Well what is so wrong with Elephants then?

Toneus! Long time no hear. We're more familiar nowadays with your Eastern European cousin, Tonlyrehs Worc. This site's always been fairly pro-elephant, so I'm not sure what your problem is.

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 12/03/2004
ALTERNATIVE COMPETITION RESULT [see letter dated 03/03/2004 - Spank]

Congratulations Toneus Agev [see letter dated 09/03/2004 - Spank]. You are correct when you say there is nothing wrong with Elephants, because Elephants is of course the right answer.

For the rest of you who were a little too slow off the mark, check out both videos to find the same imitation zoo-type Elephants display, featured in both videos.

My original collector's edition copy of Spank's CD is airmailing its way to you as I speak (I got a good deal from a courier in a red suit with a white beard, so don't wait up).

For everyone else try and be a bit quicker next time. However by way of consolation, check out another great Sheryl video.

Regular readers may be a little suspicious of the neatness of this result. Particularly when Toneus' entry arrived a day or so before I published the competition on the letters page. Still, Suze has rather kindly sent me a CD of his own favourites from 2003, so I'm prepared to overlook this. (This may all change when I get around to playing it, of course.)

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 15/03/2004
Sports Update 14/03/04 - City of Manchester Stadium.

City 4 - United 1

Sniff, what goes round comes around.

Yeah, right, whatever.

dee, north of england, 23/03/2004
[re: mail from Dora Casso dated 19/02/2004]

hey just writin re. dora casso. i also got an email from her saying that a site i built ranked 26 in the search 'basket edible fruit incredible'

Which is especially odd, given that Dee's site - a collection of photos entitled Seeing Things - doesn't have any searchable text in it at all. In the meantime, the idea I floated about starting a support group appears to have been taken up by Colin Roald, Gentleman Adventurer.

service av - info, 01/04/2004
Hi there,

I'm James Banbury, and with Paul Morley we're starting up a label (based mostly on the net...) called Service Audio Visual. We were wondering if we could have a link placed on your site? The url is: http://www.serviceav.com

The site is up, but in a very early stage - the full liveness will coincide with the release of The Image of a Group's new record.

Thanks for your help.

PS Our links page will start soon.

Actually, that mail didn't arrive on April 1st at all. It arrived on February 8th, but I completely forgot to include it on the letters page: I'm guessing the lack of references to Dora Casso must have confused me. Anyhoo, the site is still in a very early stage, so you haven't missed much. James has links to the Art Of Noise, having worked on their last remix album Reduction with Paul Morley, so I'll await their new project with some interest.

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line (never bloody running at the weekends), 05/04/2004
Just one question re: your update on 01/04/04.

What exactly was updated then?

Like it said on the front page: the Simian Substitute Site (always a new one on the first of the month), and an interesting letter on the whole Dora Casso phenomenon. Plus Hidden Agendas, but we don't talk about that. I'm well aware that lately I seem to have settled into a pattern of doing nothing for a month and a half, and then knocking out two new articles within a week or two of each other, and I'm working on that. Promise.

Cynthia, amsterdam, 07/04/2004
[re: mail from Dora Casso dated 19/02/2004, again]

I am also one of the many people who received an email from Dora Casso about the site I built ranked #36 on Google. Does anyone know more about this lady?

Tsk. There are rules to this, Cynthia. You're supposed to tell us what specific category you were ranked #36 on Google for. Actually, a quick visit to Cynthia's Heather Nova site reveals that the category in question was "buy ny yankee ticket".

A recent thread on WebHostingTalk contains the full, rather hilarious truth about what Dora's up to. (Actually, it reports on an email sent by 'Carrie Soefel', but her modus operandi is identical to Dora's, even down to the exact text of the mail.) When you write and accept her offer to set up reciprocal links, she puts a link to you on a search site called High Index, but requests "Don't link to the High Index page above! (it won't be the most meaningful experience for our user) Rather, I'd like it you linked to the site I wrote: penisenhancementinfo.com..."

Frederic E. Kahler, Las Vegas, Nevada USA, 15/04/2004
Fun site! I saw the messages re Melinda McDowell and Thundercrack! [see letters dated 19-22/05/2003 - Spank] and I want to tell you that I have a group devoted to Curt's films, including my favorite, Sparkle's Tavern.

Melinda has also created a Thundercrack! website, and she is a member of my group as well.

Cordially,
Frederic Kahler, owner and moderator, Sparkle's Tavern

Good to hear that the plans for a Thundercrack! special edition DVD are progressing successfully. Hey, Melinda, if you're still reading, you should talk to the guys at The Other Cinema in London. They've set up what they call their R18 Club, which allows them to show unrated movies to discerning arthouse audiences under membership conditions. It's been set up specifically for screenings of a collection of silent French hardcore shorts called The Good Old Naughty Days (previously reviewed here under its original title of Polissons et Galipettes). Presumably once its run is over, they'll be looking for other movies they can show, and a restored version of Thundercrack! sounds like an ideal candidate. (Having said that, the mere existence of Club Rule 17 worries me a little.)

Sheryl Crow Fanclub, Piccadilly Line, 02/05/2004
Re: your reply to the letter of 15/04/04. Do you know does Rule 17 apply to just R18 Club Screenings, or is it in force for all films that are shown at The Other Cinema?

That's a genuinely interesting point, Suze. However, I have no plans to try cracking one off during a screening of The Fog Of War just to see what happens.

Theatremonkey, webmaster of Theatremonkey.com, 05/05/2004
[re: Simian Substitute Site Of The Month award for May 2004 - Spank]

Most amused to find myself the "clean" alternative of the month! Liked your site too BTW.

Love, peace and bananas, Theatremonkey.

If you haven't checked out Theatremonkey.com yet, I strongly recommend you do so: particularly if you spend any time going to the theatre in London's Fashionable West End. The site's full of incredibly practical and useful information about how it all works - from lists of the worst seats in each theatre, to details of which West End ticket agencies are officially approved or otherwise.

The Belated Birthday Girl, In front of my computer, 21/05/2004
I can't quite agree with your assessment of what was wrong with The Black Rider, and wanted to say why.

You said that "ultimately, the finger of blame has to point primarily at director Robert Wilson". I don't agree. I think the problem starts with the text. You mentioned Shockheaded Peter - well, the whole story of this felt a bit like one cautionary tale from that, but stretched over two-plus hours. To me, that was the biggest problem. Wilson's design was mostly pretty, and, apart from the open-mouthing you mentioned, at least gave something nice to look at while waiting for the next song to come around (when I wasn't dozing off - but that's got half a bottle of wine beforehand and a gin & tonic at the interval to blame, too).

Having read the feature on him in Time Out, there did sound like an awful lot of wank to the man, but unless he were to make a 10 minute sketch out of it, I doubt anything he'd done with it would have helped. The songs were great, but the material was just too thin to stretch to an evening's entertainment.

Well, that's what I think.

To be honest, it's difficult to know exactly who to blame, gorgeous. The impression Wilson has been giving in his recent interviews is that the whole thing was pretty much his idea, and Waits and Burroughs were just brought in to supply words and music as required. Of course, Wilson is the only one of the creative trio who's got the desire (unlike Waits) or the higher brain functions (unlike Burroughs) to give interviews these days, so we've only got his word for that...

Live365 Broadcast Assistant, 22/05/2004
250 Reasons to Congratulate Yourself

Wow, your station [Spank's Audio Lair] has accumulated 250 total listening hours.

That's a tremendous achievement; you must have cultivated some loyal listeners. Congratulations!

It's not that tremendous an achievement, readers: that's 250 hours accumulated since the station was launched back in October 2002. Still, thanks to those of you who've contributed to that figure. And if you're not one of them, give Spank's Audio Lair a visit: you'll need to register with Live365 before you can listen to anything, but it's all free.

Eric, Chicago, IL, 20/06/2004
Hi, I'm going through a midlife crisis and am trying desperately to collect nostalgia from my childhood/youth circa 1980s. I've been searching high and low for the original music video of the Art of Noise's Beatbox. I saw it several times as a kid somewhere around 1985 (it aired constantly on regular tv, pre-MTV). I have vague recollections of the split screens, the nonsensical hodgepodge of imagery (what else would you expect?), and specifically the English Bobby frozen on my screen on the chorus. It was beautiful, hilarious! And for the life of me I can't find it anywhere! The closest I've come is a modernized remake that starts with some commentator(?) outside a studio(?) giving us liner notes on the AON. Zzzz. I suspect this is the same video that's on their newly (2000) released VHS you can buy on Amazon. If you have any leads, any clues, anything at all on the original video please help me! It would be much appreciated. (Oh yeah, love your site, too.) Thanks much! Eric

I think I know the video you mean, but I thought it was for Close To The Edit rather than Beatbox - at least in the UK, where the latter track was never released as a single. Anyhoo, you may want to try this. It's a German CD release of their first EP, Into Battle With The Art Of Noise: and it has a bonus DVD attached featuring a few of their videos, including both Beatbox and Close To The Edit. Can't guarantee the version of the videos included: can't even guarantee the DVD will play on US players, what with region coding and all. But it's the best solution I can find.