Oh, The Horror!

What is horror?

The word comes down to us from the Old Roman, horrere, which means literally “to stand on end” (as in hair) or “to shiver,” whether from fear or cold – Ovid refers to the “chill-bearing breath” of the North Wind (Metamorphosis, I.65).

Halloween is a unique holiday, marked for the celebration of the chill bearing, when demons and witches are allowed to come out to play and scare the bejezzus out of us – or at least, that’s how it used to be.

Over the last decade or so, Halloween has become less about creep and more about camp; Dracula and Frankenstein costumes replaced by Octomom and Obama masks (OK, those are more scary). What I want to do here is help those who would like go old school this year, and have a truly frightful All Hallows’ Eve.

(First suggestion – avoid bars. Like St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s, Halloween brings out the amateur drinkers, a more loathsome species than any undead thing you may encounter. No, Halloween is best spent alone with someone special to snack on in the dark, with something scary to read, listen to, or watch.) (more…)

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Tags: Alien Sex Fiend, All Hallows' Eve, Bauhaus, Catastrophe Ballet, Catch 22
Posted Oct 31st 2009 at 6:18 am in Featured Story, Film, Music | 25323870 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/10/31/oh-the-horror/Oh%2C+The+Horror%212009-10-31+13%3A18%3A52Matt+Patterson

I Want My NEA Grant!

Chairman Rocco Landesman
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA),  Washington, D.C.

Dear Chairman Landesman:

With all this fuss on Big Hollywood.com, Big Government.com and elsewhere over the NEA’s government-funded forays into partisan political propaganda, I thought maybe we could help each other out. 

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Right now, you probably want to support some art that addresses vital current issues from a right-wing perspective in order to demonstrate your impartiality (ha ha!), and I just want to cash in your organization’s evident willingness to spend good tax money on any kind of nonsense that can be passed-off as “art” (ca-ching!)   

Well, I am uniquely suited to provide you with just what you’re looking for!  As a college student, I got a “B” in my Visual Arts 1 class for dressing up a juniper bush in one of my Hawaiian shirts to draw attention to man’s essential oneness with nature while providing a stinging critique of America’s consumerist culture.  Sure, my black-clad, Bauhaus-loving classmates protested that I was a fraud who was more concerned with collecting four easy credits than internalizing our professor’s commie insights about how expressionism equals imperialism, but hey – aren’t all great artists rebels?   Or, at least, weren’t they before last January 20th? (more…)

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Tags: Andres Serrano, Bauhaus, biggovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, healthcare reform
Posted Oct 16th 2009 at 8:23 am in Art, Politics | 24274218 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/10/16/i-want-my-nea-grant/I+Want+My+NEA+Grant%212009-10-16+15%3A23%3A43Kurt+Schlichter

The Vault: An Exploration of the Gothic

Part 1 – Introduction

The bats have left the bell tower, the victims have been bled… - Bauhaus, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”

Goth is dead.

Well, OK, maybe not.  But if it is not dead, exactly, Goth certainly isn’t what it once was.  In this, Goth is rather like conservatism – with which it shares much (more on that later) – a glorious 1980’s heyday, followed by a confused 1990’s…and a disastrous 2000’s. 

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True, some elements of Goth limp along in the new millennium, having been cannibalized by, and absorbed into, mainstream culture.  In some instances, co-opted bits of Goth have been so deracinated as to seem entirely anomalous – witness the black hair, black eyeliner, and black nail polish of the latest American Idol runner up; like claws on a cow, once dangerous and distinct trappings draped on an entirely neutered and non threatening pop singer. (more…)

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Tags: Bauhaus, goth, gothic, Velvet Underground
Posted Aug 5th 2009 at 6:03 pm in Culture, Music | 19799858 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mpatterson/2009/08/05/the-vault-an-exploration-of-the-gothic/The+Vault%3A+An+Exploration+of+the+Gothic2009-08-06+01%3A03%3A36Matt+Patterson