October Raves: She's the Man, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, Alternative Press

 October 2006

Movies

Traci and I have only been to one movie in the past year (and that was sub-par Nacho Libre), so we're not really the ones to ask for box office suggestions. However, we do watch a lot of DVDs. We finally got around to watching "She's the Man," starring Amanda Bynes. The movie is about Bynes pretending to be a boy so she can play on the men's soccer team to prove to her ex-boyfriend that she's a better soccer player than he is. Of course it's dumb, but Amanda Bynes is hot and David Cross, aka Tobias Funke, plays the high school principal. What more could you ask for? Traci won't admit that she liked it, but I think she secretly did.

Books

Part-time rockstar and full-time librarian Danny Hansen often has book recommendations for me. After reading two crap graphical novels by Daniel Clowes, I was about to refuse Danny's future book tips. However, he really came through with "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami. Staged in a surreal, pseudo futuristic world, this is not my usual read. However, it turned out to be a book I couldn't put down. Much more intellectually challenging than, let's see, the book about the "hip-hop cop" I'm currently reading, I had to spend a good deal of time thinking about the book after I finished it. One thing that did stand out as odd about the book was the translation. Originally written in Japanese, in the English version the main character, who lives in Japan, eats and Denny's and listens to Duran Duran. Now that's surreal.

Magazines

The first time I read Alternative Press I felt like I was reading a magazine produced by seventh graders. However, thanks mostly to MySpace and YouTube, I too have the brain of a seventh grader. Now that I subscribe to the magazine (thanks to my friend RB and BigMags.com) I've come to really enjoy it. What makes it good is that it is written for seventh graders - the writers seem to be just a psyched about the music they're writing about as the kids that are reading it. It always includes tips for kids in bands - what equipment to use, how to tour effectively, how to record an album. Each issues educates as well, giving histories of influential bands in hopes of helping kids understand that My Chemical Romance did not invent rock and roll eyeliner. AP also knows how to avoid editorializing, and thankfully, just sticks writing about music.

The drawbacks are isn't emo esthetic - every issue has at least one band spread with blood seeping from band member's mouths - and it's reviewing scale. Everything, I mean everything, is a rave. If your band only gets 3 out of 5 stars in AP, man, you must really suck. If you want to know what's going on in the niches of emo, screamo, punk, hardcore, or in other words, if you want to read about the bands whose faces you see on lunchboxes at Hot Topic, this magazines is where it's at.