Culture – Page 2 – Xaviar X. Xerexes

Women’s League Soccer

by Xaviar XerexesOctober 3, 2015

We’ve had a decade and a half of professional women’s soccer in the U.S.which is often lost on people not paying attention. Yes there have been three leagues in succession – because the first two only last 3 seasons each – but taken in total there has been professional women’s soccer in the U.S. since the famous 1999 U.S. world cup victory. The first league, Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) launched a bit late – 2001 – to fully capitalize on the popularity of the U.S. women’s team victory but it did have most of that team plus a number …

Oingo Boingo: Danny Elfman

by Xaviar XerexesSeptember 1, 2015March 9, 20201

The artistic genius, the driving force, the hub of Oingo Boingo is unquestionably Danny Elfman. Others made key contributions to the sound of the band, but there would be no oingo in the boingo with Elfman. He put out a solo album which for all intents and purposes is another Oingo Boingo album. The fact that the theater troupe transformed into the rock band and then ended before it faded away is all due to Elfman. Maybe a little bit to Tim Burton who hired him to score Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and then went on to work with him …

Oingo Boingo: The Mystic Knights Of

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 31, 2015

The pop band Oingo Boingo started off an basically an experimental avant garde theatre troupe called the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. When I was growing up I just missed this phase of the band and in the pre-Internet era tracking down “knowledge” of all aspects of the band was not just a badge of your “fandom” of the band — it was hard. I’ve learned a thousand times more about the history of the band in the last 10 years then I ever did in the moment back then. Pictures and music of them playing in clubs from …

Bookmark: Kim Stanley Robinson

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 23, 2015

I just finished Aurora, the latest novel from Kim Stanley Robinson. Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer of hard science fiction who brings logical, methodical extrapolation to any topic he ponders. He is, despite all of that, a fairly poetic fellow who often detours from physics to philosophy and the human condition. But still, hard science. Aurora is a very interesting but ultimately somewhat unsatisfying novel. As the book progresses it becomes apparent that the hero of the story, the true protagonist, isn’t human at all but the very interstellar ship that takes the humans on their long, long journey through …

REWIND: Men In Black

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 8, 2015

Watched Men In Black with M last night — it holds up pretty well actually. Still think the whole “galaxy in a marble” plot point probably should have been explained a bit — it’s such a pointless macguffin it does kind of derail the world-building of the movie for me. I had forgotten a couple of things — one how much the movie milked the “celebrities are really aliens” joke. The supermarket rags as the source of the real news is cute. There was also a joke about replacing CDs with a much smaller CD — that one was completely …