Pulse
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, July 14, 2005
■ In my opinion
RYAN NYBURG
BUDGET RACK
Mediocrity
the norm in
American
pop culture
“I thought you didn’t like popular stuff. ”
You would be surprised at how often I hear
this. It’s the sort of uninformed assumption
people make when they haven’t bothered to
really get to know a person. There are a
few easy categorizations that people have,
and apparently it’s simpler to fit me into
one of them than it is to just ask me what my
preferences are.
Either people think I’m some kind of pop
culture Luddite, bemoaning any music creat
ed after 1970 and any film made after 1960,
or, even worse, they see me as a artsy hipster,
interested only in obscurity and kitsch, believ
ing something only has value if no one else
has ever heard of it.
Uggh. I shudder at the image of myself
wearing vintage clothing and listening to Ital
ian disco, or whatever wave of obscuro is
trendy this minute, while I sit at the Indigo
District, taking hits of flavored tobacco off my
hookah and criticizing Cameron Crowe for be
ing “too Anglo.”
i ll be tne tirst to admit i can oe a lime
snobbish about things. But sometimes it’s bet
ter to be snobbish than it is to be an idiot. I re
cently began working at a local video store,
and let me tell you, nothing will lower your
opinion of average Americans more than find
ing out their rental preferences. Mediocrity is
the norm. It often feels like people don’t even
try to move beyond the familiar. The depres
sion really hits around the eighth phone caller
asking if we have any copies of “Hitch” in
(“Oh you mean that film about people with
perfect lives and their piddly relationship
problems? Yeah, we’ve got some of those.”)
But this doesn’t mean I don’t like things
because they’re popular. I just don’t like
things that are boring and stupid. So much of
what becomes popular does so by being so
inoffensively middle-of-the-road that it ap
peals to the broadest number of people. Most
popular music, popular literature and popu
lar films make me drowsy. I find sitting
through the same themes and plots and
sounds over and over again to be a rather in
sufferable act. Popularity is a symptom of
mediocrity, not the cause.
If more popular art was exciting and fresh,
I might give it more of a chance. But every
time I try I find myself vastly disappointed.
I can think of maybe a small handful of
television shows I find interesting and most
of those will probably be canceled by the end
of the year. Every time I check to see what’s
on the Billboard chart I almost gag at
what people are buying (Coldplay? People ac
tually like this dull, narcissistic crap? Some
millionaire, who’s married to a gorgeous
actress, sings about how depressing his life
is and people think he’s sincere? Aggghh!
Brain hemorrhage!)
I don’t want quality art to be separate from
popular art, but that’s the way it so often is.
Even the best of what’s popular doesn’t really
do much for me. Never could get interested in
NYBURG, page 11
Partics/o r Potter
Fans and bookstores around town are readying themselves
for the July 16 arrival of their favorite wizard, Harry Potter.
BY R\AN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
With pre-order sales already in the
millions, the latest installment of J.K.
Rowling’s phenomenally popular
“Harry Potter” series, “Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince,” is expect
ed to be one of the most popular yet.
The series has already sold over 259
million copies worldwide, has been
translated into 62 languages and three
installments have been adapted to film,
with another film expected Nov. 18.
The unprecedented success of the
books has made each new release a
bookselling event, with large chains
and independent stores holding parties
for customers in anticipation of the
July 16 release. The major chain stores
in Eugene, Barnes & Noble and Bor
ders, will be holding events the night
before the release that will carry on
through midnight when the book goes
on sale. Both stores will have readings
and games and both plan to stay open
until 2 a.m. to make sure as many peo
ple as possible get a copy of the book.
“We had close to a thousand people
here for the release of the last book,”
Barnes & Noble Community Relations
Manager Andrew Kim said. “We ex
pect that many or more this year. ”
The Barnes & Noble party will begin
at 8 p.m., and the Borders party will
begin at 9 p.m.
The University Bookstore is also
planning its own event for the night of
the release, with contests, food and
games to keep everyone entertained
until the release. The bookstore will
also be offering a 20 percent discount
on all of its general sale books (text
books are excluded) during the event,
which will run from 8 p.m. until
Bret Furtwangler | Graphic artis
For people who are looking for a
more intimate atmosphere and an ear
lier event, Books Without Borders will
be holding a morning release party on
Saturday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Locat
ed inside the Strand, a building that
also holds Theo’s Coffee House and
Cozmic Pizza, Books Without Borders
decided to hold the event the day of
the release instead of the night before
because of a scheduling conflict with
one of the other tenants.
“Cozmic Pizza had already scheduled
an event on the stage for that evening,”
manager James Squires said. “It doesn’t
really matter. We think a morning event
might work better for people who don’t
want to bring their kids downtown in the
middle of the night. ”
Books Without Borders is a recent
addition to the Eugene booksellers’
community and is operated by Squires
and Amelia Reising, former employees
of the recently closed independent
bookstore The Book Mark. For the
“Harry Potter” event, the store is plan
ning to have readings, crafts and
prizes. The store has already sold
about 40 pre-orders and is expecting
75 to 100 people for the event.
The Strand is located on the comer
of Eighth Avenue and Chamelton.
ryannybu.rg@ daily emerald, com
■ Forgotten films
From 'Creepers' to 'Cube'some more
recent horror films make the bloody cut
"Fraility," "Jeepers Creepers" and "Cube" show that
modern horrors are capable of suspense and story
BY RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
I spend so much time lamenting
over the state of modem horror cine
ma that one might get the impression
from reading my articles on the sub
ject that there hasn’t been a decent
hoiTor film since John Carpenter shed
this mortal coil. (OK, I know John Car
penter isn’t dead, but judging from his
recent output he might as well be.)
But things aren’t nearly as bleak as I
make them out to be. The good, intelli
gent horror films are there, but some
times they get lost in the shuffle or
filed away with the rest of the reac
tionary genre crap. Let’s take a look at
a few modem horror films that, while
not perfect, are at least making steps
in the right direction.
an FBI agent.
The film is well crafted and beauti
fully simple in the way it lets the sto
ry unfold. This sort of dependence
on flashbacks could make the narra
tive a little tricky, but everything rolls
along nicely as the almost-gothic at
mosphere builds and builds. The
only problem is the ending, which
erases some of the ambiguity of the
premise and wipes out a lot of the
psychological depth.
peepers Creepers'
Next up is a series of films that is
even harder to make a case for with
some people. The two “Jeepers Creep
ers” films were passed over by the
public and most critics as nothing
more than bland
'Frailty'
Released in 2001 to
some acclaim but quickly
forgotten soon after, actor
Bill Paxton’s directorial
debut, “Frailty,” was one
of the best horror films re
leased that year. The film
tells the story of a single
father and his two sons.
The father begins having
visions and believes God
wants him to rid the world
of demons in human
form. He drags his two
genre fare. But a
closer look at the
films reveals some
hidden depth. The
first film (2001)
opened with a per
fectly timed se
quence in which a
pair of college-age
siblings drive along
a country road hold
ing a banal conver
sation. Without
warning they are
suddenly attacked
by a large ugly truck
kids along with him as he kidnaps
and murders those he believes are
demons. The story is told in flash
backs by one of the sons as an
adult, who describes the events to
that drives them off the road. The se
quence is a practically flawless exam
ple of building suspense and sustained
shocks. The siblings discover that the
driver of the truck is a bizarre creature
that feeds on people every 23 years for
23 days and can regenerate itself by
eating parts.
The sequel follows a high-school
football team as its bus travels through
the country roads during this same 23
day period. The bus is attacked and the
teenagers find themselves trapped in
the middle of a country road miles from
anything and at the mercy of the seem
ingly unkillable flying demon. Both
films build the scares from the personal
interplay of the characters and the
frightening moments are often so well
timed as to be, well, frightening. Taken
together, these films are truly great, and
underrated, modem horrors.
'Cube'
Here is a premise worthy of Jean
Paul Sartre. A group of people wake
up inside a small room with no idea
how they got there. The room has a
door on each wall as well as on the
floor and ceiling. Each door leads to
another room of the same size. Some
of the rooms cumedn deadly booby
traps that will slice, dice, burn or im
pale anyone who trips them. The
only way to tell whether a room is
safe or not is through a mathemati
cal system imprinted on the doors.
Without food and water, the group
has to find out how to get out of the
large, complex trap.
1997’s “Cube” rolls out this de
lightfully simple and brutally twisted
idea quickly and efficiently. The
premises and how to exploit it is
everything here, with the horror
coming from the hopelessness of the
situation rather than through explicit
frights. Highly creative and worth
checking out.
ryannyburg@ dailyemerald, com
Tonight
'80s Night
John Henry's
10 p.m.,$3
'80s dress-up and
dance
Friday
Aphrodesia
WOW Hall
9 p.m., $7
World beat
Saturday
Mood Area 52
Sam Bond's Garage
9:30 p.m.,$5
Tango
Sunday
Kung Fu Karaoke
Diablo's/Downtown
Lounge
10 p.m., Free
Karaoke and Kung Fu
movies
TOP 5 MOVIES
1: "Fantastic Four"
2: "War of the Worlds"
3: "Batman Begins"
4: "Dark Water"
5: "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"
NEWYORKTIMES
BEST-SELLERS
1: Janet Evanovich,
"Eleven On Top"
2: Elizabeth Kostova,
"The Historian"
3: Danielle Steel,
"Miracle"
4: Dan Brown,
"The Da Vinci Code"
5:Su Monk Kidd,
"The Mermaid Chair"
BILLBOARDTOP 5
1: George Strait,
"Somewhere Down in
Texas"
2: Ying Yang Twins,
"U.S.A.: United States
of Atlanta"
3: Coldplay, "X&Y"
4: Mariah Carey,
"The Emancipation of
Mimi"
5: Cassidy,
"I'm AHustla"