Noiseless Chatter Archive

Grown Backwards is an incredible album. I’m a huge fan of David Byrne’s work as both the frontman for Talking Heads and as a solo artist. He’s an acquired taste, but one I’d say is worth acquiring. And as much as I love his music in general, Grown Backwards , I think, is his strongest album front to back. (It’s predecessor Look Into the Eyeball puts up a damned good fight, though.) Seriously. It’s great. Go buy it. Listen to it for a few years. THEN FINISH READING THIS POST OK Okay. So, there is one song on the album that leaves me wondering about something. It’s embedded below, and you should listen even if you don’t give a crap about helping me with my question, because it’s an excellent song with a pretty adorable guitar line. It’s called “She Only Sleeps.” And that might be the clue to my answer right there, but I’m honestly not sure. See, the entire line in the chorus is “She only sleeps with me.” And that can be interpreted two ways. So, here’s my que...

I had a Game Boy as a kid, and I loved it. Hell, I still love the Game Boy. There were too many great games available to list here, but one that I certainly played endlessly was Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins . I had the first Super Mario Land as well, but it always felt a little…off to me. The sprites were too small. The fireballs bounced. Invincibility stars played the can-can music. It was just…weird. Like falling into another dimension and playing their version of a Mario game. But Mario Land 2 was great. It looked (and looks) gorgeous. The branching paths and secrets felt perfectly designed for the series as I knew it. It contained this song for fuck’s sake. I played it constantly . And I don’t just mean I picked it up and beat a few stages. I mean I completed it. Over and over and over again. As an adult I’ve revisited it, and while it’s not the game I quite remember it being, all of that childhood charm came rushing back to me. …but so did a...

A few years ago I discovered the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games. This was mainly due to the incredible Shin Megami Tensei IV , which I keep meaning to write about in depth here. I’m sure I will, at some point, but before that I’ll just say that it’s great, it’s inexpensive, and you should buy it. Anyway, since playing that game I’ve been working through the previous titles in the series. There’s a lot more than three that preceded it, thanks to sub-series and side-series and spinoff games, and I’ve recently started working through Digital Devil Saga . That’s also great and inexpensive and you should buy it, by the way, but that’s not why I’m here. In fact, the entire, larger series is worth your time, serving as an incredible blend of philosophy, mythology, and characterization, giving you a much deeper and more rewarding psychological experience than most other games — RPGs or otherwise — could possibly deliver. But that’s not why I’m here either. Something ...

I loved Goodfellas when I was younger. Well, okay, I still do. It’s a brilliant film, and occupies a pretty high spot on my list of all time favorites, but it was especially meaningful to me when I discovered it in middle school or so. It was the first film that I didn’t just enjoy, but that I appreciated . It is, unquestionably, an artistic masterpiece. It has to be, because when I first saw it I had no concept of the language of film, and very little idea that the medium could be meaningful. I liked things or didn’t like things…there was little I could articulate beyond that, and little I could understand. Goodfellas was the film that punctured that bubble for me. It was something I enjoyed, but it also impressed me in ways I’m still figuring out decades later. Scorsese’s visual mastery, for instance, was arresting. I sat rapt, over and over, watching the same scenes unfold in ways that felt fresh and new every time. And for a good long while, this was the f...

In the Peep Show episode “Jeremy’s Mummy” (series 5, episode 4), was Mark raped? The answer is yes. This is an easy one. And yet…is it? Some background — though, to be frank, not much is necessary: Jeremy, Mark’s roommate, has his mother visit. In tow is her current boyfriend, and his daughter Natalie. Mark does briefly wonder if he feels anything for Natalie, but pretty quickly decides he does not. After a night of drinking, Mark wakes up to find Natalie having sex with him. He tells her to stop. He tells her he doesn’t want to. But she continues. This is rape. If there’s anybody out there who sincerely disagrees, I’d love to hear that argument. And yet…if it is rape…why don’t I mind it? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not supporting the act itself, but it doesn’t put me off enjoying the episode as a whole. In fact, “Jeremy’s Mummy” may even be one of my favorites. But a main character is raped . I can’t even question that. This man is sexually assaulted while w...

I’ve had this idea for a while…an intermittent series of (likely) short posts, wherein I either crowdsource an answer to something I’ve never understood, or open up something to debate. This is always the one that I’ve wanted to open with…probably because it just seems so simple, and yet I have no answer of my own. In one of my favorite episodes of Futurama (“Parasites Lost,” season three), Fry is feeling a little low. Leela runs off on him, and a waitress appears, offering to freshen his beverage. Odd lines in Futurama aren’t anything unique…but re-watching episodes multiple times usually lets them resolve into jokes I simply didn’t understand the first time. (Or second. Or third…) They may or may not be funny , but I at least get a sense of what the show was doing. The beverage looks a lot like coffee, and Fry accepts her offer for a refill because he needs something to settle his stomach. But it’s not coffee. For a long time, I thought she identified the drink ...