MMMBop and Safety Head Gear

I feel that it's high time that I stopped hiding behind the photogenic good looks of Big Hanson (aka, Isaac or Ringo-Hanson) and revealed myself as his less-fortunate doppleganger. If only I could have been more like the girly one, all the more to further my drag queen successes. Apparently Big Hanson recently tied the knot, the last of the brothers to do so. I have been surprised at how few people remember the Hanson sensation. Surely if I were to play the repetitive, overplayed, and, let's face it, incredibly catchy "MMMBop" people would quickly recall the screaming teeny boppers. Still, I do believe that they had a whole lot more talent than a lot of popular chart music today (they just don't make them like they did in the old days). For prosperity's sake I'll keep the image of Isaac (with the partial heads of Zac and Taylor) here:


Dearest Cassie recently rummaged through her memorabilia of those good old days, mostly looking for pictures of yours truly in drag, and posted them on her blog. And so it was that one of these photos has come to adorn my blog profile. A little background: to the best of our knowledge, this photo was taken at Cass' 18th Birthday. The head apparel I'm sporting was designed and assembled by the incredibly talented James, as a gift for Cass. The T-shirt, with the caption "Call Me Burroughs", (below which was a picture of good old Willy Burroughs), was one of my favourites, which I wore continuously until it fell apart. I remember Nicole finding it for me at a flee market. Happy days.

The photo reminds me of my desire to get a Vespa and ride it resplendent in a bright orange helmet, with antennae, making Meep Meep noises at passing motorists (something like Beaker from the Muppets). I read recently about a study which found that people sans helmets were less likely to be involved in car accidents (very scientific, I imagine). (Apparently, the guy also dressed up in drag to discover that drivers gave him even more room). Probably, this is likely to do with driver psychology, that is, drivers will give more room to people not wearing helmets because they might perceive them as less experienced, less predictable and more likely to die if there is an accident. Helmet or no, I don't really like my chances in an accident. By this logic I should be very safe on the road in this fashionable contraption.

Tweemo

As if the individual music genre terms of "twee" and "emo" weren't confusing enough, Adam and John had to coin the amalgamated concept of "tweemo". Twee, originally intending something excessively or affectedly quaint, and emo, short for emotional. Twee was originally derogatory and emo has become derogatory. Perhaps this photo, taken on a recent trip to the beach, of the two masterminds behind the word demonstrates its necessity:


A large part of the weekend involved the invention of twee porn titles (e.g. barely eightween). The story line, repeated across the genre, with minor variation by unimaginative twee porno directors, goes: a boy and girl, both wearing cardigans, meet (perhaps he's an effeminate poet and she's a librarian). They sit, mostly turned away from the camera, looking over a beautiful dandelion meadow (Belle & Sebastian is playing). The girl's cardigan slides, ever so slightly, down her shoulder. The boy reaches out to take the girls hand in his own. They turn to face each other, and stare into each others eyes as the sun sinks below the horizon between them and they slowly get old together. THE END.

I like twee music. Although, I have to admit the origin of the term is a bit off putting. It figures though, because I'm slightly effeminate and my girlfriend's a librarian. I made her a twee CD, here is the track list:

Music Is My Boyfriend - The Hidden Cameras
I Don't Know Why I Love You - The House Of Love
Bachelor Kisses - The Go-Betweens
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey
Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Islands
The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side - The Magnetic Fields
Lovefool - The Cardigans
Let's Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura
Sort Of Mine - Heavenly
Build - The Housemartins
Our Lady In Havana - Essex Green
Sleep Tonight - Stars
The Leanover - Life Without Buildings
Wishbone - Architecture in Helsinki
My British Tour Diary - Of Montreal
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Camera-Shy - The Lucksmiths
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Beautiful - Belle & Sebastian
On The Bus Mall - The Decemberists
Listen To My Heart - Steinbecks

Of course, a close inspection of this list will lead some to exclaim "but that's not twee..." when questioned further their main reason will be because they like it. I think that this is, probably, a problem with the original definition, which being negative, implies that all twee must be negative, but if it was then no one would like it.

I don't know about emo. I researched to try and find out which bands constitute emo music. But, I haven't heard of any of them, apart from more recent, post emo (i.e. post decrease in popularity), bands like death cab, which I imagine wouldn't call themselves emo. People seem a little crazy on the whole emo hate thing. I suspect that many of them wouldn't actually be able to list many emo bands. And why does JB have an emo section? Well, what I know is that James Blunt isn't in the emo section so someone else is to blame for his music (which sounds like a cat being tortured). Lets regain our focus, rally the troops and work on the real evil here.