I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: BLUE MAN GROUP Tiny Desk Concert #567 (September 26, 2016).

This Tiny Desk Concert is probably the most fun right from th get go.

It opens with three men in blue marching through the NPR offices.  They go through backstage places, grabbing items.  The go through the DJ booth and even interrupt Corva Coleman’s weather forecast.

They even pull Bob away from his desk as they set up.  And then we see the blue men in action.

I remember seeing ads for Blue Man Group when I worked in Manhattan decades ago.  But I never actually saw them (something i regret).  And indeed, I’m not the only one who remembers their humble beginnings:

Josh Rogosin, our engineer for the Tiny Desk, first saw them in their early days, some 25 years ago at New York’s Astor Place Theatre. He told me how the Blue Men would retrofit some of their theatrical magic — including their custom-made instruments, confetti cannons and streamers — to fit this small desk space.  instead of installing their entire signature PVC instrument, what ended up behind the desk was about a third of it. On the right side of the desk, their Shred Mill makes its internet debut: It’s a drum machine triggered by magnets that changes rhythm depending where they are placed on the home-made variable-speed conveyor belt. They also invented something called a Spinulum, whose rhythmic tempo is controlled by rotating a wheel that plucks steel guitar strings.

So the guys, covered in blue (closeup cameras suggests to me that they are wearing gloves and masks?) play a number of home-made instruments (you can read a full description on the instruments below).  In addition to thw home made instruments, there is a Chapman stick bass guitar and a conventional drummer.

And they sure do get some cool sounds out of these items.

“Vortex” has its melody on the PVC pipes with the spinumlum and once the song really gets going in the middle, with the stick playing a cool melody and the cimbalon playing a sweet plucked melody, it’s really quite a pretty song.

For “The Forge,” the stick plays some cool scratchy melodies while two guys play the PVC tubes (I like that there’s a mirror mounted above them so you can see what they’re doing).  The cimbalon is put to good use in more pretty melodies.

“Meditation for Winners” is hilarious.  They play an old scratchy record with a really intense guy doing intense meditation.   They play really catchy music behind it.  They go into the audience and grab people to breathe in and out, and stretch.  Or doing dragon breath.  Then they chant a positive affirmation “I am the best at being relaxed.”  The way the meditation goes from Namaste into something else is pretty great as are the confetti cannons.

This makes me wish I had seen them 25 years ago even more now.

[READ: February 15, 2017] Chew: Volume Twelve

This is the concluding arc to the amazing (and disturbing) series Chew.  It covers issues 56-60 and includes Demon Chicken Poyo.

Chapter 1 begins with an introduction to Tony Chu, Cibopath.  By now we know who he is and what he does–he eats things (or people) and knows the history of whatever he just ate.  We are reminded that the only food that he does not get a psychic sensation from is beets.

The end of the previous book showed the death of Mason and his instruction that in order to save the world Tony must eat him.  Tony does not want to (obviously) but he must.  But the joke is on him because the last thing that Mason ate before killing himself was a big plate of beets–meaning he is totally blocking Tony’s abilities and that Tony will have to suffer through Mason’s long and tedious explanation of everything (this makes Colby crack up, which is quite funny).

Information is coming from Mason all through the day, even when Tony and Colby have to go on a case–like the CEREDURATUS who can make ice cream that causes lethal freezing of the human cerebellum.

The only way that Tony is going to be able to eat Mason is if he is prepared in some way–possibly by his brother Chow Chu. But Chow hates Tony–there’s no way he would do that for him. Unless he needed a favor too.  Cut to Chow needing a favor.  Turns out that their sister Toni’s old boyfriend is crashing at Chow’s place. He is lovesick without Toni and he is bemoaning some information he has from NASA.

This information is about the fire writing in the sky and exactly what it means.

As Chapter two opens, Tony gets the information he needs and he now knows everyone who is behind the whole Avian Flu story and the banning of chicken.  (I had kind of forgotten about that whole plot which is, you know, the main driving plot of the book).

On their flight to the secret location that Mason gave them, Mason is prattling on and on and eventually tells Tony that he will have to eat one more person.  And he is going to hate who that person is

GASP

Then, just to delay the end there’s a hilarious Interlude.  It’s called Charlie Chog’s Magical Friendship Parade.

There is so much going on in this interlude.  A dad is trying to read his, daughter Lily-Marie, a bedtime story.  She wants something scary –he holds up copies of Chew.  As he is reading, she is possessed by a Sumarian demon. Lily-Marie is also in fact a PISUPULVOMITU and can regurgitate soup cooked with green peas with the force and pressure of a dozen fire hoses.

And when the demon laughs at the man holding the good book, the man laughs and says it’s not the good book, it’s the BEST book.  And to keep us up to date:  The Place downstairs has a new boss–one borne of blood and weather and murder, a being of purest rage and hate and feathers.  One bad-ass motherfucking bird, that’s who! POYO!!!  Btu he’s no longer just Poyo, he is now Demon Chicken Poyo.

And then the story begins and it is, unexpectedly a parody of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, complete with amusingly bad rhymes and very Seussian characters.  There’s even a Grumpass who Steals Christmas.  Who can help them?  Well Poyo is busy fighting Galaxseal….

Neverthless, Poyo hears the cries of the child and comes in a fiery ball to take out Grumpass.  Until Grumpass reveals that the man behind him is dead Santa himself–he had gone mentally unsound  and was destroying Christmas.  But Poyo comes to the rescue

The Demon (Lily-Maire) complains that it was barely a story, and certainly wasn’t scary.  But the man reveals that the book is in fact a summoning spell, opening the pits of hell.

The end of the interlude is very funny because everyone there explains that he is there because of Poyo.

And the moral is this
and the moral is true
Don’t be an Asshole
or Poyo will come for you.

Back to the end of the world:

Chapter 3 sees Tony and Amelia preparing for the end by going for a picnic. They are happy and smiling and have a beautiful day planned. Until Tony gets a phone call.  And it’s not from work, it’s from his (horrible) sister Rosemary.

She is calling to say that her birthday present (an expensive minivan) has been stolen.  He says to call the cops not him, but she has found a cigarette butt that he should be able to get a reading from.  Gross.  It reveals an international crime ring of stolen cars!

But Tony doesn’t care about that, he wanted to spend the day with Amelia.  But he has to tell Amelia the truth about eating her.  If he eats Amelia he will take on her skills.  He tells her that her writing skills have progressed since she first started writing and that she will eventually be able to cause a specific reaction in her readers–lethal food poisoning.  Directed at anyone who has eaten chicken.  Because as they have been saying along: Chicken is Doom.

As the chapter ends, we see Amelia at her typewriter, writing intently.  So much so that her eyes begin to bleed.  That can’t be good.

Several issues ago, the book had been projecting the image of Tony cradling a dead body.  We were teased about it not happening then, but sometime in the future. And that image is continued throughout the final chapter.

Tony has been given a tough choice.  Chicken is Doom.  And thus, he can kill the millions of people who have recently eaten chicken (with a virus that comes from Amelia) or he can do nothing and let the whole planet be destroyed.

He doesn’t know what to do, but Colby is there to help him out. He says they should do one more case before he makes that decision. And so they go off to capture a FRITURIER–he deep fries and cooks in oil or animal fat.  But what’s his power?  No power.  He fries people and eats them.

After this event, Tony has made his decision–he will save the world (there wouldn’t be a story if he didn’t).  Of course, there are severe consequences for what he decides to do.

And there is an epilogue.  It is set Many Many years later. We see Olive (and her crazy and rarely sober partner Ginny riding flying carrots (!).  But first we get an explanation of Ginny’s abilities.  She is PHARMAKISCHROS–impervious to damage while her neurotransmitters are affected by psychotropic substances.

They are after Peter Pilaf. Pilaf is obsessed with Olive (he has carved her face into his bicep). Every time he has gone to prison, it was because she caught him (well not every time, the first time was by her dad).   Peter Pilaf’s abilities have not been fully identified and are ever-changing and ever-increasing.  But for the time being, Olive has subdued him.

Olive goes to visit her uncle Chow (where Tony lives in mutual disgust) so they can watch the big day together.

And that is the final revelation of everything that this story has been leading up to–the past and the future, the cryptic writing, the Chicken doom, everything.

The revelation is stunning.  As is the final panel.

I’m not exactly sure of the whole story made sense (I read it over a very long span of time), but I don’t really care.  I loved it in all of its disgustingness and hilarity.

The back pages of the book show a fun cover gallery of Poyo pictures.  But my favorite is Plushie vs Fluffy in which Poyo Demon Chicken battles Corey the Kitten Devil Cat (a plush doll and a real kitten).

Gosh, I wonder what these guys are up to next!

The Instruments

(as told to us by the Blue Man Group)

Chapman Stick: A combination of a guitar, a bass guitar, and a washboard, the Chapman Stick is 10 strings and all neck. While it can be played with fingers, we often bow the Stick with a bass string. This method, pioneered by Blue Man Group, is called the Mandelbrot Stick Technique.

Cimbalom: An old hammered chromatic string instrument from Hungary that we gave a plywood update to. It’s normally played gently with soft mallets, but Blue Man Group hits it aggressively with drumsticks.

Shredmill: Making its internet debut, this new Blue Man Group creation is a treadmill-shaped, electro-mechanical sequencer that a Blue Man (or anyone else) can use to create rhythmic patterns. Placing and/or moving the Shred Mill’s tiny little magnets in order to change the sequence (“shredding”) is dangerously addictive. If you are ever presented with the opportunity to shred, proceed at your own risk.

Spinulum: Have you ever watched Wheel of Fortune and thought to yourself, “I wonder what would happen if I took that wheel, shrunk it down to about a foot in diameter, mounted it to a stand, and replaced that little white flipper with steel guitar strings?” Us too! The Spinulum is a brand new Blue Man Group instrument that is part slide guitar, part bicycle wheel, and 100 percent dynamite!

PVC: Blue Man Group’s signature instrument is comprised of several lengths of polyvinyl chloride pipe that make an almost synthesizer-like sound when struck with a closed-cell foam rubber paddle. This performance only includes the center, high-octave section of the PVC. This is not because we have a problem with the other sections of the PVC. We actually really like them. There just wasn’t enough space. It’s a tiny desk.

MIDI PVC: The signature Blue Man Group PVC instrument shrunk down and electrified.