Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

With the Italian giallo films, you can expect three things: breasts, blood and a title consisting of a string of words you would never expect to be the name of a film but which somehow works.

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In many cases, the names vary with releases in different countries and sometimes even in the same country. Thus, l tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave (Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) is more title than most movies could ever support, yet it’s actually just one of the handful of titles under which the 1972 thriller was released. Here are all the alternate titles I could find for Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key:

Excite Me!

Eye of the Black Cat

Gently Before She Dies

O pyrgos ton dolofonon (The Tower of Murders)¹

To mystirio tis mavris gatas (The Mystery of the Black Cat)¹

Vicios prohibidos (Forbidden Vices)

Die Nympohmane Killerin (The Nymphomaniac Killer)²

I mean, based on the titles, shouldn’t these all be different movies? (France, for the record, just translated the Italian title directly into French: Ton vice est une chambre close dont moi seul ai la clé.) You may realize that none of these titles really give much of an idea what the film could be about. You may also wonder why foreign language releases would have discarded such a distinct, evocative title, which you may suppose has a direct relation to the plot, because why else would that be the title? But here’s the weird part: It actually doesn’t relate especially to the plot. It comes from a 1971 giallo that also stars Edwige Fenech — Blade of the Ripper (a.k.a. The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh³), in which she receives a threatening note that contains that message. The title ties in with the film in only a vaguely thematic way, even though it sounds like something that would  directly figure into the story, I Know What You Did Last Summer-style.

It is at times like this when I trip over myself trying to figure out how people decide to name anything anything.

Here’s the trailer for this movie, whatever you want to call it:

And the whole film is viewable in one post on YouTube, in case you’re interested.

Two brief notes and one long one:

1. If Google Translate knows its Greek.
2. I don’t know enough about German to tell if this is The Killer Who Is a Nymphomanic or the The Person Who Kills Nymphomaniacs.
3. But also a.k.a. Den djævelske kniv (The Demon Knife), Der Killer von Wien (The Killer of Vienna), Epikindynoi anthropoi (Dangerous People), Hartstochtelijke nachten van Mme Wardh (The Passionate Nights of Madame Wardh), Lâmina Assassina (Blade Killer), La perversa señora Ward (The Wicked Mrs. Ward), Les nuits folles de Mme Wardh (The Crazy Nights of Mrs. Wardh), Mannen med rakkniven (The Man With the Knife Missed Razor), O amartolos kyklos ton ekviaston (The Sinner Cycle of Extortion), Szerelmi vérszomj (Love Bloodlust), Uma Faca na Escuridão (A Knife in the Dark), and as it was simply known in the U.K., Next!

Fun With Math and Outdated Rock Music

Math can be fun! Observe:

Aldo Nova's 1981 hit "Fantasy"

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Lita Ford's 1988 song "Kiss Me Deadly"

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glasses

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Weezer's terrible 2001 song, "Hash Pipe"

And a hat tip to the A.V. Club's new feature: musicians and singers publicly shitting on the one song they just can't stand. The guy from The Gaslight Anthem picked "Hash Pipe," forcing me to think about it for the first time in a decade. But look where this thought took us!

Where Are All the Evil Princesses?

Being mostly an indoors kid, I saw a good number of princesses get rescued. Books, movies and video games feature a lot of captive princesses, to the point that you’d think princesses would stop wearing those tiaras and pointy tassel hats, just as a safety precaution. The royal damsel in distress is such a popular trope that by now it seems like it should have become popular to subvert it: Hero sets out to rescue princess but finds that she’s actually not the embodiment of goodness he thought she was. It seems like such an obvious twist to have the princess turn out to be the big bad, hiding malice and ambition beneath a ball gown and courtly manners, but when I actually tried to think of examples, I couldn’t come up a single one. In fact, I struggled to think of more than a few “bad” princesses in all of popular culture.

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It seems weird, this scarcity of devious princesses, given how many stories have evil kings and queens or even scheming, power-hungry princes — just off the top of my head, Loki in Thor, Humperdink in Princess Bride, Viserys in Game of Thrones. But the notion of the pure-hearted maiden is such a fundamental one, I’m thinking, that it generally precludes evil twists on the character, even despite historical accounts of princesses who weren’t above getting blood on their hands. (In particular, China’s Princess Pingyang could give many warlords a lesson or two in raising a ruckus.) So even if I’ve never seen the Pretty, Pretty Princess character so subverted that she turns out to be the big bad, some pop cultural princesses or princess-like characters have come close. Here’s what I have.

• Medea is the daughter of the king of Colchis, but she’s rarely referred to as a princess. She is one, technically, and she’s an icon of vengeance. Not only does she betray her family to help Jason get the golden fleece, even dismembering her younger brother to prevent her father from tailing her, but she also goes to town on Jason once their relationship goes all kinds of sour. In fact, she burns Jason’s new wife to death, kills Jason’s kids and peaces out on a dragon-drawn chariot. No, really. But she does all this in reaction to Jason’s cruelty, not, say, evil for the sake of evil.
• In King Lear, the older daughters, Regan and Goneril, are pretty heinous, and their scheming ends up annihilating the entire family, and they stand in contrast to the youngest sister, Princess Cordelia. (I can forgive Goneril because what else do you do with your life when you have name that sounds like a venereal disease?)
• Electra is the daughter of Agamemnon, a king, and she goads her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra, but she only does this because ol’ mom killed dad. So if anyone’s the big bad, it’s Clytemnestra. Electra is the Christina to Clytemnestra’s Joan Crawford, and if anyone wants to co-write a Joan Crawford-inspired retelling of the Oresteia — a good idea, now that I think about it — I’m all for it. Then again, having your legacy be the Electra complex seems ignominy enough.
• But then again, there’s Elektra King. The Sophie Marceau character in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough fits the storyline I’m thinking of pretty closely, but she’s not a princess, even if her name is Elektra King — which, you know, subtle — and she’s the heiress to an oil empire. In the end, Bond discovers that Elektra has contracted a nasty case of Stockholm syndrome and become the lover and co-conspirator of the film’s big bad.
• It was pointed out to me that the king’s daughter from “The Lady or the Tiger?” might work, depending on how you interpret the story’s ending. She allegedly inherited her father’s “semi-barbaric” qualities, and when she motions for her lover to pick one door over the other, there’s a fifty percent chance that she’s sending the guy to the hungry tiger and instant death. She loses him either way, you see, because should he pick the door hiding the lady, he has to marry her on the spot, so there is also a fifty percent chance that she is acting in a very un-Disney-like manner.
• In the movie Return to Oz, the big bad is Princess Mombi, but it was pointed out to me that she’s not actually a princess; she’s an impostor. And the books don’t call her a princess. Instead, she is just a witch. Why not get technical about it?
• In the DC Universe, one of the central Teen Titans, Starfire, inherits the title of princess of the planet Tamaran over her older sister, Blackfire, on account of the latter being lame and unpleasant. Blackfire holds a grudge, over throws the Tamaranean royal family, enslaves Starfire for a period and eventually becomes a major antagonist for the Titans.
• There’s the obscure Capcom character Princess Devilotte de DeathSatan IX, who is to evil what drag queens are to feminine sexuality. She actually might be an exaggerated reaction to relative lack of characters like her, and that’s about as literary as anyone has ever gotten about someone with the name Princess Devilotte de DeathSatan IX.
• The Batman villain Talia al Ghul sort of works, if you consider her pops to be a sort of king. It’s a stretch.

And that’s all I got. I’m sure I’ve overlooked some, but I think the takeaway is that princesses generally fall into the sunny, bright-eyed, singing-in-the-forest category. In fact, there’s not even an “evil princess” page on TV Tropes, and there’s a TV Tropes page for everything. Blame Disney if you want, but do tell me if you can think of any more.

In closing, please gaze upon this 1868 Frederick Sandys painting of Medea.

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If that expression doesn’t read as “Do not fuck with me because I have ISSUES,” then I don’t know what does. Moo hoo ha, indeed.

EDIT: Bonus Mombi. Worst bonus, I know, but still.

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This Blog Is Now Ten Years Old

Hi. I started this blog ten years ago today, and while I’m happy enough to celebrate this anniversary by making fun of Lena Dunham, I suppose I should do something. Work and extracurriculars being what they are, however, I didn’t have time to put much special together. So this is what you get: my favorite photo ever.

It’s a dog sneezing. It’s the best thing. This is how I’m celebrating a decade of writing for free.

With “It” Being a Winning, Hamstery Grin

A cool Google trick: Did you know that if you image search the phrase “little critter,” you get a bunch of weird drawings of Lena Dunham? It’s true! Try for yourself. I’ve lined up a few side-by-sides for you. See?

This all came about when my coworker directed me to Tumblr for this post, which posited that Lena Dunham looks like Christina Applegate’s stoner brother from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. She kind of does:

At the time I thought the resemblance was strong enough to reblog it, but then someone who follows me on Tumblr tweeted at me — and yes, I realize how funny this sentence will sound in twenty years, but this is really how we used the internet in 2013, children of tomorrow — and she pointed out how Lena Dunham actually looks more like Little Critter. She was right. Oh, how she was right.

Until today, I didn’t know what Little Critter’s name was and couldn’t have located it on Google, since “overalls-wearing porcupine-guinea pig thing that learns lessons” isn’t an effective search term. They used to sell the Little Critter books at the carwash my parents used. I never bought them, but I know they attracted the same kind of people who liked that weird Suzy’s Zoo universe of clothes-wearing farm animals that seemed to be everywhere despite not being, like, attached to a syndicated cartoon. Once in elementary school, a girl who sat next to me explained the whole universe of Pekkle, and I think that was the first time I had the reaction, “I know I’m weird and nerdy, but you have it so much rougher than I do.”

In closing, if Lena Dunham reads this, I would like to think she’d make this face:

Which she can probably do pretty well. And just saying, but if she wants to don some overalls and put a frog on her head this Halloween, I’ll say, “Hey, she dressed up like that woodchuck thing I learned about! What was its name? ‘Litter Clittle’?”

Who Wore It Better?, previously:

• Kim Kardashian / a sex robot from a vintage Japanese comic book
• Fiona Apple / some other chick wearing an octopus hat
• Kris Jenner / Eclipso
• Michael Cera / Edith Crawley
• Lana Del Rey / Camilla Rhodes
• Tabatha Coffey / an angry, white cat
• Grace Jones / a cassowary
• Coco / the Venus of Willendorf

Rome by Way of Portland

The best justification for the relevance of Italo disco? Gary Low's "I Want You," which this comment on the previous Italo disco-related post informed me is the origin of the sample used in Washed Out's "Feel It All Around," also known as the Portlandia theme song.

Here's Low's 1983 track "I Want You," which is definitely more on the disco end of Italo disco. Enjoy all eight minutes of it, but listen for the twinkly sound effect at the twenty-second mark.

And here is Washed Out's "Feel It All Around."

I wonder if Fred Armisen had something to do with this.

At the Same Time, You Are Crazy Mind, Crazy Mind

I have a confession to make: I like Italo disco. I once appreciated this genre of music from the safe perspective of “Ha ha — it’s funny because it’s so bad,” but at some point I crossed over and began to genuinely, unironically enjoy the synth-heavy dance tracks produced in Italy and other European nations in the mid-80s. I really can’t explain it, because most of it doesn’t line up with what I would deem good music, though I have theories. It’s possible that I simply got tired of listening to the stable of songs that we post-80s children have come to associate with the era. (I can happily proceed with the rest of my life without hearing “Maniac” or “Tainted Love” again, but I feel like the world isn’t listening to me on this one.) And occasionally, I can squint and imagine some throughlines between these songs and current bands. (Clio’s “Faces,” a.k.a. the song that sounds like the inside of Lisa Turtle’s brain, reminds me a bit of CSS or Yelle, and Mistral’s “Jamie” sounds like early Goldfrapp.) Whatever the case, my intro to this strange genre of ESL dancepop was “Happy Song,” and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to click this link because you may have not asked “what the fuck?” enough today.

You may be surprised to learn that most Italo disco and Euro disco songs feature English lyrics. This is a wonderful thing, because the neither the songwriters nor the singers necessarily have a firm grasp on English, and the songs therefore end up as nonsense garbled out over a dance beat. This is probably most true with the 1987 song “Crazy” by the band Daydream. It so adroitly challenges comprehension that it may qualify as a form of surrealism. After listening to “Crazy” in my car more times than I care to admit, I decided to find lyrics. None appear to exist online, so now I’m cornering the market on weirdos who think too much about the song by posting what I think the lyrics are, plus some commentary that I hope demonstrates why this song is a strange, awful, wonderful sin against logic and sentence construction.

If you want, follow along:

So this song begins by laying down some synth, and the first few seconds could really belong to any track produced in the 80s — American or European. But then there’s what I call the Horror Movie Voice, a deep, creepy voice that pipes in throughout the song. It simply says “Crazy. C-c-c-c-c-crazy,” and repeats itself several times. And that is weird. Then there’s a secondary, more danceable intro that kind of reminds me of Miami Sound Machine. And then 42 seconds in, the actual lyrics start. Here is my best guess at what the hell the lady is trying to sing:

She had enough inspiration to it
It’s maybe too late to change it
Somebody looks at me
I feel something’s at fault
This is the picture
I don’t want to be in the dark
I don’t want to take your love
This is the daydream of the human being
This is the spirit in my living room

I’m not confident about most of those lyrics, and you may have better guesses, but the ones I’m most sure of are the last two, and that’s weird because I would really rather “This is the spirit in my living room” wasn’t an actual lyric.

I turn to me, I escape to me
To whom I think “He got it!”
Me (echoes)
I don’t want to be in the dark
I don’t want to take your love
Everybody more or less are gaily cyber
Everybody more or less are gaily cyber
Everybody more or less are gaily cyber
He must be crazy

No, I don’t know what it means to be gaily cyber, but I could make a few guesses.

At the same time, you are crazy mind, crazy mind
Get off my back; you are the spirit in my hat house
At the same time, you are crazy mind, crazy mind
Get off my back; you are the spirit in my hat house

If I may, I’d like to point out the oddness of a song using the phrase “as the same time,” which is a transitional phrase that a person would use in a logical argument, and then going on to accuse the addressee of being “the spirit in my hat house,” which would be something done by someone making a rather illogical argument. So then there’s a dance breakdown, then a second, different kind of dance breakdown, and then more of the Horror Movie Voice. And then it all repeats, giving you a second chance to mishear whatever she’s trying to say. Then there’s yet another dance breakdown. And then at 4:55 comes the absolute best part: when she raps. Some people may say that what she’s doing maybe isn’t technically rapping, but I’d argue that you could call this “rapping” as much as you could call the rest of the song “singing in English.” In this section, the non-italicized parts are the Horror Movie Voice speaking to the singer.

Who are you [unintelligible — sound like “Bee Bee Gas-a-meaty”]
Want to give this version to me?
The polarizer; I know the frank
I do crazy; I do drunk with that that
Who you think I’m crazy?
I don’t know but get in my butt
Hey you, butt — get in my butt
I don’t know but get in my butt

Okay, I know, but it really does sound like she’s repeatedly saying “get in my butt.” I’m straining to her anything else. I got nothing.

Don’t be afraid
Who is that?

It’s taken her to the 5:11 mark to ask “Who is that?” and I feel like if she doesn’t know who’s been talking to her this whole time, then we’re really fucked, narratively speaking. Like, you should know who’s in the recording booth with you.

I have given you something like your dream
I have found the inspiration
Come. You can beat it.
Don’t be silly.

Just to summarize, she went from “Who is that?” to “Don’t be silly” in the space of a few lyrics.

I have given you something like your dream
I have found the inspiration — the inspiration!

And then the song returns to the “At the same time, you are crazy mind, crazy mind” part and basically does that for a full minute before fading out. I realize that the people who made this thing exist probably didn’t get together and code a hidden meaning into these lyrics, but for the same dumb impulse that prompted ancient man to look up into the stars and see shapes, I hear this jibbertygooble and want to think that someone thought it meant something, or at least that they really did think they were talking to a ghost who was haunting the living room. (Does that happen?) And if anyone who’s made it this far in the post has any guesses — what the hell this song is supposed to be, what the hell these lyrics are supposed to be — do tell.

In closing, I want to dance to this song at my wedding. You probably guessed that.