Certainly the most festive of the presentations at this year's
conference, Graye's combination of do-si-do and Modernist vamping
left us all wondering why such lesser works as Cats
lasted as long as they did. But the reality show aspects to
Graye's field study were telling as well: it's somehow comforting
to know that Stephen Sondheim can milk more than just a rhyme. |
In a land where bigger is better, from the amount of storage on one's flash drive to the size of one's master bedroom, would it not also make sense that the trophy wife's bosom be included? Meier takes us to the underground world of Trophy Wife Fights, where big breasted women battle not only for the Booby Prize, but also for a week off in the carpool. What do you mean marriage equals prostitution? |
Jazz, as we all know, is dead, killed soundly by Chuck Mangione in the late 1970s. Monque, in this paper, makes a decent case for the lifeless body of jazz having been brought to a zombie-esque quickening by the likes of Kenny G and—one shudders even to think it—John Tesh. The worship these figures receive by an odd but powerful allotment of American seniors has tortured hapless elevator riders for years now, but this, argues Monque, in turn shows how America is creating its own unique pop culture Pantheon. If he's right, our own gods and goddesses, in imitation of their pagan forebears, seem intent on causing unending trouble for the mortals over whom they reign. |
|
The decluttering philosophy of the housekeeping shows has long
argued "clean house, clean mind," just more Eastern
philosophy minus the Eastern and the philosophy so it's easy
for the masses to accept. Yet Brian Renal took that clean philosophy
to his music and stripped out all unnecessary notes, playing
only four in our sixty-minute presentation, and lulling us all
to a peaceful feeling. It's no wonder he's in constant demand
for places with some of the unhappiest people in the world:
airport watering holes. |
You've never suffered until you've stuck your nether-tresses in a truss. |
Allgagg turned the tables on us not just with her gender-bending tag-team, but also with the tasty meats and cheeses her presentation combined on a whole-wheat bun. Themes feed deep, but the scratches, lashes, and bruises were only on the surface. |
As geekdom subsumes more and more of our lives, our notions of attractiveness shift alongside. Torvald took an open-source approach to this piece, using a freeware PowerPoint clone to show how teh hotttness transmogrified from 1988 to the present. We now make passes at gurls who wear glasses, Torvald explains, but also go "squeee" for the guy with the Wii. |
Rayskolnikov's otherwise chirpy demeanor was undercut by the very oppressiveness of her sources: bedsheet stew with steamed lice was certainly inventive for those forced to eat the Gulag goulash, but the grey color and remaining squirminess of the ingredients failed to win over her audience. Liberation as gustatory independence is an important point of historical critique, but we'd still rather not have it forced down our throats. |
Wheat
Camp: Prissy Broadway Meets Plains State Reality TV, or a Ho-Down
in the Heartland
Trophy
Wife Fight: the Buxom Battle for Silicone Valley, or May the
Breast Wife Win
Random
Lugubrious Jazz Tune: Corny Cornets and the Apotheosis of Kenny
G
Music
for Airport Bars: Minimalism as Central Nervous System Depressant
Oliver
Twisticles: Nutcracking Tales of Proto-Victorian Suffering,
a New Histrionicist Approach
Bra-strap
Girl: Planet Sub Meets Planet Dom in Cockdown Drag Queen Fisticuff
Mayhem
Gremlins
Gone Wired: Redefining Digital Beauty at 20,000 Feet 
Notes
from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Underground Barbecue, an Anti-Repression
Recipe Book