Welcome to the House of Nonsense
The Dr Frank Weakly Reader for 8.13.21, incl.
Well, folks, here we are now, at long last, with the Dr Frank Weakly Reader, where joy reigns supreme, sort of. Once again, this here Weakly Reader covers three weeks of nonsense rather than the usual — or, rather, the aspirational — one. They, the weeks, that is, I mean, the nonsense, just flew by and it’s only just now that I’ve had the chance to pin it all down and catalogue it. And illustrate and annotate it. One does what one can with what one has got, nonsense-wise. I’ll thank myself later if I ever want to find any of this stuff.
Anyway, here they are, the weaks that were.
But first…
FRONT BURNER
— RAD-018–01: Ordering began August 2 for the Shards vol. 3 limited 180 gram first pressing on sea glass vinyl. It’s a good one. Art and design by Chris Appelgren. Mastering by Justin Perkins.
When the smoke cleared, they were mostly all gone, then all all gone, I believe.
Thanks, friends.
— It’s Hot on MTX Island: this re-creation of the old shirt was intended as a one-time limited pop-up but Sounds Rad, in its infinite wisdom, ordered up another round. And you can too. Available in many sizes and shapes.
Our old pal Jennifer got hers:
— RISASAY: as people on the Shards vol. 3 “dibs” list were informed, and as a relevant sliver the greater internet soon discovered, the Sounds Rad re-issue of Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You is scheduled for release in Feb. 2022. You can call early “dibs” here.
— Sounds Rad Explosion: Noticed that there are all of a sudden four lit fuses of Sounds Radicality at the moment and I typed them out just to keep track.
[1] MTX Shards vol. 3 limited edition vinyl 1st pressing now being offered to reserve list members only. (Release date is Sept 10.) The CD is orderable, though.
[2] MTX Shards vol. 3 shirt, limited edition, one time only.
[3] The aforementioned new run of those Hot on MTX Island shirts… get ’em while you can.
[4] Early “dibs” on the re-issue of Revenge Is Sweet and So Are You, coming Feb. 22, 2022.
MTX IS YOUR MOTHER
— Lookout lego: from the internet, Queers, MTX, Green Day, and Screeching Weasel iconography in lego form.
— Appropriate wedding wear: …and the Women Who Love Them pin looks good on the lapel. Institution of Marriage ftw.
— Planet Earth 1996: An interview from Italy, 25 years ago, for a zine that “never published any issues”, available now for the first time through the magic of the internet. (I guess it’s good for something — the internet, I mean.)
I remember this show, Marco, and his band the Real Swinger very fondly. Lots of pics at the link as well. (It’s in Italian.)
— Graeme got his …and the Women Who Love Them re-issue, and it’s beautiful.
— Thank you for your service: from Devin, on twitter: “Hey Dr Frank my friend and I were texting re: your lyrics being brilliant and I told him how in high school I always tried to get people to listen to MTX, to no avail.”
— Hitting the bigtime, in the most minor way possible: Our pal Brian discovered the MTX and Queers posters that appear in the record store in the movie High Fidelity.
— Ew, you like the Monkees, the Flying Nun, the Banana Splits…, from the twitter account @SimpsonsAlbums, a Milk Milk Lemonade gag:
— Makes the Old Style of Squeamishness Look Positively Libertine… for Odin, “Sex Offender” from the forthcoming MTX Shards vol. 3:
The “minor secrets,” concerning aspects of the recording and our shifting and paradoxical censorship standards, may be found here. The Songs for Odin playlist is here.
— Ladies, Gentlemen… Jessica: and in lieu of a new Song for Odin the following week, I posted the latest Songs for Odin collation, number xxxii, eight songs’ worth. For reasons that will become clear if you read the intro, almost certainly all stupid, it is titled “Ladies, Gentlemen… Jessica…”, and the contents are as follows:
“Speed Racer” / “You Alone” / “Somebody Wants to Love You” / “Queen Anne’s Lace” / “Last Time I Listened to You” / “I Just Wanna Do It with You” / “Together Tonight” / “Sex Offender”.
At least one Jessica expressed ironic gratitude, but in fact, Jessica, it is I who thank you.
— and, finally, Odin-wise, a “re-run,” Smashcut doing “I Just Wanna Do It with You”:
The charming backstory is here. (Well, I think it’s charming.)
— Book of Revelation: or is that “Book of Revolution”? Or “Book of Candy”? At any rate, a couple of Japanese guys are talking about it here:
Speaking no Japanese, I was confused. I got this response from Tomoyuku Kobayashi:
Dear Flank! I am the person who made this video! First thank you in your opinion for us!! We would to explane a bit for this movie.
We have been listening to book of revolution on lots of time from when we ware in high school！This song have each nickname in each hometown. We are talking about such a story! We’ve always been your fans.
That’s very kind, though I’m still puzzled on how and why this song should have a nickname in everyone’s hometown. I do know that this song has been especially, inexplicably popular in Japan, with many people who comment associating it, perhaps ironically, with the phrase “Candy Candy.” That evidently derives from the theme song to this old animation of that title, whose intro sounds a little bit like that of “Book of Revelation”:
Another piece of the puzzle, always good to have, even if no one will ever bother to put it all together in the end.
DR FRANK IS YOUR DADDY
— “Dr. Frank has that John Prine quality of finding the humor in heartbreak”: you’d better believe I’m gonna quote this comment, from Shane Sweeney, on his own artwork illustrating the line “Will you waste your life with me?”
(btw, here’s my essay on “Saying Goodbye to John Prine”.)
— In lieu of a Dr Frank Weakly Reader on July 30, I reposted my old essay on Monkees Derangement Syndrome; and then the following week, I skipped it again, posting instead some stuff I wrote bouncing off some quotes from Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, which still seems relevant.
Here’s a snip:
— On how to file Dr Frank records: or how I do it, anyway.
— Careful now:
PICTURE BOOK
— Roman calendar: the Mysteries of Saint Cristena of Bolsena; Santiago Matamoros, i.e., Saint James the Moor-slayer, i.e., James the Greater, miraculously appearing to fight in the Battle of Clavijo (art from the Cuzco school); Saint Anne, with Mary, illuminated; Saint Pantaleon, crowned with a spike right through his head; Saint Nazarius on a horse, fresco, ca.1480 (Giovanni Antonio Merli). From the Nazzaro and Celso Abbey, San Nazzaro Sesia, Novara, Italy; King Saint Olaf II of Norway, carved wood sculpture; Abdon and Sennen, reliquaries; Saint Ignatius smiting Martin Luther with the power of the Eucharist — St. Nicholas Church, Prague; The Liberation of Saint Peter — Raphael, 1514, Stanze di Raffaello, Apostolic Palace, the Vatican (for the Feast of St Peter in Chains); The Granting of the Indulgence of the Portiuncula by Sassetta, ca. 1437; Reliquary containing St. Stephen’s right hand and forearm at Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra in the town of Sergiyev Posad (near Moscow); the strange tale of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, illuminated…
…St Oswald, King of Northumbria, depicted in a12th C. manuscript/book edge painting; The Transfiguration, illuminated; Saint Donatus chastising the dragon — Sano di Pietro (Italian, 1405–1481); Saint Dominic with Peter and Paul in early 16c German glass at Chedgrave, Norfolk; 5th century mosaic in apse of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (for the Vigil of St. Lawrence); the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript ca. 1060; Saint Philomena with anchor and angels, Santo Domingo Church and Convent, Oaxaca, Mexico; Judi Bowker as Clare of Assisi, lobby card for Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Fratello Sole, Sorella Luna); the martyrdom of St. Hippolytus, Dråby Church, Denmark…
/Amen.
— Secular: Patti Griffin perched on a chair in fishnets; Lou Stein at the piano, #3; the art of picking a Fichet-Bauche lock with a stiletto heel; some giant books from Land of the Giants; a vision of fortune; Ragazza con libro (detail), by Pietro Antonio Rotari1750; The Thing without a Name; dame on the windowsill; ghostly art from Leonora Carrington, ca. 1968; Paul plays bikini girl like a guitar in an iconic scene from HELP! (inset upper left)…
… I don’t know the actual title of this striking photo by Pierre Boucher, but I like our friend Susan’s suggestion, The Loch Ness Armster (inset left); a photo of Yvonne De Carlo — as Lola Montez in Salome, Where She Danced (1945) — was used as reference art for John Norman’s Tribesman of Gor (1976) painted by Gino D’Achille; the lovely and talented Catherine Schell, against the backdrop of a wall of art; Enough talk, let’s sit and despair…; girl against target, by Robert McGinnis I believe; Cléopâtre essayant des poisons sur des condamnés à mort by Alexandre Cabane; Helen Mirren with sand sculpture, from Michael Powell’s Age of Consent (1968); just some bags of mannequin heads; Faye Dunaway in scene from The Happening (1967); Jimmy Stewart with camera in publicity still for Rear Window;
… underwater moonlight (unsafe for “work”, if work means what I think it does);
IN THE NEWS
— RIP Dusty Hill:
— Trevor Moore: RIP as well.
— The advice not taken, from Anne Rice, six years ago:
FIN
And that’ll wrap it up. We’ll be back in another week or two or three. In the meantime, for those who’ve made it this far down the page:
See you next time.
