Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Ode to Joy Game: Move 8 goes to 11

We're getting closer to filling up the board now!  (Scroll down the past few weeks of posts if you don't know what this is all about...)  Today I'm placing Glass Bead number 8 out of 10, and it's in the lower-left spot.  See that stylized lower-case "n" with a German umlaut over it down there?


That's right, it's Spinal Tap!  The classic mocku-rocku-documentary film from 1984, written and directed by Meathead himself.  My symbolic image above points out their subtle joke of the "heavy metal umlaut" being added willy-nilly to letters where it doesn't belong (see, e.g., Mötley Crüe, Blue Öyster Cult, and so on).  They of course "turned it up to 11" by applying it to a consonant.

I guess there's not much that can be said about this movie that hasn't already been said.  It continues to make me laugh whenever I see it, and I'm always discovering new little jokes here and there.  This, I think, provides justification for a link to my blue-in-the-face "laugh lines" bead to its lower-right.  The link to Aerosmith's "Dream On" at the bottom is also pretty clear... David, Nigel, and Derek were no strangers to the over-earnest (maybe a tad over-wrought?) lyrics and guitar licks on display from Steven, Joe, and friends.

The link to Aleister Crowley's central word "rejoice!" from his occult masterpiece is less of a slam dunk, but Spinal Tap did enjoy exploring the mystical side of British history...
Stonehenge... where the demons dwell.
Where the banshees live and they do live well.
Stonehenge... where a man is a man,
And the children dance to the pipes of Pan!
Not too far in theme from some of Crowley's poetic excesses, I think:
Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
The final link is with Beethoven's Ode to Joy in the central spot.  I don't think Beethoven himself was name-checked in the movie, but Nigel Tufnel was once seen composing a classically inspired piano piece, inspired by "Mach" (mash-up of Mozart and Bach?).  Of course, he then let on that the title of his composition was "Lick My Love Pump," so the correspondence may not be all that perfect.  :-)

4 comments:

  1. I think putting Spinal Tap in that spot is inspired. :)

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  2. Great movie. I don't think I've seen it since high school but great movie.

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    1. Same here, Squid. It's been a while. From reviewing what Wikipedia had to say about it, I think if I see it again, a big bonus will be recognizing many more of the cameo appearances.

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