* As far as La Femme Musketeergoes, rather than try to rate it, I’d just like to point out that it’s a movie about sword fighting, which is a worthy topic and an increasingly important one for movies to address, particularly in our day and age. Too many of our young people have become ridiculously unfamiliar with the sundry lore of swords, and if they don’t know the lore, how can they feel the passion? I suggest that they cannot. Though it wasn’t discussed specifically in the body of this report, one likely reason that Paul Hunter was not hired for La Femme Musketeer is that he himself (as a young person) most likely suffers from this problem which I call chronic societal sword ignoramustatia. If you can do what he did (make an entire martial arts movie without a single sword fight in it) obviously your sword knowledge is woefully inadequate, and I’d even venture a guess that Hunter may actually have never even ever heard of swords.
Recently an associate of mine, well known Fakejazz writer David Christensen had this to say on the subject of swords:
“Swords, though, are totally passe. Fantasy literature is, of course, for wimpy geeks who want to imagine that they are tuff. Today, instead of fantasy literature, wimpy geeks are totally into gangsta rap, and there is no place in gangsta rap for swords. To prove this point I have replaced some of the lyrics of hot new rapper Fifty Cents' gangsta hit "Wanksta" which sword refereces:
- "You think that you're a friend of mine/what makes you think I won't run up on you with a broadsword"
- "You say you gonna murder Fifty, how?/We ride around with swords the size of Lil' Bow Wow./What do you know about rapiers and longswords, equipped with well-balanced hilts and a double edge?"
And consider this gem from Dr Dre's gangsta classic "The Day the Niggas Took Over"
- "I'm gonna draw my sword and chop till they all drop."
It just doesn't work. Its just like that scene in Raiders where the stupid Arab guy swings a funny Arab sword around like he's all gonna chop Indy up and then Indy totally pops a cap in the sad assed motherlover's sad ass. Thats what Fifty Cents is gonna do to Conan.”
Wow, what a classic backfire that was! I'm more convinced than ever that swords are going to be the next big trend in gangster(sta) culture. I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming months swords become almost or maybe even more popular than really big bums on ladies.
But, while you Dave’s email was interesting, and made some good points about the future (or the opposite future) or rap music, I think it missed the mark on a deeper level.
I mean, superficially we're talking about the same thing: swords, long metal blades, pointed and sharp on one or both sides, 2 to 6 feet in length, attached to handles with protective flanges, inlaid with gnarly runes, often with wicked looking hooks and jabbers on them, some with additional jabbers coming off the protective flanges, and then on the other end of the handle (the one opposite the blade) there's a counterweight in the form of a miniature screaming demon skull cast in iron, pewter, or in rare cases gold or another precocious metal. For this is a sword, is it not? And do we not both speak of swords? No we don't.
Dave is talking about mundane swords that could be wielded by rappers in our day and age. They're just pieces of metal. I'm talking not about swords so much as magickal incarnations whose vessyl is of steel. Swords like Fred Saberhagen's Woundhealer or Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer are truly pointy and slicey, and can slice you in half up the ass crack, which is awesome enough by itself, but you have to realize that these swords are personalities, almost conscious entities with depth, lore, and power that you can't even begin to comprehend. Forget the magical swords of middle earthers like Gandalf and Aragorn, that's not even what I'm talking about here -- no +2 swords made extra sharp and pointy by the elves. We're talking about the real deal here, swords with souls. It's a totally other thing. Dave talked about dreary carnal metal; I'm talking about spiritual substance, something from a whole nother plane of existence, born out of the mists of time, wrought by who none can say. How can you say that intelligence born of primordial strife between light and darkness is "passe"? You just dont' get it.
And I’m afraid as time goes on, fewer and fewer of our children will appreciate how necessary swords are if we want to protect ourselves.
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