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Sometime during the shutdown, everything turned experimental.
The markers of avant-gardism are now ubiquitous.
But there is still a bright line between whatlooksexperimental and what is genuinely radical.
Aficionados call this rebarbative quality difficulty, though the word has a condescending vibe.
But I cant lie.
Typically, being a critic is about cataloguing pleasure.
But theres no English vocabulary for our creepy-crawly, anti-enjoyment appetites, even if we have them.
Garnetts camera is ruthless in showing how pathetic it is to play to an empty Zebulon.
cackles Handbag, while wriggling through a Sprockets-y dance.
The camera pulls up and back as far as the little room will allow.
But Handbag is pretty sure shes got an audience.
Theresghosts, she insists into an unnecessary microphone.
I stepped on a cum stain on my way up here, and theres people in that.
She mocks her followers, particularly the types who show up at Weirdo Nights for a glance at K-Stew.
(K-Stew, like everybody on Earth, is not there.)
Keeping her six-foot distance, Handbag brings up a string of artists, though none seem to impress her.
I AM NOT GAY!
I AM SO STRAIGHT I CANT IMAGINE BEING GAY!
The band files offstage.
Jeez Louise, good riddance, says our host, sighing.
Emotionally speaking, everything I saw in New Frontiers apart fromWeirdo Nightseemed gentle.
So what the heck is this movie doing at Sundance anyway?
VR is clearly next; immersion is next.
Stages were being chipped out of rock before there were chisels.
A refusal to soothe or seduce is the last, unassimilatable quality of the true fringe.
Any aesthetic can be appropriated and turned toward audience building, engagement, sales.
Not caring about that garbage is what makes you free.
