Manic
by Terri Cheney (HarperCollins)
Near the end of Manic, Terri Cheney’s memoir of living, and nearly dying, with bipolar disorder, Cheney arrives, alone, at a swank Hollywood party. It is six years since her last full-blown episode, and she has abandoned her erratic LA lawyer lifestyle, which proved all too compatible with her condition. Once inside the party, she finds herself among strangers agonizing over how to answer the ubiquitous icebreaker: “What do you do?”
In Cheney’s uppity LA, though, the distance between occupation and identity is nil, and the question she really has to answer is: “Who are you?” Having quit lawyer-ing for writing about her experiences with manic-depression, it is Cheney’s opportunity to redefine herself, to start anew. When the critical moment comes, though, Cheney tells them, “I’m manic-depressive.”
Instead of the triumphant moment of truth-telling Cheney intends this to be, readers are left with the impression that the story’s hero still believes that she is her illness — a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise insightful, vivid and honest look into the high highs and low lows that defined Cheney’s complicated condition before she found the combination of medications that enabled her to balance her brain chemistry and, presumably, write this book.
Cheney presents her whirlwind story in alternating scenes of manic and depressed episodes, intended to mirror — however diluted through the filter of language — the disorientation she experienced while in their throes. The net effect is a story that begins when Cheney was sixteen, ravaged by irrational changes in her eating habits, and follows her through her time as an undergrad at Vassar, then at UCLA law, and finally her years as an overachieving lawyer. All throughout, Cheney recounts the considerable trouble her illness has gotten her into — getting beat up in jail and denied her medication; subjecting herself to a dozen electroshock “treatments” which led to a psychotic break and short-term memory loss; a random excursion to fly kites in the rain, and several earnest attempts to end her own life.
Throughout the book, Cheney seems to be searching for an adequate metaphor for her illness. She finds several: a jigsaw puzzle, a rip tide, a tumultuous love affair. This struggle is where the heart of the book lies. And if there is no answer, no perfect metaphor to hold all the confusion of bipolarity, the book still reminds us of the profound mystery of all mental illness and, even if Cheney doesn’t know it yet, helps separate personality from pathology.
—Eric Larson
DVD
Bomb It
Directed by Jon Reiss
myspace.com/bombitthemovie
Red Vic Movie House (San Francisco)
April 10-14
DVD Release May 27
Although graffiti is as much a part of urban life as the bridges, tunnels, train cars and abandoned buildings that so much of it covers, most average folk still and will probably always regard the scrawled sight an insidious crime, and its purveyors petty criminals.
Bomb It, a new doc from director Jon Reiss, may not ultimately change your opinion about graffiti, but it won’t be for lack of trying. Using exhaustive interviews with graffiti writers (a.k.a. “taggers,” a.k.a. “bombers,” a.k.a. “artists”), their champions and their enemies, as well as clandestine footage shot by the writers themselves, Bomb It traces the story of graffiti from its roots in New York and Philadelphia during the ’70s — as it co-arose with hip-hop culture — to the present, where, like hip-hop, it exists both in the main-est of mainstream and still, as always, on the fringe.
Graffiti is not, of course, limited to the streets of American cities, and the film’s treatment of the form as a global phenomenon is one of its great strengths. It profiles graffiti writers in a total of a dozen cities, including Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cape Town and Sao Paulo, and shows how the sensibilities of each culture shine through in its street art. Elements of the surreal in Europe. Murals in San Paulo and LA. Manga-inspired characters in Japan.
While the film profiles some anti-graffiti activists, they all come across a little wacky, allowing a true renegade spirit to shine through. The filmmakers, like the writers themselves, see street art as a response to a homogenized global culture that sells off public space to private developers and to advertisers without first consulting the public — which has left individual members of the public aesthetically impotent — and angry. Graffiti, then, is the perfectly insidious way to piss off the status quo and get plenty of positive attention at the same time.
—E.L.
Girls Rock!
Directed by Shane King and Arene Johnson
girlsrockmovie.com
Set aside, for ninety minutes, all those stereotypical images of Camp Lake Whatchamacallit from your youth and every bad horror flick you’ve ever seen — canoes, campfire, short shorts, s’mores, skin soaked in insect repellent, ghost stories — and behold something altogether different: Stratocasters, distortion, banging heads, sweat and raw, young female angst.
Welcome to Girls Rock!, a film profiling the experience of four girls at a weeklong rock ’n’ roll summer camp for girls in Portland, Oregon. There’s Laura, a 15-year-old death metal fanatic (vocals); Misty, a 17-year-old music novice who’s just beginning the transition from 10 months in a lockdown facility (bass); Amelia, a spitfire 8-year-old who’s well into composing a series of nonsensical noise-rock songs about her dog; and Palace, a 7-year-old with a punk-rock scream that hints at the lake of fire within.
On the surface, the goal for these, and all the girls at the camp, is to assemble a band, in some cases pick up an instrument for the first time, write and rehearse a song, then, at the end of the week, perform the song in front of some 700 enthusiastic fans. The real subject of the camp, though, and the film, is coming of age as a young female in a very confusing culture.
Through the use of traditional interviewing style as well as video diaries — which afford the girls more privacy and, we suppose, more honesty — along with old verite footage and original animations that reveal some startling statistics about girls in our culture, the filmmakers explore these girls’ already surprisingly complicated lives.
For the audience, the payoff comes not only from learning stats about girl culture, but by finding ourselves invested in each of the girls’ stories, hoping they can overcome whatever it is that’s challenging them — at least for one week — and reaffirm what the film’s title promises.
—E.L.
MUSIC
Rootz Underground
Movement
(Rivertone Records/Mystic Urchine)
While this Kingston, Jamaica-based collective may be termed “reggae rock,” they take the best elements of both to compile what is arguably one of the most impressive debuts of recent times. Over the course of 73 minutes they infuse electric guitars and other jazz-based instruments (saxophones, keys) into the obvious necessity of reggae tradition: the low end. It’s not surprising, however, when your bassist is nicknamed “Babylon Headache.” Fueled by the unforgettable voice of Stephen Newland — part revolutionary poetics, part lover’s rock — Movement reminds us that reggae evolves while remaining “iternally” recognizable. The slow skank of “Time Is An Illusion” induces a masterful lyrical hypnosis, while “Herb Fields” plays off a rather familiar “Jammin” riddim in their most celebrated track. The rhythmic pattern leading off “In the Jungle” is a praiseful throwback to poets of liberation and social freedom. The song, as this band, is taking the bold next step forward to freedom.
—Derek Beres
Etran Finatawa
Desert Crossroads
(Riverboat Records/World Music Network)
Since the North African Tuareg-rock/blues outfit Tinariwen made inroads into American culture in what proved to be one of the most interesting sonic cross pollinations in the past decade, a number of other equally impressive bands have slipped through the door. Perhaps the rootsiest is the ten-piece Etran Finatawa, made up of members of two nomadic tribes that have had political and social mishaps over the centuries: the Tuareg and Wodaabe. The music combines Saharan folk music with bluesy electric guitar informed as much by Hendrix as African tradition. The polyphonic chants and heavy use of percussion make listening to Etran Finatawa a mesmerizing experience, as the layers are so intricately woven and subtly shifting. Sparse parts form a large sound, evidenced by the intense groove of “Kal Tamasheck”—a reminder about the importance of culture. While hinting at some of the repetitive grandness of the neighboring Gnawa, not to mention the virtuosic blues playing of Mali, these desert artists are creating one of the most unique musical traditions on the planet.
—D.B.