I Collaborated with Britney Spears & Iron Maiden But They Didn't Know it

I made a mashup of Britney Spears and Iron Maiden you can listen to on my Soundcloud site. I'm calling it Criminal Number Beast Running To the Hills (Britney Spears vs Iron Maiden). It's totally preposterous and kind of janky but I chuckled the whole time I was working on it. You can stream it or download it and you know, have nightmares to it.

Hilariously, I thought about adding Bruce Dickinson's rant where he mentions "Britney fucking Spears" in a live performance in Rio but then decided not to, because I thought maybe it would come across as angrier than I wanted it to sound, so you know, I ditched that idea.

Also, the graphic is from a t-shirt on 313merch.com.

I Want to Believe

Is Britney Spears an X-Files fan? As per her most recent lyric video.

Britney Spears' "Perfume" Lyric Video

Poster hanging in Mulder's office.

That also explains why whenever I hear the whistle noises in I Wanna Go it sounds like the X-Files theme. Ha ha ha. -Liz

Procrastination and Spookyness: Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With Other Things, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Just End Up Being A Documentation

So I don't know what the problem is but I thought that people giving me prompts to write about would actually give me focus, but everything always derails back into me talking about what I do when I procrastinate. I guess I vascillate (which I do not know how to spell) between very type A and very type B.

So I belong to this group called the Self-Publishers of Chicago (SPOC) and we do things together like publish zines, help each other with encoragement for problems we deal with in the world of independent publishing and culture, support each other in our creative endeavors, eat Clancy's Pretzels Rods from Aldi (only because there's an Aldi near my house, so Clancy's is sort of our unofficial sponsor), and and um, go out for margaritas, the latter of which sounds like we're on Sex and the City of something.

Anyway, so we did a Halloween zine, but my contribution is of course, in only a tiny way related to Halloween. Lucky for you, I have included it here. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat. P.S. I'm reading at a release event of sorts for this zine thing on Tuesday at Uncharted Books. Won't you join me for some spooky Logan Square action? More info here.

Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With What I Would Write About For This Zine, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Ended Up Being What the Piece I'm Writing For This Zine Is

by Liz "Spooky" Mason

-Listened to 36 of 90 tracks on the CD that accompanies the book EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomenon: Massachusetts Ghostly Voices and enjoyed the author's use of the terms "singularity" and "other dimension"

-carved pumpkin to look like Britney Spears at age sixteen, but with creepy missing eyes (see photo below)

-listened to obese black cat wheeze

-Discussed with roommate how far the radius of rabbinical prayer extends to qualify as effective in blessing food to make it kosher, and if the determinate radius could be measured in some way that is similar to radio frequency territory

-started reading pdf titled "Reducing Long-Term Catastrophic Risks from Artificial Intelligence" courtesy of the Singularity Institute, get totally derailed by the excitement of sudden inspiration for halloween costume which required google search for "Britney Spears Toxic video halloween costume"

-Ate leftover pita with tahini sauce

-made coffee

-watched major talking points of previous night's foreign policy election candidate debate

-made more coffee

-drank more coffee

-helped myself to an additional serving of coffee

-sweated

-Put on "A Little More Personal (RAW)" by Lindsey Lohan and thought "This is actually kind of a good album in a junior high girl kind of a way."

-Youtubed TRL live version of Lindsey Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)" followed by the official music video and enjoyed that even though the video was from 2005 there was commentary from less than 24 hours ago, quote courtesy of political critic TrollMCTrollinMAKKY: "Why you endorse Mitt Romney? Do all drugged-up Hollywood actresses like you make poorly choice decisions?" Scrolled down further and enjoyed the Yoda-like quote from sage cultural critic krazyashlee101: "She wrote this song, so obvious it is."

-ate 2 (two) pieces of candy corn, proud of my caloric restraint in an attempt to lead healthy low fat lifestyle

-considered working out

-ate huge-ass ice cream sandwich

-Freaked out that I had to be at work in .02 minutes, annoyed with myself that I waited all fucking morning to get ready at the last possible minute and then, combined with the anxiety from consuming too much coffee, had a near heart attack and ironically, proceeded to pretty much have an entire workout what with the sweating and freaking out and getting to work on time

It's Britney-O-Lantern, Bitch

Fake-Out Fade-Out Pop Music Singularity

So you're listening to a song and it gets all quiet and then boom! It comes back full force. In Britney Spears' Till the World Ends, there's that part about three-quarters of the way through, where the music gets all compressed sounding, all quiet and muffled? Then it reopens and comes back, spreading itself back open. (Sort of appropriate, considering the "world ending" topic of the song.) What I like about it is that it's more than just the typical  "Fake-out Fade-Out" device used in pop song construction (like Madonna's Hung Up) because of this subtle little extra noise they add in Till. It's the sound almost of the buzz you hear for a second when you turn on or off the TV. And then when the music reopens, you hear a Britney sex-kitten breath out, like this ahhhhh, that reminds me a little of that Philip K. Dick quote from The Divine Invasion:

You are the breath of your Creator, and as he breathes in and out, you live. Remember that, for that sums up everything that you need to know about your God. There is first an exhalation from God, on the part of all creation; and then, at a certain point, it starts its journey back, its inhalation. This cycle never ceases.

Interestingly, at the end of the Till video, you see Britney push the grate off the sewer where the all night dance party was (and during which we see the world explode). I'm noticing that in Britney Spears videos, that's an example of this common thing that happens where "It's supposed to end -- BUT NOT REALLY."


What I mean by that is that I remember reading somewhere that the video for Everytime she was supposed to die (in a bath tub, after sustaining a head injury) and reborn as a baby. But then NOT REALLY. Her head rises out of the bathtub and IT WAS ALL A DREAM. There was somebody who must have decided they couldn't show Britney dying. Who are we kidding though? Everybody talks about her being dead in the eyes anyway.

Last Scenes of Till the World Ends

Last Scene of Everytime

Describing Halloween Sounds Like Hilarious High School Poetry

I love Halloween. Especially in the city. And when I describe it, it totally sounds like some ridiculous poetry, which is hilarious and awesome to me. Halloween is poetry. With candy.

A member of Run DMC walks over Wabansia in broad daylight on the way to the bank to transfer funds from savings to checking account. A matador walks down the street giving directions on his cell phone. In the dark, I walk by an apartment with a party in progress: a moose is dancing drunkenly in the corner, antlers accidentally hitting the ceiling. A group of unlikely friends flag for a cab: a sexy eskimo (sexkimo), a nun, and a pirate. Left in my bike basket: a wrapper for a "HIP HOP BLING NECKLACE." A bus rolls and raves down the street with a flame twirler and a DJ spinning techno atop.

YES.

Here's this year's Halloween costume. Guess I never got around to putting together a Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner costume. Well, maybe next year. So this year's was pretty low maintenance.

I sang Womanizer at karaoke and was going to take the pink wig off while singing to reveal my pink hair underneath but then I forgot. Bah! I got the idea from Emo Phillips taking off his Michael Jackson jacket to reveal another one of the same underneath. Woops.

Who Is #1? Britney Spears and The Prisoner

So I got to thinking: if you're super young and you have a #1 album, and then you have a bunch of #1 albums, if you then put out an album that does not make it to #1, then are you like, "What the fuck? Why didn't that one make it to #1?" Like, do you get blasé about it? I asked Joe (my husband) this, and he said it reminded him of an Adam Ant lyric that's something like "There's nowhere to fall at #1 except down." (Of course I can't remember the name of the song or the exact lyrics, even with some deductive Google-ing, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it.) So then what happens as you get older, if you peak really early on, do you have nothing to look forward to? That is, if your goal early on is to be a super famous pop star? Maybe the best scenario for someone who that is their main goal is to spend many years having #2 albums, and then sometime when they're much lode, maybe right before they retire, they have a #1 album...? And then they can go out on top.

Of course, not everybody who goes into music has their main goal as being a #1 album. Not all success is measured in sales and money and Billboard charts of course too.I guess I am specifically referring to your typical pop stars.

Joe reminded me that Pat Benatar was a good case and point (case in point? I don't think I have ever mastered the use of that expression or even the actual wording of the expression) of someone who has their priorities straight. (We both very much enjoyed her memoir, Between a Heart and A Rock Place.) She had some big hits years and years ago and then spends most of her time with her family throughout the year and then tours in the summer to support the family. She just has fun with it and is happy. Incidentally, she has a house in Hawaii! OK, OK, whatever whatever, my point it that she just does it to enjoy it. Well, and I guess to live and have money, but ANYWAY, she makes more money now with her indie label then she did when she was on corporate record labels.

I don't think me thinking about "Where do I go from here now that I'm #1" originated from my own sense of wonderment. I think probably it was planted by Britney: Inside the Dream by Steve Dennis. He theorized that maybe Britney felt pressure to always have a #1 album each time, and if she didn't get it to be #1 that she might be unhappy, or at the least, surprised. Or maybe at some point blasé.

Speaking of Britney, I just read the comic FAME - Britney Spears: One Life No Apologies (Bluewater Comics). Oh shit oh shit oh shit. So there's this one page where they draw her sitting alone in an arena hugging her shoulders, sitting on one of those circus stools that they put the dancing bears on or whatever (circus, arena, geddit?), and she's surround by 6 big faces, her face actually. And she's questioning all these things, feeling trapped. The speech bubbles are actually boxes, different ones on different faces (boxes, 'cause she's boxed in, geddit?). And they capture all the ways she's trapped, things that I've often speculated that she might feel. I scanned it so you could see, but the picture is kind of small.

I thought that was a nice move, referencing the British TV show The Prisoner with the quotes: "I'm not a prisoner. I'm a free (wo)man, who is number one?" In the dystopian British TV show with Patrick McGoohan, he's caught in The Village and he spends the whole time trying to escape and also find out who #1 is, and they try to get him to tell him why he resigned. For Britney this works on a variety of levels. First, if you google Britney Spears "the prisoner", you full on pull up links that say things like "Britney Spears says she feels like a prisoner." What with the conservatorship and all that, bla, bla, bla. And she's trapped by the record company, and trapped by the stylings of fame and can't leave the house without being hassled, etc.

And the whole thing about #1,  always wanting to figure out who #1 is -- and then the thing about Britney always wanting to be #1, #1 hits, #1 albums, #1 sales, #1 perfume sales...It really is an effective analogy.

So I got inspired and Photoshopped this, which is weird that nobody did this already (unless they did and I didn't Google far and wide enough):

Who Is #1?

There does seem to be a lot of discussion about Britney's blaséness lately, barely dancing in her performances, her soulless eyes, etc. etc. On freebritney.tumblr.com (devoted to articles about her father's conservatorship over her affairs) there's this quote that seems to sum up a lot of what I've been encountering about her lately:

Britney Spears used to be called Godney. Unfortunately the name Zombney would be more fitting if you see her nowadays.

Meow! Someone on that site also responded that maybe the conservatorship will end after her tour because it was legally requirted for her to tour, and that maybe Femme Fatale will be her last album on JIVE Records, who she has been with from the beginning. I think I even heard on a fairly recent episode of the podcast Gay Pimpin' with Jonny McGovern that her performance on Good Morning America I think they were talking about, that her eyes looked dead. I thought the whateverness of the performance had more to do with the fact that it was in the early stages of planning because she was still rehearsing for the Femme Fatale tour (in Chicago tonight! But so is the Slayer Mag book event at Quimby's  -- sorry Britney, maybe another time), and this was like a slimmed down version of that. But I'll tell you what, I recently Youtubed dance tutorials for her routines in songs like Slave 4 U, and compared to what she's doing in newer videos, it's true, the dance moves are a little easier in Till the World Ends. (I did also find a dance tutorial for that one and it involves boring things like marching. BORING. Although I liked the 16-18 chest pulses...You're welcome.) Just offering that for what it's worth.

Well, if you're at the United Center tonight at 7pm, tell Britney I'm sorry I couldn't make it because I was at an event about Norwegian death metal.

The Public Imagination of Vanilla

We were just watching an episode of "The Office" and some of the characters were arguing about what type of ice cream to get. Then another character suggested that they get vanilla, because it's not very controversial, and it's something that pretty much everyone could agree on. Well I thought it was rather interesting that at the same time, Britney Spears' Pop Up Shop is selling a candle they're calling Vanilla Flame candle that, as of the time of this writing, is available for about another 72 hours. Of course what makes it an interesting choice is that the stereotype of vanilla is that it is a plain, boring flavor. And in fact, we even use "vanilla" as an adjective to explain sex devoid of kink. Well, considering Britney Spears' history, I find this an interesting choice. You may notice that it's Britney's favorite. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Her tastes run pretty "meh." I once watched a video of her being hassled in her car, and they lean over to talk to her, and you can hear her stereo playing that Michael Jackson song "Want To Be Starting Somethin'" or whatever it's called, and you hear one of the papparazzi guys say, just barely audible: "She's listening to Michael Jackson." And once, I saw (on DVD) a stylist ask her what she's into and she named a bunch of boring mall stores like The Gap and Abercrombie etc. But then, I mean, that interview was from when she was 16. But! Also! This was coming from a girl who grew up in a tiny rural town in the south, and her family didn't have a lot of money (the lore of the Britney myth is that when she started bringing home the big bucks she then paid off her parents' debts). So I guess I can't really fault her for being into those stores. It must sort of suck to be famous when you're super young because then any time anybody wants to make an argument like "Oh her tastes are so vanilla" and then the example they use is some random quote from like 15 years previous. Anyway, maybe Britney's management was trying to do some sort of subliminal thing about trying to make the public think she's vanilla. Or make some sort of association with what people think of the smell of vanilla...? Or that it's straight up a money-making thing, like since vanilla is one of the most popular flavors, so they know they'll make a lot of sales...? I like the former reason better for sort of dystopian attempt to control the population by way of public opinion about the bla bla bla Chomsky ideological hegemony whatever whatever, but the fact is, I think it is more likely that the real reason is the most simple reason, and that is, money.

And probably because Britney Spears probably does have pretty boring tastes, really.

The color of the spectrum that's often associated with the vanilla is often thought of being a white. And then of course, all the typical mainstream, modern, western imagination associates the color of white with white skin color, blue eyes -- there was a period where I saw pictures of Britney wearing blue contacts (she has naturally born brown eyes) -- And of course the stereotype in the modern imagination's eye thinks that the best possible combination of hair and skin is blue eyes and blonde hair. Naturally speaking, Britney has neither blue eyes nor blonde hair. But she did refer to herself as "lilly white" once in a tweet. (I'm totally taking this out of context. It was a tweet in reference to someone doing her wrong and she said something to the effect that they can "kiss my lilly white ass.") Also, she once told a journalist something to the effect that the media should give her a break and harass some other "over-exposed blonde" for a while. Blonde hair, blue eyes, vanilla skin, vanilla scent. I'm sure this all seems like pretty elementary point to make that the most mainstream person in the world has the most mainstream tastes. But you would think of all the people she has working for her that they would get her in touch with some more interesting stuff. Madonna does. She's known for her legendary scouting of  musical genres, new trends in dance, new stuff in theater and music, and then she uses it in her work. Sure, it's not stuff that's super, super underground, but it is stuff that's not necessarily in the mainstream yet -- like William Orbit for her Ray of Light era, etc. I mean, it's not William Orbit was the most underground person at that era, but certainly he wasn't so, well, vanilla. (Random thought: But didn't Madonna date or sleep with Vanilla Ice? So apparently her tastes do run a little Vanilla -- ha ha ha.)

And yet, I was almost tempted to buy Britney Spears' candle. Because actually, vanilla does smell pretty good.

Finally, about vanilla (suddenly I feel like I'm Diane Ackerman writing some natural history book, like this is a book called The Natural History of Vanilla. Maybe after the book they'll turn it into a PBS mini series!): Once in a reality show they took a woman who was having problems identifying herself as something apart from her twin sister, and a life coach took her into a perfumery and said something like, "You need to figure out who you are. Now is the time for you to start formulating opinions about things. Pick a scent that you like." And guess what? She picked vanilla. Humph.

Enhancements

Oooo! I can't wait! They're enhancing the store part of the Britney Spears website. Does that mean they're putting up new things? Did I lose my chance to buy this?:

Noooooooooooooooooo! Oh wait, I've posted that dog before. OK, well maybe I should get this then:

Do you know what that is? It's a reference to Britney's Womanizer video. There's the part where she's supposed to have a bunch of tattoos. So I guess this is kind of like you know, to make it look like you have tattoos I guess. I have some tights that are kind of like that but they don't stay up. Not like specifically Britney Spears ones, they're like you know, flash tattoo style. And then I found a shirt with the fake tattoo thing on the sleeves but it's cheesy tattoo stuff. Why am I bothering? I already have a big  tattoo on my arm. But does it say Womanizer on it? No? Well, then I better get this one.