-yuki; she/they/them; ace w/ pan elements-
"Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."
— Helen Keller
[Background Image credit: トルト/サブ垢]
disaster exorcist. pesters demons into leaving. walks into a room with a bowl of fresh holy water and “accidentally” trips, spilling it onto whoever’s possessed. makes the sign of the cross when demons aren’t looking then acts nonchalant when they turn around, backs sizzling.
exorcist: flower of christ [blows dandelion] demon: [sneezes] exorcist: bless you demon, vibrating angrily: Humanity Is Unworthy. exorcist: amen to that demon:
Permanent things are scary despite their beauty Scary things are scarier if only a glimpse of them are seen Transparent things are to hide our mortality
Ohhhhhhkay. Eros. This song, you guys. So in the show, they make a big deal about poor, innocent Yuuri struggling to find his sense of Eros, right?
The thing is, Eros is intentionally composed to keep Yuuri off-balance (and take us, the audience, with him).
What makes the YOI soundtrack so brilliant is that the original pieces for everyone but Yuuri and Yurio are completely straightforward. Minami’s Boogie should be quarantined, it’s that catchy. Intoxicated, Still Alive, and Tales of a Sleeping Prince are exquisitely crafted pop tunes; they wouldn’t sound out of place on the radio. Shall We Skate is so well written and produced that I thought it was from a real movie (those dialogue asides?? BRILLIANT).
So the composers lull us into thinking that all of the pieces are like that. But Eros (and Agape) are incredibly complex, layered compositions.
Eros has SO much going on. On the surface, it’s a simple Flamenco-style piece with elements of improvisational jazz. Stylistically, it’s a fabulous choice; the pulsing Flamenco flourishes evoke a clear sense of sensuality, which in turn supports the choreography.
Yet right away, it feels unsettled. Melodically, there’s a lot happening:
The melody itself rarely lands on the tonic, the base note of the scale. Even if it did, the piece isn’t in a major or minor key; it’s modal. (I think it’s in Dorian but I’d need to check the score to be sure.) So there’s nothing to ground the melody. Try humming or whistling along and you’ll see what I mean. It swoops all over the place, always just out of reach. Some sections are improvised (or meant to sound that way). We really get the sense of Yuuri grasping at straws with this melody.
To add to that, the phrases aren’t all the same length. In a lot of classical western music and pop, melodies are written in predictable lengths, usually in multiples of 8 measures. In Eros, the phrases elide, overlap, or stretch too long, leaving us stranded or disoriented.
The key modulates several times, sometimes in the middle of a phrase. Altogether there are… I think 5 key changes? Maybe 6? Of course Yuuri struggled to find something to hold on to. It’s enough to make anyone seasick.
Rhythmically, it’s just as complicated. The introduction is formless, like a miniature standoff in the Old West; you can practically hear the tumbleweeds and dust sweeping down the empty street as two foes with itchy trigger fingers face off. Out of nowhere, the violin comes in, the notes articulated harshly, like toe picks digging into the ice, launching the music forward. This happens on beats 2 and 3, right in the middle of the measure. (These are called pick-up notes, because musically they lead to the next measure.)
Now, for a musician, pick-ups are nbd. That’s why we have conductors. But Yuuri’s just got to know when those pick ups happen. There’s nothing in the introduction to tell him when the violin is going to start. He has to feel it, all while making kissy-faces at Victor.
Once the first full measure begins, a steady beat of hand claps keeps time: 1-2-3, 1-2-3. But at the same time, the bass plays 1-2, 1-2-3. This is called polyrhythm or hemiola, when two beats are played against three. It creates a sense of instability while still propelling the music forward. It also amps up the tension, pulling us in opposite directions at the same time.
Now, if it stayed like that, we would get used to it. But the hemiola is applied inconsistently; sometimes it is there, sometimes it is absent, so we can never get comfortable.
As the piece continues, the rhythmic elements get more intense: the clapping patterns speed up, the guitar becomes more percussive. Each instrument adds to the frenzy, but nothing is together. The cymbals hit at seemingly random beats, not matching the clapping or guitar. At the same time, the instruments interrupt each other as their phrases overlap. There’s almost a sense of desperation there as they vie for our attention, and let’s face it, desperation can be kind of sexy, no? The hemiola also becomes more insistent just before the two-minute mark: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3.
Then, the climax. The climax you guys.
Talk about desperation. Everything falls apart – no, it explodes. The strings have a cadenza, playing out of time, lurching from note to note, almost screeching, as if gravity were suddenly suspended…. Then everything crashes down, a final, desperate rush of notes, flourish on top of flourish, reaching higher and higher and higher –! The piece ends abruptly in the middle of the measure, stranded in the stratosphere, a harsh finish which leaves us dizzy and disoriented. This would take the audience and judges by surprise, making Yuuri’s final gesture that much more dramatic.
It’s hard, difficult music, all the more so for seeming like “just” a Flamenco dance at first. With all of this, we really feel Yuuri’s confusion and lack of focus, even those of us who know exactly what Eros feels like. If Yuuri had skated to Intoxicated, we might not have been nearly so sympathetic, because the music would have done half the work for him. And when he finally does discover his own Eros, the layers of complexity in the song underscore his skill, his sense of triumph. Gah, I just… I get chills, people. I really do.
Actually, it’s Henry Selick, who was the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The book was written by Neil Gaiman, though, and is far…far….worse.
Sorry, I’m about to geek the hell out.
The movie is captivating, but the book is twenty kinds of terrifying, even now, ten years after I first read it. As disturbing as the movie may have been to some, the things Selick added really serve to cushion just how horrific the story really is.
First of all, the character of Wybie does not exist in the book. Coraline is facing all of this nearly alone, with her only help coming from the sly comments of the cat, a warning from the circus mice, and the stone given to her by her neighbor, presented with no comment but that it “makes the unseen seen.”
Second, the Other Parents are never quite as warm (and, dare I say, normal) as they are in the gifs above. They’re described as having paper-white skin and the Other Mother’s hair is said to move on its own, and her long, red, claw-like nails don’t ease any uncertainty that she is absolutely, positively up to no good. The first time Coraline meets them, they (and the rest of the Others) seem to be playing roles (for whatever reason, Coraline does not seem to pick up on this), like they all know what to say and what to do and are simply waiting for Coraline to make her move in their terrifying play world. This is shown to be partly true when the Other Parents tell her they know she’ll be back soon after she refuses the buttons - this time, to stay.
Third, the Other Mother commits atrocities that really should not have been in a book for anyone not fully grown up. She physically deforms the world around Coraline to slow her progress in their game beyond any mild traps the movie portrays, and, instead of turning the Other Father into the wandering pumpkin-thing seen in the film, she simply ceases to use him and throws his body away in the cellar, leaving him to rot with whatever bit of sentience he has left. She begins to lose her touch, as Coraline gains the upper hand. Her world doesn’t just become a nightmare - it falls apart completely. No creepy but oddly cool bug furniture here, just the house that now appears to be a child’s drawing. Whatever the Other Mother is (a beldame, but something tells me she’s much more ancient and powerful than that), she does not give half a hump about what she has to do to ensnare Coraline. Destroy the supporting characters of her twisted creation? Done. Allow herself to be dismembered to ruin Coraline’s life in the normal world? Not even gonna bat an eyelash.
On a final, personal note, imagine eight year-old me, ignored by my parents, absorbed in the story and identifying with Coraline from the start. Imagine me finishing this bloodcurdling book and immediately thinking of my basement, where there is still a locked door that my grandmother swears up and down is nothing more than a storage room, but has not once in my (or my mother’s) lifetime unlocked.
Can you see why this book still scares me?
Fun fact I learned from seeing neil gaiman speak: when he first wanted the book published, his editor said it was too scary. He suggested she read it to her young daughter, and then decide. So she did, and her daughter wasn’t afraid, and it was published. Years later, Gaiman was sitting next to that daughter at an event and told her this story, and she said “oh I was terrified I just didn’t want to tell my mom”.
Coraline WAS too scary to be published, but exists anyway because a girl lied to her mother.
@neil-gaiman, is this true about the publisher’s daughter?
It was my literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz who read it and said “you can’t seriously expect this to be published as a children’s book.” So I suggested she read it to her daughters. And she called me back a week later and said “They love it and they weren’t scared at all. I’ll take it to Harper Children’s.”
A decade later, at the Opening Night of the Coraline musical, I was sitting next to Morgan, Merilee’s youngest daughter, and told her how her not being scared had made the book happen. And she said “I was terrified. But I needed to find out what happened next. So nobody knew.”
What’s the point of punishing ourselves for coming up with new WIP ideas every three minutes when we can be proud of our creativity and comforted that we’re never going to run out of ideas?
A graze, a gash, our collocation. If our proximity could be seen for what it was, and not just for what it seemed, would it make a difference? For years, I have been learning how to be kind, not out of love, but out of disappointment and perhaps a flickering, directionless spite. Yet, even with this much fire, I couldn’t find it in me to either extend or raise my hand.
I just close my eyes.
At one point, I learned that kindness is hardly something that can be proffered with just strong intent. There will be a price to pay; sometimes I will, sometimes others will, and sometimes the very person on the receiving end will have to bear the full price.
A graze, a gash, our collocation. If our proximity could be seen for what it was, and not just for what it seemed, would it make a difference? For years, I have been learning how to be kind, not out of love, but out of disappointment and perhaps a flickering, directionless spite. Yet, even with this much fire, I couldn’t find it in me to either extend or raise my hand.
I just close my eyes.
At one point, I learned that kindness is hardly something that can be proffered with just strong intent. There will be a price to pay; sometimes I will, sometimes others will, and sometimes the very person on the receiving end will have to bear the full price.
