TITLE: "Killers"
ARTIST: Iron Maiden
ALBUM: Killers
RELEASE DATE: 1981
Last night, Peggy had some of her publishing pals over to play a round of Mahh Jong (I think I'm spelling that right). That's what she told me, anyway. For all I could figure out from the paraphernalia they were spreading all over the dining room table, they may as well have all been furtive Freemasons divining the trajectory of the Illuminati. In any event, I seized the opportunity to escape the apartment and go check out a flick. I walked down to the Angelika and bought a ticket for a film I'd been wanting to see for a while, that being "Persepolis."
Peg and I had both read and thoroughly enjoyed the books. Written and illustrated by one Marjane Satrapi, "Persepolis" is ultimately an autobiographical comic book (or "graphic novel," as those who strive to legitimize the undeservedly maligned medium call them) about Satrapi's childhood and adolescence in Iran circa the fall of the Shah and the Revolution. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the simple, childlike nature of Satrapi's illustrations, it is a disarmingly moving, poignant story. When we heard that they were taking it to the big screen, we were both intrigued.
The film is beautiful, though still incredibly sad. In any event, while I don't vividly remember the incident in the book, there's a great episode wherein the youthful Marjane goes to a street in Tehran where black market goods from the West are being sold. She ends up buying an Iron Maiden cassette (while at the same time sporting a Michael Jackson badge on the lapel of her homemade "Punk's Not Ded" [sic] jacket -- an endearing display of genre-disregard), for which she narrowly escapes being turned into the authorities. Despite the close call, Marjane goes home, puts the tape in and rocks out furiously.
Unfortunately, the music they chose to represent Maiden with was a somewhat ludicrously cartoony approximation of the band's signature clamor. But I remember reacting identically when I first heard the band, although the risks I was running by swearing my allegiance to Iron Maiden were decidedly lesser than the ones facing poor little Marjane. No one was going to lock me up as a traitorous infidel for air-guitaring like a jackass. I was a freshman in high school, and my friend Duer (yes, his name was Duer) was given a copy of Maiden's second album, Killers, for a birthday present. As it happened, the dueling guitars and galloping tempos -- to say nothing of the splatteriffic lyrics and gurning grimace of undead Eddie on the album's sleeve -- weren't really my boy Duer's cup of tea. Knowing that I'd been a massive fan of the similarly inclined likes of Kiss and Black Sabbath, Duer quite correctly assumed that Killers would be right up my alley, so he gamely passed the platter on to me. Thrilled by its willfully unwieldy sound and sentiment, I took Killers home and slapped it on my turntable. The rest, as they say, is history.
Meanwhile, the whole time I was sitting in the Angelika watching this amazing film, some fidgety frat boy in the row in front of me (and why he was at this film and not, say, "Rush Hour 5" or "American Pie 9" is entirely beyond me) kept freakin' texting through the entirety of the movie. About half-way through, I could no longer take the distracting glow of his precious little gadget and I leaned forward to tell him to fuckin' cut it out, when what I really wanted to do was garrote him. I don't understand you texters, I really don't. Whatever happened to the respectful sanctity of the movie theatre?
In any case, in the spirit of that fleeting moment of bloodlust and in honor of brave little Marjane's fandom for that which rocks, herewith some vintage Maiden from the Killers album. Play it loud, strum your cuticles bloody on that tennis racquet and revel in your freedom to do so.
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