She Ra, Princess of Power (from Season One). Click on image to see video.

Mantenna was the name of a short story I was working on. As you have already guessed, it was about a balding man and his eerily powerful fauxhawk. Now, you can imagine my utter dismay to discover, upon entering “Mantenna” into a search engine, that Mantenna was already the name of a bumbling arch villain from “She-Ra, Princess of Power.” That dismay was quickly replaced with a feeling I can only describe as “less dismay” when I watched the clip and discovered that Mantenna, the She-Ra character, and I are kindred spirits.

In fact, this clip is almost a perfect duplication of a recent conversation I had with the editor of my last poetry book. When I informed him that I had only managed to save three of my capture bots and I had absolutely no captured Unicorns to show for it, he was totally pissed. I share Mantenna’s desire to please at any cost and also his adenoidal vocality; my editor has more than a passing resemblance to Hordak in terms of both physicality and editorial/evil-doing method. And he has often spoken fondly of his “fright zone.” Although, come to think of it, the relationship dynamic between Hordak and Mantenna is eerily similar to the relationship all editors of contemporary poetry have with their poets. Poets are the bumbling sidekicks / pseudo-villains of the cultural spectrum. And poetry editors, are, umm, the Hordaks.

Some ruminations: 1) He is called Mantenna because of his pop-out antenna eyes. Ironically, his boss, Hordak, seems to sport a sort of “mantenna” or “hairection” as I had envisioned the term — he has a spiky, mohawk-like fin on his head. 2) The trap door gag is executed with a complete disregard for artful timing. There is not a sufficient pause in order to make this classic gag work properly. The audience has precious little time to discover and revel in Mantenna’s fate. Buster Keaton and Robert Kroetsch are obviously aware of the importance of delay in the practice of their respective crafts. The esteemed writers of She-Ra have much to learn.

So in the spirit of cultural collectivism, be sure to check out my next book, “Mantenna, c’est moi,” to be published by Faber and Faber in Spring, 2010.

- Jon Paul Fiorentino

Fran is a 51 year old woman from Germantown, Maryland. I accidentally stumbled upon her Morrissey covers when I was looking for guitar tabs. On her YouTube profile, you will find 9 or so acoustic covers of Smiths and Morrissey songs, as well as various fan clips of Morrissey, and a few clips of her cat playing with a toy mouse. I had assumed that her versions of “Suedehead” and “Please, Please, Please…” would be excruciatingly bad. And they are excruciating, but in a completely different sense. These are very emotive, heart-wrenching clips. They exhibit the acute intensity of fandom coupled with genuine musical talent. Her voice is strong and her guitar playing is fairly good. 

Still, I find these clips hard to watch, perhaps in a similar way that people often find a Morrissey performance hard to watch. In Morrissey’s case, there is often too much zealotry, dedication to camp “Britishness,” and emotional cliché; in Fran’s case there is just too much sadness or earnestness. She mostly performs in black Morrissey tour shirts and in the background, on the dresser, you can see two tickets to Morrissey live at the Warner Theatre. Of course, this all makes perfect sense. As a young man, Morrissey was the president of the New York Dolls fan club and he made zines. He was, first and foremost, a fanboy; therefore his fans have all received expert training in the art of fandom.

All I know is that I want Fran to succeed. Could she be the Susan Boyle of indie?

- Jon Paul Fiorentino

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