Simon's mini review of the Anton Corbijn's Control has got me very excited, although I worry about a Joy Division that's "grimly verite and gloriously aestheticized." I suppose indie's version of the Jim Morrison myth (the myth, I stress, not the man) deserves its own gloriously aestheticized rendition. Joy Division's music wasn't truth or life; it felt like truth, it sounded like life, like an Aeschylus play. That's why I don't stump for Ian Curtis like other Bernard Sumner skeptics: these frontmen weren't Robert Altmans, they were Fritz Langs, illuminating tropes instead of pinning details (NO's story could be filmed just as well in beautiful monochrome too), recreating Despair and Euphoria instead of describing them.

Now that we're on the subject, a word here for postpunk England's Colonel Parker, and a helluva lot more colorful and smart too. No R.I.P.'s -- not only don't I believe in them, but I can't imagine he'd want to rest peacefully anyway.