The Spectacle of Excess Posts

February 22, 2017 /

The indie wrestler I went out with circa 2003 died recently. I’m not sure what he died of, but his Facebook page shows an x-ray of a bone with metal rods in it or something, dated like a week before he died. I think physically he really had a hard time of it. He was around 43. People on Facebook were saying he was younger, but I remember him as being a year or two older…

January 31, 2017 /

There are several cool posts on slow simmer right now for The Spectacle of Excess, so it’s relevant at this time that I ask: can you smell what the blog is cooking? But currently, I’m excited to share a 2016 retrospective essay I wrote for the Cubed Circle Newsletter. It was an honor to be invited to contribute to CCN’s Yearbook and I hope to do so again next year! There’s a whole list of cool contributions to…

January 16, 2017 /

This is the second in my series of essays about the art of Punkrockbigmouth. Please check out essay #1 about Niki’s Digital Impressionism and enjoy my thoughts on -ism #2: Crosshatch Realism. Whereas brushstrokes exist as a result of the medium of paint, crosshatching is a technique that originated back when etchings and engravings were all the rage. This sort of technique, in which artists were scratching out their pictures on wood or metal, required a…

January 5, 2017 /

I feel very, very conflicted about the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 11. I wanted Kenny Omega to win that belt for a few reasons: 1.) Look at this fucking guy. His “Cleaner” gimmick is ripped straight from Cobra, he came out to a Terminator intro, and he’s a sneering cartoon villain with a rubbery face. I’m into his whole thing. 2.) He’s one of the best wrestlers in the world, and his run in…

December 17, 2016 /

I cannot believe it’s been a year and a half since I wrote my first essay about the wrestling artist known as Punkrockbigmouth (and also known as Niki). I had plans for a three essay series, and then 2016 happened and I’m just now gathering my crumbled thoughts back up off the floor. As I work to find my groove in The New Era of Wrestling Theory and Criticism In Which WWE Takes a Backseat (see…

November 20, 2016 /

@HerzogBooks is a reclusive member of the IWC who emerges occasionally to tweet as though notorious brooding German filmmaker Werner Herzog himself is commenting on WWE. He has his own fictitious Herzog-themed wrestling promotion, and does Herzog/wrestling mashups on YouTube that explore the more cinematic gestures of wrestling. I invited this curious character to The Spectacle of Excess for an interview to see if I could make sense of the whole cool thing. Andrea G: Your…

November 11, 2016 /

Dear Vince, Linda, Stephanie, and Shane, We are a team of writers who view wrestling as a legitimate form of theatre and write about it from literary, economic, political, and artistic angles. Our blog is inspired by “The World of Wrestling” by Roland Barthes, which we’re sure you must be familiar with. We are spearheading a unique niche in pop culture studies that we like to call “wrestling theory and criticism” and are shopping around…

October 20, 2016 /

It’s impossible to separate pro wrestling from the culture that spawned it — whatever’s going on in one arena, you can find its reflection in the other. (Never consciously, though, because any time Vince McMahon attempts to get all #topical by incorporating anything zeitgeisty into his storylines, it universally ends in corny-ass tragedy.) Goldberg made his sweaty, meaty return on this week’s Raw. This annoyed me for lots of reasons, but it also got me thinking about…

October 18, 2016 /

If you follow this blog, you know I’ve been making a lazy, extremely unscientific study of the word “machka”, a seemingly humble Bulgarian word that has taken on a heightened significance as Rusev’s rallying cry and chief buzzword. My post a few months ago called On the Progress of Machka and Its Relevance in Wrestling Theory laid out a hodge-podge of graphs and whatnot to show what happened to traffic on this site’s posts about…

October 14, 2016 /

New friend of the blog John Dvorak is making his debut guest post with a Barthesian reading of James Ellsworth, how great is that? This jobber who came out of nowhere becomes valued for that which is the opposite of traditional value in wrestling, what a perfect emblem of these strange times. Take a look:   On Tuesday I had the enjoyable opportunity to take my ten-year old son to the SAP Center in San Jose…