As a consumer of art, I enjoy being befuddled. I love watching the movie Primer because somewhere in the middle the narrative breaks and becomes almost impossible to follow. I love Steve Reich’s Piano Phase because as the phasing begins it feels like my head is coming apart. There’s nothing for me to follow.

Camera Obscura has tapped into this effect with their video for Troublemaker. I have watched this video over and over and cannot figure it out. Plus it’s lots of fun!

WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?

This is what I was able to puzzle out: You have a dude.

This dude, who is wearing a rockin’ amulet, has brain powers.

Look at him using those brain powers! Maybe he is communicating with those two people or he gains strength from them?

He is in opposition to a woman, who is wearing a wicked amulet, who has brain powers as well.

One of her brain powers is the ability to make copies of herself.

She uses her brain powers and multiple forms to hunt down the dude, who seems to be running away.

She uses a brain attack against the dude.

This causes some pretty intense pain for the dude.

In his brain.

He somehow resists the attack and defeats the woman, turning her into an outline and then nothingness.

He feels remorse about this. Why you ask?

Because he didn’t used to be in opposition to the woman! They used to train together.

After the training they would lounge on the grass, shoeless, and talk of their lives and silly things.

That is the whole story, from what I’m able to tell. The problem is that there are about 300 other characters doing various things that I am not able to work into this story in any way.

You have the two people who I briefly mentioned earlier but are in the video a bunch. The woman is the singer.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear they have bitchin’ amulets and wear red cloaks.

There is Beardy McBinoculars.

There are the two bemasked mannequins/robots/Jeep enthusiasts.

The librarian who also has eye powers?

Wait, maybe that is a book shop. That would explain the eye powers.

There is the boy who the dude seems to communicate with but then doesn’t do anything.

There this guy.

He creeps me out. Who stands in a black room with his eyes closed?

Also, the two red-cloaked amulet-havers sometimes hold a baby.

There’s Beardy McGlasses-Brainpowers who has a beard, wears glasses, and has brain powers.

Oooooh! That’s where his name comes from!

There’s a woman who begs your pardon but she never promised you a rose garden.

She did deliver a rose garden, however. She really under-promised and over- delivered on that one.

There’s another woman with eye powers who has questionable decorating tastes.

So, in order for my narrative to be correct, you need to ignore all of those characters. Clearly I am missing something. And I love it!

There’s only two clues in the video about its meaning. First, there’s a flashback where the dude is not wearing an amulet while his then-friend/later- adversary is wearing the amulet.

Next, there’s this which speaks for itself.

Women’s literature. Women’s literature. Women’s literature. It’s all starting to come together.

There’s so much else to love in the video as well besides it being weird as shit. There’s the weirdly self-satisfied smile on the red cloaked singer.

There’s the title card, which you know I love.

There’s also a randomly made up episode number.

I don’t know if it was because I liked [Star Wars](http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harmys-STAR-WARS- Despecialized-Edition-HD-V25-MKV-IS-OUT-NOW/topic/12713/) so much as a kid, but I really like it when people do that. Just claim something is part 3 of 7! It’s great!

This video really makes me happy. I don’t even particularly like the song it accompanies, which I find bland. I watched this video a bunch of times in a row and I can’t even think of how the chorus goes now. But I will always remember the dude and his brain powers.

-PTD