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SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ OCT 30, 2016

1. What do Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ken Russell's Altered States, Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void and the Mitchell Bros. 70's porno classic Behind the Green Door all have in common? They're all on this Taste of Cinema list of 25 Psychedelic Movies That Are Worth Your Time! And what qualifies the aforementioned flicks as "psychedelic", you ask? List compiler Esther Zelig is happy to explain, before launching into a description of Dali and Bunuel's seminal surrealist short film Un Chien Andalou, thusly:

Psychedelia in film is characterized by distortion (both in image and in sound), experimentation in narrative and editing, and sometimes drug-inspired hallucinations. Like the psychoactive drugs which produce heightened sensory perceptions and distortion, psychedelic films present to their audience an unfamiliar and/or dream-like view of reality. 

The following films use cinematography, narration, editing, sound design, and music to create worlds of distortion. Whether the film is depicting drug-induced madness or creating an atmosphere of existential confusion, these films somehow experiment with the audience’s sensory perceptions in order to uproot the viewer from reality. These films welcome (or in some cases, force) the audience to interact with a plethora of psychedelic imagery, sounds, and/or narration.

Despite a couple of nonsensical entries - Point Blank and Wake in Fright are both fine films, but can they really be called psychedelic? - this is an outstanding list, and makes a worthy guide for any budding cinemaphile in search of "the good stuff". And speaking of "the good stuff"...

Just look at that face!

2. It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I occasionally use it to promote my "real world" projects, as well as those of my friends and associates, if and when I deem them worthy. Like, for instance, with my ongoing attempts to break into the film world, usually by partnering with - or piggybacking onto - my oldest and best friend Marc Roussel. And that is why I was so pleased to see Marc getting some well deserved critical appreciation from the folks at BloodyWhisper.com, in the form of a career-spanning overview! Written by Ernie Fink and published this week, this virtual tongue bath of praise begins thusly:

There are many good things that come from Canada. This filmmaker may be one of the best. 

Based in Toronto, Mr. Roussel has a diverse resume of films to his credit. Although his strongest suit seems to be horror, his versatility has shown in both crime drama and romance. He has the ability to pull a variety of emotional strings is so effective that he cannot be matched by most. He is also downright terrifying.  

His films Remote and The Elusive Man have won awards at various festivals and he had been nominated for the Director’s Guild of Canada award. He has also found success as an editor on many televisions shows.

Adding to my pride at seeing my best bud be treated so well is the fact that I, myself, took part in the creation of many of Marc's most successful films, from our early contest entry Sweet Tooth, to our most recent BravoFACT project, The Last Halloween, and a few in between! Furthermore, it is my most sincere hope that the two of us get to do more work together, perhaps including some work that makes us some goddamn MONEY one of these days! Anyhoo, keep watching this space for developments. In the meantime: Marc, old pal o' mine, I join BloodyWhispers.com in saluting you!

3. Well, that was fast! Remember the second item from our previous DDD Suggested Reading List, wherein we informed you of the death of Jack Chick, creator of those ironically popular Chick Tract evangelical mini-comics you could occasionally find in diner booths, bus stop benches, and other public places? Well, someone has created a fully illustrated Chick Tract about what happened when Jack Chick Got To Heaven... and it's very much in keeping with the Chick Tract tradition.

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ OCT 28, 2016

1. Our old pal Peter Bebergal - author of the essential Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll (Canadians buy here) - has just had an article about the Rosicrucians published in The New Yorker. It begins:

In the early seventeenth century, a series of anonymous pamphlets were published in Germany, announcing the existence of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, a fellowship of mystics and alchemists who, it was claimed, were working in secret to transform European politics and religion. The first of the pamphlets, which were later called the Rosicrucian manifestos, was the “Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis,” and it described a figure called C.R., who learned of magic and alchemy as he travelled through the Orient, two hundred years earlier, and then returned to Europe to share his new knowledge. A second pamphlet, “Confessio Fraternitatis,” appeared not long afterward, laying out the purpose and intentions of the fellowship and inviting others into the brotherhood, where they would “find more wonderful secrets by us then heretofore they did attain.” (This quote is taken from Thomas Vaughan’s translation of the manifestos, republished by Ouroboros Press in 2012.) These secrets would be revealed, the pamphlet explains, but only to a few, at first; in the meantime, they would be “declared in figures and pictures” that would one day become more widely understood. In 1616, a third document, “The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,” appeared. “Rosenkreutz” is a German play on “Rosy Cross,” and seemed to be the mysterious C.R. of the “Fama.” 

In her landmark book “The Rosicrucian Enlightenment,” published in 1972, the historian Frances Yates concluded that the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross did not actually exist—but she also argued that the documents had helped to prompt a new way of thinking about the world, one that not only attempted to “penetrate to deep levels of religious experience” but inspired investigations in science and math as well.* This legacy had been obscured, she wrote, because “the advancing scientific revolution” was “eager to cast off the chrysalis out of which it [was] emerging.” Over the centuries, the Rosicrucian myth became the ur-legend for tales of shadowy groups using magic to alter the course of history. It influenced a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century magical and mystical Christian orders, some of which claimed to have a direct lineage with the Rosicrucians. (Even Freemasons have claimed an early link to the group.) And the central idea of the manifestos—that through the application of magic and alchemy we might learn that we are a microcosm of the divine—helped to shape, along with Hermeticism, the occult imagination. 

In the centuries since, that tradition has informed the work of many artists and writers, among them the novelist and screenwriter John Crowley, now seventy-three...

And that's where things get interesting... or disappointing, depending on how much credence you've been giving those weird adverts featuring robe-bedecked figures shooting beams from their eyes that used to run in the back pages of Popular Science Magazine. Regardless, congratulations are once again due to Mr. Bebergal, who is fast becoming one of the DDD's favorite writers on the contemporary Pop Occulture beat!

2. One of the most paradoxically lovable hate-spewing right-wing lunatics of the post-war period in America has moved on to his eternal reward. Yes friends, it is with heavy heart that yer old pal Jerky announces the death of Jack Chick, paterfamilias of the Chick Tract Empire. You know Chick Tracts, don't you? They're those charmingly rough-hewn (and occasionally quite competent) miniature free comic books left in libraries, at subway stops, in restaurant booths, and other public places by practitioners of low-impact evangelical proselytism, tiny screeds bent on enlightening the secular-humanist-indoctrinated masses to the terrible truths about such topics as drugs and alcohol, abortion, homosexuality, Darwinian evolution, rock and roll, and... Dungeons & Dragons?! And, oh yeah, Roman Catholics, Muslims and Jews, natch! Fortunately, Jack's legacy lives on in the form of this immaculately organized online archive of his tracts.

3. And finally for today, I bring you a collection of animations created by Monty Python's sole American alumnus, Terry Gilliam, for the landmark britcom classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that went unused. Some of these are gorgeous, and I find them to be extremely inspiring, so why not share the wealth? Enjoy!

***

HEY GUYS! If you enjoy the content I create and share with you here via the Daily Dirt Diaspora family of blogs - currently including the Daily Dirt Diaspora, the Useless Eater Blog, and Kubrick U - and you buy stuff through AMAZON.COM or (if you're in Canada, obviously) AMAZON.CA... would you mind occasionally entering those two sites via the links that I am providing here? Because when you do, no matter what you buy there - it doesn't have to be stuff that I promote! - I get a very small kickback, at ZERO COST to you! It's a great way to help keep yer old pal Jerky creating content! Because, man, let me tell you, the last time anyone tossed anything into my tip jar, I think we were all worrying about a potential Mitt Romney administration. Ah... happier days, eh? So come on, man! Use my Amazon portals, and keep me from having to set up a freaking Patreon account, like all the Worst People in the World are doing these days!

NEW ADAM CURTIS DOCUMENTARY: HYPERNORMALISATION

The release of a new documentary by Adam Curtis is always cause for celebration in the world of paracultural analysis. Here is a trailer for his latest thought-provoking project, HyperNormalisation...

And here is a five minute preview segment that covers something strange that happened a little while ago with (or rather, to) none other than Donald Fucking Trump...

And here is a third party website where you can watch the nearly 3 hour doc in its entirety without having to live in the UK or download some weird, proprietary BBC video player to watch.

THAT FACE HE KEPT MAKING AT THE FINAL DEBATE...

It reminded me of someone, but I couldn't put my pinkie on it until I pictured him without that Pomeranian that's usually perched atop his noggin.

Funny thing is, you can't even call Donald Trump a Dr of Evil, seeing as he got his degree in Evilology from Trump University... an unaccredited institution.

SUSPECT VIDEO AND CULTURE: THE END OF AN ERA

When it comes to contemplating the final days of Suspect Video and Culture - Toronto's combination video rental and retail shop / museum of cinematic esoterica / guerrilla film school campus - I am at a loss for words. Suspect has been a home away from home for me since I first came to Toronto in 1993 (they opened their doors in 1991), and the thought that it soon won't be there fills me with the kind of dread that usually comes with thoughts of one's own mortality. Losing the Queen West location to a massive, block-destroying blaze in 2008 ws bad enough... now this?!

Anyway, I'll have more to say on this subject soon enough. For now, I just wanted to let you know that yer old pal Jerky isn't the only one feeling this impending loss, as this wonderful video interview with Suspect master of ceremonies Luis Ceriz shall fittingly attest. So if you're in Toronto, why not make one last trip to the south-west corner of the Honest Ed building at Bathurst and Bloor? You can pick up a souvenir, take a few pictures, and relive the glorious 90's just like in Portland (where the dream of the 90's is still alive, apparently).

Keep watching this space...

S.S. TRUMP SPRINGS WIKILEAKS & A RAT ABANDONS SHIP

Ever since Julian Assange's arrival on the scene, yer old pal Jerky has been neither a critic, nor a supporter, of his Wikileaks operation. However, there's always seemed to be something a little bit "off" about him to me, and I'm not referring to the whole Swedish rape thing... intelligence agency "honeypot" traps are a real thing in this world (just ask Mordechai Vanunu). It's just that Assange has always come across as sort of an unsavory combination of crass self-promoter, Adbusters-style pseudo-intellectual, and the kind of cowardly chaos agent who starts fights but never sticks around to take part in them.

This impression has only intensified, both with myself and with the public at large, thanks to this unprecedented political season we're enduring. In fact, public opinion of Assange has taken an abrupt two way swing recently, with those who formerly called for his execution now hailing him as a hero, and those who used to eagerly await every new leak now dismissing him as a tool of the Trump campaign and/or the Kremlin. The Guardian's David Smith has written an interesting overview of this phenomenon, in case you're interested.

Then came today's breathlessly delivered news that "Assange's Internet Link was Severed by a State Actor!" ... which is just an emo way of of saying little Julian has had his Internet privileges suspended, which is what parents do when their kid behaves like a petulant, destructive brat who doesn't seem to understand the serious consequences his behavior could have on the rest of the family.

In other words, Ecuador did the smart thing. John Kerry probably gave them some serious food for thought re: the future of US/Ecuador diplomatic relations if they continued to allow an agent of Vladimir Putin to interfere with the most existentially consequential American election of the post-war era, and they made the smart play. Furthermore, I think they made the morally correct play. Assange is no Daniel Ellsberg. He isn't an Edward Snowden, nor a Chelsea Manning, either. Calling Assange a whistleblower at this point is an insult to the concept.

Besides, the ceaseless online braying of hyperventilating conspiritard deplorables notwithstanding, having one's Internet temporarily shut off is hardly the stuff of the Spanish Inquisition, or Guantanamo Bay... although that part of this saga might come soon enough for Assange, and also, fingers crossed, maybe for Trump.

"Why, Jerky!" you may be asking, "Whatever are you implying?! That there might be grounds for going after Julian Assange - and perhaps even Donald Trump - for such serious, potentially capital crime offenses as conspiracy to subvert an election, inciting and taking part in sedition, or maybe even TREASON?!"

Well, hypothetical you, all yer old pal Jerky is going to do is to point you in the direction of some interesting information, and then let YOU be the judge of that! Keeping in mind, of course, that this is a rapidly developing story which has only just begun to bubble over.

Let's watch this video, for starters.

Now, with the above information in mind, check out this Politico story about the reaction that Roger Stone had when informed about a potential FBI investigation into the links between the Wikileaks, the Kremlin, and the gaggle of Putin-friendly advisers to be found orbiting the Trump campaign. Stone, formerly one of Trump's top advisers and a lifelong super-sleazy GOP dirty tricks specialist, was initially dismissive, calling the idea of a federal investigation the work of "partisan hacks".

And then, all of a sudden, shit got real. And golly gee, what do you know? Old Roger Stone had a rather interesting reaction, essentially announcing that he'd be "happy" to participate in any federal investigation! Furthermore, he took to his Twitter feed to make the following eye-popping revelation: “It turns out the entity with which I signed a non-disclosure agreement for the Trump campaign was never legally constituted,” adding the hashtag “#invalid.”

The message, according to some, couldn’t be more clear. Veteran rat-fucker Roger Stone is letting it be known that, in order to save his own skin, he is ready, willing, and able to strike a deal with the Feds. And if that means abandoning the sinking ship that is the S.S. DONALD TRUMP, then so be it.

Wouldn't the irony be delicious - and wouldn't it be a fine example of turnabout as fair play - if the man who just spent a year inciting mobs of poorly educated. sycophantic personality cultists to chant "LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!" were himself to get a taste of that Law and Order he keeps going on about, and end up spending the remainder of his life rotting in a federal penitentiary?

If you enjoy this kind of links-provided dot-connecting, bookmark this blog and keep watching this space!

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ OCTOBER 18, 2016

1. Matt Taibbi is one of the only reasons to read Rolling Stone Magazine anymore, and you shouldn't hold it against him that said severely compromised organ is the one that chose to publish this particularly entertaining and insightful piece of journalistic opinioneering, titled The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump. After vividly portraying the Wisconsin Massacre - wherein House Speaker Paul Ryan's public, on stage meltdown will serve as a "Franz Ferdinand" bookmark moment in future history book articles on the death of the GOP - Taibi goes on to remark:

Trump's early rampage through the Republican field made literary sense. It was classic farce. He was the lewd, unwelcome guest who horrified priggish, decent society, a theme that has mesmerized audiences for centuries, from Vanity Fair to The Government Inspector to (closer to home) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When you let a hands-y, drunken slob loose at an aristocrats' ball, the satirical power of the story comes from the aristocrats deserving what comes next. And nothing has ever deserved a comeuppance quite like the American presidential electoral process, which had become as exclusive and cut off from the people as a tsarist shooting party. 

The first symptom of a degraded aristocracy is a lack of capable candidates for the throne. After years of indulgence, ruling families become frail, inbred and isolated, with no one but mystics, impotents and children to put forward as kings. Think of Nikolai Romanov reading fortunes as his troops starved at the front. Weak princes lead to popular uprisings. Which brings us to this year's Republican field. 

There wasn't one capable or inspiring person in the infamous "Clown Car" lineup. All 16 of the non-Trump entrants were dunces, religious zealots, wimps or tyrants, all equally out of touch with voters. Scott Walker was a lipless sadist who in centuries past would have worn a leather jerkin and thrown dogs off the castle walls for recreation. Marco Rubio was the young rake with debts. Jeb Bush was the last offering in a fast-diminishing hereditary line. Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer. And so on. 

The party spent 50 years preaching rich people bromides like "trickle-down economics" and "picking yourself up by your bootstraps" as solutions to the growing alienation and financial privation of the ordinary voter. In place of jobs, exported overseas by the millions by their financial backers, Republicans glibly offered the flag, Jesus and Willie Horton. 

In recent years it all went stale. They started to run out of lines to sell the public. Things got so desperate that during the Tea Party phase, some GOP candidates began dabbling in the truth. They told voters that all Washington politicians, including their own leaders, had abandoned them and become whores for special interests. It was a slapstick routine: Throw us bums out! 

Republican voters ate it up and spent the whole of last primary season howling for blood as Trump shredded one party-approved hack after another. By the time the other 16 candidates finished their mass-suicide-squad routine, a tail-chasing, sewer-mouthed septuagenarian New Yorker was accepting the nomination of the Family Values Party.

Whether you love him or hate him, there's no denying this Matt Taibbi boy can write. His Twitter feed is pretty entertaining, too.

2.  Next up, I urge each and every one of you reading this to carve out 20 minutes of uninterrupted quiet time to read this astonishingly frank and compelling Washington Post account of the turmoil roiling America's unofficial First Family of White Nationalism. Entitled "The White Flight of Derek Black", Eli Saslo's riveting account begins, in part, by describing what appear to be glory days for the Far Right's most popular father/son team, with an emphasis on the younger man's status as a movement rising star:

He never used racial slurs. He didn’t advocate violence or lawbreaking. He had won a Republican committee seat in Palm Beach County, Fla., where Trump also had a home, without ever mentioning white nationalism, talking instead about the ravages of political correctness, affirmative action and unchecked Hispanic immigration. 

He was not only a leader of racial politics but also a product of them. His father, Don Black, had created Stormfront, the Internet’s first and largest white nationalist site, with 300,000 users and counting. His mother, Chloe, had once been married to David Duke, one of the country’s most infamous racial zealots, and Duke had become Derek’s godfather. They had raised Derek at the forefront of the movement, and some white nationalists had begun calling him “the heir.” 

Now Derek spoke in Memphis about the future of their ideology. “The Republican Party has to be either demolished or taken over,” he said. “I’m kind of banking on the Republicans staking their claim as the white party.” 

A few people in the audience started to clap, and then a few more began to whistle, and before long the whole group was applauding. “Our moment,” Derek said, because at least in this room there was consensus. They believed white nationalism was about to drive a political revolution. They believed, at least for the moment, that Derek would help lead it. 

“Years from now, we will look back on this,” he said. “The great intellectual move to save white people started today.”

Folks, this story goes places and exposes you to realities that you will NOT see coming, I can almost guarantee it. Read this story, absorb it fully, deal with it, grapple with it, then help spread it around. I don't get anything out of this except knowing that I have maybe helped to guide a few more eyeballs towards an important, Pulitzer Prize-worthy piece of journalism. And, yes, that IS Ron Paul up in that photo with Derek and Don.

3. Okay then... after all that heavy stuff, I think we could all use a little comic relief. And so I hereby present the one and only Peter Serafinowicz's latest amazing Sassy Trump video!

I particularly love this video because it highlights a great example of Trump indulging in his favorite pastime, psychological projection, in such a way that causes him to say something that he probably regrets the moment the words slip past his lips. Trump, about whom speculation of cocaine abuse has swirled since his fidgety, aggro, sniffles-plagued performance in the first two debates, accusing Hillary of drug abuse is a concept that is almost perfect in its symmetrical idiocy. James Fallowes over at The Atlantic has an interesting take on this incident, which is even more unintentionally revealing than the time Trump said: "She has tremendous hate in her heart, believe me!"

I'm not even kidding about this: Hillary should show up to the next debate with a urine sample jar, some drug test dip sticks, a doctor willing to witness the sampling, and see whether or not Trump still wants to go through with it. For added comic effect, Hillary could declare: "Don't worry, Donald! This doctor is willing to sign a non-disclosure form regarding the actual size of your penis!"  My best educated guess? Donald probably won't go for it.

DONALD TRUMP ~ A PORTRAIT

I drew this during the first debate, which I watched with my good friends Kristan and Matt, in order to keep my hands occupied, just in case I inadvertently lashed out and accidentally punched a hole in the wall. I know it isn't much, particularly insofar as political cartoons go, but heck, it's the best I could do under the circumstances. I'll try to do better in future efforts. In the meantime, ENJOY! - YOPJ

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ OCTOBER 14, 2016

1. The Anti-Trump Master List is a mind-boggling compilation put together by the Quantum-Displacement Tumblr that every American of voting age should be forced to read from top to bottom - then quizzed on - before being allowed to pull a lever (or smudge a touch-screen) on election day. A few choice examples (all of which are extensively sourced) include:

- North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un endorses Donald Trump.
- Russian leader with history of human rights abuses Vladimir Putin endorses Trump.
- Imam of known Islamic Terrorist (Omar Mateen) endorses Trump.
- K.K.K endorses Trump.
- Convicted Neo-Nazi Terrorist Don Black endorses Trump.
- Chinese Communist Party endorses Trump.
- Serbian War Criminal Vojislav Seselj endorses Trump.
- Greek Neo-Nazi leader Ilias Panagiotaros endorses Trump.
- White supremacist cult leader August Kreis III endorses Trump during sentencing hearing after he is found guilty of child molestation.
- Russian Fascist Aleksandr Dugin endorses Trump.
- Trump brags about endorsement from convicted murderer and repeatedly accused fraudster Don King.
- Trump praises Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein.
- Trump retweets quote from Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini.
- Trump uses picture of Nazi soldiers in official campaign poster.
- Legal Experts find dozens of Trump policy propositions that would violate the constitution. “Trump is threat to rule of law.”
- Law Scholars agree, in order to enact plans Trump would have to violate First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Bill of Rights, 14th Amendment, due process, equal protection, and the doctrine of enumerated and limited executive powers.
- The ACLU made a list of all of Trumps unconstitutional propositions. (It’s 28 pages long.)
- Trumps Immigration plan unconstitutional.
- Trumps Muslim plan unconstitutional.
- Trump pledges to open up Libel Laws on Newspapers in order to curb Freedom of the Press.
- Trump promises to ban porn if elected president.

Just a reminder, the above constitutes the absolute remotest tip of a rather substantial and formidable iceberg... an iceberg composed of frozen, radioactive sewage. Folks, the Rubicon is in the rear view mirror at this point. The disaster cannot be averted, because it is currently ongoing. All that can be done at this point is mitigation. Hop to it.

2. Just in case you hadn't already heard, everybody's favorite real-world analog to Tony "Iron Man" Stark has staked out an... interesting philosophical position:

Elon Musk has said that there is only a “one in billions” chance that we’re not living in a computer simulation. 

Our lives are almost certainly being conducted within an artificial world powered by AI and highly-powered computers, like in The Matrix, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO suggested at a tech conference in California. 

Mr Musk, who has donated huge amounts of money to research into the dangers of artificial intelligence, said that he hopes his prediction is true because otherwise it means the world will end.

Cheerful, ain't he? Personally, although yer old pal Jerky enjoys a good late-night, Epistemology 101 mind-fuck as much as the next phenomenologically suspect manifestation of Being-in-the-World, I suspect that solipsism on this unprecedentedly epic scale might only occur under a very specific set if circumstances, among which could be included: taking part in one too many cocaine-and-research-chemical-fueled brainstorming retreats with all your techno-fetishist Transhumanist pals; having one too many of your harebrained bullshit hunches prove to be billion-dollar market disruptors; being surrounded by a few too many brown-nosing, sycophantic corporate Yes Men; landing somewhere just shy of "institutionalization recommended" on the Autism Spectrum... you know, that kind of thing. On the other hand, maybe Musk is just experiencing some difficulty coming to terms with the prospect of his own inevitable mortality, and he is failing to take into account the incredibly terrifying implications of an existence in which instead of simply dying, he re-spawns again, and again, and again, and again... ad infinitum. I'll let you guys be the judge.

3. It has been one hell of a long time since I mentioned anything about Rush Fucking Limbaugh in any venue and/or context, both online and off, but once you listen to the above segment from his radio show, I think you'll agree that it totally deserves to be spread far and wide. It really is staggering, the lack of self-awareness on display as he serves up a heaping helping of conservative sexual morality for his dwindling audience of ditto-head dead-enders. Just in case you can't stand the sound of his oxycontin-crusted vocal chords, here is a transcription:

You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it's perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there's no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

So we've come to it at last. In his haste to disavow and defame all things liberal, Limbaugh has had to come out against the concept of consent being an important part of sexual morality. Now if only someone would inform him that liberals are totally against trying to breathe underwater, and hate the taste of razor blades, then we might really get to something good.

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ OCTOBER 11, 2016

1. With this in-depth Washington Post profile of Trump supporter Melanie Austin, journalist Stephanie McCrummen succeeds in arousing equal parts dread, revulsion and an almost tragic sort of paradoxical empathy. In fact, it seems to me as though she has succeeded in coining a new genre: Horror Journalism. 

I mean, just check out this part, from early in the article:

The first time she had seen him, at a rally in June, she was just beginning to realize how many people saw the world the way she did, that she was one among millions. At the time, her hips were still sore from a series of injections intended to calm her. She had gotten them in February, during a difficult time in her life, when she had been involuntarily hospitalized for several weeks after what she called a “rant,” a series of online postings that included one saying that Obama should be hanged and the White House fumigated and burned to the ground. On her discharge papers, in a box labeled “medical problem,” a doctor had typed “homicidal ideation.” 

Melanie thought the whole thing was outrageous. She wasn’t a person with homicidal ideation. She was anxious, sure. Enraged, definitely. But certainly not homicidal, and certainly not in need of a hospital stay. 

“It never crossed my mind that I’m losing it,” she said several months after her release, and a big reason for this conviction was the rise of Donald Trump, who had talked about so many of the things she had come to believe — from Obama being a founder of the terrorist group ISIS, to Hillary Clinton being a co-founder, to the idea that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may have been murdered in a White House plot involving a prostitute and a pillow. 

“They say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow,” Trump had told the talk-radio host Michael Savage, who was using his show to explain the scenario to his 5 million weekly listeners, who then spread it on Facebook, where it wound up in Melanie’s feed. 

To Melanie, this was the glory of the 2016 presidential election. The truth about so many things was finally being accepted, from the highest levels of the Republican Party on down to the grass roots of America, where so many people like her didn’t care what some fact-checker said, much less that one day Trump would suggest that Obama wasn’t born in America, and on another say maybe he was. 

More and more, she was meeting people who felt the same as she did, joining what amounted to a parallel world of beliefs that the Trump campaign had not so much created as harnessed and swept into the presidential election. As Melanie saw it, what she had posted about Obama was no different from what a New Hampshire state legislator and Trump campaign adviser had said about Hillary Clinton, that she “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.” 

“If it’s time to lock me up, it’s time to lock up the world,” Melanie remembered thinking when she had heard that. 

And so when she was released from the hospital with instructions to “maintain a healthy lifestyle,” she did what seemed to her not only healthy but also patriotic. She began campaigning for Trump.

See what I mean? Stephen King ain't got nothing on this shit. I urge everyone to read this article - digest it, get it, GROK it - and react accordingly. Yes, I know, there are issues of failed public policy here that are glancingly touched upon that are going to take decades to properly address. We are only now beginning to understand the damage wrought upon the body politic by the Internet and those who seek to bend it to serve their will to watch the world burn. But that's a fight for another day. Over the next thirty days, it's all about there aren't enough Melanie Austins out there to tip the scales in favor of the Apocalypse. After that... well, get ready for some heavy lifting because buddy, weird times lie ahead, whether you're ready or not.

2. It has been happening less and less frequently, but in my unfocused online wanderings I still occasionally stumble across some amazing stuff. This English translation of the GHDI*'s transcripts from a series of secretly recorded conversations between captured Nazi physicists reacting to news of the USA dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese at Hiroshima is a prime example, containing more dramatic intensity and complex emotional impact than any half-dozen recent Hollywood "historical dramas" you can name.

I mean, considering how close they came (German scientists being the first to theorize the possibility), the implications raised by the discussions captured are enough to raise goosebumps in the most stoic of flesh.

The transcripts are set up neatly by a brief introduction:

At the beginning of the war, Germany’s leading nuclear physicists were called to the army weapons department. There, as part of the “uranium project” under the direction of Werner Heisenberg, they were charged with determining the extent to which nuclear fission could aid in the war effort. (Nuclear fission had been discovered by Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in 1938.) Unlike their American colleagues in the Manhattan Project, German physicists did not succeed in building their own nuclear weapon. In June 1942, the researchers informed Albert Speer that they were in no position to build an atomic bomb with the resources at hand in less than 3-5 years, at which point the project was scrapped. 

After the end of the war, both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union tried to recruit the German scientists for their own purposes. From July 3, 1945, to January 3, 1946, the Allies incarcerated ten German nuclear physicists at the English country estate of Farm Hall, their goal being to obtain information about the German nuclear research project by way of surreptitiously taped conversations. The following transcript includes the scientists’ reactions to reports that America had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The scientists also discuss their relationship to the Nazi regime and offer some prognoses for Germany’s future.

All you history buffs out there - especially World War II history buffs - you're not gonna want to miss this one.

3. And finally for today, I would like to share with you a website that gives yer old pal Jerky one hell of a brain boner: a catalogue of incredibly difficult-to-find books about the occult, currently on offer from legendary Thompson's Rare Books in British Columbia, Canada. Enjoy!

* GHDI = German History in Documents and Images