SUGGESTED READINGS FOR SEPT 17, 2017

Over at The Atlantic, Kurt Andersen has penned an illuminating jeremiad on the spreading contagion of unreality, in the tradition of Hofstadter's classic 1964 work The Paranoid Style in American Politics, entitled How America Lost Its Mind. It aims to explain how "the nation's current post-truth moment is the ultimate expression of mind-sets that have made America exceptional throughout its history". Near the beginning of his article, Andersen writes:

Each of us is on a spectrum somewhere between the poles of rational and irrational. We all have hunches we can’t prove and superstitions that make no sense. Some of my best friends are very religious, and others believe in dubious conspiracy theories. What’s problematic is going overboard—letting the subjective entirely override the objective; thinking and acting as if opinions and feelings are just as true as facts. The American experiment, the original embodiment of the great Enlightenment idea of intellectual freedom, whereby every individual is welcome to believe anything she wishes, has metastasized out of control. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams, sometimes epic fantasies—every American one of God’s chosen people building a custom-made utopia, all of us free to reinvent ourselves by imagination and will. In America nowadays, those more exciting parts of the Enlightenment idea have swamped the sober, rational, empirical parts. Little by little for centuries, then more and more and faster and faster during the past half century, we Americans have given ourselves over to all kinds of magical thinking, anything-goes relativism, and belief in fanciful explanation—small and large fantasies that console or thrill or terrify us. And most of us haven’t realized how far-reaching our strange new normal has become.

This is a substantial, serious essay, so best to make sure you have a good hour set aside to fully get a handle on it. Here's a little video preview to prime your brain pump, if you will. As always, if you find anything in any Suggested Reading that you take issue with, or would like to argue about... start a discussion in the comments section! Goddamn it, I know there are hundreds of you reading. So let's get chatting about stuff, too! Anyway... only if you feel like it.

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Speaking of the particularly American brand of crazy that the above essay endeavors to dissect, have you heard about the recent blow-up at the NSC, which led to the ouster of a number of high level officials, most of whom had long-standing ties to disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn? One of those casualties was strategic planner Mike Higgins, who wrote a gloriously insane memo about how...

The president’s enemies ... are employing “political warfare as understood by the Maoist Insurgency model.” Even Republican leaders have been subjugated, Higgins says, because they are “more afraid of being accused of being called a racist, sexist, homophobe or Islamophobe than of failing to enforce their oaths to ‘support and defend the Constitution.’ ” (Yes, Higgins says you and I have a choice: Either don’t be homophobic or support the Constitution.) He concludes chillingly, “The recent turn of events give rise to the observation that the defense of President Trump is the defense of America.”

Believe it or not, that's NOT the craziest shit to be found in Higgins' memo. For a taste of the harder stuff, check out the excerpts dug up by Esquire's Charles Pierce, about which he declares:

If this were Alt Right Hearts, this guy just shot the moon. If it were Alt Right bowling, he rolled a perfect game. If it were Alt Right baseball, he'd be Sandy Koufax with the ball against the Cubs on September 9, 1965. If this were Alt Right golf, he'd be the late Kim Jong-il with his 18 holes-in-one. This is nothing short of the pure diamond heartstone of modern American political crazy. This is what millions of Americans are fed, every day, over their radios and through their inboxes, pseudo-intellectual claptrap to feed an anti-intellectual political movement, bat-winged syllables in search of some dark, clammy sentence on which they can land. ... This guy was on the National Security Council, and he'd likely still be there if he just spouted this stuff off in the bar after work.

Indeed he was. And the fact that Trump fuckin' LOVED that memo, and was furious with McMaster for firing Higgins over it, gives you just a bit more of a hint of how dangerous the times we're living in really are.

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And finally for today, a bit of tomfoolery to help the medicine go down. It's been a while since yer old pal Jerky mentioned the British comedy magazine VIZ, which has been a favorite at Chateau LeBoeuf since forever it seems. But my old pal Mel Rosedale recently returned from a trip to Old Blighty with a gift of Jaffa Cakes and a VIZ hardback compilation entitled The Otter's Pocket (a euphemism for ladyparts, I think), and my love affair with the bawdy British humor rag was instantly rekindled. So much so that Mel and I are working on a comic of our own to submit! Hopefully I'll have news on that to share in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, you can check out VIZ at the link above. They put nearly everything up on their website, which makes it easier to stay abreast of the antics of such classic characters as the Fat Slags, Biffa Bacon, Buster Gonad, Sid the Sexist, Raffles the Gentleman Thug, and my own personal favorites, the Drunken Bakers. In fact, here's an example of the Beckett-like humor of that particular strip to whet your appetites...

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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!

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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!

MEDIAVORE // FILM ~ AAAAAAAAH! WE ARE NOT MEN

You might remember Steve Oram from his decade and a half of continuous character and background work in such worthy Britcom projects as Green Wing, The Mighty Boosh, Tittybangbang and Steve Coogan Live. Or perhaps you remember him as the bearded half of the comically bumbling yet oddly endearing serial killer couple in Ben Wheatley's magnificent 2012 satire, Sightseers.

However, it doesn't much matter how--or even if--you knew of him beforehand. Because there is nothing in Oram's pre-2015 catalog that could possibly prepare you for the certifiably insane masterpiece of hyper-subversive comic audacity that is Aaaaaaaah!, his ferocious and fearless directorial debut, which he also self-financed for reasons that will become apparent as you read on.

Described by Cine-Vue's Martyn Conterio as being an "anthropological social satire/horror-comedy" that is "like a collaboration between Dogme '95 and Chris Morris", Aaaaaaaah! is, at its core, a relatively straightforward exploration of interpersonal dynamics among a small group of friends, neighbors and acquaintances in a quiet, leafy section of South London. The surreal twist on this relatively mundane premise is that all the characters behave as though they've had their brains switched out with those of great apes.

Here is the trailer for Aaaaaaaah!

There is no dialogue in this film. Or, more precisely, there is no complex language, as the characters communicate via crude, pantomime gesticulations, as well as vocalizations consisting of grunts and huffs of varying intensity. The written version of this ape language, which can occasionally be spotted on street signs and in adverts, looks like this: "// oooo / oo /// o". Discussions, or what passes for them, are often interrupted by flashes of violence and cruelty, crude sexual propositions, and the occasional fart. The score, made up almost entirely of improvisational sonic tone poems by King Crimson and Robert Fripp, compliments the action absurdly well.

The plot involves a pair of males--an alpha (played by Oram) and his submissive sidekick (played by Tom Meeten)--who wander out of a woodsy suburban copse and into a household already beset by seething familial, romantic, and inter-generational conflicts, throwing the fragile established order into chaos. The household consists of a mother and daughter, (Lucy Honigman and Toyah Wilcox) and mom's alpha boyfriend (Julian Rhind-Tutt), who has a submissive sidekick of his own (Sean Reynard). Complicating matters is the family's fifth wheel, the exiled paterfamilias, beautifully portrayed by Britcom MVP Julian Barratt.

You might think such a heady set-up would lend itself to the filmmakers indulging in a bit of heavy-handed social commentary. Fortunately, you'd be wrong about that. In an interview with HeyUGuys.com, Oram states: "There are no metaphors and no intended comments. It’s just details that I hope people will enjoy, find funny and laugh at."

And oh, those details! Aaaaaaaah!'s hilarious gross-out highlights include a store manager ejaculating on a photograph of Prince Harry, a disgusting cooking show watched by the females while the men play a primitive motorcycle simulator video game, and poor Noel Fielding getting his knob bitten clean off by an angry shoplifter.

And yet, the filmmakers' avoidance of allegory notwithstanding, there's something about Oram's walk-through of his conquest's flat during a party, wherein he continually marks his territory by pissing on every surface, that manages to transcend the grotesque and speak to certain unspoken truths about masculinity and our culture's relationship with our baser animal instincts. Perhaps it's for this reason that, in his enthusiastic review for the "men's issues" column from The Telegraph UK, Tom Fordy claims that "every man should watch Aaaaaaaah!". Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, their shorter, 3-star review chose to focus on "the film’s despair at the ways women respond to such shows of mastery".

Ultimately, Aaaaaaaah! is an incredibly bizarre and transgressive experimental film that also works as a comic entertainment, simultaneously relate-able and recognizable yet disturbingly alien, and therefore worthy to sit alongside the best of Bunuel.

If you think you've got what it takes to watch Aaaaaaaah!, you can currently download it at the iTunes website via this direct link.

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MINI-INTERVIEW WITH AAAAAAAAH! CREATOR STEVE ORAM

After reaching out to his management via Twitter, I was recently fortunate enough to get a chance to ask Mr. Oram a few questions about his film, which he graciously agreed to answer for me via email. Here, now, is the sum total of our online exchange.

JERKY: Can I get a rough estimate of the budget? And was it entirely self-financed, or at least entirely independently financed, as I've seen intimated (but never confirmed) in various media stories about the movie?

STEVE ORAM: Yes it was an entirely self-financed movie. Paid for with proceeds from a TV voiceover I did. It was entirely independent and so without any 'creative' input from outside. The actual budget - well think of the lowest budget feature film you've seen, it's about that.

JERKY: Was the addition of the sub-titular appendix "We Are Not Men" an after-thought for the North American market, to make it easier to find in search engines? And does it have (as I suspect) a Nietzschean meaning?

STEVE ORAM: I wish! The search engine thing is an absolute nightmare. On social media anyone searching for it will just come across a thousand people going aaaaaggh! about someone's haircut or something. I wouldn't say I aligned myself with Nietzche or any philosophy. It's just the idea that we aren't as special as we kid ourselves to be. We're no better than any of the other animals at the end of the day.

JERKY: That ending... WHY?!?!?

STEVE ORAM: Well I hope the ending feels true to human nature. Julian Barratt's character is totally disenfrachised and emasculated throughout the film and this has to have its catharsis. Quite often an audience will actually laugh at the ending which astonishes me. Maybe this is an awkward thing, I dunno. Or else there are a lot of sick people in my audiences.

MEDIAVORE:TV ~ SNUFF BOX

Premiering on BBC3 in February of 2006, at the tail end of the glorious, decade-long New Comedy tidal wave that swept across the UK, Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher's semi-sketch, semi-narrative, pitch-black TV comic oddity Snuff Box represents either the crest or the trough of that wave... depending on who you ask.

Here's the set-up, such as it is: The couldn't-be-more-British Berry - a whiskey-loving scoundrel with a rapist wit (no, really) and a silky smooth baritone vox - is employed as High Executioner to the King of England. He also may or may not be a direct descendant of Jack the Ripper. Fulcher - a moon-faced, socially awkward American with poor hand-eye coordination and a penchant for profoundly inappropriate bursts of surreal profanity - has somehow weaseled his way into a position as Berry's assistant, not to mention adjunct membership in the posh Hangman Gentleman's Club where much of the series takes place.

Although the two men couldn't be more different, the way they play off each other serves as both an excellent example and a postmodernist deconstruction of the stereotypical Brits-versus-Yanks dynamic.

For instance, while Berry clearly sees himself as an alpha-type upholder of certain manly virtues, he is also a broken human wreck. Whether he's being bested at fisticuffs by a mincing Negro tailor, pompously failing miserably on a trivia-based game show, or violently bullying old ladies and small dogs, we sense in Berry a certain resigned nihilism, nourished perhaps by a deep current of post-Edwardian melancholy at the loss of Empire... like James Bond with a gammy leg and acute alcoholic hepatitis.

Fulcher is equally monstrous, but for entirely different reasons. A rampaging Id to Berry's unctuous Super-Ego, Fulcher is a virtual whirlwind of bewildered frustration, a middle-aged man-child of apocalyptic ignorance whose gross incompetence is so incomprehensibly profound that Berry's mediocrity shines like gold in comparison. Hence their undeniable chemistry.

To the extent that Snuff Box is known at all, it's mostly through a couple of set pieces - unrelated to the overriding story arc - that became viral videos, chief among these being the brutal "Boyfriend" sketches...

...and the comparatively delightful "Rapper with a Baby" sketch.

This is unfortunate, because although the above sketches are very funny, they barely hint at the ice-cold, pitch-black perfection of the show from which they've been excised. There are moments in Snuff Box, such as a Mac versus PC argument that takes place literally on the gallows, that border on the Satanic.

In case you're wondering, that is as unqualified a recommendation as you're ever likely to get out of yours truly.

So go out and buy Snuff Box, which is now available on DVD in North America with a bunch of excellent extras, including a CD of Matt Berry's wonderful music created especially for the series. If you don't like it, you can always just donate it to the nearest orphanage. What with the population crisis getting so out of hand, God only knows we could use a few more serial killers around.