Tag Archive: Charles Manson


SPEED READING PYNCHON

Filed under: Books, Fiction — Leave a comment
January 29, 2015

INHERENT VICE by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press, 2009)

Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is a countercultural spoof of the hard-boiled Chandleresque crime genre full of shaggy dog tales of private dick and dope fiend Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello on the trail of kidnapping related murders and other related misdemeanours.

Red herrings and false trails abound and I quickly tired of trying to find any twisted logic to proceedings.

This trippy novel is no ringing endorsement of drug use but large parts of it seem to have been written while under the influence of some substance or other. Continue reading →

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THE CULT OF MARCY MAY

Filed under: Gender, Movies, Politics — 1 Comment
February 29, 2012

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE  directed by Sean Durkin (USA, 2011)

It is common to brand someone  as insane when their behaviour runs counter to the conventional norms in society.

But what if those norms are based on fucked up values?

Sean Durkin’s assured debut movie is a powerful psychological drama that shows the vulnerability of the ‘haves’ in society and raises disturbing questions about how we  classify  mentally illness.

In the latest Adbusters tactical briefing that I received by e-mail today I was informed that: “millions of people around the world are waking up to the fact that their future does not compute… that their lives will be a never-ending series of ecological, financial, political and personal crises… and that if we don’t rise up and start fighting for a different kind of future, we won’t have a future”.  

There’s no intrinsic political message in this movie but it occurred to me that the bleak conditions of the modern world that Adbusters so accurately identify are a fertile ground in which cults and fake ideologies thrive.

In desperate times people look for desperate solutions and are drawn to those who offer a sense of purpose and belonging. Continue reading →

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NOT BEING DENIED

Filed under: Italy, Music, Television — Leave a comment
October 27, 2011

TV sucks and I do my level best not to watch too much.At the same time, living in Italy, I have been frequently frustrated by not being able to watch British television which may not be perfect but at least has some wheat amongst the chaff.

I’m delighted therefore that I have finally figured out how to crack the UK i-players . The unpromisingly named Hide Your Ass  enables me to  virtually reside in the UK so I catch a number of shows I’ve only been able to read able or see short clips of on You Tube.

Today I had my first taste of the Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat which I enjoyed and was also just in time to see the excellent one hour documentary about the great Neil Young appropriately titled ‘Don’t Be Denied’. This featured some great anecdotes and well chosen clips. I particularly loved Neil’s  description of Charles Manson as a “song spewer” rather than a song writer. Continue reading →

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