American Psycho

American Psycho: Killer Collector Edition should be a necessary part of any well-to-do Wall Street Vice President DVD collection. If you don't fit that category and are a bartender, artist, homeless person, or other pointless individual, than I would like to a) stab you in the face and play with your blood and b) recommend this movie to you as well. No film delves into the pathological mentality of the elite in American culture with as much irony, sardonic humor progressive shifts of brilliance and ridicule as American Psycho.

Death Notices

"If things went according to the death notices, man would be absolutely perfect. There you find only first-class fathers, immaculate husbands, model children, unselfish, self-sacrificing mothers, grandparents mourned by all, businessmen in contrast with whom Francis of Assisi would seem an infinite egoist, generals dripping with kindness, humane prosecuting attorneys, almost holy munitions makers — in short, the earth seems to have been populated by a horde of wingless angels without one's having been aware of it."


Erich Maria Remarque, in his novel, The Black Obelisk (1956)

Refugees

In front of my tilting cage that little hut of plastics, so not to suffer from loneliness, I travelled far and wide all in my thought. I went back to the remote past, our home and its vicinities, grandma and her stories of my great grandfather, those mighty warriors from whom I inherited intolerance and pride. I travelled far and wide all in my thought. I went far into the future, into my dreams and high hopes. To see what was there, where this changeless passage of time, where this endless kick of my heels, could possibly one day lead. I travelled far and wide, all in my though I also travelled to eternity, to see my soul at the end of this mess. I travelled far and wide, All in my thought.

Today is World Refugee Day. This poem by Giddi Abamegal, an Oromo refugee in Kenya, is published in Tilting Cages: A Collection of Refugee Writings, edited by Noomi Flutter and Carl Solomon. The photograph of Kenyan refugees is by Sebastiao Salgado (The Children, Aperture Books, 2000).

 

"Words are things; and a small drop of ink / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." - Lord Byron
 

Where My Books go

ALL the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken'd or starry bright.


William Butler Yeats
June 13, 1865 � January 28, 1939  

A Culture of Death

In 1990 David Lewis, a Vancouver man living with HIV, went to a local newspaper and announced that he had assisted eight friends, all suffering from AIDS, in committing suicide--an act of murder in the eyes of Canadian law. For many people, the news simply affirmed what they had long suspected was happening in the AIDS community. But to Russel Ogden, a criminology graduate student at Simon Fraser University looking for a research project, it was an opportunity to go where no scientist had ventured before.

"I had a population in my backyard that had been living with euthanasia issues for some time," recalls Ogden, who is believed by many to be the first researcher in North America to have formally studied the practices of underground assisted suicide and euthanasia. In 1994 Ogden published his master's thesis, which documented the inner workings of this illicit network. The findings shocked the nation and branded him one of Canada's most controversial researchers...more here

The Neurotic Artist

On the flight across the Atlantic, I had browsed in a paperback version of Kierkegaard's Diaries. How grim they are. Kierkegaard describes self-loathing, pessimism, dread, isolation, guilt, and anomie. He writes of wanting to shoot himself. Kierkegaard complains of a "primitive melancholy ... a huge dowry of distress." He writes, "My whole past life was in any case so altogether cloaked in the darkest melancholy, and in the most profoundly brooding of misery's fogs, that it is no wonder I was as I was." And then: "How terrible to have to buy each day, each hour -- and the price varies so!" And again: "The sad thing with me is that the crumb of joy and reassurance I slowly distill in the painstakingly dyspeptic process of my thought-life I use up straightaway in just one despairing step."...more here

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges died on this day in 1986. The scene and quotation carved on his gravestone are based upon a favorite Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Battle of Maldon." The quotation translates as "let them not fear a thing," words spoken by the Anglo-Saxon leader to his warriors as they prepared to fight Viking invaders in Essex. In "Elegy," Borges pictures a man who has sailed the world and then returned "to the ancient lands of his forebears": ...to Andalucia, to Portugal and to those counties
where the Saxon warred with the Dane and they
mixed their blood,
to have wandered through the red and tranquil
labyrinth of London,
to have grown old in so many mirrors,
to have sought in vain the marble gaze of the statues,
to have questioned lithographs, encyclopedias,
atlases,
to have seen the things that men see,
death, the sluggish dawn, the plains,
and the delicate stars,
and to have seen nothing, or almost nothing
except the face of a girl from Buenos Aires
a face that does not want you to remember it.
Oh destiny of Borges,
perhaps no stranger than your own.

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, born on this day in 1888, is regarded as Portugal's most important 20th century poet, though he published very little in his lifetime. After his death in 1935, over 25,000 poems, letters and other bits were found in a trunk, written by Pessoa and his handful of "heteronyms" � sustained fictitious personas, each given a distinct biography and writing style by their creator. The postmodern result, say the critics, is "one of the most remarkable bodies of work of the century." Pessoa himself was a man of reclusive, legendary oddness among Lisbon's caf�s, where he continues to sit today.
 

DVD OF THE WEEK

When scholars talk about the 70s music revolution, their names hardly ever come up. Everyone references the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, pushing backward to encapsulate the New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground, and forward to take in the Clash and the Jam. But forgotten in the face of punk�s do-it-yourself upheaval was the real sonic shift, a move away from guitars and raw power to cold and calculated electronics. These were bands that drew their inspiration not from the rebel rebels of the 50s, or the garage gangs of the 60s. No, these inspired artists found their muse in the mechanical mantras of Kraftwerk, and in the pure pop presence of disco�s emerging dance beat.

So as London suffered through a post-jubilee filled with anarchy and aggression, Sheffield slowly but surely grew into a Mecca for the new and novel synthesizer experience. Out of a core group of friends and schoolmates came a noise so unique, so unlike what was being peddled on both radio and in the riot clubs that it took a few full years to catch on. But once it did, it set a standard for recorded insurgency that would last for decades to come. Everyone points to Johnny Rotten�s sneer, Sid Viscous�s violent nature, or Joe Strummer�s considered politics as the true essence of the 70s seismic rock and roll mutiny. But it was really the twisting of knobs and the modulating of sound waves that caused the greatest disorder. It was a sound so foreign it could only come from outside the domain of London. Indeed, it was a noise Made in Sheffield...more here  

Paris Hilton Engagement

So, who’s not excited about the Paris Hilton engagement? This is potentially a bettor’s dream with odds firing out from everywhere as to when, where, or how Ms. Hilton could impress a very rich man like Paris Latsis so much that he’d actually set himself up for what seems to be a miserable life filled with emasculation and infidelity. But stranger things have happened in the world of gambling, especially when it comes to Paris, whom is angling to have the only wedding dress that shows off a significant amount of camel toe.

After the jump, Oddjack pulls together some of the hottt, sticky Paris action we’re likely to see in the coming months from the bookmaker’s point of view...more here

Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity

Question: The recent brouhaha about the Jerry Springer Show suggests that we ought to be suspicious about everything portrayed on these tabloid TV talk shows. What do you think? You talked to hundreds of guests, producers, and viewers in your research for this book. How much is staged? What's credible, what isn't?

Joshua Gamson: The short answer is: a lot of it is loosely scripted, and there's plenty of room for fake guests to make it on the air, but the vast majority of guests are "real" people who want to be on television. The producers are very competitive with one another, they have to produce multiple shows a week, they field calls from thousands of prospective guests, and they don't have all that much invested in "the truth." So it's easy enough to fake them out. But from the producers' point of view, the point is less to be credible than to be amusing and at least plausibly true...more here

SØREN KIERKEGAARD: A Biography

For many, the mention of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) brings to mind a Danish thinker faintly recalled from dim memories of an introductory philosophy class. For others, the name is immediately associated with existentialism and phrases such as "subjectivity as truth" and "leap of faith."

Few philosophers have gained more fame for positions they seldom embraced than Kierkegaard. In the history of philosophy, he has been portrayed as an anti-Hegelian, the "father of existentialism" and the precursor of deconstruction.

Even today, many interpreters limit their readings of Kierkegaard to his perceived antipathy to Georg W.F. Hegel, the German philosopher who constructed a complex, sometimes torturous philosophical system that declared that truth could be reached only by using reason and objectivity. His writings seemed distant, abstract and removed from the real world. Kierkegaard, by contrast, proclaimed that each person was engaged in an individual quest for truth in the stages along life's way. While their approaches to truth indeed differ substantially, Kierkegaard never thought of himself as an anti-Hegelian, and he praised some of Hegel's readings as much as he criticized others. The real difference between the two is Kierkegaard's lively, poetic writing style as against Hegel's more formal, turgid style.

In the middle of the 20th century, the existentialists Sartre and Camus embraced Kierkegaard as one of their own.Near the dawn of the 21st century, Jacques Derrida and some deconstructionists have, in turn, claimed Kierkegaard as their darling...more here

Fear: The Foundation of Every Government's Power

[S]ince love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513

All animals experience fear—human beings, perhaps, most of all. Any animal incapable of fear would have been hard pressed to survive, regardless of its size, speed, or other attributes. Fear alerts us to dangers that threaten our well-being and sometimes our very lives. Sensing fear, we respond by running away, by hiding, or by preparing to ward off the danger.

To disregard fear is to place ourselves in possibly mortal jeopardy. Even the man who acts heroically on the battlefield, if he is honest, admits that he is scared. To tell people not to be afraid is to give them advice that they cannot take. Our evolved physiological makeup disposes us to fear all sorts of actual and potential threats, even those that exist only in our imagination...more here

Collective Memory and the Holocaust

On May 10 New York architect Peter Eisenman officially unveiled his Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin: 2,711 concrete pillars, ranging in height from three to sixteen feet, rise up at subtly varying angles in a vast field in the city center. A grid of narrow alleys weaves through the pillars, undulating at times gently, at times steeply. Ever since the space was first chosen for a Holocaust memorial in 1992--when it was a vacant expanse between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, part of the no-man's-land once occupied by Hitler's bunker and traversed by the Berlin wall--it has served as a kind of projection screen or free-fire zone for German controversies about the politics of collective memory: Should there be a reminder of Nazi atrocities in the center of the German capital?...more here

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing...more here