“OK to Die” – James Arthur Ray Convicted of 3 Counts of Negligent Homicide in “Sweat Lodge” Deaths
June 22, 2011
The New York Times reports here that a jury took less than ten hours to convict James Arthur Ray of three counts of negligent homicide in the Sedona, Arizona “Sweat Lodge” deaths in October 2009. I’ve written about Ray before here, here and here.
In a recording that took place during the ceremony/workshop Ray explained, “The true spiritual warrior has conquered death and therefore has no fear or enemies in this lifetime or the next, because the greatest fear you’ll ever experience is the fear of what? Death. You will have to get a point to where you surrender and it’s OK to die.”
I’d bet he wishes he hadn’t put it that way now.
A generation or so ago Ph.D.’s and acid proselytizers Tim Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzger told their followers that a necessary part of the trip was Ego Death (in The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead). Wasted as they generally were, even this trio knew they were speaking metaphorically.
“I got a message on acid that you should destroy your ego and I did, you know. I was reading that stupid book of Leary’s Psychedelic Book of the Dead (sic) and all that shit. We were going through a whole game that everyone went through and I destroyed myself . . . I destroyed my ego and I didn’t believe I could do anything.”
– John Lennon
There were movements that began in the 1960s that did, in fact, help make the world a better place; health foods and environmentalism being two easy examples to cite. But the sloppy spirituality of the acid prophets brought drug mysticism into the mainstream, and the wreckage from that irrationality continues to this day. “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream” may make a great song lyric, but it isn’t exactly a paen to critical thinking.
It’s hard to imagine James Arthur Ray (and many other New Age self-help gurus) existing today without seeing Tim Leary as a kind of precedent. Just as it is hard to imagine Henry Ford using reiki.
We’d all be better off today if we’d followed Bob Dylan’s advice from his first Top 40 hit: “Don’t follow leaders, Watch your parking meters.”
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Fun Phact: Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues owes a great deal to Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business.
Comedian Offends, Apologizes: “He’s Criminal AND Non-Judeo-Christian,” says anonymous commenter
June 10, 2011
Remember when a comic could bomb on-stage with some bad material and we didn’t get our panties into a twist? Neither can I.
A popular and highly successful comedian (it doesn’t really matter who) recently made remarks during a stand-up performance that offended a portion of his audience. One especially annoyed patron posted about this non-event online and the story has lodged into a few spins of the news cycle. At this point more people have commented about the incident than were present in the audience.
Because the remarks made were directed at a minority group, members of this group felt a duty to voice their displeasure. Non-members of this sub-group have spoken up as well; they’re offended on behalf of those originally offended.
If there’s anything thing that unites us as a country, it’s the speed at which we take offense. We’re offensive and offended pretty much 24-7 these days.
In general, I think we should cut stand-up comedians a little more slack. They have a really hard gig: making drunk 20-somethings laugh at anything more sophisticated than dick jokes in dark, dank rooms we politely call ‘clubs.’ And by its very nature, comedy always skirts with the offensive.
For most comics, a scandal like this is simply part of their career arc; it hardly seems to qualify as news. But because the Interwebs give everyone license to vent their opinions, these non-events can become small media firestorms. Most of the time they blow over – anyone still hating on Ted Danson for his blackface routine at a roast for then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg? Sometimes though, a comic loses a lucrative gig (Gilbert Gottfried) or, worse yet, their career nose dives and they become unemployable (Michael Richards).
If you want to find the most emotional, least thoughtful opinions on such matters, it’s impossible to beat the Reader’s Comments in the New Daily News. Years ago the great Steve Allen used to read the incensed letters published in that paper to great comedic effect. People who write to the Daily News are seriously pissed off. And that over-the- top anger, out of context, is pretty funny. Like this one:
“. . .this rant goes beyond freedom of speech; he’s talking about killing his own son if he is gay. That’s criminal. AND non-Judeo-Christian.”
So this commenter takes it as a given that a multi-millionaire performer is literally going to act out an apparently ad-libed part of his comedy routine, go home, grab a knife and kill one of his children. Could we get the statistics on successful comedians killing their families, please? Not too great a risk, is it?
As befits a city that calls itself a melting pot (or a glorious mosaic, if you remember David Dinkins), Race and Class seem to be the main ongoing themes in these comments.
If you don’t have money, the problem is the people who do have money. If you’re White, the problem is Black, and if you’re Black, the problem is White. It’s all so easy! The problem is always over there, caused by them. Self-described ‘hard-working’ white New Yorkers routinely bemoan the fact that a portion of their tax dollars go to state and city welfare to support ethnic groups they despise. The ethnic population is usually called ‘animals’ in these complaints. Let’s point out here that 60% of people on welfare are – can you see this one coming? – white.
What hard-working, white New Yorkers miss in their anger is the recognition that welfare actually works for about 2/3 of the people taking advantage of it. They use it only for a short time or on-and-off. But there is an underclass of 30% who may remain on welfare for a lifetime, even passing this down to the next generation. If welfare actually worked to move those people up in to the middle-class, I think these angry white New Yorkers would like it even less. Especially the increased competition in a very tight job market.
But by all means let’s get offended by a bit of bad stand-up. And let’s have the constituency of the New York Daily News explain it all to us.
I just wish that Steve Allen was around today to take all this spleen and spin it into comedy.
Dumb R U.S. – American Ignorance, Threat OR Menace?
June 5, 2011
Of course, if you’re reading this, the following obviously doesn’t apply to you, but the guy sitting next to you? If he’s American, he’s likely to be dumber than a box of rocks.
In mitigation consider that with at least several of these statistics, there have been long-standing campaigns to mislead people into believing a thing is so, especially if it’s not!
The Atlantic reports that, according to a group of surveys:
78% of Americans know Moe, Larrry & Curly.
Only 42% know that the three branches of government are the legislative, the executive and the judiciary.
76% of Americans identify themselve as Christians.
Only 45% actually know who wrote the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John).
Two years into the Obama presidency only 41% of Americans know that Joe Biden is the vice-president.
Americans think the population is 25% gay or lesbian, it’s actually 3.5%.
51% of Americans don’t know that there are 9 justices on the Supreme Court.
Most Americans believe that foreign aid constitutes 25% of government spending; the actual figure is less than 1%.
48% of Americans think that the controversial Obama health care insurance reform program has been repealed; it has not.
Dr. Strangelove documentary
June 2, 2011
There were several encounters with art in my teenage years that contributed mightily to the person I became, many of them literary: Naked Lunch, Catch 22, On the Road, Johnny Got His Gun, a steady diet of Mad magazine among them. I was not the same person after reading those texts that I was before. But there was one film that had a similar impact, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
I think I was born with a rebellious, anti-authoritarian streak and so it should be considered that I naturally sought out material that fed that tendency. It was my suspicion that the adults around me were making it up as they went along and, though they possessed power, they had no clue. Because I said so, seemed like the whole of the law.
If any single experience with art confirmed that it was watching Dr. Strangelove for the first time. The people in charge of the world were petty, delusional, drunk, stupid and out right insane. And they controlled everything!
Well, sure all that’s obvious now, but it was pretty compelling stuff to my 13 year-old self back in the 1960s.
All this is by way of introducing a five-part documentary on You Tube on the making of Dr. Strangelove, found here. If by some chance you have not seen this film, get thee to Netflix and rent it immediately! You need to see this movie. . .
The Nietzche Family Circus
June 1, 2011
Bill Keane’s The Family Circus appears in over 1,300 newspapers and is ‘read’ by millions of Americans each day of the week. It began in 1960 and is still going strong. Considering the generally low quality of most syndicated strips these days, it’s a bit surprising to me how often this particular one panel cartoon comes up for ridicule/parody/rants/angry criticism. Yes, it’s bland and unfunny but so is Beetle Bailey, right?
Anyway, here’s a truly twisted take that I have to imagine even its creator might appreciate: The Nietzche Family Circus which pairs a random quote from the philosopher with a random Family Circus panel, see example above. Now someone has to do the same thing with Batman and Robin and John Rechy’s City of Night. . .
The US Postal System is Near Collapse – Business Week
May 30, 2011
If you want to understand the crisis in the US postal system, you need to read this article in Business Week. I hope that steps are taken to avoid this reaching a crisis in 2011. The easiest one, in my view, is eliminating Saturday delivery. I’ve advocated that position for years, if only to my local mail carrier. They could also try serving cocktails at the post office. . .this would make the long lines easier to bear, especially in the summertime. Just a thought.
Shi Jindian’s Incredible Steel Wire Sculptures
May 30, 2011
They have the appearance of CAD wire frame drawings but these are actually three dimensional steel wire sculptures by the artist Shi Jindian. Go here to see more of these amazing works at VisualNews.com.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – trailer & poster
May 30, 2011
In 2009, like much of the rest of the world, I got hooked on Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy; devoured the books and saw all three of the Swedish film adaptations. Noomi Rapace was the living incarnation of Lisbeth Salander, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone topping her performance.
Now Hollywood will weigh in with their version of the first book directed by David Fincher and starring Daniel Craig, lately of James Bond fame and Rooney Mara (The Social Network, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010).
This $100 million dollar film from Columbia Pictures is being billed as “The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas 2011” – a great tag line, IMO. Nice use of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song in the trailer, too. A phrase from the lyric of this song has become vividly identified with the band: “The hammer of the gods/ Will drive our ships to new lands.”
By definition these days most trailers are superior to the films they are selling but I hope with all the talent and money involved – and the surefire nature of the source material – this film version will be both a hit and a good movie. If it is neither, it will at least goose sales of the books. . .
[ Below the video is the NSFW black & white poster featuring Daniel Craig and a very exposed Rooney Mara. ]
Also, if you’re already read the Tattoo trilogy and are jonesing for more top-notch Swedish crime-thriller fiction I highly recommend the works of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø.
Click on image for larger size
“The Information: A Theory, A History, A Flood” by James Gleick
May 15, 2011
The Information: A Theory, A History, A Flood the new book by James Gleick, author of Chaos, Genius and Isaac Newton is 2/3 of an amazing work. The theory and the history are there in great and compelling detail but the flood? A mere 26 pages at the end of this 426 page book.
From African talking drums and the need for redundancy in their messages to Charles Babbage (the Difference Engine), Ada Byron (the world’s first programmer?) and Claude Shannon (who created the field of information theory with his 1948 article A Mathematical Theory of Communication) Gleick covers this territory thoroughly and, as is his particular gift, makes engineering, hard science and intellectual striving as clear and exciting as Spielberg does an Indiana Jones action sequence. But all of this is the background to today’s networked world of instant communication (if not always information).
I closed the book wishing for more. I’d like Gleick to guide me through the current flood, analyzing it and pointing the way, perhaps, to future trends and coping strategies. Despite this, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in learning how we got to where we are today, clicking and tapping and swiping our lives away staying current and connected. Gleick gains bonus points from me personally for name-checking one of my heroes, Richard Dawkins and offering a solid explanation of a meme.
However, I’m pleased that even someone so knowledgeable as Gleick shows his own limits. On page 230 he refers to Pickup on Noon Street as a Raymond Chandler novel. Of course, we Chandlerites know this is a mistake, there is no novel in the canon by that name. It’s a short story.
There’s a collection of 4 stories published under that title, but that packaging does not make a new Chandler novel, as fervently as we might wish it. Shocking that a major book published by Random House would allow this small mistake to pass through the editing process. It seems to be true then, that no one “reads” anymore, not even copy editors at the world’s largest English language trade publisher.
Four Color Process – Adventures Deep Inside the Comic Book
May 11, 2011
Click image for larger size.
John Hilgart’s Four Color Process gallery at Posterous accurately lives up to its sub-head, “Adventures Deep Inside the Comic Book.” You’ll find a year’s worth of posts that feature close-up scans of sections of comic book panels. They vary from the recognizable to the abstract. One feature in common is that they all feature a visible dot pattern from the four color printing process.
The idea was akin to Pointillism in painting. Use patterns of dots in four colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) that combined to create a multitude of colors. If not the 16 million colors of computer screens today, the resulting combinations worked, if somewhat garishly and imprecisely.
As the Hearst papers claimed in 1896, “Eight Pages of Iridescent Polychromous Effulgence That Makes The Rainbow Look Like A Lead Pipe!”
Registration errors abound where the printed color of the object spills over the black holding lines of the artist’s inking job. I remember having a fair tolerance for these slips when I was reading 12 cent comic books on pulp paper.
Some of Hilgart’s selections exist in the visual area where images break down into pattern. (Hey, it worked when Roy Lichtenstein swiped from Joe Kubert and hung the result in Leo Castelli’s gallery.) Click image for larger size.
Improved printing processes, digital work flows and better paper stock have made this earlier comic book work appear somewhat crude. But the distinctive look of four color printing on pulp stock is also one of it’s charms. It helps set the image in time.
For about a century this four color process was used for mass market publications. During their WWII heyday a popular comic book would sell a million or more copies a month. Nowadays a comic book whose sales are measured in tens of thousands is considered a hit.
So please check out 4CP and explore the ‘hidden’ art of the comic book panel.