Voodoo Histories (?)

This book sounds sort of cool despite the awful title.  I probably could have written it in a couple of years, but I probably will not read it.

Netherland

I've written a lot about 9/11 on this blog, or about media that concerns itself with "debunking" or "deconstructing" the story of 9/11, if only because Operation Mockingbird is concerned primarily with the art of the conspiracy theory, and 9/11 has proved a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and otherwise radical political writers, film makers and thinkers.  My relationship to 9/11 itself has been made strange by this arrangement, because it was something that I didn't give much thought to in the years following the attacks.  Since I have engaged with a particular subset of media which deals with 9/11 in a particularly biased way, it has been important for me to, at times, take a step back and clarify for myself what I really think about 9/11 and terrorism and the way it shaped American politics over the past decade, though none of this kind of thought or writing has appeared on this blog.

Anyway, this is relevant because I recently read Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill, which has been called a 9/11 book, and although that's a frightfully limiting description, 9/11 does figure importantly in the events and mood of the book, though, in a way that has nothing to do with conspiracy theories.  I read the book because after hearing how great it was for months and months and then seeing it on my parents shelf at home over the holidays, I figured I should just go ahead and read it.  I had mixed feelings about, but enjoyed reading it and felt that certain parts resonated with me.  As far as this blog goes, however, there was one passage that caught my interest, as a sort of example of the kind of thought inspired by 9/11 that might lead, though not in a direct way at all, to conspiracy theorist ideas, which struck me because it was embedded in a serious novel that treats the trauma of 9/11 more maturely than most things, whether they be YouTube videos or novels, have (of what I've read/seen).

Part of the novel deals with the dissolution of the marriage between the protagonist, Hans van den Broek and his wife Rachel, which occurs slowly after having to move out of their Tribeca apartment to a hotel uptown immediately following the attacks.  The novel takes a subtle approach to the dysfunction of their marriage, it isn't necessarily 9/11 or being foreigners in America or Hans' tendency toward indecision, but an unnameable feeling that results from those factors and others unknown.  However, in an argument between Rachel and Hans she explains that she no longer feels safe in America, and that part of her decision to move back to England is political.

She said, "Bush wants to attack Iraq as part of a right-wing plan to destroy international law and order as we know it and replace it with the global rule of American force.  Tell me which part of that sentence is wrong, and why."

The rhetoric Rachel uses here is obviously  reminiscent of the arguments that appear in many conspiracy theory films, but presented from the perspective of a rational woman ("a corporate litigator, let's not forget") with no motivation other than her own safety and sanity.  When I write about the arguments and rhetoric of most of the conspiracy theorists that I write about on this blog, I tend to do so with an ironic, condescending tone.  But I can't treat the character Rachel's paranoia this way, for obvious reasons.  Does her paranoia and the paranoia of someone like Alex Jones stem from the same emotional impulse?

Manganese

I've known for a while that Prince believes in some pretty crazy shit, but I've steered away from writing about him cause he's really fucking awesome otherwise.  What struck me about this video is the off hand comment he makes about there having been eight presidents before George Washington, and how it makes him want to hit someone because he wasn't taught correctly in school.  This kind of isn't-it-fucked-up-the-way-they-taught-me-about-Christopher-Columbus-when-I-was-eight thing isn't very interesting to me anymore.  But I had never heard of this idea before, the presidents thing, so I looked into it and in turns out there were fourteen presidents before Washington.  Check out this very reputable site.

Little Murders

Sometimes I look in the folder on my computer where I put movies that I download and find really random things that I don't remember ever downloading.  I think this means that I thought they had something to do with conspiracy theories, but I must have downloaded it and then forgotten about it.  This happened this week!  Or last week.  I found a movie called "Little Murders," an adaptation of a Jules Feiffer play, directed by Alan Arkin.  At first it wasn't really apparent why this movie might have anything to do with conspiracy theories (and for the most part it doesn't) but Elliott Gould is in it, which is possibly another reason why I downloaded it.



I love Elliott Gould. He makes a lot of terrible movies really fun to watch. Though I wouldn't say "Little Murders" is a terrible movie. It's not something that's easy to go into with no expectations, though.  It's actually totally abrasive and difficult to watch, but pretty funny, and "dark," and kind of interesting.  Actually Roger Ebert had some pretty pithy things to say about it on his website.  I don't really ever think about Roger Ebert, but maybe he's actually a good movie critic.



This is from the review on his site:

One of the reasons it works, and is indeed a definitive reflection of America's darker moods, is that it breaks audiences down into isolated individuals, vulnerable and uncertain. Most movies create a temporary sort of democracy, a community of strangers there in the darkened theater. Not this one. The movie seems to be saying that New York City has a similar effect on its citizens, and that it will get you if you don't watch out.

This is really true, and sort of the essential feeling of the movie, and I didn't even watch in a theatre or with other people.  The movie is totally alienating, not really because it present both a fucked up domestic situation and a fucked up world where crime is rampant and society seems to be falling apart, but more because the characters are so persistently strange.  Actually, Ebert said another smart thing (this guy is kinda legit):

This isn't the kind of satire that lets up occasionally, that opens a window to the merely ridiculous (as "Dr. Strangelove" did), so that we can laugh and relax and brace ourselves for the next stretch of painfulness.

That's totally true, because you're constantly expecting the movie to return to some normal, realist world, where all the weird shit that is happening begins to make sense, but it never gives you that.  It's a lot like Pinter, except less psychologically charged.  The characters in this movie are not characters in the realist sense that they are supposed to represent fully formed, "real," people, but instead they have these defining qualities that are very extreme (Gould is entirely apathetic, while Marcia Rodd, who plays his love interest, believes that life is great no matter how many bad things happen to you).  It kind of hurts your head, but in a good way.



Anyway, the conspiracy bit of it is that this detective comes in to investigate Rodd's murder (I know that I'm eliding basically all essential plot details but whatever) and refers to this massive conspiracy that is creating chaos and tearing apart the city (New York) and the world along with it.  That's basically all that's alluded to, but it's interesting in how the movie captures (to a hyperbolic, absurd degree) the sort of paranoia that surrounds conspiracy theory culture.  The film is obviously a satire in the generic sense, and while it's the satire is aimed more at realism and theatrical drama as a whole, it gives a little attention to the absurdity of crime drama and conspiracy culture (maybe something along the lines of The Conversation, although that came out three years later, I know, but I'm not sure what the appropriate reference would be).



This film would probably be intolerable if not for Elliott Gould's performance.  That is a statement based completely on personal preference.  All the other actors are really good, but in this film, "really good," means freakishly annoying and depressing in the way that your friend's uptight parents can be depressing.  Elliott Gould's whole shtick is basically the opposite, he's like the coolest guy in the world, which only really he can pull off.