Good Morning from Copenhagen

Ah, well, no more mystery: Here's where I am this weekend: http://www.komiks.dk/

I was last in Copenhagen 13 years ago, September of 1993. I had only two days, and was in a bit of a fog the entire time between the jetlag and my having departing home on the heels of a rather traumatic life change. Nevertheless, it was a marvelous experience, thanks in large part to the kindness and generosity of everyone I met in this excellent city. I did my utmost to earn such kindness, including a rather claustrophobic presentation of my four-hour version of the Journeys Into Fear slide lecture on horror comics in the now-absorbed (or so I'm told) Copenhagen comics library of that time (apparently it is now incorporated into one of the city's larger libraries, no longer the autonomous entity it was in '93). I recall, due to the incapitability of my slide trays with those of the library, frantically moving the complete slide lecture (literally hundreds of slides) into new trays -- it all worked out, though, and as many people physically able to cram themselves semi-comfortably into the library seemed to enjoy the talk, and it seems from the comments I received during my signing time yesterday that I'd left a good impression from said labors.

It was the least I could do! My host that weekend was Teddy Kristiansen, who with his wife (then pregnant with their first child) Hope and their circle of friends saw to it I had as fine a time as possible. I don't believe I'd ever been treated so hospitably at any comics-related event, though I see now (with a second, extended trip to Copenhagen and in much happier times, traveling with Marge) that much of what I experienced was simply the warmth of the city and its people. If you ever have the opportunity, do yourself the favor and make the trip.

That warmth and hospitality has been flowing for some time now leading up to the trip itself, from the initial inquiry from Arni (who'll I'll write about later, when I've more time -- thanks for suggesting this as a possibility at all, Arni!) to the rapid response from organizers Jan and Kim; in fact, Kim Jensen immeasurably sweetened the experience this time by offering Marge and I the use of his entire apartment (the suggestion, he tells me, of his girlfriend Regina), which has afforded us an expansive "home base" which is particularly inviting come evening, when our feet are worn out and we're ready for sleep. I'm going to miss coming up this street I'm looking out on this morning from the computer keyboard Kim set up for us in his dining room. Before leaving VT, I made sure to have some original sketches in hand for all who made this trip possible, including cat drawings for Regina and Arni's girlfriend Mie, and Marge made sure we packed some maple syrup and maple candy for all, too. I also cut and prepared two sets of prints from the Year in Fear calender Mike Dobbs and I did (with Mark Martin's considerable hand ensuring amazing production and reproduction) to make sure all the volunteers behind this year's Komiks.dk event also went home with something for their walls.

Jan, Kim, and everyone have pulled together quite an event this year, and I'm stunned to be part of it. Schuiten & Peeters, Warren Ellis, Leah Moore, John Rellion, Marv Wolfman, Jose Villarubia, Gilbert Shelton and many others are among the guests, and it's been great to steal whatever precious time has been available to talk to just a few of these amazing folks. Though it had over a decade since I was here, it was amazing how many familiar faces I recognized when Marge and I first walked into the cafeteria: I immediately recognized Henrik Andreasen, who seems to knows every cartoonist in the world. He was our entree into conversation, inviting us to join his table where we quickly met Egmont editor Thomas Schroner and others.

Among the many new faces this trip have been Paris-based writer Erik Svane, eagerly seeking artist to collaborate with and sharing some rather spectacular pages from an upcoming pair of graphic novels he's scribed (one on Leonardo Da Vinci and the other a western in the style of Jean Giraud and Charlier's immortal Lt. Blueberry, drawn by an artist Giraud himself had recommended to Erik). I finally got to meet Michael Thomsen, with whom I'd exchanged many words via virtual conversation on the internet via the late Kingdom board "The Swamp" and email; a couple of years ago, Michael had blessed me via snail-mail with my own copy of the Danish DVD release of the uncut 1962 Sidney Pink monster epic Reptilicus, so I did up the finest sketch possible in short order upon meeting him face-to-face at last!

I find myself thoroughly enjoying the company of Icelander cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson, who Arni introduced us to and whose hilarious collection Avoid Us deserves much wider release (check it out at his publisher's website, http://www.jpv.is), having already spawned a very successful play, though Hugleikur's elegantly simple delineations of some of the darkest laughs on planet Earth would seem utterly resistent to such adaptation. Hugleikur joined Marge, Henrik and Marv and Noel Wolfman and I last night for a sojourn through the misty rain into downtown Copenhagen with a vague destination our goal, which it turned out we did find: Le Le's was the restaurant, Vietnamese was the cousine, and it was an amazing meal well worth the wet wander. Good food, good company, and we emerged to find the rain had ceased, making for a pleasant jaunt to our various destinations 'home.' (Upon my return home, I plan to send Hugleikur some of Guy Maddin's films, as both his heritage and dry and morbid sense of humor invites exposure to Manitoban Maddin's faux Icelandic cinematic fables.)

One of the highlights of yesterday was catching up with Teddy and Peter Snejberg, both of whom took the time to sit with Marge and I over a beer and chat about the ensuing 13 years. What a different time it was in 1993: comics in the US in a boom bubble, the Image phenomenon still maintained the luster of its initial bloom, and DC in an adventurous mood had recently engaged Teddy to do a Superman project, making him the first Danish cartoonist to "break in" to the American market. In my own bubble, I was reaping the royalties of the 1963 series and working on what was to be Tyrant, tentatively showing a few folks the initial pages and no doubt babbling about the impending leap into self-publishing. Now, of course, I'm in this new space, seven years after my retirement from the comics industry and now into the new Center for Cartoon Studies adventure, which I've chatted up all I can. While I've malingered, so to speak, Teddy and Peter have remained incredibly productive: Peter gifted me with his solo venture Marlene (from Slave Labor Graphics; pick it up if you haven't as yet, it's a terrific horror comic -- I read it this morning) and all four volumes of his collaboration with writer Peter J. Tomasi, Light Brigade (2004, DC Comics), while Teddy kindly gave me copies of two of his recent Vertigo/DC projects I'd missed, It's a Bird... (2004, written by Steven T. Seagle) and Teddy's entry in DC's now-sadly-defunct Solo series, featuring three of Teddy's delineations of his own scripts accompanied by a Deadman tale scribed by our mutual friend Neil Gaiman and a delicious little New Guinea-set missionary parable written by Steven Seagle. But enough on comics -- it's the people who are the treasure here, extraordinary as their work is. Teddy glows with a beatific calm, and it was happy news indeed to hear that he and Hope (who's still working in animation, I'm told) are still happily married and now have three children.

Marge and I have a full day tomorrow to enjoy exploring a bit more of Copenhagen, but I'm eager to get back to Komiks.dk this morning and spend whatever precious time is left hobnobbing with everyone here I can. I've yet to sit down with Leah & John, whom I'm anxious to chat with; Leah was a bit under the weather yesterday, so hopefully today we can make time to talk, and I'm hitting the Accent UK publisher table this morn to pick up their work in Albion, etc. I'm also hoping to talk to Warren Ellis, if only to mend any fences possible, though he's of course in high demand -- ah, we'll see. He's got a panel today, so if nothing else I'll savor that.

I've yet to find copies of the book I'm most seeking, Gare du Nord by Rolf Classon, a history of Swedish and Scandanavian comics, which no one seems to know exists (I'm looking, Elizabeth & Jacob, I'm looking!). It's a bit of a mystery thus far, though at this point I'd welcome finding any illustrated history of Scandanavian comics that might be available -- I really hope to find something comprehensive to bring back to the library and to CCS, whether it's in English or not.

That's all the catch-up I've time for this morning; more later, if time and access to computer permit... have a great rest-of-the-weekend, one and all.

(To answer the emails, the yeti walking with a man in a cage I saw was indeed "real" -- when Marge and I were bopping on one of downtown Copenhagen's dedicated shopping streets (foot traffic only, no cars), and I stood outside George Jensen Jewelry while Marge was inside, a street performer stalked by dressed in a massive costume that covered his head and arm in a cage with fake folded legs beneath his abdomen, while his legs were 'walking' for the Yeti portion of the costume (which extended up and behind the 'cage' part, completing the Yeti body and head, with the fake arms completing the illusion of the Yeti holding the cage with a man inside). Can you picture it? It was pretty amazing, and quite funny -- though he just continued on his silent march up the brick-studded street without so much as a grin betraying his composure.)

- Bonus silly online comic link, compliments of Matt Young and the CCS discussion board:
Alien Loves Predator: "In New York, No One Can Hear You Scream:" http://alienlovespredator.com/index.php
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Remarkable sights on a Friday afternoon:

Seen on a busy city street, full of folks: a Yeti walking carrying a caged man. This was the most pleasingly amusing spectacle on what turned out to be a lovely spring day...

I also hit my first flea market of the year, and lo and behold, found some cool 1950s/60s film paper treasures for cheap. Snagged 'em, and a good omen for the flea market season ahead.

The whirlwind begins!

Just a short 'see ya soon' note as I jump into the tornado of the next couple of weeks. I'll post here as time permits, and hope you'll all be back (if you drift off) for the daily postings when they resume on May 6th.

Last night's get-together with Maia was terrific fun, it was great to spend some time together -- and a perfect 'send off' for the week or so to come. I'll be caught up in the CCS end-of-Year-One duties and such, and also off on a jaunt I'll tell you about after it's thoroughly jauntified.

It's been a busy week in other ways, too; there's a lot going on I haven't mentioned here. I'm working with the folks at Heretic and my friends Lance Weiler and Stefan Avalos on the cover art for the long-awaited DVD rerelease of Lance & Stefan's seminal digital feature, The Last Broadcast, a film I've written about here before. It's The Jazz Singer of the digital feature film era, and also among my personal fave independent horror films of all time, so having a shot at doing the cover art (my first since my outing for Barrel Entertainment's release of Last House on Dead End Street) is a real treat. We're also discussing some other special features for the DVD, but I'll just leave it at the cover for now and let you know once things are underway.

So, I'm outta here for a bit. Check in when you can; I'll be posting when I can.

In the meantime, especially if you're in the White River Jct. area, be sure to check out (and partake of)

the WRIF Site.

I posted at length on the festival on my Saturday, April 22, 2006 post (below) -- check it out. There's some excellent films in the running, and I most highly recommend The Power of Nightmares -- should be required viewing for all US citizens! -- and my personal beloved in the lineup (the film I dragged into the fray), Coke Sams's masterpiece Existo. Not to be missed!
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In closing:

* Heath, best to read Sandman from the beginning, as it is one huge novel -- but if all you've got is Vol. 3 in hand, go to it. Why wait?

* Mark Martin sends the following link,

which has "has some pretty interesting takes on the fuel
prices situation."

Agreed; thanks, Mark!

* BTW, Mark, thanks for

razzing me for not attending your Runaway Comics Northampton Hoedown.

Now, I tole you and I tole you I wouldn't be there -- we were in NYC, visiting my ol' pal Sweeney. Did the other folks who couldn't make it go and send you a heap of promo ideas to make up for missing your hoedown? No, they didn't -- but I did! Besides,

Tom was there, so you sure didn't need me kicking around, didja?

(Howdy, Tom!) She-it, missing all Jeannie's great food is punishment enough, though I'll forever regret not being immortalized in a blurry photo by your side. Just call me "Blank Page Bissette" and I'll hang my head in shame.

Ah, heck, check out

Mark's whole updated site

for some lifts and laughs!
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The Erratic Postings Begin -- My Final CCS Teach Day, Year One!

Like I said, I'll be posting at odds times over the next couple of weeks -- basically, as time permits, when computers are available.

Yesterday was my final day of teaching class for the Year One session at The Center for Cartoon Studies, a landmark day of sorts, though it was in so many ways a typical, unexceptional class -- but I felt it's import all last week, all weekend, all day Monday (during my prep for class), and swam through yesterday in a strange fusion of elation, melancholy, and wonderment. I'd promised a 'crash course' on drawing hands, and that's what I delivered, with a construct of tightly-timed 'life drawing' sessions balanced between the last quintet of student presentations (this semester, for my class each student was required to present a ten-minute illustrated lecture on an artist or art movement of their choice), three or four quick breaks, and an opening talk by and exchange with New Hampshire cartoonist/teacher I. Marek Bennett. I believe Marek may become a critical part of CCS over time, though time will tell. I also completed all the one-on-one sessions with the students last evening, including a quick followup with one I owed a bit more time to -- and I presented a program of Tuesday Night CCS Flicks (animated shorts, the most lameass sound comedy short I've ever seen in my life -- which actually drove four of the usually-dedicated students out of the screening! -- and a short double bill of Homecoming and The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb).

So, a full drawing class, all in all, and a fitting windup for what has been a heady first year at CCS -- for me, at least. You'll have to ask the students what they think!

Off to celebrate my daughter Maia's birthday tonight. Looking forward to it, it should be big fun!

OK, so Pop duties call --

More later --

More Awful Places, Oilmen in High Places Kissing Ass, and More Bits and Pieces

Riffing off yesterday's post on Silent Hill and "awful places" cinema, allow me to direct the more cinematically adventurous of you to one of this coming weekend's WRIF (see Saturday post, below) presentation of Jem Cohen's first feature Chain (2004).

Now, this film will put most viewers -- addicted as most of us are to linear theatrical narrative confections -- right off. But to me, it's the latest example of an odd subgenre of science fiction I've been fascinated with which might be the next stage of evolution from cyberpunk: that is, sf which is not sf, set in our very real 21st Century, defined by a way of seeing our strange new world (nothing brave about it). It is also, in its deliberately narcotic manner, an adjunct to "the awful place" cinema, though these "awful places" are awful because of their suffocating banality, sterility, and utterly isolating benign malignance. Their toxicity isn't aggressive or active, and that is the most insidious aspect of their existence.

Chain profers the contemporary international corporate landscape -- the malls, office buildings, food courts, apartment complexes, etc. -- as one interminable, inescapable locale, which in its meditative manner compliments the more overtly hellish no-exit limbos of Silent Hill. Sans any melodramatic content whatsoever, Chain likewise follows two women lost in an undefinable, mercurial gerbil's maze (thanks to Jeff Nicholson for codifying that metaphor via his graphic novel Through the Habitrails, another seminal work in this odd genre). But unlike the nightmarescapes of Christopher Gans's film, Jem Cohen's cinematic nightmarescape is one we all move through daily, in some manner. Its familiarity is what will make the film tedious to many -- "what is going on? Why are we following these two women? When is something going to happen?" -- as the film requires us to steep ourselves, like teabags, in its uncanny rhythms and drift with these two unmoored souls through a world in which they at first seem at polar opposition, only to arrive at "somewhere" (not a place, but a state of being) quite similar.

It's another limbo movie, but the limbo, the 'in-between' of this odd new strain of sf, not the horror movie 'in-between' I was discussing yesterday.

If you allow yourself to slip into it, Chain becomes a strangely moving meditation on two women -- a homeless young runaway (Mira Billotte) and an upscale Japanese company woman (Miho Nikaido) -- cast adrift in what Cohen calls the “superlandscape”: the eerie ‘twilight zone’ of urban malls, corporate offices, fast food venues, theme parks and hotels. Narrative convention prompts us to expect the two women’s paths to cross, but Cohen is interested in something more realistic, eschewing any conventions of melodrama: these women are linked only by their ‘discarded’ status. By its very nature (whether whole, under construction, or in decay), the interminable homogenous landscape confounds any and all human interaction, but it does so by in almost indefinable ways, as the world indeed grinds down some of us.

Finding an abandoned video camera, homeless teen Mira Billotte records a digital diary letter, her eyes glowing pinpoints in the darkness of her temporary basement shelter (looking like a zombie or demon-possessed waif, as in the more overtly apocalyptic horror films of late); it is a video diary we are privvy to, but one she never completes or sends to anyone, a record for no one of her utter inertia. In apparently comfortable affluence, Miho Nikaido seems to be a well-heeled employee of an unnamed Japanese corporation, and as such quite the opposite in circumstances from Mira, but as the films unreels, we see she is utterly cut off from any genuine contact with her corporate employers, emailing her reports (on proposed theme park redevelopments of abandoned complexes) sans any response. The company woman aimlessly shops by day and listens to the sounds (voices, a television, late-night sex) from adjoining hotel rooms by night. At one point, she reflects that her job seems “like a dream,” an idle assessment that proves prescient as she slides (again without melodrama), effortlessly, from illusory affluence to unemployment, sans notice, contact, or confrontation (only an apparently innocent phone call from the front desk, asking if she's extending her stay and how she'll pay for it, tips us off, apparently before her new reality sinks in for her).

Now, this measured approach to narrative, however slight its inflections, is worth experiencing; this is, after all, closer to how most of us live our lives, experience our existence, tread water through our days. Dedicated in part to filmmaker and photographer Chris Marker -- who is still best known in the US for his seminal experimental sf short film La Jetee (1964), a key work in this sf subgenre (and eventual wellspring for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys) -- Cohen’s meditative tapestry of multiple international locales meld into a strangely seamless whole is very much of Marker's universe. Until the final credits, I had no idea the film had taken us literally around the world: Cohen proves her theorem by never revealing the points at which the "superscape" breaks, but rather by making those geographic points of separation invisible. In this, Cohen's conceit recalls not only Marker’s distinctive cinema, but extrapolates elements of Michelangelo Antonioni (specifically the final minutes of L’Eclisse/The Eclipse), Jean-Luc Godard (particularly Godard's unadorned 1960s Paris as the future dystopia of Alphaville), and others. For me, Cohen is expanding upon the fiction of J.G. Ballard, the way in which David Cronenberg has always used urban landscapes -- the sterile Canadian architectures of Stereo, Shivers/They Came From Within, The Brood, The Fly, etc., and most of all that perfect conjunction of the two sensibilities, Cronenberg's adaptation of Ballard's Crash (after all, isn't Cronenberg's Shivers a revamp of Ballard's High Rise?). The closest mainstream studio films have come thus far to Chain is Todd Haynes's brittle environmental 'soap opera' Safe, in which sunny suburban California proves to be a completely toxic environment for adrift Julianne Moore.

But Cohen’s film is unlike any other, and as such worth seeing. It indeed “transforms a mundane world into something strange and new... [with] formidable power [and a] fierce political intelligence,” (so said The Village Voice), and is “an uncategorizable hybrid of social critique, poetic essay and haunted travelogue” (London Daily Telegraph). Ah, but you see, it is categorizable: it's just that we don't have comfortable labels for the various modes of "awful place" cinema, and it's likely most will think me loopy for thus linking a major studio video-game based horror opus like Silent Hill with as dry, unconventional, non-aggressive and hypnotic a tonic as Chain.

But in their way, they are alike, and both lingered in my dreams.

They are tone poems of limbo, companions of our collective cinedreams, however far apart their dramaturgy is and their respective cartography of limbo may seem.

[If you're in the White River Jct. area, take a chance on Chain this weekend; all the info -- time of the showing, ticket price, etc. -- awaits you at

the WRIF Website.

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HomeyM sent me the following, which was timely given the news I've been listening to of late and was aching to paraphrase here (now I don't have to -- thanks, M!). This from the AOL news service, via AP (we think):

U.S. Should Consider Taxing Oil Firms, Senator Says

WASHINGTON (April 23) - The government should consider a tax on oil companies if they make excessive profits amid rising gasoline prices, a leading Republican senator said Sunday.

Last week, crude-oil prices hit record highs and average gasoline prices nationwide neared $3 a gallon. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump.

"I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," Specter said. "They get together, reduce the supply of oil, and that drives up prices," he said. "In the short run, it's hard to deal with it for tomorrow. But I think windfall profits, eliminating the antitrust exemption, considering the excessive concentration of power are all items we ought to be addressing."

Specter is backing legislation that would strengthen antitrust laws on oil company mergers after his committee held a hearing last month examining the growing consolidation of the oil industry. The nation's largest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., have denied their industry size has affected prices. Last week, crude-oil prices hit record highs and average gasoline prices nationwide neared $3 a gallon.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he believes gas prices "would come down within a matter of days" if President Bush told oil companies that he was going to support a windfall profits tax.
"But the president will not call the oil companies into his office because he's been too closely allied with those oil companies, and if he does it's going to be a window-dressing conversation," [italics mine] said Levin, who appeared with Specter on CNN's Late Edition."
04/23/06 13:41 EDT

This came later in the day from USA Today:

Updated: 10:49 AM EDT
Senators Raise Idea of Taxing 'Obscene' Oil Profits

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON (April 24) -- Congress should consider a tax on excessive oil company profits, two senators said Sunday, as gasoline prices in some cities have risen above $3 a gallon. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said on CNN's Late Edition that President Bush should call for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies' "extreme, obscene profits."

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., appearing on the same program, said a windfall profits tax is "something worth considering," as well as legislation targeting consolidation of oil companies. Nationally, the average price for a gallon of regular gas is $2.90, a 15.5% hike over the past month, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. A month ago, the auto club said, the average price was $2.51. Gasoline prices have become the latest problem for the president, who warned Americans on Saturday of "a tough summer" of expensive gasoline.
Democrats made high gas prices the subject of their weekend radio address, as well as appearances on Sunday talk shows.

"If $75 a barrel of oil and a $3 average for a gallon of gasoline isn't a wake-up call, then what will be?" said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Republican congressional leaders, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., plan to send Bush a letter Monday calling for a price-fixing investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, according to Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean.

Schumer wrote the FTC last week seeking a similar inquiry.
Bush warned of even higher prices as vacation time approaches.
Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of a Washington-based political report, said there's little that politicians can do about gas prices. He called it a "symbolic issue," allowing politicians to side with the "little guy" (motorists) against the "big guy" (oil companies)."
04/24/06 07:17 EDT

Now, what's interesting here is the one candid comment that touches on the political reality -- Sen. Carl Levin's comment that Bush won't act "because he's been too closely allied with those oil companies, and if he does it's going to be a window-dressing conversation" (indeed!) -- vanished within a short period of time. Note no mention of the oil corp. CEO who made news this past week 'voting' himself a record-busting retirement package; it's obscene, and we all know it is.

This is indeed a political dance we're seeing, all for nothing, that will come to nothing, because the corporate control of our government is so completely entrenched.

Well, off to my weekly drive north, to White River Junction.

Per usual, the gas prices will go up between the time I drive to The Center for Cartoon Studies this AM and come home tonight.
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If you're interested in what I'm up to locally, check out

The Marlboro High-Speed Internet Access Committee Site.

Wish us luck. We'll need it. A lot of work ahead...
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Local casting call for a short film:

"WDP Films is looking for Actors for an upcoming short film to be shot
in Brattleboro. Lots of Extras needed, Some speaking parts still available. Looking for All ages.

Auditions will be held at Nimble Arts Studio in Cotton Mill Building
Brattleboro, VT, 5pm - 7 pm, Friday April 28th; Please bring head shot and resume if you have one. Film shoots late May

To schedule an audition time contact Bill 802-257-2223, or via wdpf@sover.net..."

Just a heads up, primarily for those in the Brattleboro driving area!
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OK, off to breakfast with my son Dan, just home from a two-week jaunt to California. Should be a fun breakfast...

Heads Up: Vagrant Post Weeks Ahead

BTW, due to the coming workload and a bit of travel, I won't be posting daily for the next couple of weeks, after this Thursday's post. This doesn't mean I'm leaving the blog or inattentive, just dealing with limited computer access and precious little time, in which other duties take precedent.

I'll be back on the daily regimen as of May 6th. Thanks!

A Word Challenge I Had Fun With before 8 AM, a Quiz for You to Take, Awful Places I Love, and More...

I just cobbled together the following, using a list of "8 words you probably don't know" emailed from HomeyM -- the word list is at the end of this morning's post:
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"Though living and practicing his craft in the late 1700s, by all accounts Andre LaTouche was apparently a forensic pathologist avant la lettre; lit only by a contraption comprised of candles with bobeches, affected not at all by the rebarbative, LaTouche breached resting coffins at many a lich gate, completing his labors before the funeral procession even knew he'd been there, and entered countless mausoleums in his time. He decoded arcane and boustrophedon runes on coffin lids; demonstrated himself proficient as a vexillologist, including the most unusual familial coats-of-arms imaginable; and it is reported that he once lifted a dactylogram from the glabrous pate of the recently-deceased. He may have done much, much more, but there were not the words in his lifetime for all he had pioneered."
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Hmmm, maybe a story in this... maybe not. Come to think of it, it's a bit too much like the character Johnny Depp played in Sleepy Hollow; anyhoot, a fun Monday morn exercise.
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A far more engaging Monday morning game is this bit of fun, compliments of an email from my amigo Jean-Marc Lofficier; he and I both scored in the 80s (Jean-Marc a bit higher than I at his 85% score).

How did you do? Check it out

the LGF quiz!

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Before I get back to the WRIF films and Existo (a long time waiting on that, eh? Wanted to time it a bit closer to the WRIF showing), just a quick note to say I caught Silent Hill at a weekend matinee and loved it -- in fact, it's the first horror flick in some time to have impacted directly on my sleep, and that's saying something for this grizzled horror vet.

It's not that the film per se 'scared' me (few do, ever), but that the imagery and atmosphere really stuck with me. Though drawn from a video game (reportedly one of the best horror games, though I've never played it and have no interest in doing so -- I'm not a video game kinda guy), the nerves Silent Hill plucked in my skull were resonant ones: specifics from some of my favorite Italian horror films (a bit of Bava, a little Soavi, a lot of Fulci), some echoes (in a way, a culmination of) of the better Clive Barker films (specifically Hellraiser), and the overall ambience of the films I loved most from the '60s and '70s. No, the film touched something deep for me, and though it may not for you or anyone else, my experience of it is all I can address.

Roger Avary's script is a construct that places us in "awful place" after "awful place," giving the characters (and the viewer) just enough time to taste, touch, and see the "awful place" just long enough to get a little of your head around it, then -- voomp -- on to the next "awful place," after just a piece of the narrative jigsaw puzzle is given in the lull. This clearly drove much of the (surprisingly middle-aged) matinee audience nuts, but I love this approach to cinema. I go to horror movies to visit such "awful places," as many as I can, and whether the "awful place" is Moreau's isle or Henry's apartment (Eraserhead) or a certain corner of Texas where a man wearing a mask made of human skin dwells, it's the exploration of those "awful places" that pulls me back time and time again.

Some of my favorite "awful place" films make no linear narrative 'sense' -- Carnival of Souls, The Beyond, Tourist Trap, Eraserhead, Begotten, etc. -- though they maintain their own perverse internal dream/nightmare logic, and that is part and parcel of any truly "awful place." As I've noted here, even as pallid an "awful place" film as the recent House of Wax work for me as long as the "awful place" resonates (and that one did, especially in its last fifteen minutes).

And make no mistake: Silent Hill is a pip of an "awful place" movie.

It didn't hurt, either, that Silent Hill organically meshes elements of Italian horror (Operazione Paura/Kill Baby Kill), Japanese ghost films and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (first and foremost, from all, the iconographic 'spectral child' driving the movie) and The Outer Limits and Twilight Zone (from OL's "A Feasibility Study" and a number of beloved TZ gems) without losing its own distinctive flavor and identity in the blender. Much as I liked Avary's confection (the best video-game derived feature yet, though that might be considered damning with faint praise), though, it's director Christopher Gans who pulls it all together with ample style and intensity. I looooooooooooooved Gans's marvelous Brotherhood of the Wolf, and he has helmed another potentially ungainly cross-genre effort with the same rigorous attention to character and setpieces, utter conviction, and at times visionary zeal that made Brotherhood so delicious an experience on the big screen.

But I think it was the core premise of Silent Hill -- the suffocating sense of a placeless place, the cartography of 'limbo' -- that stuck with me with such lasting malignance.

A brief explanation and back story: Being raised Catholic as I was, cathechism was a staple of every week, usually taught by nuns who made the trip to Waterbury, VT for our weekly instructions. The very point at which I began questioning the faith in which I was being raised was during one of the most memorable of all Catechism classes, around the age of 7 or 8, when our absent classmate C---- (I'll not give his name) returned surrounded by the news his mother had "lost" her baby, the baby C---- had spoken of with such anticipation. C---- asked our nun instructor -- whose name I simply don't recall, only her face -- what happened to his little brother who hadn't made it into this world. We'd already been taught about "Original Sin," the necessity for baptism, and C---- was deeply concerned about the soul of his little unborn (never-to-be-born) brother.

So the sister told us about Limbo.

I recall most vividly the look on C----'s face: the color slowly draining, the quiet tear that ran down one cheek, the look of slow trauma settling like a caul over him.

I recall C---- thereafter unable to speak to any of us, sitting by himself thereafter for days, and absent from Catechism for some time after that.

Limbo.

In-between.

I couldn't imagine, at a tender age, a more horrible 'place' -- a 'non-place' that sounded worse than any imaginable hell, all the more chilling for being 'un-earned' and 'un-deserved.' It forever changed my view of the world, of the religion I was being raised within. The rational question that emerged, unbidden, in my 7 or 8-year-old mind -- "How does she know that?" -- turned, in the time it took me to recognize the irrevocable damage registering on C----'s face, to "How could she know that?" to "How can anyone know that?" By the end of the class, I couldn't reconcile the sadism of what we'd all just experienced sitting at our desks, the cruelty of it, with all I'd been led to believe about our teacher, all nuns, all priests, Catholicism, all religion.

That's what Silent Hill tapped for me.

Silent Hill lifts its most hellish imagery from the video game, including some staggering demonic presences (accompanied by those damned human-faced stinging insects) that are as imaginative as any ever put on film. In this way, for all its touchstones (via imagery and action) with the video game and the films and filmmakers I've already named, among so many others (most creative use of barbed wire since Prison and the UK WW1 gem Deathwatch; most vivid burning witch imagery since The Witchfinder General and The Devils, though there's echoes of Pyro, Mad Max, The Medusa Touch, Patrick, etc.; and the most wrenching narrative turn regarding characters since, well, Gans's Brotherhood of the Wolf), Silent Hill didn't just evoke, it inhabited the clammy Lucio Fulci universe of The Beyond and House by the Cemetary.

It's a threnody to those spirits in limbo; it places us 'in-between,' and teases us with the exits and stairwells out.

That's what haunted me all the night after I saw Silent Hill: the sense of being 'unstuck' and 'in-between' -- limbo.

Though images from the film indeed informed my fleeting dreams (I can't call them nightmares, honestly, as I enjoyed them too much; I love these cinematic residuals when they come), it was more the way having seen the film made deep sleep impossible. I was, for hours, in my own bed limbo -- in between fitful bouts of sleep; in between elusive dreams, all informed by the film; in between waking and sleeping, laying with eyes open and dreaming with eyes shut -- and that was all thanks to Silent Hill.

From me, that's a recommendation.

________

[As promised, the contents of HomeyM's "8 words you probably don't know":]

avant la lettre  before the (specified) concept, word, person, etc. existed [a mid-Victorian matron who was a feminist avant la lettre]

bobeche  n. a disk of glass, metal, etc. with a center hole placed around the top of a candlestick to catch the candle drippings

boustrophedon adj. designating or of an ancient form of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and left to right

vexillology  n. the study of flags --vexillologist n.

dactylogram n. a fingerprint

glabrous adj. Biol. without hair, down, or fuzz; bald

lich gate [Brit.] a roofed gate at the entrance to a churchyard, where a coffin can be set down to await the arrival of the clergyman

rebarbative adj. repellent, forbidding, grim, etc.

Coming up NEXT WEEKEND in White River Junction --

Alas, I won't be there personally, but I had a hand in the selection of films (and website and promotional text) for this year's WRIF film festival in White River Jct., VT, home of The Center for Cartoon Studies, among other wonders.

Yep, in the very town where D.W. Griffith, Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess and the rest of the Way Down East cast and crew gathered in March of 1920 (86 years and one month ago!), on the banks of the very river where Lillian lay on a cake of ice for hours on end for the benefits of the camera, a remarkable array of 21st Century films will unreel for the delight and edification of one and all who brave the elements to partake.

Here's the rundown, courtesy of fellow organizer, dear friend and vet filmmaker (Delivered Vacant, My Mother's Early Lovers, Nothing Like Dreaming, etc.) Nora Jacobson:

Dear Friends,

On behalf of the board and program committee of White River Indie Film, I'd like to invite you to our 3rd White River Indie Film Series on April 28th-30th.

Art, politics, war, ecology, animation, theology, street dancing, sex, drugs and rock & roll are just a few of the themes of our films, kicking off Friday, April 28 at the Hotel Coolidge and Saturday and Sunday at the Tiptop Cafe in White River Junction, Vermont.

We've expanded our program to include 26 films including two spectacular animations that recently won the Academy Award for best short animation. We're having more panel discussions and even doing a late night movie--the underground cult classic, Existo!

Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students. They are available at the door, online at

the WRIF site,

at the Hotel Coolidge in White River and at International DVD, 45 South Main Street in Hanover, NH. You can also buy a full festival pass for $50. Space is limited so buy your tickets now!

A benefit reception, cash bar and screening featuring novelist and
actor, John Griesemer, is set for 6:00 p.m. Friday at the Hotel Coolidge. Tickets for the reception and Guy X, a film based on Griesemer's novel No One Thinks of Greenland, are $25. This will be a U.S. Premiere and the director Saul Metzstein will be coming from Scotland to attend the event.

Three Vermont filmmakers, Anne Macksoud, Jay Craven and Michael Fisher are scheduled to attend screenings of their films and speak afterwards. Macksoud, a Woodstock resident, is presenting her documentary, Birdsong and Coffee: A Wake-up Call, which explores the link between coffee-growing and the destruction of wild bird habitat. As a special tribute to the late William Sloan Coffin, Macksoud will also show her 29 minute film about Coffin, A Lover's Quarrel with America. Michael Fisher, from Burlington, will present his short film Stick Season before Existo. Jay Craven will show his film After the Fog, shot at the Veteran's Administration hospital in White River Junction, featuring interviews with 10 U.S. combat veterans, most of them Vermonters.

The festival will present all three parts of The Power of Nightmares, produced by the BBC. The series explores how neo-conservatives and terrorists have created a climate of fear around the world. Boston Globe movie critic Ty Burr, writer/publisher Thomas Powers, Allan Stam and Bill Arkin will discuss the film on Saturday during one of the many panels scheduled during the series.

Attendees will feel like they've visited many countries without leaving Vermont. Canadian filmmaker Nadja Drost's Between Midnight and the Rooster's Crow follows the construction of the Ecuadorian oil pipeline, documenting unsafe construction, toxic waste and the health dangers of the controversial pipeline. An animated short film by Rob Castillo, The Cuba Trip, will complete that program.

Simone Bitton's Wall, winner of a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, is a haunting portrait of the wall that separates Israelis from Palestinians.

Rosita chronicles the story of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who is raped. Her parents, illiterate farmers working in Costa Rica, seek a legal, therapeutic abortion for Rosita to save her life. Their quest pits them against the governments of two Central American countries in this hour-long documentary by award-winning filmmakers, Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater.

Unbreakable Minds, by Irene Angelico, tells the story of three schizophrenic men from suburban Chicago. The Montreal filmmaker spent three years following their subjects, recording every victory and defeat. The film explores how the men and their families deal with serious mental illness. Angelico will attend the screening.

David La Chappelle's film Rize reveals a dance phenomenon that is sweeping South Central Los Angeles. The film is about krumping, a form of street dancing used as alternative to gang fighting. Dancing and singing are outlawed by ultra-conservatives in Existo, an underground cult film directed by Coke Sams and featuring Jim Varney. When the country is taken over by fundamentalist Christians, washed up singer Existo rallies a pack of outlawed artists to rebel against the government. The film, a wacky musical made in Nashville with a colorful cast, is reminiscent of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It screens at 11 p.m. on Saturday, April 29.

On Sunday's program is Occupation: Dreamland, a documentary about a squad of American soldiers deployed to the Iraqi city of Falluja during the winter of 2004. It screens on Sunday at 10 a.m. before Jay Craven's After the Fog, another film about warfare and soldiers.

Sunday's lineup also includes Thomas Berry: The Great Story, a documentary film produced by Nancy Stetson and Penny Morrell, about eco-theologian Thomas Berry. Berry is a monk, cultural historian, author, teacher and mystic.

Who Gets to Call it Art? offers an inside view of the New York art scene in the 1960s, seen through the eyes of Henry Geldzahler, the first curator of contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Peter Rosen's film is an imaginative mixture of interviews with modern artists, rare footage and audio recordings.

Chain, directed by Brooklyn filmmaker Jem Cohen, tells the story of two women stranded in a suburban strip mall. It was shot in seven countries and 11 states over seven years.

In a program devoted to the work of young filmmakers, screenwriter Bill Phillips will moderate a panel with 5 young filmmakers who will show excerpts and talk about their work.

The festival concludes Sunday, April 30 with a showing of Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, directed by Margaret Brown. It features interviews with Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson and EmmyLou Harris. Several shorts, including the Oscar-winning The Moon and the Son and Ryan, will be shown throughout the festival.

To see the schedule and buy tickets, and for information about the films and panel discussions, please go to

the WRIF site.

We look forward to seeing you in White River Junction on April 28th, 29th and 30th!

For more information, call 802-739-5550.

Best wishes,

Nora Jacobson
Co-exec. director and the board of White River Indie Film

Like Nora said, for the particulars on every nook, hook, flick, cranny and conversation of this amazing festival, click on over to

the WRIF site.

I'll post somemore of my own insights and comments here over this weekend -- there's really some phenomenal films showing! -- in hopes it prompts some of you to make the trip and savor the cinematic goodies. While in town, be sure to dine at The Tip Top Cafe, too, one of my fave eateries in a town with a number of great restaurants.

And if you're indeed coming, you might consider also arranging a visit to the CCS while you're in the area. I'll post that info this weekend, too -- though again, alas, I won't be in the area for the event.

Still, my fingerprints are there -- just ask Nora -- hence my dedicating this week's blog to the WRIF and some of its outstanding films.

More later!

Owl Calls, Woodpeckers and Green Shoots

Enough of that shit (see -- or don't see -- yesterday's link-laden post) -- life here is actually a lot less crazy-making than that. Lest you think, as some concerned folks do, I am utterly consumed by

what drives many bloggers these days

(on both sides of the political fence, though note the article's slant: isn't this what blowhards like Rush Limbaugh have erected entire careers on? Oh, I see, it's OK when it's a political dynasty build on interminable anti-Clinton screeds in the pre-blogosphere mediascape), understand that what you read here reflects what's on my mind a little piece of each day, not the be-all and end-all.

Nor are my days spent brooding over the past, though other concerned amigos fear that's the case, given that my precious few posts online emerge only when there's something relevent to the past popping up, usually picking at old scar tissue. Those are passing moments. It's curious to note it's always folks 'outside' who bring matters to my attention: like, when another nearby comrade-in-arms writes to note that "the latest incarnation of Swamp Thing is coming to an end..."; more curious to note, it's ending with issue #29, the very number in which our run hit the highway (with the sudden loss of the Comics Code Authority seal of approval, inadvertantly midwifing what became the entire Vertigo line). My friend included the pre-order ballyhoo with his email -- "Abby, Tefé and Swamp Thing are finally reunited, but with an escaped King Toad, a wild Woodrue and the town of Houma in flames, the series conclusion may prove more traumatic than tender for the Holland family. On sale July 26 * 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US * MATURE READERS * Final issue" -- concluding, "I never read it. But the recent covers by Eric Powell were real pretty." I've only read a handful of issues of the new series -- more than I read of the last -- and given the cancellation, I reckon most others still fishing in those waters were giving it a pass, too. Since I've never, ever been on DC's comp list, and there aren't any comic shops in driving distance, I've read precious little of the Vertigo line, the only title to really catch my fancy (and dollars) being Preacher. Hell, John Totleben and I caught up on the phone this weekend, and this didn't even come up in conversation; it's not part of our lives any longer, you see, two decades after it was the core of our lives. Thankfully, our lives are now the core of our lives, as it should be.

Curiouser still, this Swamp Thing finale wrapping things up with "a wild Woodrue and the town of Houma in flames" brings it back to where Alan, John, Rick and I started (Saga of the Swamp Thing #21-24). Weird. Too bad; the big green guy deserves better, if only for being the 'virgin spring' of the entire imprint.

Passing moments all in my day, not the be-all and end-all; this blog is in and of itself a chronology of those passing moments, not the meat of a given day.

Hell, if that were the case, this would be

cannibal central,

since most of my writing hours from now through the end of summer are being spent deep in revisions of We Are Going to Eat You for FAB Press. This has meant not only revising the existing text on cannibal, goona-goona and mondo movies, but brushing up on real-life cannibals, with an eye toward wrapping up the book with

the weirdest 21st Century cannibal of 'em all,

which neatly ties back into cannibal movies (with

the February ban on the film made about his notorious 'consenting adult' feast/crime).

Amidst this mayhem, I've also been chopping away at Green Mountain Cinema -- again, nothing reflected in my blog, no Vermont film posts here, that all goes into the book projects -- and cobbling together a couple of short stories that have been in the works for some time. All the while, I'm also wrapping up the third of five scripts for a friend of mine -- and trying to wrap up a rather stubborn sample chapter for a possible novel.

I've been drawing a bit of late, too, thanks to the previously-noted CCS influence and my son Dan inadvertantly priming-the-pump when he asked for a four-page comic story for his zine ($5 postpaid for a signed edition to Daniel Bissette, 118 High St., Apt. #1, Brattleboro, VT 05301), which is spawning a silly little series of similar opuses. This week has also been a bit of a harvest season, as projects and notions that have been perculating are turning into real gigs and something you'll see down the road in one form or another (I'll post about those when they're indeed something you can hold in your hand). (Yes, I'd love to post that art, too, but damn it, no high-speed access! Which leads me to the town committee I'm serving on to try and resolve that issue... but you don't want to hear about that, do you?)

But the day-to-day is another matter altogether.

Spring is full blown here in southern VT at last, though true to the bizarre weather patterns of the past three or four years, it's already an odd one. Some locals were sugaring back in February (once you tap the maples, you only have a few weeks), which is unusual; up north, my old high school classmate George Woodard was done sugaring before Marge and I visited George's farm in mid-March.

(An aside: my favorite real-life visual gag of the year thus far was one local sugaring on Ames Hill Road plugging a tap and a bucket on the telephone pole alongside the road. This when the news was hot and heavy with President Bush's wiretapping fendango: roadside editorial cartooning, y'understand.)

Brush fires have become a real prob in southern VT as we're in near-drought conditions already: Wilmington-area brush fires (next town over heading west) are on the front page of this morning's paper. Almost no snow this past "non-winter" (a blessing as far as heating bills went, especially for low-income friends, neighbors and family) meant no snow melt; a bit eerie that the only day I've seen the brooks and streams swollen to anything near their usual spring spillover was one morning, after some heavy rains. This could end up being a deadly dry year, but we'll see. Last summer we were blessed with constant enough rains to spare us the troubles folks north and south suffered. Who knows what the summer will bring?

Yesterday afternoon Marge tended to the front flower beds, clearing the sheltering autumn leaves away from the shoots and sprouting plants. I was out in our front yard, washing the cars (their first since the fall; spare use of water, don't fret), which prompted a string of neighbors pulling over to chat. This is part of the spring ritual, too, 'round here, and it's great fun. Caught up with the news from one of my fave ex-First Run Video fellow employees, who was the first to pull over and chat; her son is an amazing kid, and I turned him onto the Godzilla films of the '60s during our video store years, which he dug. So, we talked a bit: her college year winding down with the usual crunch (projects due! Final papers due!), which led to my end-of-the-year at CCS pending, and so on and so forth.

Then another of my neighbors pulled over to chat from his pickup, which went on a bit, prompting another Marlboro neighbor to pull over in his pickup to ask pickup neighbor #1 something, though of course it took a while to get to that. Once two of 'em pull over, one gets to eavesdrop in one's own front yard as the conversation detours into the reasons they pulled over to chat to one another instead of yours truly -- yesterday, it was two of the local apple-growers, who went on for about half-an-hour about what's happening right now upending their day-to-days. Seems this is the earliest start of a growing season on record in quite some time; the apple trees are already sprouting "green matter" (as they kept calling it), alarming them a bit and prompting a flurry of pre-April 20th preparations: pruning, cleanup, prep for spraying. Given the "non-winter," insect pests and scales are going to be in apple-orchard heaven, goosing activity among apple-growers two-to-three weeks before usual. These gents are tradesmen botanists, and though I only followed at best about 60% of what they were talking about (like all trades, they have their jargon, much of it alien to these layman ears, though my botany research from the Tyrant years served me surprisingly well in keeping up with their talk), it was a revealing snapshot of what's happening right now hereabouts.

Afterwards, I bid my farewells and finished up washing the cars before cleaning up and wolfing down a quick (yummy) dinner. Marge and I were eager to catch a movie -- she's on vacation this week from school (she's a school psychologist in NH) -- and that we did: Thank You For Smoking, a polished black comedy of our opportunistic times. William H. Macy, who has a cabin up on the edge of the Northeast Kingdom and graduated (with his buddy David Mamet) from Goddard College, was a highlight caricaturing a Vermont Senator, whose desk was heavy with (packaged) maple syrup and a tireless promoter of cheddar cheese and last seen arguing for digital editing of old movies to remove cigarettes (kinda like Disney Studios did to their venerable Pecos Bill cartoon when they finally released Melody Time on DVD/vhs). A few laughs amid the satiric stabs at the failed American moral compass, if ever we had one, en route; we enjoyed our night out is all that matters here.

Back to home and off to bed. The nights have been warm and sweet, meaning sleeping with windows wide open, and we wake every morning to the dawn "Phoe - be" call of the chickadees, who are ever-present hereabouts.

These warm nights bring the birds out earlier and more active every morning. The woodpeckers have been picking up the mornings a bit, tapping out their territory and such. Last year we had one hammering on our roof antennae daily; this year, only one session of that rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, and fleeting at that. On my 6 AM walk, I could hear one this morning doing the head-dance on a power pole utility box down Town Hill Road about a quarter-mile: better there than on my roof.

But the chill nights have their denizens, too. The last cold night we had -- which was I think Sunday AM -- was punctuated by the 4 AM hooting and howling of two owls just outside our bedroom window. It was a pretty spectacular audio track to the pre-dawn violet sky; Marge slept soundly through it all. I savored it: their voices are unlike any other in nature, wilder than the noises John Totleben used to make while drawing squid-headed-women in the adjoining room in our old Dover, NJ "Dutch Masters Studio" household. One owl really revved it up, a feathered banshee in heat.

I love the early mornings.

It's a pleasure 'warming up' daily here.

But whatever I post here, mind you, usually hasn't much to do with life as it is here at Hacienda Bissettios. This is one of the places I 'go away' to for a short bit, usually before breakfast. There's a whole day ahead of me after; but it's a good way to kick off with these writing exercises after my morning walk.

Home can be the far country, one and the same.
____

"God is at home,
We are in the far country."
                       
-- Meister Eckhart

"Let 'Em Dangle, Let 'Em Dangle..."

While our government cries for blood in the only trial of the only man being prosecuted for any level of participation in the 9/11 attack, and the "coincidental" co-release of two movies on the Flight United 93 (one made-for-TV and streeting on DVD/video the first week in May, the other the 'R' rated feature hitting theaters this weekend) -- all plays on our collective emotions to lash out at "enemies" who are defined by neither national borders, geographic boundaries, or any centralized ideology -- the feeling of one being caught between extremist factions in a holy war in which one is either a player, a martyr, or a pawn escalates.

All render the individual disposable, as either citizen or soldier, unless you move in the highest circles of power.

We feel, as Americans, we have some measure of power over our destiny, individually and collectively, if only as voters. We vote to shape or reshape our reality.

But, hey, that's illusory at best. The fuckers keep stacking the deck, and one really is reduced to pawn status in a world where the bulk of our votes (80%, according to the last election's results) are

counted by only two corporations: ES&S

and

Diebold.

And hey, check out that first link closely: like, the vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S

are brothers.

If that doesn't set your dander up a bit, dig it:

the chairman and CEO of Diebold was & is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor

who publicly stated in 2003 that he was specifically "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Ah, and that he did, and it's worth noting in that context that

no international election observers were

permitted to monitor the polls in Ohio in 2004.

Even more infuriating, note that

all -- and I do mean all --

of the voting machine errors detected, reported and investigated in Florida

were leaning in the favor of Bush

and/or Republican candidates alone.

Furthermore, while

ES&S remains the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. (counting almost 60% of all U.S. votes),

over 30% of all American votes are placed on unverifiable touch screen voting machines sans any paper trail.

This is distressing news, but even more outrageous is the fact that Diebold's new voting machines

produce no verification or "paper trail" of any votes --

-- there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as that input by voters.

Hmmmm, but wait a minute; Diebold's bread & butter is in

manufacturing ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which necessarily log each & every transaction and give the user the option to print out a paper receipt for their transaction.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? It should. Meanwhile, ES&S has its own dirty laundry: for instance,

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel was once chairman of ES&S -- and won his Senate seat based on votes counted by ES&S voting machines,

which roused suspicions.

Ah, there's also the fact that Senator Hagel, longtime 'friend' of the Bush family & dynasty (and one-time contender as a Vice-Presidential candidate for Bush),

was caught lying

about his ownership of ES&S

by the Senate Ethics Committee.

Ah, but most of us here in America don't vote anyway. In fact, I'm willing to bet some of you bothering to read this at all had the thought while reading the above, "see, why vote?"

What a sham. What a shame.

We embrace our helplessness, our lack of power.

And those in power continue to bank on that. However they did it, legitimately or not, they're in power -- but that still doesn't place any of them above the law, exempt from culpability.

A recent letter to the local Brattleboro Reformer from my friend Michael Dean cites the President Theodore Roosevelt quote, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Which leads me to the careful scrutiny and articulation of this growing outrage in

Carl Bernstein's Vanity Fair article "Senate Hearings on Bush, Now."

Bernstein writes, "Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing 50 percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq." That old saying about "fooling some of the people some of the time" that President Bush mangled early in his first election campaign has come back to bite him and his Administration, its teeth sinking deeper daily as the fabric of calculated deceit, chicanary, cronyism and lies unravels.

As Bernstein notes, "In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote -- hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties -- to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon." We've reached a strange almost-critical mass wherein certain GOP members would love nothing more than a premature motion to censure or impeach: after all, one of the dirty non-secrets (it's simply not spoken of in context of the reality of those times) of the Reagan Presidency is that the assassination attempt on that low-in-the-polls President is what regalvanized national support of the man and the office. A premature concerted political attack on President Bush might similarly galvanize dwindling public support of the President, or so the logic goes according to high-profile Republican pundits and cautious (is there any other kind?) Democrats.

These things take time, and the more time that passes -- as the lies continue to publicly unravel, as Katrina-ravaged New Orleans continues to be the national shame (as a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine exposes the current medical care beneath that the US mobilizes for the Iraq War or even Third World countries like Haiti), as clowns like Michael Brown pop up on Comedy Central as surreal 'guest stars' -- the wider the seams split in the once-unified, secrecy-obsessed Bush Administration. Bernstein asks (and answers), "How much evidence is there to justify such action? Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.... The first fundamental question that needs to be answered by and about the president, the vice president, and their political and national-security aides, from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, to Karl Rove, to Michael Chertoff, to Colin Powell, to George Tenet, to Paul Wolfowitz, to Andrew Card (and a dozen others), is whether lying, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation of information have been a basic matter of policy—used to overwhelm dissent; to hide troublesome truths and inconvenient data from the press, public, and Congress; and to defend the president and his actions when he and they have gone awry or utterly failed."And that's just the tip of the iceberg (go on, read the entire article).

The ongoing spin is maddening. As Bernstein correctly notes, "After Nixon's resignation, it was often said that the system had worked. Confronted by an aberrant president, the checks and balances on the executive by the legislative and judicial branches of government, and by a free press, had functioned as the founders had envisioned." We now hear journalists who should be hanging their heads in shame claiming "journalism is working" because we, the public, are beginning to see & hear almost daily accounts of the duplicity that lay behind the post-9/11 manipulation of our collective sense of anger, fear, outrage and eagerness to do something, anything to redress the once-unimaginable attack on our country. But they failed, themselves terrified, and the Congress failed in its primary imperative of working as a check and balance to the power of would-be monarchies, despots, and tyrants.

The spin efforts are still shamelessly indulged: with the recent unprecedented call for Rumsfeld's head from General Gregory Newbold (the retired three-star Marine Corps general who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the planning of the Iraq War) and his fellow retired generals (some of whom retired in 2005 specifically to be able to at last voice their outrage without betraying their country, their duty, their beloved respective branch of the service), the shameful spectacle of the press playing along anew with the ad hominum attacks on those speaking out avoids the obvious: the reality of rank in any branch of the service makes it impossible to speak out against the Commander in Chief, the highest possible rank in the military chain of command. Thus, we are reading/seeing/hearing 'spin' that scrupulously avoids that core military reality, carrying on as if the retired generals taking this remarkable stand were, for various reasons, worthy of contempt or inherently suspect (one military official in the arena attacking those calling for Rumsfeld to step down stated Tuesday that "the time to speak out was at the moment of their retirement," as if there were one and only one window of opportunity in which the criticism of Rumsfeld were credible, and never thereafter). This may seem arcane to some, put growing up as I have in a military family, it's the blatant 'elephant in the room' in this current sickening example of typical Karl Rove retaliation tactics, which have ruthlessly savaged any and all soldiers, vets, and military families who've dared to speak up or out against the War, the Secretary of Defense or the President.

These six generals, following others, consider the Secretary of Defense so unfit to lead that they have given up their livelihoods to speak. Is there any greater bravery possible, save that demonstrated under fire? So now, they find themselves under fire -- and the most dispicable "friendly fire" imaginable at that.

Understand that although Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is indeed a citizen not a soldier, criticism of Rumsfeld is inherently criticism of the Commander in Chief, who selected and continues to support Rumsfeld without equivocation.

So, it is up to our Congress at last. The President may rotate his spokesmen out of circulation, but it's clear nothing, nothing fundamental is going to change in this den of jackals.

Addressing that failure of our elected Senators to act when we needed them most, Bernstein concludes, "The system has thus far failed during the presidency of George W. Bush—at incalculable cost in human lives, to the American political system, to undertaking an intelligent and effective war against terror, and to the standing of the United States in parts of the world where it previously had been held in the highest regard."

When even Republican diehards like William F. Buckley are beginning to acknowledge the increasingly apparent reality, critical mass has indeed been reached (per Bernstein, Buckley has stated: "...It's important that we acknowledge in the inner counsels of state that [the war in Iraq] has failed so that we should look for opportunities to cope with that failure. ...Mr. Bush is in the hands of a fortune that will be unremitting on the point of Iraq... If he'd invented the Bill of Rights it wouldn't get him out of this jam....The neoconservative hubris, which sort of assigns to America some kind of geo-strategic responsibility for maximizing democracy, overstretches the resources of a free country..."). Ah, but it's the coming elections that are prompting much of this apparent awakening, as the President's declining stature threatens to topple one of the most corrupt GOP murder of crows in over 100 years.

But what about that upcoming election? One of the most discouraging aspects of this President and Administration's abuses of power is their evident belief that they will remain forever in power (why else support a Presidential power that they wouldn't have suffered for a moment during the Clinton Presidency?). We must as a people acknowledge the distinct possibility of our democracy having been insidiously and irrevocably undermined by the reliance on voting-booth technologies that are not only impossible to scrutinize but transparently & blatantly partisan (per the emphatic support for Bush the CEO of the largest voting booth manufacturer voiced last election) and inherently corrupted.
From the still-troubling

'mystery votes' for Bush in Ohio back in '04

to the ongoing reports of

"programming snafus" yielding suspicious wins for candidates and uncanny "voting spikes"

(the latter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in good ol' Texas, seat of much Republican political chicanary over the past decade or more), one must ask if we can even pretend to a functional democracy any longer. There has been an attempt in some quarters to revalidate the voting process:

VerifiedVoting.org is pushing for voter-verified paper records of every vote,

the need for which is becoming increasingly necessary given the basic unaccountability of 'touch screen' voting technologies currently in use, and of course

MoveOn.org is actively rallying on numerous fronts,

advocating nationally for paper records (including organized face-to-face meetings with Congressional representatives on this core issue), successfully pushing for legislation requiring voting machines that print paper records of votes in North Carolina, Colorado, Hawaii, Connecticut, and California (thus far in 2006, 19 more states required a paper record of every vote, bringing the total to 27 states -- easing past the half-way point, hopefully of no return). States like North Carolina are passing new laws

placing explicit restrictions on voting machines,

and this, too, is a heartening turn of political will. California went a step further,

outlawing all Diebold voting machines

due to the lack of security and accountability

(in fact,

here's a little movie for you high-speed access folks about how a chimpanzee hacked the audit logs Diebold claimed could not be hacked!).

Connecticut recently passed what some consider "the most sweeping campaign finance reform in the nation's history" (thanks in part to organizations like Public Campaign, Common Cause, and MoveOn.org); still, Republican efforts to marginalize voters (particularly the usual disenfranchised populace: black, Hispanic & Latino voters, the elderly, low-income, ex-convicts and the disabled) continue, though states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia have rejected such proposed provisions. But will it manifest needed change in time for the November elections?

As the call to another war (Iran) builds momentum, as you sit in a theater this weekend like millions of other Americans and feel the rush of fear, anger, outrage that United 93 rallies in your heart, as our President and his cabal continue to play upon 9/11 as the end-all and be-all justification for whatever their latest subversion of democracy and naked abuse of power might be -- don't lose your own footing.

The powers-that-be want to spin that impetus that prompted the folks on that fateful United 93 to act -- they want to divert that toward your extending continuing, unquestioning devotion to this President, these policies, these wars.

Hell, I just want to find a way to keep from those-in-the-cockpit from steering our country into further disastrous, self-destructive holy-war lunacy.

Come voting season, you might keep that Elvis Costello tune in mind:

"Let 'em dangle, let 'em dangle..."

And we don't mean 'chads.'

[PS: Michael Dean's letter is

here.]

Banned from the Board? Only 'The Truth'!

Hey, necessary changes over at Al Nickerson's Creator Rights site and discussion board, prompted by the lively Marvelman/Miracleman thread.

Some of you posting there of late may have suffered a speed bump or two the last couple of days -- I know I did! -- but Al has sorted it all out, and I wanted to be sure to provide the necessary links here in case you were one of those like myself who momentarily found themselves inadvertantly "banned" from the board during the systems changeover.

So, here's the chronology, in a nutshell. After requesting that

everyone "play nice,"

Al and his partner Chuck Morrison found themselves having to deal with a poster "who was using a bunch of different IP addresses." In dealing with that belligerent poster, others were mistakingly and briefly "caught up in the mess, too," though both Al and Chuck weren't happy about the decision to 'ban' the mystery man, either.

"I don't mind folks disagreeing, but insults will not do," Al wrote to me. "'The Truth' [the pseudoname the belligerent poster used] was warned, but then, continued on. So, he got booted." The end result: "Guests can no longer post at the forum. People have to be registered to post. I checked the permissions and the settings are set for only registered members." No prob: most boards and blogs accepting comments require folks register these days; it doesn't hinder free speech.

Nevertheless, that process created other problems for everyone, which Al discusses on this

'banning' difficulties thread.

Hope this clears this up -- the thread prompting all this flurry of semi-spastic activity is

the Marvelman/Miracleman thread, which is here.

It's an interesting read, and I hope we indeed find out who this mysterious "movie producer" is claiming to have proprietary rights to the venerable Marvelman/Miracleman character. Huh -- a brazen new wrinkle, just what this unresolved cluster-fuck needed.

See you there!

Getting Perspective

* Cartoonist amazing Jason Little was our guest at The Center for Cartoon Studies yesterday, delivering a powerhouse perspective drawing session. I felt pretty much a fish out of water -- I've never had a knack or much knowledge on the fundamentals of delineating proper perspective as a cartoonist -- and I'm afraid wasn't much help except to maybe one student, but Jason was excellent: solid presentation, mucho prepared, knew his stuff inside and out, very attentive to the students and their various needs, and a charmer. If anything, we could use either a longer session next time around or a two-day workshop on the topic. I learned plenty, and tinkered with some of the principles this morning -- Jason made it look so simple! -- before diving into my morning writing chores (which includes this daily exercise). There's some things an instructor is best admitting one doesn't know or have a handle on, and a more skilled & knowledgable guest speaker is needed, and this was one of 'em.

* Afterwards, I dashed up to James Sturm's house for a brief get-together with James, his wife Rachel, and their dinner guests, Jason and his family and poet & fellow CCS instructor Peter Money and his (wife? partner?) Lucinda and everyone's children -- couldn't stay for dinner, as I had to rush home to dine with Marge (chicken in both households), but had time to draw a dinosaur for James & Rachel's daughter and then teach the kids how to make 'Exquisite Corpses' and we drew a couple, which is always fun. Love to watch their eyes when the unfold their first-ever unfolded 'critter' -- this had them all wanting to draw!

* Having thus precipitated trouble, I had to dash while Rachel's succulent-smelling dinner was served. Sigh. Still, made it home on time to find Marge about to pop her chicken delight into the oven, and a fine meal it was, too.

The odd mingling of kitchen odors between the houses, almost 90 miles apart, both linked with delicious meals, makes tactile the curious harmony driving life these days: this is all so right, feels worthwhile and correct, the cords/chords between our home and the new life at CCS. It even smells right, an affirmation for the senses, the tastebuds. How rare is this?

* After dinner, we struggled with the issue of the rising fuel costs (back up to $2.91+ a gallon hereabouts already), possible car-pooling options, "should we move" options, and that kind of happy shit. We love our house -- the first I've ever owned, not rented! -- and it's finally perfectly customized to our needs (like this insane book-lined studio/office I type & work in every morning/day), but we both drive such long distances to work (172.6 miles for me round trip, now just once a week, but Marge drives 145+ every day).

Geographically, a move upstate makes a lot of sense; in fact, Marge's son/my stepson and his fiance live right about there, which is another magnet. James drops lead hints regularly about Marge and I moving closer to CCS -- he wants us, "they" want us closer -- indeed a draw (pun intended), and is currently making arrangements for me to have a drawing studio in the upcoming new CCS space (I've said yes -- at last, a place for my paleontology library and return-to-work on my beloved Tyrant?).

But house prices are up, we've got a lot invested into this place, my kids live close by still, and our dearest friends live south of us (in Massachusetts), and that's a huge factor, too.

Emotionally, our hearts live here, and there's many other factors, too (like, moving my enormous wads of shit just 8 miles back in 2002 took six months total -- with almost daily trips in my old Toyota squareback -- and many moving trucks on the final fateful day! What a horrorshow). I'm working with three communities now -- serving on Boards for three different organizations I believe in (two in Brattleboro, one in White River Jct.), and increasingly extending my teaching work into where we live, here in Marlboro -- and that's an anchor, too. I've no wish to step away from any of it, especially since I'm told what I'm doing as part of the three collectives is bringing something unique to all three; my stepping away (which I damned near did with one of the Brattleboro groups) would cost them, somehow, diminish all we've worked to build. And my son and daughter live in Brattleboro, my daughter having only recently opened doors to communication/being together that had long been closed. The heart lives here.

Ah, who cares? Marge and I will figure it out eventually. What a rambling blog this AM...

Hey, some days, it flows. Somedays, you get this crap...

More on CCS Seth, Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti visit...

For a student's view (two posts) of last week's amazing CCS visit from Seth, Chris Ware & Ivan Brunetti -- plus samples both Jon-Mikel and Colleen's art, well worth a look! -- go over to

Jon & Colleen's Cowboy Orange Blog

and scroll down past the most recent 'zombie day' post -- but only after leaving your own 'zombie day' suggestions, natch.

More Ketchup, All Kinds and Kolors, Floppy Boots Stomp Down, Public Domain Terrors, Bush Era Horrors, Rummy's Circle of Hell, and So Much More...

* Man, I am sick to death of dealing with spam. The insidious fuckers creep through every filter eventually, and begin needlessly eating -- up -- time...

* The amazing Tim Lucas sent me the following Captain Beefheart link some time ago, and I've been meaning to share it here forever. I'm a huge Don Van Vliet/Beefheart fan, looooove to draw to that thumpin' akimbo music and microphone-bursting voice, and urge you all to check out

The Beefheart/Magic Band DVD link

Thanks, Tim! "Floppy Boots Stomp Down to the Ground..."

* A 'bump' of sorts from the comments board: fusing the living dead and public domain, Jolly John Carroll sent us this info back in March, but who checks the comment boards after the primary day passes? Thanks, John!. See, there's

a new site for downloading public domain movies

you should check out, if, unlike this sorry Vermontian hillbilly, you indeed have high-speed internet access. Here's the March 8th press release John was passing along to us all, which I've now elevated to page one status:

"Video Entertainment Internet: Dr. Jekyll, Bruce Lee and Notre Dame's hunchback are all finding new shelf space on a start-up's site.

Last week, Veoh Networks began offering free downloads of cult classics, including kung fu flicks such as "Ninja Death 1," John Wayne movies like "The Lucky Texan" and black-and-white horrors such as "The Brain That Wouldn't Die."

Thanks to the proliferation of broadband Internet access, video downloads have become increasingly popular. Blockbuster.com and Netflix have been facing off in the retail space. File-sharing sites also attract movie buffs, though the legality of such
downloads remains iffy. Other start-ups, such as Brightcove.com, are testing the waters. And on the smaller screen, downloads for Apple Computer's video iPod are gaining an audience.

But finding old movies--legally, systematically and at no cost--isn't always easy. They've begun to pop up on sites like Entertainment Magazine and Public Domain Torrents. Veoh's founders started their site last year mainly for people to post home movies. But they soon realized people had a desire to track down old Hollywood flicks and classic videos.

The cult classics posted on the site have all fallen out of copyright, either because of their age or because of owners who failed to protect them.

Anyone can upload films to the site; both posting and viewing is free. Veoh plans to make money through advertising and commissions on pay-to-download selections.

So far, about 90 movies are available on Veoh's cult classics page. And who would see these flicks if they weren't on the Internet?

"Nobody," Veoh CEO Dmitry Shapiro said. "Just collectors who were fortunate enough to have access to the movies. Once in a while somebody would have a viewing in some old theater, or they'd get on the TV in the middle of the night. But for the most part they just disappeared."

Now, though, they're in plain sight. An obscure 1942 werewolf movie called "The Mad Monster," for example, already had 80 viewers only 24 hours after upload by a horror enthusiast.

Watching the silent, John Barrymore version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a journey back in time. In the 1920 classic--later eclipsed by a remake for which Fredric March won the best-actor Oscar--Jekyll tinkers in his lab, surrounded by smoking test tubes and accompanied by horrific organ music. Title cards carry quotes such as "Damn it, I don't like it! You're tampering with the supernatural!"

Less salt, sugar and fat So why are today's viewers, who are used to overwhelming special effects and flawless computer animation, attracted to silent movies with stiff, spasmodic monsters? Shapiro thinks the interest stems from a discontent with much of today's production, which he labels "junk food."

"It's got a lot of salt, a lot of sugar and a lot of fat, which is used to make up for bad story lines,..." he said. "Back in the old days, they didn't make junk food, because they didn't have special effects to rely on. So a lot of the stuff that was made then has great story lines and interesting acting--and there is obviously a sense of nostalgia."

The most popular video on the channel so far is "Bruce Lee the Invincible" with more than 250 downloads in just a few days. The acting is exaggerated, the dialogue minimal and the lip-synching nonexistent. But that doesn't stop the Dragon from making mashed
potatoes out of its enemies.

"It's a boy thing," Shapiro said regarding the film's instant popularity. "I remember watching kung fu movies with my dad. I didn't notice the bad dubbing and the silly story lines. Boys have their adrenaline and testosterone going. They like movies about
chivalry and fighting."

But Shapiro's personal favorite is "Reefer Madness," a 1938 propaganda film aimed at marijuana: "A violent narcotic--an unspeakable scourge--the real public enemy No. 1!" "Reefer Madness" was created to deter America's youth from using the drug. "Knowing what we know now, a lot of people think today that it is a comedy," Shapiro said.

Shapiro's vision when starting San Diego-based Veoh was broader than reviving old black-and-whites. To him, the site and others like it represent a democratic revolution, letting anyone with a computer, video camera and Internet connection bring their vision to the world. In addition to the cult classics page, Veoh has pages specifically dedicated to skateboards, cars and music.

"Video is the most incredible medium for communication. It's not just for entertainment; it can be education, politics, used by causes and charities," said Shapiro, who also founded peer-to-peer security company Akonix Systems in 2000. "We believe this is as
profound an invention as the World Wide Web, which democratized print broadcasting."

To avoid distribution of copyrighted material, Veoh approves all the movies placed on the site.

Originally from Russia, Shapiro grew up in an environment where all media, including television, was government controlled. "There was really nothing to watch. I remember having three channels: Two of them were propaganda, and one was irrelevant to me," he said.

As a 10-year-old, he had watched only a few hours of television altogether. Moving as a youngster to the United States, he obviously found more choices but still saw them as limited by the preferences of television broadcasters.

"Therefore we get to see very little of the world," Shapiro said. "That inspired me to look for alternatives."...

Well, check it out, you lucky folks. I'll just stew in my video and DVD collection instead.

* The astounding Mark Martin sent me the following link, which fans of horror, Hostel, and those of you attuned to the wedding of society/politics and pop culture will find worth a look:

The Wrath of Eli Roth: Liberal Lightning Rod?

The problem here is both Roth (young fella that he is) and the neocon (or, more correctly, "Anti-Liberal Media") blogger/site are being far too simplistic: the kinds of horror films we're seeing have definitely been impacted by the social and political reality. As I've written here before, I associate two specific threads of the post-2000 (that's pretty much the 21st Century thus far) genre landscape quite specifically with the George W. Bush era we're trapped in: the below-the-radar 'amnesia/trauma' subgenre (Memento being the sterling example, but we also have Session 9, Frailty, Memento, Spider, The Mechanist, The i Inside, Magdalena’s Brain, Head Trauma, etc.) reflecting the willful national unconsciousness/obliviousness to our cultural guilt/culpability, and the 'torture' cycle, very much in vogue just now (spearheaded by the most definitely Bush era fusion of Christian horror and ultragore, The Passion (of the Christ), which knocked the parameters of the pre-Passion R rating out of the ballpark, opening the floodgates for comparatively low-key psychological explorations like The Jacket, V for Vendetta, etc. and the increasingly explicit abuses of an international array of horrors: Saw I and II, Hostel, Sin City, Wolf Creek, High Tension, just to name three, and remakes like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.). These quite obviously reflecting the zeitgeist & dread associated with the terrifying realities of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and 'extraordinary rendition' policies.

In a soon-to-be-published review of The Jacket, I wrote about the 'trauma/amnesia' films:

"In these intricate, Chinese-puzzle construct films, traumatized individuals struggle with the consequences of forgotten (or, in some cases, hidden or even adopted) events, meaningfully inverting the previous era of ‘buried memory’ child abuse case histories, scandals, books, and films, the ‘trauma amnesia’ films stigmatize the sufferer (in Cronenberg’s Spider, the ‘inner child’ is the most insidious self-deceiver of all). In this psychological no-man’s-land, no perceived reality can be taken at face value. No one is who they seem to be, enigmatic information and disinformation is treacherously interwoven, essential fragmentary clues are clouded by misperception, father figures are inherently dangerous, reality is treacherously malleable and mercurial, and the deepest betrayal of all lies within the protagonist’s own past. Inevitably, as buried memories manifest clearly, apparent victim/protagonist is shown to be (or have been) the victimizer, responsible for crimes they cannot continue to live with (or without). Repressed memories harbor irrevocable sins: their amnesia is symptomatic of desperate attempts to skirt the consequences of their own actions, to sustain unsustainable denial.

These vicarious, personalized, implosive apocalypses are resonant metaphors for the collective cultural amnesia and attendant denial that accommodates so many transparent hypocrisies of this Administration’s policies, and, by proxy, our own culpability as a nation and a people. Even the national projection of ‘enemy’ status onto uninvolved nations (e.g, the completely false association of Saddam Hussein and Iraq with 9/11, a link the Administration and President Bush himself have since refuted, though they nurtured that association) is central to these films, as projection of foe onto friend and dualistic confusions of identity permeate the subgenre (in The Jacket, the latter extends to the protagonist and projected anima: Jack/Jackie).

Denial is the black heart of the entire subgenre...."

The torture cycle I needn't go into further -- do I? It seems so fucking obvious, from The Passion to Hostel, right down to the iconography of the poster and ad art -- what these films functionally are reflecting and doing -- and again, the transitional audience identification with both victims and victimizers (and the emotional inversion therein) is transparent. This is how these genres, how the pop culture, works.

Together, these threads represent a distinctive shift in the genre that is most definitely of its time and place, specifically the Bush Presidency and its global policies. I recall how vividly Frailty summed up my own dread of the Bush era when I first saw it on the big screen, right down to its righteous demon-killing Texa