At first, I hesitated blogging about The Vigilant Citizen, a site that exposes the Masonic/Illuminati symbolism present in everyday things ranging from pop stars to national monuments. The site had to be a joke, I told myself, poking fun at occult nuts the same way that Christwire pokes fun at religious zealots. I’m not so sure, though. It feels like too much research to be fake, and yet it feels too silly to be real (case in point: Lady Gaga, The Illuminati Puppet). Whether or not the site is faux, it’s attracted some true believers! As one commenter writes in response to the the Gaga post:
This is truly amazing im shocked. I believe god told me to check this site. I feel like a total fool I wad becoming a fan of hers. Im totally conviced that this is what she’s trying to convey.
So dive right in, and have an occultastic good time! My favorite article is a toss-up between Top 5 Worst 9/11 Memorials and Vigilant’s analysis of the Denver National Airport (part of his Sinister Sites series, which examines the architectural occultism of buildings from all over the world). In a style that reminds me somewhat of Weird New Jersey, the latter article gives us a spooky tour of the most evil airport in America, introducing us to the apocalyptic horse with glowing red eyes that guards the entrance, the airport’s nightmarish murals, the arcane symbols embedded in the floor, the gargoyle statues, and of course the Nazi swastika-shaped runway. All part of the impending New World Order! Enjoy.
It’s Friday once again and you are mere hours from another glorious weekend of coke and Thai lady-boys. Still, it might as well be days as summers are slow and your cubicle is, unfortunately, adjacent to Carol’s. This is unfortunate as Carol talks, ceaselessly, about her eight (yes, eight) Pomeranians; a torrent of gibberish spewed in an unyielding stream in your direction. All day it’s stories about anthropomorphized facial expressions, idiotic tricks, and unfortunate bowel movements punctuated by requests for you to look at a funny picture she took of one of them wearing a doggie sweater or galoshes. You wonder how Carol’s husband feels about living with a yammering pack of fur with teeth; maybe he too looks forward to cocaine fueled weekends. You also wonder how long until the little bastards get tired of those sweaters and revolt, rending poor Carol limb from limb.
There are better things to occupy your mind with than thoughts such as these. There are movies and I am here to help you drown out Carol before you turn to her and slowly, deliberately puncture your ear drums with a letter opener. This week, its Snow White: A Tale of Terror the 1997 horror movie based on the Grimm Brothers’s tale. Starring Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, Monica Keena and the greaser guy from The Shawshank Redemption, this is a bloodier and more realistic version of the classic tale, adapted most famously by Walt Disney (and less famously by Rammstein), by which I mean that no one spontaneously bursts into song. Despite its slightly over the top subtitle, it’s actually not that bad, bearing more of a resemblance to the source material than the animated film, by which I mean that there is a fair amount of violence while simultaneously lacking the dwarf spanking and drugs angle of Rammstein’s version.
Regardless of which is your preferred Snow White, watching Sigourney Weaver get her evil on has got to beat listening to the story about how dog #2 shit on the carpet yesterday, right?
I would be lying if I said I had fond memories of Morgan Freeman on The Electric Company. This is not because I did not enjoy his contributions to the program but more because I cannot make the connection between the Morgan Freeman of today with the Morgan Freeman who played Easy Reader. They seem, to my mind, two entirely different people and, subsequently, I find myself having to be reminded of this fact when it is presented to me. More importantly, however, may be the fact that most of my memories of The Electric Company are dominated by the silent specter of Spiderman.
Regardless of mute superheroes or faulty memories Mr. Freeman was a regular cast member playing a number of different characters including Vincent the Vegetable Vampire, which is about all the backstory you’ll need for this clip of Morgan Freeman taking a bath in a coffin.
Here’s Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival last June, demonstrating how deeply internalized and anticipatory (if not truly universal), the language of music can be during a panel called “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus“:
Anne Ramsey, perhaps best known for her role as Ma Fratelli in Goonies, was born today in 1929.
The night was sultry.
The daughter of East Coast bluebloods, Ramsey attended elite preparatory schools in Connecticut, making her social debut the same season as Jackie-O. Later in life, she would be seen in all manner of television shows playing bag ladies, gypsies, cab drivers and housekeepers.
She married TV actor Logan Ramsey in the 50s, and together they made 5 films. In 1987, only three months before her death from throat cancer (removal of part of her lower jaw and tongue gave her the slurred speech she became known for in her later films), she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Throw Momma From The Train. No offense to Olympia Dukakis, but I wish she’d won.
She’s just head-explodingly awesome –the ultimate lady curmudgeon– and I’d happily endure Alf for her any day.
Are you ready to have your mind blown? If the answer is yes, prepare for the bass stylings of one Hyunmo Kim, a South Korean man who “hopes to be the world’s greatest stupid idiot bass player”. He does this in a dress. With pigtails. He is a pigtailed man in a dress with mad bass skillz who does not drink milk until he gags or examine his delicate faux-cleavage with the aid of his camera. You must be imagining things. It’s probably the awesomeness of his bass, frying your brain.
Whether it’s jet-lag delirium, an abiding love for handcranked slapstick comedy, an abiding love for my homeland’s Rayban-wearing forefathers, or an abiding love for Tony Millionaire that has sent me over the edge, this is making me die:
By the way, The Art of Tony Millionaireis coming out on Sept 2nd. A most beautiful and long overdue collection of gorgeous, fanciful and hilarious art. Geddit.
My flight arrives in Wellington (one day into THE FUTURE… FUTURE… FUTURE…) on Tuesday, the 11th. If all goes well *knock on wood* I should be there for quite some time.
New Zealanders, any tips for me? I’ve got one of those little culture/customs/slang dictionaries, but real live advice from savvy weirdo Kiwis would be preferable. Can you think of any great places to visit, particularly in and around Wellington? (I’m definitely hitting the Ian Curtis wall first thing.) Local coffee shops and clothing boutiques, a good comic book store, night clubs, a place to buy a sturdy kite, etc? Inquiring n0obz want to know.
Perhaps, like me, you find yourself in the midst of a tedious post-lunch session of completing TPS reports or contemplating non-work related questions like if science will be able to conquer the problem of cooking pancakes in space or, perhaps, you are simply staring blankly into space, a thin thread of drool dangling from your chin. If so, cheer up. No one reads those TPS reports anyway and spacecakes will be more wondrous than you could ever imagine. Now, wipe the drool off your chin and prepare for the wonder of internet archived filmic majesty.
Today’s offering is the short television documentary Aleister Crowley: The Other Loch Ness Monster, detailing the history of Boleskine House, where once Wickedest Man in the World and occult obsessed trust fund baby Aleister Crowley intended to perform the ritual found in The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, in order to call forth his guardian angel. The six month operation required Crowley to summon a number of demons and attempt to turn them towards good. However, he was called away from Boleskine House in order to help his mentor — and then-head of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn — Samuel Liddell, leaving the ritual unfinished and, more importantly, the evil spirits he called forth unbanished. He did not banish them! They are still there! Nessie might be one of them! Jimmy Page’s friend totally heard one outside his door one time!
It’s crazy, crazy shit, yet completely entertaining. Besides it will eat up some time between now and five o’clock.
“I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, ’cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!” ~John Hughes
Hughes died suddenly today of a heart attack, age 59. At his best, he made movies that celebrated freaks, weirdos, underdogs, misfits, wallflowers, basket cases... and the humanity of teenagers in general.
A moment of Otis Redding and Duckie (cherished anti-dreamboat) for a deeply intelligent, funny and empathetic storyteller; the man who gave us The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Weird Science, among others.
