A Review of a Book: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

I’ll be straightforward from the start. I bought Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers because of the cover. Or because of a cover. In actuality, the edition of the book I actually have next to me at the moment has a different cover than the one for which I bought the novel. I cannot fathom why in the holy name of realcoolness someone would decide that a crap old-timey sepia photo of two teenagers in Old West garb would make a better cover for ANYTHING, never mind for a novel about two grizzled men that already has one of the best designs I’ve ever clapped eyeballs upon which.

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A Review of a Book: Vive la Revolution by Mark Steel

The French Revolution doesn’t get much attention in the US, it seems. From what I can remember, in school it was glossed over as “their version” of our revolution. While there are certainly some temporal and ideological thingies shared between the American war for independence from Britain and the French Revolution, that’s probably a lean definition. In the UK however, to hear Mark Steel tell it, it’s taught as an example of why the unwashed classes shouldn’t be allowed to vote. So he set out to write a bit of a revision, as all good leftist stand ups do.

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Neutron Bomb: Punk Rock Writing #8

neutronbombchicago.tumblr.com

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Here’s a Real Bad Ass Book Cover

In direct refutation of the old phrase, I added this book to my list of things to read because of the cover.

I judged it, and judged it worthy. I’ll let you (you being the echo chamber of my delusions) know how it goes.

PS – yes, no one at all, I realize I haven’t updated this blog in almost 6 months, but since you, no one at all, are the only one who reads this, it will go unmentioned.

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The Occupation and Writers

I came across OccupyWriters via BoingBoing. What was initially sent to me was just “Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance .” At first I thought, Wait. Lemony Snicket is a living person? I had always thought he/she was dead, hanging out with Rudyard Kipling in some sort of kid-friendly Victorian salon with damask wall paper and big couches.

But no, it turns out Lemony Snicket is a currently alive and active writer, or is at least the pen-name of a currently alive and active writer whose real name is Daniel Handler. And this Snicket-Handler went to, or near, the Occupy Wall Street demonstration and came back with 13 clever piths for us.

Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.

etc.

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There Weren’t Nothin’ Good Left in the World

So, first, I’m not a juggalo. I’m as proud not to be one as they are to be. I just want that on the record. I am fascinated by them, however. In some previous early-20th Century incarnation, I was an anthropologist. I studied the curious culture-ways of nearly extinct natives. Now, in my current life, I can satisfy that soul-bound ethnographic urge by watching videos on the Internet. Though juggalos are far from extinct, most of them hover perilously near death. So I think it counts.

In any case, I’ve always had the same question about juggalos that everyone else has had: What the fuck is this? As in, I get that it’s a sub-culture centered around the small media empire built by Violent J and Shaggy2Dope (Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler to their mothers) of Insane Clown Posse. But if that was the case, if the sub-culture of the juggalo is in fact only a large fan-club, then well, it’s just a large fan-club and not a sub-culture at all despite the juggalos’ own insistence. And yet this loose social category inspires a kind of devotion among its members that goes beyond mere fandom. There is something beneath the surface. It may not be anything particularly profound, but it’s there.

My guess really is that the juggalo phenomenon is a sort of after-the-fact justification or enabling of behavior the participants already exhibited. Cultural outsiders, mostly poor whites  it seems, are drawn to the group of fellow others. They’re drawn to high-intensity music that carries a message validating their place in the world, their interests, and their feelings. However, certain signifiers in the culture (“Psycho Records,” the Hatchet Man logo) and the open endorsement of drug and alcohol abuse also lend validation of anti-social tendencies. See, for examples, the guy rapping to the camera about raping women at gunpoint and the guy who, when asked why he thinks he won’t get laid, says “I’m insane man! I like to stab people!”

Ultimately, those two are probably not representative of the whole (and neither is the girl standing in the nude, silently, in more than one shot). What is, I think, is the sense of belonging tainted with a bit of nihilism expressed by most of the subjects in the video. The demographic that comprises the majority of juggalos is at a nadir these days. Poor and working-class (and I’m going to go out on a limb and say rural/semi-rural) whites aren’t exactly disenfranchised compared to poor minorities, but their place of prominence in America has been eroded significantly in the past quarter-century. It’s the same death-throes that have kicked up the Tea Party and white religious fundamentalism in politics.

“Some old man told me there weren’t nothing good left in the world and I believed that shit. I believed that shit til I came here and saw all the titties, all the weed, all the fast food.”

In the same way that hip hop was by, for, and of urban African Americans (meaning, not by outright proscription, but in practice none the less) the juggalo thing speaks to that group: poor white youth who feel devalued and disillusioned. In that way, it’s much like punk rock, except that it seems to lack the conscience that was at least in the background in punk rock. And that the music sucks.

 

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Some Things About Botox

  • Botox is an amalgam of the words Botulinum and Toxin. That’s Botulinum as in Botulism. Botulism is considered the most powerful neurotoxin known to man. The botulinum toxin is, in fact, spores created by bacteria Clostridium botulinum and can cause paralysis which begins in the cranial nerves and moves southward, causing in extreme cases a paralysis of the respiratory muscles. That makes you die.
  • The toxin can be contracted in one of three ways:
    1. The colonization of the digestive tract by the bacteria C. botulinum. This can happen in adults but is more likely in infants. A 1979 study found a strong correlation between the feeding of honey to infants and the development of botulism because of a preponderance of the bacteria in honey.
    2. The ingestion of food containing the toxin. This is the most widely known means of contraction and the most obvious (although infant botulism is statistically more common). Historical food taboos, such as injunctions against eat pork and shellfish, are believed to have emerged as preventative measures against botulism. The first categorical study of food-borne botulism was undertaken by German physician Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner in the early part of the 19th century. He referred to the sickness as “sausage poison.” Kerner was also a poet. (Botulus is Latin for sausage.)
    3. Wound infection. This happens to black-tar heroin users in particular, and those who inject drugs into the skin rather than into the veins, which isn’t a thing I thought you could do. It’s called “skin-popping.”
  • Symptoms of botulism poisoning include loss of ocular control, double vision, difficulty chewing and swallowing, probably some drool, and drooping of both eyelids. Food-borne cases are treated by removing the tainted contents of one’s gut. Either end works. Wound botulism is treated surgically.
  • There were 28 reported deaths from the injection of Botox between 1989 and 2003. None were from cosmetic procedures. Botulism toxin can be used to treat a number of conditions including excessive blinking, the Squints, excessive sweating, anal fissure, vagina spasms, and reducing the mass of the Masseter muscle so as to decrease the apparent size of the lower jaw. Those last three aren’t FDA approved uses, but effective none the less.
  • Studies have indicated that users of cosmetic Botox show a decreased ability to read emotions. Signals normally sent to the brain by facial muscle movement appear to be key in one’s ability to recognize emotional displays from others. Those muscles are partially paralyzed by botulinum toxin, impeding the delivery of those signals. However, no one has yet been surprised to learn that those vain enough to inject a neurotoxin into their face have empathy problems.

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