Alan Moore Knows the Score

Joltin' Joe turned me on to this and so I'm passing it on to you.

Another Giant Leaves the Stage

LOS ANGELES — Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 73 - New York Times

Any Synchromysticism buff will know Pollack for his role in Eyes Wide Shut, but he'll live forever in my mind for Three Days of the Condor alone.

Note this trailer features the Twin Towers- and a helicopter.

The Exegesis: We Gotta Get Out of This Place

The more I read about the ancient "pagan" world and its practices and beliefs, the more I think that the difference between Christianity and "paganism" is purely a question of politics. Even a casual reading of the actual practices of the Isis cults or Mithraism would hit familiar notes with any modern Christian. Certainly Muslims and orthodox Jews think all of Christianity is nothing but paganism in fancy dress, and they're not shy about saying so.

This isn't a question of Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Orthodox, either. The denominations are fundamentally identical beneath all the trappings. And at its core, Christianity is simply a corporatized manifestation of an impossibly ancient theology. The early church fathers knew this, and it's a good bet that most of today's church fathers do as well. The smart ones, at least.

In order to understand the practices of the corporate church, you need to look at the "Crisis of the Third Century" when Rome's imperial expansion began to backfire. You had hundreds if not thousands of different tribes and varying sects and dialects within Rome's bulging borders. A look at Lebanon in the 1980s will show you what a recipe for disaster that can be. There was a distinct move towards an all-encompassing civic religion in order to keep the peace. Aurelian (aka "Hand on Sword") hammered together a prototype of the Roman Church with his new monotheistic Solar religion, but the masses of Jews and Christians and Gnostics presented a challenge to Solar theology. And the need to create a self-policing, totalitarian form of worship was ill-suited to the symbolicist and elitist nature of Solar religion itself.

As we see in the Islamic world, Fundamentalism (in all its forms) is inherently totalitarian and authoritarian. And so a strongman like Constantine (or, more accurately, his handlers) would naturally seek out the most literalist and oppressive sect in the Empire to establish a more efficient form of imperial policing. And he found it right at home. From then on it was simply a matter of systematically crushing its rivals until a later emperor could lift the pretense of tolerance towards all religions and put in place an authoritarian state cult whose primacy was mandated by law.

It worked well in some aspects, but the perpetually anti-intellectual and inhumane nature of the so-called "orthodox" would destroy Western European culture, science, art and economic prosperity for almost a millennium, and reduce an entire continent to penury and disease. Though authoritarian conservatives are constantly claiming otherwise, it wouldn't be until the Renaissance, when the so-called "pagan" systems of thought were revived that Europe would become the economic, military and scientific powerhouse of the past five centuries or so.

We no longer are ruled by any church, per se. The division wracking Western Culture now is between bottom-drawer Fundamentalism (whether Christian or Islamic) and technocratic atheism. You'll see no real alternative presented to this dichotomy in the media, and don't think for an instant that that is not by design. There seems to be a plan to steer the plebes towards some form of snake-handling or other (my recent road trip through the heart of Pennsylvania drove that fact home) and the cognitive elite towards an inhumane scientism. It keeps people from mingling and makes for great media, to boot.

But I'm not sure this plan is working. People in both the religious and secular worlds sense something is profoundly screwed up in our present understanding of religion and spirituality. Kids are abandoning the Chuck E Cheese-type Evangelical churches they were raised in in droves, and even the Republican Party is having trouble managing the excesses of its Evangelical subsidiaries. Hating gays might work when credit is easy and gas is cheap, but now that the locus of economic power is moving eastward, it doesn't help keep the repo man away.

It's my deepest conviction that this false dichotomy shoved down our throats by the media puppets is killing our souls- and Western Cuture, to boot. And the preservation and progress of Western Culture is my ultimate concern in all of my work. Our culture is the expression of our collective soul, and the rank stupidity being pumped out by our media and our churches is eviscerating our reputation in the world, as is the political, economic and military activity that grows out of it.

As tempting as it is to blame all of this on the Illuminati or whomever, it's also self-defeating. Most of the conspiracy theory we see out there exists to absolve its adherents of responsibility. Worse, I suspect a lot of it is psyop bullshit and a lot of it is being pumped onto the net by agencies hostile to the well-being of liberal democracy. And there's no paradox greater than an Evangelical or Fundamentalist complaining about totalitarianism or authoritarianism, since they worship totalizing authority. They seem to be mainly upset that liberals are standing in the way of their blissful theocracy, and subsequently blame them for all of the world's ills. It's been going on for centuries.

There's got to be a way out of this mess. Symbol and Synchronicity and the Collective Unconscious are not ends unto themselves, they are the signposts pointing towards a new understanding of the Universe really works. Revelation is an ongoing process, but its language is symbolic, not literal.

By the same token, I don't talk about ancient astronaut theory for the hell of it, I do so because I think it might explain some basic truths about the human condition. Or it might not. But if we can't figure out where we came from, all the Synchromysticism on the planet can't help us.

Science and spirit were not antithetical to many of history's greatest minds, though certainly the dumbed-down expressions that you see of them in the media certainly are. I know a lot of people who work (or worked) in the media and they're as filled with despair as you and I. The good news is that I don't think conscious human activity is the greatest power on Earth, and I don't necessarily believe that all power structures are inherently evil, either. And most importantly, I don't think religion automatically means bowing and scraping before some invisible megalomaniac.

I don't think people who care about something other than materialism need to be at odds all the time. Maybe the Third Way has been co-opted, but there's surely a Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Way out there.

Scottish Sunday: Who's That Girl?

Seeing that the Eurythmics didn't waste much time getting sucked up into the New Pop sweepstakes of the early 80s, it's easy to forget how startling their early singles and videos were. And seeing that she spent most of her time running around in an orange crewcut and a man-tailored suit, it's easy to forget that Annie Lennox was actually startlingly beautiful in her day.

This is probably my favorite single and video from the band, and not only because Annie is in female drag. There's something at once timeless and absolutely of their time in this song, and it calls to mind weird dreams I had at the time.

My favorite album from the band may seem a strange choice, but it's their aborted 1984 soundtrack. To my ears, the soundtrack format allowed the Eurythmics to explore interesting corners of their sound, whereas the pressure to serve up the hits in the already hateful mid-80s absolutely destroyed their muse.

Speaking of pressure, here's Annie Lennox playing the part of David Bowie at the 1992 Freddy Mercury Tribute Concert while the man himself was still stuck in his conservative pantomime mode. It's worthwhile noting that it wasn't until Bowie gave up on having a big hit single that he actually was able to write good songs again. I love Annie at the end here- I've always wondered if the two had a shag after the gig.

Or was Annie too busy cringing with the rest of the world when Bowie soonafter recited the Lord's Prayer?

Hardcore Matinee: Built to Last

I realize the Hardcore Matinee has been very NYHC-centric so far, especially for a Boston boy like myself. But the truth is the NYC bands were just plain better. Here's a second generation band Sick of It All, rocking the house in Espana earlier this year. Punk Rock and all its offshoots are very popular in the Spanish-speaking world - especially in Latin America- and that to me is extremely exciting. Music itself has an incredible power to cross boundaries, and I suppose powerful music has even more so.

This also ties into my profound belief that Rock 'n' Roll is in and of itself a kind of fountain of youth. The guys in Sick of It All have to be pushing 40 at this point in the game, yet they sound better than ever, and work the stage better than bands half their age.

Of course, my other profound belief is that Rock and Roll is nothing new at all, merely a technological updating of the oldest music in the world. Drinking, dancing, fighting, f*cking -- these are all hardwired into the human brain.

Spacejumping from 130,000 feet

Remember this video, with footage of Kittinger's record space jump? It looks like someone is set today to break that record...

He has spent two decades and nearly $20 million in a quest to fly to the upper reaches of the atmosphere with a helium balloon, just so he can jump back to earth again. Now, Michel Fournier says, he is ready at last.

Depending on the weather, Fournier, a 64-year-old retired French army officer, will attempt what he is calling Le Grand Saut (The Great Leap) on Sunday from the plains of northern Saskatchewan.

He intends to climb into the pressurized gondola of the 650-foot balloon, which resembles a giant jellyfish, and make a two-hour journey to 130,000 feet. At that altitude, almost 25 miles up, Fournier will see both the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth. He will experience weightlessness.

Astronaut Theology: Heavenly Beam Explained?

Secret Sun reader Michael turned me onto this amazing concept- does the Heavenly Beam we've looked at actually represent a neutrino beam? Wired is on the case.

If you were a hyper advanced alien civilization, rather then mucking about with noisy electromagnetic waves, perhaps you would try to make contact with other intelligent life forms by sending your messages via neutrinos.

First detected in 1953, neutrinos pass easily through most matter making it possible for your signal to pass through the Milky Way without being blocked by stars and interstellar dust. They are also not subject to the "noise" of optical and radio waves traveling alongside them through space.

How frickin' cool would it be if the ancient astronauts were actually some weird insterstellar beam blasting our brains with cosmic super-intelligence? Screenwriters, get cracking!

WTF? Friday: Funnybook Follies

On Monday, we touched upon how teeth-grindingly insane a lot of 50s and 60s DC superhero comics are. Here's a few examples that caught my eye while researching the "Lana Lang is Jimmy Olsen in Drag" expose.

WTF?: On what planet do jackals look like that? And why do junk culture types always cast Anubis as a villain, anyway? If you're going to use this symbolism, do your damn homework.

The rest of it? You'd have to ask Fredric Wertham, not me. Oh, crap- he's dead. Never mind.

WTF?: Nothing I can say here can top the actual stupidity of this cover. Never mind the Freud, these guys just plain stopped trying by this point. Marvel was eating their lunch, sales were in the crapper, the hemmoroids were acting up- ahh, who gives a crap, print it and put the damn thing out already.

WTF?: You have the archetypal 60s DC Valium-inspired drawing style meant to inspire confidence in uptight parents along with absolutely insane subject matter. I don't know exactly what the projectile quills subconsciously represent. Or maybe I just don't want to know.

There's plenty more where this all came from. You could do an entire blog on this stuff. The great thing about these comics is that they are so laden with subtext and produced with such utter unselfconsciousness you can spend endless hours wondering how they were ever published. It's no wonder that the Hippies went so nuts with their art and comix- they cut their teeth on these nutty comics.

Now, More than Ever

There has never been - or will there ever be - anything as great as The X-Files.

Go watch the latest trailer. The whole thing is blowing my mind, for reasons I can never say.

(Egyptian) Girls Gone Wild

BALTIMORE - Today, it sounds like a spring-break splurge on the order of "Girls Gone Wild": Drink huge quantities of beer, get wasted, indulge in gratuitous sex and pass out — then wake up the next morning with the music blaring and your friends praying that everything will turn out all right.

But back in 1470 B.C., this was the agenda for one of ancient Egypt's most raucous rituals, the "festival of drunkenness," which celebrated nothing less than the salvation of humanity. Archaeologists say they have found evidence amid the ruins of a temple in Luxor that the annual rite featured sex, drugs and the ancient equivalent of rock 'n' roll.

Amazing- you mean to tell me that the Baby Boomers didn't invent sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll at Woodstock? I'm shocked. Some hippies must have built a time machine and introduced these practices to the Egyptians.

Wibbley Wednesday: Welcome to the Jungle

Your ticket to the lush tropical forests of Wibbley World can be found here...

John Cusack, Superstar: 2012 Edition

Reader Clint gave me the heads-up on this one:

John Cusack has signed on to star in Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic thriller 2012 for Columbia Pictures, according to VARIETY. Chiwetel Ejiofor is in talks to join him in the big-budget epic, whose title refers to the end days of human civilization as predicted by the ancient Mayan calendar.

The story starts with a global apocalypse, then chronicles the heroic struggle of the survivors. Emmerich and Harald Kloser wrote the script, which Sony bought in February. Barring a Screen Actors Guild strike, shooting will begin in July in Los Angeles. Mark Gordon, Kloser and Larry Franco are producing; Emmerich is executive producing.

Which reminds me that Cusack used the Clash's version of "Armagideon Time" for Grosse Pointe Blank...

A Short History of the 21st Century...

...set to Killing Joke's "Total Invasion." This amazing work of art was put together by You Tuber nobrainsnoplanes, and eerily reminds me of a Bush-era updating of Kenneth Anger's 1969 tribute to Aleister Crowley, Invocation of My Demon Brother.

An entirely appropriate influence, come to think of it.