Review: The Fury by John Farris

  This is another classic horror novel. It made Farris a household name after the release of the Brian de Palma movie in the seventies. That was long before I was born or could read, but it reached me through the grapevine of an eager reader. I searched endlessly for challenging and daring material, and this was one of the earliest I found.

  It starts off as an action-story, but quickly moves away from that, into far more satisfying waters. It isn’t a horror-story, not really a genre story at all, and I quite simply love that, love that, too. John Cassavetes played the sinister highly placed government man in the movie, but he had lots of great original material to work with. It is no hero-story. The reality in the story come off as quite cruel and gritty. In a typical Hollywood story, the boy’s father would have succeeded in his grim mission with flying colors, but he doesn’t. The boy and the girl are the main protagonists, even though it doesn’t look that at first. There is no moral here, or if there is none, it’s far different from the usual boring, mainstream stuff.

  We are presented with a reality beneath the somewhat pleasant daily existence where there are no rules, no mercy. We are drawn into a world of agents and victims, and both casual and deliberate violence. Powerful people want to become even more powerful by exploiting an emerging power, but this power is both beyond their understand and reach. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. The before mentioned highly placed government man realizes that to his peril.

The boy doll

  I don’t know how many negative articles there are about Justin Bieber out there, since I haven’t really checked. The entire subject, the very thought fills me with disgust. But I would imagine there is quite a few. There should be.

  Here is my contribution:

  He can’t sing, literally can’t sing. Not even the wonders of modern technology can fix his weak voice.

  The songs are hardly songs at all, but a tired, old repetitive, uninventive record stuck at the end of the melody. I most certainly agree with Danish newspapers calling him as real as Santa Claus.

  He is a sale pitch, really and nothing more, a celebration of banalities, of the mindless, of prostitution, of people selling themselves. When millions of hysterical girls scream his name many, way too many young boys want to be him. He is, in short a typical early twenty-first century role model, one not first and foremost selling his songs, but an idea, a scheme of submission and enslavement, one tool among many spearheading his masters’ ambitions of a world without freedom.

  One Direction and similar boy and girl bands fit the same mold.

  When he visited Norway this week there was little difference between that and him visiting any country, anywhere. We saw stupidity incarnated. We saw rich people pay for their daughters to meet him face to face, saw him being treated like royalty everywhere and while there was some reflective thought in that and other regards, reflective and critical thought was mostly absent in the public sphere.

  The music publishing industry, like the movie and book industries doesn't sell art, but a lifestyle, one without awareness and independence. They have always supported artists serving up mindless drivel the most.

  It’s very similar to general advertising. Advertising doesn't first and foremost sell a given product, but instills in almost everybody a need for being popular, to belong, of being accepted by family, friends and society. In the boy or girl doll the modern human youth projects his or her longings, an excuse to not seek true freedom, to not live an independent and radical and aware life.

  I don’t wonder why the world is filled with silly love songs. It is because those in charge have ordained it.

«Buy the new spring jacket from…»

If you see a friend who has bought a new jacket setting you back a thousand bucks and want one as well, you’re in trouble. Then the alarm bells should ring in your head. You may not know this, may not be aware of it, but you are duped. The advertising directed at youths today isn't necessarily like the traditional where a given product is shown on a screen or on a newspaper page or before a film. It’s far more insidious. The current method of catching youths in the ugly net of consumerism is called «buzz». A given company desperate for your cash doesn't shout, but whisper.

Those at my age are, generally speaking easy prey for commercial predators «earning» fortunes on our gullibility. Individuals among us, among them myself that don’t buy brand names or that buy last year’s fashion are usually described as sloppy. Those easily fooled are called well-dressed. The rest of us buying jackets, pants or bags with the same quality for some one tenth of the price are scolded by the trendsetters and those wanting to be counted among the trendsetters.

This is how it works:

A bunch of employees with a given advertising agency, usually called «communicators» are paid to cruise the hip sites on the Internet. The aim is to catch those perceived as leading in a given group of youths, those the others are emulating. This is the first step. If they buy and even somewhat like the product much is already accomplished. The rest is like a walk in the park for the communicators. They fool you and fool you into fooling your friends. Like with all advertising the product is really incidental. They don’t really sell the jacket, the shoes or the soda, but emotions, the sense of being successful. If you buy the product you’re successful. If you don’t you’re a failure.

This way, among others do people bragging about their independence, their originality become yet another easy victim of greasy, commercial machinery. It has little to do with intelligence or stupidity. You’re quite simply fooled into disconnecting whatever might remain of your reason. When a friend walks around with the latest jacket from xxxxx it isn't really him or her that is talking but the advertising. The fact that there are more pieces of the chain removed from the original source doesn't change that. It just makes it even more effective and dodgy.

I will recommend everyone to study this subject. Those aware of the mechanisms at work should tell everyone in their circle of friends. Parents should also tell their children about it, in a neutral, non-condescending manner. We should all unite to make this very uncool everywhere.

It most certainly is. To not have a single original thought in the head is definitely uncool. To not have an original thought in the head and brag about it even worse.

Beyond greedy corporations

Apparently, the latest Harry Potter DVD was manufactured under a low transfer quality so people would decide to upgrade to bluray. I haven't received my pre-ordered DVD in the mail yet so I can't say for certain, but the folks at the DH pt2 board who do have the DVD have all said the same thing. They purposely made it sub-standard quality so people would go out and purchase bluray players and the blurays themselves if they want to experience the full quality.

I of course posted a lengthy post regarding how bullcrap this is, how some people can't afford to buy blurays, the players, or even HDTV's (I still have a 27" CRT). WB is cheating the good DVD buying consumers out of quality product in order to get people to upgrade and I am outraged.

Money can buy happiness

They can’t guarantee it, but may, for several reasons help you pretty far along. You can’t get everything for money, but you can get quite a lot, also, indirectly devotion and commitment from another human being. Most ladies or gentlemen taken for a ride in a luxurious boat or private airplane will usually be in a very good mood after a while.

Lise, as the very creative person she is, is imagining the following scenario: your new boyfriend picks you up in his limo. His private chauffeur opens the door for you. The boyfriend takes you on a daytrip to Amsterdam, where the two of you dine in a restaurant where the steak has been flown straight from Argentine. There are candles on the table. The two of you sip bubbled water. Two hours later you are fucking your brains out in the enormous suite at the hotel. Well into the next morning he proposes and gives you a giant diamond ring. You say yes with an excited howl and in wild joy.

Young and cynical and realistic Lise strikes again.