mondojohnson

This past week I drank deeply from the 2012 Kooky Kool-Aid Kauldron, which was brewed up and served hot thanks to the release of Roland Emmerich‘s mega-disaster movie. TV, print and the wacky world wide web served up all kinds of apocalyptic nonsense in hopes of riding the paranoid tsunami generated by the cheesy blockbuster’s cannonball jump into the media pool.

I started the week by re-watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which does not directly reference the 2012 myth but does employ the same sort of imperious insult to “the Mayans” common in the doomsday theories. (i.e. “the-Mayans-couldn’t-possibly-figure-out-how-to-sculpt-a-piece-of-quartz-on-their-own” trope.) Despite this silliness, I found the movie a lot more fun to watch on the second viewing. I think my initial viewing was disrupted by my inability to get over how old poor Indy has become. But this time out I went along for the ride, enjoying its byzantine, paranoid plot and the arch-camp performance of Cate Blanchett as a Soviet dominatrix.

Next up in the doomsday cavalcade were the numerous “documentaries” that turned up on various cable channels. Most of these were dominated by “experts” on the 2012 scenario, such as Richard Hoagland, the former NASA consultant who clearly went off the rails a while back. These shows tend to be fun, and I can take them at face value (especially if they’re on the SyFy channel, which is truth in advertising). But I get very irritated when they give short shrift to real scientists, such as the one History Channel doc that selectively edited Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Seth Shostak to make it seem as though they were warning of an alien invasion (the snippets were clearly part of a larger conversation about life in the universe, taken wildly out of context).

A long and tedious cross-country round trip led to my next 2012 selection, and it was the most entertaining of the bunch. It was Whitley “Communion” Streiber’s 2012: The War for Souls, which I picked up in the airport bookstore when I realized my other book was packed away. Streiber’s take on the legend is a paranoid epic. He stitches together a crazy-quilt of “Mayan” predictions, UFOlogy, alternate universes and centuries-old Reptilian scheming, straight outta David Icke. And he does this with his winking, “is this fiction or autobiography?” technique that made the otherwise boring plot of Communion so fun. (For the record, I think he’s having us on, and I salute him for it.)

And finally, yesterday I capped off the week by seeing Mr. Emmerich’s big movie. I concur with pretty much every review I’ve seen of it: it’s pretty dimwitted, but the lavishly generated end-of-days is quite amazing to watch on the big screen. Major props to the army of CG artists who brought this about — the resolution of the destruction is remarkable. Every corner of the screen is filled with remarkable detail: far from the explosive focal point in these sequences you can pick out realistically rendered people clinging to collapsing i-beams or running inches ahead of the onslaught.

But in the end it was dragged down by the very formulaic plot and characters. I would have paid just to see a show reel of all the destruction. However, I will give the writers credit for one thing: they played down the “Mayan calendar” aspect quite a bit. It felt more like a global warming parable along the lines of Emmerich’s other garish feature The Day After Tomorrow.

Phew. I am overstuffed by this super-sized apocalypse value meal. Let us not speak of it again, at least not until December 22, 2012, when we will wake up to a world as dull and annoying as it ever was.

I went to see the much-hyped Paranormal Activity yesterday evening, and was nicely disturbed and jolted by its effective, minimalist spookiness. When I arrived home I happened across an episode of Ghost Hunters on SyFy and was struck by how the use of “webcam verite” can yield such different results. Paranormal Activity had my heart pounding even in some of its effects-free, static camera moments; whereas Ghost Hunters induced yawns, even during its ostensibly scary moments.

Of course, I understand that these are two different animals: Paranormal Activity is a creative work for which I was willing to suspend disbelief, while Ghost Hunters is what passes for a “reality” show. To those who haven’t seen it, the show follows a sad team of credulous pseudoscientists as they trip over things in the dark. South Park gave the show a well-deserved reaming in its Season 13 opener, “Dead Celebrities” (the episode is not currently available on the South Park site, but it will return there soon).

So I am probably guilty of comparing apples and oranges, but it was interesting to observe how a similar collection of images can effect me so differently. It reminds me of the famous film school editing exercise in which a man staring deadpan at the camera can evoke radically different emotional states, all depending on what images precede the shot.

I highly recommend Paranormal Activity, particularly in this Halloween season. I can’t say I’d advise watching Ghost Hunters, except for a laugh.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

• Author: Christopher Hitchens
• Year: 2009
• Publisher: Twelve
• ISBN: 0446697966

I’ve always enjoyed Christopher Hitchens. Even in my deepest disagreement with him (re: W’s war), the man never fails to construct nearly impregnable arguments, and he does so with the tartest tongue in the living English language.

I’ve read Hitchens on the subject of religion many times before, so I went into this book with low expectations — I sort of figured it would be like eating some nice microwaved leftovers. Pleasant, but nothing new.

I was wrong, though. His previous writings on theism and religion were skillfully placed banderillas; with this book, Hitchens slays the bull. I thought, as a long-time infidel, that I had figured out all of the anti-god / anti-religion arguments. But this book lays out a few that hadn’t occurred to me, and it breathed some ferocious new life into some of the standard ones (e.g. the easy demolition of the “argument from design”).

Read the book, if only for the forceful and elegant use of the English language.

I’ve read Hitchens on the subject of religion many times before, so I went into this book with low expectations — I sort of figured it would be like eating some nice microwaved leftovers. Pleasant, but nothing new.

I was wrong, though. His previous writings on theism and religion were skillfully placed <em><b>banderillas</b></em>; with this book, Hitchens slays the bull. I thought, as a long-time infidel, that I had figured out all of the anti-god / anti-religion arguments. But this book lays out a few that hadn’t occurred to me, and it breathed some ferocious new life into some of the standard ones (e.g. the easy demolition of the “argument from design”).

Read the book, if only for the forceful and elegant use of the English language. // –>

Watching Tesla show on the “History” channel. Better than the stupid UFO-hunting and apocalyptic twaddle they usually air. (“History”?!?!)