On the Subject of Conspiracy Theories

Posted on by
2

By Steven Singe

Steven Singe

Steven Singe is author of the book “Why Good Girls Like Bad Boys: Understanding
the Global Currency Exchange Market in the 21st Century.” He enjoys gravy.

I empathize with the conspiracy theorist. These great things happen that affect our lives, the lives of our fellows, the lives of our children and there is very little we can do about it. For some, it seems, that powerlessness manifests in recounting and believing fully such detailed folklore. I feel for their disconnect and their need to assert some control.

It’s hard when you subscribe to some belief, subscribe to it so much that you forget where it came from and where it’s taking you. It seems so important, so consuming. And here people don’t believe you and you have to look at all of these others, others who “should know the truth,” and all you can see is the wool pulled over their eyes by whatever bogeyman entity you hold dear.

Not only do you forget where your belief came from, but anywhere you can find it refers back to another person like you and another and another. That circular chain of whatever you consider evidence coming back around to itself again and again. You see people thinking like you and can’t help but think you’ve found a brother or sister, a right-thinker and an expert of sorts (more on that later). You reïnforce and encourage one another. It all highlights your powerlessness, but gives you some feeling of control.
Continue reading →

Breaking the Gordian Knot in the Park

Posted on by
Reply

By H.G. Peterson

H.G. Peterson

Dedicated to Azura Skye

The other day I came across a fresh thing in the ground
When I stepped upon it, it made a squishy sound
It was sort of like a gurgle, like to a flushing john
Curious I looked down, to see what I stepped on

The color was transparent, though not completely so
If it were alive then its moving didn’t go
For when I went and took a stick and poked it several times
It didn’t react much at all except for a few whines

Wondering was it ectoplasm, I got down to examine
For at a closer look it might be vomit of a salmon
But why would fish, I thought, be walking down the road?
It’s quite less temperate than a watery abode

It was not coins or radishes, for certain not pureé
Nor bioluminescent pork, nor the scab of an ofay
I couldn’t see a kiester, or joints like dear Phssthpok
Could it be old muenster, or crushed caiman in a sock?

I tried to ask a man I saw about its genesis
But he just smiled and mumbled about whale ambergris
This I thought unusual and quite outside of true
For they cannot perambulate, not even with four shoes

This, of course, is why I can’t ever leave my home
Without a vacuum sample tube and shock-absorbent foam
In my satchel are always kept some beakers in a rag
‘cause samples sometimes spill out inside that battered bag

I sometimes take a ratchet and a candle with a wick
And lest we not forget, there’s that handy poking stick
Always prepared to test out a putrid mass I find
I keep these things with me. They give me peace of mind.

A Moving-Picture-Play Review

Posted on by
Reply

mccarthy

Full of Heaven. Directed by Dolph Lundgren, Starring Chester Copperpot, Matt Damon, Ian McDiarmid and Mandy Moore. Edited by Amanda Vacuumhindu. 20th Century Vole, all rights reserved . Hair by Aime Echo. Catering by Wendy’s.

One of the most difficult things to sell the public on is the musical. Musicals require far more willing suspension of disbelief than the average movie goer is willing to engage. Dancing, singing, tap-dancing, choral singing or any other such performance in the middle of ordinary events is hard to swallow. While Hollywood is always pumping out cookie-cutter genre stories (action, comedy, drama) musicals seem just far too enlightened for Middle America. It’s sad that musicals are only popular on cruise ships.

What was most exciting about Full of Heaven is not that it’s a musical, but rather its pure artistic boldness. Through its telling of the story of struggling screenwriter Harold Ramus and his star-crossed lover Dan Makroyd trying to discover their love in the midst of the 1950s McCarthy Hearings, Full of Heaven invites the viewer to critique the hypocrisy of contemporary American society (always a difficult prospect).

As the story begins we learn that Ramus’ latest script, a story about Abraham Lincoln’s obvious but ignored homosexuality, has brought him under the oppression of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Makroyd, the Democratic Representative from Greenwich Village, comes to his rescue with an impassioned speech and impromptu dance number/homoerotic lap dance on the House floor.

The two fall in love, even as the ruthless Republican radicals in Congress seek to destroy them. It’s a touching romance, replete with the realistic portrayal of two young men in love; their love revealed through a series of delicate and artistically rendered love-making scenes which show every aspect of the characters’ emotion, physicality and various penetrative ennui.
Continue reading →