One of the records that's going to just miss hitting my top ten of the year is Marilyn Manson's One Assassination Under God Chapter 1. Yeah, he's probably a reprehensible human being. I'm not sure why I'm making allowances for him when I don't for so many others, especially considering I didn't actually come around to being a Manson fan until sometime around 2000. I actually attended the first Ozzfest when MM toured for Antichrist Superstar and ignored him the entire time. And when I say I ignored him, I'm not just talking about his performance because apparently, he and Rose McGowan stood right next to me while watching Neurosis on the second stage, and I didn't even realize it until my buddy Jake told me later. I just side-eyed the goofy-looking couple, thinking, "Try a little harder, Gothy McGotherson."
Anyway, I came around after reading two things Manson wrote in the late 90s. The first was his open letter rebuttal to the people blaming him for the Columbine massacre, published in Rolling Stone as an op-ed titled, "Columbine: Whose Fault is it?" His eloquence and vitriol made a deep impact on me because it was abundantly clear that this was a very intelligent human being. The second reading was Manson's Autobiography.
Up until those two pieces, every interview I'd heard with the guy - none sought out, mind you - made him sound like a complete moron. Years later I would realize it all depends on who he wants to present on any given day.
Anyway, I'm by no means a card-carrying fan. By this point, I haven't even heard most of his records. That said, AntiChrist and Mechanical Animals are fantastic records. In fact, while my life was disintegrating circa 2014-2015, Antichrist Superstar was one of the albums that helped me keep my head above water, to the point that the person who was ruining said life at the time actually began to get annoyed whenever she heard me listening to it. Maybe that's why I'm able to grant Manson's art the kind of separation I can't with other people.
Despite the fairly ridiculous album title, every song on One Assassination is great, and this, the single... the lyrics just floor me, as his lyrics often do.
Watch:
I finally saw Greg Araki's Nowhere and I fucking LOVED IT!
I'd previously seen Doom Generation way back when I rented the VHS from Blockbuster sometime in the late 90s and... yeah, I just didn't get it at the time. And Araki's films have been notoriously absent from streaming and disc for years, so now that Strand Releasing has remastered his "Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy," I'm finally getting a chance to take these in. And if Nowhere is any indication, I'm already blown away.
There's so much of the 90s Zeitgeist in here; not just 90s pop culture aesthetic, but the angst of the era, because the 90s was a particular brand of angst, indeed. Centered around sexuality and aliens and the burgeoning tech world that, little did we know, would consume all other aspects of our society once we embraced it. That's all here. This is a very analog movie, but with the edges of tech creeping in slowly around the edges; whether it's snow-filled TVs stacked high like altars or playing across entire walls, kids nodding off on drugs enmeshed in the scaffolding of massive neon signs, or space aliens and their abduction rays, the flickering neon anxiety of Nowhere reminds me how the world was thirty years ago and how it felt to come of age at that time, while still being artistic and strange enough to make an impact on visual and dramatic aesthetics merits. If you ever wondered what it would have looked like if David Lynch and David Cronenberg collaborated on making Repo Man, here's the answer.
Read:
I finished Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger last week. Excellent novella, and not what I would have expected from Mark Twain based on my previous experiences with his fiction, which occurred back in Grade School.
Yeah. Haha. Right.
The book has some very subtle, very disturbing moments of pure Horror, most of which revolve around Witch panic and burnings, and the overall commentary Twain uses Satan to deliver about the human race is chilling in its unflattering accurateness. This is definitely not what most people think of when they think of Mark Twain's fiction.
Next, I circled back to finish James Joyce's Dubliners - a book I've had on the shelf since probably sixth grade.
I'd left off at about the halfway point back in June and, upon returning, blew through several stories on Saturday, depositing me on the banks of the final entry, The Dead for my Sunday reading. This is arguably the most famous story in the collection and the only piece I remember having previously read in this volume. These slice-of-life vignettes are beautiful for the elegant prose Joyce is known for, and I very much enjoyed them. Reading this one is a a bit of work-up to see if I'm finally going to undertake reading Ulysses this year, a daunting work I've been wanting to read for two decades. The author's prose in Dubliners fascinates me, so I'm thinking yes, I am going to try and take that leap this year. When I do, believe me, I'll be chronicling the experience here. But that's not happening just yet. I'm closing the year out by reading through the three issues of Hellebore I recently ordered online and thinking about fitting in one last novel, although what that is, I cannot yet say.
Playlist:
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Shellac - To All Trains
Exhalants - Atonement
Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES
Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Faith No More - Album of the Year
Pitch Black Manor - Halloween Scene
Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 1
Turnstile - GLOW ON
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Saigon Blue Rain - Oko
Fen - Epoch
Steve More - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST
Willie Nelson - Pretty Paper
