Jonathan Safran Foer/savouring the flavour of murder

While reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer I felt a strong empathy for the writer. But I am not a man, I am not jewish, I am not in my thirties, I am not American.
Eating Animals is a non-ficton work where Foer tries to explain why we (the first world) eat so much meat and why we shouldn't. The strange thing is that we love animals and we spend a lot of money for our loving pets (buying them even presents), and then we eat an incredible huge number of animals every year. The point is that we don't need to eat so much meat and also the animals we're eating are raised in barbaric conditions. In fact they are bred to produce the maximum amount of meat in the minimum amount of time and with the minimum cost. Foer ends up telling us many stories even concerning his childhood and his youth during which he tried several times to become a vegetarian and several times violated this intention. I liked very much this aspect of his personality maybe because doesn't make him appear a rigid and extremist animalist activist. Another story concerns the amount of antibiotics we ingest eating animals: the antibiotics farmers give to livestock create also new resistant germs called superbugs.
Moreover, farming industries strongly contribute to the pollution of our planet, in any possible way (eg: the pigs processed by a single company, Smithfield Foods, generate as much excrement as all of the human residents of the states of California and Texas combined.)
Then last but not least Foer talks about suffering, and sometimes I had to stop reading this part for a while: we now that animals are killed in the slaughterhouses but maybe we are not aware that sometimes cows are dismembered and skinned alive.
Do we need other reasons to stop eating or at least strongly reduce our consumption of meat?

That's what Morrisey wrote in 1985, at that time he was my guru:

Meat is Murder

Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife
This beautiful creature must die
This beautiful creature must die
A death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

And the flesh you so fancifully fry
Is not succulent, tasty or kind
It's death for no reason
And death for no reason is MURDER

And the calf that you carve with a smile
It is MURDER
And the turkey you festively slice
It is MURDER
Do you know how animals die?

Kitchen aromas aren't very homely
It's not "comforting", cheery or kind
It's sizzling blood and the unholy stench
Of MURDER

It's not "natural", "normal" or kind
The flesh you so fancifully fry
The meat in your mouth
As you savour the flavour
Of MURDER

NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
NO, NO, NO, IT'S MURDER
Oh ... and who cares about an animals life?

I love Lovecraft

I usually don't buy writers collections but Lovecraft deserves it.
I found a collection of all his works including some letters (some believe that his correspondence is his biggest achievement) and very rare short stories. I was struck by this writer's weird and sad life: I didn't know that he'd lost both his mother and father in a mental hospital . As a boy, Lovecraft suffered from different ailments probably because of his psychological condition. He attended school until the age of eight. Then his mother withdrew him: according to some biographers, in order to justify this she convinced him he was so ugly that he couldn't go out.. as he would scare people. After his mother's death he was raised by his two old aunts and even got married (with a woman who was 7 years older than him). He lived for a while in New York with his wife, then he returned to Providence in 1926 and spent there the rest of his brief life writing, until he died ten years later.
During his life he was relatively unknown and published his stories on pulp magazines that scarcely payed him. Today he is considered an important American writer and a master of the horror fiction by many writers and film directors such as Stephen King, Clive Barker, John Carpenter, Guillelmo del Toro and many many others. Jorge Louis Borges wrote a short story in his memory and many rock bands were inspired by his masterpieces (among them Metallica). His creatures are so real and frightening that I have often dreamt about Cthulhu, Dagon and Ghouls during my best fanciful nightmares.

trying to explain to Travis what Mperience is....

What's Mperience? the doctor asks.
ok, so, let's start from the beginning, the doc is a bit slow on the uptake.
it's a web site.
really? I didn't know...
The doc is kidding me, he knew it.
It's a site where you can find connections, interrelations and associations among things.
"Wow!", says the doctor.
When he goes "wow" with that tone of voice I know he's not getting anything at all.
He goes "wow" with that same tone of voice everytime he watches a David Lynch movie!!
It's a site where you can find connections and where you can MAKE your own connections if you wish.
It's a site where you can give vent to your creative side, building connections between.. for example, a book and a movie.
or among a book, a drawing and a movie. or between a movie and a song, or even between a poem and a drawing, or between a novel and a movie.. between two movies, a movie character and a singer, an actor and a politician.. and between a movie character and a real character.
The doctor looks at me twisting his little head. He says nothing. He just stares at me with those little twinkling round eyes that look so much like marbles it makes me wanna hit them and play.
"Right!" he goes.
When he says "right" with that tone of voice I can tell a whole new world just opened up to him... it once happened when I told him that Ridley Scott's the Duellists is based on The Duel by Joseph Conrad... and it happened again when he found out that Captain Sensible was part of the Damned.. and again when he discovered George Eliot was a girl.

an unsophisticated Keyser Soze

Ronald Tackmann is a genius, no doubt about it. he's also an eclectic artist his inventiveness doesn't seem to have any limits.
I read about him on the New York Magazine and I was very amused by his story.
The man has been a guest of the Riker Island prison since 1985 (or even before?), when he first decided to escape. How? he made his own gun, carving it out of a soap. And he succeded in his break-out til two of his cons, hoping to get their sentences reduced jumped him. After six months he made another gun with a box of matches, graphite from a pencil and used cans. he ended up locked 23 hours a day and in that little cell became a jailhouse inventor. he projected energy efficient houses, jet helicopters, a pocket size survival tent and many many other weird and useless inventions.
About one year ago he entered the court of Manhattan as a prisoner and went out as a lawyer. They took him within 24 hours after he went to visit his mother and ate in his favourite restaurant in New York.
I think his biography could be a brilliant movie directed by Joel and Ethan Coen starring the talented John Turturro.

about Mperience

When I try to explain what Mperience is I always end up being very frustrated. I probably cannot find the right words and it seems all so complicate.
When I had the chance to show the homepage and the contents of Mperience the feedback had always been great. This demonstrates that things are always simpler than we think and imagine.
Due to this reason I thought that I can try to talk about Mperience in a way that I would do ON Mperience:
connecting my description with something else, a song for exemple.
There's a very nice song by Elvis Costello taken from his album Blood and Chocolate dated 1986, Uncomplicated.
the lyrics seems to be a bit hazy but I've always found my own meaning in this song, that is even if things seem to be complex, intricate and sometimes even tortuous in many cases they're not.



Blood and Chocolate
I hope you're satisfied what you have done
You think it's over now
But we've only just begun

I asked for water
And they gave me rose' wine
A horse that knows arithmetic
And a dog that tells your fortune

It's in your eyes
Uncomplicated

I want to buy you
A big blue Diamel
Cheap white plastic shoes
That don't walk out and don't let in

It's in your eyes
Uncomplicated

I want to show you
How I love you
When you're over me
There's no-one above you

It's in your eyes
Uncomplicated

You think it's over now
But this is only the beginning

It's in your eyes
Uncomplicated




Is it all clear now?

Mr Albarn & friends

During the Britpop years I definitely was a Blur supporter. I couldn't stand the Gallaghers and their unexplained air of superiority. Today Noel and Liam still haven't given up drinking quarreling and being rude to everyone.
On the contrary, Mr Albarn is the genius, brilliant leader and inventor of one of the most interesting musical projects of the last ten years, the virtual band Gorillaz (and he's still the sexiest boy around...).
The co-creator of the band, Jamie Hewlett is an incredibly talented cartoonist, I suggest reading his Tank Girl (the australian punk girl whose boyfriend is a mutant kangaroo) if you still haven't, you won't regret it.
Gorillaz are finally back after 5 years, and, let me say, they're unstoppable!
This new cd features guest appearances by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), Mick Jones (the Clash), Bobby Womack and Mr Lou Reed.. in person.
Damon Albarn recorded in Beirut also with the National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music and with the orchestra Sinfonia ViVa.
Put in the pot classical, techno, punk, soul, rock, R&B, folk with a large amount of pure and simple POP, mix well together and you have Plastic Beach.
the first single Stylo, featuring Bobby Womack is marvelous, it seems that during the recording Womack was invited to sing freely whatever came to his mind. Even the videoclip is a masterpiece, featuring Bruce Willis driving an old chevrolet and chasing 2D, Murdoc and an apparently robotic Noodle.
My fav song is definitely Glitter Freeze only because hearing Mark E Smith's voice always gives me a thrill, remembering the good old days of the Fall.


ps: go on the new Plastic Beach site and watch Tattoo indicating you the lift and calling you Boss as in Fantasy Island.