The Marxist Matrix – How to make sense of all those dreams-within-dreams in Inception.

The Marxist Matrix
How to make sense of all those dreams-within-dreams in Inception.
By Jonah Weiner for Slate

About halfway through Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur lifts an assault rifle and tries, unsuccessfully, to take out a group of attackers firing on him from a nearby rooftop. Arthur’s teammate Eames nudges him to one side and tells him, with an audible smirk, “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” He produces an enormous grenade launcher, takes aim, and gets the job done. As with many moments in Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster, this one requires some parsing. It seems that Eames conjures up his gargantuan gun on the spot, at his whim.

Editor’s note: As I’m off to see Inception this w/knd I steeled myself from reading more…

Source: Slate

Iron Maiden – Flight 666

You may have missed this limited cinema release: but really you should track this one down via DVD or web, cos it’s definitely worth it! Flight 666 – Somewhere Back in Time World Tour.

You don’t have to be a head banger, wear pentagrams or cuss Jesus. This is a phenomenal film about a phenomenal band – loud, gregarious and bloody brilliant -  just like the members of Iron Maiden and their manager Rod Smallwood.

It’s another fabulous documentary from Film Maker, Anthropologist and Heavy Metal Evangelist – Sam Dunn. Sam  is a Canadian film director and personality most notable for his documentaries, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and Global Metal.

And what Global Metal missed (in some respects) in terms of hearing enough music, Flight 666 definitely makes up for it and more! More crazy fans, crazy countries, crazy tour schedules and more Eddie.

Here are some links: and buckle up, not because it’s bumpy; but just very fast, oh and did I say LOUD!

YouTube
Sam Duun’s Facebook page

20 Worst Album Covers of 2008 . . . Vanilla Ice is back~!

You’ve just got to love ‘em ~ go see for yourself at Pitchfork Media

Actually I don’t mind this one – and the comment does seem unkind: but watch out for the Meshuggah: obZen cover not to be viewed before lunch.

Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer

“You guys, we can save so much money by getting my cousin Kyle to do our artwork. He’s the pride of his fourth grade class.”

Entheogenesis Australis – a Flashback & Review

It looked like water blending with oil as a hundred or more delegates to the Entheogenesis Australis Symposium (Dec 6th, Melbourne) edged their way through the crowds of silk edged black robes of Melbourne University students on their graduation day. 
 
Safely inside the auditorium the attendees where greeted by the affable Tim Payne who explained how he used drugs to discover more about himself and how we need to overcome the dopamine reward cycle of addiction that keeps most people coming back to drugs habitually. 
 
The spiritual dimension of psychedelic drugs was only touched on a few more times in the symposium which was much more focussed on the scientific, historical and regulatory issues of drugs ranging from mushrooms to absinthe, ephedra and iboga. 
 
As expected, Dr David Caldicott delivered a highly entertaining presentation and focussed on education and responsibility. He spent time going through the at times hilarious findings of the OzTox quiz on shroom identification. 
 
He also later called for the EGA to fill a role of advocacy and education during the panel discussion on harm reduction. 
 
The symposium ended with a Deva Daricha, a contemporary Australian shaman who explained how we need a shared meaning in our lives that will enable true culture to exist and how he is using ritual and ceremony to tap into the unconscious.

More on Entheogenesis Australias

Tim Minchin is Rock n Roll Nerd.

I was skeptical: but it’s actually a very good documentary. You’ll really appreciate Tim’s talent and tenacity as he tackles that old but famous adage..” it;s a long way to the shop if you want to reinvent a sausage roll!”.

I’d keep an eye out for his slated performances at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, they’ll be sold out 4sure! GG

Further information: www.rocknrollnerd.com

Testfreaks beta in Australia

TestFreaks collects product information and reviews from over 60 countries and several thousand sources to give people the best possible advice. Testfreaks are aiming to create the world’s largest review database in the next few years. The developers of the website previously founded the price comparison service PriceRunner.com in US and Europe that launched in 1999. Currectly TestFreaks has established sites in 20 countries. The main site TestFreaks.com attracts more than 1.5M visitors per month. They launched the Australian version of TestFreaks in early November.

Adam Kirsch reviews Slavoj Zizek

excerpt from Adam Kirsch’s review of The Deadly Jester>…

Last year the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek published a piece in The New York Times deploring America’s use of torture to extract a confession from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader who is thought to have masterminded the attacks of September 11. The arguments that Zizek employed could have been endorsed without hesitation by any liberal-minded reader. Yes, he acknowledged, Mohammed’s crimes were “clear and horrifying”; but by torturing him the United States was turning back the clock on centuries of legal and moral progress, reverting to the barbarism of the Middle Ages. We owe it to ourselves, Zizek argued, not to throw away “our civilization’s greatest achievement, the growth of our spontaneous moral sensitivity.” For anyone who is familiar with Zizek’s many books, what was striking about the piece was how un-Zizekian it was. Yes, there were the telltale marks–quotations from Hegel and Agamben kept company with a reference to the television show 24, creating the kind of high-low frisson for which Zizek is celebrated. But for the benefit of the Times readers, Zizek was writing, rather surprisingly, as if the United States was basically a decent country that had strayed into sin.

He was being dishonest. What Zizek really believes about America and torture can be seen in his new book, Violence, when he discusses the notorious torture photos from Abu Ghraib: “Abu Ghraib was not simply a case of American arrogance towards a Third World people; in being submitted to humiliating tortures, the Iraqi prisoners were effectively initiated into American culture.” Torture, far from being a betrayal of American values actually offers “a direct insight into American values, into the very core of the obscene enjoyment that sustains the U.S. way of life.” This, to Zizek’s many admirers, is more like it.

More from The New Republic>…

Editor’s note: Zizek critique from a US liberal centrist perspective .. GG

Review of John Lydon’s Reissued Biography

Sex Pistol John Lydon is ‘Rotten’ again

Why should you listen to Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten, a.k.a. John Lydon? Because he’s punker than you, he always was and he always will be. And he’s not afraid to say so. He says this and much, much more in “Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs,” just reissued by Picador. “I have no time for lies or fantasy and neither should you,” he writes by way of introduction. “Enjoy or die.”

More LA Times>…

Critically-acclaimed Melbourne Fringe show – THERE

Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub, Lithuanian Club
Street: 44 Errol Street, North Melbourne

Well, the critics agree: THERE is one of the freshest performances going around at this year’s Melbourne Fringe. 

Limited NIGHTS LEFT, so get in fast!

Margaret Paul in The Age writes:

“‘Right from the simply delicious opening, the two performers are creative and captivating, and weave together a compelling narrative of big questions, with a delightful sense of comedy and curiosity.”

The Born Dancin’ blog writes:

“I went in knowing nothing about this show and I hope you do too ~ my next MUST-SEE shout out and it’s so surprising and invigorating that the only response is involuntary laughter, not because what you’re seeing is funny (although it frequently is) but because it’s so damn ingenious, intelligent and courageous”.

Ming-Zhu Hii in her blog Mink Tails writes:

“For what it’s worth: this is easily my Fringe standout so far – I recommend it highly – it’s not profound, nor is its art necessarily high (although at times it can come quite close), but it is simply delightful, and made me of all people, whose track record with liking shows lately has been poor to say the very least, smile broadly, and actually want to applaud.  I think you should see it.”

THERE closes Saturday night Oct 11! Book at melbournefringe.com.au or 03 9660 9666

The Longitude Problem by Dava Sobel

I heard a very strange story about wounded dogs being used to navigate and uncover the secret of longitude. As a dog lover I couldn’t believe it, so as usual did some of my own exploration to try and discover if this hideous practice was true. I immediately found these passages from Dava Sobel, about a story by Umberto Eco.

excerpt…Umberto Eco’s “romance of navigation and science in the mid-seventeenth century” traces a tale of love and longing across two oceans at a time when the sea posed terrible perils to travelers. The story opens in 1643 at what turns out to be the “antipodal meridian,” or the international date line, where Roberto finds himself shipwrecked on shipboard. Halfway around the world from the Paris meridian — and at the furthest possible remove from his beloved lady — he is a victim of the longitude problem. The longitude problem, or, as Eco more poetically terms it, “the mystery of the longitude,” embroils Roberto in international espionage and launches him on his fateful voyage.

More>…