I had extremely high expectations for this book. Robert Anton Wilson talked it up pretty heavily in Everything is Under Control, and the book is incredibly hard to find (at least without paying through the nose). I picked up a paperback copy on ebay a while back for a semi-reasonable price, after years of having a recurring search open.

I was probably expecting too much. The book is perhaps impressive if you've never read a piece of Kennedy conspiracy theory and/or if you're not familiar with Carroll Quigley's work. Most of his central thesis is basically a rehash of Quigley's thesis (though, I should note, I haven't actually read Tragedy and Hope yet, but I've read enough summaries that Oglesby's thesis does seem pretty much identical). The first half of the book gets incredibly bogged down in JFK assassination theory, which is fine, but I got the sense the book was written for an audience who hasn't heard all this stuff endlessly elsewhere. The sections didn't really present me with any new information, so I found it to be a bit of a slog.

The Watergate section was slightly more interesting. Most of his focus there is on the plane crash that killed Dorothy Hunt and on a theory that McCord was a CIA plant in the Nixon inner circle. I knew a fair bit of about the former, but the latter was one I had only heard about in passing. I read a bit about Jim Houghan's book Secret Agenda, which goes Oglesby one further and not only says that both McCord and Hunt were working to set up Nixon, but that the bugging devices were installed months after the break-in to shore up the story.

I should also point out that Oglesby's writing is fairly preposterous. He is prone to overly dramatic italicized statements and weird conversational insertions. I can't remember if he actually followed up a quote from a source with an "Oh, really?" but he certainly did something close.

Some notes:

p.233-234. His description of Sherman Skolnick and his "colleague, companion, and bodyguard", Alex Bottos, is fantastic. "Skolnick has been confined from birth to a wheelchair. He is intense, loud, overbearing, quick, suspicious, sometime merry, all upper torso and arms, boisterout, gnomic-faced. Bottos is more somber and sepulchral. He says he was at Opalaka in 1960-61 with Hunt on their Bay of Pigs campaign. He carries a pistol and is fond of flashing it. He dresses with old-fashioned nattiness and polishes to a high gloss both his black hair and his black patent leather loafers. [...] They project an ominous, swirling, shadowy atmosphere, Skolnick wheeling and challenging, Bottos in a tailored flak jacket brooding on collapse." These two sound like they either stepped out of or were the direct inspiration for a Ross Thomas novel.

p.263. Further cementing their aura as fictional characters, Bottos apparently once infiltrated the Lansky mob and joined crew led by Joseph Sarelli that specialized in high-tech, in-flight airplane robberies. My life is clearly even more boring than I realized.

I can't think of any other writers of non-fiction (aside from the multi-volume biographers, perhaps) whose work really demands to be read sequentially. The Pickett/Price books are more a series of their ongoing research than they are standalone works, so it's sort of unfortunate that I've been reading them mostly in reverse order. This book's big finish (that all of the Western mystic tradition is, in fact, Johannism) was already covered in the first few chapters of The Sion Revelation, so I wasn't expecting this book to be especially revelatory.

Honestly, I found the first couple hundred pages to be a little dull. Most of it dealt with things I'd encountered elsewhere: the usual Rennes-le-Chateau stuff, the tradition of sex magick in the Western hermetic tradition, the Templars and their fondness for esoteric architecture, cults of Mary Magdalene in the Languedoc. All pretty standard stuff and lacking in the kind of completely out-of-left-field thinking I expect from these two.

Starting with chapter thirteen, though, things got much more impressive. At this point, they start mounting a convincing argument that Jesus A)might have been ethnically Jewish, but was religiously Egyptian, following in the Isis and Osiris mystery tradition, B) was a member of a group of an Egyptian-based religious movement led by John the Baptis, C) was the usurper of John's religious movement, which continued in parallel with the Jesus movement, D) was attempting to fuse Egyptian mysticism with the Judaic traditions and expectation of the Messiah, and E) staged the crucifixion as part of a ritual to emulate the death and rebirth of Osiris. Now, this sort of thing is exactly what I expect from Picknett and Price! They do a nice job connecting lines from the canonical gospels with lines from Egyptian religious texts, as well as showing that elements of Jesus' purported life story are lifted from the Mandaean texts about John the Baptist (whom they designate as one of a line of leaders of their religion). The only real failing is that they don't quite explain how Jesus' movement, if it was based in the Isian mysteries, turned into Christianity quite the way it did. They chalk it up to a personality issue, with Jesus' Jewish followers (particularly Peter) failing to understand the esoteric nature of his teachings and generally having issues with women. I'm not sure if this entirely undercuts their argument, but it would be nice to get a better idea of how the Isian tradition got taken out of the religion (or at least separated - they speculate that Mary fled to France and started her own Isis-based religion there).

Some notes:

p. 137. I've read a fair bit about Gioradno Bruno, but I don't think I realized he started his own secret society, the Giordanisti, which they cite as one of the main influences on Rosicrucianism. Also, John Dee's codename was 007? Seriously? Maybe I need to revisit the various conspiracy theories I've come across involving Ian Fleming.

p. 207. I should learn more about Georges Monti (aka. Count Israel Monti and Marcus Vella), described here as "one of the most ruthless and powerful figures in twentieth-century secret societies" as well as being "a double agent for both French and German intelligence." He was a member of the Freemasons, the OTO, the Holy Vehm(!), and the B'nai B'rith (despite being "markedly anti-Semitic"). He also founded the Ordre Alpha-Galates (which came up in the following Picknett/Price book, I believe). Eventually he was poisoned to death. Interesting fella.

p. 285. Lots of evidence here about Jesus being specifically described as an Egyptian. The gospels indicate he didn't have a Galilean accent, and the Talmud describes him as coming from Egypt (as well as indicating that he was arrested for sorcery). Their research leans heavily on Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician, which apparently places Jesus in context with a tradition of Egyptian magicians (which would also include Simon Magus, whom Pickett & Price later assert was the rightful leader of the Church of John).

p.330-331. Some discussion of the Sabians, a group of Egyptian hermeticists, based in Harran, where the Mandaeans eventually settled. The Sabians were apparently "extremely influential on Moslem mystical sects such as the Sufis." Given that the Daraul book argues that all of Western mysticism is based on Sufi wisdom, it seems to tie in nicely with the thesis here that all of Western mysticism is based on Mandaean wisdom (since there is some confusion as to whether or not the Sabians and the Mandaeans are the same people). How this all ties into the Levenda theory involving the Jewish Merkavah tradition, I haven't quite figured out yet.

I managed to listen to every 2009 release I owned over the course of January, so I'd be prepared to come up with a well-informed Top 10 list. The first five positions were easy to come up with. These were, by far, the albums I listened to the most in 2009. The competition for positions 6 through 10 was a lot harder. There was a lot this year I liked, but wasn't particularly fanatical about (hence the inclusion of the fairly sizable Runners-Up list).

1. The Thermals - Now We Can See
   Like I said, the top 5 here are the albums I listened to compulsively throughout the year, but I don't think there's anything I've come back to as much as this one. I'd been sort of on the fence about The Thermals for a while. Their previous albums seemed a little same-y, and I found them a little dull live. This album, though, is just unbelievable. Maybe it's just because my hopefulness about my species has been pretty low lately, but an album about the death of mankind seems like just the right sort of thing to sum up the year.
   
   
   
   
   


2. BOAT - Setting the Paces
   This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. BOAT are awesome. It did take me a while to get used to the more polished versions of a lot of these songs, especially since I'd been hearing them live for so long, but they've totally grown on me. Great album.
   
   
   
   
   
   


3. Hiawata! - These Boys and This Band Are All I Know
   What year-end list of mine would be complete without some Scandinavian indie pop? I know virtually nothing about this band. They're from Oslo. They sound like some completely awesome blend of Ash, The Lemonheads, Sloan, and some other band that I haven't quite been able to place. This album is incredibly solid. Pretty much the only song I ever find myself skipping is the title track. The whole album makes me feel like I'm back in high school, which is perhaps not a great endorsement, but I mean that in the best possible way.
   
   
   
   
   
   


4. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar
   The last Sunny Day in Glasgow album was great, but this one manages to be even better. I'm not usually the most enthusiastic listener of shoegaze, but this album is so textured it's hard not to be impressed. They were already one of my favorite bands to listen to while writing, but this album is pretty much ideal. I can't want to see them live this spring.
   
   
   


5. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
   I realize I might hold Yo La Tengo albums to a higher standard than I should. I mean, this is a great album. "Something to Hide" is one of their best mid-tempo rockers. There's some interesting new directions in sound (like "Here to Fall," which totally sounds like a theme song to the best James Bond movie ever. In my mind, it's the Hal Hartley James Bond movie starring Martin Donovan (or maybe James Urbaniak)). Ira's developed a pretty impressive organ playing style (like in "Periodically Triple or Double") that sounds pretty much like his guitar playing. It's undeniably a great album, but it's not I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Still, I'm pretty sure it's the best thing I think they've done in the last ten years.
   
   
   
   
   
   


6. The Besties - Home Free
   I was not overly impressed by the first Besties album. It was fine, but the songwriting just didn't seem to be there. As a result, I kind of ignored this one when it first came out. It seemed a little more polished, but nothing that really grabbed my attention. But then the songs ended up getting stuck in my head weeks later. I figured that was a good sign, so I gave it a few more listens. I'm still not entirely sold. There's something about the vocals that bugs me a bit, but there are some really solid songs there. "Man Vs. Wild" is the one that I spent weeks singing to myself while I desperately tried to remember who recored it, but "What Would Tim Armstrong Do" and "79 Lorimer" are both pretty great. Actually, there's not really a total misfire on here. I wish I could figure out why I'm so hesitant to whole-heartedly endorse this band.
   
   
   


7. Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall
   I hadn't been paying too much attention to Jay Reatard over the last ten years. The Reatards stuff I heard in the late 90's was decent enough, but I sort of lost interest in that particular blend of garage punk by the time I turned 25 or so. Somewhere in the last decade, Jay Reatard apparently started coming up with something fairly unique sounding. His vocals are just bizarre - there's some 70's punk group they remind me of, but I have no idea which. I really need to find his older stuff and see if it's as good as this is, since, sadly, there aren't going to be any new albums.
   
   
   
   
   
   


8. Nick Garrie - 49 Arlington Gardens
   I have pretty low expectations for any album recorded thirty-some years after an artist's undisputedly best work, but this is really quite good. I probably shouldn't be too surprised, since it's got members of Teenage Fanclub and BMX Bandits helping out. It doesn't have the same kind of bizarro psychedelic touches as Stanislas, but it's a pretty solid baroque-folk-pop album with some very pretty songs. It's hard to argue too much with "When Evening Comes." I'm pretty sure this is the best new album I've heard from a 60's icon.
   
   
   
   
   
   


9. Pintandwefall - Hong Kong, Baby
   Am I alone in liking this band? I have heard nothing about them, and all my attempts to get anyone else to listen to them have failed completely. Maybe I'm just totally off-base, but I really like this album. I mean, they're Finnish, and I am clearly a sucker for Scandinavian bands, but they've got a nice, weird kind of post-punky rock sound that I really like. Plus they have a song about an octopus who sounds like Mr. Bean. What's not to like?
   
   
   
   
   
   


10. Jeffery Lewis - Em Are I
    I kept coming back to this album throughout the year. There are some similarities to Kimya Dawson's delivery that I found a little off-putting at first, but I can't deny that it's a very solid collection of well-written songs, and, more importantly, it's a pretty fun album. Again, not really the sort of thing I usually get too excited about, but it's been a weird year.
    
    
    
    
    

Runners-Up: Vivian Girls, Neko Case, tUnE-yArDs, The Clean, Skepta, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Antony and the Johnsons, Wake the President, The 1990's, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club.

Apparently, this is supposed to be a collection for young adults, but I'm not sure I could tell the difference between the other collections. I guess there aren't any sex scenes in these, but it's not like the rest of her collections are especially bawdy. Anyway, a good enough collection for any age. "The Wrong Grave" didn't do too much for me, but "The Wizards of Perfil" was very nice (and, I think, the first one of hers I've read that was set in a fairly straightforward fantasy setting (aside from the trains)). "Monster" was only okay, as was "The Surfer" (though I should point out that "The Surfer" was the first piece of fiction I've read that included a fellow Arango. It's a common enough name that I'm kind of surprised I hadn't seen it sooner). "The Constable of Abal" is another fantasy piece and pretty excellent. "Pretty Monsters" is very close to being great, but something about the "werewolf story within a werewolf story within a werewolf story" was perhaps a little much.

I understand that it's a lot of work to expand a short picture book into a feature length film, but there's something about the pop psych interpretation that just felt a little off. I know it's not entirely fair that I am so fond of Return to Oz, which has the same blatant "this fantasy world is all an allegory for our protagonist's problems back home," but something about having Max become the parental figure seemed weird.

Actually, the more I think about it, what kind of message is that? Kids should put themselves in their parents' position? I know that viewing the world from someone else's point of view is part of growing up, but it seems a little dismissive of some valid issues children have. Max is entirely within his rights to feel anxiety about his mother not paying attention to him or to be upset that his sister didn't care that his friends hurt him.

I must say, though, while I was able to spend most of the film complaining to myself about this sort of thing, I'd be lying if I said the bit at the end where they all start howling to each didn't get me pretty hard.

I wasn't aware until the film was over that this was a spin-off of a TV series, but, looking back, it kind of makes sense. There is sort of an expected familiarity with the Malcolm Tucker character (and, especially, with his henchman) that was a little odd for those of us not familiar with the series. It didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the film. The film is perhaps a little hamstrung by the premise being heavily inspired by the rush to war in Iraq, but determined to be non-specific. Everything feels a little more vague than it really should. I understand they don't really want to be hemmed in by historical facts and don't want to feel dated, but it kind of makes the film feel rootless instead of timeless.

I'm going to have to address this movie in a couple distinct chunks, mostly because I have to deal with the opening ten to fifteen minutes separately from the rest of the film. It's a moving segment, but it sort of seems like a low blow to open your film with a "you will find the love of your life, then she will die leaving you old and alone." I mean, it's certainly effective, but it seems a little unearned to basically do that in the credit sequence.

It's especially odd since the film then turns to light hearted adventure and pairing-of-opposites comedy. It's hard to shake off the air of melancholy from the credits, which I guess is sort of the point, but it sort of clangs a bit with the hyperactive young boy. It's like being hassled at a funeral by a cheery youngster.

Again, I guess that's sort of the point. We're supposed to allow the excitement of youth keep us out of despair and loneliness, but it doesn't seem like there's really much of a mourning period (for the audience, at least. I couldn't tell how much time had passed between the credits and the first proper scene of the movie). Anyway, were it not for the sense of melancholy and resentment from unearned heartstring-pulling, the remainder of the movie would have been pretty enjoyable. I have a low tolerance for the freneticness of modern animated films, but this didn't grate too badly.

While this book doesn't really do anything that Good Omens didn't do better, it's fairly inoffensive and brisk. I couldn't quite tell whether it was supposed to be read by adults or children. I suppose it doesn't matter too much; it's got the same sort of feel as Pratchett, Adams, etc. all of whom I read when I was in junior high. Actually, I've found that both Adams and Pratchett read a lot worse as an adult than they did when I was twelve-ish, so maybe I'm being too hard on this book (which fell flat in pretty much exactly the same way). Clearly, I have just lost my sense of whimsy.

I've gone on before in the past about how profoundly uninterested I am in legal dramas (or legal comedies, for that matter). It's not that I'm necessarily anti-lawyer - quite a high percentage of friends from high school and college are lawyers now - it's just that, for non-lawyers, the only time you generally deal with lawyers is when something's gone horribly wrong. It's sort of the same reason I am not particularly interested in medical dramas. I don't want to spend my free time in a hospital or an office filled with lawyers.

So, clearly, I'm not the target audience for this show (aside from being the sort of person who will watch just about anything with Clancy Brown in it at least once), so I'm not sure I'm really qualified to say how successful it was. All I can say with any definitiveness is that I certainly won't be watching it again.

It's been a long while since I've posted anything here. It's been a fairly rough summer and winter here, but I'm trying to get my act together a little bit. I sent out a fairly significant redesign of the chucklehound.com website today, as well as a few little tweaks to the blogs. I think I might need to grant myself an amnesty on the backlog of logging I have to do. Maybe just start with the most recent entries and work backwards if I really get inspired. Anyway, there should be new content here fairly soon.

Also, I'm nearly done with listening to my collection of 2009 releases, so I should be able to put together a Best of 2009 list before the month's over. If I really get ambitious, I could try for a Best of Decade list. I've also got a bunch of selections from my alphabetical listening (which has largely stalled out somewhere in the O's), but I'm not sure anyone actually downloads/enjoys those.