Morristown, NJ decided to host another tea party, held today in its beatuiful downtown area. Intrigued, and a little bored, Drew and I decided to travel down that way, see what it was all about, and give away what remains of our second issue in anticipation of our third (yes, it exists). These events have gotten some hype for (a) being organized by Fox News and (b) being attended by crazies; the right-leaning press, however, affirms the contrary on both counts, that these are average citizens voicing their discontent over the shadiness of government power. Having just come back from there -- granted we made a stop off at the comic book store after that, but whatever -- I must concede to Fox News (actually Reason magazine) on this one for the most part.
Perhaps what some people fail to see is that, like any other public assembly, dissenting or otherwise, it was organized and attended by citizens, the "rabble" if you will. They may be rough around the edges in expressing themselves, but they are far from hysterical. We had a bunch of issues in a Michelob box I had laying around and passed issues out to whomever, be they protesters or protesters of protesters -- three issues are what is left of that endeavor. Perhaps the best part about average people is that, if you're nice to them, they will return the gesture in kind, which most of them did -- even the guy who kicked us out was most courteous. Others did, of course, approach us with suspicion, the most common question after "What is Biopsy?" was "Who are you from?" -- that is to say, they assumed we were from an "organization." One even asked flat out if I was a LaRouche cultist (that was a low blow, guy! A low blow.) I had no answer for any such question. There is no Biopsy Foundation, Biopsy think tank, Biopsy Party or Chris R. Morgan Memorial Fund for the Alleviation of Priapism. Whether or not they were able to accept our indie cred is no concern of ours, but whether you were offended, delighted or simply bewildered we offer our thanks for your time and initial interest.
As for whoever it was who was speaking whilst we were there, I had no idea what you were talking about, but get a fucking haircut hippie!
For those of you who don't know, I used to work at a Doubledown Media, LLC which, if you don't know what that is, was a company that published magazines geared specifically towards certain types of the super rich: traders, investment bankers, CEOs, various people who own planes or smoke cigars, and, for a brief period, professional athletes -- basically all types of people that Real Americans despise for reasons that are only partially clear. On the one hand it was as shitty as the products imply (it's one thing to fact-check a ten part series on sorghum for the William Shawn-era New Yorker, but it's a whole other thing to fact-check stories trying desperately to glamorize the world's most unintersting occupation.); but on the other hand, I worked with some generally awesome people who were talented in their own right, it's one of the few times in my life when I felt as if I was actually part of a team and was, in some way, crucial to that team. Anyway, Doubledown, rightly or wrongly, went out of business earlier this year, and its entrails have been languishing in dreaded Chapter 7 proceedings, since then everyone associated has moved on to whatever else is out there.
Among those people is company co-founder and chief financer Magnus Greaves. I met Magnus on a couple of occasions and found him to be a charming fellow, carrying himself as someone who was actually quite grateful to have you on board. Granted this is the demeanor of every entrepreneur ever, but it was nice enough of him. Some time ago I finally decided to show Doubledown President Randall Lane a copy of the first issue of Biopsy. I dropped it off at his then-apocalyptically arranged office whilst Magnus was sitting across from him. Randall gave me his kind kudos and asked if I had one for Magnus. Not intending to give one to him (not because I didn't like him or found him square, but you have to draw the line somewhere, right?) I didn't bring any extra, so Randall and Magnus flipped through the one issue together. Randall's basic assessment of it was that it was "too raw" and in some cases should be concealed from future employers; but it may have had a different effect on Mr. Greaves.
It was brought to my attention recently that Magnus has put together a new publishing venture called MYMAG, which gives celebrities the opportunity to create their own magazines with material culled from other magazines and sell them for $10. Granted it resembles Me magazine more than anything else -- only Me has original content and guest editors that are actually interesting, if not as well-known as the MYMAG's subjects -- but one wonders if Magnus' light bulb for the idea was illuminated, if only very dimly, in that moment he saw a print publication in which some nerd wields 75% control over its creative direction and makes creative use of the public domain writings and art. The term "fanzine" has been dropped once in an article about MYMAG in Folio and again in the letter of one of MYMAG's guest editors Steve Akoi of Dim Mak fame. I hate the term, but that is how some people obviously refer my mag and other mags like it, and the magazines by Akoi, as well as Brett Ratner and Olivia Munn so far, are like fanzines in a way, if fanzines were mindless vanity projects made up of articles from other, better magazines and had corporate sponsorships.
This is not to say that zines aren't sparked into existence by vanity in some way, they are, but we treat our readers like reasonable peers rather than sycophantic fans who will swallow up anything with their idol's name on it, and we honor that treatment by offering original -- or at least obscure -- shit that's worth reading, which they can take or leave as they choose. So maybe the people are MYMAG aren't necessarily ripping off Biopsy, but maybe they should.
Post-script: Apologies for the sanctimonious moralizing in the final paragraph, but at least for a good portion of zines and zine-influenced mass-produced magazines, that's essentially true.
It is the middle of October as I write this, and so naturally I am at my happiest, which shall culminate in a haze of corn syrup blood on the night of Samhain -- that's Halloween for you non-Celts. Though I'm well aware that Halloween has devolved from towering bonfires, animal sacrifice and maybe a few phallic symbols to an excuse for people to shed their inner-shame and guilt for one night and reveal whole-heartedly the true wretched nature of theirsouls, I hold onto the simple pleasures that a contemporary citizen of a Judeo-Christian society can attain on so salacious a holiday, that being horror cinema and literature. As my father does with his daily filling of crossword puzzles, it is with horror films and stories that I maintain my sanity and set aside any tasks of the moment that bare undues stress upon me with, say, a work by M.R. James or H.P. Lovecraft; or a film like John Carpenter's version The Thing, with its intense, claustrophobic plot and brilliant special effects, or even something campier such as an MST3K "experiment." Though I engage in this type of thing year-round, October, the only month out of the year in which overcast skies are as pleasant as any blue one, provides an ideal atmosphere. It's good fun, but of of course there are always naysayers.
I suppose that it, too, was in the spirit of the holiday that Catholic culture jounral First Things decided to run a piece in its most recent issue by one David P. Goldman who is none too pleased to see a rise in the prominance of horror films in America. As he tells it:
Among all the film genres, horror began as the most alien to America. The iconic examples of the genre in the 1930s required European actors and exotic locales—vampires from central Europe, for example, and zombies from Haiti. The films were noteworthy precisely because they were so unlike the cinematic mainstream: In 1931, the year that Frankenstein and Dracula first appeared, the worldwide film industry managed to make and release 1054 features, of which only seven could be called supernatural thrillers.
Horror, Goldman argues, is rooted in Europe's lingering attachment to its pagan past, in which nature was believed to be intentionally cruel, and which the various monsters -- Dracula, the Werewolf, the Golem, whatever -- of early horror cinema were embodiments of that, and the rise of the Nazi's only intensified that. But America being the land of sunshine, lolipops and vaginal intercourse, these creatures were comic fodder, and after America had defeated evil, interest in horror had, according to Goldman, all but disappeared until the 1960s. Vietnam, the JFK assasination, student riots, racial tension, etc., etc. all seemed to contribute to Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, Last House on the Left, and so forth.
He is, of course, not far off the mark. Indeed, these are the films of creative people who, aside from being able to tolerate/create demented mayhem, have concerns as to the American crises; Wes Craven's were with Vietnam, George A. Romero's were with racial tension (see last scene in Living Dead) and later consumerism, and Roman Polanski's were with Roman Polanksi's reputation. I never saw this as detrimental to America since these excessive films were, in a sense, critiques of excess, rather than evidence of America losing its soul to European faggotry. Though his argument could hold up against the plethora of remakes and sequals of varying -- but mostly low -- quality, even here it is weak.
In China Miéville's introduction to the Modern Library edition of At the Mountains of Madness, he summarizes the most consistent convention of modern horror:
Traditionally, genre horror is concerned with the irruption of dreadful forces into a comforting status quo -- one which the protagonists frantically scrabble to preserve.
It's strange how Goldman, clearly not unlearned in the basics of the genre, has not picked up on this. Even the most base and grotesque horror films are based around the good v. evil dynamic, or even anti-European sentiments that are more than agreeable with Goldman's own views (i.e. Hostel). It just so happens that crass individuals like Eric Roth have more fun making exaggerated violence rather than Pixar fluff. So with horror cinema's morals hardly deviating from Goldman's own, his real target, who he doesn't mention, is H.P. Lovecraft, the literary figure whose best work has been nothing short of impossible to adapt to mainstream cinema's standards. Miéville again:
... Lovecraft's horror is not one of intrusion but realization. The horror has alway been implacably bleak; the horror lies in our acknowledging that fact. It is the sheer truth of this universe, concretized in this existence of its monstrous inhabitants [in this case the Old Ones], which explains why Lovecraft's protagonists are so unheroic; there is no muscular intervention that can save the day. All we can do ... is turn and run.
There, in the nuttiest of nutshells, is Goldman's real nemesis, in more ways than one. In addition to being a monster-mashing, Spengler-loving nihilist, he was also an unrepentant, even proud racist and fan of Hitler ("I know he's a clown but by God I like the boy!"). But he was also one of the most creative writers of the genre, who boggled the minds of friends and readers alike -- in addition to his bleak worldview, his monsters were indescribably weird. To think that America's viewing public would enjoy, or even notice, what Lovecraft was writing -- in print or on film -- is unlikely. So Goldman is advised to chill and treat this issue as he likely does trick-or-treaters: ignore it.
For those who are interested in Lovecraft films that actually work, here's a teaser for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness:
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