nuzzaci - an online journal

Unlike other Chuck Palahniuk books, it has taken me a few months to actually get my teeth into this one. I received Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey already back in May, but it wasn’t until last week that I actually started reading it. One of the reasons for the delay was due to the form in which the book was written — an oral biography.

Author’s Note:

This book is written in the style of an oral history, a form which requires interviewing a wide variety of witnesses and compiling their testimony. Anytime multiple sources are questioned about a shared experience, it’s inevitable for them occasionally to contradict each other. For additional biographies written in this style, please see Capote By George Plimpton, Edie by Jean Stein, and Lexicon Devil by Brendan Mullen.

So, unavoidably, the biggest talking point on Rant is not the actual story, but in the form it’s been written. This can also form the result that the story itself (cough) maybe doesn’t have the equal depth as Chucks previous books… but the new format does keep it interesting.

As an ongoing Chuck Palahniuk reader, I found this book as a step backwards — back to 2001 — which in Mr Palahniuk’s case (in my opinion) is a good thing. Rant is more in line with his first books released pre 9/11 (Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke) than the ones released post (Lullaby, Diary, Haunted).

So if you have read other books by Chuck Palahniuk, and liked them, you will definitely enjoy this one. If you’re new to Mr Palahniuk, I would recommend any of the four books released before 2001 instead of Rant. Maybe Choke or Invisible Monster, since both are on their way to the big screen (Choke and Invisible Monsters on IMDB), and it’s always good to have read the book before you have seen the movie.

Due to the format of Rant, I do believe it would be a really interesting film… too.

How can I have missed this genius? I actually managed to not know anything about Bill Hicks until 2006 (12 years after his death) when I, for no apparent reason, felt like renting a stand-up DVD from my local film shop, and ended up with Relentless.

I have for a few years been a huge fan of Denis Leary, I liked No Cure for Cancer and loved Lock ‘n Load… but… it only took a few minutes of Relentless to understand where alot of Denis’ ideas came from… The day I saw Relentless, Denis fell quite a few steps on the ‘Ladder of Respect’.

Willow bought me the book ‘Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution‘ for christmas. It’s written (or more like put together) by Bill Hick’s lifelong friend Kevin Booth.

Even though the book made me cry toward the end, I wouldn’t advise anyone to read this book. Most parts of the book are very badly written, a lot feels very repetitive and most of the stories tell you more about the people who wrote them than Bill himself.

No. Don’t read the book. Buy the movies.

When I’m away I tend to read more then if I’m at home. I always have one or two books next to my bed that I’m currently reading, and they seem to take ages to finish; doing 5-10 pages every now and again before going to or falling to sleep.
When I’m away, these never-ending books often reach an end and new ones get started. Guess it has to do with distractions and priority.

During my week in Sweden, I brought (and finished) the book Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert. I think it is my first book in the Psychology gender, so my reference point is probably not the widest.
The book in general is a bit of a mind-fuck - a big catch 22 psych game on your brain.

An contextual example:

apparently, the describers’ verbal description of their experience ‘overwrote’ their memories of the experience themselves, and they ended up remembering not what they had experienced but what they had said about what they experienced.

So what you are reading here and now is not necessarily what happened, or how I experienced it while it happened, more what I now think I experienced when looking back on what happened. And therefor what I’m saying here is not as related to what actually happened as we might want to think.
I found the book to be very interesting, well written and funny. But this is all I will say about it. I will not post a long review of how I liked it while reading it.

This post suffered from a similar syndrome as the books next to my bed. I started writing down notes on this post when I was still in Sweden, and since then (end of october) I have written a bit here and a bit there.
The post ended up being so long and in such detail that I decided to start all over and summarise the original post, and spare you details, such as, what the population of the village my dentist comes from.

Let’s jump back to Sunday the 22nd of October. It’s 2am and the Formula 1 qualifying ends with Michael Schumacher 10th on the grid due to an unknown error during the last stint in qualifying. With a nose full of mucus (also known as snot), I go to bed.
5 hours later, 7am, I wake up, pack my bags and take bus 48 to Liverpool street and then the underground to Heathrow.

That was how the journey began (might not be the best beginning, but all journeys need a beginning). And that set the tone of the whole week in Skelleftea - rapid, quick and a bit stressful.

Flying… Flying… Flying… I have said before: “Flying feels less glamorous then eating a egg and mayo sandwich.”, and the fact that it’s bad for the environment, unpleasant, and this time (again) anything else than a smooth procedure (checking didn’t work since my electronic ticket didn’t exist, and on top of that extremely long queues due to extra security etc etc), just makes flying the most unpleasant, stupid and uncomfortable way to travel.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in 15 years time or so airplanes will be voted to wear the crown of the worst invention ever invented, and looked upon as something as stupid as the atom bomb. According to Sir Nicholas Stern report, it actually seems like it is a commercialised atom bomb in disguise.

Snow!! My family picks me up at an airport that was covered in snow (note: the photo above is not taken at the airport). And it was cold. But since they no longer serve food on the plane - I was dead hungry at this point, and the only worry I had was whether I would have time to get some food in my stomach before the last F1 race of the season.
It was one of those moments when I am extremely pleased over the fact that Skelleftea (pop approx. 35397) has the same ratio on pizzerias as an English village has on pubs.
The first pizzeria we went to was rammed with people. So we went to another one further down the road. At first it looked perfect, with only a few people inside, but it took ages. Turns out that the guy in front of us had ordered 31 pizzas for a junior hockey team… can’t put my finger on it, but there must be something to learn from that experience.

When the last F1 race of the season began, and the last race ever for the great Michael Schumacher, I was sitting comfortably and digesting a very tasty sandwich kebab pizza, on the sofa in the warm house of the Kontro family in Ursviken (pop approx 4060) just outside Skelleftea.

After the race, that didn’t really end the way I had hoped, I went to Skelleftehamn (pop approx. 3123), which is the small village 16km outside of Skelleftea were I was born and raised.

I slept like a soft toy.

As in every city, there’s always a local current trend; a bag, a way of wearing something, an artist, a way of life. As an “outsider” visiting you notice these trends quite quickly, since there is an abnormal and unnatural amount of something that, where you come from, is not seen as special or trendy. This time it’s: baby carrier, big bellies soon to deliver baby and the Crocs beach sandal.

The whole baby boom, big belly and Crocs invasion reminded me a bit of the white headphones and iPod era two years ago.

During the following 5 days I manage to (among other thing):

• Visit the dentist twice
• Have a lovely wine and cheese evening with friends
• Two schedule lunches
• Four evening dinner parties (one in Umea)
• An afternoon at my old job as a Lifeguard
• A bowling competition
• and of cause my sisters 30th birthday party

It’s not often that you find yourself coming back to London, from the north of Sweden, looking forward to get some rest.

It’s nothing new that the bush administration, or even american politics, or even just politics and politicians in general, have been accused of using fear as their favourite weapon of choice. Painting up a false reality and a oversized threat, and then glorifying themselves as the savior with the solution.

But how far back does this kind of ‘politics of fear’ stretch?

Last week (or so) I read a review in Guardian Unlimited newspaper on the book ‘The Myth of Evil’ by Phillip Cole. The review was very shot, but it touched upon the subject ‘politics of fear’ and where the fear strategy comes from.

Does evil really exist? No, thinks Phillip Cole, but it is extremely useful as a political myth. His varied and interesting cultural study of the idea begins by tracing the literary development of Satan…

…interlude for witch-hunting and the less familiar epidemics of vampires in 18th-century central Europe…

… Cole ends with an evocative analysis of current politics about “the terrorist and the migrant” in the terms ha has built on while discussing witches and monsters. “what we have here is a mythology of the evil enemy, such that that enemy possesses the demonic, supernatural power needed to destroy our communities.” Cole doesn’t intend it as such, naturally, but it’s almost like an instructional manual for the Daily Mail.

Satan. Witches. Vampires. Terrorist.

I haven’t read the book - just the review. But it truly seems to be an interesting read.

The choice of leading image to this post is simply because the review brought back memories of the brilliant film ‘Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail’, and the scene where they want to burn a witch.

So, logically…, If… she.. weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood. And therefore? A witch! A witch!

Ohh! Ohh! Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Ahh! Ahh…

Whether evil is a myth or not, or if i will buy and read Phillip Coles book - I don’t know - but I will definitely see The Quest for the Holy Grail again ;)

This article, titled: People Over 35 Should be Dead, got me thinking of, and reminded me of, a chapter in a Chuck Palahniuk book called Survivors (both of them, the article and the book are brilliant and I suggest you read them both). They aren’t very similar. The article just brought a chapter of the book back into my memory.

They both are about how society evolves into different eras, that later on will be looked upon as something stupid. It’s about different cultures at different times and different reference points which place different weights upon different values. The only common factor is the fact that we are dealing with people - humans.

The book is about a guy called Tender who’s brought up in a cult called Chreedish. In this cult, only the first born son can stay in the church district colony, the others must leave and work in the outside world.
On chapter 45, starting on page 276 (the book is a countdown, the chapters are structured in reverse so it is actually chapter 2 page 13) Tender is getting a haircut done by his older brother Adam. This is the last thing before Tender leaves the church district colony for the outside world. Adam, being the first born son and allowed to stay in the church district colony, has also been allowed outside the colony to do some errands. So during these last moments together, Adam tells Tender a few things about the outside world. Here are some of quotes from that chapter:

In the outside world, he said. women had the power to change the color of their hair. And their eyes. And their lips.

In the outside world, he said, people kept birds inside their houses. He’d seen it.

In the outside world, he said, people were visited in their houses by spirits they called television.
Spirits spoke to people through what they called the radio.

People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were too scared of being alone.

People in the outside world said something stupid with their every breath, and when they didn’t talk their radios filled the gap with the copied voices of people singing the same song over and over.

Evil flowed through electric wires to make people lazy.

Water in pipes carried away their garbage and shit so that it was someone else’s problem.

…in the outside world, people looked in mirrors. Right in front of him on the bus, he said, people had mirrors and everyone was busy seeing how they looked. It was shameful.

A hotel, he told me, was a big house where a lot of people lived and ate and slept, but no on knew each other. He said that described most families in the outside world.

Churches in the outside world, my brother told me, were just the local stores that sold people lies made up in the distant factories of giant religions.

Sure - some of these are a bit exaggerated - but he makes a good point. If we look upon ourselves (at least here; in rich and other rich and priviledge societies) with a bit of an objective eye and a bit of distance - we are pathetic. Religion. Culture. Modern sociality. These blocks have shaped, over time - ridiculous value stones, which we all have bought shares in.