INSANITARIUM

One of the greatest creative works of this century – V for Vendetta is both a mirror for our troubled times and a stark warning – they will come for you.

....and when they do....i will be ready, oh yes!

TORTURE PORN

There is no mistaking the intensity of reaction and the backlash against the current wave of what has been labelled as cinematic torture porn. Films such as those in the Saw franchise and Hostel parts 1 and 2 have been accused of promoting sickness and depravity and undermining the moral fabric – the latter always rolls around from time to time. The soon to be released Captivity starring Elisha Cuthbert (Fox’s 24) caused a reaction amonst America’s moral elite when the promo one sheets for the film showed Cuthbert’s character in states of distress and what appeared to be hooked up to various torturous appliances.

Why then is it wrong to show these images and make films like this when really it is only an extension of the normal artistic and creative pulse within today’s horror? I really see nothing wrong with making a movie like 8mm for example which depicted scenes and a story involving the infamous snuff cinema. It is fantasy and only a poor and twisted soul could actually believe that what they were seeing on screen was actually happening or were they to interpret the film as some kind of secret message to go out and do the same.

This is really nothing more than artistic expression. I feel that the traps and the story in Saw and subsequent sequels really included clever, cunning and twisted plot devices and part of the thrill was seeing just how the character would get out of their predicament or if they would end up as coating on the wallpaper.

If films like this were to be banned then it would set a very dangerous precedent and open the floodgates for the moral and Christian elite who claim that is their right and role to decide what the rest get to watch. I won’t let some anonymous and pious prick determine what I fill my hours with.

There will always be extremities and underground aspects to any artform or expressionistic activity, film being one of the most lauded and lambasted creative forms of the last hundred years. Personally, I find Disney offensive, their efforts to control your viewing and content through hidden moralistic messages within its media has practically raised numerous generations into thinking that this is right or that is wrong. Some fuckwit dancing around in a Mickey suit at a theme park does not an example make.

Legislation was passed recently which made it illegal to possess media, pictures and any other kind of document which is deemed morally and pornographic in the extreme sense. This could include images of bondage and other related activities and interests. In all respects – you could find your door being kicked down because they suspected that you had certain images or potentially offensive material in your possession – A disturbing Orwellian vision but one which is not so impossible to imagine.

I won’t hide my interests and fascination with horror from anyone. I am a devotee of the form and have read extensively into just why and what makes horror a modern form within our time. It doesn’t sit easy with me the idea that I could be persecuted for my interests and hobbies…..now that would be something the British government has probably done for the last…ummm….five minutes while I have been writing this. My government has a long, long history of violating the civil and legal rights of others – they can now see you wherever you go and now they want to monitor what you watch and if they think it isn’t right then you are ghosted to some facility. Come and get me, you fuckers, I’m ready.

The Hunt for Red October is still one of my favourite films, alongside Das Boot and Crimson Tide, and Connery is perfect as Marko Ramius.

http://www.subsim.com/

"Only the madman is absolutely sure."

Robert Anton Wilson

"There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation
of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already."

Robert Anton Wilson

"DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND: IT IS REALITY THAT IS MALFUNCTIONING!"

Robert Anton Wilson

When I write I so often work from images and these really work for me.

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What is it to feel, to know that tiny fragments of yourself are falling away? Like small stones in a quarry…dropping into the dirty water with barely a sound, only the smallest of ripples on the surface.

I watch the water settle and then wait for the next small cascade of emotional pebbles to fall….watching them with a deep, unnerving fascination, like the kind of mesmeric obsession you might have when watching a turtle struggle to get back on its belly.

They drop into the water but this time they make no sound, no ripple….nothing….do I feel shocked at this? No, I am still fascinated but shocked, no.

I close my eyes and try to summon up enough feeling, enough need to move, to seek out an answer, anything, a clue as to just who I am….eyes and heart so tightly closed and still nothing comes….no sound, no rush of feeling, no stir within the shell of skin and bone that I have become.

I am alone here….a small pebble amongst these giant rocks, a speck of dust on a sea of grey, time hewn stone..

Did I used to feel...? Anything? Anything at all….did I have joy, laughter….even sadness? I would settle for the most melancholy sadness right now….just so I can feel something….

But nothing comes, my wish goes unanswered…my prayers fall on the endless rocks around me and reach nothing but empty space out there.

I cannot see the sky when I open my eyes….i can only see greyness, an endless sea of stone and dirty, murky water….an ocean that seems to go on forever.

Shall I walk to water’s edge and just walk in?

My body receives a jolt and all the feeling that I could ever want comes flooding into my body….pain, joy and sadness….i feel as if I am drowning in these feelings, my heart and soul submerged within a deep abyss of lost emotion.

And then I remember….memory….fragments of feeing placed together to form a distorted picture….becoming clearer….a girl, young……my mind feels as if its burning as I realise that the girl is me…

She is being carried…..from the river. I can’t remember the name of the river but I know now that it was the same one I walked into…WHY?

Why didn’t I just trust to talk to someone? Anyone…..why did I feel so, so alone, so apart from everything….why?

As soon and as hard as they came the emotions and the image are gone and I am still here, sat amongst the stone and near the water…

Is this it for me….? Is this all that I am and will this be all that I know? I really don’t know anything more now than I am dead and I never really gave life a chance..

Emily, aged 14, alone.……RIP…maybe. xx

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Each time i listen to this it brings up so much for me. The Floyd's music somehow just taps into so many parts of my soul that it becomes more than music, it transforms into a deeper, more integral communication.

Enjoy.

There have been times in my life when I felt just totally alone and locked inside myself, unable to reach out or to call to anyone. It felt as if I was in a room inside my mind and all I could do was to bounce off the sides and enjoy the free music and the film channels which were piped directly into my cerebral cell.

More often than not though I often shut myself off from others – I have always found it difficult to deal with people – I don’t have a high tolerance level and I do get wound up and angry as hell over shit that I instinctively know I should leave well alone.

I am like a child sometimes with my inability to deal with complex emotions and the reason to respond in a way that doesn’t involve going nought to nuclear in three seconds flat…I know exactly why this is but that part of my life is not something which I will go into on a public blog.

I don’t know if much will ever truly change in terms of who I am as a person. I know that I need to get some of the anger stuff in check but with the integral personality and psychological structure then I guess this is it for me. I still get so paranoid and this drives me nuts, no pun intended. My social responses and mechanisms are fractured and definitely out of synch with the world around me – but is that essentially a bad thing?? It is if it involves violence or actions to the detriment of others but that part of my life has gone – I made my mistakes and I paid for them with my liberty.

I know that I will always struggle from day to day with things which most take for granted but this is me and I guess that these are the cards I have been dealt by the great cosmic dealer….now if I was to be paranoid right now, right this second, then I might accuse the house of cheating, I would accuse the dealer of stacking the deck…but at this point in my life I haven’t, as yet, started shaking my fist at the sky and shouting….give me a few years and then I might!!

Sometimes that we need to look to something different and original so that we can rediscover the energy and reason why music exists in our lives. Music isn’t just the tool for the record labels and producers with their licence to print money. It is pure and should be respected as a creative energy. I can’t stand the mass produced and over hyped crap that the major labels pump out or the clone bands and pretty boy fad rockers that appear at what seems like a weekly rotation.

For me – the music is about the energy of the soul and the creative pulse within the artist. Not the control and the strategy to see how much money that can milked out of the punters.

Musical artists like Wild Man Larry Fischer and Daniel Johnston for me are some of the most original creators of music – they chose to not get involved in the empty process of just churning out endless copies of the same over produced and electronically processed crap and made the music for themselves.

There is another element to this and that is the fact that, in more than one way and definition, these guys are social and cultural outsiders. Both Daniel and Larry have gone through their respective struggles in life – have been in institutions and in trouble with the law and they still find it hard to deal with the world as it is. But within their music they are able to connect, they are willing to tell their own stories and in their own way without being chained to a clone process of what is the current trend or what is acceptable from the point of commercial viability.

I greatly respect these and any musician, artist or writer who is willing to stand by their beliefs and give the finger to the commercial system because by doing so they have chosen to retain their artistic integrity and also their self respect – they didn’t sell out and they didn’t grovel at the feet of some nameless fuckwit label exec for a few extra pennies in royalties.

Music is meant to be about the honest and real communication between the artist and others – not between the record company and the cash register.

Larry Fischer

Daniel Johnston

Such a unique and original talent.....shine on you crazy diamond...RIP.