“I think Brave New World is the best science fiction book ever, definitely the most prescient. Huxley was writing in the early 1930’s with Stalin and Hitler around, but what he was envisioning was our present.
Continue readingArchive for the Observation Category
Brave New World: Beware the Philosopher
Posted in Observation, Reading, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags George Orwell, 1984, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Yuval Noah Harari, Artificial intelligence on December 26, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
The Dark Side of Unconditional Love
Posted in Observation with tags love, unconditional love on April 8, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
Anyone who has been abused by a family member, or a partner, understands unconditional love.
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Flannery O’Connor Hates You
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Dante, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka, Huberty Selby Junior, Inferno, The Ramones, Virgil on March 20, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
I’d never read Flannery O’Connor until lockdown. I’d seen her listed as one of the outstanding writers of the twentieth century, specifically in terms of her short stories. I had time on my hands, so I bought her collected works.
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The Devils – A User’s Guide
Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading with tags Dostoyevsky, Martin Scorsese, Pyramids, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Devils on August 26, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
What’s it about?
What amounts to a terrorist cell in mid-nineteenth century Russia and its effect on a small fictional town of Dostoyevsky’s invention.
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Hitler, By Joachim Fest
Posted in Biography, Observation with tags Adolf Hitler, Anna Karenina, Anthony Roberts, Ian Kershaw, Joachim C. Fest, National Socialist Party, Nazi, Scott Morrison, The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill: A Walk With Destiny on February 18, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
Is ‘Joker’ the Best Film of 2019?
Posted in Film, Observation, Real Men with tags Anthony Lane, Arthur Fleck, Barack Obama, Batman, Breaking Bad: El Camino, Donald Trump, Gary Glitter, Gotham City, Hitler, Incel, Jesus Christ, Joachim Fest, Joker, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Rock and Roll Part 2, Sam Peckinpah, Sandy Hook School Shooting, Taxi Driver, The Art of the Deal, The King of Comedy, The New Yorker, The Wild Bunch, Thomas Wayne, Vice, Wim Wenders on December 26, 2019 by Jarrod Boyle
“Hitler, as the point of convergence for so many nostalgias, resentments and anxieties, became a historical figure.”
– Joachim Fest, Hitler
In the wake of the Sandy Hook School Shooting in 2012, President Obama gave a press conference during which he beseeched Americans to support the introduction of basic mental health screenings for gun buyers. Continue reading
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Death Symbols
Posted in Observation with tags Apocalypse Now, death symbols, Iraq war, The Things They carried, Vietnam, war on April 30, 2018 by Jarrod Boyle
Above: ‘Punisher’ emblem on RAAF Wedgetail surveillance plane.
“Such symbology… is always ill-considered and implicitly encourages the inculcation of an arrogant hubris.”
Lieutenant General Angus Cameron, chief of defence elect on his decision to ban the use of skulls, crossbones, The Punisher Logo, Grim Reaper and Spartan emblems amongst armed forces.
“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!”
Colonel Walter Kurtz, Apocalypse Now.
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A Eulogy for the Scariest Spectacle in Rock
Posted in Music, Observation, Real Men, Slayer with tags American Psycho, Angel of Death, Auschwitz, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Lombardo, DVD, ESP Guitars, Europe, Gulf War, Jeff Hanneman, Joseph Mengele, Kerry King, lightning bolts, Lunar Park, Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Nazi, Raining Blood, Reign in Blood, Satan, Seasons in the Abyss, SS, Still Reigning, Tom Araya, Vietnam, War Ensemble, William Blake, World War Two on July 4, 2016 by Jarrod Boyle
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“I had moved past the casual carnage that was so prevalent in the books I’d conceived in my twenties, past the severed heads and the soup made of blood and the woman vaginally penetrated with her own rib.
“Exploring that kind of violence had been “interesting” and “exciting” and it was all “metaphorical” anyway – at least to me at that moment in my life, when I was young and pissed off and had not yet grasped my own mortality, a time when physical pain and real suffering held no meaning for me.”
– Bret Easton Ellis,
Lunar Park. Continue reading
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A Eulogy For the Scariest Spectacle in Rock
Posted in Music, Observation, Real Men, Slayer with tags Angel of Death, Beastie Boys, Def Jam, Hell Awaits, Jeff Hanneman, License to Ill, Los Angeles Times, Metallica, Raising Hell, Reign in Blood, Rolling Stones, Run DMC, Satan, Show No Mercy, Slayer on July 3, 2016 by Jarrod Boyle
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“…The scariest spectacle in rock is Slayer, the Rolling Stones of the new American metal.”
– Los Angeles Times, 1991
Every real band has done a classic album tour. While limited to North America, Slayer did a series of dates playing their seminal thrash album, Reign in Blood, in its entirety. The performance reached its climax when the stage and musicians were immersed in a torrential downpour of blood. Continue reading
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Housewives on Fire: Let There Be Light, 2015
Posted in Housewives on Fire, Journalism, Observation, Real Men with tags Beautiful, Club E11even, Fahren Heit, Housewives on Fire, Jessica Mauboy, Mardi Gras, Max Inanli, Olivier Debais, Oxford Street, rainbow flag, Sydney, Twenty10 on March 23, 2016 by Jarrod Boyle
I may look ridiculous, but the job clearly has its advantages.
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Club Elleven was windowless and all the lighting electric. The only sunlight came in splashes through the fire door, when people went out to smoke or spray glitter on one another. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 