"Here Among the Dead" in EXPRESSIONISM IN THE CINEMA

A couple of weeks ago I finished proofing a rather in-depth article I've written for a forthcoming anthology entitled Expressionism in the Cinema edited by Olaf Brill and Gary D. Rhodes.  My article is called "Here Among the Dead:  The Phantom Carriage and the Cinema of the Occulted Taboo" (9,100 words).  The publisher, Edinburgh University Press, offers the following description of the book on their website:

One of the most visually striking traditions in cinema, for too long Expressionism has been a neglected critical category of research in film history and aesthetics. The fifteen essays in this anthology remedies this by revisiting key German films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920) and Nosferatu (1922), and also provide original critical research into more obscure titles like Nerven (1919) and The Phantom Carriage (1921), films that were produced in the silent and early sound era in countries ranging from France, Sweden and Hungary, to the United States and Mexico.

An innovative and wide-ranging collection, Expressionism in Cinema re-canonizes the classical Expressionist aesthetic, extending the critical and historical discussion beyond pre-existing scholarship into comparative and interdisciplinary areas of film research that reach across national boundaries.

The book is scheduled to be published in February of 2016.  Over the past couple of weeks I've been reading the complete manuscript and it certainly seems to be shaping up into an exciting project.  The anthology includes articles by other cinema scholars such as Robert Singer, Phillip Sipiora, and Gary D. Rhodes, who has contributed a fascinating essay about a previously unknown, pre-Nosferatu adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  If you're interested, you can pre-order Expressionism in the Cinema by clicking HERE.

Pictured below is an early version of the cover....

"The Deafness Before the Storm"

Given the fact that Donald Trump has recently been chastised for the cardinal sin of blaming George W. Bush for the events of 9/11, I thought it was about time to slip into our Wayback Machine and revisit the following two articles.  The first, dated 9-10-12, is entitled "The Deafness Before the Storm" by Kurt Eichenwald and first appeared in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times.  Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

"It was perhaps the most famous presidential briefing in history.

"On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s 'presidential daily brief' — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

"On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief — and only that daily brief — in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the document’s significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.

"That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it."

To read Eichenwald's entire article, click HERE.

The second article, dated 9-11-12, is entitled "Bush Received More Warnings About 9/11 Than We Realized" by Gus Lubin and first appeared in the Military & Defense section of the Business Insider.  Needless to say, if one replaced the word "Warnings" with the phrase "Hot Tips," Lubin's title would better reflect the reality of the situation.  Here are the first few paragraphs of Lubin's article:

"The Bush White House ignored even more warnings about September 11 than we thought, according to journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has a column in the NYT and a new book out today.

"We already knew about the presidential brief from Aug. 6, 2001 that was titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' The White House has shown that this declassified document was primarily a history of Al Qaeda, not a warning of imminent attack.

"But there were other briefings, some seen by Eichenwald, that did warn of an imminent attack."

To read Lubin's entire article, click HERE.

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CHAMELEO ON DARKNESS RADIO!

Last Tuesday night, on the 13th of October, I was interviewed by Dave Schrader (a frequent guest host on Coast to Coast AM) on Darkness Radio, which broadcasts nightly out of Minneapolis, Minnesota on AM 1130.  We discussed Chameleo for two hours immediately following the Democratic debates, a strangely appropriate segue.  I'd like to thank Tim Dennis, the producer of Darkness Radio, for inviting me on the show.  If you'd like to hear the first hour, click HERE.  The second hour of the show can be heard right HERE.  (Dig that groovy surf version of the Dexter theme music that kicks off each hour!)

Alien Megastructures

Here are the opening paragraphs of Lee Williams' 10-15-15 Independent article entitled "Astronomers May Have Found Giant Alien 'Megastructures' Orbiting Star Near the Milky Way":

"A large cluster of objects in space look like something you would 'expect an alien civilization to build,' astronomers have said.  

"Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish a report on the 'bizarre' star system suggesting the objects could be a 'swarm of megastructures,' according to a new report.

"'I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,' Wright told The Atlantic. 'Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilisation to build.'

"The snappily named KIC 8462852 star lies just above the Milky Way between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. It first attracted the attention of astronomers in 2009 when the Kepler Space Telescope identified it as a candidate for having orbiting Earth-like planets.

"But KIC 8462852 was emitting a stranger light pattern than any of the other stars in Kepler’s search for habitable planets.

"Kepler works by analysing light from distant places in the universe — looking for changes that take place when planets move in front of their stars. But the dip in starlight from KIC 8462852 doesn't seem to be the normal pattern for a planet."

To read the entirety of Williams' article, click HERE.

John McCone and the JFK Assassination

What follow are the opening paragraphs of Philip Shenon's 10-6-15 Politico Magazine article entitled "Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up" (despite the dramatic title, this is a tame article overall, but nonetheless it contains certain points of cryptoscatological interest):  

"John McCone came to the CIA as an outsider. An industrialist and an engineer by training, he replaced veteran spymaster Allen Dulles as director of central intelligence in November 1961, after John F. Kennedy had forced out Dulles following the CIA’s bungled operation to oust Fidel Castro by invading Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. McCone had one overriding mission: restore order at the besieged CIA. Kennedy hoped his management skills might prevent a future debacle, even if the Californian—mostly a stranger to the clubby, blue-blooded world of the men like Dulles who had always run the spy agency—faced a steep learning curve.

"After JFK’s assassination in Dallas in November 1963, President Lyndon Johnson kept McCone in place at the CIA, and the CIA director became an important witness before the Warren Commission, the panel Johnson created to investigate Kennedy’s murder. McCone pledged full cooperation with the commission, which was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and testified that the CIA had no evidence to suggest that Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, was part of any conspiracy, foreign or domestic. In its final report, the commission came to agree with McCone’s depiction of Oswald, a former Marine and self-proclaimed Marxist, as a delusional lone wolf.

"But did McCone come close to perjury all those decades ago? Did the onetime Washington outsider in fact hide agency secrets that might still rewrite the history of the assassination? Even the CIA is now willing to raise these questions. Half a century after JFK’s death, in a once-secret report written in 2013 by the CIA’s top in-house historian and quietly declassified last fall, the spy agency acknowledges what others were convinced of long ago: that McCone and other senior CIA officials were 'complicit' in keeping 'incendiary' information from the Warren Commission."

To read Shenon's entire article, click HERE.

FIGHT FOR OUR FREEDOM RADIO

Earlier this morning I did another interview about Chameleo and related topics (including the recent Oregon shootings), this one on Fight for Our Freedom Radio.  The interview is over two hours long and contains some scintillating, brand new information.  I'd like to thank the host, Badbaby, for her excellent questions.  

By the way, you know you’re in for a good interview when the host is named “Badbaby,” no doubt about it.  

Click HERE to listen to the interview.

The Skylight Books Podcast

If you were unable to attend the Chameleo event at Skylight Books back on September 10^th, YOU’RE IN LUCK.  You can now hear it in its entirety on Skylight’s most recent podcast!  Yes, my friends, you too can now THRILL to the mellifluous sounds of a cranky hippie storming out of the bookstore after hearing me utter something shockingly obvious and inoffensive.  Click HERE to avail yourself of this most illuminating experience!  Whoopee!