The Contrarian

Pope Visits Yorkville. . . by James P. Caldwell

   

This weekend, Pope Benedict XVI (we call him "the one-six" around the office) visited a church in Yorkville, the neighborhood in Manhattan where I live. It was a great day for Yorkville. There was a crapload of firepower in the neighborhood, and a few of the Irish bars were packed with patrons honoring his Holiness' visit by getting even more shit-faced than usual.

Yorkville is an old German neighborhood, so it's fitting that Benedict would stop by. In the early 1900's, the bulk of Manhattan's German population moved from the Lower East Side to Yorkville. Today it's been diluted by some Irish and a fair amount of white Anglo's like me, but there's an old German church on my block and a genuine beer hall around the corner.

For the Pope's visit, we decided to do a little reading at the office and discovered that in the '30s, the neighborhood  was filled with people who thought Hitler would really make a wonderful party guest. We also learned that by traveling down 87th St. yesterday (the wrong way, I might add), his Holiness passed within two blocks of 178 E 85th St., which during the 1930's served as the national headquarters of Fritz Kuhn's German American Bund, also known as the fun-loving American Nazi Party. So you could say it was almost like a homecoming for his Holiness.

The Contrarian staff on the scene:

Satan's City.

Pentagram and Evil Bunny Man — all the proof we need?

There's a kitschy article in the Washington Post today about how DC is born of the Devil. The evidence? A couple of quotes from John McCain jokingly referring to the District as "Satan's City," and an inverted pentagram from Dupont and Logan Circles to the foot of the White House. Oh, and they filmed The Exorcist in Georgetown.

But wait, there's more:

The most persistent rumblings about Washington as the devil's workshop seem bound up in history about the city's design and the role of Freemasons in building it. It's a connection explored in the three-hour DVD "Riddles in Stone: The Secret Architecture of Washington, D.C.," which notched a respectable 90th out of 1,363 titles recently in Amazon's general history documentary category.

A DVD, eh? How about this book by David Ovason, which takes a credibly exhaustive, historically accurate look at the architecture of our nation's capital and how it fits with a greater esoteric understanding. Our Founders were hip to the importance of constructing the Federal City to align with astrological sources of power. Ye Olde Architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant and others were supposedly following the Egyptian and Roman model of urban design, in which key structures were built to correspond with heavenly bodies of supposed metaphysical significance. Here in DC, you can see the evidence of such design not only in architectural placement, but also in symbolic "code" found on sundry statuary and ornamentals. Ovason's book features a foreword by  C. Fred Kleinknecht, former Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern Jurisdiction of the U.S. So you know it's legit!

The Post article doesn't really get into any of this, of course. It's far too easy to wring whatever pop-cultural juice is left from the "Satanic Panic" exploitation of the '80s and early '90s. But I did learn that esoteric-conspiracy hack Dan Brown is hard at work on a "novel" about the Freemasons and the Dark Secrets of the District. Which means us occult history nerds should have something new to ridicule soon.

Report From the Front.

Hey there.

The new cat, who we've taken to calling Cornelius, has had his male reproductive organs truncated. I assure you this was, in fact, on purpose. He's now convalescing on his beloved kitty jungle gym.

Tomorrow is the big "State of the Net" Caucus here in Washing-town. I can't wait to mingle with the eggheads and tech-policy wonks. A thorough digital debriefing will surely follow.

Bye-bye, Giuliani! I guess 911 isn't enough to hang a campaign on, particularly when you look like a cross between Nosferatu and Montgomery Burns and you're running against the Plastic Fantastic, Mit Romney. Oh, and that old dude from the 'Nam.

Back in McCain's day, vacuum tubes were the hot new technology. Now they've just invented a transistor radio smaller than a grain of sand. No shit — it's made out of nanotubes!

Wold you be interested in downloading a half-million (17GB) photos stolen from MySpace profiles? If you answered yes, you're not alone.

Longtime U2 manager Paul McGuinness hates broadband, and thinks tech pioneers are "hippies." That's essentially what he said in his speech at MIDEM, the world's largest music industry conference. I agree with a lot of his points, but he did kinda come across like a blowhard. Here's the full text. It's definitely worth reading, as is Bob Lefsetz' predictably cranky response.

Remember a while back when I posted a link to a page cataloging various Presidential candidates' stances on tech issues? Well, here's an even better one, that also analyzes their views on related issues like intellectual property and copyright reform.

All Google wants to do is sell ads to the candidates. Well, besides controlling the world, bwah-hah-hah.

OK, that's all for now. Gotta watch those Florida returns.

PS: Sean, if you're reading this — I'm sorry I haven't yet returned your call. I'm a tremendous ass.

Invasion Persuasion.

Last night, the wife and I returned home from a hectic day of errand running and turned on the radio for a little background noise while unpacking our purchases. Lo and behold, we dialed in to one of the greatest radio programs of all time: the Orson Wells Mercury Theater production of "War of the Worlds."

Not sure when the last time any of you listened to this thing, but man, it's pretty amazing. I kept trying to imagine what it must've been like back on Halloween 1938, when scattered reports of a Martian invasion crackled across many a mono speaker.

The tension is astounding. Wide-eyed incredulity slowly gives way to a crescendo of paranoia, as Earth's meager forces fall to the encroaching alien invaders.

Many listeners tuned into the broadcast a little late, and missed the disclaimer at the beginning. The result was mass paranoia, exacerbated by an increasingly common piece of household technology: the telephone.

Some claim that Wells crafted the program on behalf of the US government, who wanted to assess public reaction to a mass-scale invasion. The "space alien" stuff was fabricated to create the conditions for analysis; they could later claim it was all just entertainment. Another theory posits that the broadcast was a cover-up for actual alien contact.

While the psy-op premise is interesting, I seriously doubt its legitimacy. Wells rarely anyone towed anyone's line, so why would he cooperate with Uncle Sam? I personally think he was engaging in some preliminary envelope-pushing before taking on William Randolph Hearst with his masterpiece, Citizen Kane.

The influence of this 60-minute radio play was so profound that when Pearl Harbor was attacked, some greeted the official reports with skepticism. Call it "The Boy Who Cried Martian" syndrome.

I was so thrilled to hear "War of the Worlds" again that I absolutely had to own it. I found a copy on iTunes for $5.99, which I bought begrudgingly — shouldn't this be in the public domain? I mean, I doubt my purchase benefits the Estate of Orson Wells.

So, in the spirit of semi-righteous piracy, I present to you a Halloween treat:

MP3: Orson Wells — "The War Of the Worlds"

VMAs, Freemasonry — What More Could You Want On A Monday Afternoon?

I'm still reeling from the colossal shitstorm that was this year's MTV VMAs. At least no one made me blog about it. All the pretty lights and booze in Vegas couldn't save this overblown (and dull!) awards show. Sarah Silverman should really know better. And I should have known not to bother watching.

Oh, but those Freemasons!

Over the weekend, Brooke and I paid a visit to the penultimate parlor of brotherhood, the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. The building is quite majestic from the outside, but the interior is like a glorified Elk's Lodge filled with pseudo-mystical, quasi-biblical baubles.

I still took tons of pictures, once I was certain it was kosher. Hell, they allowed a film shoot for National Treasure II: Book of Secrets. (Wasn't that the subhead for Blair Witch II? I bet this flick is every bit as good).

For those of you who prefer to hold tight to your Dan Brown fantasies about shadowy conspiracies and metaphorical Christ-blood, consider this your Secret Society Spoiler Alert.

Pics and deliciously clever captions below the fold.

How to Be Seen in DC.

This strange man stands outside my building all day long.

I live in the surveillance capital of the nation, which also happens to be the nation's capital.

But you know things are getting crazy when they start videotaping hapless movie audiences.

Actually, it's an attempt by Warner Brothers to catch people in the act of recording their films for illegal distribution. The most recent reported occurrence was at a showing of The Invasion. Considering that movie's piss-poor box office performance and shitty reviews, it's amazing anyone would even wanna bootleg it.

The Invasion is supposedly set in DC, yet you can see skyscrapers outside Nicole Kidman's office window. This, in addition to several geographical gaffes, has drawn the ire of the locals. I mean, if you're gonna protest something, it might as well be the details of the fourth remake of a tired sci-fi story. Not like there's a war on, or anything.

Links courtesy BoingBoing & DCist.

The (E. Howard) Hunt for Answers.

The Many Moods of E. Howard Hunt.

It's been a rough decade for conspiracy nuts. The Kennedy assassination, having been served on an Oliver Stone Party Platter in the '90s, seems to be veering back to a single shooter scenario in the minds of many. It can't help that Charles Manson prosecutor and Helter Skelter author Vincent Bugliosi recently published a 1632-page doorstop which aims to invalidate JFK conspiracy chatter once and for all.

There are still holdouts, however.

Last week, I discovered a wonderfully titled Baltimore-based web journal called Blog-Sothoth. It's published by a fella named Geoff, who works in the city's notoriously troubled educational system. He posts about all kinds of stuff, and often includes pretty pictures of B-More that go some way towards erasing the creepy/tragic images put in my mind by The Wire.

But back to the JFK murder. A recent entry on Blog-Sothoth concerns the taped deathbed confessions of E. Howard Hunt — ex-CIA station chief, Nixon hatchet man, spy novel author and longtime Person of Interest in the Kennedy killing. Prior to his own death at the beginning of the year, he instructed his son, Saint James, to record a few of his innermost thoughts.

This, in itself, is no longer news; Rolling Stone reported on it not too long ago. But other media outlets have been slow to pick up on a story which should be a fairly big fucking deal — maybe even more sensational than Lindsay Lohan's substance abuse woes.

On the tape, Hunt names names, plainly implicating Lyndon B. Johnson in the conspiracy to whack the President:

"Let me point out at this point, that if I had wanted to fictionalize what went on in Miami and elsewhere during the run up for the big event, I would have done so. But I don't want any unreality to tinge this particular story, or the information, I should say. I was a benchwarmer on it and I had a reputation for honesty.

I think it's essential to refocus on what this information that I've been providing you — and you alone, by the way — consists of. What is important in the story is that we've backtracked the chain of command up to. . . the doorstep of LBJ. He, in my opinion, had an almost maniacal urge to become President. He regarded JFK, as he was in fact, an obstacle to achieving that. He could have waited for JFK to finish out his term and then undoubtedly a second term. So that would have put LBJ at the head of a long list of people who were waiting for some change in the executive branch."

Seems George Herbert Walker Bush may have been involved as well.

There exists within occult circles (you know, the kind with big ol' pentagrams at the center?)  a time-honored ritual called The Killing of the King. Said ceremony — with its countless variations — is meant to pave the way for psychic/spiritual rebirth through the forced (and typically metaphorical) capitulation of a crowned head. Perhaps the JFK players were involved in a more literal working of the ritual, the culmination of which took place in Dallas. There can be no doubt this grisly event ushered in an era of cynicism in regards to government from which we've yet to recover.

A population is more easily controlled when they're not paying attention. Goodbye idealism, hello, New World Order.

Listen to me. I sound like one of them. Time to break out the tinfoil hat.

MP3: The Misfits — "Bullet"