The Contrarian

La Dolce Vita and Soak Me in Cognac. . . By Jebson Interlandi

For the past twelve days, I’ve been sauntering through the healthy climes of Italy. When the Prez first gave word of my “assignment,” I booked a flight to Palermo and eagerly waited my expense check. This was his faxed memo to yours truly:

“Foreign Correspondent Interlandi: The Contrarian will provide supplies and means for your immediate travel to Cefalu, Sicily, in order for you to take photographs of Aleister Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema. Western Union has your money."

It could’ve been my Great Shark Hunt, but that cheap bastard of a Prez only wired me 15 bucks with a pathetic note: “Hey Jeb, be sure to learn about Cefalu and have some 'Za on me." Luckily, I had recently won a fair amount of cash in a game of chance with some street urchins in Amsterdam. Let that be a lesson to those scamps — never bet against a blue-eyed Italian on a hasheesh bender.

My time in Cefalu was flush with hiking, sun, gelato, vin della casa and seafood. On the last day I finally managed to find Crowley’s old residence, which proved to be a difficult search as there are no signs advertising its whereabouts. Situated beside the soccer stadium, the decrepit compound of that charismatic and influential magus still stands, enshrouded in palm tree-overgrowth.

The house has surely seen better days — its roof is crumbling away and the rooms are littered with rubble. In fact, there’s no reason at all to visit the Abbey, other than to see Crowley’s now-faded artwork on the sanctum's innermost walls.

I experienced a warm, tingling sensation, however, as I stood on the floor where Crowley once performed his unique rituals. Hashish, goats, yoga, sodomy, cocaine, Egyptian incantations, 69ing. . . the energy still lingers. No, not really. Any sensations come solely from the historical imagination. But all in all, it was pretty cool:

The Wickedest Bungalow in the World.

Rec Room Window of the Damned.

DirectTV Antenna picks up "Cooking with the Scarlet Lady (a.k.a. Rachael Ray.)"

Satan's housekeeper is clearly on vacation.

The smiley cock-boobs demon makes you feel right at home.

Translation: Perdurabo gives good head.

Better soak me in Michelob Ultra instead — I'm counting carbs.

A similar design can be found in the Romney family room.

If you want to know how it all really went down during those dark nights at Thelema, watch this clip. Yes, that is Ron Jeremy as the priest.

After Sicily I took a Ferry to Naples. I’m not a fan of that burg, and I don’t expect I’ll ever go back.

Rome is, other than Paris, my favorite city for overall aesthetics. Any metropolis that's laden with statues and fountains (especially fountains) naturally wins my endorsement.

My favorite region in all of Italy is Cinque Terre. On the northern coast of the Mediterranean, these 5 coastal villages are all connected by an 8 mile hiking trail with bedazzling views of the verdant surroundings. The ambrosial air is perfumed with a sweet, floral fragrance. I also read a lot of Maupassant and Gautier on this trip.

Last stop was Florence, which is another open-air museum. I thank The Contrarian for granting me a period of renewal and professional leisure.

For anyone interested in Aleister Crowley, you might like to know there’s a new book on the way entitled, Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics by Marco Pasi (my current professor). The English translation should hit the stores in a month or two.

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.

Tibet Still Needs Freeing.

In case you were wondering. . .

In Case You Missed Obama's Incredible and Historic Speech On Race in America. . .

Here it is in its entirety:

Rihanna and Other Crap. . . By Jebson Interlandi

Spot International Correspondent Jebson Interlandi in the audience  and win, well, nothing.

It's been difficult for me to write anything lately. I'm missing a few brain cells, and I attribute this to the recent Rihanna concert I caught, free of charge, thanks to an old friend of mine who is now her guitarist.

I was hoping to meet her backstage, but no such luck. Has anybody seen that episode of Saxondale where Tommy goes backstage to party with the Queen cover band and they're all out of their wigs, drinking smoothies, eating tangerines and playing on their laptops?  Not that Rihanna is anyone's idea of an actual band, but it nevertheless seems to me that even most "real" rockers are getting soft. I've long dreaded the day when standard backstage behavior would consist of snorting lines of crushed vitamin C pills, sipping green tea and playing Scrabble™ with Jesuit missionaries.  Well, I'm afraid the hour is upon us. Call me old-fashioned. I still believe in whiskey and coke(™).

In contrast to the lack of proper debauchery exhibited by today's fresh-faced superstars, I've been catching up on theories of genius from the 18th century. Interestingly, the normative language of the day for describing traits of "genius" — particularly in the case of Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart — coincided with an emergence of travel literature describing shamanic personalities. All of a sudden, artistic theory was being modified by the discoveries of the shamanic performer and his/her behavior: irrational, mad, eccentric, possessed, wild, ecstatic, etc. This romantic notion diverged from the "adulthood male" approach to art, which was rational and disciplined. [ED - We riders on the storm call it Apollonian v. Dionysian]. Apparently, these road journals discussing Siberian and Amerindian shamans gave the top music scribes of the day some of their most colorful lexicon. And henceforth, genius was synonymous with the "androgynous child."

Perhaps I'll stop there. I'm not sure how much nerdiness I'm allowed to exhibit in one entry.

I hope everyone was able to catch this excellent Guardian UK blog featuring a post by Moz, or Morrissey, as he's more commonly known. The piece was in response to his "provocative" interview with New Musical Express. You know, the old "create-a-racist" shtick. NME seems to employ hacks who aren't even familiar with Bowie. Maybe Casey should be writing for them. Casey actually asked me once if Dave Bowie (as he actually called him) was "that guy" who wrote "Major Tom."

"No," I told him. "That's Peter Schilling." 

"Oh," Casey replied.  After a pause and an awkward smile, he continued: "I love that song! 4, 3, 2, 1."

[ED - I must clarify that I am an expert on "Dave" Bowie, and was listening to Peter Schilling's synth-pop tribute to the Thin White Duke back when Jebson was but a spark in his father's drunken, leering eye].

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"

Get Thine Ass To A Newsstand. . .

. . .and pick up the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly, which turns a robust 150 years old this month.

The rag began as an abolitionist publication way back in 1857. While the country has changed tremendously since then, The Atlantic mission — to present reasoned and varied discourse on "the American idea" — has not. What better way to celebrate such a great run than to recruit a breadth of figures from today's public sphere to wax analytical / philosophical about what this "idea" means to our contemporary society and beyond?

The essays are around 350 words in length, perfect for us modern Yanks with short attention spans. Contributors include John Updike, Ray Kurzweil, Cornel West, Joyce Carol Oates, David Foster Wallace, George F. Will, Greil Marcus, Robert Pinsky, Sam Harris and many more. Arianna Huffington and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both politically-oriented immigrants, offer their unique perspective on what it means to be American, while Stan Lee turns in a typically earnest comic strip. Harris cautions against religiosity; Tim LaHaye (co-author of the wildly successful and downright disturbing Left Behind series) advocates for a kind of spiritual monomania.

Each essay is absorbing in its own right, and all stand as a testament to our nation's plurality of ideas and ideals. There are arguments for and against exceptionalism, with George F. Will cautioning that the very idea of an "American idea" could lead to the exporting of US democratic dogma, with unintended (and potentially dangerous) consequences. And he's a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.

Check out a few excerpts, below the fold:

Revelation Blues. . . By Jebson Interlandi

For the sake of fun, I thought I'd propose a theory regarding. . .you guessed it. . . religion. I will take a break from this theme after today, I promise.

Still, it truly is a fun subject, as its foundation depends almost completely on the supernatural. Nearly every religious construct emerges from an individual experience of the otherworldly — an epiphany, if you will. I've had at least one. . . and, although it may have been influenced by Sativa the Wise, it was of profound import for me.

Let's begin with Christianity. Surprisingly, that bestial behemoth was not the product of Jesus the Christ, but rather Paul the Turk. Happily persecuting the followers of an inchoate Jesus-cult, Saul (as he was then known) radically changed his behavior after a radiant vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul never knew Jesus in real life, but in his vision, the Son of Man commanded him to spread the Good Word throughout the world so the messiah could one day return, bringing the Kingdom of God with him. Now, Jesus was originally supposed to return during Paul's lifetime, but once it became clear to Paul this was not likely, his big comeback was rescheduled for the day when everyone on Earth had been converted to the True Faith. Convenient.

Paul was nevertheless quite influential, but keep in mind that he owed his sense of purpose to an altered state. [ED: just ask a musician who has been on the road for months — the shit fucks you up.]

Another persuasive figure who helped shape Christianity as we know it was Augustine the Algerian. This Church Father was a practicing Manicheaen until one day, while strolling through a garden in Milan, he heard the voice of a child singing. The disembodied kidsong bade him to read the Bible and take it to heart. From this hallucination experience, one more sculptor of the Church was chiseled.

Muhammad had Gabriel in the cave, Joseph Smith talked to Jesus and Daddy, Swedenborg shared his table with the Lord; there are countless more examples. Imagine for a moment that these visions were real — only instead of beneficent gods, the revenants were actually demons bent on duping their recipients for the sake of doing massive harm. [ED: stop giving away my secrets!]

Augustine himself was well versed with the ideas of the Neoplatonists. In his influential City of God, he certifies that the Daimons of the Greeks (who could be either good or evil) were simply Demons, with the sole intent to harm mankind. 

Zoroaster pulled this trick many years beforehand, in his polemics against early Hinduism. By strategically claiming that the Hindu Devas (deities for the Hindus) were Devs (devils for the Zoroastrians), he presented the rival Hindus as false worshipers.

If Satan is indeed the Great Deceiver, what better way to trick mankind than through revelation? If you look at the results, I'd say, that, through the guise of angelic entities, Satan succeeded. . . of course, this is merely speculation, nothing more. Oh yeah, there was another little bastard who had a vision of Jesus while lying in his hospital bed after being temporarily blinded by mustard gas. Jesus told him to personally avenge the death of the Savior. A mustache-trim later, and the worst kind of history was made.

Of course, there's always the possibility that these visions were genuine — who knows?  But if I were the Great Deceiver, it would make sense to present myself as some influential angel and get a mortal to carry out my intentions with "supernatural" zeal.

Last night, I myself was visited by the angel Gabriel. He told me to write a screenplay about John Waters. Then he said that I must cast Steve Buscemi for the lead.

Sorry, Gabe. Not going to happen.

Happy Belated Birthday, H.L. Mencken.

Rabble-rouser, social critic and indomitable man of letters, Henry Louis Mencken, was born on September 12, 1880.

No wonder yesterday was so brilliant. Maybe you should send a scathing missive to the public figure of your choice in his honor. Or leave one in the comments field, and we'll forward it appropriately.

"We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine." — H.L. Mencken