Month: November 2011

Further Thoughts on Atheism

The systematic attack of spirituality and belief by fervent Atheists seems to take place in much the same way that Albert Einstein noted when he said that most fervent Atheists are simply intellectuals and quasi-intellectuals rebelling against forced belief with active disbelief.  As if because one thing was wrong (as forced belief is) it somehow makes the equal and opposite reaction correct.  To force one to believe in any form of Spirituality is incorrect, but to force one to disbelieve in any idea of possible Spirituality is incorrect, arrogant, and just plain stupid.

“During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries…The term ‘atheist’ was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist.” – Karen Armstrong

As to historical injustices performed in the name of Religion versus those performed in the name of Atheism, the fact that Atheism has only been widely ALLOWED to be an even POSSIBLE belief system explicitly disavowing the existence of anything at all “Divine” for less than 300 years makes the comparison irrelevant, although the Pol Pot’s and Stalin’s of the world have certainly done their best to make up for lost time.

– Puppy >.< Yip!

On Palahniuk

“traffic in the half-baked nihilism of a stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine Inch Nails” – Laura Miller on Palahniuk

Puppy: I think that’s not accurate.  “Half-baked” and “stoned” imply use of drugs, ostensibly to amplify creativity, and I see none of that in Palahniuk’s ‘Fight Club’.  They also imply that the writer in question is not fully in control/command of their writings, which is doing a dis-service to every half-baked work ever made, by a high school student, college student, professional writer, or anyone with half a brain that is literate.  Invoking Nietzsche and NIN, besides bringing up two vastly different talent levels, degrades the at-least-well-meaning nature of those who are fascinated by them and write inferior works in an attempt to live up to them.  Palahniuk is different.  Here is a grown man, clean and sober, intentionally writing high-school level chaotically uneven I-guess-you-could-call-them-“philosophical” rants about vastly different subjects and somehow attempting to link them, and he is working at the HEIGHT of his talent level.  Sad, really.

“Until you can create something that captivates people, I’d invite you to just shut up.
It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.” – Chuck Palahniuk

Puppy: Let’s analyze this.

“Until you can create something that captivates people”.

Puppy: The use of the word “Until” states that IF the conditions FOLLOWING the word are reached, THEN the person quoted is in fact giving their approval for the action being criticized to be TAKEN, in fact with their blessing since no other caveats are made.

So, IF “you” = anyone that wants to blast Palahniuk’s “creations”, and I think it does, since he expands to a broad scope later in the quote…

It follows that if anyone in the world “can create something that captivates people”, they thereby have Chuck Palahniuk’s blessing to trash Chuck Palahniuk’s work, if they so choose.

Semantically speaking, anyone “can” create something that captivates people…just because they haven’t DONE it doesn’t mean they CAN’T…but let’s assume he made a semantic mistake intentionally or was just really peeved.

something = anything

people = more than 1 person

Therefore…

IF anyone creates anything that captivates more than one person, THEN they can trash his work, by his own admission.

So, Justin Bieber has every right to criticize ‘Fight Club’.

And everyone that put a video on YouTube that got 2 or more “Likes”.

MOVING ON…

“I’d invite you to just shut up” – Well isn’t that grown-up of him.  NYAH NYAH!

“It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation.  It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.”

So Chuck you’re saying her criticism has destroyed your works?

I think “act” is the definitive word here, as Chuck’s “performance” on ‘Fight Club’ is pandering to the mindset mentioned by the critic.  Nothing more.  That some other people buy into such transparent horsesh1t is a testimony to the fall of the novel as a means of great expression.

“It is easier to destroy than to create”.

Also, 1+1 = 2

Sad.

-Puppy >.< Yip!

‘Fight Club’ quotes – Analysis by Puppy

“On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 2″

Meaningless drivel. Nihilistic dogsh1t. Everything dies…so what?
What’s your point? We live, then we die. To believe this is the whole of life is to ignore all the stuff, you know, BETWEEN those two points. And since life is merely a succession of moment after moment, birth and death are two moments. There are billions of others. To focus ENTIRELY on these two is a bullsh1t escape from responsibility, morality, everything really.

“This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 2

Actually, it’s called depression. Unless you’re HAPPY to lose all hope…then you’re a moron, since there’s always hope, and a logical analysis by a non-zombie will easily reveal this.

“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 3″

Or perhaps this is the first chapter in a greater existence, and it’s beginning one minute at a time. How the hell do YOU know? And wouldn’t it be one second at a time, anyway?

“If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 3

Who cares? By your own previous BS philosophy, EVERYONE is just living to die. So why philosophize further? You’re done, man.

“One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it,
but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the
most you could ever expect from perfection.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 3

Since human beings are inherently all imperfect, how do you know exactly what perfection is? I mean, you took out a stopwatch and timed perfection? Are you high?

“And I wasn’t the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know
who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in
the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 5

You need to get out more. And update your book to the age of technology…what’s a “catalogue”?

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will
ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re
satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your
sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect
bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest,
and the things you used to own, now they own you.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 5

Who cares? You live, you die, right? It’s a little late to turn Tibetan, and you don’t even do it very eloquently.

“If you don’t know what you want,” the doorman said, “you end up
with a lot you don’t.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 5

If at first you don’t succeed, keep on suckin’ til you do succeed.

“After a night in fight club, everything in the real world gets the
volume turned down. Nothing can piss you off. Your word is law, and
if other people break that law or question you, even that doesn’t piss
you off.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 6

If other people can break your law without causing any reaction or penalty, how is your word law? I mean, are you totally living inside
your head at this point?

“It used to be enough that when I came home angry and knowing that
my life wasn’t toeing my five-year plan, I could clean my condominium
or detail my car. Someday I’d be dead without a scar and there
would be a really nice condo and car.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 6

Then do something meaningful and important instead of beating the
fck out of other guys.

“Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer…. Maybe self-destruction
is the answer.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 6

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHA…ummm…sure, go ahead. I mean,
WAIT! NO, don’t! PLEASE! Errrr…nah, go ahead.

“The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as
if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says.”
– Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 6

YEAH! It means beating each other up and fcking women and treating them like sh1t while spouting nihilistic cliches.

4/13/16: “Are you kidding me? I mean I could do all that macho stuff
if I wanted to, but it wouldn’t make me any more of a man.
Do I detect a hint of raised consciousness?
Yeah. I mean, a real guy doesn’t have to jump on sharks and dodge
poison darts just to prove he’s a guy.
…I’m astonished.
A real guy just has to score heavy with the babes, that’s all.”

“‘It’s only after you’ve lost everything,’ Tyler says, ‘that you’re
free to do anything.'” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 8

Hey, didn’t you steal that from Janis Joplin?

“I wanted to burn the Louvre. I’d do the Elgin Marbles with a sledgehammer and wipe my @ss with the Mona Lisa. This is my world, now. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 16

Yeah, but you’re a fcken moron.

“We wanted to blast the world free of history…. picture yourself
planting radishes and seed potatoes on the fifteenth green of a
forgotten golf course. You’ll hunt elk through the damp canyon
forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next
to the skeleton of the Space Needle leaning at a forty-five degree
angle. We’ll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what’s left of mankind will retreat to empty
zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against the bears and big
cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 16

Was this MEANT for consumption by quasi-intellectual teens?
Sort of a nihilistic, macho-poetry ‘Twilight’?

“‘Recycling and speed limits are bullsh1t’, Tyler said. ‘They’re
like someone who quits smoking on his deathbed.'” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 16

Is that a sh1tty metaphor or a sh1tty simile? I forget the “like”
or “as” rule.

“‘Imagine,’ Tyler said, ‘stalking elk past department store windows
and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on
hangers; you’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest
of your life, and you’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap
the Sears Tower. Jack and the beanstalk, you’ll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty
car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching
eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles.'” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 16

John Lennon you ain’t.

“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same
decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of
the same compost pile.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 17

Well isn’t that special.

“…you’re not how much money you’ve got in the bank. You’re not
your job. You’re not your family, and you’re not who you tell yourself….
You’re not your name….
You’re not your problems….
You’re not your age….
You are not your hopes.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 18

This is not your beautiful house…this is not…blah.

“I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever
lived…and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 19

No, these men are refusing to talk to you.

“We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great
depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have
a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is
our lives. We have a spiritual depression.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 19

OMG this approaches mild coherence and provokes a little bit of thought…and it only took 19 chapters.

“We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them,
and show them courage by frightening them.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 19

BOO!

“I am the all-singing, all-dancing cr@p of this world…. I am
the toxic waste by-product of God’s creation.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 23

Agreed.

“…when deep-space exploitation ramps up, it will probably be the
megatonic corporations that discover all the new planets and map them.
The IBM Stellar Sphere.
The Philip Morris Galaxy.
Planet Denny’s.
Every planet will take on the corporate identity of whoever rapes it first…” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 23

I think Roger Dean should have drawn a cool scene around this paragraph.

“I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging
on the wall behind him, and God asks me, “Why?” Why did I cause
so much pain? Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes
on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong. We are not special. We are
not cr@p or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what
happens just happens. And God says, “No, that’s not right.” Yeah.
Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.” – Chuck Palahniuk, ‘Fight Club’, Chapter 30

Egomaniacal trash. Thank God for Ed Norton lowering his standards
enough to bring the book to averageness as a movie.

-Puppy >.< Yip!

The Duality of the original ‘Star Trek’

The worst dialogue ever in an episode of a legitimate TV series after also featuring some great dialogue shortly beforehand

OR

Why ‘Star Trek’ wasn’t picked up for a 4th Season

OR

Why Leonard Nimoy fought with Gene Roddenberry over his character …

First, here’s the great dialogue:

(Spock) “Computers, Captain…they fight their war with computers, totally.”
(Anon VII) “Yes, of course.”
(Kirk) “Computers don’t kill a half a million people…”
(Anon VII) “Deaths have been registered, of course, they have twenty-four hours to report.”
(Kirk) “To report…?”
(Anon VII) “To our disintegration machines.  You must understand, Captain…we have been at war for five hundred years.  Under ordinary conditions, no civilization could withstand that.  But we have reached a solution.”
(Spock) “Then the attack by Vendicar was theoretical?”
(Anon VII) “Oh no, quite real.  An attack is mathematically launched…I lost my wife in the last attack.  Our civilization lives…the people die…but our culture goes on.”
(Kirk) “Do you mean to tell me…your people just walk into a disintegration machine when they’re told to?”
(Anon VII) “We have a high consciousness of duty, Captain.”
(Spock) “There is a certain scientific logic about it.”
(Anon VII) “I’m glad you approve.”
(Spock) “I do NOT approve…I understand.”

And now, winner of the MST3K “How did they say that with a straight face???” award …

(Spock) “Yeoman Tamara…you stay here and prevent this young lady from immolating herself.  Knock her down and sit on her if necessary.  This is a killing situation.”

-Puppy >.< Yip!

Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1974)

The single best piece of sustained, intelligent, witty, and funny pure abject nonsense ever put to film.

OR

The film about nothing that’s really something.

Grade: A+

3/25/14: It’s hard to be perfect when you’re pure abject nonsense. Still great, though. Grade: A

7/30/16: Here we have the Pythons at the height of their collective powers. I could understand (even make) an argument that such a point occurred during ‘Flying Circus’, but for me this is their absolute (most triumphant) triumph both because of the quality of it (which is matched in certain ‘Flying Circus’ episodes) AND because the “newness” spark from ’69 had long since worn off here. There’s no “rush of ideas”, no headfirst dive into “let’s do whatever the fck we want!”…that’s long since over. The return of John Cleese (himself re-invigorated) re-invigorates the troupe, however, and blends inspiration with perspiration (and an actual budget) to present Python in its best light: the edits and re-takes and props, etc…are used to ENHANCE the comedy; not sanitize it, gloss it over, or cover it in layers of obfuscating BS. The same can never be said again. Grade: A+

Masters Of Horror: Jenifer (2005)

First Viewing Judgement: A worthless piece of pro-lustful-and-insane excess, a disgusting variety of fetish-porn for those who make Jeffrey Dahmer seem like he really WAS just the “typical guy next door”, a comedy for the sick-and-twisted that find extreme suffering, gore, and mutilation dismissively amusing.

Second Viewing Judgement: A lesson on the dangers of giving in to one’s dark side, a slap in the face critique of allowing meaningless lust to somehow justify abuse of the severely abused either by action or lack of action, destroy one’s real life job, family, love, relationships, morality, personality, self-control, and basically the entirety of everything a person is.

Recommendation: If you have a hearty stomach for gore and a strong mind for disturbing material, it’s worth watching if only to scare the fck out of you as to what would happen if everyone gave in and embraced excess as THE blueprint for life without any sort of restraint or restriction.

Grade: B

3/31/14: Looking back, I don’t think it was either.  I think it was someone trying to make as CREEPY a fcken movie as possible.  And they did a good job.  Although I’d like to think some of those “Second Viewing” things were at least somewhat intended.  Grade: B