| Thursday, June 27th, 2002 |
| 11:54 am |
The End
This ends this stage of my journal since I have now left the US to go home to Sweden. If you want to discuss any of the books, or have recommendations for other books, you can post them here or in my Yahoo group (it is mostly in Swedish, but accepts posts in English). |
| 11:53 am |
Jim Goad "Shit Magnet"
I consider myself a fan of Jim Goad's writing, so of course I wanted his new book. I think it will be interesting, as an auto-biography and as an inside description of what it is like to be a very controversial writer. |
| Monday, May 27th, 2002 |
| 8:30 pm |
Elmer L Smith “Meet the Mennonites”
Together with my friends I visited Harmony, a small village just outside of Pittsburgh. It was founded by a German sect in the 19th century. When they left after ten years, they sold the village to a Mennonite pastor and his descendants still live there. I bought the book in the museum shop and I am looking forward to learning something more about Mennonites (and Amish) then what you get from Hollywood movies. |
| 8:29 pm |
Roy Lisker “The Quest for Alexander Grothendieck”
Lisker edits a magazine called Ferment which writes about some of my favorite subjects including conspiracies and mathematics. Grothendieck was considered one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, when he in 1988 refused to accept a prestigious award and in a public letter declared that he was leaving science and the rest of the world. The letter contained references to the soon to come destruction of the world and urged people not to seek him out. To Lisker this was a challenge and this self published book tells of his attempts to find Grothendieck. |
| 8:27 pm |
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| 8:26 pm |
Mikita Brottman “Hollywood Hex”
We tried to visit MOMA when it was free on Friday afternoon, but quickly changed our minds when we saw the block long queue. We did, however, visit its shop and since they where moving (reconstructing?) everything had nice reductions. This is a book about violence and death in connection with the making of movies. It bills itself as a book in the tradition of "Hollywood Babylon", so it hopefully contains some nice gossip. |
| 8:25 pm |
Robin Ramsay “Conspiracy Theories” (Pocket Essentials)
Ramsay edits a British para-political (a.k.a. conspiracy) journal called Lobster. It is very serious and sober, bordering on boring. I am sure this 96 pages booklet with very small font will be handy sometimes. The last two books I bought at the very nice St Marks books, close too St Marks Place. |
| 8:24 pm |
Bob Black “Friendly Fire”
As I understand it Black is quite a controversial figure in some counter culture circles, all though I have no idea why. I have read "Beneath the Underground" by him before and I found that amusing so I hope this one will be too. |
| 8:20 pm |
Jack Chick “Love the Jewish People”
Another store we visited was See Hear which had a very wide selection of magazines, including the Nambla Bulletin (pedophiles) and Resistance (as in White Aryan Resistance). I guess a Chick tract is not really a book, but this one reads like a miniature conspiracy book. You can never guess who is Israel's deadliest enemy and was behind Nazi Germany (or, perhaps you can guess if you are familiar with the world according to Chick): it is the Vatican. The tract also explains why the British Empire fell, and why some African nations are so poor. They are all punished by God for acting against Israel. |
| 8:19 pm |
Al Martin “The Conspirators”
Last week, I visited New York together with some friends. Among other things we went to some interesting book stores. One of them was Soft Skull Shortwave, which is a part of the Soft Skull Press. There I bought this book, subtitled "Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider". I think the Iran-Contra scandal is interesting. Even in the most commonly accepted version of the events, there is, in the modern day US, a secret group of powerful individuals in the government who are willing to go to some very strange means in order to achieve their goals. I guess it does not prove that a shadow government is running this country, but it certainly shows that sometimes people act as in conspiracy theories. |
| Friday, May 3rd, 2002 |
| 10:01 pm |
Patricia & Paul C. Bragg "The Shocking Truth about Water"
Below the title on the front page, there's a blurb saying "You are 65% Water". I don't know if I've become jaded, but I'm not that shocked. On the back there's a blurb saying "Warning: Water Can Kill", which at least has some chock value (in a non-drowning context). |
| 10:00 pm |
T.C. Fry "The Great AIDS Hoax"
The author, according to his bio, discovered Natural Hygiene in 1970, and since that he's been leading the Life Science Institute, which also published this book. |
| 9:57 pm |
Alan Cantwell Jr. "AIDS and the Doctors of Death"
Last night I bought these three books from a rack outside the local used book store. They where $3 each (kind of expensive for rack books, in my opinion). My guess is that they all come from the same collection. As far as I understand, Cantwell is a big name in the AIDS conspiracy business. I've read one book previously on the AIDS conspiracy, and I thought it was kind of boring. Not surprisingly, there are behind the scenes politics going on also in the medical world and that can be interesting, but when the author tries to make a serious impression by using a lot of technical terms and complex details, I start skipping pages. |
| Saturday, April 6th, 2002 |
| 12:44 pm |
Russ Kick (ed) You Are Being Lied To
I dont read books on conspiracy theory only to be amused by the kookiness of the authors and their theories (although mostly). I also think it is very important to train yourself in looking at things from different perspectives, to understand that the world isnt black and white, even if that is the way it is presented by the media and other authorities. I think this book will be helpful in this way. Not so kooky, but sincerely presenting alternative views of the world we live in. |
| 12:43 pm |
Jim Keith 'Mind Control, World Control'
One of the most well known of the conspiracy writers, this time with a book on mind control. Keith died a couple of years ago from getting of a stage at Burning Man. He hurt his knee and died later in the hospital from complications. I think this is typical. Since he was a conspiracy researcher, no matter how he died (cancer, car accident, ) some people would start talking about suspicious circumstances, and then he dies in a completely unbelievable way. I even think this undermined some of the conspiracy theorizing; why would they kill him in such an obvious way? |
| 12:42 pm |
Alex Constantine Psychic Dictatorship in the USA
Alex Constantine is a name that very often comes up in discussions of conspiracy theories, but I havent read any of his books. This book is on the subject of mind control, which interests me. |
| Saturday, March 23rd, 2002 |
| 8:15 pm |
Jacques Vallee Messengers of Deception
This is a book I have been looking for quite a while. It was very influential in suggesting an alternative to the ET hypothesis of UFO origins. Perhaps there is something else going on then the friendly Space Brothers contacting us with helpful advice on how to run our planet. It looks at the often intriguing connections between UFO believers and different fringe religious and political groups. |
| 8:08 pm |
Maury Terry The Ultimate Evil
Terry has a novel idea on the Son of Sam killings. Berkowitz didnt act alone. In fact he was only a pawn in a game played by a nation wide Satanic cult, with connections in high places. Terry even identifies the cult as an off shot of the Process church. This cult has been involved in many other crimes as well, including the Tate-La Bianca murders. It could be true that there is a conspiracy involved in the Sam murders, but the reasoning by Terry doesnt prove that. Here is an example of how he finds the hidden meaning in a letter sent by the killer to a journalist. The letter contains the phrase "keep 'em digging". 'em' backwards is 'me'. 'keep' backwards is 'peek', which is almost 'look for'. 'digging' in the UK can mean 'home' (often shortened to 'digs'). So the sentence becomes 'look for me home'. The letter actually contains a description of how to get to Berkowitz home. |
| 8:07 pm |
Adam Parfrey (ed) Extreme Islam
Together with Kooks, Apocalypse Culture was one of the books which helped me understand what it was I was interested in. I have also enjoyed the other collections by Parfrey (Cult Rapture, Apocalypse Culture II) a lot, so to buy this wasnt a hard decision. I cant really understand the criticism against this book. Sure it can seem speculative with a book like this at this time, and certainly a lot of Muslims arent crazed fanatics, but some of them are (Islam and Christianity are, of course, in principle the same religion, and I havent heard anyone try and deny the existence of fanatical Christians) and to quote original sources at length is, to me, the most fair way of describing peoples beliefs. |
| 8:06 pm |
Donna Kossy Strange Creations
This is the book Im currently reading. It seems, of course, very interesting. But I have to complain about the lack of an index. To me, a book without index is a book that feels useless, in the literal sense. And that, to me, is a very bad thing. I think of book reading as something which is supposed to be useful. I dont mean that in some objective sense (like only reading books which helps me in my work) but in a personal sense. I dont read fiction, basically since they are made up, and hence less informative and efficient. When I think about buying books, I think of building a library of all (unorthodox) knowledge in the world. This is of course unattainable, and I dont even know what I would do with such a library, but it still gives me the felling that all books should have indexes. |
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