#i only liked the white boy carl era when it was ending after what happened with nick

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

the way that debbie receives more hate in season 6 that carl does is wild to me… debbie gets pregnant and finds a way to figure out how to raise a baby all by herself and she’s the devil and carl is a racist drug and weapon dealer and he’s just seen as some cool alpha male type

[thisblogisalsoboundforglory]

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING LATELY

Kage Baker’s Company Series

In the Garden of Iden

Sky Coyote

Mendoza in Hollywood

The Graveyard Game

The Life of the World to Come

The Children of the Company

The Machine's Child

The Sons of Heaven

The Empress of Mars

Not Less than Gods

Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers

Gods and Pawns

In the Company of Thieves

Ø  Science Fiction written by a woman with Asperger’s. Wildly uneven. Main protagonist is female, but there are lots of POV characters, male and female.

Ø  Big ideas.

Ø  Lots of adventure, some action.

Ø   Small doses of humor.

 Neil Gaiman

Good Omens (with Sir Terry Pratchett)

Neverwhere

Stardust

American Gods

Anansi Boys

The Graveyard Book

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Ø  Neil’s books are a road trip with Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and a baggie full of sativa.

Ø  Ideas are incidental. The Milieu’s in charge.

Ø  Adventure happens whether you like it or not.

Ø   Cosmic humor. The joke’s on us.

 Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel Series

Firewatch

Doomsday Book

To Say Nothing of the Dog (and the novel that inspired it – Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat)

Blackout/All Clear

Assorted:

The Last of the Winnebagos

Ø  Connie loves her historical research. Blackout/All Clear actually lasts as long as the Blitz, but anything in the Oxford Time Travel series is worth reading. Doomsday Book reads like prophecy in retrospect.

Ø  One idea: Hi! This is the human condition! How fucking amazing is that?!?

Ø  Gut-punch adventure with extra consequences. Background action.

Ø   I’d have to say that Doomsday Book is the funniest book about the black death I’ve ever read, which isn’t saying much. To Say Nothing of the Dog is classic farce, though. Girl’s got range.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash (After the apocalypse, the world will be ruled by Home-Owners Associations. Be afraid.)

Cryptonomicon

Anathem

Seveneves

Ø  Neal writes big, undisciplined, unfocused books that keep unfolding in your mind for months after you’ve read them. He’s a very guy-type writer, in spite of a female protagonist or two. Seveneves, be warned, starts out brilliant and devolves into extreme meh.

Ø  Big. Fucking. Ideas.

Ø  Battles, crashes, fistfights, parachute jumps, nuclear powered motorcycles and extreme gardening action. Is there an MPAA acronym for that?

Ø   Humor dry enough to be garnished with two green olives on a stick.

  Christopher Moore

Pine Cove Series:

Practical Demonkeeping

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Okay, yeah, Christmas. But Christmas with zombies, so that’s all right.)

Fluke (Not strictly Pine Cove, but in the same universe. Ever wonder why whales sing? They’re ordering Pastrami sandwiches. I’m not kidding.)

Death Merchant Chronicles:

A Dirty Job

Secondhand Souls (Best literary dogs this side of Jack London)

Coyote Blue (Kind of an outlier. Overlapping characters)

Shakespeare Series:

Fool

The Serpent of Venice

Shakespeare for Squirrels

Assorted:

Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Cargo cults with Pine Cove crossovers. I have a theory that the characters in this book are direct descendants of certain characters in Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.)

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (So I have a favorite first-century wonder rabbi. Who doesn’t?)

Sacre Bleu

Noir

Ø  Not for the squeamish, the easily offended, or those who can’t lovingly embrace the fact that the human species is pretty much a bunch of idiots snatching at moments of grace.

Ø  No big ideas whatever. Barely any half-baked notions.

Ø  Enthusiastic geek adventure. Action as a last resort.

Ø   Nonstop funny from beginning to end.

 Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London Series

Rivers of London

Moon Over Soho

Whispers Under Ground

Broken Homes

Foxglove Summer

The Hanging Tree

The Furthest Station

Lies Sleeping

The October Man

False Value

Tales From the Folly

Ø  Lean, self-deprecating police procedurals disguised as fantasy novels. Excellent writing.

Ø  These will not expand your mind. They might expand your Latin vocabulary.

Ø  Crisply described action, judiciously used. Whodunnit adventure. It’s all about good storytelling.

Ø  Generous servings of sly humor. Aaronovitch is a geek culture blueblood who drops so many inside jokes, there are websites devoted to indexing them.

  John Scalzi

Old Man’s War Series:

Old Man’s War

Questions for a Soldier

The Ghost Brigades

The Sagan Diary

The Last Colony

Zoe’s Tale

After the Coup

The Human Division

The End of All Things

Ø  Star Trek with realpolitik instead of optimism.

Ø  The Big Idea is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Nor over it.

Ø  Action-adventure final frontier saga with high stakes.

Ø  It’s funny when the characters are being funny, and precisely to the same degree that the character is funny.

Assorted:

The Dispatcher

Murder by Other Means

Redshirts (Star Trek, sideways, with occasional optimism)

Ø  Scalzi abandons (or skewers) his space-opera tendencies with these three little gems of speculative fiction. Scalzi’s gift is patience. He lets the scenario unfold like a striptease.

Ø  What-if thought experiments that jolt the brain like espresso shots.

Ø  Action/misadventure as necessary to accomplish the psychological special effects.

Ø  Redshirts is satire, so the humor is built-in, but it’s buried in the mix.

  David Wong/Jason Pargin

John Dies at the End

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It

What the Hell Did I Just Read?

Ø  Pargin clearly starts his novels with a handful of arresting scenes and images, then looses the characters on an unsuspecting world to wander wither they will.

Ø  Ideas aren’t as big or obvious as Heinlein, but they are there to challenge all your assumptions in the same way that Heinlein’s were.

Ø  Classic action/adventure for anyone raised on Scooby-Doo.

Ø  Occasional gusts of humor in a climate that’s predominantly tongue-in-cheek.

 Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series

Just One Damned Thing After Another

The Very First Damned Thing

A Symphony of Echoes

When a Child is Born*

A Second Chance

Roman Holiday*

A Trail Through Time

Christmas Present*

No Time Like the Past

What Could Possible Go Wrong?

Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings*

Lies, Damned Lies and History

The Great St Mary’s Day Out*

My Name is Markham*

And the Rest is History

A Perfect Storm*

Christmas Past*

An Argumentation of Historians

The Battersea Barricades*

The Steam Pump Jump*

And Now for Something Completely Different*

Hope for the Best

When Did You Last See Your Father?*

Why Is Nothing Ever Simple*

Plan For The Worst

The Ordeal of the Haunted Room

Ø  The * denotes a short story or novella. Okay, try to imagine Indiana Jones as a smartassed redheaded woman with a time machine and a merry band of full contact historians. I love history, and I especially love history narrated by a woman who can kick T. Rex ass.

Ø  The ideas are toys, not themes. Soapy in spots.

Ø  Action! Adventure! More action! More adventure! Tea break. Action again!

Ø  Big, squishy dollops of snort-worthy stuff.

 Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell Series

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

A Letter of Mary

The Moor

Jerusalem

Justice Hall

The Game

Locked Rooms

The Language of Bees

The God of the Hive

Beekeeping for Beginners

Pirate King

Garment of Shadows

Dreaming Spies

The Marriage of Mary Russell

The Murder of Mary Russell

Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense

Island of the Mad

Riviera Gold

The Art of Detection (Strictly speaking, this is in the action!lesbian Detective Kate Martinelli series, but it crosses over to the Sherlock Holmes genre. If you’ve ever wondered how Holmes would deal with the transgendered, this is the book.)

Ø  Sherlock Holmes retires to Sussex, keeps bees, marries a nice Jewish girl who is smarter than he is and less than half his age and he’s mentored since she was fifteen in an extremely problematic power dynamic relationship that should repulse me but doesn’t, somehow, because this is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche out there. Mary should have been a rabbi, but it is 1920, so she learns martial arts and becomes an international detective instead. Guest appearances by Conan Doyle, Kimball O’Hara, T.E. Lawrence, Cole Porter, and the Oxford Comma.

Ø  Nothing mind-expanding here, unless the levels of meta present in a fictional world that is about how the fictional world might not be as fictional as you thought come as a surprise to anyone in the era of tie-in books, films, tv, interactive social media and RPGs.

Ø  If these two geniuses can’t catch the bad guys with their dazzling brilliance, they will happily kick some ass. Adventure takes center stage and the action sequences are especially creative.

Ø  Amusement is afoot.

 Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next Series

The Eyre Affair

Lost in a Good Book

The Well of Lost Plots

Something Rotten

First Among Sequels

One of Our Thursdays is Missing

The Woman Who Died a Lot

Ø  In a world where Librarians are revered and Shakespeare is more popular than the Beatles, someone has to facilitate the weekly anger-management sessions for the characters of Wuthering Heights, if only to keep them from killing each other before the novel actually ends. That someone is Thursday Next – Literature Cop.

Ø  Mind-bending enough to give Noam Chomsky material for another hundred years.

Ø  Adventure aplenty. Action? Even the punctuation will try to kill you.

Ø  This is a frolicsome look at humorous situations filled with funny people. Pretty much a full house in the laugh department.

 Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series/City Watch Arc

Guards! Guards!

Men at Arms

Feet of Clay

Jingo

The Fifth Elephant

Night Watch

Thud!

Snuff

Raising Steam

Ø  If this were a game of CLUE, the answer would be Niccolo Machiavelli in Narnia with a Monty Python. Everything you think you know about books with dragons and trolls and dwarves and wizards is expertly ripped to shreds and reassembled as social satire that can save your soul, even if it turns out you don’t really have one. Do not be fooled by the Tolkien chassis – there’s a Vonnegut-class engine at work.

Ø  Caution: Ideas in the Mirror Universe May be Larger Than They Appear

Ø  The City Watch arc has plenty of thrilling action sequences. Some other of the fifty-million Discworld novels have less. Every one of them is nonstop adventure. Most of the adventure, however, takes the form of characters desperately trying to avoid thrilling action sequences.

Ø  Funny? Even though I’ve read every book in the series at least ten times, I still have to make sure I have cold packs on hand in case I laugh so hard I rupture something.

[jess-readallaboutit]

ON by BTS - Religious links~

(Song)

Once again I am researching a bts song, ON has a lot of Biblical imagery in it so I wanted to analyse this because it linked to the constellations/parallel universe and cultural theme of this project.

BTS has a storyline which is like another Universe, they create their storyline by putting many deep meanings into their music videos and lyrics, they have been carrying on with this storyline for around 7 years and nearly every bts song/mv links to this storyline and they all connect somehow. I have been listening to bts for 4 years and over these years I have dived deep into this massive storyline, I hope one day they turn this whole story into a film because it would take me weeks if I ever tried to analyse the WHOLE storyline, however people have created many YouTube videos explaining theories and analysing music videos.

At the start of the video we see a scene that looks like an aftermath of a war, a member is seen kneeling down at a white bird that had been shot with an arrow. This bird looks like a dove, doves symbolise love and peace. This scene shows that love and peace has been “destroyed” since the dove has been shot and this scene is a literal war. A lot of the scenes in ON reference scenes in Fake Love, this is another bts song with deep meaning and this is where the parallel universe theory comes in. Fake Love appears more modern because of the clothing and scenes, ON looks the opposite and looks like it’s in the past because of the old looking clothing, however it could even represent the future but in a different universe.

There’s a scene where a member is standing near a pile of drums, this could mean music is no longer used in that world and was discarded, but the drums were also used on the battlefield to communicate from officers to soldiers.

The member at the start of the video is shown again but he is holding the dead dove in the cage, more of this will come throughout the video.

It then goes to a scene of a different member standing in a setting similar to Noah’s Ark because of the broken ship and the animals. This scene could represent:

“The flood as the collective society falling into the unconscious. Being swallowed by divine/archetypical modes of thoughts, by through a modern lens”- Carl Jung

BTS’ current concept was heavily inspired by Carl Jung’s ‘Map Of The Soul’, which is a book where he writes about his theories on psychology and believed that the human psyche had three parts: the ego, personal unconscious and collective unconscious. BTS even have albums called Map Of The Soul: Persona and Map Of The Soul:7 (MOTS:7), ON is included in MOTS:7. Below is a picture showing Carl Jung’s theory:

Carl Jung’s theory of the animals in Noah’s Ark represent beings that possess almost no free will, Noah and his family represent the more “conscious” and transcend, or see through the human tendency to war amongst themselves. This meaning that BTS in the music video could possibly represent Noah and his family as they are aware and conscious about their surroundings.

The next scene shows a member reaching to the sky, he does the same action in many older music videos and this could mean he is reaching for hope, he also reaches out to the child sitting with a drum and this could mean he’s trying to reach out to the youth. BTS’ whole goal of creating music and meaningful lyrics is to reach out to youth.

This scene shows a member standing in front of a beautiful setting, however there is another member laying unconscious on the ground with what looks like a Raven pecking at his body. Raven’s are tied to BTS’ storyline and also to Carl Jung’s theories. Jung teamed Raven symbolism to represent the shadow itself or with the dark side of the psyche, in the picture I showed of Carl Jung’s theory, Shadow was also an element included in the ‘SELF’. The members see this Raven constantly during their ‘WINGS’ Era (album). Not only do Ravens represent the shadow itself, but many cultures associate them with healing, renewal and rebirth, so that could be why the Raven is on his unconscious body.

A member sees a girl with a blindfold standing and facing towards a huge wall with doors, he looks behind him and the doors start opening. He removes the blindfold in order to help her move forward, the blindfold represents ignorance, this is similar to Jimin (a member) in the storyline and he is sometimes shown having his eyes covered and also blindfolded in Blood Sweat and Tears, he wears this blindfold in order to prevent himself from accepting the truth. Now together him and the girl walk forward. A drum is played by the little drum boy and the member that was unconscious with the Raven wakes up, it’s as if the child played the drums as a signal. When he wakes up the doors are fully open and these doors remind me of the film The Maze Runner.

The once unconscious member is now conscious and he goes to a lake, he walks into the shallow lake. This whole music video he has been running away from somewhere like he was being held captive, his hands were cuffed together with thorns around his wrists. These thorns are similar to the crown of thorns that were placed on Jesus’ head during the events prior to his crucifixion. It was one of the instruments of the passion employd by Jesus’ captors, both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority. The thorns also link to bts’ past when they experienced hardships.

Then all the members, except the one at the lake, join together with many other people with them. In the storyline Jin (the member with the bird) is known to be a time traveler and he travels back in time multiple times to try and save all of his friends (the other members) from hardships and death. We started off the music video seeing all the dead bodies and dead dove after a war, however now the music video is ending with EVERYONE gathered together as if he had travelled back and saved the ones who had died in the war and now they are all gathered together. He then opens the cage and sets the dove free:

White doves also symbolise a new beginning.

Then we are back at the member at the lake with the thorns around his wrists. He dips his wrists underwater and then takes out a conch shell and the thorns disappear. The conch shell is a spiritual symbol used in many cultures throughout history. The Ancients adapted the practical use to associate the conch shell with spiritual awakening and symbolism. According to mainstream Hinduism and Buddhism the conch shell is also associated with truthful speech and strength.

The next scene is a dance break, this scene has a dark atmosphere and the members are wearing cloaks, Jungkook (the one that was at the lake) stands with the members while holding the conch shell. There is a volcano behind them and at the end of the dance scene this volcano erupts and destroys everything. In the Fake Love music video in order for the members to move forward they destroyed their masks and in ON it seems as if they were destroying their establishment, so they could re-grow everything and start a new. Their WINGS era was heavily influenced by the book ‘Demian’ by Herman Hesse, where Abraxas represents a bird that must destroy its own world, which is its egg in order to live.

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God is Abraxas.”- Hermann Hesse

For the process of individuation the Ego and the Shadow is no longer divided but brought together in unity and their Persona is now balanced with their shadows.

Jungkook (the one at the lake) was the last to join all the members at the wall, so it seems as though he was the last to go through it and complete the process of individuation, the process of individuation is in the picture of Carl Jung’s theory with the ‘SELF’, ‘SHADOW’, ‘EGO’, ‘PERSONA’, and ‘ANIMA/ANIMUS’. Individuation means the realisation of self, which is what BTS was going through at the time ON was released in the storyline. Individuation begins with becoming conscious of the Persona, the mask we take off in our everyday lives. After we become conscious of the Shadow, the repressed characteristics of the Ego, then we become conscious of the Anima (the inner woman in each man). After that the experiences with Self happens, BTS have passed through the Persona, Shadow, Ego and Anima in their storyline and they also have songs named Persona, Shadow and Ego where they talk about each stage in their lyrics, however they have not gone over the Self yet.

Behind the wall is a mountain/rock, this reminds me a lot of Pride Rock in Lion King. The dove that was released flies over the members who have started walking up the mountain, however this time there are 7 doves (7 members in bts). Then it shows Jungkook (member from the lake) running up the mountain, this scene is similar to another scene in a different music video called ‘Not Today’ where all the members are running together, however the members except Jungkook are being shot down and he looks worried, in ON Jungkook is smiling while running and this time they all run together without being shot down. In Noah’s Ark a Dove flies out to find land, the Dove brings back an olive tree branch to signify that it found land. When the gates first opened, the land on the other side was destroyed and there were no trees, when Jungkook joined all the members at the wall and the dove was released, millions of trees grew. It was as if on the other side of the wall there was hope, love and peace, whereas before it was a war zone.

This music video showcased the members’ battles, representing their hardships and the boys who once had ‘No More Dream’ now has a ‘Dream’ and their dream is to reach out and connect everyone through music and Art, and this music video symbolised Hope. They’ve succeeded by finding themselves and they’ve helped us by leading us on the same path, so the crowd that stood with the members at the wall could’ve represented the fandom and those that they’ve helped. BTS’ whole storyline is based on loving yourself, working to find yourself and doing that by looking towards your own shadows and accepting it, so it is like a path to self love. This music video was an amazing representation of that and the song follows the same kind of theme as the music video:

“Look at my feet, look down

The shadow resembles me

Is it the shadow that's shaking

Or is it my feet that are trembling

Of course I‘m not unafraid

Of course it's not all okay

But I know

Awkwardly I flow

I fly together with that black wind”

Here it talks about looking down at your shadow, like I talked about above, he’s accepting his shadow because it’s a part of him.

“Hey na-na-na

Gotta go insane to stay sane

Hey na-na-na

Throw myself whole into both worlds

Hey na-na-na

Can't hold me down 'cuz you know I'm a fighter

Carried myself into this beautiful prison

Find me and I'm gonna live with ya”

This talks about how nothing can hold him down because he will fight it, it’s like the hardships throughout his career that he has gotten through to reach to the top. “Find me and I’m gonna live with ya” meaning that he will live with the struggles and his shadow.

“Come on up, bring the pain, on yeah

Rain be pourin'

Sky keep fallin'

Everyday oh na-na-na”

“Bring the pain

It'll become my blood and flesh

Bring the pain

No fear, now that I know the way

Breathe on the small things

My air and my light in the dark

The power of the things that make me, “me”

Even if I fall, I come right up”

“Even if I fall, I come right up, scream

That's how we've always been

Even if my knees drop to the ground

As long as they don't get buried

It won't matter

Win no matter what

Whatever you say, whatever they say

I don't give a uhh”

These lines mean that even if the rain is pouring and the sky is falling bring the pain on because it doesn’t bother him, he comes back up. Remember how Jungkook was knocked unconscious at one point in the music video but he got back up and fought.

Overall this song is very motivating and the music video is cinematic and meaningful, I enjoyed researching this song because ever since it was released last year I’ve wanted to analyse it.

Here is the link to the music video:

3/3

[saltyslack-toast]

#Knock The Book 2: The Devil All the Time

WELL, I MADE IT TO THE 2nd BOOK REVIEW OF MINE, MEANS THAT I’M A PASSIONATE AND PERSISTENT BITCH, PERIODT. No actually I’m just bored and got really nothing to do, so here I am making judgmental, invalid and uncritical book review just to ease my guilt for doing nothing at home (just so my mom see me working through my laptop).

Okay The Devil All the Time is actually my first English book. The story of how I got this book as a matter of fact is quite irritating and funny at the same time. My uni friend, she saw this book in a modest book bazaar near her hometown. She was reading the title and the word ‘devil’ just remind her of me, she bought it and just gave it straight to me…... I’m sad but like thankful???

It’s a secondhand and hardcover book but I don’t really mind, considering the fact that the quality is still very nice though, except the worn spots stained all over the cover that make the book looks very old. My friend bought this only for RP 25.000, yes dude you’re not misread this shit, it was THAT CHEAP (whoever sell and own this book before me, I really appreciate it). Although if you want to buy the new one, you can get this book for USD 26.95 which converted in rupiah would be RP 407.500, yeah its cost pretty fancy for broke students like us and I don’t know if the book’s supposed to be available in your local bookstore but I think you can find it in worldwide shipping online store like amazon or any other shop perhaps. The book’s cover illustrate a dying white mutt hanging on the ‘log’ and bunch of cross everywhere, the cover is actually make sense when you read the book. It published in 2011 by doubleday in United States of America. The Author is Donald Ray Pollock, and you can find the sum information about his background written on the cover, but based form the book’s cover you can also check his website in donaldraypollock.com but when I checked, I’m not sure if it’s really his website since it just like pest control website (LMAOO I HAD NO IDEA FR). Anyway,

Let’s go breaking down the book!

“… Too much religion could be as bad as too little, maybe even worse, but moderation was just not in her husband’s nature”

The whole story in this book, basically give you portraits regarding the life of lunatics in the time after WWII. Nope, there is no sums up about the events happened in that moment so chill y’all non-historical enthusiast bitches. This book gonna give you a bizarre experience reading it, the first 10 pages of this book was already psychedelic, I assure that shit. Have you watched Games of Thrones series on HBO? It’s chilling right how Ned Stark, the protagonist of the main series died in the first season???? EXACTLY that was the vibes u got after reading the first chapter and get crazier every time u read forward. By the way, this book embodied 7 chapters and 55 sub-chapters, the chapter in odd and even numbers has 2 different main focuses on each characteristic exist, here I sum it up for you:

On the odd numbers chapters (1, 3, and so on), the central story of these chapters is circling among the family of Willard Russel, his Mom Emma and Uncle Earskell and also those 2 insane peeps Roy Laferty and Theodore. Willard Russel used to be a navy army and a bit skeptical dealing with religion issues just like his uncle, but his mom has always been a devoted worshiper. Willard married to the beautiful and kind-hearted women named Charlotte and they was given a son named Arvin Eugene Russel, everything was normal until Charlotte got sick and Willard gone crazy praying to god for his wife’s recovery and poor little Arvin has to suffer the predicament by his own self. Their stories always give me religious-fanaticism-gloomy vibes (is that even make sense??). Don’t even get me started with the life stories of the two brutes-ass man, Roy Laferty and Theodore they were used to be ‘preacher’ in Emma and young Willard’s Church. Nothing I could say further because it’s gonna be a major spoiler for you, but their stories really giving you insights of how frustration and fanaticism allow people to do something beyond their common sense.

“You remember what I told you the other day?” He asked Arvin

“About the boys on the bus?,”

“Well, that’s what I meant, you just got to pick the right time”

On the even numbers chapters (2, 4, and so on), the main tales is pertaining on the journey of Handerson couple, Carl and Sandy. They were like the Bonnie and Clyde but sad and exploitative version in this book. Carl is a ‘photographer’ and sandy working as a waitress in a café called Wooden Spoon (Which the place where Charlotte used to work as a waitress and the place she met Willard for the first time as well). During summertime they got this ‘ritual’ ((but not in a religious way)) where they drive to different states and give a ride to the hitchhikers found on the way, then Carl forcefully offer them to fuck Sandy for free (HIS OWN WIFE) while he took pictures of them fucking and after that Carl kill them and take all the money those hitchhikers got in their pocket (dude I can’t even judge anything). But to be honest, I’m not a fan of these two characters because they were all so ANNOYING to death. And then there is Bodecker Lee who’s a police and also Sandy’s brother, ok that’s it, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.

“… He went down the street and sat on a bench in a park the rest of the day thinking about killing himself instead. Something broke in him that day. For the first time he could see that his whole life added up to absolutely nothing…”

You might be confused since there are quite a lot of keen characters in this book but there’s a point where all these bitches are relating to each other, so chill y’all impatient gripe-ass. Overall, the flow of the story is undoubtedly interesting for you to keep going throughout the whole story, because every phase gonna make you wondering about next things happened to them. But, the transitions among every chapters is quite uncomfortable for me, because sometimes when the story has reached its climax there is no resolutions coming to solve the problem immediately, and you’re faced to read the new chapter with a whole different setting and characters so it’s kind of ruining the vibes and emotions the book has made me, but again this just my personal preference so please don’t judge (while everything I did right now is judging inaccurately).

“He realized that he would never preach again, but that was all right. He’d never been much good at it anyway. Most people just wanted to hear the cripple play”

However, what I like the most from this book is the deepening of every character exists is so fascinating, even for just the side or supporting character (for god sake I’m sorry idk what to called a character that isn’t the main one), for example a bus driver in Meade, Ohio which Willard talked to when he was on the way home after the war ended, the narration wrapped and portraits the driver’s life perfectly without make us bored, and there’s still a bunch of interesting narration about the life of the side characters in this book that also as odds and intriguing as the main character’s background (jesus, everything happened and everyone in this book is just so strange and peculiar I swear to god). The story finished in a most tragic-beautiful but still gloomy way, even though it’s quite predictable but still a very good closing for me personally. To be noted, on the way to the end of the story, there will be emerge another asshole priest character named Preston Teagardin, ready to shake you up until you finish the book. But still, let’s said this particular ‘last minute character’ has proving that the author is paying so much attention of how the story ended isn’t leaving any 'rush-made' impression (this shit might confused you I’m sorry my English hasn’t got any better *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign*). # hashtag attention to the detail bro.

Holy crap, that’s the first time I’m almost able to cut all the bullshit I intend to bring it up here.

This book is one of my top 5 books that you have to read once in a life time (although I haven’t discover the other four, omg im sorry y’all). Little information for you that the first time I read this book (yeah I read it for quite few times) is when the campaign of presidential election era, which in Indonesia the religious are pretty sentimental issues, some of the people in my country suddenly became those annoying fanatical preachers, man I can’t stand it. And this book is just precisely relating to that condition and I get to know at least a glance of what the heck odds things happened in their minds, since you know fanaticism and stupidity doesn’t hit only on particular group of religions, race, gender or anything, we can all be stupid and brainless (especially me because I basically have no brain). There probably quite many scenes that is pretty disturbing to read (I don’t know if people could be triggered by it???? But I guess so) so yeah a bit warning. Overall, I genuinely recommend this book for you guys because every element in this book is almost perfect, the storylines, bold characters, and the RARE AND STRANGE AND SENSITIVE topic promote by the author in this novel is totally a BOOM. Don’t worry reading this book not going to give you those agnostic and atheist vibes HAHA chill I still consider myself a devoted Muslim tho (hashtag masyaallah ukthi).

By the way before I wrapped it up, I hear that this book will be made into a netflix film. WELL, of course I’m excited because the casts are so amazing, and I love Netflix adaptation and I enjoy watch movies as much as I read books (again, unnecessary information of mine *sorry hand sign*). I found that the release date is postponed from the origin plan in 15th May (which is three days ago from I posted this on my page) due to I don’t know perhaps corona because that bitch has ruined everyone in the world’s schedule, but for real I can’t find the exact information regarding to the updated release date, so while you wait the film to launch, why don’t you just go read the book first? I assure you this one not gonna give you any disappointment.

I think that would be it for this 2nd rubbish book review of mine. Although, I think I made a little progressive from the first one (OR MAYBE NOT???? I’M SORRY Y’ALL) but of course there’s still much deficiency I served. Still, I hope my writing get better in the process of making this whole novel of reviewing book inaccurately. To be honest, I wrote this shit not for getting any engagements or audience but for my own satisfied HAHA. So yeah I’m literally comfortable writing for nothing. But bitch guess what I’m just gonna keep going, until I could professionally writing and make it for a living? Well, amen for that.

Xiao, See you in Advance!

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Anthology of American Bob Music - Volume 1: Ballads

Guest post/mix! The estimable Jesse Jarnow throws us back in the deep end of the Never-Ending Tour (artwork by John Hilgart) ... Take it away, Jesse! 

I love the many classic ‘60s and ‘70s periods of Bob Dylan, but the ‘90s and early ‘00s are my eras: two albums of covers, two albums of originals, and my favorite Dylan bands besides the Band. It’s when I started checking in with Dylan’s so-called Never-Ending Tour.  And I especially love soundboards of this era, Dylan’s fritzed voice, his strange rhythms, weird phrasings, and amazing groups anchored by bassist Tony Garnier, all pickled with clarity in digital foreverness.

While there are many excellent archival releases in the official Bootleg Series, they seem in no hurry to get to live material from the ‘80s and ‘90s. For collectors of live recordings, the amount of circulating soundboards is only a few dozen, drying up entirely after 1999, besides one glorious post-“Love & Theft” outlier from 2002. It’s been hinted that Dylan’s crew doesn’t even make tapes themselves anymore, relying on the high quality work of committed audience tapers for the official archive. Well-made audience recordings are wonderful and capture Dylan with a warmth and depth, but there’s nothing like the immediacy of a board feed to sort out exactly what’s happening onstage, especially with a band that’s playing playing at the edge of improvisation at nearly all times.

The first two discs of the Anthology of American Bob Music--Ballads--represent an almost complete set of soundboard recordings of cover songs performed live by Dylan from 1988 until the end of the soundboards in 2002, but not included on either Good As I Been To You (1991) or World Gone Wrong (1993). A few performances have been omitted for aesthetic reasons or because I couldn’t find them. Of course, collecting only soundboards also makes it a somewhat arbitrary selection of the many covers Dylan has performed, though also does capture some of his most frequently played.

I wanted a coherent and listenable mix of music from these recordings, something that captures what I loved about seeing Bob Dylan in the ‘90s and ‘00s, and doesn’t make me squint my ears to listen. This creates a picture of (some of) Dylan’s musical loves: the Stanley Brothers, the Grateful Dead, ’50s country, blues, ancient folk, and occasional pop. There are lots of acoustic guitars (but snarling electric ones, too), perfectly rough group vocals, some pedal steel, with Dylan’s voice(s) and musical intelligence re-shaping and delivering these melodies. The 14 years spanned here are, of course, eons in Bob-time, the full transition from the blown-out washed-up rock star of the late ‘80s to grizzled eminence of the late ‘90s.

Future volumes may exist, may or may not represent different cullings of soundboards and audience tapes and may or may not be numbered with any consistency perceivable to the outside listener. Send a carrier pigeon or a smoke signal if you have missing tracks.

1A: Ballads

1. “I Am The Man, Thomas” (Ralph Stanley/Larry Sparks) (2002-02-09 Atlanta, GA) 2. “Friend of the Devil” (John Dawson/Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia) (1999-02-19 Binghamton, NY) 3. “Alabama Getaway” (Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter) (1997-08-23 Vienna, VA) 4. “I’m Movin’ On” (Hank Snow) (1993-02-15 Utrecht, NL) 5. “Not Fade Away” (Buddy Holly) (1999-06-14 Eugene, OR) 6. “Shake Sugaree” (Elizabeth Cotten) (1997-12-01 Atlanta, GA) 7. “I’m Not Supposed to Care” (Gordon Lightfoot) (1998-05-23 Anaheim, CA) 8. “Stone Walls and Steel Bars” (Jimmy Martin/Ralph Stanley) (1998-05-19 San Jose, CA) 9. “Roving Gambler” (trad.) (1997-08-24 Vienna, VA) 10. “Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie” (Elizabeth Cotten) (1998-06-21 Hamburg, DE) 11. “Cocaine” (Rev. Gary Davis) (1997-12-08 New York City, NY) 12. “Across the Borderline” (Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/Jim Dickinson) (1998-11-03 Rochester, NY)

1B: Ballads

1. “Hallelujah, I’m Ready To Go” (trad.) (1999-06-19 Mountain View, CA) 2. “Searching For A Soldier’s Grave” (Jim Anglin/Roy Acuff) (2002-02-09 Atlanta, GA) 3. “White Dove” (Carter Stanley) (1997-12-08 New York City, NY) 4. “Weeping Willow” (Blind Boy Fuller) (1993-11-17 New York City, NY) 5. “San Francisco Bay Blues” (Jesse Fuller) (1988-12-04 Oakland, CA) 6. “Pretty Boy Floyd” (Woody Guthrie) (1988-12-04 Oakland, CA) 7. “Trail of the Buffalo” (trad./Woody Guthrie) (1991-10-30 Tulsa, OK) 8. “Little Moses” (Carter Family) (1992-09-02 Minneapolis, MN) 9. “Golden Vanity” (trad.) (1992-04-24 Waikiki, HI) 10. “Barbara Allen” (trad.) (1998-10-19 New York City, NY) 11. “Lakes of Ponchartain” (trad.) (1998-06-30 Wantagh, NY) 12. “The Roving Blade” (trad.) (1998-06-19 Belfast, IE) 13. “Wagonner’s Lad” (trad.) (1998-10-19 New York City, NY) 14. “Answer Me” (Gerhard Winkler/Fred Rauch/Carl Sigman) (1991-10-30 Tulsa, OK)

[elizas-writing]

Movie Reviews: Detroit

Well... there was a lot that just happened. Oh, it’s still a good movie. But something kinda rubbed me wrong, and I had to do a bit of my own research before just diving in blindly, especially as a white viewer. Is it still worth it even with the problems? Let’s find out.

From the same filmmakers who brought The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, we have another period drama set during the 12th Street Riot of July 1967. With racial tensions high, they boil over in Detroit after an unlicensed bar was raided by the police, and observers began looting and destroying buildings to voice their frustration from years of inequality and mistreatment from the notoriously racist police department. This escalates to the Algiers Motel incident where in response to an alleged sniper, the police beat up and terrorized about a dozen black male teenagers, and three of them were shot and killed by the police. However, the officers responsible were let off free for claims of “self-defense,” leaving a bitter ending of unresolved racial tensions in the United States.

Let’s start off easy. How is Detroit from a filmmaking standpoint?

There’s no doubt that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal are a great duo in historical dramas, especially when tackling the dark sides of history. They set the stage with a little background of black migration to the North in a brief but wonderfully animated opening segment. The film feels like a documentary at first with a series of vignette-like scenes tied in with actual footage, news clips and photos from the riot. It all seems unconnected until they start focusing on certain figures who later play a part in the Algiers Motel incident.

There’s a tense atmosphere throughout the entire film. Even in scenes where people are partying and relaxing, you’re always on edge that at any moment, someone will die or they’ll cut away to an incredibly violent scene. You can almost feel the constant fear the black characters have when police are around every corner. The uneasiness lingers long after the incident as it moves to trial and the lawyers and witnesses go back and forth, and you remember this movie isn’t going to have a happy ending where justice prevails.

So far it seems like a good movie, but how does it present the subject matter of police brutality, especially with how much the events parallel present day cases from Mike Brown to Philando Castile?

While the story flows well enough, the historical facts presented are very questionable. I didn’t know about the Algiers Motel incident until this movie, but from what I could gather from other articles, there are some inaccuracies here and there. In his criticism of the movie on Salon, Frank Joyce points out it was never confirmed if anyone had a starter pistol as it was never found at the scene. So when Carl is shown shooting out the window, it sets up a reason for the cops to search and “cast doubt on the innocence of the victims” even though claims of snipers throughout the riots were completely false. They were also shown drinking and smoking marijuana in a party earlier, but autopsies showed that none of the victims had any substances in their system.

Joyce also notes that many of the victims, who were teenagers at the time, are miscast by far too old actors, which doesn’t help that many people often overestimate the ages of black boys as if they are not as child-like as white boys. Even Robert Greene, who was 26 at the time, is still depicted by an actor who’s over 10 years older. That’s not to discredit the talent for this movie; they play their parts well, but it makes no sense to depict these people far older than they were.

Granted, the film does acknowledge that it is a dramatization based on whatever documents or witness accounts they could obtain, but it also begs the question to what they had and if they twisted anything, even if it was unintentional. This is upped by the fact that it is two white filmmakers telling a black American story, and many argue this is inappropriate. Part of me wants to give the benefit of the doubt and believe there was no malicious intent, but I can’t help but be wary. This is mostly exemplified by the actual incident as portrayed in the film.

If you do plan to see Detroit, then you’ll need serious mental preparation. I’m not even kidding, it’s a scene that goes on for about forty minutes. I almost looked at my phone cause I was wondering when it was going to end. This is where many say it’s exploitative of black violence and is just torture porn.

On one hand, yes this is actual history which shouldn’t be sugarcoated. And sometimes this exposure is necessary to understand just how out of control something like police brutality is, and I appreciate they show how hypocritical these cops are. But good God, it’s forty minutes! I know they’re trying to present as much information as possible, but after a while, we get the picture. You really don’t need to drag this out for longer than necessary. We see this violence enough in dozens upon dozens of Facebook videos every other week. If someone at the end of that scene still doesn’t get the picture on police brutality, I don’t know what else to say.

The biggest shortcoming of the film is that it fails to start a dialogue. It doesn’t have anything else to say except “Look at all this violence, and all the bad people who got away with it. We’re going to make you feel as awful as possible.” Yes, these scenes of violence should leave an emotional impact, and it does so far too well, but what then? What are we supposed to do to speak out against police brutality? How does this affect our world in 2017? Why does it matter fifty years later? How can we help?

You can tell that it was not only made by white people, but also made for white people to just do the bare minimum and present history as is. Even for the shortcomings of films like The Help or Hidden Figures, they at least tried to present what white people can do to help make society better for black people. Detroit just shows the violence for for the sake of violence for two and a half hours and then it ends. It missed out on opportunities to show how the city picked up the pieces in the aftermath, how the riot played a part of the Civil Rights era, and how it connects to cases like Mike Brown in the present day. Now that I think about it, it’s really disappointing.

While the presentation is well done and the emotional impact and tone are strong throughout, Detroit suffers from a few questionable choices in the facts it shows. At best, it’s okay and still holds up, but at worst, it’s just torture porn and a missed opportunity to start a dialogue. I’m glad I still saw it because it’s a part of history I didn’t know about, but I was left wanting more. If you’re curious, it is the kind of film where you do have to decide for yourself if it’s worth your while, but definitely tread with caution and take what you see with a grain of salt.

[vitalmindandbody]

‘It was quasi-religious’: the great self-esteem con

In the 1980 s, Californian legislator John Vasconcellos set up a task force that promoted high-pitched self-esteem as the answer to social ailments. But was his science based on a lie?

In 2014, a heartwarming character sent to year 6 students at Barrowford primary school in Lancashire exited viral. Handed out with their Key Stage 2 exam upshots, it reassured them: These research do not ever assess all of what it is that realize each of you special and unique They do not know that your best friend count on you to be there for them or that your laugh can brighten the dreariest era. They do not know that you write poetry or songs, participate boasts, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your fucking brother or sister.

At Barrowford, parties learned, teaches were deterred from questioning beatings, characterizing small children as naughty and promoting their voices. The institutions guiding logic, said headteacher Rachel Tomlinson, was that kids were to be treated with unconditional positive regard.

A little more than a year later, Barrowford obtained itself in the news again. Ofsted had given the school one of its lowest possible ratings, find the quality of education and exam outcomes insufficient. The institution, their report spoke, emphasised developing pupils emotional and social wellbeing more than the achievements of quality standards. Somehow, it seemed, the nurturing of self-esteem had not be converted into higher achievement.

The shortcoming hitherto virulent notion that, in order to thrive, people need to be treated with unconditional positivity first gained traction in the late 80 s. Since then, the self-esteem crusade has helped transform the behavior we parent our children prioritising their appears of self-worth, telling them they are special and amazing, and cocooning them from everyday consequences.

One manifestation of this has been grade inflation. In 2012, the chief executive of British exams regulator Ofqual admitted the value of GCSEs and -Alevels had been gnawn by years of prolonged point inflation. In the US, between the late 60 s and 2004, the proportion of first time university students claiming an A median in high school has increased from 18% to 48%, despite the fact that SAT scores had actually fallen. Nothing of this, alleges Keith Campbell, prof of psychology at the University of Georgia and expert on narcissism, provides our children well. Burning yourself on a stave is really useful in telling you where you stand, he speaks, but we live in a world-wide of accolades for everyone. Fourteenth region ribbon. I am not making this substance up. My daughter got one.

Campbell, with his colleague Jean Twenge at San Diego State University, has argued that this kind of parenting and teaching have led to a discernible rise in narcissism: witness the selfie-snapping millennials. Although their findings are disputed, Twenge points to other investigate done in the US and beyond twenty-two contemplates or tests[ that] demonstrate a generational increase in positive self-views, including narcissism, and merely two[ that] do not.

How did we get here? To answer that, you have to go back to 1986 and the work of an eccentric and powerful California politician, John Vasco Vasconcellos. That time, the Democrat Vasconcellos managed to persuade a deeply sceptical Republican state governor to money a three-year task force to explore the value of self-esteem. Vasco remained convinced that low self-esteem was different sources of a huge array of social issues, including unemployment, educational downfall, child abuse, domestic violence cases, homelessness and mob warfare. He became remain convinced that causing specific populations self-esteem would act as a social inoculation, saving the state billions.

But Vascos plan backfired spectacularly, with the fallout lasting to this day. I wasted a year trying to find out why and discovered that there was, at the very heart of his job, a lie.

***

John Vasconcellos grew up an submissive Catholic, an altar boy, the smartest boy in his class, whose mom blaspheme that he never misbehaved. But, being such a ardent Catholic, he knew that no matter how good he was, he could only ever be a sinner. At primary school, he flowed for class chairwoman. I lost by one vote. Mine, he eventually replied. He didnt vote for himself because Id been drilled never to use the word I, never to visualize or speak well of myself.

After a charm as a lawyer, Vasco participated politics. In 1966, aged 33, he was elected to the California state assembly. But “theres a problem”: his professional success was at odds with how he thought of himself; he felt he didnt deserves it. At 6ft 3in and over 200 lb, he would stalk the Capitol building in Sacramento, glowering and agitated in his smart black clothing, perfect white shirt and arrow-straight tie, his whisker cultivated with armed precision. I learnt my identity and my life starting utterly apart, he eventually enunciated. I had to go and seek help.

That help came from an uncommon Catholic priest: Father Leo Rock was a psychologist who had studied under the innovator of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers, a soldier who believed that the Catholic had it absolutely wrong. At their core, he fantasized, humans werent bad; they were good. And in order to thrive, people needed to be treated with unconditional positive thought( Rogers coined the phrase ). Vasco began contemplating under Rogers himself, a soldier he afterwards described as virtually my second father. Through intense group therapy workshops at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Vasco became a adherent of the human potential shift, based partly on the Rogerian idea that all you need to do to live well is discover your authentic inner self.

Portrait: Franck Allais for the Guardian

Around the state capitol, Vascos colleagues began to notice the buttoned-up Catholic was unbuttoning. He flourished his mane and wear half-open Hawaiian shirts on the floor of the senate, a gold series nuzzled in his chest “hairs-breadth”. One reporter described him as looks a lot like a cross between a boulder starring and anti-retroviral drugs smuggler. He became a human potential evangelist, urging the innate goodness in human beings and handing long notebook directories to peers. His self-hating Catholic self had washed away, and in its neighbourhood is a major, glowing note I.

Vasco knew he was in a unique slot. As a legislator, he could take everything hed learned about human potential and transform it into programme that would have a real effect on thousands, perhaps millions, of lives. He decided to campaign for a state-financed task force to promote self-esteem: this would give the movement official affirmation and allow legislators to fashion legislation around it. Best of all, they could recruit “the worlds” finest researchers to prove, scientifically, that it worked.

In the mid-8 0s, the notion that feeling good about yourself was the answer to all your problems seemed to many like a silly Californian cult. But it was also a age when Thatcher and Reagan were busily redesigning western culture around their projection of neoliberalism. By interrupting the unions, flogging shields for workers and trade deregulating bank and business, they wanted to turn as much of human life as possible into a competition of self versus soul. To get along and get ahead in this new competitive age, you had to be ambitious, ruthless, relentless. You had to believe in yourself. What Vasco was offering was a simple hack that would draw you a more winning contestant.

Vascos first try at having his task force mandated into principle has now come to a halt in 1984, when he suffered material heart attack. His belief in positive think was such that, by seeking to remedy himself, he wrote to his ingredients requesting them to envision themselves with minuscule cleans swimming through his arteries, rubbing at the cholesterol, while singing, to the sing of Row, Row, Row Your Barge: Now tells swim ourselves/ up and down my flows/ Touch and rub and heated and thaw/ the plaque that stymie my streams. It didnt piece. As the senate “vote yes ” its own proposal, Vasco was retrieving from seven-way coronary bypass surgery.

After a second attempt was vetoed by the state minister, Vasco decided to enhance the name of his job, modernizing it to the Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. He reduced the proposed budget from $750,000 a year to $735,000 over three, to be spent on academic the investigations and the roundup of sign in the form of public testament. On 23 September 1986, Assembly Bill 3659 was signed into law.

The response from the California media was immediate and barbarian. One editorial, in the San Francisco Chronicle, called Vascos task force naive and outrageous. Nothing established Vasco more enraged than his ideas not being taken seriously, but he was about to become the prank of America.

***

Until Monday 9 February 1987, Vascos task force had was widely regime report. But on that morning, the cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who had been tickled by the legislators crusade, inaugurated an extraordinary two-week lope of his favourite Doonesbury strip to be given to it. By the end of that day, reporters were mobbing Vasco on the floor of the assembly enclosure. Rival politicians devoted dismissive briefings You could buy the Bible for $2.50 and work better while the Wall Street Journals story endured the headline Maybe Folks Would Feel Better If They Get To Split The $735,000.

Vasco was pallid. The media, he grumbled, were ghastly, cynical, sceptical and inexpensive. Their problem? Low self-esteem.

Meanwhile, something impressive seemed to be happening. The response from the people of California had been great. Between its notice and the task forces firstly public gather in March 1987, the role received more than 2,000 calls and letters, and almost 400 applications to volunteer. More than 300 parties came forward to speak in support of self-esteem at public hearings in the various regions of the nation. And even if the medias tone wasnt always respectful, Vasco himself was now their own nationals anatomy. He seemed everywhere from Newsweek to the CBS Morning Show to the BBC. This, he felt, could be a major opportunity.

But firstly he needed to find a way to wrench the national media gossip upwards. And situations, on that front, were going from unfortunate to foolish. It began with the announcement of the task forces 25 members. On the upside, it was a diverse group, including women, gentlemen, people of colour, lesbian beings, straight beings, Republican, Democrat, a former police officer and Vietnam veteran whod been awarded two Purple Middle. On the downside, it also included a white man in a turban who predicted the work of the working group would be so powerful, it would cause the sunlight to increase in the west. A delighted Los Angeles Herald told how, in front of the press, one member of the task force had asked others to close their eyes and thoughts a self-esteem maintenance gear of sorcery hats, twigs and amulets.

Vascos team embarked sounding information from people up and down California. They sounded from an LA deputy sheriff who toured academies, attempting to reduce drug use by telling students, You are special. You are a wonderful individual. They sounded from masked members of the Crips, who accused their murderous criminality on low-pitched self-esteem. One school principal recommended having elementary pupils increase their self-importance by doing evaluations on their teachers. A wife called Helice Bridges explained how shed dedicated her life to assigning hundreds of thousands of blue ribbon that read Who I Am Makes A Difference.

With the national media held so much to snigger over, it was beginning to look as if Vascos mission was a bust. But there had been some good word: the University of California had agreed to recruit seven profs to research the connection between low-grade self-esteem and societal maladies. They would report back in two years hour. For Vasco, their findings would be personal. If the professors decided he was wrong, it was all over.

***

Me, myself and I: a selfie-snapping millennial. Picture: Francois Lenoir/ Reuters

At 7.30 pm on 8 September 1988, Vasco fulfilled the scientists at El Rancho Inn in Millbrae, just outside San Francisco, to hear research results. Everything hinged on Dr Neil Smelser, an emeritus professor of sociology who had coordinated the design, resulting a crew who reviewed all the existing experiment on self-esteem. And the bulletin was good: four months later, in January, the task force questioned a newsletter: In the words of Smelser, The correlational discovers are very positive and compelling.

The headlines rapidly piled up: Self-Esteem Panel Finally Being Taken Seriously; Commission On Self-Esteem Finally Getting Some Respect. The nation minister mailed the professors experiment to his fellow ministers, suggesting, Im convinced that these studies build the foundations for a new period in American problem solving.

Vascos task force was almost done: all they had to supposed to do now was build upon this positive tint with the publication of their final report, Toward A State Of Esteem, in January 1990. That report turned out to be a win beyond the reasonable hopes of anyone who had witnessed its humiliating descents. The minister of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, whod privately taunted Vasco and his projection , now publicly endorsed it, as did illustrations including Barbara Bush and Colin Powell. Time magazine ran with the headline, The gibes are turning to cheers.

The man they were calling the Johnny Appleseed of Self-Esteem is available on the Today Show and Nightline, on the BBC and Australias ABC. The report went into reprinting in its debut week and went on to sell an extraordinary 60,000 copies. Vascos publicists approached Oprah Winfrey, who extended a prime-time special probing why she speculated self-esteem was going to be one of the catch-all words for the 1990 s. Interviewed were Maya Angelou, Drew Barrymore and John Vasconcellos.

Four months after the launch of Toward A State Of Esteem, the papers were reporting that self-esteem was broom through Californias public academies, with 86% of the states elementary school territories and 83% of high school regions enforcing self-esteem programmes. In Sacramento, students began matching twice a few weeks to decide how to discipline other students; in Simi Valley, children were taught, It doesnt matter what you do, but who you are. Political chairmen from Arkansas to Hawaii to Mississippi embarked considering their own task forces.

As the months became times, the self-love action spread. Accuseds in narcotic visitations were reinforced with special key chains for be contained in court, while those who completed medication were given applause and doughnuts. Children were gifted plays accolades just for swerving up; a Massachusetts school district prescribed children in gym classes to skip without actual ropes lest they abide the self-esteem calamity of tripping. Meanwhile, police in Michigan trying a serial rapist taught the public to look out for a thirtysomething male with medium build and low-grade self-esteem.

The credibility of Vascos task force turned predominantly on a single knowledge: that, in 1988, the esteemed professors of the University of California had analysed the data and approved his impression. The only question was, they hadnt. When I tracked down one renegade task force member, he described what happened as a fucking lie. And Vasco was behind it.

***

In an attempt to discover how America, and then “the worlds”, went conned so spectacularly, I travelled to Del Mar, California, to assemble the task force member whod prophesied their work would cause the sunlight to increase in the west. David Shannahoff-Khalsa greeted me into his bungalow, examining little changed from the old-time image Id learnt: appearance constrict, attentions sharp-witted, turban blue. A kundalini yoga practitioner who guessed meditation to be an ancient engineering of the head, Shannahoff-Khalsa had been so disillusioned by the final report, hed refused to sign it.

Portrait: Franck Allais for the Guardian

As we sat and nibbled cheese, he picked up a dense notebook with a glossy red-faced handle: The Social Importance Of Self-Esteem. This was the obtained work of the University of California professors. He flicked through its sheets, ending eventually on Smelsers summary of the findings. The information most consistently reported, he read out loud, is that the association between self-esteem and its expected importances are mixed, insignificant or absent.

This was a radically different conclusion from that fed to the public. Shannahoff-Khalsa told me he was present when Vasco first met preliminary enlists of the professors make. I remember him going through them and he ogles up and enunciates, You know, if members of the legislative council finds out whats in these reports, we are able to cut the funding to the task force. And then all of that nonsense started to get brushed for the purposes of the table.

How did they do that?

They tried to hide it. They wrote a[ positive] report before this one, he alleged, tapping the ruby-red notebook, which deliberately dismissed and considered up the science.

It was hard to believe that Vascos task force had been so rash as simply to develop the mention, the one that territory the findings and conclusions were positive and compelling. What had really happened at that see in September 1988? I knew the answer on an old-time audio cassette in the California state archives.

The sound was hissy and swooning. What I sounded, though, was clear enough. It was a recording of Smelsers presentation to Vascos task force at that meet in El Rancho Inn, and it was nowhere near as upbeat as the task force had claimed. I listened as he announced the professors work to be complete but worryingly mixed. He talked through a few domains, such as academic achievement, and remarked: These correlational findings are really pretty positive, reasonably compelling. This, then, was the mention the task force employed. Theyd sexed it up a bit for the public. But they had wholly omitted what he enunciated next: In other areas, the connects dont seem to be so great, and were not quite sure why. And were not sure, once we have connects, what the causes might be.

Smelser then leaved the task force a tell. The data was not going to give them something we are able to hand on a dish to the legislature and do, This is what youve got to do and youre going to expect the following kind of results. That is another sin, he said. Its the sin of overselling. And no one can wishes to do that.

I wondered whether Smelser was angry about the mention that got used. So I announced him. He told me the university got involved in the first place only because Vasco was in charge of its budget. The influence[ from Vasco] was indirect. He didnt speak, Im going to cut your budget if you dont do it. But, Wouldnt it be a good idea if the university could dedicate some of its resources to this question? It turned out that Smelser wasnt at all stunned about their dubious medicine of the data. The task force would welcome different forms of good word and either reject or disclaim bad news, he replied. I knew this was a quasi-religious crusade, and thats the kind of happen that happens in those dynamics.

Vasco passed away, aged 82, in 2014, but I find his right-hand guy, task force chairman and veteran legislator Andrew Mecca. When we finally communicated, he confirmed that it was the prestige of the University of California that had passed occasions around for Vasco. That gave us some credibility stripes, he replied. Like Smelser, he felt that the university became involved simply out of anxiety of Vasco. John chaired their lifeblood. Their plan! he chuckled.

How did he frequency the professors investigate? As you read the book, he mentioned, its a cluster of scholarly gobbledegook.

What was Meccas response when the data didnt say what he craved?

I didnt care, he did. I thought it was beyond discipline. It was a leap of faith. And I reckon simply a blind stupid wouldnt believe that self-esteem isnt center to ones persona and health and vitality.

Was Vasconcellos furious where reference is read the professors reports?

The thing is, John was an incredible politician. He was pragmatic enough that he felt he had what he necessary, and that was a scholarly report that pretty much supposed, Self-esteems important. At least, thats the spin we got in the media.

Mecca told me that, prior to the final reports publication, he and Vasco visited editors and television services and facilities producers up and down the two countries, in a deliberate attempt to construct the fib before it was possible to subverted. An extraordinary $30,000 was spent on their PR campaign: at its meridian, five publicists were working full time. We decided to make sure we got out there to tell our fib and not let them interpret it from the stuff that was being written by Smelser. We cultivated the letter. And that positiveness prevailed.

So nobody listened to what Smelser and Shannahoff-Khalsa were saying?

Im not sure anybody attended, Mecca added. Who recollects Neil Smelser or Shannahoff-Khalsa? Nothing! They were minuscule ripples in a big tsunami of positive change.

***

More than 20 years on, the effects of Vascos mission linger. Whether the tsunami of change he brought about was utterly positive continues dubious. I spoke to educational psychologist Dr Laura Warren, who taught in British academies in the 90 s, and remembers her schools edict that staff utilize mauve writes to differentiate wrongdoings, in place of the negative red. It was a policy of wage everything that they do, she told me. That turned out to be a atrociously bad idea.

The Ofsted inspectors detected as much when they saw Barrowford primary school in 2015. But after their critical report became public, the headteacher, Rachel Tomlinson, defended herself in her local newspaper. When we introduced the policy, it was after an horrid heap of research and deliberation, she read. And I think it has been a success.

Accommodated from Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed And What Its Doing To Us by Will Storr, published by Picador on 15 June at 18.99. To tell a emulate for 16.14, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846

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