What I Am Reading - Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

Douglas Rushkoff

Read it in hardback at 256 pages

As an employee of a large software distribution company, I see what Douglas Rushkoff calls 'Present Shock' on a daily basis.  While most people can certainly relate to Rushkoffs example of the dinner/bar situation in which everyone you met to mingle is instead on their cell phone, that hits home for everyone, after all; who hasn't experienced this yet? I have seen some fantastic things, most notably people so absorbed on their laptops that they have tumbled down stairs or fallen over second story banisters.  I also see how future technology will only cement the charms of a digital life we have now and lay the foundation for even more integration in the future.  There is no escaping it.

With all of this in mind, I saw Mr. Rushkoff hocking this book on some late night political satire show on Comedy Central and figured it might be worth my time. 

In Present Shock, Rushkoff outlines what he believes present shock to be, as opposed to future shock, as well as why he believes we have found ourselves in this situation.  A kind of cross street between past and future avenue.  While everyone clings to each Facebook update or Tweet, they fail to realize that everything on the net is the past and while they think they are more connected to the present, each entry is a time stamp of the past.  Something that makes that dinner/bar ordeal so painful when it's guilty members could be living in a present only shared with those around them but choose to immerse with the past instead.   The book aims to outline why Mr. Rushkoff thinks this is and does so through a series of examples (corporate, consumerism, etc.) along a hazy timeline in which he believes the switch occurred.  Obviously escalated the more that technology has entered our lives.

The content of the book is pretty superb as it relates to what he believes present shock to be, and I loved a lot of the examples he chose to use to convey the feeling.  His argument gets significantly more flimsy with the examples of how we got to where we are and most definitely falls apart about where we are headed.  I lost a lot of steam as the book was winding down, although I must admit I was on a vacation where reading was a hard task to complete.

The most stunning rumination of Rushkoff from Present Shock for me:

"We think of time as the numbers on the clock, rather than the moments they are meant to represent" - Rushkoff 

What I Am Reading - The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler

144 pages of wide, terrible, paperback which was censored.  (Avoid Serenity Publishers at all Cost)

Raymond Chandler was born in 1888 and eventually lost his job as an oil company executive during the great depression.  Looking for a new line of work, Chandler decided to start writing detective novels.  The Big Sleep is his first full novel he produced and it was published in 1939.  74 years later it was selected by one man in our book club for May's selection.

The Big Sleep follows Marlowe, a quick wit detective, as he attempts to figure out who is framing a high ranking retiree in shady LA.  As the story progresses we have a heaping serving of murder, deception, lust, drink, and everything else that would become the central requirements of this genre.  Short sweet and to the point, Chandler spent a lot of time mastering this tale.  The amount of time and love forged into each chapter is apparent.  Since it is a mystery, each chapter was written to deliver a specific set of information without spoiling the story.  Delivered in a way to keep the reader engaged and guessing but not in a way that detracted from the pace of the story.

Chandler is so successful in fact that we had some very avid reader feedback from this month's OLT selection.

-Potential Spoilers Below-

Overall Marlowe was everyone's favorite.  It's easy to see why as he is the one with all the wit, the answers, the smokes, the booze, gets all the ladies, and of course the hero of the story.  In an effort to create panic and sow seeds of decent, on member opined that Carmen, the whore and generally 'not right' fem of the story, was their favorite as he particularly liked the parts she was in and her demeanor.  Translation, he fiends for that type of female in his life. 

Moving on.

Everyone's favorite and least favorite moments were everywhere.  While some people loved X portion, others hated it, and while some liked Y bit, others hated it so I won't go into much details here.  The sequence closer to the end where Marlowe makes a stop at a particular auto shop on a rainy night though seemed to stick with most of our merry band.

From 1 to 10 with one being a loathsome tomb worth Hitler's burning and ten being interred at the Vatican, The Big Sleep did really well.  All of our readers completed, something that's been going well this year, and this is the second highest avg. score for a book this year at 7.3 (only losing by .1 to Enders Game).

The Breakdown:

Hylen: 6

G$$: 7

BouzyCoug: 7

Th3ee: 6

Dust: 9

Tech n' Tom: 6

SS: 10

Shelydonsaurus: 7

DavidK: 5

Eleach: 10

Happy Readings.

How Life Comes Today - Too Stoned To Sleep

How Life Comes Today – A series of some of my more obsessive traits and observations.

Too Stoned to Sleep -

So here I am, in a predicament. I am too stoned to sleep.  Weird, I know.

I am riding this sweet mellow high and am not ready to put the lights out but it's far too late to run around the house since everyone is under the guise of sleep.  Weed doesn’t always make me tired, I like to float and when I find it I ride it, so naturally, it's movie time and it has to be one of two things, since the aim is to stay awake, an overboard action movie or a terrible horror movie are the only options.

I went with the horror movie and chose ‘The Collection’.

I am not sure if this is the second or the third in the series but the first plays out like this…

People in a house, guy breaks in and rigs the whole place with booby traps and then releases a victim, he has brought with him from some previous escapade, from an elaborate red trunk to play bait, I guess.  Victim is all fucked up in the box and makes terrible sounds, as which is fitting for bait.  The people in the house realize a bad situation is underway and proceed to attempt escape but the stupid elaborate booby traps start getting them one by one in equal grizzly fashion.  Somewhere in here is a nice rack of tits and a whole lot of blood shed until it's just The Collector, The victim, and the Victim to Be.  Boil it down super simple.  The Collector is some sort of weird dude that collects people but not until they have survived his traps, but when they do he wants them something fierce and basically they go in the box and the last victim that came from the box dies as well as everyone else in this way…at the end of the movie he of course escapes with his victim which now transports us to this magic moment, possibly with another movie in-between.

As the title suggests, it looks like this time we will get to see the Collectors collection.  Word and joy and shit.  My muddled senses are ready.  I am comfortably seated in my bed, dog snoring away chewing through the previews that I can't skip on my RedBox edition.

Act 1

A small girl is in a car with her dad and he is telling her he will never leave her when BAMM car accident.

Opening credits of weird bugs and news broadcasts saying how this twisted killer is on the loose.  This is all cut with the Collector dude getting all suited up.  Final montage bit with him lacing the straps on his weird creepy mask and him cutting people open and shit.

Fade to black.

We re-open to a girl in her room and we are led to believe it's the same girl from the accident just older, she's got a shaved head, and it looks like she is getting ready to go out for a night on the town but the phone rings and it's her boyfriend.  We are going to call her Shaved moving forward for simplicities sake.  He's got bad news, he's got to work and Shaved is devastated but understands as he promises he would make it up to her.  Just when Shaved is about to call it quits for the night and roll into her bed her best friend texts or rings and says 'no were going out I got this bomb party to go to' and it peaks her interest.  Shaved leaves the super stacked nice house and meets up with her friends, somewhere in there we get a scene of her tucking her drunk dad in…so at least he didn't die in the accident or whatever.

Here they are on the way to the party yammering about the killer on the loose and just when they think they are there they can't find the correct door.  Queue creepy fuck from opposite door.  He looks like a Viking, if you ever saw that YouTube clip 'Techno Viking' you get an idea of what this guy looks like.  He doesn't say a word just stares all creepy like at them until Shaved remembers the password and screams it out.  Techno Viking produces a fancy remote control and opens a door in which loud techno babble and red lights are emanating and Techno Viking fades back to his closet.   Shaved and cast walk in and descends stairs, pan camera up to Collector who is hiding in the rafters watching the entire party with his gimp mask on.  He's obviously up to no good.

So Shaved and friends are meandering through the rave and everyone's having a great time just dancing and Shaved is walking through the crowd taking it all in enchanted with the lights and music, just a grand fucking time when she sees her boyfriend.  Ah shit, he was supposed to be working and to make matters worse, he's dancing with a floosy with long hair.  Shaved is pissed, and she makes eye contact with him right before Shaved just lets him have it.  Pops him right in the nose and now he's bleeding everywhere.  Pan back up to Collector who is still hovering in the rafters, and takes notice of Shaved and this stern action, he's interested and we zoom into his creepy pig eyes.

So Shaved is running through the rave trying to take a second for some solace. Shaved is distraught, Shaved really liked this dude and her girlfriend is attempting to keep up but loses her in the swell of it all.  She runs through the maze of a place and eventually picks the darkest creepiest hallway where everyone is making out.  This enrages Shaved so she ducts into a room to think and what do you know, a fancy red trunk is there and it's wobbling.  Of course Shaved ain't ever scared, she did after all just assault her boyfriend, so she marches up and unlatches the trunk.  When she does this two notable things happen.  A victim comes rolling out of the trunk (see first movie and I don't know if this is the same guy or not) and it sets off a chain reaction.  When the trunk is opened it releases a mechanism, some sort of wire thing that’s rigged throughout the rave building and then culminates in the release of this people thrasher.  The deets on the people thrasher are pretty simple, it thrashes people.  It’s a spinny-spikey gizmo that operates much like a push lawn mower.  It rolls through the rave dance floor killing everyone in a terrible graphic way.   Arms, heads, everything…just shredded.  No one see’s it coming so one minute dance dance fun time and the next minute a pile of flesh on the ground.  It’s really very disgusting.  Even the people near the end that see this thing coming just scream and take it.  Anyways, so the whole rave is dead and those that are not are running around in a panic.  The Collector really enjoys this, you can see it in his eyes that he has popped some sort of morbid chubby.  Since he knows that someone had to trigger this orgy of rending he starts making his way to the box room, but first there are some people that need to be crushed. 

In the chaos, there happens to be an elevator that can be completely enclosed.  Really I am not too sure on the specifics but it appears that as he is going to the room, Shaved is running from the room, and their paths intersect at the death elevator.  He’s on top riding it down onto the poor group under him while Shaved is screaming because her best friend is in the elevator.  Reunited and feels so…crushed.  Yep Shaved watches her best friend and the other thirty people get smashed.  It’s equally as gory as the spinny gizmo and we also get a lot of crushing and popping, but once again the Collector is just riding it down looking like Captain Morgan on his bottle of rum.  The whole time he’s just looking at Shaved.  I have to presume he’s taking the Captains pose in an effort to hide the chubby.

Shaved has only one option, run back to the box room.  While we were gone watching the crushing it appears the victim has emerged from the box, released their manacles and is running for a window at the end of that hallway.  He’s there trying to jimmy the window open and having a tough time of it when boom Shaved rounds the corner and see’s him and then the Collector comes around the corner too.  Good old game of pickle with Shaved as the prize.  The victim tries to warn Shaved but she’s in a panic and he says fuck this shit and out the window he goes breaking his arm on top of a car during the culmination of his flight out the window.  Shaved runs for the window but this game of pickle is over and he manages to wrangle her into the box and slaps the cover down.

Meanwhile the Survivor, that’s what I will be calling him now, runs as fast as he can.  He stops at a building to see if he’s being followed and of course there is the Collector looking out the window like he has just lost the best piece of ass in the land.  Sirens are coming so he’s out and pokes back into the building.

Act 2

So cut, and we are in a police station and Survivor is getting questioned like crazy on the whole thing.  He’s angry and just wants to go home.  These are all reasonable things since he has been in the clutches of a deranged killer for some time.  Some dialogue filler for a bit about how terrible the Collector is and then they release him.  When he’s in the parking lot or what not a strangely serious man asks if he can help them find Shaved.  Survivor tries to explain how dire the situation is but this guy isn’t having it.  Survivor says she is probably dead, Serious doesn’t care.  Survivor says no and serious threatens him.  Survivor still says no, but Serious isn’t having it and eventually makes and argument to sway Survivor.  He’s on board and he knows how to find the Collector so promises to take him there and there alone.  He won’t go back to the…Collection.

Now we get to meet the breach team spear headed by Serious and financed by Shaved-s rich father.  This is a group full of bad ass.  They got guns and knives.  They got terrible and cocky attitudes.  Pretty standard castoff casualty models.

Next Survivor goes into how he knows where the Collection is located.  While he was in the box he had a system for tracking where they went.  Since he knew where he got abducted they had a starting place.  He had tracked turns and duration by cutting his arm with hashes and things.  So off they go, left, right, straight, and into the Collectors Collection they go.

When they get there it’s a big empty warehouse building or industrial jibber jabber.  It’s dark and scary and all the windows are blacked out.  The only sign of life on the lot is two homeless dudes standing by a barrel keeping themselves warm.  When they get to the back door Survivor is all ‘cool, got you here, enjoy, and don’t die’ but the breach team says no.  Serious demands he picks the lock.  So Survivor picks the lock for them and tries to bow out again but now they are demanding he goes in with them.  He says no again and Serious pulls a gun on him.  Says something about how it’s not an option and they all go in.

So we are now on the lowest floor of the Collection.  Obviously when the doors swings open it triggers some sort of really intricate alarm which is good because we are about to get back to Shaved and her unfortunate situation.  While all this crap is going on with Survivor, Shaved is still in the box and she can see through the key holes of the trunk.  What’s the Collector doing?  What he does best, he’s cutting people up and stroking other victims that are screaming on surgical tables.  This dude over here has an organ or do-dad he wants so he cuts it out, puts it in a jar and kills the dude.  That kind of stuff.  She has no idea when it’s her turn and she’s panicking.  When the alarm goes off though the Collector is distracted and runs out of the cutting room.  Shaved seizes the moment, and with a show of high intelligence and cunning, removes her bra and uses the wire to unlatch the trunk.  Boom she comes spilling out into the cutting room.  It’s all clean and white, full of people specimens.  People are on tables all cut up and decorated with their organs.  There are more trunks so she opens one and a victim comes spilling out but they are all cut up and screaming, missing their hands and feet.  When they are screaming the Collector hears it or what not and comes down to check.  He obviously sees that Shaved has escaped but he gets calm with it.  Starts looking around the room, making sure she isn’t just going to stab him with a sharp bit.  Dispatches the victim with a knife.  Just doesn’t even give a shit neck slit kind of thing.  Shaved meanwhile is watching the whole thing and hiding under one of his collection wracks.  The Collector is hip with it though and decides this is a great opportunity to play with some friends.  Why he has a bunch of spiders in a jar is a mystery to me, but he releases these things all over the floor to find Shaved.  At the moment in which Shaved has to decide fight or flight though an alarm goes off and the Collector runs out the room.  Shaved gets up all disorientated and somehow manages to get out the door two before it locks or whatever.  Now she is running around in this complex too.

But Survivor and Serious are up to some interesting things with breach squad.  As they worked their way through the maze they see some weird scary shit that has them all shook up and jumpy.   Of course they make Survivor go first despite his excessive whining but when they round a particular corner they realize two things.  One, they are not alone. Two, that there are things in this maze with them.  Things as it would be are victims that have been turned into zombie like fast moving killing machines that wear little clothes and have their faces all cut up.  Bang, bang, popping caps, breach squad is shooting them as fast they can.  Sadly though it’s a horde of them and there are traps so we lose a few of breach squad right off the bat.  The rest are looking for a way to get out of the maze and Survivor takes this opportunity to flee from breach squad and take his chances on his own.

Back to Shaved, she’s going down hallways with doors and they all seem locked until, just her luck, she finds a door that’s open.  She saunters on in and sees a trunk, a bed, and a desk full of makeup.  Naturally she opens the chest and the heavily make-up wearing female comes out.  Right away we know she’s deranged since she’s screaming that Shaved isn’t supposed to be here.  Shaved manages to calm her down and explains that they are going to escape together.  Despite the fact that the deranged lady doesn’t want to go, Shaved insists.  So here they are running down hallways and the deranged lady is telling her what doors to avoid and stuff.  It’s all looking good for Shaved and then she runs into Survivor.  Survivor is super happy to see her and they start working as a team.  Things are going well, dodging traps and stuff when they run into Serious and the remainder of breach squad. 

Fast forward.  We have lost another member or two of breach squad.  One from a trap and the other from the Collectors blade.  They are running and observing the many horrors of the Collection.  Every room is a new grisly thing.  They eventually get to the top bit and Survivor can see the two bums at the barrel and he’s got a plan.  He takes Serious’s handgun and shoots one of the bums at 200 yards, Survivor is an amazing shot it appears.  This of course draws the attention of the Collector so he’s trying to get into the room, they run.  Everyone is shaken up so they take shelter in another room of the deranged woman’s selection and they think they are safe but the Collector is close so the deranged lady starts screaming that they are all fucked and goes to open the door.  When she does this someone tries to grab her and she spins into a trap that mangles her all bloody.  She’s dead, puking blood everywhere while she’s stuck in the contraption, and the Collector comes in and shreds one of the last of breach squad.  No so tough I guess.  In the ensuing melee Serious sees the opportunity to try and dispatch the Collector and also give Shaved the opportunity to escape and the expense of himself so he releases this battle cry and charges the Collector.  They both have knives so they start slashing at each other while Shaved and Survivor run.

They run up to the top again and look out the shooting window and see all of the cops that have come to help the bum and Survivor has one more bullet.  Why he didn’t shoot the Collector I don’t know but he levels it and shoots a cop.  So now the cops are spreading out to enter the building.  Plan successful.

Meanwhile Serious is having a hard time with the Collector.  Dudes legit with a knife I guess.

More melee and bam! Serious is kicked into a trap and if he moves he’s toast so he sits there and the Collector just looks at him for a solid ten seconds before running after Shaved and Survivor.  Those two are back to running around creepy land and somehow get split up.  The Collector sees what happened with the cop situation so he goes into self-destruct compound mode.  Why wouldn’t he have the compound all rigged to pop?  Of course he does.  So he goes into a room and hits a big button which I would assume is blow up mode because when he hits it the lights in the building go darker and yellow lights are flashing.  Best to alert everyone that the self-destruct sequence is activated. 

Act 3

I start to nod off but when I wake up Survivor, Shaved, and someone else (I think the last surviving member of breach squad) are in a cage surrounded with explosives and the lights flashing.

They have to get out but they can’t seem to hit the latch and Shaved is fresh out of bras.  Instead, Survivor has a plan.  He sticks his arm through the bars and re-breaks his arm because his bad ass quotient needs to be met.  Now that his arm is hanging like limp spaghetti he has the maneuverability to hit the latch, despite the pain.  Click-clack and they are free and running around the complex.

They end up down in some menagerie of horrors.  The Collector likes to pick his finer creations and put them on display for whomever in these giant specimen tanks.  He’s coming so they hide behind a wall that has a victim trapped to it getting fed chemicals intravenously.  It’s a bad situation for the victim and the Collector comes and kills her while the survivors are hiding.  The whole place is on fire and we are making some great leaps towards an end battle sequence.

Through some turn of bad luck the Collector finds them and Survivor decides to go toe to toe with him while Shaved looks for an exit, but she can’t find one as the giant door is latched.  So Survivor has a knife and the Collector have a knife and it ain’t going well for Survivor.

But remember Serious?  Yea, he’s managed to free himself from the trap so he comes in to get in the melee too.  So now this spinny melee is going on and the place is burning up all with the backdrop of these cadaver tanks.  This is a fantastic end battle scene.

Of course Serious is fatally wounded in the ordeal but Serious got him pretty bad too and Survivor is going in for the kill and throws him down a shaft back to those zombie things he made.  Finally the door gets opened and they leap to safety over falling flaming debris.

Yay!

Some news casts about how the end of the killing spree is over despite the fact that they didn’t find a body.  Yada-yada-yada.

Cut to Survivor tracking down the Collector in some small town, he’s not wearing his mask but it’s all back-shot so you still can’t see his face.  Survivor says something about bugs and then it fades to black and we have completed our journey.