Tag Archives: I Spit on Your Graves

Pop Culture

Graphic Thrills

　

　

    More than an “s” differentiates the Boris Vian novella I Spit on Your Graves from both schlock movie versions of I Spit on Your Grave. Nor does the former serve as source material for the latter pair.

    Book and movies arrive from distinct places.

    Vian’s 1946 tale is an oozing helping of exported Americana strained through culture, news, music, and propaganda into France. While the United States and Soviet Union won World War II, it would take Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s admissions of the deceased commissar’s criminal excesses before the workers’ paradise gleam assumed a rightfully heavy tarnish.

    Until that happy day America alone occupied the whole ambivalence spectrum.

    Each movie follows one simple arc. A damsel in distress turns tables on her tormentors and becomes Ellie Mae Clampett on meth. It’s carnage deluxe. Continue reading Graphic Thrills →

Great Books

What Came Along

    Blessed and cursed are those of us residing in the New York Metropolitan area. Regarding the first, where else on earth can inquisitive minds, the nakedly ambitious, poseurs even, find such a concatenation of amusements, outlets and audiences? 

    On the downside, cheap is expensive here.
    
    In order to avoid falling into an exaggerated subsistence level, throughout January I  performed certain economies. The 2008 financial tumble washed over me in 2009 but I didn’t start gasping for air until last year.

    Being luckier than many others reduced my pay, transformed my bonus into lousy tip money, while my investments only started recouping their declines slower than a tired fat man climbing Empire State Building stairs. Continue reading What Came Along →