My Bloody Winter Vacation
I've been commenting in other people's journals lately, but not posting much. I'd better do something to remedy that.
I've been on an odd kick lately, reading a lot of crime stuff. It all started with seeing No Country For Old Men, which was great and deep, without being obnoxiously deep. This lead to reading up on various killers, like Zodiac and Woody Harrelson's dad. I also read Monkey on a Stick, which covered the breakdown of the Hare Krishnas which culminated in a couple murders, and then I read one of Colin Wilson's Mammoth Books of True Crime. Meanwhile, I watched all two seasons of Life on Mars.
Why? I'm not interested in gory things and I'm not obsessed with crime; my obsessions generally run towards "secret" stuff, like obscure history, unexplored reasons behind events and ideas, conspiracies (real and imaginary,) and the occult. And eccentricity insanity, because in a sense, extreme, unique personal viewpoints are the most secret things of all. That certainly seems to be the focus of many of the crime things I've been reading lately, since the Zodiac killer and Jack the Ripper are unsolved murders, and serial killers in general don't kill for easily discernible reasons. That's why they're so hard to catch.
So No Country For Old Men was more an exception to the rule, even thought it kicked off this recent mini-obsession. I liked it not for the murders or even for the thriller aspect, but because of the symbolism and ambiguity. And Life on Mars intrigued me because of the ambiguous nature of the main character: is he a time traveler, a crazy person in 1973, or in a coma in 2006? I was more concerned about what those two things meant or implied than the criminal details they presented.
I've been on an odd kick lately, reading a lot of crime stuff. It all started with seeing No Country For Old Men, which was great and deep, without being obnoxiously deep. This lead to reading up on various killers, like Zodiac and Woody Harrelson's dad. I also read Monkey on a Stick, which covered the breakdown of the Hare Krishnas which culminated in a couple murders, and then I read one of Colin Wilson's Mammoth Books of True Crime. Meanwhile, I watched all two seasons of Life on Mars.
Why? I'm not interested in gory things and I'm not obsessed with crime; my obsessions generally run towards "secret" stuff, like obscure history, unexplored reasons behind events and ideas, conspiracies (real and imaginary,) and the occult. And eccentricity insanity, because in a sense, extreme, unique personal viewpoints are the most secret things of all. That certainly seems to be the focus of many of the crime things I've been reading lately, since the Zodiac killer and Jack the Ripper are unsolved murders, and serial killers in general don't kill for easily discernible reasons. That's why they're so hard to catch.
So No Country For Old Men was more an exception to the rule, even thought it kicked off this recent mini-obsession. I liked it not for the murders or even for the thriller aspect, but because of the symbolism and ambiguity. And Life on Mars intrigued me because of the ambiguous nature of the main character: is he a time traveler, a crazy person in 1973, or in a coma in 2006? I was more concerned about what those two things meant or implied than the criminal details they presented.