Maggots, Murder, and Men : Book Review

Every once in awhile I come across a book that introduces old topics in a completely new way. We all know about bugs, and we all have seen murder mysteries. Combine the two, mix in a strong dash of British ambience, and you get something completely novel and different:

Maggots, Murderm and Men(2002) is a non-fiction book written by a British Forensic Entymologist, Dr. Zakaria Erzincllioglu(!) Dr. Zak comes across as a combination of Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes, and the Orkin Man.

The writing is wonderfully English in tone, and the content consists of countless stories and anecdotes about the author's experience in using insect knowledge to help solve murders and other crimes.

Grossout warning: You need a strong stomach to read this stuff. Dr. Zak cheerfully discusses the laying of flies eggs on rotting human flesh and the resulting growth of maggots and bluebottle flies. However, the book manages to be engaging and a refreshing alternative to the plethora of murder novels that seem to be so popular now.

Orchids and Baseball

Excerpt from The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean:

"Do you know where these neoregelias[Bromeliad Specie] came from? ... One day he found a little mysterious seedling on an orchid he'd gotten. He stuck the seedling in a hollowed-out coconut shell and grew it up, and it was this good-looking bromeliad. He set up his own little nursery and sold nothing but pups from that bromeliad. He must have made fifty thousand dollars on it. He lived off that one plant for years. "

The Orchid Thief is a non-fiction book about the Orchid and tropical plant industry in south Florida. As such it is a record of the investigations of writer Susan Orlean. But it is actually a collection of stories, which have taken on the character of local myths.

There is a line between reality and non-reality, and part of that line is myth and story. Stories sit on the interface between now and the past and future, with our senses and intuition as individual gatekeepers of what is real and what isn't.

I think it is interesting to explore not only the stories themselves but also the circumstances in which they arise and the manner in which they are introduced to the unwary public.

Stories are out of favor right now, and it is just because of this that they hold such power. They come in under the guise of real information, which reporters are just now beginning to understand. I think it is because of this that most of us are so much more interested in outright fantasy, such as Star Wars and Batman; it is presented as not real, and therefore is sterile and safe. One author/screenwriter who remains popular in exception to this is Michael Crichton, who manages to add a shadow of reality to his techno-thrillers through research and endnotes.

It seems the one area of reality that we have left is that of sports, but even that category is crumbling in the face of creeping commercialism which has begun to cast doubt on the integrity of some events. You can watch or replay in your head the plot from 'Field of Dreams' and understand it in the same light as some of these other examples. The whole historical premise on which 'Dreams' is based is the half-truth that Shoeless Joe Jackson and other players threw a baseball game for money. This half truth is then built upon with real people, such as J.D. Salinger (who became Terrence Mann in the movie). A whole new story, with its own myth and atmosphere, is built into an enormous edifice of poetry that transcends the controversial event upon which it is based.

If you look closely in our millennial (or is it millenial?) world, you will find many such unrealities masquerading as fact. More on this in a later (or is it earlier?) post.

Oxytocin and Trust, Fact and Fiction

New research shows a strong correlation between the presence of the hormone Oxytocin and the trust and love that mammals have for one another. The hormone is often present during lactation and reproduction. Scientists have developed a spray that can be used as a deoderant that is being marketed as an alternative to Aluminum Chlorhydrate, which has been linked to breast cancer.

Parts of the above statement are true. I've cleverly mixed truth with fiction to create a plausible article which I hope will become a rumor. More on rumors and viruses in another post.

The Sagan Effect

After reading some of the latest science news, I'm beginning to see a strong trend that seems to be going under the radar of our stellar news industry. It seems like every other scientist is after evidence that life could (not necessarily does) exist on other worlds. In my effort to classify everything under according to it's conspiracy category, I hereby name this phenomena the Sagan Effect. You heard it here first.

Thus, here we have bacteria that can perform photosynthesis where no sunlight exists, under the ocean. Same said bacteria and many other organisms can exist near geologic steam vents at temperatures in excess of 300 degrees Celsius, which is to say, they might exist on worlds with conditions not normally conducive to life.

Does the scientific world know something it isn't telling, or are they just working subconsciously under the idea that finding other life in the universe is inevitable?

Variety and prediction

"It pays a prophet not to be too specific" --- Robert A. Heinlein

One of the great things about being eccentric is that you see everything from the obtuse angle. One of the things that people respond to is quality, another is sincerity, but the media and entertainment industry seem to be stuck on experimenting with the continuum of indecency, between 'risque' and 'crude'. If quality or sincerity get woven in, its usually an accident. This is killing the sitcom industry, where all the writers, it seems, understood 'Seinfeld' in terms of its crudity, when the real reason people tuned into it was the quality of the humor and the excellent comic acting and timing.

During Seinfelds run, I remarked to a friend how much it reminded me of the old 'Dick Van Dyke' show in its pacing and combination of slapstick with one-liners. And of course, Seinfeld was noted for its respectful and wonderful use of the older school of comedians and actors in its supporting cast and guest stars.

The next big idea for television waiting in the wings is a true revival of the forum called the Variety Show. This genre in its classic form is gone. Most of its good examples are extremely dated, such as Sid Caesar's Show of Shows and The Carol Burnett Show. How simple it would be for a new Jerry Seinfeld type to pick it up, dust it off, and create some wonderful new and up to date television.

Of course, it would also be simple to mess it up by lacing it with jokes about masturbation, tits and ass, and who is screwing who. Get real, Burbank: us little folks out east are tired of that swill, its old stuff.

Look for someone with talent to pick up the Variety Show and run with it.

Good Director of the Week

You've heard a lot about Batman Begins, some of it isn't even hype.

Christopher Nolan is the director of what critics are calling 'one of the best comic book movies ever'.




This is his last incredible movie, Memento, a 'film noir' that was not as big a release as Batman Begins, but one that may be superior to it. In Memento, the central figure doesn't have any long term memory. As a result, he goes through life from moment to moment, attempting to find his way with handwritten notes and tattooed messages.

In 'Batman', Nolan brings us a very well-directed 'Origin of' movie, with excellent casting and enough special effects to make the action fans happy. But what makes this movie stand out from the others in the series is its look at Bruce Wayne and his motivations for becoming the Dark Knight.

Ironically, for all it transcends the genre, in the end this is still a movie about Batman saving a corrupt and seedy Gotham City. But it shows you how even a comic book hero can be interesting in the hands of a great director. I predict that Christopher Nolan will be eventually recognized as one of THE great dramatic directors of his generation.

Bad Movie of the Week

A scene from Identity




'Identity' , which I saw on HBO this weekend, easily wins the Stephen King award for bad movie of the week.

Just to give you a flavor of what you missed, Amanda Peet plays an imaginary character named Paris who is hiding a stash of cash so that she can buy a field in Florida and grow oranges, her lifelong dream. Oh, and she is also an imaginary hooker, and as usual, the only reason for watching this movie from beginning to end.

The reason this film rates bad movie of the week is because it shamelessly bases its whole plot on the psychological illness of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), already panned by Charlie Kaufmann in 'Adaptation' and painfully misused by Stephen King and Johnny Depp in 'the Secret Window'.

In this movie, a sick killer is wheeled into what amounts to a midnight meeting of his psychologist and the parole board and Governor so they can witness him living through his painful murdering of all but one of his ELEVEN personalities.

In his ninety minute flashback, he becomes victim, killer, and pursuer of the killer, as we are clumsily and melodramatically taken in detail through every violent imaginary murder. However, we mustn't forget that he really DID kill all of these folks at an isolated motel out west. After all, that's what makes the whole movie so 'compelling'.

Imaginary or not, let's hear it for the actress' HEAD bumping around in the dryer in the motel laundromat. Then there is John Cusack, the actress' chauffeur, sewing up the severed artery of another woman who he just happened to run over on the dark and stormy night ('I wish we had beige thread. It would have looked so much better') . But did I mention that Ray Liotta was escorting a serial killer to prison on the same evening? Let's not forget the young just-married couple who are not pregnant, or the dysfunctional trio of Mom, Stepdad, and young Timmy(Or is it Tommy?), who lost his father and his voice in some other poorly constructed movie plot.

Who am I leaving out? Oh yes, the motel manager, a Hitchcockian misfit who just 'took over' when the real manager dropped dead in his soup years ago. I don't think we can count the real manager as a character, because he is dead in the walk in freezer for most of the movie. Since when does a deserted motel have a walk-in freezer?

Oh, but I forgot, the whole sordid plot is the fabrication of the sick mind of a killer, so all inconsistencies are not only forgiven, they add to the logic of the plot: the killer is not only a psycho, he is an incompetent screenwriter. And after all, how else can you get the victims out in the rain except by having them try to find a good cellular phone connection?

Of course, we are not supposed to know that the killer-victims-pursuers are all the same person. After all, that is a secret, only revealed until the middle of the movie. ('Wait, while we're being murdered, what do we have in common? We all have the same birthday. We all are named after places. Professor, what does it mean?') What genius.

If you want to enjoy dissociative personality disorder(DID) as I/We do, read Jose Luis Borges' works, or at least check out 'Adaptation', one of the best movies of all time. 'DID' , as it is affectionately acronymed by professionals, is just one of the multiple ways to slip between the linearity of Ordinary Time. Its a shame that it is misused in Hollywood, at a waste of so many serious actors.