Of Iranian Space Monkeys and Other Real Life Space Invaders

“Space,” as 70s prog-rock legends Hawkwind once told us, “is deep”. But that’s not all, for as Yuri Gagarin also informed us, it can be a disappointing place for religious believers. You see, the first cosmonaut apparently took a peek out of the porthole while he was in orbit to see if the Deity was floating about. When he didn’t see an old man with a white beard anywhere nearby he allegedly declared: “I don’t see any God up here.”

Andrei Platonov: The Good Stalinist

As a fan of Soviet literature one of my great frustrations is the lack of good writing from a pro-Stalin perspective. There is no shortage of books about the evils of Stalin and the system he created- Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov and Bulgakov all spring to mind- but what about those writers who actually believed in his vision for the USSR?  

After all, even today many Russians view Stalin with a mixture of awe and terror, or simply awe. As for me, I think he was a vile individual, yet I would still like to know what it feels like to believe in that living god. Of course many authors in the 30s and 40s wrote books praising Stalin but they were mostly if not all rotten: monotonous, simplistic, shallow and dishonest. 

Celebrity Death Match: Andrei Tarkovsky vs. Lindsey Lohan

Last Saturday I felt a bit ill and so decided to retire to my chambers early, to watch a bit of TV and drink tea. Immediately however I faced a problem: the old tube TV in my bedroom isn’t connected to cable and I didn’t have the life force to drive down to the grocery store and rent a movie from the dispenser next to the entrance. There was nothing to watch.

Dang, I thought, what am I supposed to do now? Read a book? Ridiculous! But at that moment I spotted a black DVD case in the corner of the room. And suddenly it all came back to me: yes, the

Why French Tax Exile Gerard Depardieu is My Hero

I’m not a fan of class warfare, so when I heard recently that Gerard Depardieu had lost his rag at the prospect of being taxed 75% on his earnings, I sympathized. It’s a ridiculously high rate that will only affect those people who can most easily avoid it anyway. In short, it’s unfair and stupid. Even so, when I discovered that Depardieu was thinking of renouncing his citizenship and becoming Belgian I wondered if that wasn’t a bit drastic. Yes, he’d save money, but… Belgium?

Obviously I wasn’t the only one thinking this as last week Vladimir Putin offered Depardieu Russian citizenship. The actor promptly accepted and I watched the celebrations on TV. There was Depardieu having dinner with Putin, Depardieu partying in Mordovia- he was having a great time: GLORY TO THE 13% TAX RATE, VODKA AND PRETTY GIRLS!

In Praise of Courtesy

Recently I was talking to a man who expects the Messiah to return this April. About halfway into our chat he thanked me for being “courteous.” This struck me as a strange thing to say, since I had asked for the interview. Evidently he was accustomed to journalists adopting a condescending or mocking tone.

That’s not an approach I approve of, and not just because it’s ineffective. I like to think I am a fairly polite individual. This is not down to any innate moral virtue, but because, when I was a child, my parents instilled in me near-Victorian codes of public behavior. If I were on a bus and a grown-up arrived, I had to surrender my seat; if adults were in the room I had to sit quietly; and if I were strolling on the sidewalk with a lady then it was my duty to walk on the outside lest she be spattered with mud from a passing car.

2012: The Year's Most Uplifting Moments

As everybody knows, the media doesn’t make its money by telling everybody what’s right in the world. Throughout the year we have been fed a steady diet of scandal, disaster, tragedy and horror. But as Lou Reed once sang: it’s easy enough to tell what is wrong, but that’s not what I want to hear all night long. So as 2012 draws to a close, I’d like to focus on five of the year’s uplifting events, to inspire us for the year ahead.

1.    George Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise

I’m not one of those types who whines that “George Lucas murdered my childhood” with his atrocious Star Wars prequels. Indeed, the older I get the more irritated I become with man-boys of my generation who can’t let go of the things they enjoyed as 7 year-olds. But even so, The Phantom Menace really was appalling, and I’ve blotted out my memories of the other two films. What shocked me most however was to watch as a formerly talented man systematically negated every correct decision he had made a few decades earlier. It was depressing to see such an anti-mojo at work. Could that happen to me? I wondered. Could I lose all judgment? Thus we may rejoice that Lucas flogged his franchise to Disney, and be happy for him that he realized he didn’t have it in him anymore (however he may justify the sale personally). May we all gain that level of insight, may George Lucas enjoy his $4 billion and may the new films be at least mediocre. 

2012, The Apocalypse And My Five Favorite Prophets

Apparently the world is going to end this week. That’s what the Mayans said anyway, though I’ve heard this might be a misinterpretation. Hey, Mr Editor- should I even write this column, since I might not live long enough to get paid?

Oh, alright then.

I’ve long been fascinated by The End. In fact I once spent a year reading exclusively about the Apocalypse, and my head was duly filled with the wonderful and terrifying visions of countless prophets and messiahs. Some of these fellows were dangerous, most were not. After a while I developed a fondness for certain seers. Here are some of my favorites.