Our Descent Into Madness

I apologize for ripping off Boing Boing for the third post in a row, but WOW. WHY is this the ONE event that I can’t witness in New York? Why?!

Alex Jones’ timely and hilarious post-apocalyptic comedy, CANNED PEACHES IN SYRUP places us in a seemingly absurd and inconvenient future, where water is scarce, the sun has gone crazy and love still survives. In a post-environmental apocalyptic future, the world is divided into two tribes of nomadic humans: Cannibals and Vegetarians. Can star-crossed lovers Rog (think Romeo as a cannibal) and Julie (think Juliet as a vegetarian) cross tribal lines?! Can Rog’s taste for flesh be suppressed?! Can Julie deny her parents’ “meat is murder” mantra?! And, who exactly is Blind Bastard? A lone can of peaches in syrup holds their fate…and the fate of all mankind…

Did you follow that link? I am IN LOVE.

Ugh.

These are the kinds of things ignored by the Global Peace Index I mentioned just a little while ago. WARNING: The following statements are extremely disturbing…brace yourself.

Sexual atrocities in Congo’s volatile province of South Kivu extend “far beyond rape” and include sexual slavery, forced incest and cannibalism, a U.N. human rights expert said Monday.

Yakin Erturk called the situation in South Kivu the worst she has ever seen in four years as the global body’s special investigator for violence against women. Sexual violence throughout Congo is “rampant,” she said, blaming rebel groups, the armed forces and national police.

…

“The atrocities perpetrated by these armed groups are of an unimaginable brutality that goes far beyond rape,” she said in a statement. “Women are brutally gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters.”

The statement continued: “Frequently women are shot or stabbed in their genital organs, after they are raped. Women, who survived months of enslavement, told me that their tormentors had forced them to eat excrement or the human flesh of murdered relatives.”

And there’s nowhere to turn for help.

While rebels commit most of the worst abuses, Erturk said government forces and national police are responsible for nearly 20 percent of all cases of sexual violence reported.

Army units have deliberately targeted communities suspected of supporting militia groups “and pillage, gang rape and, in some instances, murder civilians,” she said.

Just reading this is completely devastating. From here, we go…where?

I’ve just added The People’s Act of Love, by James Meek, to our reading list (goodness, it is getting very long). It’s an engaging novel, but I found the real value of the book to be not in the plot itself but in the ponderings woven into it, which explore the nature and meaning of sex, love, cannibalism, suffering, destruction, and injustice. And a lot more. A taste:

Samarin said: ‘Supposing a man, the cannibal, knew that the fate of the world rested on whether he escaped from prison or not. Suppose this. He’s a man so dedicated to the happiness of the future world that he sets himself to destroy all the corrupt and cruel functionaries he can, break the offices they fester in, till he’s destroyed himself. Suppose he’s realised that politics, even revolution, is too gentle, it only shuffles people and offices a little. It isn’t that he sees the whole ugly torturing tribe of bureaucrats and aristocrats and money-grubbers who make the people suffer. It’s that they fall to him and his kind like a town falls to a mudslide. He’s not a destroyer, he is destruction, leaving those good people who remain to build a better world on the ruins. To say he’s the embodiment of the will of the people is feeble, a joke, as if they elected him. He is the will of the people. . . . What looks like an act of evil to a single person is the people’s act of love to its future self. Even to call him a cannibal is mistaken. He’s the storm the people summoned, against which not all good people find shelter in time.’ (Meek, 259)

Read it, read it, read it.

Okay, so I’m about a year late in posting about Dana Schutz, but better late than never. I was reminded of Dana this weekend while spending time with my art-collecting-and-trading- aunt and uncle. I was in their apartment admiring a painting that they commissioned Dana to produce for them a few years ago, just before she hit it big. If you know anything at all about the art world, then you already know all about Dana Schutz and how when I say she made it big, I mean really, really fucking big, and really quickly.

Anyway, not only am I late because it was about a year ago that she really started to gain traction, but it was about a year ago that I actually met her, thanks to my fabulously well-connected family. Granted, I met her only very briefly, but the memory of her child-like personality, almost frightening in its obscenely genuine nature, has stuck firmly in my mind. Also, she’s got a whole series of “self-eater” paintings and a preoccupation with the act of devouring. And portraits of musicians I love, including PJ Harvey and The Breeders. So what’s not to love about her?

This one is called “Twin Parts”:

And “Self Eater #3″:

So, she’s officially been added to my list of favorite artists. (The list previously consisted of Bosch and…um, Bosch. What can I say, I know nothing about art). I acquired some other favorite artists this weekend too, but they deserve their own posts- and will get them soon.

From MomSquawk, check out these intense cakes, most notably, this one:

How weird do you have to be to eat that?

The USDA has plans to approve the widespread planting of genetically altered rice containing human genes. This “medicinal” rice may have the potential to prevent diarrhea and dehydration in babies.

The pharmaceutical rice would be harvested and refined for use in medicines but the idea has provoked some critics to raise safety concerns.Some environmentalists and food groups warn the proteins could find their way into the food chain, causing medical reactions or allergies.

Sounds a little Monsanto-esque for my liking.

Also, systemized cannibalism, anyone?

How crazy is this?

Apparently, this is a new trend in Japan. The body and its insides are made completely of food, and it “bleeds” when you cut into it. Like hufu, there’s speculation as to whether or not cannibal banquets really take place, or if they’re some kind of sick joke. From Weird Asia News, via Boing Boing.

Relatedly, Daisy and I learned a new word yesterday- Vorarephilia.

Vorarephilia (also referred to as vore) is a fetish which focuses primarily upon the consumption of another person or creature, containing another person or creature entirely inside one’s body, or being consumed or contained.

Yikes.

Struggling for survival, Neandertals turned to cannibalism—even brain-eating—some 43,000 years ago, says a new study of mutilated bones discovered in a Spanish cave.

Oh no!

A recent study examined the bones of at least eight fossilized individuals that showed tell-tale signs of cannibalism, like defleshing (what a great word) and dismemberment.

The manner in which the fossil skeletons were broken apart is also telling, the study teams says.

Bones and skulls look to have been smashed open to get at the marrow and brains inside, [Antonio Rosas of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid] said. “Brain is quite nutritious for fat and proteins, but especially fat,” he added.

It’s already basically common knowledge that melting icecaps are causing polar bears to drown. Apparrently, they’re now also eating each other.

We love Cake Bake Betty, the one-person band of Lindsay Powell. She sings about cannibalism. Her album is called Songs About Teeth!. We suggest you learn more about her.