I immediately recognized the Canadian filmmaker, Simcha Jacobovici, who (alongside James Cameron) is touting the 27-year-old discovery of tombs bearing the names of Jesus and members of his family, including a son. I taped Jacobovici's 1999 documentary Quest for the Lost Tribes off CBC when it originally aired, intending to watch it in more depth... Continue Reading →
“Lonelygirl15”
The online world has been punk'd by an adorable teen science geek who led us to suspect she is soon to become a virgin sacrifice for her parents' "Satanic" cult. But now that it's not real, it's a fun story. Here's what I wrote on my personal blog on July 28: "Youtube is starting to... Continue Reading →
A Million Little Pieces of Crap
WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for the book A Million Little Pieces."I believe there has never been a realistic book about addiction." - James Frey, promotional CD for A Million Little Pieces.This is a brief introduction to James Frey and his 2004 memoir, A Million Little Pieces, which has sold over 3.5 million copies and topped bestseller... Continue Reading →
Faux Bro: The Not-So-True Story of J.T. LeRoy
A few years ago everyone was saying "You gotta read Sarah." This was a 2000 novel by one J.T. LeRoy. I looked into it. J.T. LeRoy was a formerly homeless, waifish cross-dresser who hauled around a fax machine and exuded the introverted weirdness/hipness of Warhol. Sarah was about his own experiences as the son of... Continue Reading →
Anthony Godby Johnson, the Invisible Boy
Boy Wonder Tony Johnson was a dreamchild: A kid who excelled effortlessly in school, never accepted handouts, and was determined to better himself, despite having a childhood that might have made Dickens blanch. What follows is Anthony Godby Johnson’s story as he told it in his 1993 memoir, A Rock and a Hard Place: One... Continue Reading →
Holy Blood, Holy Crap: The Da Vinci Code Lawsuit and Michael Baigent’s The Jesus Papers
"You stole my ideas! Even though they're not mine!" The Da Vinci Code lawsuit was a prime example of wanton, greedy litigiousness. Two of the three "historians" who wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) sued Dan Brown over alleged theft of intellectual property, even though Brown's book is a work of fiction and theirs was... Continue Reading →
AIDS Conspiracy Theories (ACTS)
Celia Farber's article "Out of Control", published in this month's Harper's (see my article on that here) has spurred me to post some more of the outrageous ACTS that have been gaining momentum since the '80s and '90s. Biologist Jakob Segal of Berlin's Humboldt University was the first person to declare publicly the ACT that... Continue Reading →
Swallowing The Camel 