monkey see, monkey do serves as a personal blog and creative outlet for
ghosts in the machine
in the last few years, there are many examples of a dead person’s myspace page or blog becoming a memorial for them after an unexpected death. i’ve also seen examples where a criminal blogged his descent into madness just before a murder, or a murder victim blogged about the person they knew who had just entered into their apartment: right before being murdered.
…incredibly creepy.
today i learned that the microbiologist who recently committed suicide bruce ivins — who is accused of the anthrax attacks in 2001 — had a wikipedia account and had edited a number of pages in 2006. he mostly edited about the kappa kappa gamma sorority, with which yahoo news reports he had an ongoing obsession, along with an obsession for fellow microbiologist nancy haigwood.
ready for some creepiness? here he adds dr. haigwood to the list of notable kappa alumnae. he argues for her inclusion: e.g. [1] [2]. he was involved in an edit war over publishing that “Ai Korai Athenes” (maidens of athena) is the official, secret hail or call of the sorority, as well as other secrets. he repeatedly tried to have notorious Angela Atwood, member of the Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patty Hearst, included on the page as an alumna.
read this short page from december 2006 where he tries to convince another wikipedia editor that nancy haigwood is a notable kappa alumni and should be included in the article about the sorority.
The editor responds to him with, “Furthermore, I can’t understand the obsession. Why do you feel the need to add all this? Why Kappa?”
you can also find his youtube account and where he left incredibly creepy comments such as “he should have taken the hatchet and brought it down hard and sharply across her neck, severing her carotid artery and jugular vein. Then when she hits the ground, he completes the task on the other side of the neck, severing her trachea as well.” (via true crime report)
even if he wasn’t guilty of sending the anthrax letters, it seems he was on antipsychosis medication while working at the army’s most secure bio-weapons facility. what…the…hell?!
so do we have a term for these ghosts in the machinery, these echos left behind by people we’re fascinated by and horrified by? i guess they have always been there, posthumously published letters and various evidence. and our fascination with this is well documented in various tv shows about forensics. but it can be so accessible now and immediate.
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12. August 2008 at 6:30 am :
Have you seen The Dark Knight yet? Its Joker character is the most insane and violent of all the movies. Yet audience members were cheering for him in the theater where I saw it. It was a little scary, but he was also supposed to get that reaction from audiences, I think. He was supposed to make them excited about him.
Why, you wonder? Because they represent life as it would be without order and without sense. They show us chaos. We are drawn to it because we often question our own rationality. But we’re afraid too, because we know some order is needed for us to live peacefully with each other.
As for it being more accessible now, I don’t think it matters. People will always find ways to get what they need. They’ll balance themselves out.
17. August 2008 at 10:03 am :
ok, finally saw the film. it’s one of those phenomenon, have to see it right?
I did see the Joker character as a kind of Loki demigod, or Coyote spirit, representing our inability to get everything neatly arranged. Also representing the rejection of our values and doing things for reasonable views. It was very interesting as an antagonist in a film. I’m used to the villains having a viewpoint or some logic, especially one that justifies our view of them as ‘evil’ like their selfishness or illegality. But I agree, this joker cut deeper to what we consider ‘evil’ all the way to irrationality.
Then batman uses excessive surveillance measures, like homeland security, to find him. Does that mean that Joker was an analogy for Osama Bin Laden? That to the writers Osama represents a kind of pointless destruction. I left wondering that, since Osama’s violence seems Don Quixotian, pointless and without a reasoned end, yet he continues to stir up anger and chaos and violence. In a traditional war, each side has an end in mind that is somewhat achievable, even if underestimated. But Osama’s stated goals are ridiculous. Maybe the Joker / Osama comparison was intended. Maybe I’m going too far with it.
18. August 2008 at 5:36 am :
talking about how movies suceed when they make whites feel better about themselves. In particular, this article was talking about how Dances with Wolves made white Americans feel better about thier relationship to Native Americans.
I agree with you. Batman seems to say evil is ok as long as it is really needed to fight a worse evil. Not a great message. (I didn’t think Batman was as great as people said it was.) But I realized a similar thing in Iron Man, too. In one scene at the beginning, when he’s escaping a terrorist cave, his friend is lying on a crate that says U.S.A. Then Robert Downey Jr. sets fire to bad guys with his flame throwers. (However, I still really enjoyed that movie.)
I guess comic books have always been that way, too. I never got into Captain America for too obvious reasons.
19. August 2008 at 5:58 am :
Just wondering if you got my comment - sent it yesterday morn. It had a link (as in http://www.johnlink.org) in it, so I think that’s why you had to approve it… and, then, it’s not here. Just checking you got it.