I've been following The Baffler since the Clinton years, though the magazine itself started off as a college hobby of Thomas Frank and Keith White in 1988. Issues started off sporadic and then went yearly by the early 1990s (after Frank had burned through grad school and graduated in 1990) and it chugged along as a yearly or bi-annual until a fire ravaged their Chicago offices in early May, 2001. Their archives were partially destroyed, and they started a literal "fire sale" of semi-smoke-damaged books and issues (I have some stuff from that). For the rest of the Aughts it mostly because a yearly again. In 2010 they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and for a period were involved with the MIT Press, then became a non-profit foundation and are publishing as a bi-monthly. Since that MIT period, the website has been open for viewing....until late September this year, when the site got the "three views for a month" disease you see with the New York Times. So it's now, "pays ya money, sees our crap" when they don't even have the greatest series of stories they ever published, "I, Faker" by Paul Maliszewski. It only exists on archive.org, and I don't want to lose the blog copypasting it here.
Can we just admit that the Internet in the 2020s just sucks ass?
Above: David Graeber debates literal gay vampire Peter Thiel on technofutures and technofailure in 2014.
This was presented by The Baffler. Graeber is now deceased, and Peter Thiel is still bitter about college.
I could give you the Cryptkeeper opening of "Hullo, Boils and Ghouls" but we're all adults here, so let's begin The List.....
Above: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969). One of Peter Cushing's later outings as Baron von Frankenstein for Hammer Pictures of the UK, here he is trying to cure a scientist of his insanity using really outre methods and making another Modern Promethus on the side. Cushing keeps his pimp hand strong, slapping around the kid who later played young Winston Churchill (Simon Ward) for "disobeying him". The Hammer Frankenstein movies had to be grist for Mel Brooks' mill alongside the Universal classics when he and his writers concocted Young Frankenstein in 1974.
Below: One of the worst movies ever made, Monster A-Go-Go (1965) started like as an early Bill Rebane movie, Terror at Half Day, about a mutated astronaut in the wilds outside Chicago. That early '60s film ran out of money and sat in storage until Herschell Gordon Lewis (creator of the "splatter genre" of horror, who gave us The Gore Gore Girls and Blood Freak) came calling looking for a movie he could use as part of a double bill. Rebane sold him the film (and it is contested if it was 50 percent done, 80 percent done, or what) and Lewis finished and edited the picture in a rush (lots of missing sound effects, musical cues, and a guy makes a telephone noise (!) at one point), so what you see is not Rebane's vision (if he had one, this was the guy who gave us The Giant Spider Invasion, after all). Bonus: the Mystery Science Theater version.
Below: Sorry, I could not find the Something Weird Video version of Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1977) with actual English subtitles. I've seen this one and it's a mishmash of clip show and new footage as "Coffin Joe" (aka "Zé do Caixão", a Brazilian black magician antihero/neutral villain created and acted by filmmaker JoséMojica Marins) mentally tortures a psychiatrist named Hamilton with weird imagery taken from earlier Coffin Joefilms that I don't think passed censorship (remember that the country was run by a military junta from 1964-1985, and this film was made as it was creaking to the finish line.) Dr. Hamilton is locked up in his own mental hospital for most of the film. In any case, the imagery supersedes the plot. Because every bit of Coffin Joe video is age-blocked (!) on YouTube, you get a still of Coffin Joe to see what he looks like.
A goofy, low-budget romp, Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) was made by the same husband and wife team that gave us 1977's Snuff, one of the movies the British "video nasties" law was probably aimed at before the Italian giallo flick Cannibal Holocaust (1980) appeared in tape rental stores, which outclassed it for faked and real gore (they kill a sea turtle on camera in Cannibal Holocaust, yuck.) In Shriek, director Michael Findlay has East Coast college students drive out to an rural island which has a Yeti somehow, and the weirdness piles on from there. After Michael's death in a brutal helicopter accident, his widow Roberta Findlay had a career making budget films and doing cinematography for porn movies, among other behind-the-camera jobs. This one is on Tubi, so the link is here. Trailer is below.
Above: War of the Gargantuas (1966), a "quasi-sequel" (Wikipedia's words) to 1965's Frankenstein vs. Baragon. The two Gargantuas are the cellular descendants of the heart of the Frankenstein monster, sent to Japan by long-distance U-boat (those "Monsun" boats are the reality inside the fiction), but it went to Hiroshima, got nuked, and grew into a child version of the monster. All of that lunacy was covered in Frankenstein vs. Baragon; now there are two of them, gigantic, and fighting each other. Nick Adams tries to be an American scientist in Japan instead of a nightclub singer or secret agent. The Criterion Collection sees this as worthwhile schlock, and so you should too. I guess.
Below: Thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000, years of the Internet (IMDb, blogs, etc.), the documentary Hotel Torgo, a stage musical version, and a stage version with large puppets, we know the plot of Manos: The "Hands" of Fate (1966), we know about Hal Warren the director, the weird dubbing issues because no set sound recordings were made for reference, John "Torgo" Reynolds' constant pot smoking, just a sea of stuff. But we still don't know Who or What "Manos" really was or is, and if The Master truly was "The Black and Red Moses of Soul" as Tom Servo riffed.
Bonus: The Mystery Science Theater version.
In 1964, a small, almost hand-made film hit UK theaters, It Happened Here, that asked "what would things have been like in a Nazi-occupied Britain?" Pretty much an alternate history mirror to Peter Watkins' 1966 film The War Game (which predicted the outcome of a limited nuclear war on Britain in the forthcoming future), Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo focus on a single character, an Northern Irish nurse who gets sucked into a paramilitary emergency medical organization in 1944 because the English village she was living in was shot to pieces in an "anti-partisan action" and she has to go to London. From their insignia, the uniformed and armed nurse organization seems to be a branch of a victorious British Union of Fascists. Things have gotten very Vichy in this Britain, while a British branch of Aktion T4 is quietly operating. This is a horror film, whatever they say. Link to Archive dot org copy here.
Below: Peter Cushing at it again, with John Carradine along for the ride in 1977's Shock Waves, aka "The Underwater Zombie Nazi Movie In The Video Rental Store." Enough said.
Above: The infamous-in-its-time documentary Manson (1973) by Robert Hendrickson. I found it through this angry review on an "obscure movies" website years ago and it is less historical narrative of The Manson Family and the Tate-LaBianca murders that a glimpse into the worldview of the members of the group who were still at large in 1972-73. In a odd way it reminds me of Final V. U., the Captain Trips CD collection of live recordings of the last version of the Velvet Underground, when the only original member of the band left was Mo Tucker, and along with Doug Yule and his brother Billy, they put together a lineup for a bunch of concerts in America and Holland. We are witnessing the aftermath of a thing in both mediums, and while the Velvets have no illusions that what they are doing is probably short-term, the Mansonites are still lost in True Belief. For better information on Manson et. al., check out CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (2019 )by Tom O'Neil and Dan Pipenbring.
[00:27] <geniice> This allows people to promenade along the sea front
[00:27] <geniice> "promenade" in cold blood?
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Session Start: Sun Oct 31 20:59:38 2010
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03[20:59] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11
[20:59] <***> Buffer Playback...
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:21] hi
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:23] oh hi KB1JWQ
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:25] how are you doing
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:55] KB1JWQ stop /msging me please
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:57] you rapist
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:57] lol
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:01] so anyone awake
[20:59] <killiondude> [06:45:22] Simmer down.
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:29] hi killiondude
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:30] what's up bro
[20:59] <killiondude> [06:45:36] gas prices.
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:41] yeah serious no fake
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:50] so i was reading the nigger page on wikipedia
[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:54] you ever see it? here's hte direct link
[20:59] <FoeNyx> [07:07:13] killiondude> « i just want to know why articles like "death" exists ! It's quite offensive » said one my undead troll friend :p </halloween>
[20:59] <killiondude> [07:07:26] :-P
[20:59] <yao_ziyuan> [08:31:24] in a word such as 'place', i think there is a very short schwa between [p] and [l]. is it?
[20:59] <closedmouth> [08:42:49] probably depends on the accent
[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:11] yeah depends on the accent
[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:15] the way I pronounce it, it doesn't
[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:29] the l begins before the p is finished
[20:59] <geniice> [10:39:50] I see TVtropes is having money issues
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:07:00] Basicly, I'd like to bring it up to the same standard as other user namspace templates..
[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:07:03] is the zh wiki available from china ?
[20:59] <geniice> [16:08:34] basicaly yes
[20:59] <geniice> [16:08:39] some pages are not
[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:10:59] k that good because I want to translate
[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:11:10] but its an unpolitical article
[20:59] <Matthewedwards> [16:11:16] Qcoder, I'm writing from my phone right now, so bear with me...
[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:11:21] so there won´t be any problemes
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:16:07] qcoder, you should put a blue exclamation mark image in it
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:16:30] ME|BUSY: Well I wasn't sure how
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:16:49] if someone can re-word and put in the right pictures - feel-free :)
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:17:47] But check out image help pages and image use pages. They say thats an image with a few issues is better than none at all
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:18:06] True
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:18:17] Gimp and shoop can correct most issues anyway
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:18:30] The intent of template is to help generate 'better' photos, not discourage people from uploading at all :)
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:19:26] I wanted a way to leave an uploader a note that an image had issues, but didn't want to leave something like {{Poor Quality}} on the image itself...
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:19:49] .. which might lead to a 'useful' image being FFD'd without the user knowing :(
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:22:10] well thats was another thing. It seems a bit bitey, esp if I was an ameature photographer and haven't put my photos out in the public eye b4
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:10] Hmm
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:19] How to word it so it isn't BITEy
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:20] ?
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:24] Any suggestions
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:43] I had mind the sort of tags you used to get on stuff from the Photo lab...
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:23:46] Does wikiversity or whatever it is have photo tutorials? You could link to them
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:52] I don't know
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:10] But that's what i had mind with the ... Please consider reading ...
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:19] (I didn't know where to link it to though...
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:21] )
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:26:21] I won't use the template until it's ready though
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:26:37] But would appreciate someone other than me rewording it :)
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:26:59] Leave me a note on my talkpage, Ill look when I get home to a compute
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:27:50] I think the graphics lab has tutorials, too
[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:29:04] Your talk page being?
[20:59] <Lubaf> [16:29:21] Well, then. I've had two Square Root Of Minus Garfield strips accepted.
[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:30:08] Sorry, didn't realise I has switched to a different nick
[20:59] <Blarumyrran> [17:49:10] Hello. Why are, in many biographic articles, year numbers and ages used intermittently for events in the person's life? It makes the text horrible to read.
[20:59] <RandomTime> [17:53:22] that sounds like something that should be standard
[20:59] <Blarumyrran> [17:54:32] It should be standard that they're used intermittently, or it should be standardized into either ages or year numbers?
[20:59] <variable> [18:53:47] what is that extension that generates a map
[20:59] <variable> [18:53:55] of what wikipedia pages you read?
[20:59] <***> Playback Complete.
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03[21:03] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11
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03[21:41] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11
[21:41] <insane_kangaroo> [01:40:57] I'm an open carrier, and the last part should be removed or needs citation and was curious what I should do?
[21:41] <***> Playback Complete.
[21:42] <insane_kangaroo> "It is important to note, a carry permit will only exempt a person from this federal law in the State that physically issued the permit." <-- I've never known any case law for this, also there is the issue of "reciprocal" agreements between states.
CrowsNest came up with this list, here is half of Point 2:
2. The disclaimer(s) Normally an inconsequential piece of cover your back legalese on most sites, the disclaimers on Wikipedia are essentially the only truthful user manual they have. They're the only documents that explicitly state that you cannot trust a single word written on Wikipedia, not even if it has a source provided (you gotta read the source). And they make it clear, this is by design. These warnings are intentional, like any grave warning of serious risk should be. But they are also, by contrast, not very prominent. You get more warning about the mere possibility your lunch may have occupied the same spacetime continuum as a nut. Despite admittedly being linked from every page, it's scary how many Wikipedia editors aren't even aware they exist. Noticing you haven't noticed the link tends to be a "holy shit" moment for anyone.
A thread (started by Boink Boink) on Colleen Ballinger, or more exactly, how Wikipediocracy's messageboard treated the entire issue this summer, i.e. badly, which is mirrored in how en.Wikipedia handled it. Definitely not safe for work even though there are no images.
Yes, Wikipedia has had an article about "minor-attracted persons" more than once, and this is the Article for Deletion debate for the second attempt. A lot of this thread is a collection of links to all the articles and users doing the heavy lifting to make pedophila less radioactive somehow. A quote from ericbarbour:
Also: I predict that Arbcom will go to absurd lengths to stay out of this. Because it really is that repellent. I could list some of their past half-baked decisions in this area.....it's Arbcom, of course it will be half-baked. They seem to prefer to avoid addressing pedophilic editing in general. This mess is most notorious--it almost tore Wikipedia apart in 2006. Jimbo stuck his stupid nose in, thus making it worse. Many of those administrators later quit WP. Surprising they haven't "blanked it as a courtesy" or some shit.
That is "ancient history" now. Jimbo was still regarded as the Inerrant God of Wiki. Bastards. Not anymore.
Jimbo as the ultimate authority
12) Jimbo Wales has ultimate authority on Wikimedia projects; as a foundation issue that is beyond debate. Though he is in many contexts an ordinary user whose edits and administrative actions are subject to change or reversal per normal community processes, when Jimbo acts with ultimate authority as project leader, every community member is expected and obliged to comply with his decisions, though discussion, criticism and request for reversal is permitted.
The Board of Trustees is empowered to review such decisions by Jimbo. Users who act in deliberate defiance of an authoritative action by Jimbo are subject to sanctions, including banning and desysopping, particularly temporary ("emergency") desysopping.
A short thread on how Wikipedia editors were sneaking looks to write new articles on missing topics and fixing long-running issues. Sometimes. This one was a Bbb23sucks-ericbarbour joint.
***
There is a LOT more than this on the board, and it needs to be looked at if you are interested in why Wikipedia is as patchy as it is. Also, if you can, read T.J. Coles' exposeWe'll Tell You How to Think (2021), for a broad view of Wikipedia's consent-manufacturing properties.
Above: When pre-PBS (National Educational Television) could bring Rod Serling, Bernie Harrison (television critic, Washington Star newspaper), and James Dickey (!) to a Library of Congress set (!!) for an interview/round-table discussion on why television drama stinks, in glorious analog monochrome. Recorded on 1-15-1968.
We are quickly approaching another semester for the California State University system, so let's run through something San Diego State would love to bury and persuade the English-speaking world to forget.
The property now known as 5505 Lindo Paseo was once two single-story 1950s ranch houses on a street full of them, and all were occupied by fraternities or people wanting to be in fraternities. That was 2007; by 2014 it was a street filling up with multistory student housing, i.e., overpriced, undersized apartments. The nearly-finished building at 5505 was a three story pseudo-mansion with semi-underground parking, and it was to be the headquarters/living space of the Theta Chi fraternity. They got booted out after six years for "hazing violations", with the house left boarded up.
Above: The glory years of the "mansion", aka the late Obama period. (Video posted in 2016.)
Below: The Daily Aztec wandering through the garbage left behind, early January 2020.
The SDSU chapter of Theta Chi was not only kicked out of their house, they were dissolved. After a period of time where the property was abandoned, Kappa Sigma fraternity moved in, even though they were under an "interim suspension" from 2019. I don't know where they were before 2020 (there has been a lot of construction in the general area since 2010, some frat buildings have vanished.) By May of that year they were under suspension until 2022 (read the letter here). While we are on the topic, it should be said that the author of the letter, Carol Montero-Adams (director of Student Life & Leadership) is impossible to speak to either by email, telephone, or possibly in person. Her office is unlisted, her office telephone is unlisted (the telephone number in the letter is for Student Life, not her work number), she does not respond to any email queries. We know what she looks like thanks to the SL&L website, but that's it. But getting back to Kappa Sigma, they kept operating even though the group was suspended. This would bite them later.
Before we continue, there is some backstory that must be discussed, namely how the University and the Fraternities have been at war since the early 2000s, namely because of "Operation Sudden Fall", a sweeping 2008 drug sting run by the Drug Enforcement Agency and SDSU's small police force that arrested 22 drug dealing students and 17 suppliers. Many of the fraternities had members that were involved in these, including Theta Chi, which was suspended to 2012. The properties that became 5505 Lindo Paseo were Theta Chi's conjoined frathouse. Wikipedia has an extensive article on Operation Sudden Fall, even pointing out the student uproar that the DEA had been called in to Federalize these drug crimes, and yet the SDSU president at the time, Stephen Weber, doesn't have even a stub BLP. Put that down as another of Wikipedia's strange gaps, either through oversight or deliberate neglect. At any rate, the University has been coming down on these groups like a hammer ever since, so that at least five unrecognized fraternities are operating, one of them being Kappa Sigma. There seems to be a real push to make SDSU more like UCSD, the University of California research college in nearby La Jolla, even though each university does different things as mandated under the California educational plan (SDSU, by being a former Normal School, is a teaching college; UCSD, as previously stated, was designed for pure research, mostly scientific.) In order for SDSU to reach this arbitrary, pointless goal, it has to suck the joy out going to it, which might be why the new Conrad Prebys Student Center lacks a bar, unlike it's 1960s predecessor, and why the frats are on a short leash. If they are like this with student activities, Heaven help any grad student who tries to organize a union of grad students; the campus police harassment might make for a good lawsuit.
Kappa Sigma operated as it had before suspension, possibly contravening whatever the national KS organization order them to do (we tried to contact them, they would not speak to us at all). It all came to a head in late December of 2022, when Carol Montero-Adams suspended the group until 2030 (read the letter here). However, Champion Real Estate bought the property in September to redevelop it, so the kiss of death was already on the frathouse...except that a company called "Waterwheel Properties" now claims the building as its mailing address, which might explain why it's sitting derelict now. We have tried to talk to Champion Real Estate, they would not reply. At this point I would not be surprised if the SDSU legal team (whomever they are) is deeply involved.
Bonus: Site Photos
Above: If it isn't readily apparent, the landscaping stopped this summer. All of these photos were taken in late July.
Below: A better aspect of what the greens look like now. There is a pair of glasses and an X Box in those weeds.
Above: Broken windows are a running theme in these photos. Notice that the third floor door is wide open.
Below: A window on the side facing 55th Street blown out to the metal frame under the while plastic. All of this damage must have been done by the frat as a final "screw you" before leaving.
Below: The front door with a new-ish coded door latch and a piece of scrap wood to cover the old door handle hole, possible proof that Waterwheel is using the place for something. The building used to have a magnetic lock that could only be opened by student ID (box on the wall to the left.)
Below: Uline office sundries catalogs, possible proof that somebody is using the building for possible office use, or they just got mass-mailed off a list like most businesses and USPS just left them there.
Above: What it looks like inside, taken through the front window.
Below: The back door to the kitchen with a piece of wood over a broken pane.
Below: The kitchen, possibly in the state of being rebuilt. Shot through a door pane.
Below: Shot through the back French doors, here is their bizarre decoration for some sort of final event.
Above: A slightly zoomed shot. The door in the back is the front door, with a black metal frame chandelier hanging above the entrance, a leftover from the first occupants, Theta Chi.
Below: The mattress somebody left in the loading area. Truly a fitting symbol.
We forgot to mention the leaking plumbing hookup on the 55th Street side which created a fetid swamp for
about one month until the somebody shut off the water to the building, all the parking garage garbage, and how nobody wants to talk about 5505 Lindo Paseo; not the purchaser, not the frat, not the frat's national leadership, not SDSU. This lawsuit is not part of that, but more piling on.
So the question is asked, where is the fuckin' money goin' to? if San Diego State is charging hand over fist for every little thing. Well, the dirty truth is that the California State University system has become a wealth-hording mechanism for this tiny clique of college presidents, all of whom now make anywhere from over $300,000/year to just over $500,000/year. SDSU Persident Adela de la Torre makes $533,148 every year now.
Above: A 2022 chart of all the CSU schools, their presidents, how much their salaries have gone up, and if free housing is provided. The red line points out SDSU. Chart released by the California Faculty Association and used in the Peter Herman op-ed linked to above, "Hefty Raises Show CSU Values Administrators Over Faculty and Students", Times of San Diego, 08-18-2022.
Besides the CSU presidents, all the administrators got seven percent raises, while the professorate negotiated for a four percent raise and only got a three percent raise because one hundred million dollars was taken out of the CSU budget by the state government. Herman claims that even the four percent raise was behind the rate of inflation. And then there's the housing issue....
We last wrote about San Diego State University in 2018, mocking their then-newish Engineering building and all the damn ofo rental bikes dumped on the campus. Things have gone downhill since then. According to Peter Herman*, professor of English and Shakespeare scholar, the main library (Love Library, opened in 1971 and named after ex-SDSU President Malcolm Love) is crumbling to pieces; they could not take a massive collection of Jazz/Blues/Gospel/Funk records all recorded by Black artists from an emeritus UCSD English professor (Bram Dijkstra) and his wife Sandra because the library cannot control humidity to a level where LP records and their sleeves aren't slowly being damaged, because it would require a new HVAC system for the space where all the records would be kept (plus the listening space where people would actually listen to the music, probably on headphones) was "too much of an expense." They literally have small dehumidifiers in the stacks to suck out the moisture, and the garbage cans the water is pumped into have to be drained multiple times a day. Also the exterior of the building is losing small chunks of concrete; "A colleague tells me he has seen 1,000-year-old cathedrals in better shape."
It's not just Love Library - the Life Sciences complex either reeks of saltwater in the Oceanographic section or like a greenhouse in the Botany section. The place is split between "north" and "south" sections; the former is where the greenhouse is and dates back to 1962, the latter is connected to the long patio (collonade? loggia?) that connects Hepner Hall to Hardy Tower. The school wants to demolish Life Science North and replace it with a slightly larger building, but the funding has not been scrabbled together.
The final cut to all of this is the probable 2027-2028 enrollment cliff Dahn Shaulis has written about a lot; the students that weren't born during the Great Recession's worst period are going to start making their absence felt in a few years, so it might get very easy to get into SDSU because they will be desperate to find any students at all. Will the education be worth anything? Only time will tell.
Above: The better days of 2011, when Elliot Hirschman ("President Slick") was in charge.
Below: The "Living Horror of COVID" message from President Slick's successor.
