System of Systems

The one and motherfucking ONLY Jack the Perfume Nationalist joins Adam and Ben to discuss cinema, television, art, and the death knell of the entertainment industry in 2020. We praise the work of reactionary arthouse thriller director S. Craig Zahler, the bombastic big budget arthouse of Blade Runner 2049, and some of the cinematic projects coming out in 2021 that we're curious about.

Adam's top 5 films of 2020:
1. Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg)
2. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
3. True History of the Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel)
4. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella Davis)
5. The Colour out of Space (Richard Stanley)

Links:
TPN on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/perfumenationalist/posts

Jack on twitter: https://twitter.com/lotus__point?lang=en

Nicolas Winding Refn's Maniac Cop: https://deadline.com/2019/10/maniac-cop-tv-series-remake-reimagening-nicolas-winding-refn-hbo-canal-bynwr-originals-1202757504/

Gandolfini's son as Tony Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark

New David Cronenberg projects: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/david-cronenberg-star-trek-discovery-1234850680/

The third season of Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom: https://deadline.com/2020/12/lars-von-triers-the-kingdom-returning-third-final-season-1234658191/

In this episode, Adam is joined by artist and illustrator Sterling Bartlett, who discusses his new project 'How Did We Get Here?,' a comic strip that depicts an extraterrestrial figure of sorts that comes to Earth and tries to tell us about all the things that have destroyed our society and eroded our culture: the blue chip art world, decadent Hollywood franchises, the doctrine of personal responsibility, Jerry Saltz, and the limitations of imaginations that Mark Fisher theorized as capitalist realism among them. They also discuss the dreaded art world that we've to some extent turned out back on, the decadence of the radlibs, and our shared lifetime interest in professional skateboarding.

(note: this episode was recorded shortly before the new year)

Links:

Sterling Bartlett 'How Did We Het Here': https://www.sterlingbartlett.com/#/how-did-we-get-here/

Junji Ito: https://www.viz.com/junji-ito

Elijah Berle and Gilbert Crockett for VANS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4ZzHtww6Tc&t=934s

The Reality of Recycling: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/5-recycling-myths-busted-plastic/

The Political Fraud of AOC's Green New Deal: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/23/cort-n23.html

The one and motherfucking ONLY Jack the Perfume Nationalist joins Adam and Ben to discuss cinema, television, art, and the death knell of the entertainment industry in 2020. We praise the work of reactionary arthouse thriller director S. Craig Zahler, the bombastic big budget arthouse of Blade Runner 2049, and some of the cinematic projects coming out in 2021 that we're curious about.

Adam's top 5 films of 2020:
1. Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg)
2. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
3. True History of the Kelly Gang (Justin Kurzel)
4. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella Davis)
5. The Colour out of Space (Richard Stanley)

Links:
TPN on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/perfumenationalist/posts

Jack on twitter: https://twitter.com/lotus__point?lang=en

Nicolas Winding Refn's Maniac Cop: https://deadline.com/2019/10/maniac-cop-tv-series-remake-reimagening-nicolas-winding-refn-hbo-canal-bynwr-originals-1202757504/

Gandolfini's son as Tony Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark

New David Cronenberg projects: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/david-cronenberg-star-trek-discovery-1234850680/

The third season of Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom: https://deadline.com/2020/12/lars-von-triers-the-kingdom-returning-third-final-season-1234658191/

SOS is joined by British music producer and sound artist Helm, who talks about how he found out about our show (he was an early patron of ours), being a free thinking musician in a deeply ideologically rigid culture, his career in music, and his refusal to let his music be politicized and his demand that his art be perceived as an aesthetic experience, not an ideological one. Beyond that, we poke at The Wire's Best of 2020 issue, and each of us talks about some of our favorite albums of the year (which can be selected below).

Helm's Favorite Records of 2020:

Wetware 'Flail' (https://wetware-nyc.bandcamp.com/album/flail)

Private World 'Aleph' (https://privateworld.bandcamp.com/album/aleph)

Oneohtrix Point Never 'Magic Oneohtrix Point Never' (https://oneohtrixpointnever.bandcamp.com/album/magic-oneohtrix-point-never)

Rasberry Bulbs 'Before the Age of Mirrors' (https://raspberrybulbs.bandcamp.com/album/before-the-age-of-mirrors)

Nazar 'Guerilla' (https://nazar.bandcamp.com/album/guerrilla)

Ben's Favorite Records of 2020:

Tigran Hamasyan  'The Call Within' (https://tigranhamasyan.bandcamp.com/album/the-call-within)

William Basinski 'Lamentations' (https://williambasinski.bandcamp.com/album/lamentations)

Nils Frahm 'Empty' (https://nilsfrahm.bandcamp.com/album/empty)

Amulets 'Severed Teas' (https://amulets.bandcamp.com/album/severed-seas)

Adam's Favorite Records of 2020:

Duma 'Duma' (https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/duma)

Mosquitoes 'Minus Objects' (https://evernever-records.bandcamp.com/album/minus-objects)

Komare 'The Sense of Hearing' (https://penultimatepress.bandcamp.com/album/the-sense-of-hearing-lp)

KA 'Descendants of Cain' (https://brownsvilleka.com/collections/digital-downloads/products/descendants-of-cain)

BONUS: Adam's full list of 2020 music recommendations can be found here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dSmAeJDnuR_dNfzi3Dnq2KTRv8g2TnOilk1RrnPYLg8/edit

Links:

Fact Mag interview with Helm: https://www.factmag.com/2015/06/20/helm-interview-olympic-mess-pan/

The Quietus reviews Helm's 'Chemical Flowers': https://thequietus.com/articles/26511-helm-chemical-flowers-review

VICE interview with Helm: https://www.vice.com/en/article/wnn5qq/a-night-in-cairo-with-helms-luke-younger

Helm's Radio Show: https://www.nts.live/shows/helm

The boys are joined by Indian writer and political scientist Siddak Ahuja who outlines his thinking behind his excellent piece for The Bellows 'The Case for Left Patriotism.' Siddak describes his self as a "national communist" and advocates for a communism tethered to people and place. We also discuss some high level global affairs (many topics that Adam is totally useless on) and Siddak explains that Modi isn't as bad as his critics often suggest (largest public health program for poor people in the world).

Find Siddak on twitter at https://twitter.com/SiddakAhuja

Links:

Siddak 'The Case for a Left Patriotism': https://www.thebellows.org/the-case-for-a-left-patriotism/

Siddak breaks down Biden's cabinet: https://westphaliantimes.com/breaking-down-bidens-potential-cabinet-transition-team/

Siddak 'A Left-Right Populist Agenda to Take Jobs Back from China': https://westphaliantimes.com/breaking-down-bidens-potential-cabinet-transition-team/

Adam 'A Marxist Defends the Great Reactionaries': https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/01/a-marxist-defends-the-great-reactionaries/

Adam and Ben are joined by Lias Saoudi, the lead singer of the most exciting rock n' roll band still in existence (that is less than 30 years old), The Fat White Family. While rock n' roll has hit its dinosaur phase, with bands seeming to opt into the binary choice of abject commercialist conformism or subterranean underground nigh nonexistence, The Fat Whites are a stark reminder of the rebellious, confrontational, and provocative soul of rock music. Lias, a brilliant writer and unhinged performer, is in the lineage of naughty rock n' roll wordsmiths: Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith, Nick Cave. Yes, he's that fucking good. Adam first saw the Fat Whites play in 2014 after getting excited hearing the group's debut album 'Champagne Holocaust.' Crouched in at the Bowery Ballroom, he stood at the front of the crowd and watched the band perform an extended intro of its psychedelic punk anthem "Auto Neutron" that upon entering into its first verse exploded in libidinal catharsis. Lias, shrieking the lyrics and screaming with reckless abandon, had his cock out half way into that first song. With this, Adam was sure that he felt what people must have felt when seeing Nick Cave and the Birthday Party in the early days, or what people must have felt watching Suicide in the '70s: shocked, appalled, and thrilled. Joyous and based. Viva rock n' roll.  

Adam has corresponded with Lias in the past. He interviewed him for Autre Magazine upon the FWF's second album 'Songs to our Mothers,' and once photographed in Brooklyn at a show for Lias' other band, The Moonlandingz, which got shelved (unfortunately). We got in touch with Lias to praise his pandemic conceptualized column for The Social that eviscerated shitty, woketard post-punk band Idles for their fake working class affectations and their American NGO created "activism," to talk about the transitions in his politics, the nature of rock n' roll, writing, art, all our hits basically. Enjoy!  

Links:   Lias on Idles: https://www.thesocial.com/life-beyond-the-neutral-zone-8-lias-saoudi/   

Lias on Schopenhauer: https://www.thesocial.com/life-beyond-the-neutral-zone-lias-saoudi/   

Lias on art criticism and Dylan's new record: https://www.thesocial.com/life-beyond-the-neutral-zone-11-lias-saoudi/ 

Adam interviews Lias in 2016 (when we were so hopeful about this Bernie/Corbyn thing): https://autre.love/interviewsmain/tag/fat+white+family 

Lias' cultural touchstones: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/18/on-my-radar-lias-saoudi-musician-interview-bock 

Lias interview in Vogue: https://www.vogue.com/article/fat-white-family-band-interview-lias-saoudi

Model and host of experimental Youtube podcast Public Dopamine, Sandra Soliman, has shattered the glass ceiling and become SoS's first wamen guest. As our Canada correspondent and hot women representative, she gives us the juice on the extreme lockdowns that have turned Toronto into a neoliberal hell hole, and talks about the problem with men incapable of seizing will to power. Other conversations topics include the Great Reset, the necessity of aesthetics to any political theory, and the hideousness of leftoids.

Sandra's public dopamine condenses podcast interviews into 10 minute snippets of text that she then overlays with various memes and video snippets, much in the style of early post-Internet art.

Sorry for the shit audio sometimes it just be like that. You don't like it, subscribe to our Patreon, give us your money, and we'll buy cooler more sophisticated electronic equipment, ya dig?

Links:

Public Dopamine: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV-iwgXvQghvgub0Xs8LOQQ

Adam's hometown doctor and opioid slinger: https://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20070721/NEWS/707210322

Daily Beast smears the Great Reset as a conspiracy theory: https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-bidens-presidency-already-has-its-first-conspiracy-theory-the-great-resethttps://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-bidens-presidency-already-has-its-first-conspiracy-theory-the-great-reset

Ray Brassier 'Genre is Obsolete': https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/371126/d305a32bcda10e252b44908b7f46132d.pdf

Interview with noise/power electronics pioneers Whitehouse: http://www.susanlawly.freeuk.com/textfiles/whinterview01.htm 

Adam and Ben just watched the new film 'Possessor Uncut' by Brandon Cronenberg, son of Systems of Systems godhead David Cronenberg, and find one of the most mesmerizing works of Baudrillardian, postmodern body horror cinema since daddy Cronenberg's 'Videodrome.' Adam detects a new "futureshock narrative," as philosopher Nick Land identified in cyberpunk literature and film, from William Gibson to 'Terminator,' while Ben hones in on the film's visualization of the apotheosis of post neoliberal, PMC culture (the 'Great Reset' indeed).

The duo also briefly discusses Irish actor Gabriel Byrne coming out as Hollywood's first open strasserite.

Links:

Gabriel Byrne discusses his new memoir in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell

Peter DeBruge on 'Possessor Uncut': https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/possessor-review-david-cronenbergs-son-shows-he-has-a-will-of-his-own-1234789622/

Brandon Cronenberg interview in The Face: https://theface.com/culture/brandon-cronenberg-interview-sci-fi-film-possessor-bfi-london-film-festival

Curry Chandler 'Understanding Videodrome: https://theface.com/culture/brandon-cronenberg-interview-sci-fi-film-possessor-bfi-london-film-festival

Robin Mackay 'Nick Land: An Experiment  in Inhumanism'

Quillette editor Jonathan Kay analyzes Adam's October essay 'Art's Moral Fetish': https://quillette.com/2020/11/17/workers-vs-wokeness-recognizing-campus-social-justice-as-a-luxury-good/

Adam and Ben are joined by Geoff Shullenberger, an academic and writer whose work covers technology, education, culture and labor, to discuss Baudrillard's hyperreal and Simulatics election forecasting, the unheimlich embedded in Biden celebrations, societal systems' tendency to create its own manageable dissent, Latin American literature, and some of Geoff's recent essays.

Links:

Geoff at Twitter: https://twitter.com/daily_barbarian

Geoff Shullenberger 'Put Not Thy Trust in Nate Silver': https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/put-not-thy-trust-in-nate-silver

Geoff Shullenberger 'The Simulation of Violence After 9/11': https://outsidertheory.com/the-simulation-of-violence-after-9-11/

Geoff Shullenberger 'Beyond the Incel Myth': https://outsidertheory.com/the-simulation-of-violence-after-9-11/

Adam Lehrer 'Art's Moral Fetish': https://caesuramag.org/essays/arts-moral-fetish

Recommendations:

Adam
Leos Carax (interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPAA43FVtkg)
Bananafish Magazine (history of the publication at Red Bull Music Academy https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/06/bananafish-magazine)
Brandon Cronenberg's 'Posessor'

Ben:
Don DeLillo 'Pafko at the Wall' (interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h01xhRxSJZ0)

Geoff:
Argentine horror writer Samantha Schweblin (LA Review of Books interview: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/filled-with-a-new-kind-of-truth-a-conversation-with-samanta-schweblin/)
Mid 20th Century Argentine writer Nora Lange (why was Nora Lange forgotten? https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/filled-with-a-new-kind-of-truth-a-conversation-with-samanta-schweblin/)
Argentine Filmmaker Mariano Llinas's 'Extraordinary Stories'  (review here) https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/movies/extraordinary-stories-directed-by-mariano-llinas-review.html

Adam and Ben are joined by TwinkRev editor River Page who discusses his rise over the last year and the TwinkRev mission. They also talk about Glenn Greenwald leaving the Intercept and cementing his status as a BASED GOD, the dismal future of Left Politics, and the possibility that Tulsi Gabbard might be the only American politician still worth supporting.

Glenn Greenwald's resignation from The Intercept: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept

Greenwald's censored article on Joe and Hunter Biden: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored

Greenwald shares his emails with his Intercept editors: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-editors-showing

River Page 'The Prodigal Sons of Capital': https://twinkrev.com/2020/10/the-prodigal-sons-of-capital/

River Page 'The Woke Gay Resurrection of a Gay Sex Panic': https://twinkrev.com/2020/08/the-woke-resurrection-of-a-gay-sex-panic/

Ben 'Voting like The World Depends On It': https://twinkrev.com/2020/08/the-woke-resurrection-of-a-gay-sex-panic/