A recap, plus: Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Right, so... too busy to do much blogging, but it's a cool week of upcoming stuff, by me... The Killing of a Chinese Bookie on Tuesday... Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Wednesday.... Friday it's Ed Wood's The Young Marrieds at the Rio, curated by Dimitrios Otis... all stuff I have mentioned below. With luck I will hit every one.

Also looking very interesting is the documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief at the Vancity Theatre, apparently a powerful takedown/ expose of the Church of Scientology. I've had my own brushes with organizations that resemble, if you will, "self-help cults," and actually am somewhat sympathetic to them; there's a very real lack of structure and support in our society, which is run as a no-holds-barred, laissez-faire free for all that substitutes rules and regulations for things like "organizing principles," which means that you can grow up completely misunderstanding what the underlying structure of society (and your role in it) is actually supposed to BE... far as I can see, self-help cults exploit that weakness, but they also fill a real need, giving people who don't understand how to live some needed direction, structure, feedback and support; as long as they don't primarily function to turn you into a programmed huckster trying to find other schlubs to join the team - as long as you're free to take what they have on offer and leave - I don't necessarily think they're that malign. But then again, I haven't seen the documentary yet, just a bunch of people in Guy Fawkes masks protesting outside the Scientology building on Hastings, which I have never yet entered, despite it having been there for as long as I've been making trips into Vancouver... I'm most curious what the film will offer. Incidentally, John Travolta comments on the film (which he hasn't seen) here...