A Blog Manifesto

Blogging is an exercise in letting go of perfectionism.  One of the problems that has plagued my writing has been the superconscious critic that demands everything I write be deathless prose.  That's one reason to blog--to simply put words out for public consumption that are not very good.

So, with that in mind, on to my favorite subject: Crime.

This week interest in two thirty-year-old homicides have resulted in the cases being reopened.  One of those was the Atlanta Child Murders which were attributed to Wayne Williams.  Williams was convicted of only two of the 30 or more homicides that police decided were connected to each other in the mid 70's.  The problem was, that the murders tended to continue after Williams was incarcerated.  This past week investigators in Atlanta reopened the investigation.  I've seen several documentaries on this case, and the most compelling was the A&E special that featured John Douglas' take on the trial of Wayne Williams.  That was compelling.  Douglas had Williams' psyche pinned down like a butterfly on a drying block.  There was no question in Douglas' mind that Wayne Williams was guilty of something.  But was it murder?  Ah, there's the rub. 

The second 30-year-old murder case that was recently reopened was the assassination of Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was beaten to death in 1975, purportedly by a male prostitute when a sadomasochistic tryst went out of control.  The one-person killer scenario doesn't jibe with the forensic evidence, but the killer, Peri Pelosi, has not given up the names of his co-consipirators.  The political scene in Italy during the 70's fluxuated between extremes, neofascists and communists battling for political dominance.  Pasolini, a rabid communist, in addition to being a filmmaker was also a political pundit.  Pelosi's family had ties to the reactionary right wing.  Now that Pelosi's parents have passed away and has nothing to fear, it appears that he may be willing to give up the names of those who were involved.  He probably wants to have some kind of life during the years left to him.  He went to prison at 17.

By the way, all of this interest in Pasolini has rekindled my own interest.  I've ordered several of his visionary films through netflix.  However, Netflix does not offer Pasolini's most amazing work, perhaps the most transgressive art film ever made in the history of films: Salo: 120 Days of Sodom.  Watch for my review/critique of that film in the days to come.