Saturday, July 25, 2009

Dark Side of the Moon

Earlier this week, Moonlanding anniversary was everywhere. Now, I was born many years after the event that made Ray Bradbury suggest be the beginning of a new global calendar. So I have nothing to say when old people talk about ‘oh I remember….’ But I do remember 1 April 2003, when I first watched the Dark Side of the Moon — not the Pink Floyd album, but the French mockumentary.

Titled Operation Lune in French, the premise is that Moonlanding was a hoax, and what the world saw on 23 Jul 1969 was shot in the set of the Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for this, Uncle Sam gave Kubrick some fancy camera, but when CIA operatives associated with the project started dying mysteriously in places like South America, Kubrick got spooked, and that’s why he only made two movies in his last two decades, and all the big guns in Nixon-Ford administration, Kissinger, Alex Haig, Rumsfeld, they were all in on it.

On that evening, I got home from work and switched on the TV. Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf was telling us that the foreign invaders were drowing in their own blood. I flicked it to CNN — but how would I know if they were telling the truth? I flicked the channel again. Something was in French. Ah, the French would tell us the truth, I thought (I was young, and naive). What was this, I wondered! Kissinger and Rumsfeld admitting to deception? Whoa! This is cooler than the other side of the pillow!

I highly recommend it.

I also remember the last time I watched 2001 in a theatre. It was the Summer of 2001. We went to a midnight screening. During the scene where the hominid tribes scream at each other over the water hole, my friend yelled out — Jews and Palestinians. Everybody had a good laugh. I highly recommend that movie too. If you find it hard to follow the birth of the star child, a kolki full of mari jane will help. If that proves too hard, penadol with red bull can give you a solid bender.