Standard conspiratorial practice for any event where responsibility is uncertain, is to ask, “who benefits?”, because people are likely to action that helps them in some way or another. In this light, examination of the destruction of the World Trade Towers throws some surprising characters into the forefront of any investigation:

• The owners of the Empire State Building. When built, it was the tallest building in the world. Last month, it was no longer even the tallest building in Manhattan. Somehow, outfitting the building in a giant clown’s hat to reclaim the title seemed like cheating… And now, it’s back to dominating the New York skyline. Coincidence?
• Todd McFarlane. In 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs, shattering the 37-year old record for such things. The creator of Spawn paid $3 million for the ball which was hit for the 70th home run. But just three years later, Barry Bonds is making a serious run at the title. What better way to defend your investment than plough aircraft into buildings, and get all baseball cancelled for a week?
• Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad. These three New York Times journalists had a new book to plug – Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War – but the first printing was only 15,000. The date of its initial publication: September 11th. The second printing will be 100,000 copies and it’s currently the #3 best-seller at Amazon.

Okay, these suggestions are clearly not serious, but there is a serious point in there, namely that there is no more actual evidence for these suspects than there is for Osama Bin-Laden. The American government say he is responsible, but they have been curiously reticent at telling anyone – even their NATO allies – what proof they have that this is so. They cite fears about the security of their intelligence sources, but still demand that everyone joins in their war on terrorism. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” said Bush. I guess asking to see any actual evidence puts me with the terrorists then.

There is, mercifully, a growing resistance to a world view that sees the bad guys wearing black hats. Even people who last week were demanding that fire and brimstone be rained down on the heads of everyone, are now saying that we should go after the actual perpetrators. This is certainly a more sensible approach, and will probably more successful too. However, there is still a huge potential downside: in both America and Britain there is wide public support (85% of Britons, in one poll) for compulsory identity cards – and I remain entirely unconvinced that such cards would make the slightest difference. Anecdotal evidence of how useless they are, comes from the July escape of a convict from jail in LA, using an id card with a picture of Eddie Murphy on it…

And who knows what other measures will be introduced? A USA Today survey showed almost half wanted special IDs for Arabs in this country, including Americans of Arab descent – perhaps we should simply make them wear yellow stars… And extending this metaphor a little further, there are uncomfortable similarities between the events of 9/11, and the burning of the Reichstag in 1933. The day after the event – without bothering to wait for evidence – a decree was signed which allowed the Nazis to outlaw virtually all opposition. It’s perhaps TOO uncomfortable to follow that road.

But if you want an interesting slant on “who benefits”, take a look at The Konformist and their answer…

X plus ten, with the death toll looking to have stabilised at around the 6,000 mark, and a lot of collective holding of breaths to see what will happen next. It’s unlikely to be pleasant. We are supposedly at war, as the President made clear within hours of the attacks – a haste which might suggest he has shares in insurance companies, and wanted to afford them an easy “act of war” out to avoid having to pay any claims.

They aren’t the only ones in trouble, with the airlines now demanding federal help to avoid mass bankruptcies. Never mind the fact a lot of them were deep in the hole anyway, and this was just the straw that broke the back. We tried to book a flight to San Diego this weekend – hah! we’ll show those terrorists – only to face the usual price-doubling because we were booking within seven days of departure. You’d think the airlines would, at this time, be trying to encourage people to get back onto planes, but such is clearly not the case. Screw ’em – if they won’t let you take your own beer onto planes, I’d rather take the bus.

So Bush has declared war on terrorism. Let’s just hope that works a little bit better than the “war on drugs” we’ve been fighting for the past twenty years. And there are some disturbing similarities in the badly-defined enemies, non-specific objectives, and dubious methods being proposed here. If it does end up in a conventional war, it’s likely to be in Afghanistan – ring any bells, people? The Soviets spent fifteen years trying to subdue the residents there, before finally throwing their hands in the air and collapsing into capitalist anarchy. Do we think we are really going to do better? Anyone remember the last land war America fought in Asia against a technologically inferior enemy? Here’s a clue – it started with a V.

I say “we” in this case, which may surprise, given my usual detached approach to such things: hey, you want to go rescue Kuwait, go on, know yourselves out. I’ll watch the video highlights on the News at Ten. But this time, my step-son Robert is wobbling dangerously close to draft age, and if this turns out to be a long, drawn-out war (and it would be a naive optimist who’d predict anything else), who knows what might happen? I hear Canada is quite nice this time of year though.

The inevitable conspiracy theories have been floating, mostly revolving around the impossibility of a bunch of towelheaded terrorists getting past airport security with box-cutters, unless they had inside help. However, it’s pathetically obvious to anyone who has been through airport security, that it is staffed by $6.50 an hour security guards, and you get exactly what you pay for. The terrorists also had an advantage in that they only needed to hold the planes for long enough to point them at New York. Once word reached the fourth plane’s passengers of their likely fate, the hijackers were toast. Unfortunately, we can surmise that as they went, there also went the only remaining people capable of flying the plane.

Movies you will not be seeing on TV in the near future: Passenger 57, Die Hard, The Siege. Even Arnie is not immune, his upcoming Collateral Damage having been pulled, even though the terrorists had been changed from Libyans to Colombians beforehand anyway. Yet, oddly enough, terrorist flicks like those mentioned have been red-hot at the video shops – yet again proving how the media doesn’t have its finger on the pulse of popular sentiment as much as it’d like to think.

Already the reprisals have started. I’m “proud” to report that Phoenix was the location for the first revenge killing of an Asian-American, though some measure of the intellectual level of the assailant can be gained from the fact that the victim was a Sikh. Y’know, the ones that wear turbans, and so are immediately identifiable as not Moslems at all? Doh! Finally, a comment from Sven Taveby after last week’s editorial, which also sheds an interesting light on the media coverage of such events:

Die Stern (large German weekly magazine) and DN (Swedens largest morning paper) have tracked down the celebrating Palestinian woman. They asked her what she celebrated. The answer: We celebrated the free candy (kanafe, some kind of local sweets) that the *Palestinian* cameramen were handing out… In Swedish we call that “sjalv-mal”; kicking the ball into your own goal.

So, that was the summer, being widely called the worst season for movies since whenever the last really-bad spell was. Time to move on, and see what the Christmas season is likely to offer…but first, let’s ‘fess up and see how our May predictions held up, based on the critical and/or financial success of our picks.

May (2 out of 4)

• Sure thing: The Mummy Returns. $201.5m – any questions?
• What we’re looking forward to: Shrek. Look, I’m sorry…
• Dodgy ground: A Knight’s Tale. Rating a surprisingly decent 6.7/10 in the Internet Movie Database.
• Please bomb…please bomb: Pearl Harbor. Normally, $195.5m wouldn’t count as a bomb, but when you’re the most expensive film ever greenlighted, it’s not enough.

June (3 out of 4)

• Sure thing: A.I. Artifical Intelligence. No laughing at the back, please.
• What we’re looking forward to: Tomb Raider. Well, I liked it.
• Dodgy ground: Evolution. Painful, obvious and very dull, much as expected.
• Please bomb…please bomb: Swordfish. Failed to cover its budget, despite Halle’s breasts.

July (3 out of 4)

• Sure thing: Planet of the Apes. $173m and still going. Say what you like about the ending (“it sucked”, perhaps?), it certainly got people going back again.
• What we’re looking forward to: Final Fantasy. Despite bombing spectacularly (taking $105m less than it cost), we’ll be first in line for the DVD.
• Dodgy ground: Scary Movie 2. A $71m gross is less than half the original’s.
• Please bomb…please bomb: Jurassic Park III. With a $176m take, the franchise is unfortunately not extinct.

August (2 out of 4)

• Sure thing: Rush Hour 2. We say: one of the worst of the year. The box-office says: $200m.
• What we’re looking forward to: Rollerball. Pushed back from August to February 2002 and will be cut to a PG-13. No longer eagerly anticipated.
• Dodgy ground: American Pie 2. Revved up past $125m, breaking the string of R-rated comedy flops.
• Please bomb…please bomb: Ghosts of Mars. Will be lucky to take $10m. Carpenter now batting 0-for-6.

Making my tally for the summer season ten out of 16, which is not that much better than sticking pins in at random. Mind you, it’s probably not all that much worse than studio executives do, since they will insist on continuing to employ John Carpenter. Is he their drug connection or something?

Anyway, we continue undaunted. Here’s a look at what’s coming up between now and Christmas.

September/October

Sure thing: Award withheld. Looking at the release schedules, I see nothing until November to get the masses queuing at the multiplex. Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke might do it, as might Bandits (Willis and Thornton), but it looks a lean spell.

What we’re looking forward to: From Hell (October 19) – Johnny Depp has come a long way since Cry-baby, and while some of his career choices might be questionable, he does have an eye for interesting movies. And having worked in Jack the Ripper’s territory for ten years, we have a fondness for such flicks.

Dodgy ground: Collateral Damage (October 5) – “Arnie is regular guy fire-fighter stalking the terrorist who killed his family”. Deja-vu? Fifteen years ago, this’d have been a massive video hit, but Schwarzenegger seems to have lost it badly recently.

Please bomb…please bomb: Zoolander (September 28) – Inspired by a skit Ben Stiller did for the VH1 Fashion Awards. Need I say any more?

November

Sure thing: Monsters, Inc. (November 2) – Disney’s animation reputation took a bad hit with Atlantis, which was seriously out-Shrek‘d. But the toy-boys of Pixar are back, and the results should be massive.

What we’re looking forward to: Brotherhood of the Wolf (November 2) – A French cross between Predator and The Howling starring Eurasian martial artist Mark Dacascos? It’s a million-to-one shot, but it just might work…

Dodgy ground: The Black Knight (November 21) – Martin Lawrence goes back in time to King Arthur’s Court. Oh, hold my aching sides…

Please bomb…please bomb: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (November 16) – I see so much Potter merchandise sitting on the “50% Off” shelf already, it’s clear this one has missed the boat. Last year’s biggest hit may be as much use as a new Pokemon movie.

December

Sure thing: Fellowship of the Ring (December 19) – Compare and contrast Jackson’s expert handling of publicity with the Lucas-botch for Send in the Clones (or whatever it’s called). This will be huge, whether or not it’s any good – and I think it may well be.

What we’re looking forward to: The Time Machine (Christmas) – Guy Pearce starred in Memento, the only intelligent movie to hit the multiplexes this year. Hopefully, this will prove an equally intelligent reworking of the classic SF story.

Dodgy ground: Ocean’s Eleven (December 7) – George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts. I guess Steven Soderbergh has tired of making innovative and original films, opting instead to remake an old Frank Sinatra movie.

Please bomb…please bomb: Vanilla Sky (December 14) – Both stars and the director all have names that start with CR – Cruise, Cruz and Crowe, and given the egos possessed, it wouldn’t surprise me if the result can be summed up starting with CR as well.

At the risk of stating the obvious, yesterday was not much fun. I was torn from my slumbers by Chris robustly shaking me awake – I knew something was up, since such behaviour generally leaves me doing my “bear with sore head” impression for the rest of the day. But when I saw the pictures on TV, all grumpy thoughts flew out of my head.

I don’t think I’ve ever watched the news for 16 hours straight, with such intensity. The only comparable event I can think of is the death of Diana, and that had much less impact because, frankly, I didn’t care any more about her, than about the victims of any other drunk-driving accident. It was vaguely sad. Now, get over it. Yesterday’s events were so inconceivable you couldn’t grasp them – at one point, they brought thriller writer Tom Clancy in, and even he said he’d never write anything so far-fetched.

There was an air of absolute unreality to it, particularly the videos they had of the second plane hitting the towers. At first, they were shooting from the wrong side, so you just saw a plane going out of sight, then three floors of the building exploding. But by late last night, they’d got it from the other side, showing the impact. It looked like a bad digital effect: I always imagined a plane hitting a building would bounce, but this just sliced into it like a knife through butter.

Worse still was the footage of people, trapped above the impact, jumping – eighty floors or more – to their doom. At the time, it made no sense, but when I saw the towers collapsed, I realised that perhaps it was a slightly cleaner death. At the time of writing, they still have no idea how many people are victims – the figure of 10,000 has been mentioned, but that is just a guess. It’s an inconceivable number anyway, the equivalent of wiping out my home town of Forres, and everyone for a couple of miles around.

After a very grim and depressing day, we tried to escape by going out for pizza, but even there, the TVs were tuned to the news. A lot of places weren’t open at all, and those that remained were eerily quiet, as were the streets; it seemed sacrilegious somehow to be doing something “fun” like eating out, when such calamitous events had taking place elsewhere, and we slunk home without feeling much better.

Predictably, there have been calls for retaliation, and scarily, a USA Today poll showed that a disturbing 21% of those surveyed didn’t want to bother waiting to find out who was actually responsible. Even speaking to more reasonable Americans myself, I’ve found it very hard to put across my point of view, that cruise-bombing an Afghan valley somewhere is not going to solve any problems.

They, understandably, want someone to pay (and, as an aside, footage of Palestinians cheering in the streets has not helped – even I, generally fairly sympathetic to their cause, was not impressed). But hitting someone over the head with a bigger stick kinda loses the moral high ground. It also makes your victim look for their own bigger stick, and let’s not forget that Afghanistan is just south of the world’s least well-secured nuclear arsenal…

I’d favour the approach pioneered by the Israelis and their intelligence agency, Mossad, who take out the personnel found accountable for terrorist attacks such as the 1972 Munich Olympics massacres with a finely-judged mix of surgical precision, brutality and booby-trapped mobile phones. All strictly non-accountable, of course, but it gets the message across. Obviously, all those who actually carried out the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks are now dead. But I strongly suspect someone was behind them – and if they can be made to look nervously over their own shoulder, it can only be a good thing.

So, here we are: the fourth anniversary of the Trash City web site is also (by dint of careful planning) our first day on www.trashcity.org – the first time updates will be published only to this address. trshcity.demon is now a dead duck, floating in the Internet like a…like a…like a dead duck. Update your bookmarks accordingly, though what’s left of Demon will be around for a little while (the bunch of incompetents in their accounts department still haven’t told me until when).

No particular reason why it’s taken so long to move here. The domain has been “ours” for a good few years now, and we’ve had mail-forwarding going on for almost as long. This was particularly handy during the move, when I knew that messages sent me at trashcity.org, would get to me regardless of the state of my email accounts. The forwarding still works and I prefer it, since it means I can have @trashcity.org rather than the doubtful street-cred of…er, well, actually we use AOL, which has so little street-cred, I’d need a scanning electron microscope to determine the precise quantity.

[Brief pause to save this file; there’s an electrician out back fiddling with the pool motor and we’ve already had the lights in the kitchen turned out on us. At first, I mistook him for a vagrant when he came to the front door, but – save for the confusion over the fuse-box – he seems to know his stuff…or at least, we hope so, anyway. The pool motor was fried during an electrical storm, and the lack of circulation means the water was starting to resemble some kind of biological warfare experiment.]

As .org officially becomes part of the Trash City empire, looking back, I have to laugh. Did Wendy James, lead singer of Transvision Vamp, have any idea, that one of their songs would lend their name to first a magazine, then a bead company, and now two prime pieces of Internet real-estate? I suspect not – if for no other reason than, I certainly couldn’t have predicted such a future, when I began my obscure 32-page, photocopied-at-work (in the dead of night) ‘zine back in the days when the Internet, DVDs and Tony Blair were all equally inconceivable.

Equally amazing is the thought that nine months have gone by since I moved out to Arizona – I think I’ve finally grown into the place, and the prospect of going back to London (or even worse, permanent employment) fills me with unquenchable dread. I now feel like I have settled in here, and my decade-plus in the tentacles of HSBC feels like a bad dream. It did take me a while to shake off the feeling of dread every time I was spotted writing a personal email during business hours, but I think I’m over that now…

This is why I am loathe to make any predictions about where TC is going to be four years down the line, given how laughably inaccurate they would have been, if I’d made them back in 1997. I was thinking about such things yesterday at the dinner-table, when Emily said she’d buy us a hovercar when she was a rich and famous actress. Hang on, weren’t we supposed to have these already? Them, and those little pills which were entire meals in a single capsule. I certainly don’t recall any “Life in the 21st century” articles which said it’d be pretty much the same, just faster, noisier and infinitely more wired…

But anyway: here’s to the next four, wherever they may take TC!