| As in Harold Jaffes
two previous docufiction collections,
False Positive and 15 Serial Killers,
the author of Terror-Dot-Gov selects
then treats his texts such that
the reader is incapable of distinguishing
between fact and fiction. That ambiguity permits
Jaffe to cunningly tease out the contradictions
and subtexts of official news
or information and torque it into
what it so often is fundamentally: jingoism,
xenophobia and propaganda.
Jaffes subject in Terror-Dot-Gov
is not the everywhere-represented illicit
terrorism so much as licit,
institutionalized terrorism, and he assaults
his subject from multiple angles: razor-sharp
satire, precisely cadenced rhetoric, faux-reportage,
and unsituated dialogues (Jaffes
term, referring to his trademark talking
heads with perfect pitch). The result is
virtuosic and paradoxical: a prodigious
display of firepowerin the cause of
peace.
What People Are Saying
About Terror-Dot-Gov:
“Terror-Dot-Gov is a powerful book, able to reframe readers' perspective on the news and opinion provided by popular media… innovative and timely; his commentary on topics seen often in daily news reports will resonate with readers whose senses have glazed over, reading and hearing the same spin from the same talking heads, over and over again.”
—The Absinthe Literary Review
"I suggest, to understand
what is truly remarkable about Terror-Dot-Gov,
one should pay less attention to the rage
and the politics of the work than to the
marvels of style it contains
.This
is Jaffe's brilliance: he shows us how language
has been used against us as a weapon, and
he challenges us to wake up to that fact.
For the simple linear readers who can't
handle multiplicity and want everything
dumbed down to the dominant level, I'd give
Jaffe's new book a thumbs up."
Electronic
Book Review
"Terror-Dot-Gov
succeeds as terrifically as - if not better
than - Jaffe's previous collections
original,
imaginative, intelligent, funny, and pointed."
Rain Taxi
"Terror-Dot-Gov
is a tour-de-force rumination on the psychical
and physical carnage resulting from present
day terrorism and war. In his distinctively
sparse and cool prose, Harold Jaffe takes
on the contemporary cultural and political
climate with narrative bravado and ideological
courage. At heart, Terror-Dot-Gov
is a work of political activism and deep
humanity with a sense of outrage at the
state of national and international affairs...a
potent indictment of American values and
pieties."
American Book
Review
"With Terror-Dot-Gov,
once again, Harold Jaffe has proven to be
one of the most incisive and important writers
of our day."
Sebastian
Bennet
"As Terror-Dot-Gov
vividly demonstrates: We are spiritually
imperiled by illusions masked as 'news.'
Omissions, slants, pallid editorials all
testifying to servitude to a slavish, enslaving
text. Harold Jaffe knows this by heart and
has it right. He isolates the self-justifying
words that demonize the enemy while cleansing
the ongoing crime, the 'preventive strike.'
He encourages organized terror (our very
own) to emerge white as new-fallen snow.
White as leprosy. Everywhere in Terror-Dot-Gov
is exemplary skill, faultless tonality.
And courage, don't forget courage. In order
to be healed, our illness must worsen. Thank
you, Harold Jaffe."
Daniel Berrigan,
SJ
"Kill your TV. Terror-Dot-Gov
will give you all the news that's unfit
to printreportage gone fictive (or
is it vice versa?) Jaffes brilliantly
constructed docufictions blast holes through
the mediadrome to unmask the terrifying
institutionalized rhetoric that passes itself
off as business as usual."
Jan Ramjerdi
"Terror-Dot-Gov
is a full frontal assault on our duct-taped
minds. High velocity words fired with unerring
precision, dancing feverishly on the page
before zapping their target, which is nothing
less than 'First World' war-mongering and
the terror it invokes to validate itself."
Faruk Ulay
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About the Artist,
Katana Blue
Katana Blue lives and
works in San Diego, Ca. She has published
photographs with the LA Times and
her mixed media artwork has appeared
on the two most recent covers of Fiction
International. She cites the visual
artwork of Francis Bacon, Hannah Hoch,
Joel Peter Witkin, Joseph Beuys and
Andres Serrano as influences. Upon
arriving in a new location she immediately
visits the local cemeteries, ossuarys,
and decaying urban landscapes.
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