{"id":61668,"date":"2014-10-10T22:25:57","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T22:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=61668"},"modified":"2022-12-26T16:05:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T00:05:43","slug":"arts-and-popular-culture-notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=61668","title":{"rendered":"Arts and popular culture notes (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to the stories by artists, composers and filmmakers in this section of the jtr bulletin<\/em>, we learned of these other developments within the past year:<\/p>\n

<\/a>Jonestown in Novels<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2022\u00a0Ryan Roy, an assistant director of a public library in Virginia, has chosen the Jonestown tragedy as the subject for his first effort in full-length fiction writing. Jonestown: A Novel<\/a><\/em>, described in one review in the Waynesboro News Virginian<\/a><\/em> as \u201ca historical thriller about a young father determined to free his son from the clutches of the deranged reverend, Jim Jones,\u201d was published earlier this year.<\/p>\n

A second review of the book, from the Augusta Free Press<\/em> \u2013 also located in Waynesboro \u2013 appears here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"sancturia\"<\/a>\u2022 Malay author Shaz Johar, whose fiction covers such controversial social issues as the relationships between young men and older women, pedophilia, and cross-cultural romances, has published a novel inspired by the events in Jonestown. Sancturia<\/i>, the dark story of a utopian community which loses its way and becomes a cult, was published in the spring. A description of the work appears here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Jonestown in Film & TV<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 The 2014 film, Kool-Aide,<\/i> considered both a satire and social documentary, \u201ctakes an informative and funny look at various aspects of society, including government and government policy, food and drug safety, Obamacare and other issues that [filmmaker Joey] Cotroneo wanted to highlight,\u201d according to an article<\/a> describing the 75-minute movie. Making the connection between the Jonestown tragedy and modern-day life, the director said, \u201cI am trying to make people aware of what’s going on and expose more truth and various propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"berget<\/a>\u2022 The movie Jonestown<\/i>, a fictional drama that \u201cfollows a young reporter who travelled down to the commune to investigate with a US delegation [and that] portrays the last 48 hours leading up to the mass-suicide,\u201d premiered on November 16, 2013. David Berget<\/a>, a recent graduate of the American Film Institute Conservatory, directed the movie. An extended trailer of the 23-minute film appears here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Jonestown in Performance<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"jonestown-4\"<\/a>\u2022 An \u201cimmersive experience\u201d designed by a Las Vegas theater group allowed participants to \u201crecreate Jonestown\u201d during a three-week run in the fall of 2014, \u201cjust in time for the Halloween season,\u201d as one preview noted. For the production of Jonestown<\/em>, ticket buyers would learn the location of the evening\u2019s performance earlier in the day. When they arrived, they became members of Peoples Temple for the performance. \u201c[We] will take our congregants a step beyond the Kool-Aid,\u201d Troy Heard, the Creative Director of Table 8 Productions was quoted as saying. \u201cWe show both outside and inside perspectives of the Rev. Jim Jones, his followers, and the dark path they took to their ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second preview of the performances appeared in BroadwayWorld.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"messenger\"<\/a>\u2022 The Annoyance Theatre, a new theater group in Chicago, produced a play over the summer about Temple leader Jim Jones which \u2013 as a preview article<\/a> noted \u2013 \u201cisn’t about Jonestown.\u201d Billed as \u201can original comedy\/drama\/musical,\u201d The Raven and The Messenger<\/em> focused on the relationship between Father Divine and Jim Jones.<\/p>\n

The preview also included an extended interview with the play\u2019s director, Irene Marquette.<\/p>\n

\"jonesopolis\"<\/a>\u2022 A website<\/a> for Jonesopolis<\/em>, described by its creator as \u201cA Jonestown Operatic Requiem In 3 Acts With Incidental Music For Voices, Orchestra, & Unorthodox Instruments\u201d has listed the multiple roles to be filled, dozens of traditional instruments as well as the \u201cunorthodox\u201d ones \u2013 glasses filled with water, washboards, shoes, and an anvil \u2013 as well as a description of scenes and musical numbers. Despite the enthusiasm for the project in multiple online platforms, the proposal does not seem to be moving towards a production.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Jonestown in Music <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

A number of musical artists and groups have incorporated the icons \u2013 and even the very name \u2013 of Jonestown into their own images in recent months. Among recent discoveries:<\/p>\n

\"08-01-mutant<\/a>\u2022 The electronica group Mutantlab released the song \u201dwe CaLL iT JOneSTOwn\u201d<\/a> \u2013 described as \u201csome easy listening beats and excerpts from the last known audio recordings of The Peoples Temple Cult\u201d \u2013 on their Mass Mutation<\/i> album released through the Free Music Archive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the stories by artists, composers and filmmakers in this section of the jtr bulletin, we learned of these other developments within the past year: Jonestown in Novels \u2022\u00a0Ryan Roy, an assistant director of a public library in Virginia, has chosen the Jonestown tragedy as the subject for his first effort in full-length […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":61874,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-61668","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61668"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119274,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61668\/revisions\/119274"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}