When the Smog Cleared Thirty Years Later--Methland

[Kevin Dunn]

Did you happen to read the book _Methland_, about the decay of a working
class town in Iowa? It's at least coincidental that you used the term
"methland" and made references to what must be some of the themes of the
aforementioned book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methland:_The_Death_and_Life_of_an_American_Small_Town

Plus there's the film "The Salton Sea," which is about a musician who seeks
revenge for the death of his wife by diving headlong into the world of
tweakers and meth production to find the man responsible. Probably one of
the most accurate and vivid portrayals of tweakworld, as far as I understand
it.

Kevin



On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:11 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all--
>
> IV ends on a somewhat anxious note, Doc wondering about what will be
> revealed when the fog clears (or words to that effect)
> Well, California (Salton Sea) being one of the homes of metamphetamine
> one could safely say what was revealed 30 yrs down the road when the
> fog finally cleared was Methland.  a perfect drug for the working
> poor, stressed out to the max, gotta work double shifts to make ends
> meet, meth made them feel good, one of the few good things in their
> lives, as the small Midwestern towns shrunk and decayed, who offered
> only shit jobs with no benefits, the perfect drug for those scuttling
> under the heels of  BigAgra, the Pharmaceutical industry, the Mexican
> drug cartels, the US government, law enforcement, and other disturbed
> tweakers.
>
> This is surely great fodder for a great novel that can encompass so
> much of what is wrong, tragic and downright evil about the forces of
> control in post-cold war capitalism; corruption, violence (sexual and
> otherwise) the drug wars and drugs, like meth.
>
> Hopefully, someone (Vollman's Imperial pbly covers some of this but we
> need a better novel) will write it some day. In the interim I
> recommend reading Nick Reding's book.
>
> No Doc Sportellos here folks...
>
> Rich
>
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