Word: shocks
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That is by no means the most devastating loss stemming from a biotech failure in the '90s. Centocor Inc. fell from $60 to $5; Xoma Corp., from $32 to $1; Synergen Inc., from $73 to $4--all because of hyped septic-shock drugs that didn't work. Inject those babies into your 401(k), and you'll never retire. And these aren't isolated cases. Viren Mehta, a biotech expert at Mehta and Isaly, keeps track of biotech bombs. He says there have been 14 major disasters this decade. But even if you avoid specific product failures...
...spooky presence of Robert Blake--with his pancake white face, shaved eyebrows and sickly smile--an eldritch harbinger of death like the dwarf in Twin Peaks. So whatever that critic may think, Lost Highway isn't refuse. But it ain't revelation either. What's missing is the shock...
...culture? For starters, Manson is a natural-born showman with dark charisma and a knack for sensationalistic imagery. "This band has always been about pulling one over on the mainstream," he admits. Part Boy George and part Oliver Stone, Manson intentionally crafts his image to incite maximum shock. He often performs clad in jackboots and trussed up in leather. Onstage and off, he wears black lipstick and cakes his face in mortician's white, giving himself a deathly, freshly exhumed look...
Many of the band's most enthusiastic fans are Goths, members of a popular suburban youth cult drawn to black garb and death-rock music. Styling themselves after Manson gives them power: it strikes a blow against conformity and repulses their parents. Manson and his shock troupe never shy away from a chance to indulge in violent titillation. At a Florida concert last fall, Manson squirmed bare-chested on a carpet of broken glass. Conservative groups accuse him of devil worship. Two weeks ago, the band's Oklahoma City concert was picketed by Donald Wildmon's American Family Association...
Manson is not, of course, the first to wring fame out of ghoulish theater. Pioneer shock rockers Alice Cooper and Kiss made millions daring audiences to share the humor behind their fright masks. But Manson's act is shorn of all humor. What's left is lurid spectacle that conveys little meaning beyond its shock value...