Collected Thoughts: MASSIVE NOVEMBER EDITION
Welcome to the MASSIVE NOVEMBER COLLECTED THOUGHTS POST. I've broken it into categories for you. (Longtime CGT readers will recall the categorized Grab Bag posts, so this is familiar territory for you.) Take several days to get through this post, if you like.
Expect December to be similarly light on posting, but I'll try to get a couple a week up.
PERSONAL NOTES
- I try to keep mentions of The Girlfriend to a minimum on this blog, in part so as not to jinx it and in part to respect her privacy. I'd like to mention that today is our one year anniversary. I'm a difficult person to be around, let alone to love, and I think she's just peachy-keen for being crazy enough to stick with me. (All men, it should be noted, understand very deeply and intrinsically that they don't deserve their partners.)
- For those interested, the first draft of my current screenplay project is at page 61. I know what goes on page 75 and I very much wish page 61 was page 74. I'm not entirely too sure how to make my concept of the third act go all the way from page 85 to page 105, because it sure does seem like a meager 7 pages of stuff in my head. This is maddening. It's also why I'm writing this Collected Thoughts post, to avoid The Story Problem.
- When your Easy Life is Teetering on the Edge, a flat tire seems like a lymphoma. I know it's a good problem to have, but still. Ugh.
MUSIC THOUGHTS
- I did not seek-out new music very well this year. Web In Front did. His Best of LA EPs list is up.
- I got to get on my Best of 2009 and Best of the Decade lists. I've been shocked that Beck's Sea Change has been so low on most lists. I promise to rectify that for ya'll.
- CNET had a good article on photogs and rock shows. It is silly that any photographer is tossed after three songs in this day and age. I question the wisdom of any venue that employs such a policy.
Folks, all data wants to be free. The best you can hope for is to have as many images of your venue out there as possible. Trying to control The Cloud only hurts you.
- It was great to see Radars to the Sky keeping the tradition of indie rock indie rock alive and well a couple weeks ago at The Echo. For my fellow rockists-at-heart, I assure you, our time will come again. (You can listen to them cover JAMC here)
- At the same show Le Switch played as a four-piece, which I really liked. Having a horn player certainly gave the band a unique flare and the absence of almost jazz hands-esque energy was felt, amplified by the fact that I know where the horn parts go. But without the horn you can hear the keys much better. The same songs felt less poppy and more rocky, which is going to do this blogger good every time. The band sounded looser, and that served them well.
- Marvelous Toy gets better every show, by the way.
- Rolling Stone nails Raditude (which I will one day soon review, I promise): "Ever since he attracted the obsessive Weezer cult with Pinkerton, he's inspired wildly hyperbolic reactions to his every move. So to a casual fan, each Weezer album sounds pretty great, and each Weezer album sounds exactly like the last one. But to a true Weezer cultist, each is a shameful betrayal of everything "El Scorcho" stood for. Which was what, exactly?"
- Once more, this is worth your time:
MOVIES
- I liked The Fantastic Mr. Fox a lot. For all of Wes Anderson's faults (there are many) he really knows how to conceive of the world of a film and make sure that every pixel on the screen belongs in that world. And for once, I didn't want to beat Jason Schwartzman to a bloody pulp.
- I watched Marathon Man for the first time last week. (I've been studying William Goldman's dialog.) I love me a good 70's thriller. Dustin Hoffman really was in a quarter of all the good movies made for a 25 year stretch.
- They're making a film based on Robert E. Howard's Kull the Conqueror. Kull was the proto-Conan, he has many of Conan's traits but isn't nearly as cocky. The world of the Kull stories is also much more magical and mystical, arguably the first "high fantasy" setting.
Bellow is one of my all-time favorite fiction quotes from the great Howard story The Shadow Kingdom. King Kull has just spent the day settling marital disputes between his helpless citizenry when he'd rather be out seeing the world, and conquering it. Things take a turn when he comes to find that shapeshifting lizardmen have infiltrated his inner circle and his guard. Kull, the Atlantean Barbarian, has a midlife crisis. Writes Howard:
"And what, mused Kull, were the realities of life? Ambition, power, pride? The friendship of man, the love of women--which Kull had never known--battle, plunder, what? Was it the real Kull who sat upon the throne or was it the real Kull who had scaled the hills of Atlantis, harried the far isles of the sunset, and laughed upon the green roaring tides of the Atlantean sea? How could a man be so many different men in a lifetime? For Kull knew that there were many Kulls and he wondered which was the real Kull. After all, the priests of the Serpent went a step further in their magic, for all men wore masks, and many a different mask with each different man or woman; and Kull wondered if a serpent did not lurk under every mask."
- Anne Hathaway, Rachel McAdams, and Julia Stiles have all been rumored for Black Cat in Spider-Man 4. All would be acceptable, but Anne Hathaway would look best in the suit.
For my money, Rosario Dawson would be the best type for the role. Black Cat is supposed to be The Coolest Girlfriend Ever for Spider-Man, the awesome and flirty chick that tempts him away from his boring and bitchy Mary Jane.
Also, I really want Raimi to make S4 about The Lizard. I think Doc Connors should turn into The Lizard and reality star sensation Kraven the Hunter promises to bring him in, dead or alive. So Spider-Man races against Kraven to make sure his good friend Connors is returned safely, alive. That's how I'd do it.
HORROR OF HORRORS
- EVERYTHING in the ocean is TERRIBLE. Watch the whole thing, but the money comes around 1:25.
- Things From the Sky are also terrifying.
CYBERPUNK AND SCI-FI COMING TRUE
- There is water on the moon. Let that sink in a little.
- Augmented Reality will be the defining technology of the new decade. Think of this video as Star Fox on SNES in 1993, then think of what the Xbox 360 was capable of 12 years later.
- If you read one link in this post, read this article in h+ Magazine about synthetic meat. The singularity is near. Our morality comes from our capacity to perceive suffering and our capacity to develop technologies that end it.
This quote will intrigue and horrify most of you:
"In-Vitro Meat will be fashioned from any creature, not just domestics that were affordable to farm. Yes, ANY ANIMAL, even rare beasts like snow leopard, or Komodo Dragon. We will want to taste them all. Some researchers believe we will also be able to create IVM using the DNA of extinct beasts -- obviously, "DinoBurgers" will be served at every six-year-old boy's birthday party.
Humans are animals, so every hipster will try Cannibalism. Perhaps we'll just eat people we don't like, as author Iain M. Banks predicted in his short story, "The State of the Art" with diners feasting on "Stewed Idi Amin." But I imagine passionate lovers literally eating each other, growing sausages from their co-mingled tissues overnight in tabletop appliances similar to bread-making machines. And of course, masturbatory gourmands will simply gobble their own meat."
- An h+ blogger points-out a serious hurdle for transhumanism: the brain dies very quickly.
The blogger thinks this fact makes mind transfer to another body (say, a matrix or cybernetic husk) impossible. I say it just points out what technologies are needed to make it real. It won't happen in my lifetime either way, so I suppose I'll never know. :(
NERDTACULAR
- Read the inmate list for ADX, Florence. (scroll to the bottom) Doesn't it capture your imagination? Those men in that supermax prison are the true supervillains of our times. It's got madmen serial killers, Neo-Nazi leaders, mega-terrorists, Olympic bombers, mafia masterminds, and a double-crossing Soviet spy.
- Apple patented a software that could prevent you from using your device (say, iPod) until you've viewed an advertisement and proven that you've paid attention. Apple has always been Evil in this regards (think iTunes DRM) but the market will destroy their efforts. I wouldn't worry about it.
- D&D panic hilarity:
- Just in case you're the last person on earth not to have seen this:
- The Adventures of Lil' Cthulhu!
POLITICS AND SUCH
- Everyone knows someone whom they love but happens to be, inexplicably, a fan of Sarah Palin. I know, it's immensely frustrating. To help them see the light, show them how she lies worse than Bill Clinton.
You wouldn't know it from this blog, but I do have a soft spot of respect for real, unobtrusive, small-government conservatism (whose true logical conclusions, by the way, include allowing gay marriage). Sarah Palin ain't it, though. I've got much more respect for Romney, and oh how ironic is it that the power-wielding evangelicals are keeping him from fixing their rump party?
- This article on vegetarianism is outstanding. It really nails the truth of both meat-eating and vegetarian diet. I've always felt that I'm a less-advanced human than my vegetarian peers, and that perhaps my future grandchildren will look upon my proud meat-eating habits with horror. Money quotes:
"Humans have the capacity for good, but we are also scoundrels. Nobly intentioned as we are, we are creatures of appetite. Honorable as we can be, we are perhaps the cruelest of God’s little creatures. We rarely derive our culinary pleasure from goodness and even more rarely from abstinence. Just as a life of celibacy isn’t a proper reward for refraining from rape, a potato casserole does not a meat substitute make. Take all the naughtiness out of food and you take away much of its taste. What, exactly, do the vegetarians want? A well-reasoned argument or a food revolution?"
...and...
"All vegetarianism is, in large part, artificial. It is based neither on ritual nor on necessity. It is a diet by humans for humans. A diet of modernity, whose survival will most likely depend as much on innovations in food technology as the simplicity of the family farm. I say that is the strength of vegetarianism. It can offer a freedom that meat-eating cannot: a diet that is about choice and a liberation from the prescriptions of "normal" daily life. A whole new way of eating that doesn’t rely on the whims of Nature. In short, a form of decadence. An acceptance that, like artists, we can fashion our own food and ergo, our own lives."
- It's worth mentioning however that the synthetic meat article earlier in this post is how the human race will transcend its animal-killing ways, not by making habenero sauce sexier.
- I remember reading this article on oxycontin when it originally ran. I stumbled upon it the other day and wanted to share. It's a very compelling read.
