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Sunday, August 03, 2025

Some lighthearted stuff this time! Plus a few sobering reminders.

All right, it's been 3 weeks without a posting. Busy, as we finally move back home after 6 months in exile.  And sure, there's plenty going on in the world. Which I'll comment on soon, once my 3-week lobotomy has had a chance to settle in. (All hail Vlad and the New USSR and Vlad's orange-quisling U.S. prophet!)

Okay, meanwhile, got time for some humor and fun? There's a LOT of cool links, below!

Let’s start with this clipSimply one of the best things I have seen, maybe ever!  Supporting my view that ‘pre-sapient’ consciousness is very, very common… and breaking through the glass ceiling to our level must be very, very hard. 


== Distractions! ==


Running short on distractions suitable for you alpha types? I mentioned Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comix. These are among the good ones lately.


https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/why-6


https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/law-4


https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/profile


https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/cult-2


Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - LLM And an exceptionally on-target whimsy cynicism from SMBC…


You'd also likely enjoy XKCD, which is generally even more science oriented. Might as well start here and just keep clicking the one-step-backward button till you tire of the cleverness!  


I mentioned Electric Sheep Comix by Patrick Farley. All his serials have such different styles you'd be sure they must have different artists. And all are brilliant! 



== And seriously, now ==


Briefly serious and then more lighthearted stuff!


Here’s a tip and a tool worth spreading. The Canadian Women's Foundation has created a hand signal for those who are victims of domestic violence which can be used silently on video calls during the coronavirus crisis to signal for help.  But not just for video calls, as illustrated in this earlier video.


And while we’re talking inspiring ways to move ahead… Big star Bruce Springsteen’s Jeep commercial paid homage to the ReUnited States of America… a lovely sentiment! (Calling to mind “malice toward none” from Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address, one of the top ten speeches of all time.) 


It also called to mind - for not a few folks who pinged me - resonance with the “Restored United States” of my novel (and the film) “The Postman.” Which has itself been “restored” or refreshed, edited and updated with TWO new Patrick Farley covers and a new introduction. 


(Let me append -- below -- a relevant passage from The Postman, in which -- in the 1980s -- I predicted many of the rationalizations of the would-be lords seeking to re-impose 6000 years of dismal feudalism)


On the other hands, the dumbing-down continues. In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English declared: “Time to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” Instead, teachers are urged to focus on "media literacy" and short texts that students feel are "relevant." ??? I am well-versed on the 'newer' language arts and helped invent some. And this leads to the moronic world that Walter Tevis ('The Queen's Gambit') portrayed in his great novel MOCKINGBIRD. 


But oh yeah. who reads novels? Or tracks coherent, complex thoughts?

Dig it. This is part of the Great Big War Vs Nerds that's primarily on the Mad Right... but also has long had a strong locus on the postmodernist left.

Books r 2 hard 2 reed and shit ...


…but sure… now back to fun!



== And more spritely and musically now, to cheer you up! ==


And now something completely different. I assert that Gilbert and Sullivan were master musicians. And in each opera they has at least one pas-de-deux... where you take two seemingly completely independent songs, hear them separately, and then lo! They get woven together in beauty & irony. This one combines unhelpful encouragement (!) with courage-despite-terror. You'll see (and hear) what I mean at about 3:30. Play it loud!


This version with the incomparable Linda Rondstadt!

And yes, a few of you (too few!) will deem this familiar from a scene in BRIGHTNESS REEF!


And let’s have another. Here’s one of my utter-favorite songs, by Vangelis. The Jon Anderson version is great. Donna Summer’s is even better!


Less perfect but a fun variation is Chrissie Hynde’s version with Moodswings.


Then there’s this way-fun bit of grunting nonsense by Mike Oldfield, that should be redone by Tenacious D!


Three more faves recommended by my brother, with my thumbs way up.


Johnny Clegg with Nelson Mandela. 


Patty Smith, People Have the Power.  


Cornershop ‘Free Love.’ 



======


== And now that promised POSTMAN lagniappe ==


So it had been that way here too. The cliched "last straw" had been this plague of survivalists--particularly those following the high priest of violent anarchy, Nathan Holn.
...
The irony of it was that we had things turned around! The depression was over. People were at work again and cooperating. Except for a few crazies, it looked like a renaissance was coming, for America and the world.

But we forgot how much harm a few crazies could do, in America and in the world.

 


--… and later in the book… --

 

 

“How did he get away with pushing a book like this?”

       Gordon shrugged. 

       “It was called ‘the Big Lie’ technique, Johnny. Just SOUND like you know what you’re talking about—as if you’re citing real facts. Talk very fast. Weave your lies into the shape of a conspiracy theory and repeat your assertions over and over again. Those who want an excuse to hate or blame—those with big but weak egos— will leap at a simple, neat explanation for the way the world is. Those types will never call you on the facts…”



Want more?  I'll post another, longer, section of the book, soon. You'll likely not see a better pre-diagnosis of the hell we are in now, verging on possibly much worse.  But yes, we will win.


Thrive. And persevere!

 





22 comments:

  1. Thanks for the comics, but none of the links are working properly- looks like they have some extra stuff at the end that needs removing.

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  2. Ah yes, shifting boxes: a pleasure I have pending when my daughter comes back from Sydney at the end of the year!

    Having just done my monthly news roundup of environmental/political matters for this month, I'm happy to go light on the state of the world as well (not that it's *all* bad, mind)

    Piltdown Man knew how to rock it! (... would have known, that is) I recall using the grunts as inspiration for naming a D&D character 'Floogle M'gwaff'. It's doubly amusing that a vid showing Kate Bush performing 'Wuthering Heights' comes immediately after ("You had a temper, like my jealousy..."). Taran-tara indeed.

    Another comic worth mentioning is 'Runaway to the Stars', which is managing to combine hard SF with some comedy, interspecies issues, and hints that 'wokeness' has always been part of the scene.

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  3. I think I fixed most of the weirdly messed up smbc links

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  4. I had fun with the first set of this series - Spacetrawler - about shanghaied Earthlings
    https://www.baldwinpage.com/spacetrawler/

    Pappenheimer

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  5. The link labeled Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - LLM seems broken still but the others are good now.

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  6. Linda Ronstadt? Incomparable indeed!

    This live performance makes me cry. Her voice is amazing.

    Linda Ronstadt - Blue Bayou

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  7. And, as Willie Nelson allegedly said, "There are two kinds of men in this world. Those with a crush on Linda Ronstadt and those who never heard of her."

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    1. Willie Nelson has three rules: "1- don't be an asshole 2- don't be an asshole 3- don't be a fucking asshole."

      At the Venn diagram where "hippie" overlaps "redneck" Willie Nelson stands alone and supreme.

      Whether he sings

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWOEfE22wow&list=RDOWOEfE22wow&start_radio=1

      (And there is no love song like a cowboy love song)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxXki4OV7d0&list=RDsxXki4OV7d0&start_radio=1

      Or is being sung about

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX-7QejAi8M&list=RDpX-7QejAi8M&start_radio=1

      Willie is true country, from a bygone era when county music wasn't just pop music wearing a cowboy hat.

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  8. My wife and I watched AVATAR 2 on Saturday night. It's over 3 hours long and we only planned to watch half of it. We watched the whole thing. It was a lot better than we expected.

    The last hour is one long battle scene. In most movies, battle scenes are boring, CGI filled bloat. When it started, we were so far from the end of the film that I thought this was going to be a mid-film fight. Nope…it was the big battle. Thing is, it was interesting. Cameron made the battle into a long, episodic story. Yay! We understood what was happening, where people were, what they were trying to do.

    I just re-read SHOGUN by James Clavell. Mae and I watched the HULU mini-series a few weeks ago and were very disappointed. The costumes and sets were amazing, but the story was dumbed down version of the novel. We watched the 1980 mini-series last year and that was much better. The actor playing Blackthorn in the HULU series walked around like a doofus. At one point he was asked about his experience with land battles and the HULU character said that he had none. Whereas, in the novel, Blackthorn had been in several land battles and was highly experienced and capable. I read that the writers dumbed his character down so that he would not come across as a “white savior.” What a load of nonsense. Blackthorn in the novel was a brilliant intellect as well as a navigator and pilot. But his skills were tools that Toranaga used. Anjin-San was not a white savior, he was just a character who was our point of reference for a very different world.

    Most entertainment these days seems to be written for easily bored, stupid, shallow people. It’s rare that we come across something really thoughtful or entertaining.

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    1. "The actor playing Blackthorn in the HULU series walked around like a doofus."

      Yeah that was something i did not like about the mini-series. I wanted to shout at the TV "Sure its a different culture and language but learn to read a room before you open you mouth you idiot!"

      What was excellent was the portrayal of Lady Mariko and her arch rival Lady Ochiba. Both of them out smarted Lord Ishido, though Lord Toranaga remained the supreme strategist.

      When Mariko destroyed Ishido in front of the council only Ochiba understood what she was doing, and was taken aback by her audacity. Ishido was clueless even as he was being destroyed.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTm6Qaz029I

      And yes female samurai like Mariko were also willing to die for their lords

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMC_Yg27gk



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    2. Another film that surprised me recently was the 2016 film THE ACCOUNTANT starring Ben Afflick. I was flipping through films on streaming and saw this scene and was hooked.

      https://youtu.be/CLrWCc-75j4?si=Uh4UIrEV6796gN1Q

      This is my area of expertise. His use (mis-use) of tax reporting had me ROFLOL and I knew I had to watch this film with my wife. This is exactly the kind of BS that an unethical tax preparer would use.

      We enjoyed it. Yes, it was a fairly dumb, action film along the lines of the REACHER TV series. But the characters were interesting and the film had a number of surprising plot twists. You expect it to go in one direction and it goes off in another. And it has the wonderful John Lithgow…I’ve been following him since the 1976 Brian DePalma film, OBSESSION (one of my cousins was an investor in this flick).

      Another great flick is the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant film CHARADE. You can find that one streaming in full on Youtube because the studio made a mistake when it was released in 1965 and the film went into the public domain when it was released. Here is one version. You can probably find higher def versions if you look hard.

      https://youtu.be/x5WLVlJjgSE?si=1W0oT7RWAoXZy2uG

      Well worth 1 hour and 53 minutes of your life. I have a MP4 of this film saved on my phone, I love it so much. Some people say that it is the best Alfred Hitchcock film not directed by Alfred Hitchcock; it was directed by Stanley Donen.

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    3. In most movies, battle scenes are boring, CGI filled bloat.
      ...Nope…it was the big battle. Thing is, it was interesting. Cameron made the battle into a long, episodic story. Yay! We understood what was happening, where people were, what they were trying to do.


      You know what else was like that (in a good sense) ? The final X-wing vs Death Star battle in the original 1977 Star Wars.

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    4. Yes Larry! Absolutely YES!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. For happy fun movie music I'd like to nominate the scene from Belfast:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld3X1GmPjl4&list=RDld3X1GmPjl4&start_radio=1

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  11. Is "Duty Calls" (XKCD #386) the funniest single panel ever?

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  12. Larry, excellent observation. Yes, the 1977 battle over the DEATH STAR was an excellent battle sequence.

    Sadly, things went off the rails around 2000. When Ridley Scott’s edited GLADIATOR, he wanted to tone down the violence for his R rated film so that women would not be repelled by it. The result was battle scenes made up of short shots set to music. Lots of films followed that path. It was the biggest thing I hold against MASTER AND COMMANDER. When I watched BAND OF BROTHERS, the scene where they take out the German gun emplacement on D-Day should have been a simple, sensible battle. Instead, it was a confusing rush of scenes. The viewer has no situational awareness and no idea what is happening.

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    1. Sadly, things went off the rails around 2000. ...

      They went off the rails long before that.

      As mentioned, the long battle against the Death Star was choreographed in such a way that the viewer can follow the strategy and progression of the action. Likewise, though it was a win for the Empire, the battle on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back.

      However, the climax of Return of the Jedi featured a special-effects-laden spectacle but a completely frivolous one that had nothing to do with the fall of the Emperor or the fate of Darth Vader. One more reason I consider the prequels to be prequels of RotJ, all of which exist in a separate universe from the original* and its only true sequel.

      * "And damned be he who first cries, "Episode IV'".

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  13. Darrell, that included most gay guys!

    Avatar 2 is the same exact film with whales slaughtered for immortality drug rather than trees fo unobtanium. But in my category of "watch it stoned and enjoy." See VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood - http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html

    "White savior" is an idiotic phrase meant to maintain sanctimony high resentment toward films that are actually about "ONE white guy gets disabused of his prejudices by learning better by going native in admiration." And "All you white folks sharing his point of view will now do so, as well." What stunning malarkey.

    Of course we all love CHARADE. Cary Grant is Cary Grant to the T by being utterly sexless and semi-rejecting (!not possible!) Audrey Hepburn.

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  14. We need a mashup of AVATAR 2 and STAR TREK IV

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