¶ As I age I become
nostalgic for 80s media. I ran across this
short film on the youtubes. Betaville, clearly
a pleasant take-off on Godard's Alphaville.
Which reminds me; I need to rewatch Alphaville
sometime.
#cinema
¶ Eagle-eyed viewers
of Betaville (referenced above) will note the
neon tunnel from 127 John St. -- itself a
popular location for photography and film
projects. Fortunately someone thought to write
a few paragraphs about this location:
Flaming
Pablum: Walk Into the Light.
#architecture
¶ All my life I
thought this scene from Logan's Run was shot
at 127 John St., but on closer inspection, I
think it could be a reconstruction. What's
cheaper? Fly a second unit to NYC for a single
shot or re-create it in D/FW or Culver City?
#scifi
¶ Mathieu Dejean
interviews Alain Badiou regarding Emmanuel
Macron and the degree to which modern
politicians are human or fetishes for the ideal
of freedom and agency. Worth a read and
includes this marvelous quote:
Macron is
the name of a crisis of any politics that
purports to "represent" political
orientations in an electoral space. That
clearly owes to the fact that the earthly
disappearance of the communist hypothesis
and its parties has little by little made
the truth about parliamentarism apparent:
namely, that ultimately it only "represents"
small nuances in the dominant consensus
around neoliberal capitalism — and not any
alternative strategy. The far Right, in the
brutal style of Donald Trump or the
renovated Pétainism of Marine Le Pen,
profits from this situation, since although
it stands totally within that consensus it is
alone in giving off the appearance of being
on the outside.
¶ News is reporting
"Vangelis"
Papathanassiou died today at 79. As a
kid I had a job in a planetarium, we had every
one of his albums on half inch tape. I can't
begin to pick my favourite, but here's one from
the excellent, but often overlooked album
Albedo 0.39.
#music
¶ Did anyone else
notice UFOs stopped appearing after Karen
Carpenter passed away? Why were the aliens
visiting? They were Carpenters fans.
#music#ufo
¶ It occurs to me the
reason I don't really believe in UFOs is the
number of times I hear people on TV say things
like "THE EVIDENCE IS OUT THERE. DECIDE FOR
YOURSELF." If it was important to believe in
UFOs, society wouldn't give me the option of
evaluating the evidence for myself. You never
hear the government say things like "THE
EVIDENCE PAYING TAXES IS IMPORTANT TO SOCIETY
IS OUT THERE. DECIDE FOR YOURSELF." No... they
say "Pay your taxes or we'll throw you in
jail." That's how I know paying taxes is
important to the government, but UFOs aren't.
#ufo
¶Hiroshima,
Mon Amour is an oblique reference to the
historical bombing. "It is as horrible to
forget as it is to remember." --Lucy
Fischer#cinema#memory
¶ Memory is
constructive. Memory is fragile. Do you
remember when, as a child, you were
Lost
in the Mall?
#memory
¶ "Lost in the Mall"
is the name of my next band.
#memory
¶ "Hiroshima, Mon
Amour" is also the name of a song by Ultravox!
I quite like.
#music
¶ Thinking of
changing my outgoing voice-mail message to:
"You are feeling very relaxed... Very
sleepy. When I count down from 10 to 1 you
will leave a message at the tone. When I
snap my fingers you will awake refreshed and
relaxed..."#humor
¶Happy little
clouds... (really just a test to verify
I still grok CSS.)
#css
¶ A few words about
comedian Norm MacDonald.
#humor
¶ Thinking of being a
kid in the 80s and living through the late cold
war. Then I remembered this song:
Joe
Jackson : Forty Years [YouTube].
"Here in Berlin - people line up to get in.
To wait for the end - living in glorious
sin... Once allies laughted and drank, but it
was fourty years ago."#memory#music
¶ Just noticed Joe
Jackson will be playing the Majestic in Dallas
during the time I'm in Ft. Worth for the Van
Cliburn competition. Guess it's classical
piano in the morning, jazz rock pop piano in
the evening. Last time I saw Joe Jackson live
was... late 80s at the Majestic in Dallas. Not
quite 40 years.
#memory