Blog Archives
Rocktober – Rock, Peanuts, Travers
Sorry, no Lizard or Spock.
As Charlie Brown says every Halloween, “I’ve got to rock!” So here’s the “Peanuts” theme as interpreted in rock style by Pat Travers.
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Linus, Smiths
Peanuts and music have a long history together, as this station has show in in the past, primarily with 80s British bands. Now someone has gone and created a Tumblr called This Charming Charlie, combining the subtextual angst Peanuts comics with the hyperdepressive lyrics of The Smiths, creating a singularity of suicidal bleakness, speaking to all of us through it’s universal symbolism of nihilsm.
Hilarious, is it not? In a bleak, anti-depressant sort of way.
Yes, well. But at least it’s borrowing from one of the finest bands to ever stride across the Earth, and this station is proud to bring it to you. We hope you appreciate it.
Rocktober – Tubular Chocolate
The song “Tubular Bells” was quite popular when I was a kid. I remember it popping up all over the place, including TV commercials. It had a strange, vaguely nightmare-like vibe to it that made even mundane boring stuff seem a little creepy. I’m not sure, but I think even science fiction magazine Omni used the song in a TV ad, which definitely added to its mystique.
It was released in May 1973, and later that year was used in the movie The Exorcist. Fitting, given the eerie feel of the song. It seemed like a perfect song for a horror film. Or perhaps for Halloween time.
In 1978, the movie Halloween came out, with a sort-of-but-not-quite similar soundtrack –
Not the same song, but there’s some definite overlap.
However, a more recent (and some would say scary) song has commonalities with “Tubular Bells,” If you listen closely –
The connection occurred to me several days ago, and I thought someone should make a mashup of the two and post it on YouTube.
Apparently I am not the first to notice this, since I found this about 5 minutes ago –
And If That Wasn’t The Truth, It Would Be A Lie
Spotted by my wife…
“My most important professional accomplishment to date is the ability to keep working with absolutely no skills whatsoever.”
Equation For Failery
So I was reading this article* when a video ad popped up [“Mildly NSFW” warning deleted because it’s just too stupid to be sexy] –
#PlusIsEqual, it’s called. The mathematical contradiction that is it’s name tells you everything. It’s yet another attempt at social hrönir, trying to make made-up stuff real.
Mind you, these are not ugly women, and a few might even be somewhat attractive. But it’s in spite of their weight, not because their weight is the imaginary number they’re pretending it is. If we follow the non-Euclidean reasoning that Plus is Equal, wouldn’t Double Plus be DoubleGood? I don’t see Rosie O’Donnell’s geometric orders of magnitude in the ad.
Then there’s the obligatory yells of “Everyone deserves to be celebrated!” and “No one’s ignoring us anymore!” The first one is crap (“When everyone is celebrated, no one will be special!” or something like that), but I am willing to concede the second point. No one can ignore them now, although maybe not in the manner the makers of the video intended. Perhaps using a drum pattern similar to those used in movies when the elephant herd is stampeding was not the best choice.
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*My wife was watching an Azumanga Daioh episode called “Equation For Victory.” I walked by during the relentlessly cheerful theme music and recognized a character (Osaka, it turns out) from her endless appearances on the internet as a forum avatar and the like. My wife said Osaka was the poster image on a TV Tropes page called “Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant,” which links to many interesting and fascinating articles such as the charming and delicate teen love song mentioned at the top.
No Sleep
So I was going to finish my night by reading a couple comic strips and going to bed. Dilbert was reasonably amusing as usual, but then I made the mistake of going over to Pearls Before Swine….
Another night ruined…
Asimov’s Night Job
Few know that Isaac Asimov had a second career, apparently traveling and giving nighttime lectures under an assumed name [click image to embiggen]…
A clever disguise, even better than Clark Kent’s.
Skipping ahead a bit…
So the lecture circuit is just a cover for his real career…. arch-supervillain! Jimmy of course finds a way to signal his pal Superman…
Turns out he wasn’t really dead (no one ever is in comics, including Superman himself, who was killed in 1992), instead giving up his career as a supervillain and returning to the life of a science and sci-fi writer.
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If you’re wondering how the hell DC Comics could publish something like this without getting sued…. that’s a story for another post.
The Drain Circles Itself
The site Everyday Feminism has published a helpful “guide to triggering” for those not quite up to speed on such things.
Above the article is a content warning –
Content Warning: This article discusses triggering in detail and mentions common topics of triggering (sexual assault, anxiety, health anxiety, depression, death, non-specific fears and phobias).
A trigger warning about an article about triggering.
But the Mobius Wormhole goes deeper. Above the content warning (which is a trigger warning about trigger warnings) is an editor’s note –
Editors Note: Like this phenomenal article, Everyday Feminism definitely believes in giving people a heads up about material that might provoke our reader’s trauma. However, we use the phrase “content warning” instead of “trigger warning,” as the word “trigger” relies on and evokes violent weaponry imagery. This could be re-traumatizing for folks who have suffered military, police, and other forms of violence. So, while warnings are so necessary and the points in this article are right on, we strongly encourage the term “content warning” instead of “trigger warning.”
Trigger warnings about trigger warnings are triggering. The culture has become an M.C. Escher drawing sucked into itself and spat out as an anti-mirror of reality.
H/T James Taranto (via Ed Driscoll).
Bonus Points: Quote from the article –
As far as I’ve seen, many preventable instances of triggering happen when somebody is exposed to media like books or movies.
And water is wet.
Bonus Bonus Points: As I write this, my wife and I just finished watching Batman Begins, One of the central themes is fear (both on the parts of Batman, the League of Shadows, and Scarecrow). Right this second, she’s watching the special feature on creating the Batman costume, which is deliberately designed to instill fear.
Wonder how long til it’s on the Badthink Movies list?
Pointless Yet Ironic Accidentalism: “…material that might provoke our reader’s trauma.”[emphasis mine] Advertising revenues don’t seem hopeful here.
The Dead Milkmen Window
…the pop cultural version of the Overton Window.
I used to think the Dead Milkmen were incredibly funny, if rather darkly so. Essentially, they were internet trolls before there was an internet. 4chan 20 years before there was a 4chan.
Nowadays, the best that can be said about them is that they were merely ahead of the curve. Anyone discovering this song today would think “Oh, just another noncissexual minority transidextrous person who wears lifts in their (hopefully fabulous) shoes.”
Random Static – Where’s Your Identity?
Been a busy few days, but here’s some randominomity of late –
Ain’t no analogy for individuality
Free Norther brings the strange –
I won’t be surprised if CisBlack Privilege is a thing soon.
Don’t give me chase
If I ever win the lottery I’m gonna tell the IRS I can’t pay any taxes because I identify as a bankrupt homeless alcoholic.
Tell me my sanity
Parents in Minneapolis are angry that Starri Hedges, director of the private Gaia Democratic School, took students on a field trip to a sex shop. Some of the kids were as young as 11, because it’s never too soon to start warping developing one’s sexual identity.
The “beautiful” trip may have been in violation of city codes. Hedges regrets that there probably won’t be another such trip, “because the kids had so much fun.” What kid doesn’t love purchasing their first condom?
The article has a video of Starri discussing the school with Bill Weir…
I had to quit watching after about 6 minutes. The video rolls like a retarded-yet-serious version of Sheldon and Amy’s “Fun With Flags,” including this rapier-like failure at humor –
Starri: “…Bill is our newest member at Gaia Democratic School. He is a rainbow member.”
Bill: “Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?”
Starri: “That’s right, and the pot of gold is free thinking.”
H/T to Captain Capitalism.
There’s no reset for this game!
The season finale of Flash was pretty trippy. Not sure about some of their time-travel logic, but it seems they may have structured it that way specifically as a plot point to revisit in the, uh, future. Some interesting questions of the Thawne’s identity there, both throughout the season and especially the way the finale ended. Not to mention all of Barry’s secret identity problems (for one of which he apparently borrowed Hillary’s “Reset” button, and it worked just about as well this time).
The show must get credit for one thing, though… there’s often been jokes of people doing this, but Flash is the first time I’ve ever seen it demonstrated literally –
Biologically let your system know what’s up
CIBO MATTO 2015!
Racisying To The Bottom
John Hawkins of Right Wing News presents some of his uncensored hate mail. It’s all from self-styled “liberals” and is all a variation on one theme – “Fuck off and die!”
Honestly, I’m disappointed with the selection Hawkins shows… I was hoping for some actual flair or creativity among the h8fest, since it’s from people who fancy themselves pillars of intellect and wit. Some insults involving lighter fluid, a pack of condoms, and a goat, at the very least. No dice. But I did discover what is probably a typo and has now become my new favorite word –
Racisy! That is going to be my answer to everything. Vague enough to throw at anything and harder to deflect than a concrete charge like “racist.” Girl won’t call you back? She’s racisy! Didn’t get the promotion? Boss is racisy! That is my default response from now on.
nightskyradio 