Mind Blown

Backwards Sun

2012-03-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Question: If the sun rises in the Pacific Ocean and sets in the Atlantic Ocean, where are you?

Highlight for Answer:

In Central Panama. source

A Different America With Different Entertainment: Disney's Adventure Through Inner Space

2012-03-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Speaking as a former Southern California mall rat, one of my favorite experiences from childhood was riding the "Adventure Through Inner Space" ride at Disneyland. They shut it down in the mid-80s to replace it with Star Tours - albeit, also a great attraction. But not the same. And it marked the point of cultural sea change in the United States between its peak and its decline. Here is the Yesterland page mourning its passing.

ATIS was a science fiction ride. In it, we use the excitement of cutting-edge (for the time) science to instill a sense of wonder, through the fantasy element of entering a magic microscope which makes you smaller. The cheery 1950s' song "Miracles From Molecules" greets you as you exit the ride - literally, the message is that the road to future Utopia was paved with scientific progress.

Star Tours is just about the Star Wars franchise and - there will be no way to avoid angering fans so I'll just say it - Star Wars is NOT science fiction. Star Wars is space opera, a Western cowboys-and-indians shoot-em-up set in space. Gone is the enthusiasm for science and the inspiration to look to a better tomorrow; instead the story, set "a long long time ago" is a Gothic post-modern fairy tale. What a poignant indicator to mark the shift in US culture! We gave up on getting into space ourselves - here, here's a fairy tale about how space politics would be just as messed up as US politics anyway. Enjoy your sour grapes.

ATIS sounds incredibly lame to modern kids, sounding more like a hyperthyroid science fair project than a ride, and that just goes to show how our modern culture has broken the present and new generations. To a six-year-old, years before the era of CGI effects, ATIS was scary. As you waited in line, they make it look like shrunken passengers were proceeding to the end of the microscope phasing into nothing. It was a stunningly realistic effect. The cars look like they go right up there. Near the end, a huge human eye peers down on you. The ride is mostly in darkness, with bright flashing lights all around you simulating thrilling interactions on the atomic level.

But all of this would be pretty pedestrian without the hypnotic voice of Paul Frees. As the narrating scientist, he commands your attention and shapes your thoughts with lines like "I am the first person to make this fabulous journey!" and "What compelling force draws me into this mysterious darkness--can this be the threshold of inner space?" and "No, I dare not go on. I must return to the realm of the molecule, before I go on shrinking...forever!" Frees could sit down to the breakfast table and describe his bowl of cereal and make it sound too epic for mere mortal minds to face.

Sadly, no actual video footage of this iconic and original ride exists, since it was shut down before the age of cheap video recorder cameras. But one fan, name of Steve Wesson, has devoted eight years to recreating it in 3D computer-modeling animation, and it is very close to my memories of the ride:

The architecture around the ride itself was a feast of googie nostalgia. Read that carefully, that's "googie" not "Google". "Googie" is the style of retro-futurist pop-art style, common around the general Disneyland area of Southern California. Check the definitive page on the Googie style here.

Can there be any more compelling argument that the United States gave up its dreams than that rides like ATIS and styles like googie now seem quaintly outdated? We used to look forward to the future - it was filled with exciting things and it made all the kids want to be scientists so we could get there as soon as possible and have out flying cars and robot maids. But our attitude towards the future changed from optimism to pessimism right about in the mid-80s. Cyberpunk came along, and with it came the cynical attitude that now said, "It wouldn't matter how much technology we invent; humans would be the same degenerate garbage anyway."

Right here in Iowa, we had yet another march in protest of a proposed bill that would allow exploration of building nuclear power facilities. Protesters dressed as zombies and marched on the state capitol.

I cried when I saw that story. Those zombies are no joke to me. The zombies want us to be governed by books that are thousands of years old. The zombies hate science and learning and love backwardness and repression. The zombies can't deal with sex or education or a president of a different race. The zombies will be here soon to snatch this computer out of my hands and take away my car, forcing us all back to the iron age to trod barefoot through the mud building pyramids while zombies crack a whip over our backs. The zombies are in power. The zombies own America, and the few remaining humans are scrambling to throw off their oppression or escape to a free land.

The United States has become a nation of zombies, dead things shambling forth to steal away the space-age, atomic-powered future promised to me in my childhood by Paul Frees and his Adventure Through Inner Space.

Bistro - Unforgettable short film

2012-03-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

This under-three-minutes excursion into sparkly-eyed madness got awards at a 2011 film festival. Twilight Zone episodes (the new ones) don't have this much bite.

Apocalypse Miau

2012-03-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

The Internet keeps taking cat-worship to new heights... Along with extra-extra-cheesy '80s retro kitsch. Where will it all end?

Fall In Love With Marika Rokk's Interpretation Of Space Cabaret

2012-03-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Marika Rokk was a dancer and singer of German film. Unfortunately, she was at the height of her popularity right during the Nazi era, so she became indelibly linked with it. Nevertheless, as seen by the campy, original style of this production, she's worth a second look.

This film from 1958, titled "Mir Ist So Langweilig" (It means "I am so bored") shows a moon-woman spying an African tribe on Earth and blasting down to be frolic with them for the sheer novelty of it. Despite the racist overtone (she even draws her finger across the chest of one dark man to see if it would rub off, but is promptly laughed at for this), it's full of charming touches like the swaying astronauts and a cute rocket with a gyroscopic cockpit.

This was done after her pardon from her post-WWII professional ban. For a while there, they didn't let her perform because she was so associated with the Nazis, which, let's face it, is hardly her fault since she couldn't help who buys a ticket to her shows.

The Film Pi Contains Math Errors

2012-03-02T10:04:00.001-08:00

In Darren Aronofsky's 1998 film Pi, there's a scene where Max tells the Kabbalah that he's sure that they've completed their search for a number that is 216 digits long. He tells them,

"It's just a number. I'm sure you've written down every two hundred sixteen number. You've translated all of them. You've intoned them all. Haven't you? But what's it gotten you? The number is nothing!"

The problem is, this is impossible. There's 9.9*(10^215) 216-digit numbers. For comparison, recorded human history IN SECONDS is only 60x60x24x6000, about 1.8*(10^11). One billion computers, spitting out one number every second night and day since the dawn of human history, would not have generated every possible 216-digit number by now.

Numerous other math goofs at the IMDB page.

Spend a Sunday browsing the Museum of Bad Art

2012-02-26T09:18:00.000-08:00

One hardly knows what to make of The Museum Of Bad Art. Some pieces, sure enough, are terrible, but then others at least show some technical proficiency. At least this is more than I could muster by hand.

But other works are defying of any explanation. What was the artist thinking, for instance, when they painted this? What cocktail of childhood traumas could possibly make someone draw such a creepy mother-child nightmare?

Bill and Coo - A movie for the birds

2012-02-25T09:13:00.001-08:00

In 1948, producer Ken Murray was sitting around with a lot of time on his hands and thought "Hey, I'll just make an entire film about birds! Not a nature documentary, no, I mean birds as actors, telling a story, putting on a SHOW!" And this was the result.

Had enough? If not, view the entire 61-minute Bill and Coo here.

Admittedly, this is the corniest idea you've ever seen go into a feature film, and they don't spare one kernel while they're at it - gag signs, lame puns, and endless gawking at the cute widdle birdies ensue. For being birds, they're pretty clever and do little tricks while the typicalmid-20th-century narrator yammers on and on about what the birds are doing since the birds don't actually talk - they really missed out not getting Alex the grey parrot - alas, it was before his time.

Just, y'know, don't expect A-list acting. It's just enough to sit through this thing in jaw-dropping astonishment that it got made.

The Bizarre Problem Of Japan's Shrinking Population

2012-02-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

Japan has an interesting and unique problem: Their population is bombing drastically. As of recent numbers, 21% of Japanese citizens are over the age of 65, and their birth rate just dipped below their death rate in recent years, meaning negative population growth.

The Huffy-Poo estimates a one-third decline in population by 2060, while this Japan Times article declares that the population already shrunk by 75,000 in 2009.

While such things as overzealous family planning and factors which discourage large families have traditionally been to blame, this Escapist story makes the bold claim that the problem is, to put it bluntly, too many young males spending their time with anime and manga - in other words, too much gratification from cartoon porn instead of finding their gratification from actual flesh-and-blood women. (Yes, we know, there is more to manga and anime than porn - but come on, it isn't Mobile Suit Gundam or Deathnote that these guys would be using in place of a girlfriend.)

Still, if this is the real cause of the problem, one wonders what on Earth the females are doing. Are they just passively sitting at home watching the phone not ring? It takes two to tangle, you know.

This is also a possible omen for the rest of the human race. Japan is a first-world country. Are other first-world countries in danger of having their populations become so socially stunted that they can't manage to meet, mingle, and breed as well? Is there, in fact, a possible reverse-Malthusian disaster in our future?

The Mystery of Mont Sainte-Odile

2012-02-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

An ancient monastery has stood in the low mountains of Alsace, France, for 1,200 years. It is celebrated for its beauty and is a must-visit stop on every scenic tour. It is encircled by a wall, known as the "Pagan Wall", composed of 300,000 blocks up to three meters tall, itself dating back to the 7th century AD. It was also the site of the crash of Air Inter Flight 148 in 1992, which killed 87.

But its history also contains an intriguing episode of daring-do. For, just after the turn of the century, books began to disappear from the Mont Sainte-Odile library. Over a two-year period, over one thousand books vanished, many of them priceless relics dating back to the 15th century, some with wooden covers and weighing several kilograms.

Now, this was no small theft. The monastery is secluded, perched atop rocky peaks, surrounded by a wall, and furthermore is inhabited by the priests. Yet over the years, as a new book disappeared every day or so, they could not find the elusive thief. Locks were changed, steel doors were reinforced, and yet the thefts continued, the phantom thief never leaving a trace except for one single rose he left one night just to taunt them. It wasn't until the historic monastery turned to modern technology that the thief was finally caught.

In June of 2003, a hidden video camera tripped up one Stanislas Gosse, aged 33, from the nearby town, who had been squirreling the books away in his home attic. He had discovered a secret route into the monastery from studying old maps at a public archive. A cupboard in the library let into a secret chamber, and a narrow stairway leading to access via climbing the wall.

His motive?

"It may appear selfish, but I felt the books had been abandoned. They were covered with dust and pigeon droppings and I felt no one consulted them any more."

Why Do We Say "Hello" When Answering The Phone?

2012-02-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

Thomas Edison started it, as a suggestion for a greeting to say over the first telephones. His logic was that it could be clearly understood.

Alexander Graham Bell preferred "ahoy", like greeting a ship at sea, but the nautical reference didn't stick. The English had been using "hullo" as a standard greeting, whose entomology derives from Old High German expressions "hallo" and "hollo" and such. "Hollo" shows up as far back as Coleridge's <em>The Rime of the Ancient Mariner</em>, from 1798.

From "All Things Considered":

"Once the telephone was perfected, people had to learn to use it. There was a very fundamental question to be answered, one that seems quite odd to us today, and that is: What do you say when you answer a ringing telephone?"

"It was kind of a riddle in a way, because when you hook up a telephone and you are speaking basically to a stranger, it ran counter to what people expected in their day-to-day meetings, which was their previous experience. And you have to be properly introduced. And you're never introduced on the telephone that way. So you have to find a word or a phrase that very quickly cuts to the chase and allows people to start speaking, and 'hello' was pressed into service."

We could have just as easily ended up with "namaste" (pronounced "NAH-mess-tay"), since much of English is derived from Sanskirt.

Amazing reverse-gravity ramp illusion

2012-02-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

It won the Neural Correlate Society’s "Best Illusion of the Year" contest.

Getting Big Stuff Done

2012-02-15T16:01:00.000-08:00

Neal Stephenson blasts our minds with a much-needed reality check about the death of science progress in America.

Stephenson is shy about providing examples, but I'd be more than happy to show what kinds of progress we could be making:

Energy independence - Even without worrying about nuclear power or other "scary" concepts, plain old dumb wind and solar power could easily power the whole country. Why aren't we building windmills at the same rate we built oil-wells all across America?

Transportation - I just recently posted about "smart road surfaces", which could power electric cars, store data such as directions, and even possibly steer the vehicles themselves. Why aren't we laying these suckers all over the country at the same rate we laid transcontinental railroads?

Medicine - Stem cell and genetic technology has regenerated organs, reversed aging symptoms, and helped treat degenerate diseases. Why aren't we pushing forward with this technology at the same rate that we eliminated polio?

For that matter, even computers could be put to better uses. Why do we still have colleges and universities, when we could do all of our teaching online? MIT has led the way with online university courses, but there they sit unused. Why haven't elections gone on the Internet? We can conduct banking transactions online, but we still have to fill in bubbles on a paper ballot and mail it in? Why aren't telemetrics automating more tasks in life, like lawnmowers and street sweepers?

There's nothing to stop us from doing these things. The technology is simply there, all ready to go. We could do research until we're blue in the face, but America does nothing with the research we already have. And don't tell me "well, there's a budget crisis." There's always a budget crisis.That never stopped us before.

Good Game Thanks Buddy

2012-02-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

I Want A Solar Roadway In My Town Right Now

2012-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

A solar roadway is a "smart road" which combines energy generation and driving surface. This is an idea us science fiction enthusiasts have been burbling about for years. Not only could enhanced road surfaces provide electricity for electric vehicles, but they could also have LEDs embedded into them for transmitting messages such as road conditions.

It sounds like a Utopian fantasy from the 1950s, but the US Department of Transportation granted $100,000 for a solar roadways prototype in 2009. Then the Federal Highway Commission granted a follow-up $750,000 for continued development of the project in 2011.

In addition, (now this is purely my own speculation), if the road can transmit a data signal, then why couldn't it also direct a vehicle? Imagine being able to hop into your car and say "take me to the Post Office" and the GPS works together with the road to drive you there automatically, removing the need for a human pilot at all. No more accidents from sleepy or intoxicated drivers! Road accidents kill over 40 thousand Americans per year. It would be a giant leap from solar roadways as we are presently seeing launched to autopilot roadways, but it would be a leap worth taking.

Earliest Human History Found In Tassili n'Ajjer Cave Paintings

2012-02-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

When most people talk about "caveman paintings", it's sites like Tassili n'Ajjer they have in mind. Human civilization in the area dates back to the Neolithic era (about 11,000 to 3,000 years ago) when earliest humans showed the first traceable signs of agriculture. The paintings depict herding, farming, and battles, showing the early use of crude tools and weapons.

It's also the site of a lot of controversial theories from the New Age crowd. While the images are doubtless very crude and the product of people unstudied in representational art (because they freaking invented it on the spot), some people point to different-shaped figures as evidence that there were once giants, aliens, and other fantastic creatures.

Those interested in this view can check out this write-up asking "ETs stalking primitive tribesmen?". This is also the same site (and the same paintings) that inspired Terence McKenna (author of Food of the Gods series) and other authors to speculate that ancient peoples ate psychedelic mushrooms and talked to space aliens - not necessarily in that order.

The big story here is that there was once a grassy savanna where the Sahara desert now lies, and that there was a sudden leap in human progress ten thousand years ago when humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers to herder-farmers that gave them such luxurious living that they could afford the time to loll around drawing pictures on the rock. And, by the way, could incidentally have such a sense of community that they could choose sides in a war.

We all need a little Baffling Mystery in our lives

2012-02-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Jason Scott, of textfiles fame, has scanned in some vintage pulp comics for preservation at the Internet Archive. The Ace Comics Collection so far includes Ernie, Baffling Mysteries, Atomic War, Andy, Western Adventures, and many more. These are from the somewhat rusty pre-golden age of pulp comics between the 1930s and '50s.

Ace Comics were a notorious pulp publisher, not to be confused with David McCay Publishing's Ace Comics title. Ace Comics published horror / detective series for the boys and love story / soft porn for the girls, and never mind justifying the art. In fact, they were an early scapegoat for the moral panic over comics that lead to the Comics Code Authority.

A Series of Tubes

2012-02-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Carbon nanotubes production, submitted to the 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Merry Candlemas!

2012-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

I definitely... SEE MY SHADOW!

In the Western world, we know today as Groundhog Day. However, this is yet another mistranslated holiday on the American calendar. It's actually known as the "Presentation of Jesus at the Temple", the day when Mary was supposed to have taken Jesus into the temple 40 days after childbirth (in accordance with Abrahamic law) to participate in the purification ritual.

The event is also called "Candlemas" (because candles are blessed on that day, in references to the Gospel of Luke which calls Jesus "the light of the world"). It also answers to "Feast of the Purification of the Virgin" and several other names.

Wait, what does this have to do with groundhogs and weather? Like the crucifixion and bunnies and eggs of Easter, the answer lies once again in Pagan tradition. In the UK and Scotland, February 2nd is supposed to be the day that bears and wolves come out of hibernation and scout around to see if winter's over yet. Woven in with Pagan tradition, ancient holidays dating back to the Romans have early February as a time to watch the behavior of animals for omens and signs of the nature of the coming year.

Quantum Levitation - Transportation will change in the future

2012-01-30T10:11:00.000-08:00

Take a peek at what is being casually shown off at ASTC:

Now imagine a subway train using the same technology.

Quantum levitation utilizing superconductivity has been steadily developing. Find out more about it here.

Reverse Zoo

2012-01-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Months later, survivors of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake are seing ghosts

2012-01-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

Predictably for a trauma of such massive proportions, the normally level-headed Japanese are experiencing visions of ghosts, as a result of all the death and destruction in the wake of one of history's deadliest earthquakes.

Do keep in mind that the toll racked up to over 15,000 dead and 3,380 missing. We may not all believe in ghosts, but the psychological shock from such an incident would trigger hallucinations in even the most skeptical among us.

The footage of this quake is still shocking to behold. In the second half of this video, houses are swept away like toys:

Here's a first-person view, a video takes by someone shopping in an electronics store when the quake hit:

In this Cambridge Journal article "Trauma, Metacognition And Predisposition To Hallucinations In Non-Patients", the link between auditory and visual hallucinations and post-trauma stress is explored:

"The study found an association between trauma-related measures (negative cognitions about the world and all dissociation variables) and predisposition to both auditory and visual hallucinations."

Surfer Woman Identifies As Mermaid, For No Apparent Reason

2012-01-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

"Otherkin" is the name we have for people who identify with a fantastic or non-human identity. In this category, we have people who base their lives upon being Klingons, elves, fairies, werwolves, vampires, or "furries". Now, sometimes it's just for fun, and sometimes they take it seriously enough that they get offended if their role-playing alter ego is not treated respectfully.

But we have to admit, if you're a pro surfer, mermaid is the otherkin for you!

Dollars And Death At A Funeral Convention

2012-01-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

Here's something you don't see every day: A funeral director's convention! Fun, fun post about the sights, sounds, and experiences of the death industry. Some highlights:

"Funeral directors are notoriously heavy drinkers. There will definitely be some hook-ups." Yeah, we totally should all go hang out with these party animals.

"The rate of cremation has skyrocketed as Americans back away from the idea that Jesus will be resurrecting them straight from the grave." You're kidding? That's why we've always buried our dead? Because you're literally expecting to get pulled right out of the ground whenever Harold Camping finally gets one right?

"Distressingly, higher rates of cancer have been found among embalmers who have to breathe in this stuff every day." Crud, working around dead people really does make you die sooner!

"We’re not here to beautify anyone. We’re here to identify them." Do these guys always have to be this grim?

"Makeup, meant for corpses, was being applied by airbrush to a (still-living) elderly woman." Ballsiest granny ever.

The Real-Life Mountains of Madness: The Dyatlov Pass Incident

2012-01-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

After more than half a century, the Dyatlov Pass Incident looks to be the world's most uncrackable unsolved cold case. Nine mountain climbers died, leaving a strange and unsettling scene which has puzzled investigators. An unknown force pummeled three of them to death, while the other six died of hypothermia. While the speculation run from native uprisings to secret Soviet radiation experiments to UFO attack, the events probably have a more mundane explanation - we just don't know what the hell it is.

All Calico Cats Are Female

2012-01-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

My parents owned a pet store, so I grew up in the animal business. And for some reason, the idea that "all calico cats are female" was the one thing that people would not, could not accept.

Every time somebody called in with a calico, we'd say "that must be female" and they'd go ballistic insisting NO IT'S NOT, IT'S MALE! Look, we've been over and over this, we'd say. NO, I SWEAR TO GOD, I HAVE A MALE CALICO, IT'S BUTCH, IT'S SPITTING TOBACCO JUICE RIGHT NOW!!! Alright, alright, bring it in! If it's a calico male, it'll be worth the time and trouble because we'd love to be on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow, to say nothing of the Guinness Book of World Records next year.

They bring it in.

We check.

Yep, female. Invariably, they'd all respond this way: "Doooooooh! I didn't know that! So that explains why he kept having litters of kittens!" ARGH!

The other case is where they have a male, but it's not calico. OK, in order for a cat to be considered "calico", it must have all three of the colors white, black, and orange, in a spotted pattern. This is a calico...

The only other variation allowed to be called "calico" is the "tortoiseshell" pattern, which has the black and orange but little or no white. This is a tortoiseshell...

That's it - if your cat does not resemble either of these, it's not a calico. This is not a calico...

This is not a calico...

And this is not a calico...

And this is also not a calico...

And even this is not a calico...

People keep insisting that male calico cats can exist. No, they can't. Even though this fallacy has found its way into the literature, so that it reads like "99.9999% of calico cats are female, but you just might have a male calico so be sure to argue about it". Those reports of male calicos all come from people who (a) don't know how to tell a cat's sex, or (b) don't know what a calico cat looks like.

I blame Evangelical Christians. Their reasoning goes "I see a calico cat, so there must have been a breeding pair of calico cats on Noah's Ark, therefore male calicos must exist."

Calico and tortoiseshell cats are always female because there's a link between color pattern and the X chromosome. The gene for being white with orange spots is on the X chromosome. And the pattern for white and black spots is also on the X chromosome. There is no gene in cats for white with orange and black spots, total. So the only way to get both color patterns overlapping is for it to have two X chromosomes! It is possible for genetic freaks to be born with an XXY chromosome, regardless of color, but these are not true males - they're even sterile.

I only have eyes eyes eyes eyes for you

2012-01-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

Robert A. Heinlein's 1952 Predictions For 2000 - A Report Card

2012-01-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

I saw this list at io9, and figured, just for the exercise, to go through Heinlein's predictions one by one and see what The Dean got right and wrong...

1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door — C.O.D. It's yours when you pay for it. Wrong! I'm just as disappointed as you, Rob.

2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure. Correct! The Sexual Revolution was practically on America's doorstep in 1952, so it wasn't hard to get this one right.

3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space. Mostly wrong! Attacks from outer space, no. But satellite surveillance to gather intelligence is an important military factor, and we do have our robot drone planes. But I'm pretty sure that Heinlein had in mind rocket ships with missiles raining down from the void. He's wrong, thank Cthulhu.

4. It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a "preventive war." We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a territory we have guaranteed to defend. Wrong! Ha ha ha ha ha, Rob, how naive you were about politics in the 1950s!

5. In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a "breakthrough" into new technologies which will make every house now standing as obsolete as privies. Wrong! But it's hard to imagine what he had in mind. Housing technology has continued to improve, but the "housing shortage" was always a matter of economics - we have plenty of homes, but they're all sitting empty and rotting while banks own them all.

6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by. Wrong! Malthusian predictions about running out of food are always wrong. If anything, we have a problem with obesity. And don't tell me about third-world orphans starving - that, again, is politics - there's plenty of food, but also plenty of dictator idiots causing famines.

7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called "modern art" will be discussed only by psychiatrists. Wrong! Sorry you were so grumpy about art, old guy, but "modern art" wasn't even close to its peak yet at the time you wrote this.

8. Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and psychoanalysis will be replaced by a growing, changing "operational psychology" based on measurement and prediction. Wrong! Also, huh? Psychoanalysis has changed some since the 1950s, but what has largely replaced such treatments is pills, pills, pills, pills, pills.

9. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be to accomplish "regeneration," i.e., to enable a man to grow a new leg, rather than fit him with an artificial limb. Wrong! We're so, so sad to say so. But stem cell research is looking into that whole "regeneration" thing.

10. By the end of this century mankind will have explored this solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will be a-building. Wrong! No human has yet set foot on anything but Earth and the moon.

11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision. Mostly Correct! In fact, this one almost sounds too specific to have been in this list - did somebody add this one? Substitute "computer" for "telephone" for those last two.

12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars. Wrong! In fact, it's growing doubtful that we'll find anything alive on Mars, even fuzzy little microbes.

13. A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at extreme speed. Wrong! Not even sure how he thought this would happen - had he never heard of G-forces? But so far the fastest land-speed record is 760 MPH with a turbofan at Black Rock Desert in 1997, and that's far from "commonplace" or cheap.

14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity. Wrong! No, no, no.

15. We will not achieve a "World State" in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet. Wrong! Communism is alive and well, thank you. And as for "world state", the United States is just about as close to a world empire as we've gotten. McCarthy much?

16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance. Wrong! What a Libertarian. While we'd grant that transportation advances have killed off many industries, dozens of new industries have sprung up to take their place.

17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain." Correct? We could consider computerized air-traffic control systems to be this. The Internet is certainly continent-wide. We even came up with much better tracking methods in the form of telemetry.

18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear. Wrong! Our plates are still full of every kind of meat we can imagine. Australians are the only ones who even took to that yeast thing.

19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed. Correct! Well, I guess if this weren't true, we wouldn't be here to say so.

Here are things we won't get soon, if ever: Travel through time, Travel faster than the speed of light, "Radio" transmission of matter, Manlike robots with manlike reactions, Laboratory creation of life, Real understanding of what "thought" is and how it is related to matter, Scientific proof of personal survival after death, Nor a permanent end to war.

Time travel, check, FTL, check, Life-after-death, check, No-end-to-war, check. Understanding-of-thought is too debatable to even decide on, but check. But we do have 3D printers which transmit the <em>data</em> to another machine which builds matter into whatever part was ordered, so half-point? We do indeed have "manlike" robots with the Honda ASIMO, but it has nowhere close to human reactions. Laboratories are at least doing fantastic things with DNA and stem cells - they haven't turned inorganic matter into living matter yet, but they're getting damned close.

In all, Heinlein seemed to suffer from the kind of short-sighted vision of continued scientific enthusiasm that affected every American in the 1950s; this was the age of zeerust, after all.

Want To Be A Jedi But Don't Know Where To Start?

2012-01-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, to start with, you should learn the ways of the Jedi religion. One wonders if they send a pair of missionaries to your door all "Have you found The Force yet?"

But when you decide to go all the way, you have many real-life choices. There's this Jedi Training Archive for all the literature, and then there's the Jedi Arts Training Site, to advance through the ranks. Gizmodo will also show you how to construct your own training sphere doohickey.

Oh, and if you live in a country with a census, don't forget to check your religion as 'Jedi'.

People who come up when you type 'bigot' into Google image search

2012-01-05T15:37:00.000-08:00


Glenn Beck


Donald Trump

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell

Newt Gingrich

Michele Bachmann

Herman Cain

Rick Perry

Rick Santorum

Ron Paul

The Ku Klux Klan Are Still Active In United States Government

2012-01-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

Consider that Wrong Paul just took home nearly one-third of the vote in the 2012 Iowa Caucus. Now consider astounding and eye-opening news on Wrong Paul supporters. While this article may or may not have good research, there are solid connections between Paul and Ku Klux Klan affiliates.

Don Black is indeed the founder of Stormfront, is indeed a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the American Nazi Party, and did indeed originate the term "moneybomb" for Wrong Paul support. Black is affectionately called "the racist next door". The fact that you regularly see these "moneybombs", a term synonymous with Wrong Paul backing, being linked to and supported from websites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Slashdot.org is blood-curdling. David Duke is also a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and also stumps for Wrong Paul.

Furthermore, you've heard of the John Birch Society? Anti-Civil-Rights group that fought against the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Here's Wrong Paul giving a speech there:

And another speech:

The thing is, every time somebody brings up the famous racist newsletters...

...all his fans and supporters play it down like it's this fluke, "oh, it's such ancient history, and he didn't write it all himself and even if he did he didn't mean it that way." Excuse me, but if his name's all over a page in a huge font that takes up 1/5th of the page, and the rest of it's filled with racist screeds, I think he might have had some sympathy with the point of view expressed. And MotherJones pulls up some whoppers for examples from these epistles, such as AIDS being spread by "malicious gays", advice to shoot "urban youths" with an illegally obtained handgun and then ditching it, and that the 1992 Los Angeles riots ended "when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks". This isn't just casual slips of the tongue.

No, this isn't just a casual brush with Nazis, cross-burners, black lynchers, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing militia. Wrong Paul lives it, breathes it, eats it, has had it in his blood and bone marrow since day one. Figuratively speaking, he has the KKK cross tattooed over his heart and sleeps under a Nazi flag.

The shocking part is how deep this goes into established American politics. David Duke was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the 81st district, in office 1990–1992. Don Black's son Derek has been elected to a seat on the Palm Beach County, Fla., Republican committee in 2011. For those of you, especially outside America, who thought racism and ethnic cleansing were fuddy-duddy, outdated attitudes of the old United States of yore, it should come as quite a shock that it's current and thriving today - it's not just fringe - it's mainstream!

Your Internet Date Has Arrived

2012-01-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

Here's to the freaks, the weirdos, and the eccentrics, who want only to be happy in their own little world and trouble no one else.

Samoa plays jump-rope with International date line

2011-12-30T11:50:00.000-08:00

And I wasn't even going to post today...

But couldn't resist the story of how today just isn't going to happen for a few pieces of real estate in the South Pacific. As reported in the Huffy-Poo, Samoa and its little cousin Tokelau, will now be considered part of the same time zone as New Zealand and parts of Australia. This happened at midnight, so Samoans literally skipped a day ahead in their calendars.

They did this to be aligned more with the rest of Oceania, rather than with the United States. This also means that the New Year will hit Samoa first instead of last.

This may sound like momentous news, and it sort of is, but in fact the International date line, as you can see in the image, is a crazy twisted zigzag running through the freckled islands of the Pacific. This isn't the first time it's moved.

"...the Samoan government passed a law to move Samoa west of the international date line..."

I just wish they'd not phrase it that way. The date line moved; they didn't pick the whole island up and shift it west...

Alejandro Jodorowsky Leads A "March of the Skulls"

2011-12-29T11:09:00.000-08:00

You know just from looking at this blog that Jodorowsky would be brought up here eventually. Apparently last November, he led a "March of the Skulls" in Mexico, as a kind of spiritual healing from all of the drug-gang violence they've had down there.

I confess that all I thought Jodorowsky had done was direct surreal cult films. No, no, far from it! His Wikipedia profile lists him as having worked as a mime, founding a French collective of performance artists (one show is described as "included a staged murder of a rabbi, a crucified chicken, a giant vagina giving birth to Jodorowsky, naked women covered in honey and the throwing of live turtles into the audience." Sounds like my kind of party), writing science fiction comic books, written other books, delivered lectures, and has created his own kind-of sort-of religion based on wacky New Age stuff.

Whew! One busy guy!

Anyway, I'll certainly be paying more attention to Jodorowsky in blog posts to come. Apparently I could have made this whole blog about him.

Kim Jong-il as Marilyn Monroe

2011-12-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

From The Washington Post. Artists who were forced to depict worshipful images of the Kimster are now letting their real feelings hang out after he's gone.

Before there were iPods, the Katzenclavier

2011-12-26T11:08:00.001-08:00

A cat organ is a musical instrument in which a series of cats are arranged in a row by vocal range, with their tails secured inside the machine with a keyboard attached, such that when a key is played the corresponding tail is pulled and makes the cat yell.

Discussed by Robert J. Richards in a psychiatry context.

Referenced in this music ensemble posted recently on BBC news, where Prince Charles just thinks this is the funniest damn thing ever, even though they're only playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" using toy doll cats (animal rights people, you can relax now).

Meanwhile the Wiki page on cat organs describes some pretty disturbing abuses of animals for entertainment's sake in general.

Would you believe there's a whole field called "zoomusicology", dedicated to the use of fauna in composition? There is an elephant orchestra in Thailand, thankfully with the elephants playing instruments rather than being the instruments themselves. And then there's Hatebeak, a death metal band employing a screeching parrot for vocals (and they still sound better than Nickelback).

Anatomy of a US Dollar Bill

2011-12-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

An infographic - Share and enjoy! (click to enlarge)

Russian Retro-Future Babes in Space

2011-12-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

From Retro-Futurism.

First Act Of Live, Consensual Cannibalism Shown On Dutch TV

2011-12-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

Well, that put me off my feed today...

Story here. I've heard of going to ridiculous lengths to get ratings, but this is above and beyond anything seen before. The meat is barely a spec, however, and easy to miss when it's removed from the body (the butt of one, abdomen of the other).

Bite me!

Vintage Tex Avery

2011-12-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

"Who Killed Who?" Notable for being one of the few times when Tex Avery actually did voice duty (as Santa Claus, no less!) And you thought all Tex Avery did was silly sex stories between leggy showgirls and lustful wolves!

Everybody either forgets Avery today, or only remembers him as the creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. A select few in the cult following know him for Droopy and the wolves. But really, Avery was at his best when he was doing stand-alone stories, where he didn't have to stay boxed into one character's frame. Here he is again in 1949 with "The House of Tomorrow":

And just one year earlier in 1948 with "The Cat Who Hated People":

Yeah, still relevant today, isn't it?

Captain Beefheart - Still one of the most mind-blowing artists ever

2011-12-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

This is "Bat Chain Puller" from a 1990 performance in France.

At Lyric-Interpretations, I already wrote up The Weird, Weird, Weird Story of Trout Mask Replica. This is the most widely-known album by Captain Beefheart, definitely his magnum opus.

And here's "Pena", from that album:

Don't just dismiss this as noise music. Listen to Captain Beefheart once, you'll think he was a madman spouting nonsense. Listen to him three times, you'll realize that in fact they were doing this on purpose, they meant every note and beat to sound exactly the way it did. Listen to him five times, and you'll appreciate a great experimental genius inside all that racket, somebody whose approach to composing music was so novel that it defies categorization or imitation, even to this day.

Here is Captain Beefheart's 10 commandments of guitar playing.

Rule 1:

1. Listen to the birds

That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

Here's a full discography, for further exploration. But now, I must leave you with one of his more accessible songs, "Ella Guru":

Buried alive for 80 hours and recovered...

2011-12-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

"FBI authorities probably knew that it would take a doozy of a crime for a woman to break the Ten Most Wanted list’s gender barrier, and Ruth Eisemann-Schier was certainly involved in a horrific one. In 1968 Eisemann-Schier and her lover, Gary Steven Krist, kidnapped construction heiress and Emory University student Barbara Jane Mackle. The pair demanded a $500,000 ransom from Mackle’s father.

Any kidnapping is horrible enough, but Eisemann-Schier and Krist escalated the horror by burying Mackle alive in a ventilated box in the Georgia woods so she wouldn’t be found until the ransom was paid. When the pair finally received their money, Krist called the FBI with directions to where Mackle was hidden. Amazingly, Mackle was alive and in relatively good health despite spending over 80 hours underground.

Police quickly caught up with Krist, but Eisemann-Schier proved to be more elusive. On December 28, 1968 Eisemann-Schier became the first woman ever to appear on the Ten Most Wanted list, and authorities nabbed her just 79 days later. She spent four years in prison before being deported to her native Honduras."

This and seven more hair-raising stories on Mental Floss' Bad Girls Club: Women of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

Pi is wrong! Quick, everybody, throw Pi away!

2011-12-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Tau Manifesto

A Brown Owl Keeps His Head

2011-12-12T06:48:00.000-08:00

It seems that owls have this amazing ability to keep their heads stable in space regardless of how their body is moving around.

I can't quite get how this is any kind of advantage. Maybe so you can focus on prey while sitting in a swaying tree branch? Otherwise, unless owls regularly go sea-faring or ride amusement park rides, this appears to be a marginal skill.

Zardoz: The Review Is Evil But The Gun Is Good!

2011-12-11T12:11:00.001-08:00


Zardoz speaks to you!

Zardoz (1974) is one of the top five cult films ever made, defining "cult" as "with extreme appeal to a very narrow audience". I love the goofy big lug. It's flawed and crazy and fried out of its gourd, but I have to admit that on the second or third watching, it still never fails to keep my attention.

You can buy the complete dorm-decorating kit from Hot Topic for $29.95.

And while such iconic images as the flying stone head and Sean Connery in his day-glo orange Pampers Pull-Ups are all over the web and memed to death, I wonder how many members of the modern web audience have actually watched this movie, actually trying to follow it. I can... up to a point. It's really not that difficult.


Who the hell designed this set?

Spoliers ahoy!

In a post-apocalyptic future, we start out with Zed and his band of brutal savages (the Exterminators) worshiping the great rock-face (who looks like he was peeled off the cover of a lost Led Zeppelin album) vomiting guns to his followers, who are just police for controlling the population. Understand that the whole stone-head religion hugger-mugger was invented by the Eternals. Zed stows away in the stone head and confronts these Eternals, who are immortal, and have one of two possible fates: either be punished for crimes against their own by being aged until they live forever in senility (the Renegades), or be good citizens but live forever until they are so apathetic that they're breathing statues (the Apathetics). Eternals can kill themselves, but the damn Tabernacle just brings them back to life.

The acid begins to kick in.

Zed goes on a magical-mystery tour within this isolated world of the Eternals, who bicker endlessly about what to do with him. Zed is pulsing with raw, juicy life-force which the Eternals have had pulped out of them, you see, so among other things they're mystified and intrigued by his sexuality. Zed decides, for God knows what reason, to free the Eternals from their existential hell by destroying the Tabernacle, a tiny glass pyramid that talks to people through diamonds and holographic rings.

Don't worry, Sean Connery doesn't understand this story either.

Right about here is where the story loses me. Things dissolve into an acid-fried psychedelic trip for about half an hour, during which things happening might be symbolic, real, dreamed, hallucinated, or metaphorical. But after all that crap, Zed destroys the Tabernacle, his Exterminators swarm the city and shoot all the Eternals, Apathetic and Renegade alike, and Zed takes a wife and has a kid with her and they all age time-lapse and die, for absolutely no reason except to tack on a happy-ish ending.

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!

Of course, even as can be seen from the screen shots, I've left out a ton of details. but that's the gist of the whole thing. And you never saw an ending in which everybody's dead, yet works out to be so happy.

Yes, you must give us all a good spanking!

The intriguing aspect of this film is that trapped inside it are about three and a half good science fiction films fighting to get out. Hardcore science fiction fans will notice that in fact Zardoz simply seems to have eaten science fiction themes at random and presents them half-digested:

I am the walrus! Koo koo kah-joo!

Future overpopulation requiring killing off - reference Soylent Green.
False god used to keep people in line - reference a half dozen original Star Trek episodes, countless science fiction stories, and not to mention a certain children's fantasy which gives this movie its MacGuffin.
Division of society into elites and savages - reference the Eloi and Morlocks from The Time Machine.
Plants cultivated in bio-domes - reference in Silent Running.
Sex (ther penorz) is evil - reference the "Junior Anti-Sex League" in 1984.
Giant face controlling population - 1984 again. The film posters even mention that Zardoz is "beyond 1984".
Immortality sucks after awhile and will drive you mad - Geez, where to start? Asimov, Heinlein, Tolkien, and even Arthur Conan Doyle took a shot at this.
Computer (the Tabernacle) controls human population, keeping them alive but miserable - Once again, countless SF stories - I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream for instance.
Society of cruel psychics turning into a mental Big Brother dystopia - Again, half a dozen Star Trek episodes.

Please let this movie end soon!

I could go on all day. But it becomes obvious when you consider that writer/director/producer John Boorman reportedly wanted to film Lord of the Rings first and only came up with Zardoz when that fell through: Boorman (flush from his success with 1972's Deliverance) spent from 1972-1973 smoking hash and watching TV from dawn 'til dusk, along with randomly cramming science fiction paperbacks, and came up with this mish-mosh on the fly. You can even see where Boorman missed the opportunity to build upon these themes he plunders; for instance, no co-relation is drawn between the Tabernacle's control of the Eternals and Zardoz's control of the Brutals. There's also lazy plot holes, like how Zed, for a man who's educated through reading an entire library, sure seems to approach both jack-in-the-boxes and hologram-communicating rings with equal, caveman-like astonishment.

For my next trick, I will pull the entire plot out of my ass.

Yet there's still a lot to love about this pitiful and deformed witch-baby, because while it's biting off so much more than it can chew, it's also getting some big themes onto the screen that don't normally make it this far. Science fiction geeks love it, just so they can sit through it and analyze it.

...and the White Knight is talking backwards...

I, too, have bad news for the future: Zardoz will be re-made some day. Given the way Hollywood auto-cannibalisticly consumes its own tail year after year in recycled remakes, it is inevitable that some producer will re-discover Zardoz, notice its long-standing cult status, and try to fix it. It's only a matter of time. When that happens, it will be a disaster. The appeal of Zardoz is that it's goofy and wacky and insane and incomprehensible - any producer trying to remove that will wipe out the core audience's attraction.

But... wait... but how did... what the... ?

The mysterious architectural cult of Sheela Na Gig

2011-12-10T08:39:00.001-08:00

All over Ireland and Great Britain are found enigmatic carvings of female figures displaying prominent genitals. Usually the figures are hunched, squatted, or crouched down, stretching their labia with their hands in a gesture that reminds one of the Internet's "goatse" meme (just with a different orifice).

Oddly for its brutally grotesque and exhibitionist attitude, the figure's motif is often found in church architecture, as well as decorating castles and other historic buildings. The mysterious part is that nobody can say for sure why, or how it incorporated itself into European architecture. It appears in history starting about in the 12th century. It is found in France, Spain, Scandinavian and Slavic countries.

Scholars heatedly debate the lineage of the figure. It is variously said to be Pagan, Wiccan, Celtic, or even related to South Seas fertility symbols. This historian makes a strong case for linking Sheela Na Gig with the mythical crone archetype. Meanwhile, fan pages are all over the web, such as this Tripod site devoted to Sheela Na Gig (Tripod sites themselves being a historical anomaly).

But the grandma of all Sheela Na Gig sites is sheelanagig.org, a vast resource dedicated to tracking down and exploring every corner of this strange mythos. Is it a fertility figure, a deity, an erotic symbol, a gargoyle, a demon, or a reminder of both birth and death? Perhaps, like all mind-blowing art, it is all of these, open to whatever meaning the viewer wants to project.

Deer With Arrow Through Its Head Survives

2011-12-09T07:01:00.001-08:00

From Slightly Warped. The deer apparently goes on about its business, not at all minding the hunting arrow through its skull. Either that, or it's a comedian deer who borrowed a prop from Steve Martin.

The Militant Nudist

2011-12-07T13:59:00.001-08:00

From the Wiki:

"Terri Sue Webb is an activist living in Bend, Oregon, who was one of few activists in the United States active in The Freedom to be Yourself (TFTBY or FTBY) campaign. She has been imprisoned and released multiple times for public nudity. On several occasions, she has remained fully nude while incarcerated, often resulting in a much longer jail sentence."

An editorial about Webb's case, and its unique test of our civil liberties.
A similar case, in 2008, also in Oregon.
A nudism-activist site quoting Webb.
Another nudism activist site, calling social taboos against nudity "racist human skin phobia".
A Yahoo group for nudism activists.

Mr. T's singing career

2011-12-06T18:54:00.001-08:00

Mr. T was basically the Mayor of the Eighties. And yet Michael Jackson out-charted him. Imagine that!

The Universe People

2011-12-06T10:49:00.001-08:00

The Universe People would like to remind you "just say 'no' to chip slavery!"

"We love you and we help you!"

Imagine an office full of these guys...

2011-12-05T16:17:00.001-08:00


ssssssssss....

From Laughing Squid. What lengths would you go to to block out distractions?

The most intriguing street performer you've ever seen

2011-12-05T05:33:00.001-08:00

Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" - a liveblog review

2011-12-04T11:01:00.001-08:00

Here is my Avant-Garde blog post in which I live-blog every stupid thought that pops into my head while I attempt to sit through "Flaming Creatures" (1962) by Jack Smith (1932-1989), courtesy of ubu.com (UBUWEB).

DISCLAIMER: This is an experimental art film that deals with adult subjects, NSFW!

Credits: Nothing says "experimental film" like the title card for the movie being a piece of paper drawn on in ball-point pen and tacked to the pegboard. Titles are depressing; I can't read them, the film print quality is terrible, the music is dramatic '30s canned orchestra that's all blurred and warbled and distorted until it's practically dubstep, and they go on forever.

Then there was a few minutes of a very pretty opera and a few people in formal wear standing around not doing much of anything, but they all seemed rather pleased to see each other.

It has now been about 10 minutes of women (and the occasional man) putting on lipstick. That's all, just one set of lips after another in your face, greasing the lips, moving lips, puckering lips, sucking lips, piles of women laying around on the floor idly putting lipstick on, another close-up and suddenly A PENIS IS ON HER SHOULDER and then its gone and more lipstick application, and more and more and more and then A PENIS IS WIGGLING and then another set of lips, etc.

Somebody with dirty feet is sitting wriggling their foot at the camera. Background music, as close as I can identify, is the Japanese version of Hee-Haw.

A bunch of women run back and forth in front of the camera, as if loping after a cab. By the way, I'm making assumptions about gender all the way through. Drag queens - I was told I'd be seeing some - are hard enough to identify in person even without seeing them in grainy black-and-white on a shaky camera.

A man has now caught one of the women and is dragging her to the ground. Another man joins then and the woman is flailing and struggling while he sniffs her armpit. The Japanese music is now growing on me. Now another guy and this appears to be a gang-rape in progress, woman screaming, clothes torn off, boob flapping around. This was what life was like before 911. Suddenly the action is interrupted by a rumbling, wobbling hanging lamp. More rumbling, camera shaking, random shapes, focus on the tree in the vase on the set but this isn't the tree's doing.

Now a whole pile of people, multiple males and females, screaming bloody murder while they all apparently rape each other right through their clothes and the earthquake or whatever it is. It's been ten minutes now of screaming, screaming, screaming, flailing, jerking, THE TREE IS STILL DOING NOTHING, rumbling, rape orgy, screaming like a busload of baboons being burned alive, more screaming, more shaking lamp. Guy wiggling tongue at the bottom of a foot, camera has been thrown into a blender now. I miss the music. I even look back nostalgically on the lipstick part.

How this movie got in trouble for obscenity I can't tell. Except for about one minute total of floppy penis and thirty seconds of jiggling boob, I can't even make out identifiable body parts anymore. Just shaking and flailing and screaming. It's like trying to concentrate on your cell phone while strapped into a car that is currently tumbling down the steepest wall of the Grand Canyon.

IT STOPPED! THE SHAKING AND SCREAMING STOPPED! The pile of people is so relieved and happy. So am I. Maybe that was supposed to be a representation of what it's like to be a sperm during an ejaculation. A dizzy women with a boob hanging out of her dress... oh forget it.

Things are heating back up again. The camera has gotten agitated again while the music suggests that now it's a pile of violins somewhere that's screaming bloody murder. Leaves fall on the body pile. Scene ends.

We are back to The Tree. I guess it's a cherry blossom tree or a bonsai marshmallow tree or something, in an ornate vase, lovingly framed in close-up. The Tree is the most likable part of the movie so far. A fly lands on the vase. What does the fly want? What does it think of this film? As I understand it, this fly would have to be dead by now. Does the fly live on forever in IMDB's omniscient database? Did the fly participate in the screaming? Did the fly ever imagine, in its wildest fly dreams, that it would be preserved on film for all eternity?

Sudden jarring music and a dramatic wooden box. The box is opening and apparently it's some kind of drag queen undead coming at us. The person emerges from the box and grasps flowers - the camera is still just randomly everywhere as if they strapped it to a hyperactive toddler and just let him go. The music is now a very enjoyable English folk tune I don't recognize. The undead drag queen is now apparently feasting on the corpses from the formerly-screaming orgy pile.

Wait! I get it! Sexual attraction = lipstick, sex = screaming orgy, conception = happy moment, gestation = tree with vase, birth = opening box! Ha! Take that, avant-garde, I understood you for once.

Confirmed drag queen: undead is now lying on back with dress up, flopping flaccid penis around. Might have been the same penis all along. Dude, your penis is a shitty actor. If your penis is going to be in a movie, the least you could do is have it stand up. I mean, if my penis was going to be in a movie, I'd be giving it a big pep talk and rehearsing with it for months. I'd make it get up every morning at 5AM and do pushups. I'd put a lot of pressure on it to make me proud.

Drag queen dancing a merry little waltz in front of that center-framed, prominent tree. I'm starting to hate that tree now. Everything else in this movie gets savaged and destroyed, and that bastard tree just sits there smugly. I hope somebody kicks it over. Now several people dancing in front of the tree (right, this must be drag queen's childhood after being born from the box, and now it's in school playing with friends - the metaphor still holds!). Count the props so far: tree, lamp, box. the dancers are all in mismatched costumes doing mismatched dances not in time to the music. One guy is dancing like he needs to pee. Knowing this movie, he probably does.

Suddenly the music changed to stock bullfighter music and a female figure in black is salsa-ing about. Armpit. Hairy armpit, camera close-up of hairy armpit, what does IT MEAN??? Shot from overhead. The dancing is frantic now, like those nature documentaries of what goes on in a beehive. About ten minutes of all kinds of dancing now. I'm beginning to expect another lipstick thing, and then the Circle Of Life is complete, The End.

The female figure (ha! I may not know its gender, but I know it's dressed as a woman! tricky tricky) in black keeps spinning around with a rose in its teeth. The crowd dancing now is almost moshing, they're rudely slamming into each other. Suddenly there's a languid woman lying there with somebody's finger on her tit, not moving, just buzzing the doorbell. I told you; the lipstick's coming out any minute now.

Woman smoking something and somebody who looks like the guy from "The Room" ("You're tearing me apart Lisa!") kissing on her. I almost miss the screaming now. No, I'm kidding. Please don't scream and shake for another twenty minutes. Now the music is cool doo-wop! It's like a '50s teen pop version of "Yessir, That's My Baby!" or whateveritis, I recognize it.

The lamp is shaking again, I remember that from before. The dancing is now mellow. Subtly, the words "The End" pan by, written in cake frosting or what, I can't tell with the film quality. Who knows, maybe my earlier interpretation of the meaning of this movie was full of shit. One last loving ogle at somebody apathetically playing with their tit, and fade to grainy, linty black.

Well, that wasn't so bad. I've seen "Blood-Sucking Freaks", you know. Also, at least it didn't have Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, or Nicolas Cage in it.

The thing that sucks about this kind of exercise is that it's impossible to write about it and not make it sound like more fun than it was. Really, even at its best points, it wasn't what I would call a date movie or even a fun night with the guys movie. The peek-a-boo nudity was not in the least bit sexually gratifying. This is clearly "for the art". It is also clearly experimental.

Really, really experimental.

The Robot God

2011-12-04T09:02:00.001-08:00

"I killed Hitler"? Is that another story in the same mag, or did the Robot God kill Hitler? Why is that little white caption box just floating there? Answer me, dammit!

With a head like an angry toaster. Also, isn't this where they got the idea for the Terminator?

Sci-Fi mag covers

Spoon Power!

2011-12-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

A classic animutation.

If this is your first time experiencing animutation, you might as well try to make sense of it from the Wiki.

Every kind of meat I've ever eaten so far

2011-12-04T04:06:00.001-08:00

Alligator
Chicken
Cow
Crab
Crayfish
Deer
Fish
Lamb
Lobster
Mussel
Octopus
Oyster
Pig
Shrimp
Squid
Turkey

Inaugural Post

2011-12-04T03:38:00.000-08:00