Offered without comment except to say that this is the person who wants to step into Dick Cheney’s shoes. I wonder how he feels about that.
Palindrome
Category: TV, Celebrities
Robots and Sunglasses
In which I shamelessly post in the style of This Recording….
I was watching Westworld (1973) a few weeks ago and a couple of images at the beginning of the movie struck me.
Obviously, they’re the same guy/robot and the implication is that they’re both robot pilots guiding the unsuspecting tourists to their doom at the hands of disgruntled robots. Even though Steve Vai believes his guitar is his personal window to his soul, the Hollywood tradition is that robots wear sunglasses to hide their eyes because eyes are the windows to the soul — and robots and governors don’t have one.
When Yul Brynner shows up in Westworld, he has creepy eyes with movie lights in them which is to say, this post is sort of about robot mythmaking. Oddly enough, in the movie, you differentiate the robots from humans by looking at their hands, not by the movie lights in their eyes.
(I was saddened when I realized that Yul Brynner had been reduced to a robot cowboy signalling the end of the Hollywood Western. The genre was briefly revived when Lawrence Kasdan did Silverado (1985) and then Clint Eastwood did Unforgiven (1992). Let’s face it: the genre will live on with a respirator the same way Elvis does).
People wear sunglasses in public, on the subway, and when they’re playing poker because they don’t want you to see their souls or their wandering eyes. Similarly, femme fatales and French film directors have souls of dubious provenance. Tut alors! They’re both (somewhat) French!
Celebrities wear the sunglasses and take their endorsements because even Republicans know that celebrities don’t have souls. And the whole history of sunglasses is wrapped up in celebrity culture and power culture. You can be an instant rock star by popping ’em on!
I’ve recently watched the first two seasons of the newer Battlestar Galactica. The show has a giant fanbase and a lot has been written about it already but maybe…. not…. I’m the first to observe that the robots … well, “skin job robots” … don’t wear sunglasses because they have souls. The best mindwarp of the show is that the “skin jobs” are made by the “Danger Will Robinson” Robby Robots. Thank goodness.
There’s an old science fiction book the Jesuits made me read called A Canticle for Leibowitz where humanity is doomed to reach The Nuclear Age, destroy itself, then evolve back up into another Nuclear Age, ad infinitum. The stories and the sunglasses just keep coming, don’t they? Here’s me editing this post….
Let’s watch a robot video. Robot video looker….
The Next Feminist Platform
Riding a fish is funner than birthing one.
Feminism isn’t a topic I’ll post about much but I find the idea of Orgasmic Birth fascinating. Any wedge that puts a dent in the conventional Biblican wisdom, here specifically Genesis 3:16 –(“…I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…”) — now that’s a good kick in the pants. Further irony lies in OB’s strong foundation in new age type spirituality and things like water birth, yoga, meditation, the “spiritual diet,” and ye, even Robert Bly stylee Male Energy. Contrast that with the criticism of Islamic attitudes towards women (not uncalled for) and you can see a clear modern-day evolutionary arc of human spirituality. Any anthropologists out there wanna discuss this?
I’ll almost be surprised if ABC follows through with broadcasting a special about this on 20/20 on May 16. If they do, it’s because of the sexy title and you know they’re going to have a C-section specialist crowing that a C-section is the safest, most pain-free way to have a baby and how could there be anything better than Modern American Medicine? Snort.
On a tangential note, just now, Martha Nussbaum was on Bill Moyers’ show talking about “Freedom of Conscience” and how the right doesn’t get it. This OB thing is going to be heavily ridiculed by the establishment thought police.
(Full disclosure: My upstairs neighbor, who I respect very much, is a doula specializing in water birth and also a talented birth photographer. And I read Feministing once in a while. I suppose that makes me a sensitive new age terrorist.)
Celebrity Endorsements
Obama sports a much vaster and cooler list of celebrity endorsements than Clinton does. Huffpo rightly puts this stuff in their Entertainment section but why not also list McCain’s celeb endorsements? Maybe because he’s only got four although I’d wager conservatives consume more celebrity gossip than others do.
Giant lobster chomps on little people in the subway
Tom Otterness Rocks 8th Ave.
I watched Under the Volcano. While Albert Finney rocks this sort of drinking and drugs kamikaze movie (e.g. The Dresser, Leaving Las Vegas, Hurly Burly, Boogie Nights, Requiem for a Dream), I’m tired of them. The Day of the Dead (the Mexican holiday) footage is nice. On the other hand, Resident Evil: Extinction is a much more satisfying clusterfuck with its numerous homages to itself and several other horror and sci-fi classics. Plus it’s totally believable.
I’ve been following the protests over the Olympic torch. The media attention is extraordinary and yet, last week, it was confirmed that the USA is yet another country that officially ytortures and the administration literally conjured up legal excuses for it. As it turns out, Jack Bauer and Fox’s 24 provided some of the inspiration. I’m sure a lot of us are outraged (also for finding out we were lied to again). Where is the media on this one? Oh, I see… it’s U.S. you’re talking about….
“Get your stinkin paws off me…”
Hello everybody! This blog is a continuation of my blog on myspace. The restrictions of myspace got rather tiresome… so here I am. I’ll be adding stuff over the next few weeks.
Danger: slippery rocks
Charlton Heston: Man or Ape? I mean… Man or God? I credit him with turning me onto science fiction and partly making me the nerd I am today. His movies dealt with serious issues. What if apes evolved and enslaved humans? What if we started making food out of dead people? What if a strange disease wiped out almost everyone? Hey, it could happen. His movies dealt preposterously yet frankly with race issues like Star Trek did. Then he jumped the shark when he played Moses in the Ten Commandments. That’s when I sort of discovered him and John Wayne to be the Ted Nugents and Chuck Norrises of my parents’ generation. Ah well. It takes all kinds — even rugged individual types floundering for meaning in their own mythologies. Rest in peace, CH.
I’m going to do my laundry and then try to work the internet by clicking on stuff.