Yesterday, browsing through the philosophy section in a bookstore, I noticed some peculiar titles: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer , and The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. I knew that these pop-culture philosophy hybrid instructional books had become more popular since The Matrix, but I had no idea to what extent. The undead book struck me as particularly interesting with the following question posited on the back:
“Are vampires more morally responsible than zombies?”
Zombies have long been a favorite in Philosophy of Mind courses, pawns in the great debate between dualism and physicalism. I’ve always been a big fan of Zombies and Vampires, despite any alleged philosophical import they have. They’re just cool.
“Zombie Walks,” are all the rage nowadays. I propose that in retaliation for Boston’s hysterically retarded overreaction to Turner’s guerrilla marketing campaign, a massive zombie walk take place through Boston immediately. Let’s show those bitches “terror.”
Chuck Norris, perhaps the biggest GOP celebrity-clown since Ted Nugent, filled in for Hannity on Fox News the other night. Could it be that Fox is forsaking all appearances of responsible journalism for self-parodying performance art? The joke could be on us.
All I can say about Chuck’s website is that all websites are better with audio welcome messages, right?
Finally watched Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s uber-satire of a dumb-as-rocks devolved human civilization 500 years in the future. I had been warned that the movie wasn’t that great, so had low expectations. Quite the opposite story of Children of Men, which carried the burden of so much critical acclaim you almost had to be disappointed within the first 10 minutes. Not for everyone, the ideas in Idiocracy are really what carry the film, but not always their execution. But some of the details just killed me: the world waters it’s crops with Brawndo (a sports drink), Brawndo has purchased the FDA by this time, Fuddruckers has been renamed ButtFuckers (there is a very resonant low-brow scatology to this film), the president is a former pro-wrestler and porn star, the greeters at Costco say, “Welcome to Costco. I love you.” And of course their portrayal of Fox News (probably why the film got the marketing shaft):
South Park Republican Libertarian. That’s more like it. Sometime during the last few years South Park has become my animated comedy of choice, taking the place of the Simpsons even. The cultural skewering is just so brutally and beautifully dead on, and the man-child within me cackles heartily at the potty humor. Parker and Stone are self-described as libertarians, and all you have to do is watch episodes like the “Underpants Gnomes”, or “Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes” to realize it. Actually, just about any episode will suffice.
Parker: To some degree, South Park has a simple formula that came from the very first episode [“The Spirit of Christmas,” which featured Jesus and Santa fighting over who owned the holiday]. There was Jesus on this side and there was Santa on this side, there’s Christianity here and there’s Christmas commercialism here, and they’re duking it out. And there are these four boys in the middle going, “Dude, chill out.” It’s really what Team America is as well: taking an extremist on this side and an extremist on that side. Michael Moore being an extremist is just as bad, you know, as Donald Rumsfeld. It’s like they’re the same person. It takes a fourth-grade kid to go, “You both remind me of each other.” The show is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground, and that all you extremists are the ones who have the microphones because you’re the most interesting to listen to, but actually this group isn’t evil, that group isn’t evil, and there’s something to be worked out here.
Except when it comes to Scientologists. They’re all fucked up.
It finally happened, my first Battlestar Galactica dream, and confirmation to ubergeekdom.
In my dream, a war rattled planet Earth was occupied by Cylons much like happened to Caprica at the beginning of season one. Only in my dream the Cylons were a mix of the old and new cylons, it seems the new ones were more like battle droids, whereas the old ones were officers or cop types. For some reason I had a “pass,” which meant I could live, only it was hard to convince Cylons you came across that you had a pass, so I was getting shot at a lot. There was one dream part when I was on an elevator and it opened to a firing squad of Cylons. How did I escape? Tune in next time…
There are some great evolution conundrums they seem to be exploring on BSG, most interestingly the cross-breeding of Cylons and Humans. This we are told with slightly melodramatic spiritual ambiguity, is “the shape of things to come.” Also interesting is the developing Cylon obsession with understanding human emotions like love, and their affinity for “God.” Oddly, there does’t seem to be any Cylon leadership…it’s a top down parliment based on 11 different humanoid models, but no one seems in charge. The acting is decent, the cinematography, good CGI, and arty editing are what makes it rule. Catch up if you haven’t. There’s a 3 minute and a 44 minute recap. But I would order it all from Netflix, starting with the pilot and Season 1. Also coming soon is a spinoff, Caprica, which takes place before the Cylon revolution. Geekalicious.
There appears to be some political debate about the show too. Dorkofascists, unite. Battlestar America.
Everyone fell in love with Kumar in Bottle Rocket. Here’s the “who was that man?” scene:
He’s got a great spinning plates scene in The Terminal, but there’s so much more to his talent as will be witnessed in the forthcoming KUMAR: MY 88 YEAR OLD BEST FRIEND.
Many mistakenly believe that Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson “discovered” Kumar when they plucked him out of seeming obscurity from behind the counter of his eclectic cafe. But in reality Kumar’s hardly new to show business, in fact he’s a world renowned vaudevillian entertainer who once shared a stage with the Rat Pack and performed on classic television shows like the Mickey Mouse Club, Ed Sullivan and Captain Kangaroo.
Had he chosen Sartre or Heidegger, we know this would have been complete bullshit. Alas, Camus is technically easy enough for an illiterate president to read and completely misunderstand.
Here are a few more 70s anime programs you might not have seen, all created by Tatsunoko Productions, who did Gatchaman. There is Hurricane Polymar, Space Knight Tekkaman but I think I like the opening to Robot Hunter Casshan the best. Dig that air ballet! And nothing beats a robotic man’s best friend…
And of course, the original Gatchaman, more of an acoustic theme, still with 70s trumpets though.
Battle of the Planets, (adapted from Gatchaman) inspired many an adolescent daydream, once upon a time. Remember the day when you would wake up before school to watch TV?
There was another anime from either the late 70s or the early 80s that featured giant ships, pirate ship style, traveling through space. I can’t for the life of me remember it.
The all-kale diet: How I stopped eating anything else. - Slate Magazine2012/05/10 Most chefs massage their kale for 5 to 10 minutes in a mixing bowl. I went longer than that for my first kale salad—an hour and a half total—mostly because that's what I'd want if the kale were massaging me.
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