Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
YOU’RE NOT SPARTACUS!
(The bright side of life?)
Starz are busily promoting their new cable series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It seems heavy on sweaty Roman sex orgies and gladiator violence. Promo releases read as follows…
“Betrayed by the Romans. Forced into slavery. Reborn as a Gladiator. The classic tale of the Republic’s most infamous rebel comes alive in the graphic and visceral new series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Torn from his homeland and the woman he loves, Spartacus is condemned to the brutal world of the arena where blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands. Treachery, corruption, and the allure of sensual pleasures will constantly test Spartacus. To survive, he must become more than a man. More than a gladiator. He must become a legend.”
Nowhere, however, in all of the fevered swashbuckling hype that’s posted on the net and pouring from my TV, is there any mention of the slave revolt that Spartacus supposedly inspired and no character that resembles the Spartacus described in this Wikipedia entry…
“Spartacus (c. 109–71 BCE) was the most notable leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable. Spartacus's struggle, often seen as the fight of an oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning aristocracy, has found new meaning for modern writers since the 19th century. The rebellion of Spartacus has proven inspirational to many modern literary and political writers, making Spartacus a folk hero among cultures both ancient and modern.”
According to the Starz version, the uprising never happened, or the hideous retribution (above) and Spartacus just wanted to get home to his wife. If this is indeed the case, I suggest we boycott the shit out of this pernicious program, and demonstrate to corporate media that it can’t mess with the icons of the left and get away with it totally unscathed.
The secret word is Liberty
Starz are busily promoting their new cable series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It seems heavy on sweaty Roman sex orgies and gladiator violence. Promo releases read as follows…
“Betrayed by the Romans. Forced into slavery. Reborn as a Gladiator. The classic tale of the Republic’s most infamous rebel comes alive in the graphic and visceral new series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Torn from his homeland and the woman he loves, Spartacus is condemned to the brutal world of the arena where blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands. Treachery, corruption, and the allure of sensual pleasures will constantly test Spartacus. To survive, he must become more than a man. More than a gladiator. He must become a legend.”
Nowhere, however, in all of the fevered swashbuckling hype that’s posted on the net and pouring from my TV, is there any mention of the slave revolt that Spartacus supposedly inspired and no character that resembles the Spartacus described in this Wikipedia entry…
“Spartacus (c. 109–71 BCE) was the most notable leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable. Spartacus's struggle, often seen as the fight of an oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning aristocracy, has found new meaning for modern writers since the 19th century. The rebellion of Spartacus has proven inspirational to many modern literary and political writers, making Spartacus a folk hero among cultures both ancient and modern.”
According to the Starz version, the uprising never happened, or the hideous retribution (above) and Spartacus just wanted to get home to his wife. If this is indeed the case, I suggest we boycott the shit out of this pernicious program, and demonstrate to corporate media that it can’t mess with the icons of the left and get away with it totally unscathed.
The secret word is Liberty
YES, NEIGHBOURS, THESE OLD BOYS ARE DOING IT AGAIN
I’ll be doing a reading and book signing this weekend for my book Zones of Chaos accompanied by master guitarist Andy Colquhoun. That’s on Saturday, January 23, 2009,6 pm – 9 pm, LA LUZ DE JESUS GALLERY (in the Whacko/Soap Plant Building), 4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027, 323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243. All are welcome.
ONLY IN HOLLYWEIRD
The following appeared on our local Craig’s List. I can only hope these idiots get their blood drained. Victor Renquist would never do reality TV.
“Reality TV producers seek authentic vampire for new reality series. Must be a real sanguine vampire. Please send a picture and a brief history of when and how you realized you were a real vampire and details about how you live your life as a vampire.”
And in a not totally unrelated story, a friend of a friend called to say that coyotes had been spotted walking around large as life on Sunset Strip near the Roxy.
“Reality TV producers seek authentic vampire for new reality series. Must be a real sanguine vampire. Please send a picture and a brief history of when and how you realized you were a real vampire and details about how you live your life as a vampire.”
And in a not totally unrelated story, a friend of a friend called to say that coyotes had been spotted walking around large as life on Sunset Strip near the Roxy.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
THE YAHOOS ARE TAKING THIS LAND
Yes, my friends, despite all our efforts of a year ago, when we thought we might usher in a golden dawn and a second New Deal for America, the yahoos – if only in their fevered, tunnel-vision imaginations – are taking back the land. In their blind, baying ignorance, they suppose they’re making America safe for God and capitalism, but, in reality, they are securing it for Goldman Sachs, big oil, big pharm, big insurance, zombie banks, and all their psychotic Wall Street partners-in-larceny, so they can steal every last dollar in the national cash register even if it destroys the entire social structure and turns the environment into a wasteland in the process. Meanwhile all the limp-whimpering liberals and progressives with whom I once aligned myself continuously prove themselves lily-livered incapable of fighting back the irrational mob that has been whipped to a drooling frenzy my cheap media manipulation and corporate financing. When a racist, sexist, homophobic, nude-model ox can be elected to the Senate seat vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy, a dour day dawns for democracy. Are our fellow citizens too fucking dumbed down to realize that this oaf – spouting meaningless drivel about how he is “against the machine” – is nothing more than a fully purchased shill for the gangrenous corporate status quo that will ultimately kill them? Is it too late to prevent the stupid from voting? Are Americans actually witless enough to hand power to a shame-devoid and calculating grifter like Palin? All I know is that the yahoos must be fought. Tooth and nail. No prisoners. No quarter. By any means necessary, and forget all the liberal niceties and cocktail party rules of engagement. They shall not pass. They show us their weapons and we must show them ours. I fear it is time to turn ugly.
The secret word is Foul
The secret word is Foul
BUT YAHOOS ARE THE CONSULTANTS' CASH COW
And talking of grifters, Aeswiren sent us this story a few days ago...
“TPM Media's Zachary Roth reported earlier in the week that the political action committee that organized the Tea Party Express -- Our Country Deserves Better PAC -- funneled almost two-thirds of its spending from July to November back to the political consulting firm from which it was spawned, Russo, Marsh, and Associates. More than $850,000 of the money the supposedly grassroots PAC collected went to the firm of GOP political operatives who ran it. For those who may have forgotten, the Tea Party Express was the faux-grassroots operation that Fox News hopped aboard in late August, after the network's promotion of the health care town hall meeting disruptions but before they started flogging the 9-12 protest. (It's so hard to keep Fox's political activism straight!) It was a nationwide bus tour organized by a political action committee whose mission is to oppose President Obama and other Democrats; with a pedigree like that, how could Fox resist? Fox News heavily promoted the Tea Party Express; the Our Country Deserves Better PAC even used Fox's promotion in a fundraising email. Then Fox's Griff Jenkins hit the trail with the Express, following that bus around the country, throwing journalistic integrity aside as he declared its riders "the America that Washington forgot." But somehow, Jenkins missed out on the real story: how loyal tea-party-goers were separated from their hard-earned cash, which was funneled to fat cat Republican political consultants. Russo, Marsh, and Associates salutes you, Fox News. They could have scammed the tea partiers without you, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as lucrative.”
“TPM Media's Zachary Roth reported earlier in the week that the political action committee that organized the Tea Party Express -- Our Country Deserves Better PAC -- funneled almost two-thirds of its spending from July to November back to the political consulting firm from which it was spawned, Russo, Marsh, and Associates. More than $850,000 of the money the supposedly grassroots PAC collected went to the firm of GOP political operatives who ran it. For those who may have forgotten, the Tea Party Express was the faux-grassroots operation that Fox News hopped aboard in late August, after the network's promotion of the health care town hall meeting disruptions but before they started flogging the 9-12 protest. (It's so hard to keep Fox's political activism straight!) It was a nationwide bus tour organized by a political action committee whose mission is to oppose President Obama and other Democrats; with a pedigree like that, how could Fox resist? Fox News heavily promoted the Tea Party Express; the Our Country Deserves Better PAC even used Fox's promotion in a fundraising email. Then Fox's Griff Jenkins hit the trail with the Express, following that bus around the country, throwing journalistic integrity aside as he declared its riders "the America that Washington forgot." But somehow, Jenkins missed out on the real story: how loyal tea-party-goers were separated from their hard-earned cash, which was funneled to fat cat Republican political consultants. Russo, Marsh, and Associates salutes you, Fox News. They could have scammed the tea partiers without you, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as lucrative.”
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
THE REACTOR IS BACK ON LINE
Over the last couple of weeks things have been a little chaotic in the Doc40 environment and a whole lot of repairing, reacting, revision, retrenching, regrouping, recouping, revisiting, rediscovery, realigning, recalculating, and recovery have been needed to keep things on an even keel, but the Tesla coils are back up and the electrons just keep on sparking, so here we are, back again, with this thermonuclear tale supplied by out pal Wendy.
“Based at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, it is used to research thermonuclear reactions - for example, what happens at the heart of a hydrogen bomb detonation. Now it has a more productive application: finding a way to fuse heavy water atoms to create fusion power. Fusion is the Holy Grail of the power industry: cheap, clean, safe and unlimited. The downside is, with current technology, the reaction is difficult to control. When the machine fires, 36 cables - each as thick as a horse's torso - spark simultaneously. The cables fire a pulse of 50 trillion watts into a target the size of a cotton reel. Inside the target is a can filled with wires finer than a human hair. The wires vaporise, creating temperatures as high as 3.5 billion degrees C, the highest ever created by man and an X-ray pulse in excess of 290 terawatts.” Click here for more.
The secret word is Fusion
“Based at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, it is used to research thermonuclear reactions - for example, what happens at the heart of a hydrogen bomb detonation. Now it has a more productive application: finding a way to fuse heavy water atoms to create fusion power. Fusion is the Holy Grail of the power industry: cheap, clean, safe and unlimited. The downside is, with current technology, the reaction is difficult to control. When the machine fires, 36 cables - each as thick as a horse's torso - spark simultaneously. The cables fire a pulse of 50 trillion watts into a target the size of a cotton reel. Inside the target is a can filled with wires finer than a human hair. The wires vaporise, creating temperatures as high as 3.5 billion degrees C, the highest ever created by man and an X-ray pulse in excess of 290 terawatts.” Click here for more.
The secret word is Fusion
PLAY A GUITAR JUST LIKE RINGING A BELL
Okay, so this clip – sent by the divine Valerie – isn’t exactly the divine Jimi, but, as the proverbial bird on a wire, worth a look anyway – so click here. (Image sent by the mighty Munz)
And – not to disappoint – click here for some rare Jimi.
And – not to disappoint – click here for some rare Jimi.
Mick Green -- RIP
Thursday, January 14, 2010
IN THE FACE OF SUCH A DISASTER…
…there seems little to do – unless you’re Bill Clinton – except watch the unfolding on TV and maybe send whatever cash you can to you favorite relief agency. Above all, let’s keep a respectful quiet in the face of a nation that was already the shame of the Caribbean. I would start a diatribe against the obscene outpouring of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh but it’s beneath me. Let them rot. They will never save anyone.
The secret word is Humanity
REFURBISHING THE LIFE SUPPORT
As some of you may have noticed Doc40 has not been around for the last few days. Right now we are undergoing a rebuilding of major elements of the Doc40 life support. Recovery and a return to normal will take place over the next few days. (Image provided by Valerie.)
Saturday, January 09, 2010
NEVER HAS SO MUCH BEEN QUAFFED BY SO MANY
When I received this Chinese story about British boozing from our good friend Aeswiren, it confirmed an impression I had gleaned for myself on a recent visit to the old country. The Brits are facing down these hard times by drinking. As I passed through Shepherds Bush Green on a warm Friday night, I could not recall ever seeing quite so many reeling lads and stumbling shrieking girls. I can’t quite imagine why the Chinese should be taking an interest, but, as those in power rumble about “doing something about it” it does validate a long held theory that the societies with the worst booze problems also have the most repressive liquor laws.
“Off Xinhua news feed…
LONDON, Jan. 2 – Heavy drinking is causing Britain as many health problems as it is costing the country too much money that could have been spent on genuine health care, according to studies by medical expert groups. One in six Britons drinks above sensible limits while one in 60 has a level of alcohol addiction and the so-called boozing culture costs Britain over 4 billion U.S. dollars a year. But these might be just the tip of an iceberg.
"With only one in 18 people dependent on alcohol receiving treatment ... we know that more needs to be done to help identify and treat patients," said Steve Barnett, chief executive of the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation which unveiled the figures in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians. This is because the bulk of the 4 billion spent on boozers goes to hospitals and ambulance services which are forced to deal with people who get into difficulties after drinking too much, said the report compiled by the confederation and the college. Half of all assaults are related to alcohol, along with more than a fifth of accidental deaths and almost a third of all suicides. Nearly 15,000 people died in 2008 alone from alcohol abuse, or 3 percent of all deaths, according to figures from the Liverpool John Moores University.”
The secret word is Short
“Off Xinhua news feed…
LONDON, Jan. 2 – Heavy drinking is causing Britain as many health problems as it is costing the country too much money that could have been spent on genuine health care, according to studies by medical expert groups. One in six Britons drinks above sensible limits while one in 60 has a level of alcohol addiction and the so-called boozing culture costs Britain over 4 billion U.S. dollars a year. But these might be just the tip of an iceberg.
"With only one in 18 people dependent on alcohol receiving treatment ... we know that more needs to be done to help identify and treat patients," said Steve Barnett, chief executive of the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation which unveiled the figures in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians. This is because the bulk of the 4 billion spent on boozers goes to hospitals and ambulance services which are forced to deal with people who get into difficulties after drinking too much, said the report compiled by the confederation and the college. Half of all assaults are related to alcohol, along with more than a fifth of accidental deaths and almost a third of all suicides. Nearly 15,000 people died in 2008 alone from alcohol abuse, or 3 percent of all deaths, according to figures from the Liverpool John Moores University.”
The secret word is Short
BUT THIS IS NOTHING NEW
James Nicholls, writing in History Today, reminds us…
"In Britain, concerns over drunkenness go back a long way. The first Licensing Act, passed in 1552, required alehouse-keepers to acquire a license from local justices on the grounds that 'intolerable hurts and troubles' arose from drunkenness in 'common alehouses'. The following year rules were introduced strictly limiting the number of wine taverns that could open in any one town. This legislative distinction between common alehouses and more exclusive wine taverns reflected a long-standing social stratification of drinks in Britain. Lack of native viticulture made imported wine an elite drink, while ale, and later beer (made with hops, which were only widely used from the 15th century), were associated with more popular drinking cultures. Until the late 17th century the social stratification of alcohol tended to be expressed in relation to courtly wine, urban beer and bucolic ale. The liberalization of the gin trade following the accession of William III [in the early 18th century] threw an entirely new substance into this mix. Partly designed to promote a domestic alternative to French brandy, deregulation contributed to a staggering rise in consumption and triggered impassioned debates on the role of the state in regulating this new and dangerous commodity. In 1736 it also produced a disastrous attempt at gin prohibition, which was repealed seven years later."
"In Britain, concerns over drunkenness go back a long way. The first Licensing Act, passed in 1552, required alehouse-keepers to acquire a license from local justices on the grounds that 'intolerable hurts and troubles' arose from drunkenness in 'common alehouses'. The following year rules were introduced strictly limiting the number of wine taverns that could open in any one town. This legislative distinction between common alehouses and more exclusive wine taverns reflected a long-standing social stratification of drinks in Britain. Lack of native viticulture made imported wine an elite drink, while ale, and later beer (made with hops, which were only widely used from the 15th century), were associated with more popular drinking cultures. Until the late 17th century the social stratification of alcohol tended to be expressed in relation to courtly wine, urban beer and bucolic ale. The liberalization of the gin trade following the accession of William III [in the early 18th century] threw an entirely new substance into this mix. Partly designed to promote a domestic alternative to French brandy, deregulation contributed to a staggering rise in consumption and triggered impassioned debates on the role of the state in regulating this new and dangerous commodity. In 1736 it also produced a disastrous attempt at gin prohibition, which was repealed seven years later."
MARILYN SEZ…
“Let the Brits drink for chrissakes. They have to talk with that ridiculous accent all the time.”
MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE OCEAN…
I can only post this without comment.
“My New Pink Button is a temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia. There is no other product like it. This patent pending formula was designed by a female certified Paramedical Esthetician after she discovered her own genital color loss. While looking online for a solution she discovered thousands of other women asking the same questions regarding their color loss. After countless searches revealing no solution available and a discussion with her own gynecologist she decided to create her own. Now there is a solution!”
“My New Pink Button is a temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia. There is no other product like it. This patent pending formula was designed by a female certified Paramedical Esthetician after she discovered her own genital color loss. While looking online for a solution she discovered thousands of other women asking the same questions regarding their color loss. After countless searches revealing no solution available and a discussion with her own gynecologist she decided to create her own. Now there is a solution!”
Friday, January 08, 2010
IT’S ELVIS DAY
Here at Doc40 we always celebrate the birthday of Elvis Presley. Why? I have told it too many times to repeat how Elvis quite literally changed my life and ambitions. Other seminal cultural revolutionaries played their parts, but it was Elvis who initiated me into the strange and personal rock & roll insurrection that has continued to this very day, and shows no sign of abating even as antiquity catches up to me, and has taken me, at the very least, in my imagination, to the stars and beyond, and to secret places of sometimes bizarre revelation and the companionship or many other gilded rebels that made me know I was not alone in the gleeful, exalting madness. That, on it’s own, is surely enough to give the man and his mythology one day out of the year for remembrance of how I started my half century on this wild lost highway. In August of 1977, I wrote Elvis’ cover story obituary for NME. I feel the same way as I did then.
“I think, to be absolutely truthful, any grief for Elvis Presley has to be bound up with a grief for my own early youth. It's grief for that long vanished innocence, that virgin state in which it was possible to discover rock and roll for the very first time.
The moment when I first heard 'Heartbreak Hotel' coming out of the radio was an experience that's impossible to reproduce. It was a time when the radio didn't add up to much more than The Archers, Journey into Space and The Goon Show. The readily available music was all 'Que Sera', 'Love And Marriage' and 'How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?'
After 'Heartbreak Hotel' all that changed. Music had the power. It may have taken another six or seven years for Bob Dylan to articulate it, but right from the start it was obvious that the times were changing. If it needed a confirmation, it was right there in the way Elvis was condemned out of hand by parents and pulpit. Elvis Presley was far more than just an entertainer. He was something different to Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. He'd picked up the teenage banner that had been dropped by James Dean. He not only picked it up, but he picked it up and ran with it. From the way he combed his hair to the sneer and the snapping knee, he was the beginning of the rebellion. You stopped thinking about being a chartered accountant and began to wonder if, just maybe, you could be Elvis.”
Click for clip. (Which says one whole lot.)
The secret words are Thank You – Thank You Very Much
“I think, to be absolutely truthful, any grief for Elvis Presley has to be bound up with a grief for my own early youth. It's grief for that long vanished innocence, that virgin state in which it was possible to discover rock and roll for the very first time.
The moment when I first heard 'Heartbreak Hotel' coming out of the radio was an experience that's impossible to reproduce. It was a time when the radio didn't add up to much more than The Archers, Journey into Space and The Goon Show. The readily available music was all 'Que Sera', 'Love And Marriage' and 'How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?'
After 'Heartbreak Hotel' all that changed. Music had the power. It may have taken another six or seven years for Bob Dylan to articulate it, but right from the start it was obvious that the times were changing. If it needed a confirmation, it was right there in the way Elvis was condemned out of hand by parents and pulpit. Elvis Presley was far more than just an entertainer. He was something different to Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. He'd picked up the teenage banner that had been dropped by James Dean. He not only picked it up, but he picked it up and ran with it. From the way he combed his hair to the sneer and the snapping knee, he was the beginning of the rebellion. You stopped thinking about being a chartered accountant and began to wonder if, just maybe, you could be Elvis.”
Click for clip. (Which says one whole lot.)
The secret words are Thank You – Thank You Very Much
Thursday, January 07, 2010
X-RATED X-RAYS
As we face the farcically unpleasant prospect of a full body x-rays every time we have to get on an already less than human-friendly, goddamned commercial airplane, James St. James of the gossip site World of Wonder has had a wonderfully subversive thought…
“With the new x-ray screeners coming to an airport near you, I think we can definitely expect to see a new kind of porn fetish popping up on the internet. Looking at the negative images of people's genitals feels both naughty and clinical at the same time. I'm also imagining that there will be a HUGE DEMAND for black market shots of Beyonce and Zac Efron etc, passing through, as there will undoubtedly be unscrupulous airport employees who will find a way to profit from their job. Or – more likely – celebrities won't have to go through screeners at all.”
The secret word Parts
“With the new x-ray screeners coming to an airport near you, I think we can definitely expect to see a new kind of porn fetish popping up on the internet. Looking at the negative images of people's genitals feels both naughty and clinical at the same time. I'm also imagining that there will be a HUGE DEMAND for black market shots of Beyonce and Zac Efron etc, passing through, as there will undoubtedly be unscrupulous airport employees who will find a way to profit from their job. Or – more likely – celebrities won't have to go through screeners at all.”
The secret word Parts
THE UNMAKING OF DUNE
Our pals Mother and Doctor at the Bangalore Film Society have sent this informative if idiocentric account by Alejandro Jodorowsky of his attempt to make Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune into a movie before the flawed David Lynch version.
“After I found Giger, a Swiss painter whose catalogue Dalà had shown me... His art declining, sick, suicidal, brilliant, was perfect to carry out the Harkonnen planet... He made a project of castle and planet which really touched with the metaphysical horror. (later, he carried out the sets and the monster of Alien.) For the special effects, thanks to the capacity which Michel Seydoux gave me, I was able to refuse Douglas Trumbull... I was unable to swallow his vanity, his airs of business leader and his exorbitant prices. Like a good American, he played to scorn the project and tried to complex us while making us wait while speaking with us at the same time as with ten people on the telephone and finally by showing us superb machines which he tried to improve. Tired of all this comedy, I left to research a young talent. It is said to me that in L.A. it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I saw in a modest festival of cinema by science fiction amateurs, a film made without means that I found marvelous: Dark Star. I contacted the boy who had made the special effects: Dan O' Bannon. I was almost with a wolf child. Completely out of conventional reality, O'Bannon was for me a real genius. He could not believe that I can entrust a project as significant as Dune to him. He was obliged to believe it when he received his plane ticket for Paris. I was not mistaken: Dan O'Bannon wrote later the scenario of Alien and a good number of other films with great success.” Click here for the whole story.
“After I found Giger, a Swiss painter whose catalogue Dalà had shown me... His art declining, sick, suicidal, brilliant, was perfect to carry out the Harkonnen planet... He made a project of castle and planet which really touched with the metaphysical horror. (later, he carried out the sets and the monster of Alien.) For the special effects, thanks to the capacity which Michel Seydoux gave me, I was able to refuse Douglas Trumbull... I was unable to swallow his vanity, his airs of business leader and his exorbitant prices. Like a good American, he played to scorn the project and tried to complex us while making us wait while speaking with us at the same time as with ten people on the telephone and finally by showing us superb machines which he tried to improve. Tired of all this comedy, I left to research a young talent. It is said to me that in L.A. it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I saw in a modest festival of cinema by science fiction amateurs, a film made without means that I found marvelous: Dark Star. I contacted the boy who had made the special effects: Dan O' Bannon. I was almost with a wolf child. Completely out of conventional reality, O'Bannon was for me a real genius. He could not believe that I can entrust a project as significant as Dune to him. He was obliged to believe it when he received his plane ticket for Paris. I was not mistaken: Dan O'Bannon wrote later the scenario of Alien and a good number of other films with great success.” Click here for the whole story.
ERROR!
Due to my getting sick, about five copies of Zone of Chaos have not gone out to the folks who mailed in for the them. Don’t worry. It’s being sorted.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
THE WALLS ARE GLOWING
You can call me an unreconstructed old hippie but, damn, I like this and I want some. (It's a shame the picture isn't bigger.)
"Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from 2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon technology.
A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs.
Although an electrical current will be used to stimulate the chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches will control brightness, as with traditional lighting." Click here for more
The secret word is Wow!
"Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from 2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon technology.
A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs.
Although an electrical current will be used to stimulate the chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches will control brightness, as with traditional lighting." Click here for more
The secret word is Wow!
MO’ DOC
On December 19th I wrote “round here we run a kind of ad hoc Doc Holliday Fan Club” and our pal David TA took me at my word and sent the following – “Perhaps you'll enjoy the artwork of my pal Greg Giordano, whose working on a Doc Holliday comic.” Click here.
THIS SHIT HAS GOT TO STOP!
“Oklahoma recently passed a law requiring that abortion providers fill out a 10-page questionnaire for each procedure, and that details of abortions be posted on a public Web site! This extensive questionnaire - which includes the reason the procedure was sought - is not only an affront to women's rights, its detailed nature may allow women in small towns to be identified, violating their privacy and potentially jeopardizing their life and livelihood. The law is being challenged as unconstitutional in court. In December, a temporary restraining order was placed on the law to keep it from going into effect until February 2010. Over the next several weeks, we must send a strong message that we won't let Oklahoma serve as a testing ground for extreme anti-choice legislation nationwide!” (Click here to help.)
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
Without the knowledge of Junie and Joanie, Sister Lubyanka Frozdick had developed personal armor against the Radium Gun.
Monday, January 04, 2010
THE EVIL OMEN OF TALL BUILDINGS
Superman may still be able to jump them in a single bound, but our pal Aeswiren – in honor of today’s opening of the Burj Dubai – has sent us this story about how they may be harbingers of economic disaster.
“Andrew Lawrence proposed the Skyscraper Index in the aftermath of the 1998 Asian Contagion. His theory says that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns. That is, countries that put up the world's tallest buildings enter an economic downturn shortly thereafter. There is a lot of evidence to back him up: 1907 panic in the U.S. was marked by the Singer Building; the Great Depression followed the Empire State Building; the Asian currency crisis of 1998 — the Petronas Twin Towers.
The world's tallest building at present is the Burj Dubai, which will officially open on January 4, 2010. As you know, real estate prices in Dubai have been cut in half and their biggest company, Dubai World, just defaulted on $50 billion. The next tallest building being built is The Shanghai Tower in China — expected to be 2,073 feet tall to be completed in 2014.” – From Energy And Capital Newsletter.
The secret word is Flawed
“Andrew Lawrence proposed the Skyscraper Index in the aftermath of the 1998 Asian Contagion. His theory says that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns. That is, countries that put up the world's tallest buildings enter an economic downturn shortly thereafter. There is a lot of evidence to back him up: 1907 panic in the U.S. was marked by the Singer Building; the Great Depression followed the Empire State Building; the Asian currency crisis of 1998 — the Petronas Twin Towers.
The world's tallest building at present is the Burj Dubai, which will officially open on January 4, 2010. As you know, real estate prices in Dubai have been cut in half and their biggest company, Dubai World, just defaulted on $50 billion. The next tallest building being built is The Shanghai Tower in China — expected to be 2,073 feet tall to be completed in 2014.” – From Energy And Capital Newsletter.
The secret word is Flawed
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOSKOPS?
A species of prehistoric super-intelligent hominids who, despite their superior brains, were unable to survive? HCB sent us this fascinating story.
“The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.” Boskops, then, were much talked and written about, by many of the most prominent figures in the fields of paleontology and anthropology. Yet today, although Neanderthals and Homo erectus are widely known, Boskops are almost entirely forgotten. Some of our ancestors are clearly inferior to us, with smaller brains and apelike countenances. They’re easy to make fun of and easy to accept as our precursors. In contrast, the very fact of an ancient ancestor like Boskop, who appears un-apelike and in fact in most ways seems to have had characteristics superior to ours, was destined never to be popular. Each of us balances the world that is actually out there against our mind’s own internally constructed version of it. Maintaining this balance is one of life’s daily challenges. We occasionally act on our imagined view of the world, sometimes thoroughly startling those around us. (“Why are you yelling at me? I wasn’t angry with you—you only thought I was.”) Our big brains give us such powers of extrapolation that we may extrapolate straight out of reality, into worlds that are possible but that never actually happened. Boskop’s greater brains and extended internal representations may have made it easier for them to accurately predict and interpret the world, to match their internal representations with real external events."
“The combination of a large cranium and immature face would look decidedly unusual to modern eyes, but not entirely unfamiliar. Such faces peer out from the covers of countless science fiction books and are often attached to “alien abductors” in movies. There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.” Boskops, then, were much talked and written about, by many of the most prominent figures in the fields of paleontology and anthropology. Yet today, although Neanderthals and Homo erectus are widely known, Boskops are almost entirely forgotten. Some of our ancestors are clearly inferior to us, with smaller brains and apelike countenances. They’re easy to make fun of and easy to accept as our precursors. In contrast, the very fact of an ancient ancestor like Boskop, who appears un-apelike and in fact in most ways seems to have had characteristics superior to ours, was destined never to be popular. Each of us balances the world that is actually out there against our mind’s own internally constructed version of it. Maintaining this balance is one of life’s daily challenges. We occasionally act on our imagined view of the world, sometimes thoroughly startling those around us. (“Why are you yelling at me? I wasn’t angry with you—you only thought I was.”) Our big brains give us such powers of extrapolation that we may extrapolate straight out of reality, into worlds that are possible but that never actually happened. Boskop’s greater brains and extended internal representations may have made it easier for them to accurately predict and interpret the world, to match their internal representations with real external events."
But we also may have a clue to their downfall...
"Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine.” (Click here for the whole thing.)
"Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine.” (Click here for the whole thing.)
Thursday, December 31, 2009
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL WHO ENTER HERE
The coming year and the coming decade are clearly going to be a challenge of the most major kind, and I suspect that many of us will be advancing into this temporal double whammy with at least a measure of grim determination, high on anxiety and short on frolic. But the madness of King George and his sinister acolytes is over, the planet still turns, and we can only move forward with hope and determination to salvage a better one out of the debris. I’m not sure how, and the only reason why is that we have no other alternative. All I know is that I will be following the time honored imperative of Mr. Natural and continuing to quest into the unknown, plying the old trade, singing the old songs, and hoping that the combination will inspire and made some small difference. Viddy well my droogs. We have nothing to lose but our pain. (Unless it’s our brains.) So, 2010, bring it on, you bastard!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
RADIATION
As I recover from whatever laid me low, the Dark Matter is back…
“Deep inside an abandoned iron mine in northern Minnesota, physicists may have spotted the clearest signal yet of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that is thought to make up 90 per cent of the mass of the universe. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) collaboration has announced that its experiment has seen tantalising glimpses of what could be dark matter. The CDMS-II experiment operates nearly three-quarters of a kilometre underground in the Soudan mine. It is looking for so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are thought to make up dark matter.
The experiment consists of five stacks of detectors. Each stack contains six ultra-pure crystals of germanium or silicon at a temperature of 40 millikelvin, a touch above absolute zero. These are designed to detect dark matter particles by looking at the energy released when a particle smashes into a nucleus of germanium or silicon.” Click here for more.
The secret word is Spooky
“Deep inside an abandoned iron mine in northern Minnesota, physicists may have spotted the clearest signal yet of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that is thought to make up 90 per cent of the mass of the universe. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) collaboration has announced that its experiment has seen tantalising glimpses of what could be dark matter. The CDMS-II experiment operates nearly three-quarters of a kilometre underground in the Soudan mine. It is looking for so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are thought to make up dark matter.
The experiment consists of five stacks of detectors. Each stack contains six ultra-pure crystals of germanium or silicon at a temperature of 40 millikelvin, a touch above absolute zero. These are designed to detect dark matter particles by looking at the energy released when a particle smashes into a nucleus of germanium or silicon.” Click here for more.
The secret word is Spooky
ROMANCE
The following food for cynicism comes from Delancey Place.
"In the terrain of the human heart, scientists tell us, at least three independent but interrelated brain systems are at play, all moving us in their own way. To untangle love's mysteries, neuroscience distinguishes between neural networks for attachment, for caregiving, and for sex. Each is fueled by a differing set of brain chemicals and hormones, and each runs through a disparate neuronal circuit. Each adds its own chemical spice to the many varieties of love. Attachment determines who we turn to for succor; these are the people we miss the most when they are absent. Caregiving gives us the urge to nurture the people for whom we feel most concern. When we are attached, we cling; when we are caregiving we provide. And sex is, well, sex. ... Neuroscientist Jaak Pansepp ... finds a neural corollary between the dynamics of opiate addiction and the dependence on the people for whom we feel our strongest attachments. All positive interactions with people, he proposes, owe [at least] part of their pleasure to the opioid system, the very circuitry that links with heroin and other addictive substances. ... Even animals, he finds, prefer to spend time with those in whose presence they have secreted oxytocin and natural opioids, which induce a relaxed serenity - suggesting that these brain chemicals cement our family ties and friendships as well as our love relationships." – from Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence
ROCK & ROLL
Elf Hellion sent me this highly complimentary link…
“One of the most influential bands of the English Underground were Mick Farren and the Deviants, it's what we listened to in bedsits and cellars in the converted Victorian houses in Erdington back then. Ok, it wasn't Ladbrook Grove or Notting Hill the epicentres of the London based anarchist underground movement of the mid-to-late 60s and the stomping ground of Mick Farren, this wasn't happening in 'Swinging London'. But it was plugged into a much wider network across Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and way beyond and it sets the tone for the late 1960s very well I think. Mick Farren was influential in the underground press and music scene in England during the 1960s writing regularly in International Times and other samizdat publications. As one of the first proto-punk bands Mick Farren and the Deviants were about ten years ahead of their time when they made their first album in 1967. To me this is what the 1960s were really about... the countercultures that existed in what was a revolutionary time and very exciting time to be young.” Click Here for more and also an interesting video for my old song “I Don’t Want To Go This Way”
“One of the most influential bands of the English Underground were Mick Farren and the Deviants, it's what we listened to in bedsits and cellars in the converted Victorian houses in Erdington back then. Ok, it wasn't Ladbrook Grove or Notting Hill the epicentres of the London based anarchist underground movement of the mid-to-late 60s and the stomping ground of Mick Farren, this wasn't happening in 'Swinging London'. But it was plugged into a much wider network across Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and way beyond and it sets the tone for the late 1960s very well I think. Mick Farren was influential in the underground press and music scene in England during the 1960s writing regularly in International Times and other samizdat publications. As one of the first proto-punk bands Mick Farren and the Deviants were about ten years ahead of their time when they made their first album in 1967. To me this is what the 1960s were really about... the countercultures that existed in what was a revolutionary time and very exciting time to be young.” Click Here for more and also an interesting video for my old song “I Don’t Want To Go This Way”
Monday, December 28, 2009
DOC40 IS RESTING
I seem to have gone down with some nasty but scarcely life-threatening virus. With luck all will be back to normal in a day or so.
Friday, December 25, 2009
IT'S YULE, FOOL
Doc40 hopes everyone has a roaring Yule!
The secret word is Light
The secret word is Light
(Thanks for the image, Iggy)
Monday, December 21, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
WHAT'S UP, DOC?
Round here we run a kind of ad hoc Doc Holliday Fan Club, and thus, when HCB sent over this news flash, I had to pause in my weekend labors to make it clear that any and every movie industry troll associated with any piece-of-shit Doc Holliday movie in 2010 will be under some seriously lethal shot-in-the-head-execution-style fatwa, okay?
"Paramount Pictures has picked up a spec script titled The Further Adventures of Doc Holliday, which they hope to turn into a summer tentpole, according to Variety. The spec was written by Chad St. John, who does not currently have any titles, but his name has been attached to Warner Bros. remake of the Sean Connery film Outland and his script The Days Before ranked as the 10th best unproduced screenplay on this year's Black List. While I would be ecstatic to see a genre so important to the history of film return, I'm not happy that it may come as the result of a Lorenzo di Bonaventura production. The whole thing reeks of Wild Wild West and that's a vomit-worthy smell. And while westerns may only come every now and then these days, the best possible Doc Holliday was already done by in Tombstone, and there is no way to top that.” (Not to mention Kirk Douglas, Dennis Quaid, Stacey Keach, and Victor Mature.) Click here for more.
The secret word is Warned
Friday, December 18, 2009
WHO NEEDS THE EGG? (A temporary reduction in service?)
Doc40 may prove a bit sparse this weekend. I have a major project to finish, plus the Yuletide disconnects are starting to kick in. Regular readers may recall that, back in April, I participated in something called Hawkfest at the Hollywood Knitting Factory. (Now closed as a sign of the times.) There’s now a clip up on YouTube with the usual dire camcorder sound. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, except it was around 1.30 am, everything was running a couple of hours late which had caused me to consume more Jack Daniels than I had originally intended. This in turn, made getting Sonic Attack under way resemble herding cats, but at least I was standing, and had to good sense to both abandon the script, and exit the stage before the lady in white started skipping about. Click here if you want to relive the confusion.
The secret word is Labor
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ALASKA FALLS INTO SEA
Klondike Barbie salutes the receding Alaskan coastline. “Isn’t Russia getting further away, by golly?”
(Image lifted from Dangerous Minds.)
(Image lifted from Dangerous Minds.)
A study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder shows that a substantial piece of the northern Alaska coastline is eroding at an astonishing rate of 45 feet a year thanks to three major threats - less ice, more waves, and warmer water. In other words, climate change is eating away at Alaska, and fast.
"The conditions have led to the steady retreat of 30 to 45 feet a year of the 12-foot-high bluffs -- frozen blocks of silt and peat containing 50 to 80 percent ice -- which are toppled into the Beaufort Sea during the summer months by a combination of large waves pounding the shoreline and warm seawater melting the base of the bluffs, said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Robert Anderson, a co-author on the study. Once the blocks have fallen, the coastal seawater melts them in a matter of days, sweeping the silty material out to sea." (Click here for the whole story and a time lapse video.)
Meanwhile UN climate negotiations become more and more chaotic…
COPENHAGEN - Fed up with the lack of progress in the climate negotiations, campaigners marched on the Bella Centre. NGOs at the negotiations staged a walkout to connect with civil society outside, but police violently broke up this ‘people's assembly' and arrested the ringleaders. (Click here for more)
The secret word is Moose
The secret word is Moose
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER
Important news comes from the world of Victorian literature.
"What would Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland be without the Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess's baby or the Mad Hatter's tea party? Look at the original story that the author told Alice Liddell and her two sisters one day during a boat trip near Oxford, though, and you'll find that these famous characters and scenes are missing from the text. As I embarked on my DPhil investigating Victorian literature, I wanted to know what inspired these later additions. The critical literature focused mainly on Freudian interpretations of the book as a wild descent into the dark world of the subconscious. There was no detailed analysis of the added scenes, but from the mass of literary papers, one stood out: in 1984 Helema Pycior of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had linked the trial of the Knave of Hearts with a Victorian book on algebra. Given the author's day job, it was somewhat surprising to find few other reviews of his work from a mathematical perspective. Carroll was a pseudonym: his real name was Charles Dodgson, and he was a mathematician at Christ Church College, Oxford." A virus problem seems to have occured on the link. See Comments.
"What would Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland be without the Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess's baby or the Mad Hatter's tea party? Look at the original story that the author told Alice Liddell and her two sisters one day during a boat trip near Oxford, though, and you'll find that these famous characters and scenes are missing from the text. As I embarked on my DPhil investigating Victorian literature, I wanted to know what inspired these later additions. The critical literature focused mainly on Freudian interpretations of the book as a wild descent into the dark world of the subconscious. There was no detailed analysis of the added scenes, but from the mass of literary papers, one stood out: in 1984 Helema Pycior of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had linked the trial of the Knave of Hearts with a Victorian book on algebra. Given the author's day job, it was somewhat surprising to find few other reviews of his work from a mathematical perspective. Carroll was a pseudonym: his real name was Charles Dodgson, and he was a mathematician at Christ Church College, Oxford." A virus problem seems to have occured on the link. See Comments.
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