hard to remember the last time...

It's NFL early Christmas today, with the floundering Green Bay Packers coming to Soldier Field to take on the FIRST-PLACE Chicago Bears.

Source: sportsmockery.com

It's a marquee, albeit noon, game - it's a rematch of Week 1, where the Bears owned the first half and then collapsed under an epic Aaron Rodgers comeback.  During the final few minutes of that game, shane and i were texting that the Bears were only going to get better, and this week nearer the end of the season would be a damn tough game for the Packers.  Now, Shane is a full-throated Packer fan who was in part being kind to a friend during an embarrassing defeat, but i think he had a glimmer of what might be in front of him as a Packer fan.

3+ months later and the landscape has changed quite a lot.  The Bears enter 6-point favorites, and even with that, the strangest thing about this game is that Bears fans, myself included, feel fairly confident that we are the much better team playing this game today.  It doesn't mean we can't lose, but it does mean we will probably win, and should all things being equal win convincingly.

The question then arises, how best to watch such an epic match-up.  There are a plethora of mostly Packer-slanted events across Milwaukee.  You could go to:

• The Cactus Club and see the cover band Green Day Packers
• You can happily watch the game at every bar in Milwaukee, to be sure, but here are some of the best spots...
• The exception might be the local best soccer bar, which on Sundays becomes the High-Bear-y Pub

But no, for me, and a game this big, i need to be in my home, on my couch - i may text the outside world on occasion, but the emotion of this game day is my own and my highs or lows that may be to come over the next few hours need to be my own.  I don't want to gloat (or be gloated upon).  Although i appreciate the collective fandom experience, and think it's an important part of modern life that we mostly miss out on and it makes us all the worse (so says one of my favorite books!).

Enjoy the game everyone... for once, i feel pretty good about it and i'll see you all in late January for discussion of any snark and commentary!

Bwah-ctober!

I'm not entirely sure what this post will entail, but as it's the first of the fright month, and I'm watching Alien: The Director's Cut, I might try to make a log of a month in the mostly horrific life of Joel.

That's not to say, necessarily, that my life is a horror, rather I would like to catalog what goes on in daily life, and also what muahCtober has in store this time around...


Monday, October 1

I rode a car and a train today to get to Wrigley Field - a previous site of horror if ever you had to go to the Men's Rooms (troughs still abound today, but they're more a novelty and not the required order of going these days).  The Brewers won first place in the NL Central, and have a break until Thursday.

I watched the last 2/3rds of Alien: The Director's Cut tonight on my return after selling a craigslist couch in the rain.  I've subsequently learned that the director's cut is the less-preferred version of the movie for Ridley Scott, but it was my first time seeing it, so sorta slightly interesting.


Tuesday, October 2

I returned to work a (sorta, not really) hero having played hooky yesterday to help the Brewer's win yesterday at Wrigley!  Now watching ESPN coverage of the next game at Wrigley - the NL Wild Card Game between the Rockies and the Cubs (which is starting to turn a bit horrific with a lot of breaks going the Cubs' way and tying up the game in the bottom of the 8th).
And another very strange break in the 11th where Javy Baez hugged a 3rd baseman possibly planning to make a play as he ran and stopped on his way to 3rd.

Still more baseball to come it seems... I hope they play 24 innings and finish around 4am before making their way North to Milwaukee for Thursday's game.  In the changeovers I am going to watch Ouija: Origin of Evil, which i expect will be really good...
and it's a prequel!, evidently.  Oy I may be in for a rough night.

As it turns out, Ouija  is a clumsy but effective movie...  I will have nightmares tonight, but if i were less susceptible, it would seem outrageous.


Wednesday, October 3

The "horror" of today was (what seems to me anyway) an obscure late-80s movie starring Paul Newman and John Cusack: Fat Man and Little Boy.  I also read "The Cottage of Lost Play" from The Book of Lost Tales Part One.

The night itself was haunting - it was 80 degrees outside in October, and the wind howled all through the night.  We opened the windows and our house was like a wind tunnel.  Later in the night, some of the windows we closed, and then the doors (none of which quite latch) opened and closed throughout the night, causing me nightmares and waking starts and shadowy visions (btw i'm afraid of the dark, so there's that).


Thursday, October 4

Watched most of the Brewers game at SC Nomad, and then Bob Uecker drove me home to watch the 9th (which is starting to turn into a bit of a nightmare...).


Friday, October 5

And so the Brewers go up 2-0 in the NLDS.  We watched the heart of the game at Jalapeno Loco (which is the best Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee, near as I can tell).

Watched some of the other playoff games, but also, mostly, watched Dracula (1979) - a Frank Langella vehicle, I guess?


Saturday, October 6

Played a steampunk adventure of the Oz Squad with the BRP System.  Scarecrow, Tin-Man, Lion, Dorothy & Toto (I played Dorothy, natch) traversed the Enchanted Forest to find the tomb of the Wicked Witch of the West, and bring her broom back to the Emerald City.


Sunday, October 7

Brewers sweep the NLDS over the Rockies after Liverpool manages a 0-0 draw with Manchester City.  Then, The Walking Dead, Season 9 premiers.


Monday, October 8

Doctor Day!  I've never watched a full season of Doctor Who, though I've seen plenty of episodes.  The first episode of Series 11 (2018) premiered last night with Jodie Whittaker playing the 13th Doctor.

On a parallel track, I've been watching Season 14 (1976-7) with the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker).  Since The Doctor travels through time and space, it seems to me fairly arbitrary what order to experience the seasons in...


Tuesday, October 9

Watching the 2017 reboot of Flatliners.  The main difference clear in the new version is that they waste a lot less time assigning immediate motivations to everyone and every aspect.  And everything scaring the shit out of everyone all the time... like non-stop once it gets going.  Just piling on of creepiness on top of sudden jolts on top of grief horror.


Sunday, October 21

Watched a bit of Luke Cage, and listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Show 60 - The Celtic Holocaust and on the plane, Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow.


Monday, October 22

I downloaded Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery on iPhone after vegging out to some SlasherFest on AMC and watching the 2009 Friday the 13th sequel/reboot and parts of Wes Craven's New Nightmare.


Tuesday, October 23

I finished Luke Cage, Season 1 while waiting for a plane at La Guardia en route home from White Plains, New York.


Wednesday, October 24

Eli Roth's History of Horror has made its way through three episodes and two monster types - zombies (ep. 1) and slashers (eps. 2 & 3).  I finished up episode 2 today and am digging into #3, with some interest.


Saturday, October 27

Continued watching The Haunting of Hill House and the Harry Potter game after watching Liverpool dominate and getting ESPN Gamecast updates that Nottingham Forest were totally robbed, but got a positive result at Leeds.


Sunday, October 28

Watched a dominant Bear's victory over a bad team.  Looks like they're moving back into first place as I also switched back and forth between some more Classic Doctor Who and 1/5th of the Super Sports Equinox, where the Packers lost.  The Vikes may still have something to say about that first place finish today, and i'm watching some of that whilst also watching the newest episode featuring The Thirteenth Doctor.

And it was a The Walking Dead evening...

This Space Reserved

A planned post on tribalism, narrative and politics is coming here...

(feel free to comment in advance and provide fodder!)

So It Goes

It's with a heavy heart that we said goodbye to our dear friend, Rex Grossman, this week.

Eleven and a half years ago, Rex entered our newly married lives in Omaha, Nebraska.  I feel sure that i remember that Rex was born on a farm in Council Bluffs, Iowa (Brooke thinks it was in Nebraska) on the 27th of November 2006.

He survived orthopedic surgery on his right foreleg in his first year of life and moved to Milwaukee, coincidentally, when we did in the summer of 2007.

Rex was a ridiculously good looking dog.  In his early years, he would literally stop traffic, with drivers pulling over and getting out of their cars to meet him and ask what kind of dog he was (Beagle / Boston Terrier aka a Boglin Terrier).  Rex enjoyed riding in cars - when those people stopped he often seemed to think they were there to get him and he would try to jump into their cars.  (This was also often our method for catching Rex when he was still a runner and we'd have to flag down strangers and ask them to open their car door to coax him in and allow us to recapture him).  In so many ways Rex's stay with us seemed like a temporary, fleeting thing and he seemed to think that he was soon to be on to something else - to his next big thing.

In subsequent years, Rex became acquainted with Doctor Singh, whose summer cabin i expect we largely funded.  Rex survived a toy-induced blockage surgery, mysterious intestinal strangulation (possibly caused by an allergic reaction to avocados), death by chocolate when he ate Grandpa's Christmas gift from under the tree, an eventually explicable summer of malaise in 2013 (caused by a toothpick that had lodged itself under his skin for several months), and finally a prostate cancer diagnosis in September of 2017.

Reading this list of historical woes that Rex went through, it probably seems we were bad human caretakers for a pet.  We weren't, but things often seem other than they are.  Rex often seemed like a bad dog... screaming and crying loudly anytime we were in public (or in a car).  Pulling incessantly on walks.  Reliably emptying out the bathroom garbage can if ever we left the house and forgot to put it on the toilet seat.  Rex often seemed to sullenly slink away upstairs to lie under the bed when we were home.  He generally shied away from hugs and kisses.  But all of this, i think, was a complex psychological game that Rex was playing, because, vorallerdings, Rex was a genius dog.  A jock who loved playing ball more than life itself and a prototypical 'bad boy', but very self aware (a high IQ and high EQ, as it were).

Rex had a deep and abiding love of Harley Davidson motorcycles - he would sit and watch as one rode by if we were on a walk, or look out the window as one passed us on the highway.  We're pretty sure that Rex was a tough biker dude who had been reincarnated as a cute little puppy dog as karmic payback for a tough life knocking peoples skulls together.  For certain, this life wasn't Rex's first go round.  He was an old soul, and wise beyond his years.

Rex Grossman was a good dog... the best of dogs.  He was our dear friend.  We often called him "our lodger", because he seemed more like a stranger who had come to stay with us than a family member (that's why he had his own last name!).  He became a part of our pack and we a part of his. 

We will miss him, and will howl at the moon for a good long while in his honor.  Aooooo!

another look

Source: Heroic Hollywood

With the upcoming release of Solo: A Star Wars Story this month, I thought it was time to re-watch the full series, episodes 1 - 8, plus 3.9 (Rogue One) and, I'm guessing, 3.5 (Solo), and rank them for your edification.

Note, i'm publishing as i watch, so prior to the new movie, the first three episodes are going to be ranked top three - because i'm ranking them relationally.  A movie will only get ranked #1 if it is better than the one watched just before it...

Episode I: The Phantom Menace - 1999 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #10
(5/13/2018)

While Jar Jar Binks remains one of the most unfortunate characters in the sci-fi pantheon, and he occupies altogether too much screen time in this film, this movie suffered from unfair expectations when it was first released.  It had been 15 years since Return of the Jedi, and now we were only going to get back story - what had happened before. 

The Pod Race is, perhaps, the best action sequence in all of the Star Wars series.  (I think this is true, but will monitor for any alternatives as I watch through the series again).  This is the first view we get in all of Star Wars of Coruscant. 

The light saber battle with Darth Maul also has to be the greatest sword-fight of the series, n'est-ce pas?  The theatrics and the choreography are worthy of Oscar consideration if that sort of thing were awarded.  Our former (or soon to be) mentor, Obi-Wan is the hot-headed upstart who is over-eager to end Darth Maul after Qui-Gon Jinn is ended himself.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones - 2002 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #3
(5/23/2018)

The second episodes always seems to go dark, but in this first trilogy, it's more of a balanced affair. At a most basic level, Episode II had a lot of work to do that is put upon prequels: creating a love affair that creates Luke & Leia; setting up a Clone War; showing the start of someone 'turning to the dark side'; providing context for the resentment that Luke experiences in Episode IV regarding his father and high-falutin' space-faring... 

There was a recent review (in fact on May the 4th, 2018), which I cannot find, that looked back at Episode II with newfound fondness, and I'm inclined to agree.  Although there is clumsiness here - heartfelt emotion has always been a bit beyond the series, but let's not forget we're dealing with an action adventure here, folks...

While the action sequences are inferior to Episode I, this is a better movie.  Seeing Jedi in action, "on the case" as it were, both in the heat of pursuit and with Obi Wan bluffing his way on Kamino, is a joy of seeing life in Star Wars before everything feel apart.  That Kamino sequence is actually quite marvelous, and introduces us in a very new way to the storm troopers.  In The Clone Wars cartoons (which I will skip here), we get to know them even more, which makes the fall in Episode III and moving into IV all the more painful.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - 2005 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #9
(5/27/2018)

This movie would make a lot more sense if one has watched The Clone Wars series. The motivations, and how we find ourselves in the midst of this all. Overall, this is not a great film, but once again it performs a lot of necessary work.  The revenge in the title definitely implies that things will go poorly for our friends...

The temptation of the dark side has been, for most of the movie series, a bit obscure.  Love and commitment lead pain.  Pain leads to suffering.  Suffering leads to the dark side (i may have skipped {or invented} some steps there).  Once again, though, The Clone Wars cartoon offers another alternative path at least away from the Jedi way (if not directly to the Dark Side).  Ahsoka Tano, one of the most interesting characters in TCW, studies as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan learner.  Before the end of the series (and therefore the beginning of Episode III) Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order to seek a better balance.  

Episode III is not a great film, but it does some of its parts well enough.  I would say that it's a full step above Episode I, because Jar Jar Binks does not speak.  But it's also some fine high drama.  I think the film helps us feel the pain and tragedy of Anakin's betrayal.  It also shows some great battles, but also the great Star Wars Universe moments of Order 66, meeting Chewbacca, (but most awfully) seeing Anakin fall and ultimately murder.  

Solo: A Star Wars Story (Episode 3.25) - 2018 (dir. Ron Howard) - Rank #7
(5/30/2018)

It is very difficult to rank (at least this) Star Wars Story alongside the other episodes. Similar to the prequel episodes, there is a lot of nostalgia that factors in to the viewing joy of this film. However, at its core, this movie is a heist picture and it seems fairly successful at that... (except it has a few too many heists).  If this were Solo: The Kessel Run (aka Solo's Eleven) instead of a Star Wars Story, the structure of the film would've been allowed to be 1) get a gang together (and meet the characters as they meet each other); 2) plan the job (and learn everyone's individual motivations as the plan comes together); 3) do the job (and watch as it all seems to be falling apart, but then comes together in the end). 

This movie has a lot of filling in the blanks work to do as well as we have seen in the first three episodes. EW had a cover story that focused on the birth of the most important friendship in all of Star Wars (the shower scene is very hilarious and perfect), and a lot of post-release commentary has been about the fan-bits that they got right and wrong (how neat that they made it work that making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs ISN'T just a dumb writing mistake from the '70s!).

 In the end, this movie has a lot of heart - it's just not where we expect to find it.  Much has been made of the less than plausible love affair between Han and Kira, but it seems to me that it's just one in a series of several formative loves (perhaps even four loves, as Sarah Welch partially posits in a neat post on a site called thinkChristian).  What Welch misses (or skips) is the pushing back on C.S. Lewis' ideas about love.  Solo, I think, argues that friendship - the relationship of Han and Chewie - is the greatest and most important bond in life (and that idea bears out in the course of the rest of the episodes).

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Episode 3.95) - 2016 (dir. Gareth Edwards) - Rank #8
(7/15/2018)

Although this movie starts out as a bit of a disjointed mess... it feels a bit like they expect you've watched The Clone Wars with all of the planet hopping... in the end, this episode (or sub-episode) holds up quite well. Particularly impressive is that they have managed to tell a story that every viewer already knows the end, and yet make it suspenseful.

It's a tough story to hear - a lot of sacrifice.  By the end, almost anyone we've decided to care about in the course of the film will be dead. We already know this going in - because of one throwaway line in Episode IV.  But watching it unfold is exciting - it's dramatic.

Even more enjoyable is watching the end of this movie, and immediately starting Episode IV.  The drive of A New Hope has never felt so real or logical as when you've watched the last ditch effort of Rogue One.  Until I rewatched this episode, I was not expecting to rank it as high as I did...  but it's an incredible lesson in fulfilled expectations.  

Episode IV: A New Hope - 1977 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #5
(7/31/2018)

Such a classic, and difficult to rank, because I've seen it so many times... The movie has it's weak points, which have often been enumerated (by me and everyone). But it's also wonderfully paced adventure movie. It's not the break-neck pace of modern sci-fi or adventure flicks, but it does feel, at times, jam packed.  Always already on to the next thing.

This is, in large part, because the original trilogy is written to be and structured to be so mythological. (See Joseph Campbell). Meeting our familiar friends (and by this i mean of course in this viewing!) is such a joy. Obi Wan got old! And quick!.  And young Han Solo is all grown up. It's a new look at an old friend when you've watched so recently the origin story, where he was a padawan gangster... Now he is just as cocky and self-assured as he was when he was young, but he wears it better. I guess Luke, too... we saw him as a wee baby at the end of Episode III, and here he is as a whiny adolescent!  (Oh, and Uncle Owen and his wife Beru!)

Episode IV started all of this first and foremost because it is a well made movie. It's got iconic characters who we will come to love and care about.  The storyboard for the movie is almost simplistic, but especially when you watch this film after Rogue One, some of the absurdities evaporate.  Why would the Empire build an ultimate weapon that has such an exploitable weakness?  It was an inside job by the rebels!  Well done Rebels!  Looks like everything is going to turn out just fine for you :)

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back - 1980 (dir. Irvin Kershner) - Rank #1
(8/30/2018)

This is the most complex of the Star Wars movies... It hurts seeing our dear friends suffer, but suffering (along with leading to the dark side) helps us better understand ourselves - and by extension, our characters. The movie stretches far, and it's hard to place on a calendar. How long have these folks known each other once they find themselves on Hoth?  There's a canon answer to that now, I suppose, but at this point it's hard to know.

The family and friendship development takes leaps and bounds in this installment. At the start, Han & Leia are still feeling the childish antics, but by ACT IV, they're ready to say they love each other (to each other). We met the characters in Episode IV (or III or III.25, I suppose), but here is where we really get to know them and love them and learn them. While i think this movie stands strongly as the best of the whole series on the merits of plot and story and all, it's probably universally seen as the best Star Wars movie because it's the one where we really get to know everyone. In love and movies and novels - what we really love is the learning. Meeting new people - learning them - getting to know someone - the exploration, that's what we grasp on to.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi - 1983 (dir. Richard Marquand) - Rank #4
(9/28/2018)

I think whenever I actually watch Return of the Jedi, I am surprised by the extent to which I not only like it, but think it is a strong contender amongst the top tier of episodes. I'm actually a little torn as i watch this as to whether it ranks above or below A New Hope. This is all said with one large caveat - I know, Ewoks! While i was of the age to be able to enjoy the Saturday morning cartoon (which was awesome by the way), I do now know - and to some extent have always known - that the Ewoks were Jar Jar before there was Jar Jar.

All this is true, but the tri-level battle at the end of the film has to be the best cinematic in the entire series. You've got the papa drama of Luke and Vader in a tiff that they resolve through their mutual eventual hatred of The Emperor (aka Mom), the massive "it's a trap!" space battle where we ultimately learn yeehaw is an innate human expression, and the sorta silly Ewok battle for Endor. 

Know first, that what follows is NOT an apology for Ewoks... 

...that said, the Ewoks represent a small part of the full mosaic that is needed to bring down an empire.  In an era where we have so much tribalism (more on this later), it is easy to forget the interconnection necessary between those tribes to accomplish anything.  The Rebels need help - the Jedi are all but gone, hope is nearly lost, and Endor is under occupation.  Guerrilla war is, fought by natives not only protecting their land, but also fighting for the greater good, is no small thing.  Plus they're just so adorable!

Episode VII: The Force Awakens - 2015 (dir. J.J. Abrams) - Rank #6
(10/11/2018)

It was only 16 years (only seems like a strange word here, but it's actually quite apt) between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. The wait for this next trilogy to start was only 10 years, and the span between each episode will now be filled by middle episodes (3.9, 3.25, etc.). My hope is that we can someday see some episodes that occur between other episodes (6.5!?, 0.025!!??)

The Force Awakens is a joy, because it continues the story of long-lost friends, and introduces us to a new generation.  It's also a sort of ridiculous echo - The Empire, re-organized into The First Order has created another, newer, bigger planet-killing weapon.  

The film ranks as high as it does, because it's a blast - accidentally re-discovering the Millennium Falcon because the ship of choice in the junk yard gets obliterated; Maz Kanata!, in jokes, BB-8, and the death of Han Solo.  The film ranks as low as it does, because it is first and foremost, a preamble.  The heft isn't there, except in Han's death.  It's a good movie, but the epic part is ahead.

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - 2017 (dir. Rian Johnson) - Rank #2
(11/17/2018)

This is a fun and funny ride toward the end of the Skywalker Era in the galaxy. The movie is epic in scale, but playful and modest in tone. It's a valuable lesson, to not take history-making and iconoclasm too seriously - particularly from the inside). The movie opens with a cute "can you hear me now" bit between General Hux and Poe and ends with the implication of the rising of an entire new generation of force users.  Between those two moments, the foundation of (let's say, hypothetically, 2) thousand year-old religion burns in a fire started by it's two greatest proponents: Luke Skywalker and Yoda.

The Last Jedi is a riddle - in English it feels like it refers to either Skywalker or Rey. Once we learned the title in German - Die Letzten Jedi - it became clear that there are many more than one last Jedi.  Also clear is that what was the Jedi religion (the light side of the Force) will be different - or differently interpreted - in this new era.  No longer dogmatic.  The question is whether this burning of the old books and the (new to me) magic tree represents: 1) the Reformation or 2) the Enlightenment or Age of Reason.

Neither of these historical moments has quite lived up to it's promise in our own galaxy, but the former in the Star Wars Universe would mean that Force adept folks can interpret and experience the Force in their own ways (think Chirrut Îmwe from Rogue One.)  The latter may mean that the Galaxy is ready to be done allowing faith leaders (light side or dark side) to dominate their politics.  This latest installment of Star Wars is so great, because it finishes the mythology of the Skywalker Era and starts to show us some truer stories of our own galaxy and everyday heroes.

And sure... this list doesn't need to be final - there are plenty more - but to my mind, this is the one to keep on file for the long run...

Game, Seth, Match

I watched the surprisingly fun The Mummy reboot (or sequel?, i couldn't quite tell...).  It was pretty immediately forgettable, but harmless.  I'm surprised to read that it was so actively hated (except perhaps because it stars Tom Cruise).

Most notable to me was the inclusion of Set (or Seth) as a major player.  Seth was nearly my first name, I'm told - being my father's preference. 

Names have always been of interest to me.  Ever since I read A Wizard of Earthsea, and contemplated the importance of the true name of a thing (or being or person).  In the world of Earthsea, knowing a true name gives you the power over a thing. 

When i was young, i was disappointed in my middle name, Seth...  I kept it a secret when i could (in the reasonless way that kids tend to do).  Joel was a handle I was proud of - rare enough so i only knew a few of them.  It was biblical, meaning "Yaweh is God" (Jo-el), and had a short, simple, and somewhat interesting prophet narrative in there beside Amos.  Seth, on the other hand, was born - seemed like a replacement for his dead brother.  Other than a whole lot of begetting, which led to Noah, his role seemed pretty insignificant in life.

But then i learned that Seth was also Set - Egyptian, exotic... and he was a god of chaos, perhaps not of mischief, but he seems like he would probably get on well with Vodou's Gede (i didn't necessarily know all that when i first learned who my namesake could be).  

whosiwhatsnow?

Seven years ago today, i was hoping to make a bit of a difference.

The election and the political climate was a mess.

source: www.meteoweb.eu

It's odd today on the eve of the upcoming election that there is not much to say - vote for Rebecca Dallet - but in 2011, we were in a different and scary moment in Wisconsin... and in America.

Rounders is playing in the background right now - and that movie is a conglomeration of poker cliche's.  But it's also a movie about bottoming out.

It's a bit like the moment of your life when you realize it all hasn't been set up for you (apologies for those of you who haven't realized this yet).

Edward Norton is the finest actor of his age...  He's so good - and it's lovely to see him do most everything.  Win and sometimes lose at cards... Get hit by tanks because he's the secret Hulk...  realize he's not friends with the coolest guy in the room,,, but instead he IS that guy!

It's a Rob Roy situation, and a maddening life swatch kinda situation... 

Ready for Ready

It started with my damn Apple news feed...  An article about Ready Player One, that i did not need to read.  But, it had the promise of classic 80s video games online.

Source: Polygon.com

I do not love the algorithms that know what we will want to read, and present it to us.  I have read (and watched) this all before.  Dystopias come in many shapes and sizes - but a lot of them rhyme.

I knew as soon as it came out, of course, that Ready Player One was going to be a book (and then a movie!) for me.  It's in my lane, but i resisted.  In part, because Vernor Vinge's exceptional book Rainbows End felt like it was being ripped off (at least in the descriptions i heard of Cline's book).

With the premiere of Spielberg's movie fast approaching, i recalled while playing a couple of (dozen) rounds of Joust that i had downloaded the audiobook of Ready Player One (narrated by Wil Wheaton!) a while back during one of my stints of Audible membership.  I knew that if i didn't listen to it before the movie premiere, i would likely never read the book.

And so i dove in a few nights ago... and i am HOOKED.  The geek culture made relevant, and powerful.  It's so good - not great, but tons of fun, and referential.  I've finished a third of the novel - i love the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey nod, and feel like i may finish the rest in not too many days. 

And then will probably just go straight out and see the movie as soon as it's out too... because because.

Mike Judge - Prophet

Two of the more brilliant films of all time in my life have been Office Space and Idiocracy. 

The two films anticipated life on earth as i have come to know it... in many ways.
We all suffer the times that we are born into.  Gandalf, perhaps, said it best, when he explained to Frodo:

Frodo: "I wish the Ring had never come to me. ... Gandalf: "So do all who live to se

Source: https://ktismatics.wordpress.com

e such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Judge's films imagine eras that seem so familiar, but were both (in their way) revelatory of a future state that we all knew was coming but didn't want to believe. 

I am a man of odd emotional effusions.  Shiva's death on TWD in many ways was in many was sadder than those of the rest of the Kingdom earlier in the episode.  I can't watch or hear any part of Emma Gonzalez' speech last week without crying.  Deep Impact, ID4, Jurassic Park - action movies often work to elicit lame emotional responses (or pile ons), and i am afraid i'm often susceptible to them.  Real or simulated, pop song or news broadcast or Hallmark movie...

Humor, like melodrama / sob stories, are emotional manipulators.  A comedy film allows itself to make extreme arguments without being scrutinized.  In Con Air, Steve Buscemi's serial killer character says that even though he is seen as the crazy one, his definition of insanity is reporting to the same job for 40 years only to be told one Friday that you're redundant, being let go, and left to flounder.  Office Space makes much the same argument.

Idiocracy is a movie that makes the argument that US Americans are de-evolving.  Becoming stupider due to a decades-long anti-eugenics program.  It's essentially Republicanism run amok.  The Trump presidency looks a lot like 2 or 3 administrations prior to President Camacho.  Idiocracy was a funny movie when it came out - and prescient.  It felt right, but now it feels like it's actually unfolding in front of our eyes.

Comedy is an opportunity to say out loud - to scream!!! - everything that you see that is wrong with the world.  When i saw Ricky Gervais a while back, he talked about growing up in a funny family (i, too, was raised in a funny family).  He said there was one rule when he was growing up... that was, "if you think of something funny to say, you must say it."

John Cusack - AIROAPG

I went last night to see Say Anything in a public venue with (i'm gonna say...) 1000 (300?, i'm really bad at estimating) people.  I've never been one to choose favorites, but the oeuvre of John Cusack's is something worth celebrating.  It doesn't mean that everything he's in or has made is amazing, or even great or even good...

JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening.  Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join.  Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making.  JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.

We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low.  JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment.  The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.

The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition.  If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting.  Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?

And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG.  For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz.  In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack.  I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.

... part of the background

Multiverse theory has been a part of science fiction literature for a long time.  It's part of my underlying philosophy, and, as an amateur theoretical physicist, it is the core of my understanding of the world.

I know "amateur theoretical physicist" isn't a thing as we ordinarily think of things.  Marshall McLuhan (and Robert Oppenheimer) knew that our obsession with specialization and expertise would be our undoing.  As leading experts in each and every field refine their skill and knowledge, their focus sharpens and their view tightens. An entire flowchestra of new ideas and different thinking is lost in this honing. And capitalism pours gasoline on the spreading conflagration of narrowing knowledge.

And so it is that I am an amateur theoretical physicist. As such, I have created a theory of the universe, and in particular, of dark matter, which has yet (to my knowledge) to have been disproven. I devised this theory in the late 1990s, wrote it down on a scrap of notebook paper, and promptly lost that piece of paper – but the theory goes something like this:

We live in a multi-dimensional universe. Sharing our same space are other us-es and more of what is ours and on which we stand, it’s simply not perceivable to us because we are ‘out of phase’ with it in some fundamental way. (This phasic concept is something articulated well in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it’s not anything that I’m beholden to with regard to this theory).

Source: www.bnox.be

These neighboring universes may well be the product of probability (i.e. each time Schrödinger’s Cat is dead, it’s also alive in the universe right next door). If this is true, then these multiverse are also the product of choice – that is, when I turn left I also turn right and the two near twins split ways. As you continue down that rabbit-hole, all possible (and perhaps impossible?) worlds exist.

It’s also plausible that these neighboring universes are (perhaps also) a copy of our own, but at a different moment in time (this was the theory of that short-lived Terra Nova show, that stepping into the faraway past was not moving back in time in one's own universe, rather it was stepping into a parallel universe, which was existing at that long-ago moment).

Regardless of the makeup of all of these alternate realities, my theory is essentially that all of the matter and energy that makes up all of 'those universes' is perceived (though not seen or felt) as dark matter and dark energy in our own familiar world. The vast amounts of stuff in all the infinities of the multiverse outweighs the somewhat less vast (but not insignificant) amounts of the dark stuff in our universe.  It's 'dark' because our ability to perceive through the veil between universes is virtually non-existent.  The vastness of the amounts of it all gives us the glimpse we have. 

I account for this theory because it is an important part of my background noise.  My purpose in setting out today, though, was to investigate to what extent multiverse theory has become a part of most everyone's background radiation.

Not so long ago, any voicing of serious statements regarding an alternate reality was met with glances toward the wings (expecting madman collectors with those big sticks with hoops on the end to enter, naturally).  Of course still today, it's a scoffed at science, but the conversation can be entered speculatively.

More than any other response, I find that after a bit of mental drubbing - people eventually come to a point with regard to alternate realities where they say, essentially, "well, if they're inaccessible and can't be observed in any way, what difference does it make whether they're real or not?" 

I find this question both conclusive and inconceivable.  Scientifically, asking a question that may not be able to be answered (because it can't be tested, investigated, or observed) is an empty exercise.  Philosophically, cosmologically, theoretically, spiritually, psychologically, and in most other ways I think any interesting question is worth asking.  Particular when that question is central to the nature of our existence.