Starring George C Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens and Peter Sellers in multiple roles, Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War bleak satire—previously—Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. An air command’s executive officer tries to countermand a first strike being ordered by General Ripper on the pretext that Soviets have been fluoridating US water supplies in order to dilute the “precious bodily fluids” of Americans but fails, setting off a course of events that led to the USSR deploying its heretofore undisclosed doomsday machine, which as the president’s science advisor, ex-German Nazi Dr Strangelove would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it.
Sunday, 29 January 2023
gentlemen—there’s no fighting in the war room (10. 508)
Friday, 9 December 2022
fantasy films (10. 375)
Via Web Curios, we are directed to curated selection of more AI film stills—projects where cinema buffs working with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion labs ask their collaborators to especially conjure up The Little Mermaid but directed by Michael Mann. This montage takes us behind the scenes as well as imagining Star Wars, the Star Killer Dynasty through the filters of Fritz Lang and Stanley Kubrick. Much more, including the expanded concept treatments, at the links above.
Tuesday, 4 October 2022
7x7 (10. 195)
also sprach zarathustra: Raquel Welch dances to a disco-funk version of the Strauss classic
information overload: a survey of pictorial statistics’ evolution to the infographic

this lady is for turning: after precipitating markets instability and provoking decent from within the party, the Prime Minister and Chancellor walk back unfunded tax cuts for the rich
fancy dress party: Jane Asher’s book of costumes
search engine: glean answers to queries from passages in literature, conversation rather than Google Search—via Swiss Miss
phone a friend: 1-900 hotlines in the United States
daisy, daisy—give me your answer, do: witnessing a demonstration of the IBM 704 in 1961 inspired Arthur C Clarke
Monday, 29 August 2022
drizzle, drazzle, druzzle drome—time for this one to come home (10. 094)
Alternately titled St George and the Dragon and The Seven Curses of Lodac, the 1962 adventure fantasy by Bert I Gordon (King Dinosaur, The Amazing Colossal Man, Village of the Giants, etc.) loosely based on the legend of St George and his conquests was subjected to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, airing for the first time on this day in 1992. Our hero in this version, George (Gary Lockwood, later Lieutenant Commander and navigator Gary Mitchell on the Enterprise and astronaut Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey)—of royal parentage but fostered by a sometimes ineffectual sorceress played by veteran actor of stage and screen Estelle Winwood—embarks on a quest to rescue the princess Helene and prevent her from being fed to the dragon of the evil wizard Lodac, played by the equally esteemed Basil Rathbone.
Sunday, 31 July 2022
8x8 (10. 027)
รฒgรณgรณrรณ: decolonising a West African palm sap spirit that unfairly unearned the reputation of a cheap gin substitute

smaller footprint: updates on NEOM—the planned vertical skyscaper of Saudi Arabia
hysterical urbanism: a counterpoint to the above—with several historical antecedents
brominated vegetable oil: EU and Japan bans Mountain Dew and Fresca for ingredients that contribute to memory loss
we intend to cause havoc: Andrew McGranahan’s psychedelic posters for Paul McCartney’s 2022 gigs and tours
odonymy: an ongoing project revealing the origin of street names in Los Angeles—via Web Curios
mensascran: comparative studies of university and business cafeterias and canteens around the world—see also—via ibฤซdem
Thursday, 2 June 2022
capricorn one
The 1978 conspiracy thriller by Peter Hyams starring Karen Black, Elliott Gould, James Brolin, Sam Waterston, OJ Simpson, Hal Holbrook and Telly Savalas, considered the most successful independent production of that year, premiered in cinemas on this day and tells the story of an aborted crewed mission to Mars whose members are kidnapped from the launchpad—the life-support systems deemed unfit for purpose—and transported to a film studio, under duress with their families under threat—to complete their journey of exploration in front of the cameras. Fearing another blow to public interest and confidence in the space programme and attendant loss of billions in contracts, NASA administrators force the astronauts to act out their Martian adventure. Unfortunately this plot strengthened and perpetuated the theory that the Moon landing was faked and directed by Stanley Kubrick with The Shining being a veiled confession for his involvement in the deception.
Wednesday, 2 March 2022
earthship ark
Our gratitude to the aptly recursive and veteran podcast Stop Podcasting Yourself (previously) for the viewing recommendation in the ambitious and acclaimed Canadian sci-fi series from author Harlan Ellison (as Cordwainer Bird) and featuring the adaptions of stories of Ursula K Le Guin, Arthur Heinemann and others which despite the trappings of low production-value is genuinely intriguing and compels one to watch more. Starring Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey and only lasting for a single season in 1973, the sixteen episode arc of The Starlost is set in a multigenerational colonial ship of dozens of connected biospheres in the late twenty-fourth century of Earthling refugees seeking a new home after the destruction of their own.
Wednesday, 9 February 2022
7x7
desert fox: play-through for a complex, WWII-themed board game, The Campaign for North Africa, that requires over fifteen hundred hours to complete
the greatest thing since sliced bread: a satisfying video showing the steps in production in an industrial bakery in South Korea
lightsaber flavour: alternative designations from young people that far surpass their proper names—via Miss Cellania’s Links
rip: a celebration of the life and vision of Douglas Trumbull, special effects artist behind Silent Running, Close Encounters, 2001 and many others
multiple arcade machine emulator: after a quarter of a century, the MAME project is still releasing monthly new additions for home play—via Waxy
ltee: the E. coli long-term evolution experiment has been running since 1988 and monitoring the mutations in twelve original strains over tens of thousands of generations
catagories: ๐, ๐ฒ, ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐พ, ๐งฌ, antiques, architecture, Blade Runner, Kubrick
Monday, 20 December 2021
6x6
you sure have a way with people—well, they’re my species: Harold and Maude at fifty, with soundtrack by Yusuf (Cat) Stevens
lake toilet-brush: the toponymic curse of IKEA product names
๐: a round-up of the Resurrections premier
build back better: US president Joe Biden’s legislative agenda derailed
die hard’s a christmas movie: Eyes Wide Shut (1999) re-evaluated
Wednesday, 17 November 2021
7x7
wordle: a daily acrostic-variant challenge—via Waxy
double-dog dare: the original overture to what’s become a real snowclone for about to do something foolhardy
parasitus: a fixture—or at least a trope of Greek and Roman society—was the individual whom could thrive off of the hospitality of others and suffer a little humiliation—via Super Punch
i prefer the sequel—also sprach zarathrustra: an extensive look at 2001: A Space Odyssey and how some of the most indelible elements were left up to chance—see previously
you would give everyone salmonella, ella, ella, eh, eh: Weird Al narrates Thanksgiving
natural habitat: an interactive map lets one explore the range and change of living organisms at their margins
uncountable case: the partitive declension and a lively debate on less versus fewer
Thursday, 26 August 2021
a.i.
Via Waxy, we are treated to another instalment commemorating half a century of text gaming (see previously) with a retrospective look at the first major Alternate Reality play and the community of enthusiast who first embraced it with. The elaborate internet scavenger hunt called the Beast was made to promote the Steven Spielberg production the story of the then recently departed Stanley Kubrick touted as the blockbuster of the summer of 2001 about a sentient machine that wanted to be a real boy. The curious were encouraged to search for hints by phone, fax and web and engaged with this immersive entertainment experience.
Monday, 24 May 2021
nitrate divas
Sunday, 11 April 2021
ultra-violence
Via the forever engrossing Everlasting Blรถrt, we are directed towards a screen-test for the haberdashery of Alex DeLarge and his gang of droogs for the 1971 cinematic adaptation of the dystopian, delinquent novel from Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange (previously) trying on different hat styles before settling on the bowler variety. More images and reactions on the thread that are well worth checking out.
Sunday, 17 January 2021
also sprach zarathustra
Previously we wrote about the unused soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey and so were pleased to find this addendum, coda to the story from Things Magazine and learn that the film demo tape with the composition by Mike Kaplan, 2001: A Garden of Personal Mirrors, has been rediscovered, more than five decades after it was written and is getting the air time it deserves.
Wednesday, 25 November 2020
tycho magnetic anomaly
The recent buzz about the discovery of a mysterious yet most likely of mundane origins of a metal monolith in the desert of Utah that channels in a sense the cinematic titan of 2001 made me think about this smaller though also puzzling concrete post I encountered during a walk in the woods last week.
It’s in a clearing where some trees were recently felled for lumber. Though just off a logging trail, there’s nothing else nearby and no other signs of construction. The blue bit embedded seems to be the pontil marked base of a cobalt glass bottle. I wonder what it could be for or why it was placed there—I’ll have to keep an eye on this one.
Sunday, 30 August 2020
red telephone
Despite its conception in the popular imagination the Washington-Moscow Direct Communications Link or hotline, which first went into operation on this day in 1963, was a text-only emergency channel as spoken communication was considered too prone to misunderstanding.
Engineers first recognised the need for an expedient exchange between the leaders of the polarised world in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis of the previous summer when it took US diplomatic and military staff nearly twelve hours to receive and decrypt the initial settlement message from Nikta Khrushchev and deliver it to John F. Kennedy, with a nod to the direct link as portrayed in Red Alert, the 1958 novel that Doctor Strangelove (1964) is based on. The superpowers could initially send teletypes to one another—the equipment tested hourly by exchanging passages from William Shakespeare and Mark Twain (with selective quotations from the former and A. A. Milne as they were considered Soviet cultural property) for excerpts from Anton Chekhov and other literary figures, with messages of greetings and congratulations sent instead on New Year’s and on 30 August, the anniversary of the hotline’s launch. In 1986, the system was upgraded to facsimile machines and finally in 2008 to an extra secure form of email.
catagories: ⚛️, ๐ท๐บ, ๐บ๐ธ, foreign policy, Kubrick
Thursday, 13 August 2020
star child or letterbox edition
Friday, 26 June 2020
6x6
morning edition: artist paints sunrises on newspapers as a dawning juxtaposition to the headlines of the day
free parking: aerial views of grounded planes at the Frankfurter Flughafen—see previously
b&b: designs for a horizontal hive with human sleeping compartment
๐️๐๐️:the ubiquitous string of emoji signals a tautology
if it ain’t baroque: another in a growing chain of art restoration failures, via Miss Cellania’s Links
2020: a spa odyssey: a day retreat in Caracas inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s aesthetic
Thursday, 28 May 2020
tma-0
According to the director’s original vision, the iconic and arresting prop from the 1968 cinematic adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a character in its own right (see previously) was to be a transparent hulking block of acrylic. After having the two tonne megalith delivered—fulfilled by Stanley Plastics, a speciality company near Portsmouth, it failed the camera test and Stanley Kubrick went with the matte black basalt structure that we’re familiar with.
The Tycho Magnetic Anomaly has an exacting ratio of 1 : 4 : 9—1 : 2² : 3³, suggesting that the sequence extends out beyond our three spatial dimensions. Although the transparent version was mothballed and gathered dust in a studio backlot for years, the rejected prop did see a second career in the hands of Slovakian artist Arthur Fleischmann (*1896 – †1990), who was generally besotted with modern materials like Lucite and Perspex (also creating the UK Pavilion for Expo70) carved it into a sparkling “Crystal Crown,” unveiled by the Queen herself on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee. The commemorative artefact can still be visited at St. Katherine Docks just downstream of the Tower of London. More to explore at Amusing Planet at the link above.
Saturday, 23 May 2020
i'll just set my bourbon and advocaat down right here
Premiering in theatres in the US on this day in 1980, the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of the Steven King novel of three years prior presents a certain corollary to and correspondence with the present Zeitgeist of wintering, hibernation and generally being not taxed mentally or physically with its foil of an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic and domestic abuser hoping to take full advantage of this generous sabbatical for self-improvement but woefully unable to.
What do you think? That much of the milieu is quite resonant, even if the plot and search and insistence for meaning is receding—just like we are focusing on inconsistencies, ambiguities and attributed symbolism as curative guideposts to navigate ourselves through this time when for many of us, we just have one job to do. Isolation is not only prone to the compromised credibility of an unreliable narrator but also can cause us to doubt and question our credentials as dependable observers—and whether we’re haunted by real ghosts or the hypochondria cabin-fever.