Speaking of nostalgia, Twentieth Century Fox plans to produce a sequel (not a reboot mind you) of the 1980 comedy 9 to 5 about follies and foibles of office-culture that was typically sexist, oppressive and toxic and three women living out their fantasies of getting revenge on their repugnant, bigoted boss—starring the original cast.
As talented, active and capable actors, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Dabney Coleman (the eldest at age eighty-six) should not be compelled into retirement due to their age certainly but I can only imagine the undertaking as worthwhile were it to be a social commentary about the inherent meaninglessness and redundancy of most jobs, pilfered and eroding pension funds, the failure of America’s social safety-net and how no one can afford to retire comfortably.
Sunday 5 August 2018
working ninety-five
make it so!
Though not even in the pre-production stages yet and without a clear arc of narrative—though one’s always excited to experience Star Trek as a place and get a glimpse after-hours and see how people live, Sir Patrick Stewart is said to be ready to reprise his role for a subscription-based television series, the first to address the Next Generation since the last TNG movie in 2002, on his life and career—progressed in real-time—after Enterprise. All details are scant but it’s exciting nonetheless. There is no word yet whether other cast alumni might be joining him on this continuing mission.
Saturday 4 August 2018
the three stigmata of palmer eldritch
Dangerous Minds shares a couple of cautionary interviews with author Philip K Dick (previously) and his fraught relation with drugs, underscored by a sacred and profane acid trip—from which he adapted into a least two science fantasy novels, including The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a 1965 work set in the twenty-first century where global temperatures have become intolerable and under United Nations auspices, humans have attempted to colonise every planet and satellite in the Solar System in order to take some pressure off the Earth.
This version of reality of the book which indulges a good deal in simulated and non-realities references Dick’s already established idea of off-world colonies and precognition (thus pre-crime) as career paths, but as seen as “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” or the cinematic adaptation Total Recall conditions for the colonists were not leisurely—in fact, quite harsh and nightmarish to the extent that displaced populations were rationed drugs as a form of escapism, formulated as a hallucinogen that allows users to partake in a “shared” cult-liked experience—at least that’s claimed to be among the drug’s pharmaceutical merits. Others with more means have adapted to living scattered through the solar system through surgical and genetic modifications and cybernetic interventions that “evolve” them to better cope with their new environments—though becoming mistrusted outliers for the majority of the medicated community and no one—save for the guiding spirit of the titular Eldritch, like a Virgil figure in the Divine Comedy, who is seemingly possessed of super-human abilities in reality and god-like powers on the simulated, drug-induced plane. The body horror of three cyborg stigmata that signal (perhaps) one has drifted into an illusionary dimension are a robotic arm, polarised, slatted eyes and metallic teeth, representing alienation, a vague grasp on reality and desolation.
Friday 3 August 2018
q continuum
A frightening testament to disenfranchisement and male fragility, a new virus is spreading through the crowd of Trump backers at a dangerous pace and ferocity that references belief in a conspiracy theory of “bakers and breadcrumbs” positing that the very stable genius is signalling to his adoring throngs of an impending revival and counter-coup against the establishment.
An anonymous source—with a special Department of Energy Q-class clearance required for work with the movement of nuclear weapons and waste but no member of the Deep State—has through this special patteran revealed that the on-going and multi-pronged investigations against Trump and associates are a red-herring and the Justice Department is really going after the Clinton-Obama cabal—for reasons. This iteration is similar to the idea that Obama was a Muslim from Kenya and not a duly-elected president—a narrative that Trump himself helped to promote and while not explicitly endorsing the views of QAnon has neither disavowed them and has emboldened their attacks on die Lรผgenpresse, a disdain that will result in more casualties to reporters and the truth. We’re bound to be subjected to more and more of this pained idiocy as Trump has pledged to dedicate his time in full to more Nuremberg rallies to Republican party candidates up for re-election during the mid-term vote in November. Most of QAnon’s intelligence focuses on recent history and easily disproven framing of scenarios but the group is attempting to establish the pedigree of vast and addled narratives by claiming the responsibility for the sinking of the Titanic with its manifest of wealthy globalists who were opposed the creation of the US Federal Reserve Bank. Or something.
squandered opportunity
The World Climate Conference held in Geneva in February of 1979 accrued the collective will of some fifty nations and the public and scientific consensus that climate change was a real and imminent threat to the survival of human kind and for the next decade, it seemed that we were on the cusp of effecting real and permanent change and the that the course towards global catastrophe was not inevitable.
During this decisive time, however, a group of determined scientists failed to convince and influence the requisite governmental participation and policy—which yielded to business interests and unchecked capitalism. The New York Times presents a truly compelling, long-format, multi-media essay comprised of interviews and anecdotes that helps one to appreciate how close science came to saving the environment and ourselves from what we can now only to defer as long-term disaster and negotiating what we’re willing to sacrifice since we’ve pivoted past any better outcomes. This narrative on the wilful abrogation of leadership is not to exhaust nor to resign the rest of us to our impending doom but rather demonstrate that the future will not look like the past and that we are all stingy with our imagination and rallies us all to be aware of the consequences of our choices. The warnings are not new. Though we may be on course for disaster and have remained at the same bearing, we are not beyond redemption.
double exposure
Via Everlasting Blรถrt, we are introduced to the portfolio of the pioneering and intrepid Margaret Bourke-White (*1904 – †1971), LIFE magazine’s first female staff photographer and the first accredited female photojournalist, covering World War II and its aftermath, including the liberation of concentration camps—prompting her to pen an autobiography (one of several) as a way to reconcile the horrors that she had witnessed.
First recognised for her architectural and industrial photography at a time when people seriously doubted that a woman had the constitution to enter a steel mill to take pictures much less work in one, Bouke-White became the only foreign reporter invited to document Josef Stalin’s implementation of his first five-year plan (1928 – 1932). Bouke-White was equally renowned for the calibre of her coverage of the partition of India and Pakistan, producing some memorable and iconic images that brought this conflict to the rest of the world. Friend and colleague Alfred Eisenstaedt credited Bouke-White’s success not merely to her uncanny knack to being in the right place at the right time (a talent to be sure) but to her belief that no photograph was unimportant. Incredibly, Bouke-White went on to establish the first photo laboratory at the magazine, which had previously outsourced its work.
