I've been getting really into Hans-Günther Wauer and Günter “Baby” Sommer's album, Dedication (and the FMP scene at large). If you think you'd enjoy a heady mix of church music (it was recorded in the Merseburg cathedral), krautrock minimalism, and free jazz, I highly recommend this album.

[lights up butter cigar]

(jag-ger-sveen-ul)

It seems more likely "rogue" (which is to say, driven to madness) than out and out evil, though.

Or, in today's crazy modern world, "Now available for streaming - exclusively on Crackle! Yes, we're still a thing. We do that car show. That one with Seinfeld? Remember that? That's Crackle!"

That's fair. I mean, functionally as a normal narrative movie, it doesn't work. My interpretation, however, is that it was never meant to function with a typical narrative film, but rather more like a dream (or, more accurately, a nightmare).

Oh absolutely. If there's one author who Kubrick reminds me of, it's Thomas Mann, who, very notably, could not give a rat's ass about emotions you feel on a day to day basis.

I suppose "emotion" was the wrong word. Like, easily understood emotions: "happy," "sad," "angry." You know, the boring emotions. It's always been my assertion that Kubrick was never trying to make a "horror" movie, but an "uncanny" movie (in the Freudian sense of uncanny/unheimlich), which really played up the…

He's basically the most unimpeachable director of all time. He also was probably legally insane and dangerous. It's like if Herzog and Kinski were the same person.

Crazy synth version of Dies Irae? Along with the most absolutely imposing Romantic/Caspar Friedrich-esque visuals of the Rocky Mountains? Yep, that's deeply terrifying.

In fairness, their source material is also, by and large, terrible.

With Kubrick, I don't really think emotions, at least quotidian emotions, really play a big part. He's going for the primal instincts: fear, lust, bewilderment, etc.

Lack of emotion is kind of a weak argument against something, though. I thought it was pretty clear that you don't need emotional involvement to tell a good story - Kubrick was playing with the realm of the uncanny, with fear, madness, and dream-logic. Emotions are often just used to replace genuine insight with the…

I knew those hours upon hours I've spent watching literally every Simpsons ever (except for the one with Moe's dishrag) would pay off in the admiration/scorn of my peers. Really just that someone would pay attention to me.

It was cleverly referenced in the novel version of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. And inexplicably left out of the movie.

Tax and spend! Tax and spend!

It's also why you love turkey bacon so much! (I'm just assuming. Everyone loves turkey bacon.)

He's the hero we both need & deserve.

It's the Nagorno-Karabakh of TV.

Your inner Orthodox was coming out.