On the one hand, there is an old-fashioned Z-movie huckster quality that’s kinda endearing. Asylum execs (I imagine they’re all named Todd or Jared) see there’s a new Dune movie coming out and their response is, “We gotta do our own movie with “Dune” in the title!” And when it shows up seven months later, it’s obvious… Read more
lightninglouie
lightninglouie
That too. Read more
Yeah, but there’s a limit to that. ‘80s and ‘90s schlock like Troma and the Full Moon movies were actually entertaining, made by people who enjoyed making them. Whereas Asylum often feels like some weird exercise in DALL-E-type machine learning that was fed a bunch of trailers for blockbusters and programmed to… Read more
Maybe it’s just the effect of growing older, but I find it’s really hard to sustain interest in a lot of premium cable/streaming stuff over time. Westworld, Stranger Things, etc. — I really enjoyed the first seasons but by the time the second season came along I just didn’t care that much.
Low-information consumers. Read more
I just look at those tunnels and get claustrophobic, which is not something I generally feel with regards to close spaces. In a subway you have plenty of ways to get to the surface in an emergency. Those tunnels look like goddamn tombs waiting to happen to me. Read more
I was so sheltered from religion as a kid — a pretty amazing feat for someone growing up in suburban Texas in the ‘70s and ‘80s! — that I learned about Christianity from Life of Brian. And I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time. I didn’t quite realize that the Pythons were satirizing religious epics and religious hypocrisy. I… Read more
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Yeah, I’d chalk it up to a kind of Boomerist myopia that assumes it’s still 1992 and things are never going to change in any significant way, that things haven’t been changing in dramatic and horrible ways for a long time (see environmental denialism). There is always a need to see things as “normal” even in the face…
I personally feel that a little libertarianism is a good thing — it’s healthy to be skeptical of the state’s interference in people’s private affairs. My dad was drafted when I was a toddler — he’d gotten deferments for school — and because of that I have always hated all forms of conscription, unless it was… Read more
It’s funny because I was born in the ‘70s and raised without any religion at all — my parents both hated going to church as kids and thought all organized religion was a racket — and I sort of feel like my experience was a bellwether for what we now call “The Nones.” People with no religious affiliation, zero… Read more
“BAD NEWS GINNI”
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“Let fury have the hour, anger can be power. D’you know that you can use it?”
Uncle Enzo says a woman’s reproductive health is her own business.
If I were 10-20 years younger and didn’t suffer from chronic health problems, I’d consider migrating to Canada. The USA I grew up in is effectively over. Things are gonna get a lot worse in the short term; maybe things will ultimately get better, but it’s gonna be a long haul. Read more
Yeah, I followed Reason for a number of years back during the Bush II era, and while I discovered some worthwhile writers in that mag — particularly Radley Balko, whose Rise of the Warrior Cop is essential — most of it was just Republican talking points in a Lou Reed t-shirt. Read more
This is some early William Gibson cyberpunk shit.
Ireland has been rapidly secularizing for many years. There’s only one priest under 35 in the entire country.
And lots of fundraising emails that start with, “Just like you, I’m shocked and speechless at today’s events...”
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We’re fucked, and the only people who have any way of doing something about it just keep hoping for a “strong Republican party” to come back and help... fix things? That reading a poem or singing “God Bless America” is going to do it? Read more
It’s a better song (though “Cannonball” is fine too). Read more