Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood"

I believe in better living through pop music and science fiction. Taylor Swift has a nice little song, but a big freaking video. You can mull over all the sf tropes, but also see where this pop song is working out how to detonate an ass-kicking musically.

I think Taylor Swift will be among the pioneers of pop weaponization. God if there is one have mercy on all our souls.

The Horizon of Veronica Smart

Image via Metropolis (1927)



 

 

The speedboat named The Horizon, owned by one Veronica Smart, was an unsalvageable mess after plowing uncontrollably into a less-fortunate speedboat, which had no salvageable persons onboard. But The Horizon had Veronica Smart, and her insurance was very good and rescuing her was like salvaging gold bars with little rubies worked in. The Coast Guard picked up what remained of Veronica Smart and, after finding that she was in no way responsible for what happened, left it to the doctors to figure out how to make the most out of what they pulled out of the water.

 

Veronica was young, healthy, 28 years old, the daughter of a politically-influential billionaire. She was attractive, headstrong, athletic, and missing quite a lot, but the doctors were reasonably sure that they had the technology to keep her mostly intact and functional.

 

Of course, there was the issue of consent. What they were proposing was a bit dramatic. But when they explained that her body, such as it was, could either undergo dozens of operations and months if not years of physical therapy to regain a portion of her original functionality, or could be restored to even more optimal functionality by a full replacement of her damaged limbs with the most advanced cybernetics, she was intrigued. Having though about it for a bare minute, and understanding full well that money was no object--she consented. Getting right back to what she considered her business, without any major hiatus, seemed a fully reasonable decision.

Of course, it didn't go quite as well as was expected.

Good-bye, Terry Pratchett.

One of the authors of one of my favorite novels has passed, and I am actually pretty unsatisfied with that. He wrote more than 70 books, but I would be ashamed if I said that was enough for me. He was an endlessly imaginative, genuinely witty, distinctively humane writer.  He will be missed.

Grizzly: Predator

I know I am not living my best life.

I am also in no hurry to start.

Flesh of Her Flesh

Sylvan didn't consider himself a ghoul, even if that was what they technically called his kind of work. He considered himself an ex-med student, for the most part, and an artist, at times. He offered a commodity (skin) and a talent (the cleanest scalpel-work a careful eye ever thought it saw). He made enough money to keep himself and her in their flat. He realized it wasn't a permanent arrangement, but it would do.

"Her" or "she" meant his mum. He stopped thinking of her as "Mom" or "mother" for now. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he had, it was just that she had contracted a severe form of narcovirus and simply wouldn't wake up, as far as anyone knew. No one ever did. He wasn't even sure there were trials, although at first, he sincerely looked for them. It was just that there were so many, many other New Plagues that fought for grant dollars. He got discouraged, and then got wrapped up in trying to kit out their place with proper equipment for her long-term care.

He was just over the line, what with his scholarship and her savings. And it wouldn't feel right, anyway, leaving her as a ward of the state, where anything might happen to her. Not after she worked so hard to get him into school with the burning faith that he could do something about the scary reality that was settling in.

She developed dropsy. It wasn't to be unexpected. He left her alone for great periods at a time while he still tried to pursue his studies. She. He was sure she wasn't uncomfortable, breathing normal, he fought to get Lasix to pump through her IV to work out the fluid and stabilize her blood pressure. But she just expanded on the bed. He moved her with difficulty as he regularly checked for atrophy or bedsores, flexing her legs for intervals in the hopes that she wouldn't curl into a grim fetal position. But she lay her damp form on the bed, straight, and with skin entirely smooth...

The kind of care he tried to provide between classes and tutoring was just the humane requirement she deserved, was all. The penalty for victim-dumping was high for people inclined to shorten their loved-one's lives, whether for compassion or financial reasons, probably because everyone was supposed to keep up hope. But he didn't even consider an alternative, even if it kept him trotting. He didn't really even have the cash to hire a migrant nurse under the table, anyway, not that he would entirely trust one. He heard things.

But that skin. So much of it.

Punk Syndrome

All I can say is, they are hella punk.  Their sound is tight and their band has a quality that is kinda transgressive.   The trailer to the film shows what the road is like. And I think what they are doing is pretty cool. Hearing about them makes me want to hear more.

OK--Hozier & Annie Lennox

I do not know how many awkward intersections I've been at where I've been singing my ass off to this song in the car with the radio cranked.  Don't judge me. But hearing his pipes up against Annie Lennox was so cool.

Probs because I was singing my ass off to Eurythmics songs on the radio 20-something years ago...

Beyonce Takes Us to Church

You know, there was this weird poll out of Iowa that 40% of likely GOP caucus participants thought that Beyoncé was "mental poison" following 2016 hopeful Mike Huckabee's very tacky slams of her relationship with her husband and her performing persona. I'm not sure what they'd make of that performance. Beyoncé is one of the most nominated and winning performers in Grammy history. It's true part of her stage persona is her sensuality. But I'd compare her to Elvis Presley in some ways--he "scandalized" America with his performances. But I'd say his gospel work was every bit as real. (And yes, it is very bizarre that I am talking 1950's folks shaming "the Pelvis" for his gyrations when talking about Mrs. Carter--which is I think more about how far some people have not, actually, come.) Artists are complicated. Maybe they don't appeal to all audiences--but "mental poison"?

So here's Elvis.

Except she nails it for me where Elvis seems tame.  I dunno. Comparisons are odious. But I don't like people putting down Beyoncé, that's all.

Ken Curtis Fan Club.

So, "Gunsmoke" is a show that is actually new to me, because I never really got to see it in syndication until recently on ME TV. The run of "Gunsmoke" overlapped my early years, but my memories of 1972-5 could be called hazy at best. I was too busy learning to walk and talk and use a big girl potty to pay much attention to tv, and westerns weren't really my parents' bag, anyway. For some reason, the character of "Festus" bothered me. The idea of the rural character who can barely be understood isn't too much of an oddity--Boomhauer on King of the Hill boasted a dense patois that I vaguely understand. Brad Pitt's character in Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" was well nigh incomprehensible, and one of the running gags in the long-running Italian police drama Commissario Montalbano is that the character of Catarella is barely understandable and frequently gets big words and proper names wrong.

But Ken Curtis, who portrayed Festus, had a voice that didn't match up with his face. But I recognized it. So, I had to look into it, and he was a big-deal singer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and the Sons of the Pioneers. And, while his character on Gunsmoke was notoriously scruffy, Ken Curtis himself cleaned up beautifully. And in early episodes of Gunsmoke, they even let him sing. So weird he played such an odd character, but then had, you know. That voice. Glad I checked it out.

I Like Orwell but these quotes...

You know, in political writing, poor Eric Blair gets quite a bit of trotting about. He's so quotable. He was insightful and a very clear user of language. But I found these two quotes while looking for where he ever said "All art is propaganda"--because of course it is--and was immediately dissatisfied. Here they are:


He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

and

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

I've considered myself an atheist and a liberal for some time, and have always imagined myself to be a god worshipper without God and a person who does not so much disbelieve in the use of power, as much as I personally dislike it.

So, there's my being a well-read contrarian for the day.

How the Hell Is Taylor Negron Dead?

Well, since he was the husband of the Rodney Dangerfield character's daughter in Easy Money I've kind of followed him. He was a great character actor and a funny, funny stand up. So, thank you, 2015, for already showing you are as brutal to the comedians I love as 2014 was. Taylor Negron. Shoot.