“Evening in Ukraine,” Kryzhitsky Constantine, 1901

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(I’m not even sure I can PRONOUNCE “schadenfreude.”)

This is me laughing at Trump’s feelings being hurt by Trudeau and Macron at the NATO Summit.

Cry me a river, Snowflake-in-Chief.

I’d love to say “schadenfreude,” but I’m not sure I can spell it.  (Did I get it right?)

 

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“La Nuit,” Auguste Raynaud, circa 1887

“The Night.”  Oil on canvas.

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Shine on, you coiny diamond.

I know this is a weird thing with which to get preoccupied, but little mysteries drive me nuts.

What is the deal with this worn nickel?  Why does it sparkle the way it does?  Is it the work of an oblique prankster?  A faulty counterfeiter?  A chemical agent?  A sparkly vampire?

Occam’s razor suggests that it’s just a thin, undetectable acrylic paint or something.  But I swear doesn’t feel painted; it feels like an ordinary nickel.  And what kind of prank is that, anyway?  Who sits around painting nickels?  And why?

 

 

A few quick words on “Fractured” (2019)

“Fractured” (2019) is essentially a “Twilight Zone” episode presented as a feature-length film.  Like many movies of this type, it would be better suited to a 40-minute television script; it takes too long here to reach its denouement.  It suffers just a little because of that.

That isn’t to say it’s a bad film — it was pretty well executed, despite its unnecessary length, and the final minutes had me squirming.  It certainly held my interest, and I’d rate it a 7 out of 10.

Brad Anderson’s directing was quite good — this is a well visualized psychological horror film that capably builds tension with its unsettling angles and strange lighting.  Sam Worthington does very well in his lead role as a man who has his family admitted to a hospital emergency room, only to see them vanish altogether.  He’s upstaged just a bit by two actors in small supporting roles — the priceless Stephen Tobolowsky and the superb Adjoa Andoh as doctors at the mysterious hospital.

 

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Cover to “House of Mystery” #284, Mike Kaluta, 1980

DC Comics.

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LAURA ROSLIN 2020

So Say We All.

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Scorpio Static’s new album “Utopia” is goddam terrific.

I’m enormously proud tonight of my old friend and Mary Washington College alumnus, Jason Buckland — a.k.a. Scorpio Static.  His new trance/electronica album, “Utopia,” dropped worldwide yesterday and it’s damned good stuff.

“Utopia” reminds me of the progressive and alternative dance music that I danced to as a student in the 1990’s.  (Jason was the actually the guy who introduced me to it as a kid — jamming to Erasure and New Order in the dorms of MWC and in the clubs in Washington, D.C. )

“Utopia” is fast paced and trippy, and I enjoy it even more than Scorpio Static’s 2011 album Tranceformation.  This time out, my favorite track is probably a toss-up between “Genesis” (Track 3) and “Journey to Heaven” (Track 6).  If you’re a writery-type like me, you might find it makes good work music.

You can find “Utopia” right here at Scorpio Static’s Pandora station and also over at ReverbNation.  Or, if you want to download it directly, you can find it here at CD Baby Music Store.

Check it out!

 

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“Nighthawks,” Edward Hopper, 1942

Oil on canvas.

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A review of Season 4 of “The Man in the High Castle” (2019)

The fourth and final season of “The Man in the High Castle” (2019) ended the show pretty strongly — I’d rate it an 8 out of 10 for concluding the dystopian science fiction epic just when its ambitious storytelling started getting too unwieldy.

I won’t lie to you … I loved the show, and was the sort of fan that exhorted all of my friends to watch it — but even I have to admit that there were some general narrative failures.  This show tackled nothing less than multiple, detailed parallel universes — each with its own history and analogous characters.  (It is an Axis Powers’ World War II victory that sets the stage for the story’s initial, “prime” universe.)  That’s a lot to tackle, and “The Man in the High Castle” didn’t always follow through.  (It didn’t help that there was a seeming myriad of subplots and character arcs fleshing out its prime universe alone — and that some of Season 4’s story setups seemed redundant with those of prior seasons.)

By the show’s end, there were major plot threads that were left dangling — including key questions about the show’s basic plot elements.  I wouldn’t blame many longtime fans for feeling frustrated at the overall story’s insufficient exposition — and this last season’s deliberately vague, befuddling final moments.

But “The Man in the High Castle” was still simply too good to dislike.  What the show does well, it tends to do very well — especially its grand, sweeping, Wagnerian science fiction world-building.  I’ll bet you’ll never see another what-if-the-Nazis-won story as good as this one.  With everything from its panoramic backdrops to its costuming to its incidental dialogue, “The Man in the High Castle” tackles its sprawling milieu with zeal, style and impressive detail.  You can tell that it was a labor of love for the screenwriters to bring Philip K. Dick’s dangerous multiverse to the screen.

Its cast includes performers that absolutely shine — most notably Rufus Sewell as the premier American Nazi, John Smith, but also Alexa Davalos, Chelah Hordal, Joel de la Fuente and Rick Worthy.   For me, Sewell often made the show; his role here seems like one he was born for.

Despite its admittedly significant flaws, Season 4 was still a great watch.

 

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers