Credit: By Alexandru Panoiu from Bucharest, Romania – Made with Fyre (150111-2 1PP Green), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57205343
“How are the mighty fallen!”
“The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!”
2 Samuel 1:19
“Despair,” by Perham Nahl, circa 1916(?)
Hallo-WIN, people.
You see that second picture? That happened when I tried to take a picture of the pumpkin. But I accidentally took a picture of myself, because my phone’s camera was reversed, and I am an idiot. For some reason, I’ve now discovered, I look as intense as the goddam Batman when I am taking pictures. I should go to the roughest part of Roanoke and just point my cell phone camera around — scare the crap out of criminals.
Advertisement for Brach’s Candy, 1960’s
“A good day ain’t got no rain.”
I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain’t got no rain
She said a bad day’s when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been.
— from Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliding Away”
Theatrical poster art for “Vanilla Sky” (2001)
Paramount Pictures.
“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind.”
“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922
Throwback Thursday: “The Swarm” (1978)!
I was surprised when I recently discovered that “The Swarm” (1978) was a feature film; I remembered it as a made-for-television movie from my childhood. (After its theatrical release, it debuted on NBC with a hell of a lot of fanfare in February 1980.) I was also surprised to read that it was both a critical and a commercial flop, and is often named as one of the worst films ever made. I was in the second grade at the time, and — let me assure you — this was THE movie the kids in school talked about. We were in awe of it.
The people behind “The Swarm” had high hopes for it in 1978. The internet informs me that it was based on a best-seller by famed novelist Arthur Herzog. And it was helmed by director Irwin Allen, who gave us two classic 70’s film adaptations of disaster novels — “The Poseidon Adventure” in 1972, and “The Towering Inferno” in 1974. (Those were a pretty big deal back in the day.) And just look at the cast named in the trailer below. It’s like a who’s who of 1970’s cinema. Yet it all apparently just didn’t pan out … contrary to my memories of second grade, “The Swarm” went down in pop culture history as a train wreck.
Check out the bee-proof suits worn by the guys with the flamethrowers. Talk about an excellent G.I. Joe toy that was never made. (Of course we had “Blowtorch,” but he was 80’s rad, and these guys in white are 70’s kitsch.)
Cover to “Faustian Echoes” Album, Agalloch, 2012
Licht von Dämmerung Arthouse.
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President …”
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth—whether about the President or about anyone else—save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him.”
— Teddy Roosevelt, in his article “Lincoln and Free Speech” in Metropolitan Magazine, May 1918
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 