“The Lady of Shalott,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“And down the rivers dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance —
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.”
“Inferior intellects generally succeeded best. For, aware of their own deficiencies, and fearing the capacity of their opponents . . . they struck boldly and at once.”
— Thucydides, in “History of the Peloponnesian War”
To be fair, though … this quote could address American public discourse in general. Or, hell, people in general. How many of us know that person who acts tough (or “real”) because they have no logic or evidence to support their argument?
No, AMC is not planning on filming in Wytheville, Virginia. The item that’s been popping up recently on Facebook is a hoax.
If you type the homepage feednewz.com in your browser, it actually redirects you to a site called prank.link, where ready-made hoaxes can be shared via Facebook. I’d say that the whole thing is in questionable taste, but then, I’ve been known to pull a prank or two myself via this blog.
The Iowa high school sophomore is doing nothing less than pranking America’s entire electoral process.
What’s the deal with Gotham City-style pranksters popping up in the national discourse lately? I love it.
I’d love to see Deez Nuts team up in some fashion with the Internet troll impersonating Target’s online customer service.
And don’t think that Deez Nuts is too young to be among Batman’s rouges gallery. Anarky was a kid. And the General (Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong) was just eleven years old.
Check out the following article:
“A 15-Year-Old Going by ‘Deez Nuts’ Is Doing Surprisingly Well in the Presidential Polls, by Carlton Ferment, Vice.com, 8/20/15:
http://www.vice.com/read/all-hail-president-deez-nuts?utm_source=vicefbus
Peruse my musings right here: My musings.
This has been a public service announcement to psychology students everywhere.
Photo credit: “Nathan Hale Statue – Flickr – The Central Intelligence Agency” by The Central Intelligence Agency – Nathan Hale Statue. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
You’re glad I reminded you, aren’t you?
I told Pete Harrison the other night that I watched the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, “The Thing.”
He simply responded, “Why?”
To me and undoubtedly many others, the 80’s classic will always be the paradigmatic horror – science fiction movie. Because I admire a well made house as much as anyone, but AIN’T NO CARPENTER LIKE JOHN CARPENTER. (Nobody repeat that, I want to copyright it and sell bumper stickers at horror conventions.)
Yes, the recent prequel inexplicably has the exact same title as the 1982 movie, and I have no frikkin’ idea why. That just seems … deliberately stupid. Nor is that the 2011 film’s only flaw … it’s universally maligned.
Does the 2011 outing really deserve all its bad press? I say no. Among other things, it delivered some fine goopity-gloppity monster goodness, delivered by an archetypal flying saucer, no less. That’s something that I find refreshing in a horror movie marketplace that just seems inundated with demons and ghosts. (I loved “Insidious,” but enough already.)
C’mon, Hollywood. There are plenty of horror fans out there who grew up loving giant ants, Marine-baiting “Aliens,” werewolves, swarms of spiders troubling William Shatner, and the adversaries of Godzilla. It’s why I gave a positive review to this year’s “Jurassic World,” despite a script of the same quality as that of “Gilligan’s Island.” I want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck. I will ALWAYS want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck.
And … I liked the 2011 movie’s protagonist! Trying to mimic MacReady’s cunning anti-hero would have redundant! This story featured a smart, young lady scientist who turned out to be tough under pressure. That kinda worked for me.
I actually have seen 1951’s “The Thing From Another World,” but that was 30 years ago on VHS, with my “Movie Uncle,” John Muth. I have NOT read “Who Goes There?,” John W. Campbell, Jr.’s 1938 novella upon which all of these films were based. But I’m planning to. (Last time I checked, it was floating around online somewhere.)
I’m just waiting for the first big blizzard to hit next winter. Because ATMOSPHERE.
“When things get bad enough, then something happens to correct the course. And it’s for that reason that I speak about evolution as an error-making and an error-correcting process. And if we can be ever so much better – ever so much slightly better – at error correcting than at error making, then we’ll make it.”
— Jonas Salk, inventor of first successful polio vaccine
His (or her!) modus operandi is actually pretty simple. Anybody can right-click a corporate logo for use as a Facebook profile picture, and then create a false account using a corporate-sounding name and a throwaway cell phone number. (Troublingly enough, spammers are known to do the same thing to impersonate private users, by right-clicking publicly available profile pictures.)
But this guy is the Lex Luthor of trolls, and his antagonism of complaining Target customers achieves the level of online performance art. The controversy into which he’s inserted himself is whether or not Target should have gender-specific sections for children’s toys.
Check out some samples of his pathos via this recent article at Adweek:
Why, yes. Yes, it was. It ran for a single season in 1974.
Was it any good? No. No, it wasn’t, judging from its pilot. I at first typed “Planet of the Peas” in the headline you see above, and that typo was more entertaining than the actual program.
What we’ve got here is a poorly scripted, milquetoast rehash of the famous films, which (let’s be honest) were themselves high on camp and low on brains.
We have little of the charm of the movies, yet all of their cheesiness. A spaceship is not designed to travel through time, but still helpfully features an ostentatious “chronometer.” Our astronauts never suspect their real location until it is revealed to them — despite the fact that the apes speak modern, Americanized English. Then our square-jawed heroes react minimally to the news that everyone they know or love is dead, along with their civilization. Solving this central mystery is helped by an ancient, plot-convenient textbook, which thoughtfully contains pictures of both human-built machines and apes in cage.
Other flaws are more egregious. Roddy McDowall and Booth Coleman both return as apes. Confusingly, however, they do not reprise their film roles — they are actually different ape characters. The humor falls flat. (McDowall’s ape is a … nepotist? Or something?) And continuity with the movies is either clumsy or nonexistent.
I’d rate this short-lived program at a 3 out of 10 for three things that were neat. One, the ape makeup and costuming is still fun. Two, McDowall is always fun to watch and was a superb actor, even under all that makeup. And, three, this really can scratch your nostalgia itch for popular 1970’s science fiction. (Let’s dress up and play low-budget make-believe in the Southern California desert, shall we?)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 