Early October

#1 I guess I can't write here as much ... got to write other things....

#2 Here are two of the greatest TV opening of the mid to late 1980s


I cannot be objective since this show and Max Headroom were "my" shows, that meant I spent time and effort as a kid trying to follow these shows as they bounced around timeslots before being cancelled. Just seeing those actors brought a smile to my face. I had forgotten how literal the metaphor of 'illegal aliens' was in this show - but it works with the documentary style of the opening. But it's that music that brings it together, I'm not sure what to call it but it reminds me of Enya, Akira, Kodo and Gregorian chanting. And that final burst of aggression GRRRRRRR!


Tribal bird mask looks up, a solar eclipse encapsulates a mushroom cloud, a window bursts open as the nuclear blast simultaneously resurrects and shreds the shade of Rod Sterling.
Possibly the greatest 15 seconds of visual imagery on TV. The music by the Grateful Dead's drummer is perfect.

#3 Watched 'Dark Crystal: Resistance" this over the last week. I try to avoid recent stuff but coming off a Fraggle Rock re-watch this summer, it seemed right to try it. And it has the same three tier society as the fraggles: Skesis - the aristocratic ' gormenghast gonzo's, Gelfling - lama-faced aryan hobbits (but one clan looks like Buffy St.Marie) and the Podlings - proletariat cabbage patch kids. Add a goat-horned, mystic Miss Piggy to play the Fraggles' Majory the TrashHeap).

The world of the Dark Crystal is straight out of 1978 with degenerate gothic aristocrats juxtaposed with hippies in an ecological wonderland. The literal children of Jim Henson and Brian Froud came together to continue you on their father's fantasy world (like Christoper Tolkien or Mark Bode). There is something like integrity in this series. And it was a joy to watch. The 'puppet ecologies' of Fraggle Rock, Dark Crystal and Labyrinth are a wonder.

Luckily I have not seen Avatar or Games of Thrones, so I can smell their influence but I'm not so saturated that I cannot stand it.

Fraggle Rock was filmed in Toronto, Dark Crystal TV received Canadian Film Tax Credit .

#3) This stomach flu is rough - but I'm not weak enough to start browsing the internet.
I did come across a new word last night: Acedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia.

wikipedia wrote:"Acedia is essentially a flight from the divine that leads to not even caring that one does not care

Author Kathleen Norris in her book Acedia and Me asserts that dictionary definitions such as torpor and sloth fail to do justice to this "temptation"; she believes a state of restlessness, of not living in the present and seeing the future as overwhelming is more accurate a definition than straight laziness: it is especially present in monasteries, due to the cutting off of distractions, but can invade any vocation where the labor is long, the rewards slow to appear, such as scientific research, long term marriages, etc. Another sign is a lack of caring, of being unfeeling about things, whether that be your appearance, hygiene, your relationships, your community's welfare, the world's welfare etc.; all of this, Norris relates, is connected to the hopelessness and vague unease that arises from having too many choices, lacking true commitment, of being "a slave from within".

Aldous Huxley wrote an essay on acedia called "Accidie". A non-Christian, he examines "the noon day demons" original delineation by the Desert Fathers, and concludes that it is one of the main diseases of the modern age.

Samuel Becket's plays often have themes of acedia.

Roger Fry saw acedia as a twentieth century peril to be fought by a mixture of work and of determined pleasure in life.

I did reach a spot of "not caring that I don't care" this summer, especially not caring about "the world's welfare", that I had to wrestle with. It felt so freeing. In Eastern terms some forms of 'acedia' might be close to nirvana. With too much acedia you begin to identity with The Void not the guttering flame within it called Life. Maybe it's a mid-life thing. It actually feels like a step toward something else.

The world goes without me, 90% of our passions are so much vanity, 90% of cultural goals were created by masters looking for profitable obedience. This is all true.

So you work on long-term absurdist projects despite everything. And when people gather, you revel in simple gathering. And when you twist your ankle bad enough that you have to sit in the gravel, you smile at the slug and it's ant companion rummaging amongst the rocks. And when a stomach flu wears you down, you type on R2N until you are less nauseous.

OK - I got weak, I browsed..



As the saying goes: "Liberals Hate Socialists More than Fascists"