Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
We saw “Bladerunner 2049” in 3D at the flicks yesterday. Its music reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live sketch about the Blue Oyster Cult song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” In that skit, Christopher Walken is a legendary producer. Listening to the song, he insists on “More cowbell.” Will Ferrell goes over the top obliging to his request.
Well, during the movie, I would swear that Denis Villeneuve kept yelling, “More loud noises!” while the movie was being made.
Tomorrow was supposed to be Friday the Thirteenth. I’m pleased to hear it won’t be.
I’m not superstitious at all (except for seeing a rainbow; you know good things are going to happen when you see a rainbow). Yet, I felt relief when the current POTUS announced he’d signed an executive order abolishing Friday the Thirteenth.
“Americans have enough to worry about in this great country without dealing with an unlucky day. I mean, did you see that movie? Was that scary or what? Am I right?” he tweeted early this morning.
His second tweet continued, “That movie isn’t good enough to have a day named after it. Just another example of Hollywood liberals dictating to the rest of the country. SHAME!”
His final tweet said, “Hollywood is a horror movie we don’t need! Enough horror! Wasn’t the Obama administration enough? LOSERS!”
According to the White House press corpse, “People should not refer to it as Friday the thirteenth. Not every day needs a date, you know. What good do dates do? If they need a date, they can call it October twelve and a half. That’s what we’re doing on all official correspondence.”
The President later said, “This change will be like plutonium for the economy. Sales have always been down on Friday the thirteenth because people have been afraid to go to work or shop. A lot of them don’t even eat. Don’t even drink. Don’t drink nothing. Not even water. Just stay in bed all day. So this change will mean a lot to businesses. It’ll supercharge sales. It’s gonna be huge. It’ll be a beautiful day, beautiful.”
We watched a movie last night called, “What Happened to Monday?”
It’s a violent, dystopian science-fiction movie that we watched on Netflix. Netflix brought it to their streaming offerings in August of this year. The premise, about septuplets secretly coping and living in world where only one child is authorized per family. This draconian policy was instituted to stretch scarce resources. Resources are scarce due to climate change. The problems are complicated by war and unforeseen consequences of genetically modified organizations.
The seven girls are named for the days of the week. They assume one identity, using their deceased mother’s name. Only one is permitted out each day; they go out on the day of their name. The rest of the time, they live secret lives in their apartment.
Naturally, things go wrong.
Glenn Close, William Dafoe, and Noomi Rapace star, along with Marwan Kenzari and Christian Rubeck. Dafoe plays the father, and Close is the villain. Rapace plays the seven sisters. You get a lot more of her than the other two. There are plots holes, some cringing moments and predictability, but it was sufficiently intense and unique to draw our attention and focus. Several of the sisters are shadows of a full character. Rapace works with that, but she does a powerful job with the more fully developed sisters.
Give it a watch, just to say that you did.
The Ginger Blade wanted out last night. He’s a cat; he’s young; they go out at night.
As I let him out the door, he paused and looked at me over his shoulder. “I’ll be back,” he said. Then, he trotted into the darkness.
From that streamed the music for today. Thinking of Papi’s words, my mind connected with a nineteen sixty-eight Simon and Garfunkel hit. “Mrs Robinson” was on the album “Bookends,” but is probably best known for its inclusion in the movie, “The Graduate.” When Papi told me, “I’ll be back,” I started singing, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes on you.”
I wonder at what age people ask, “What movie? What song? Who is Simon and Garfunkel? Who is Joe DiMaggio? Who is Papi? Is he the Ginger Blade?”
Well, they can all just go google themselves.
Sentimentality creeps up on me again.
As I was walking, reflecting on my dreams, and writing in my head, a voice slipped past the disparate, disorganized words. Drizzle stole in past trees and fresh, cool air invited me out of myself. Looking around, I thought, “What a wonderful world this can be.”
Not always, mind you. Yeah, we know. We’ve seen the images and we’re still reading the stories.
Of course, the voice I was hearing was Louis Armstrong singing “What A Wonderful World.” Armstrong recorded and released it in nineteen sixty-seven. I first heard it before I was a teenager, but it leaped back into public awareness with the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam,” in nineteen eighty-seven. Serving in the Air Force and stationed in Germany, I saw it in a theater at Rhein-Main Air Base. “What A Wonderful World” was a sobering moment in the film, as the music was juxtaposed against the young military and the weapons of war. Of course, this is a flawed moment; “Good Morning, Vietnam” was set in nineteen sixty-five. “What A Wonderful World” came out two years later. It works, despite that flaw.
Life moves on. Rhein-Main Air Base closed. My unit and its mission, spying against the Soviet Union, is gone, as are the Soviets. We’ve lost Louis Armstrong and Robin Williams, but I’m part of an era where technology saves us from depending on memories alone, allowing us to more sharply and accurately revisit our past. So, here it is again, “What A Wonderful World.”
Do you have daily theme music, or music that highlights an activity?
My daily theme music is often a reflection of a momentary lapse of reason, or a thought in the nick of time. Themes vary through the day, though, mirroring moods and events. Sometimes I find myself with the themes from the television series “Mission Impossible” or “Sanford and Son” in my head.
The smoke levels dropped today. The A.Q.I. remains listed as unhealthy, but it seems much clearer and more comfortable. The air temp was a comfortable seventy-six F under partly cloudy skies. That allowed me to walk in comfort.
I wrote in my head as I walked around town (actually designing the Epitomy, the starship serving as base in “Black Dust”). Bonnie Tyler’s song, “Holding Out For A Hero,” accompanied my thoughts. The song was in a movie you might have seen, “Footloose,” in nineteen eighty-four, but it’s been used for multiple campaigns. Bonnie puts a lot into singing the song, which was written by the talented Dean Pritchford.
I could use a hero this year, not just in my novels, but in life. Maybe I just place an ad: “Wanted: principled individual to save the world.”
Joni Mitchell wrote it, and sang it, but I remember the cover by CSN&Y.
The year of nineteen sixty-nine found me a budding thirteen year old rocking hippie wannabe living in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. My pants were bell-bottoms, and my thick hair was shoulder-length. My mustache and goatee were coming in without any prodding (Mom thought my face was dirty), and I was drifting toward the counter-culture.
I had some problems, though; can you be counter-culture and madly love cars like the Corvette, Jaguar XK-E, Ford GT, and Cobra, or the Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s racing at LeMans, and the Can-Am and Formula 1 racers? That seems counter-counter-culture, as does being a Pirates fan and idolizing Roberto Clemente. But then, isn’t what what thirteen is all about, expanding your thoughts about where you’re at, what you’re learning, and where you’re heading?
Besides being my thirteenth year, nineteen sixty-nine is more frequently remembered in America for the Vietnam War, protests against it, President Nixon, the moon landing, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Easy Rider,” “True Grit,” the Miracle Mets, and Woodstock, as in the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. I wasn’t there (at the fair), but I heard a helluva lot about it afterwards. Part of that was because of Joni’s song, so I offer it here to you, to remember or learn of that festival that began on August 15, forty-eight years ago.
Yvette Meowmew: A sleek feline named after the retired actress, Yvette Mimieux, who played Weena in the film, “The Time Machine,” based on the H.G. Wells’ novel.
I’m doing more streaming out of the Wayback Machine. This morning, we jump back to the year of my high school graduation, 1974.
Ah, exciting times. Vietnam. Nixon. Whip Inflation Now. Watergate. Cold War. ‘The Godfather’. ‘The Exorcist’. Eight track and cassette tapes. Princess phones, wall phones and extra-long telephone cords were in vogue.
Cable television viewership was rising. Microwaves were riding in on the first wave of availability. Companies were messing around with smaller computers but they were still focused on business. VCRs, DVDs, and Compact Discs were all in the future, as were Microsoft and Apple. There were still two Germanys. No European Union. Cell phones were just being used for the first calls but they were huge, expensive, heavy clunkers.
We were still recovering from the oil crisis of 1973. The national fifty-five miles per hour speed limit was upon us. The Phantom F-4 was our front line fighter, along with the F-111. The F-16 was still a prototype, and the F-14 was just entering service, with the F-15 coming along behind it. The Expos still played in Montreal, the Nationals didn’t play in Washington, and the Rockies and Marlins were still dreams.
From that stew, we have the Troggs with ‘Wild Thing’. I loved the song’s use in the film, ‘Major League’, in 1989. Charlie Sheen played Ricky ‘Wild Thing’ Vaughn, a Cleveland Indians pitcher. Of course, the Troggs hit was a cover of a song written, recorded and released in 1965 and the song in the movie was a cover by X.
So, here we go, a 1965 song, 1974 hit, from a 1989 movie, in which it was covered by a punk band, enjoyed in 2017.
Isn’t technology grand?
Today’s theme music is based on a song that came out in 2015. A deeply provocative and thoughtful song, it received a lot of air play and was said to profoundly affect millions of people around the world.
‘Uma Thurman’, by Fall Out Boys, states the secret dreams and desires many of us had when we watched John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing in Q. Tarentino’s 1994 hit film, ‘Pulp Fiction’.
It also features a riff out of ‘The Munsters’, altogether creating an unusually memorable turn in the song. When it came out on the radio, you’d be driving along, listening, and then suddenly hear that and think, “WTF?” The song ends up then addressing not only life in 2015 America, but part of our culture from 1994 and 1964.
‘The Munsters’, starring Fred Gwynn and Yvonne De Carlo as the father and mother of a family of monsters living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, is classic 1960s American television. Here’s the theme music, in case you can’t place it.
Michael Seidel, writer 