Imagine you’re a graduate student in American History and you write a thesis that’s so good, so striking, and so timely that it’s deservedly a best-seller: 200,000 copies. As Ray Wylie Hubbard says, “careers have been built on less.”
Given the news of harrassment in the media, this game was probably not as thoughtfully named as it could have been. It deserves to be winning more attention than it has, and I suspect the name may have something to do with it.
One of the podcasts I listen to is the Intelligence2,[i2] which is generally OK, though sometimes horrible. The one I listened to most recently was pretty horrible.
Short form: I wish there were more thrillers that had such great lighting, interesting characters, adult plot, and which did such a beautiful job of treading the line between suspension of disbelief and failure to suspend disbelief. If you like action movies, go see it unless you are allergic to 80s music and beautifully choreographed but intense violence.
(very very mild spoilers below the fold; I will not spoil any plot-points unless you are a genius at reading between the lines)
Stanislaw Lem wrote some very witty and unusual science fiction. If you haven’t read Tales Of Pirx The Pilot [amazon] or Memoirs Found In A Bathtub [amazon] you might enjoy them if you like quirky and thoughtful fiction.
Tales of Pirx The Pilot has one of the most memorable scenes in science fiction: Pirx, an astronaut in a space mishap, has to spend a prolonged period in his space suit – and discovers that there is a fly in his helmet.
It’s hard to estimate the impact of movies that slant our way of seeing things. I think I was 15 or so when I saw Z the first time.
“J. G. Ballard was sent to cover the Fyre Festival.” That is all. [boing]
I’m going to give you a spoiler under the bar; if you were going to see La Haine [imdb] without my telling you to, go ahead and do so then come back and comment on this posting.
If you’re a Shakespeare fan (i.e.: you speak English) and you haven’t ever heard of this before, I’ve probably just altered your holiday gift request list.
Adam Curtis has another movie out. If you’re an Adam Curtis fan, you don’t need to read any more.