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Month: May 2020

A slow noir sci-fi show that’s perfect for bedtime

A slow noir sci-fi show that’s perfect for bedtime

If, like most of us in this day and age, you enjoy a good binge watch of streaming video entertainment, then I’m sure you are familiar with this pattern: you start to watch an episodic series, and you get pulled in. Each episode ends with a plot twist or cliffhanger and when it’s over your appetite is whetted, and you can’t help but watch the next episode. Before you know it, it’s after midnight and you are regretting staying up too late yet another night in a row.

If this is a problem for you, then you might be interested in checking out this show that my BFF and I recently finished. It’s called Tales From The Loop. It’s an anthology sci-fi series, and it is *so* slow paced that getting through an episode is like a slog through a swamp.

That’s not to say it’s a bad show; it has interesting stories and characters, and a really cool retro 1970s aesthetic. It’s contemplative and sad and a bit dark. The episodes make me think of Ray Bradbury short stories; they are thoughtful and personal, using sci-fi as a background to tell a story that is ultimately human. Interestingly, Bradbury had his own anthology TV show, but unfortunately it wasn’t that good.

Tales From the Loop also reminds me of an earlier sci-fi show that had a similar premise – that somewhere in America there’s a small town where all kinds of secret weird science research is going on. That other show was called Eureka, and was more of a fun adventure series with slapstick comedy. Tales From the Loop is serious and dark, which fits the current social mood and the new noir age in film and television.

What’s great about the slow pace of the show is that by the time an episode ends, you will be ready to go to sleep. That makes it perfect for watching at the end of the evening when you just want a little entertainment to wind your day down, and don’t want to get caught up in binge watching. I think it deserves its own subgenre name, to cover the fact that it is both quiet and contemplative, as well as dark and despairing. Let’s call it calme noir.

Tales from the Loop is available on Amazon Prime. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

A Memorial Day that will go down in infamy

A Memorial Day that will go down in infamy

Memorial Day 2020 will be remembered as the day America blew off the experts and partied with the coronavirus. Reading the news articles about how crowds gathered at beaches and parks, ignoring the social distancing recommendations of the CDC, I can’t help but notice the irony. Memorial Day was instituted as a holiday to honor those who have died performing their civic duty. And America chose to celebrate it by ignoring civic duty altogether.

Maybe it’s just that the definition of civic duty has changed. After all, the President told us just after 9/11 to do our duty by going shopping. As citizen-consumers of the neo-liberal market state, it is our responsibility to sustain economic activity at all costs, even if the cost is the lives of those vulnerable to a contagious new virus.

This could be seen as a consequence of the failure of leadership at the Federal level, with the current President actually touting conspiracy theories. It’s a crying shame that partisanship has split the country to the point that it determines what facts you believe. I get that it’s hard to know what’s really going on, given that even the experts on disease control can only make a best assessment based on limited data. But would it really have been so hard to just enjoy this weekend from home?

Next Memorial Day should be dedicated to those who are now going to die because so many people chose to ignore social distancing and spread SARS-COV-2. Next Memorial Day should honor those who did their duty for freedom, by suffering and dying of COVID-19, thanks to this weekend’s hordes of the irresponsible and ignorant.

Beachgoers on Memorial Day in Port Aransas, Texas
Today’s Workout Music: Wii Fit Music

Today’s Workout Music: Wii Fit Music

It’s been a couple of years since I published a Workout Album post. In the meantime, I swear, I was going to the fitness center in my apartment complex on a semi-regular, albeit infrequent basis. I was listening to my standby electronic music while I exercised – maybe some Shpongle Remixed, or some Hanna Haïs. But that’s all in the past. You see, they won’t let me into the fitness center any more!

So after a month or so of pandemic lockdown I was noticing the ill effects. A whole day of literally no physical activity except for briefly moving from one room of the house to another. It made me realize how much extra activity I was doing before just from commuting to work and walking about at the office. Now I was homebound, and it was often too cold, windy or rainy for a walk, seeing as this is the year of perpetual winter, among other disruptions. My body was getting stiff from inactivity, and my lower back was aching, which is my red flag that I am being too sedentary.

What to do? Luckily, my best friend and partner, in whose home I am quarantining, had a solution. She dragged an old device out from under a bed (I presume) and we got to working out again. That’s right, I’m talking about the Wii Fit. Everyone had one back around 2008, remember? And yours is probably still under a bed somewhere.

My BFF’s son expertly crafted our Miis, we did our body tests (my current Wii Fit Age is 46, BTW), and got to it. And what fun it was! It was a bit of nostalgia trip, re-experiencing the balance board and the different activities. It might not be the perfect exercise system, but it’s solved the problem of complete lack of activity.

I find that Wii Fit’s method of rewarding with credits and encouraging improvement with scores and rankings motivates me. And some of the activities are a lot of fun. I generally favor the balance games, especially the slalom, and the yoga. My favorite aerobics is the boxing, which is a really good workout. We have been fairly disciplined in working out regularly, and it’s having the desired effect. I may not get to the level of buffness of that guy from Hobart, but I am confident that my health is going to improve.

It does mean, however, that my workout music for the forseeable future is going to be the Wii Fit theme music. I don’t think there is anyway to change it. I guess I’ll get back to the Shpongle later.

That’s Mii in the middle.

Ruling the Waves Reviewed, Part II

Ruling the Waves Reviewed, Part II

This is a continuation of an earlier post where I started reviewing the book Ruling the Waves, by Debora L. Spar, specifically attempting to tie the author’s thesis in with saecular theory. In that post I only got as far as the first technological wave, the telegraph. In this post I’ll cover the next two waves – radio and the late twentieth-century advancements in television. First, let’s recap the thesis of Spar’s book, summarized in my first post.

The author has a premise that when a ground-breaking new technology is introduced, it goes through four phases of development before becoming a commonplace part of everyday life on which we depend. First there is the invention phase, involving just a few people, and then the entrepreneur phase, where risk-takers develop the new technology commercially. Next is what she calls a period of “creative anarchy,” when the most successful entrepreneurs battle for supremacy in the marketplace, and finally the rulemaking phase, where those who now dominate the technology application push for a fixed legal structure within which to operate.

Now, when looking at the telegraph, it was fairly easy to align the development of the technology with the turnings of the Civil War Saeculum. The invention phase happens at the end of the second turning, the entrepreneurial and market free-for-all phases during the third turning leading up to the Civil War, and then the rule-making period comes with the rise of Western Union during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age.

The next two waves, as described by Spar, are a little more compressed in time. The story of radio comes in two halves. The first one is dominated by the best known figure in the history of radio, Guglielmo Marconi (b. 1874 – Missionary peer). He was not just an inventor, but also an entrepreneur, and managed not only to make radio a feasible technology, but also to completely control the market via his patents during the 1910s.

But Marconi’s dominance was undermined by two factors. The first was nation-state governments, which recognized the security implications of wireless communication and used their authority to constrain Marconi’s monopoly power. The second factor was the development of the next generation of radio technology. Marconi’s system used spark gaps to generatate pulses of electricity and transmit signals in Morse code – it was essentially wireless telegraphy. What was really wanted was a way to send signals on continuous waves. Then sound, even music, could be transmitted. It would transform radio into wireless phonography, which is how we experience it today.

This is the second half of the radio story, a sort of mini-wave of its own. The invention phase was primarily the work of an engineer named Reginald Fessenden (b. 1866 – Missionary), and occurred at the same time that Marconi’s creation was prominent. The entrepreneurial/creative anarchy phase took place in the first part of the 1920s. It was kicked off by an important development, the formation of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919. This was an innovation of its own in the commercialization of communications – RCA was an organization that controlled radio stations without controlling the technology of radio. This was the beginning of the broadcasting industry. Marconi’s system became obsolete and his patents worthless, and his empire crumbled.

In the first half of the 1920s, radio was in a period that definitely matches Spar’s creative anarchy phase in technology develoment. Small stations operated by amateurs – “radioheads” – sprung up everywhere, broadcasting whatever music they could get their hands on. This became too chaotic to be tenable, since by their very nature broadcast signals interfere with one another. Order came with laws passed in the late 1920s to regulate bandwidth, and with the emergence of broadcasting corporations which controlled networks of radio stations and could operate them in a coordinated fashion. The first of these was the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), and before long ABC and CBS came along – the Big Three which moved on to the world of television broadcasting and which are still prominent today.

So Spar’s entire cycle of four phases of technology development can actually fit into the space of one decade. The fact that radio’s story is ensconced within the third turning of the Great Power saeculum fits that era’s heady, fast-paced reputation. The subsequent development of television takes place in the next first turning, but Spar actually skips over that entirely. Her example from the history of television specifically relates to the rise of satellite and digital TV.

This is another fast cycle, and takes place within the third turning of the current Millennial saeculum – in the 1990s, the last decade before the publication of Spar’s book. It starts with the rise of SkyTV, powered by the relentless ambition of Rupert Murdoch (b. 1931 – Silent). The new techonology in question was satellite broadcasting, and the key to SkyTV’s takeover of the British market was the fact that Britain’s tight television regulations did not cover this particular type of broadcasting.

By taking advantage of this regulatory gap, Murdoch was able to penetrate the British television market with a unique brand, one that threatened Britain’s conservative and cultured self-image with trashy “American-style” content. SkyTV quickly got into financial trouble, which Murdoch handled by bringing in legendary executive Sam Chisholm (b. 1939 – Silent peer). But no sooner had Chisholm straightened things out, than SkyTV was hit by a new wave of techonological innnovation and forced to adjust to that.

This new wave was digital broadcasting, which basically reimplements signal encoding in such a way that far more channels can fit within the same bandwidth of electromagetic radiation. Consequently, providers can offer more content and choices, to presumably leverage for more profit-making. You may remember this transistion, which for consumers was disruptive since it meant their old analog systems were going to become obsolete. You may remember complaining and a sense of consumer powerlessness in the face of inexorable progress. It’s a done deal now, but at the time that Spar’s book was published was an ongoing process of negotiation and new rulemaking.

What’s interesting about these different techonological waves is that as they progress across the twentieth century, “ruling the wave” becomes as much a matter of navigating the regulatory environment as of pioneering a new techonological application. This comes with the growing sophistication of both corporate enterprise and government oversight. But even as the focus of the stories has shifted from individual inventors and entrepreneurs to giant corporations and milestone regulatory acts, there is still room for strong personalities to exert their influence.

The last part of the book covers computer and Internet technology. I will finish reading it and conclude these reviews in a future post.

Subreddit of the week: Schizophrenia Rides

Subreddit of the week: Schizophrenia Rides

In the movie Forrest Gump, about a Baby Boomer who is there for all the iconic moments of the Baby Boomer life course, there is a scene where the main character plays a part in the story of the rise of the bumper sticker.

It’s a fun moment that ties into the movie’s theme of touching on the milestones of late twentieth century history. And the proliferation of bumper stickers and window decals as a form of personal expression was indeed such a milestone. It coincided, I believe, with a parallel proliferation of personal expression on the fronts and backs of T-shirts. It came with an era of rising individualism.

The heyday of the bumper sticker was the 1980s and 1990s, right after when this scene from Forrest Gump is set. It was a time when people proudly displayed their opinions, attitudes, political affiliations and cultural preferences on the rear ends of their automotive vehicles – in colorful, and sometimes confrontational or offensive ways. A drive on a crowded highway would have given you ample opportunity to learn about the beliefs and personalities of the other drivers all around you.

In the 2000s the bumper sticker frenzy started dying down. In particular, displaying political support on one’s vehicle has become passé. It was still done in the 2000s; there was “W” to show support for President Bush, and “Hope” to show support for President Obama. But since the 2010s, it has become very rare. I think people have gotten fearful of displaying partisan loyalty in public, as the rancor of partisanship has gotten worse.

Some iconic stickers still linger. “Coexist” marks you as a believer in diversity, and “Salt Life” as someone who likes the beach lifestyle. A set of decals on the rear window identifying one’s family members remains popular. But these days, you will find that most cars either have nothing displayed, or innoffensive badges of loyalty to sports teams, schools, churches or civic organizations.

And then, there are vehicles like the one below, which can be seen driving around in the town where I live.

These days, if you plaster your vehicle with bumper stickers, it may end up featured on the subreddit /r/SchizophreniaRides, dedicated to showcasing and making fun of drivers the Internet assumes must be a little bit insane. I mean, what is going on in the mind of this car’s driver? They don’t like liberals and Democrats, support the current President with one gigantic sticker, but also champion strippers and sport a rainbow flag? I guess it shows how much values have shifted and what an – uh – interesting coalition the current administration has behind it.

It’s not just bumper stickers that will get you featured on /r/SchizopreniaRides. Any ostentatious display on your set of wheels will do it – the more out there on the fringe, the better. Here are a couple more examples from my neighborhood. I guess there must be something about Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing. There is nothing wrong with displaying your opinions on your car, so long you don’t incite violence, and you can pass a safety inspection. But these days, personal expression has moved out of the public space in real life, and onto the Internet. Online, people can remain anonymous if they like, or confine themselves to a safe space of likeminded others.

If you do insist on sharing your worldview in the old fashioned way of twenty years ago or more, well, kudos to you for your bravery. But just keep in mind that you might get featured on /r/SchizophreniaRides.