My latest appreciation video is now up. This one's a remake of the very first one, a tribute to Gamera's most vile and sinister opponent, Iris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrHXCS9KQSo Iris is a very interesting figure among the kaiju. He's pretty clearly based on Viras from the Showa Gamera films - an alien squid monster - but they … Continue reading Kaiju Appreciations: Iris (Updated)
Flotsam: A Hodgepodge Ending in Lovecraft
1. I try to hunt up simple, straightforward points where ideas make contact with reality in order to judge their truth or falseness. Preferably reality I can see for myself, or which is at least clear and concrete enough to be resistant to rhetoric. For instance, a question that occurred to me this week: has … Continue reading Flotsam: A Hodgepodge Ending in Lovecraft
A Quick Short
Once upon a time there was an old farmer named Zechariah Flint. He grew all kinds of things, but his specialty was cabbages. He won prizes at all the fairs for his beautiful cabbages, and they were his pride and joy. Well, one year, just a few days before he was due to harvest the … Continue reading A Quick Short
Thought of the Day
My reaction when public schools claim to teach kids to think for themselves:"Admirable. I recommend you start by asking their views on the phrase 'Nemo dat quod non habet'."
A Disappointing Ending
I finished Cowboy Bebop this weekend, and, I have to say, I was really disappointed by the ending. I won't say what happens, except that's it's ambiguous and the writer has explicitly said that he wants people to make their own minds about it. Well, I can do that. In fact, I might end up … Continue reading A Disappointing Ending
Quote of the Day: Dorothy Sayers
"For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armour was never so necessary."-Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning
TCM Remembers 2021
Friday Flotsam: Thoughts on ‘No Way Home’
1. It being New Year's Eve, I suppose standard practice would be to give some kind of a retrospective of the year gone by or speculations of the one to come. But we have more important things to talk about today; namely Spider-Man! I'd thought I was done with the MCU, but the word-of-mouth on … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Thoughts on ‘No Way Home’
Christmas
No flotsam this week. Instead here's the poem 'Christmas' by Sir John Betjeman: The bells of waiting Advent ring,The Tortoise stove is lit againAnd lamp-oil light across the nightHas caught the streaks of winter rainIn many a stained-glass window sheenFrom Crimson Lake to Hookers Green. The holly in the windy hedgeAnd round the Manor House … Continue reading Christmas
Thought of the Day
The fact that we cannot trust our current rulers - whether government, media, corporate, or Church - is itself one of the things that must be taken into account by any solution to the current situation.
Serpent's Den 