#David McKay Publications

[uwmspeccoll]

Steamy Saturday

Sam: a successful man who is also an unabashed homosexual.

Toby: lusts darker and more deadly than homosexuality ate at his being.

Addie: she craved fulfillment as a woman.

Walter: he could love both men and women -- for pay.

A frank novel of lives and loves in a strange twilight world.

For 1959, this was steam beyond steam. But even in its time, Sam by American novelist and playwright Lonnie Coleman (1920-1982), published in New York by David McKay Publications, and issued as a pulp paperback a year later by Pyramid Books, was praised for its sharp writing, witty dialogue, well-developed characters, and its frank, sensitive treatment of a subject that was quite taboo in its day. This is not surprising, as Coleman, who was an editor at Ladies' Home Journal and Collier's, was already a very successful author of eight novels and several short stories before writing Sam. And his success continued after Sam, especially with his 1973 Civil War-themed New York Times Best Seller Beulah Land, which along with its sequel Look Away, Beulah Land (1977) was turned into the highly-popular but critically-panned 1980 NBC tv miniseries Beulah Land starring Lesley Ann Warren, Michael Sarrazin. Meredith Baxter, and Don Johnson.

View other gay fiction posts.

View more LGBTQ+ posts.

View other pulp fiction posts.

[driveintheaterofthemind]

Vintage Comic - Feature Book #046

Pencils: Phil Davis

Inks: ?

David McKay Publications (1945)

[whatsnewtonetflix]

We're back with a new name, What's New to Netflix, and an accidental crossover episode this time around, where we go through all of the new titles coming to Max in October 2023 instead of Netflix. Feeling confused? Don't worry, so were we, but we're seeing this through, as this will be part one of a two-episode special that will be all about stuff coming to Max.

Then we review some stuff that's actually on Netflix when we take a look at the philosophical sci-fi alien film Arrival from 2016, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Afterwards, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger in the gritty historical crime drama Public Enemies from 2009, directed by Michael Mann. And finally, we talk about Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues from 2013, with Will Ferrel reprising his role as Ron Burgundy, directed by Adam McKay.

All of this plus, like we mentioned, we totally goofed up and went over everything coming to Max instead of Netflix! What a way to start our new rebranded podcast! Hopefully, if we do something like this again in the future, it will be intentional. But we still think this will be a cool treat for all of you, and if it isn't, let us know!

CLICK BELOW TO STREAM OR DOWNLOAD

got a suggestion for the show?: whatsnewtonetflix@gmail.com

[rugtopper]

HAUNTED BARBERSHOP

By rugtopper

The son becoming the father....it happens quite a lot.

Lawrence Ryan McKay, Jr. had dreaded this day for twelve years. He did not want to deal with anything that had to do with his father, especially his father’s estate. Larry, as his friends called him, had not seen or spoken to his father since the day he and his mother drove out of town after the divorce was final. In truth, Larry really didn’t know his father aside from what his mother had told him. 

Walking around the Town Square waiting for the afternoon funeral gave Larry a lot of time to think. He really wasn’t concentrating on anything in particular when something caught his attention on the other side of the courthouse. Was that old Mr. Cecil standing in front of his barbershop smoking a pipe?  Larry thought to himself. Old Mr. Cecil. Mr. Cecil Hobson. He was old even when Larry was a kid. But, wasn’t Mr. Cecil dead?  Maybe this is his son. Who knows? Suddenly, Mr. Cecil looked up and waved at Larry. Next to dealing with his father’s death, seeing Mr. Cecil was not something Larry wanted to do.

“Why, Young Lawrence, it is good to see you. How are you?” Mr. Cecil asked in his cheerful voice.

Larry reluctantly walked over to the barbershop. “Doing as well as can be expected, thank you for asking. Aren’t you Mr. Cecil’s son?”

“Uh . . . yes. I started working with Dad right after you and your mother left town. Why don’t you come in for a bit? You look like you could do with a trim. No charge.”

“No thanks. I don’t qualify as one of your clients. You see I do have a full head of hair.” Larry was now standing on the sidewalk under the sign that read:

MR. CECIL’S BARBERSHOP

And hair replacement salon

“That’s all right, Lawrence. I do give regular haircuts. Come on, it will only take a few minutes.”

“Oh, all right. I do need a trim. Besides, it is still a couple of hours until the funeral begins.” Larry slowly walked down the steps to the below-street-level entrance.

The bell on the door jingled lightly as Larry walked through the door. The room was pristine, as if time had stood still. The black and white tiled floor looked just as Larry had remembered it. The two giant red leather chairs didn’t seem as big now to a grown-up Larry as they had when he was much younger.  Still, they were over-powering and impressive. There was even a faint odor of aftershave in the air, which Larry really liked. However, the row of old leathery wig stands still lined the shelf behind both chairs. This distressed Larry when he was a kid. His mother always made an issue of how embarrassing it was to have a husband who wore a toupee. As Larry walked further into the room, he noticed the rogue gallery of Hollywood publicity photos still occupying the entire wall across from the chairs. For a moment he just stood there and stared, as he used to do, at the dapper men who wore toupees: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, David Niven, Leslie Howard, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Charles Boyer, Richardo Montalban, Jimmy Stewart, Lorne Greene . .

.

“Why don’t you have a seat, Lawrence?” Mr. Cecil suggested.

Larry broke out of his semi-trance long enough to back into the huge red-leather chair.

“Now, Lawrence. . ."

“Uh . . .I prefer ‘Larry’ if you don’t mind.” He said very haughtily.

“Oh, okay, sure, Larry. Whatever you say. Now, how about that trim.”

“Well, I might need a trim, but your ‘services’ are not for me. I am fortunate to have a full head of hair. It looks like you inherited your dad’s genes for hair loss and bad toupees.”

“Ah, I see. Well, let’s get started.” Mr. Cecil said this as he quickly threw a cape around Larry, grabbed the water bottle on the counter, and began misting Larry‘s hair.

“Hey, that is interesting. Is that scent ‘cotton candy’?” Larry asked.

“Yeah, the kids really love it. It makes the haircut easier. Just relax and enjoy it.” Mr. Cecil just kept lightly misting Larry’s hair until drops of the liquid began falling on the cape.

Larry just sat there enjoying the fragrance. He was very relaxed, not sleepy, just relaxed. As he continued to breathe in and out, he noticed a wonderful, tingling sensation all over his body. He looked at Mr. Cecil in the mirror. Why did he feel so relaxed and Mr. Cecil look so happy? As Larry kept looking at Mr. Cecil, he noticed that the mist wasn’t even going on his head anymore. Mr. Cecil just kept spraying it in the air. Without even realizing what was happening, the tingling sensation slowly turned into a numbing sensation.

Methodically and sadistically, Mr. Cecil put down the mister and slowly leaned into Larry‘s ear and said, “Now, Larry, or should I say ‘Lawrence,’ let’s get one thing quite clear. You will be receiving all of my services today. And, furthermore, you will enjoy them for the rest of your life.”

Larry’s eyes got as wide as saucers. That was the only thing that moved. Larry was totally immobilized. He could not even clear his throat to speak.  Mr. Cecil began to comb Larry’s unruly mane of hair.

“Lawrence, your father was the kindest and dearest of men, and one of my best customers. He was so proud when you were born. It completely devastated him as a young father when he started losing his hair. You were about three at the time. That horrible woman, your mother, gave your father hell everyday of his life. It was a vicious cycle with her. Her constant barbs about his toupee only made him feel like less of a man, which made him unable to perform like a man.”

Larry’s eyes widened at this.

“Yes, Lawrence, that is why you were an only child. Well, him not being to perform only caused him more stress, which caused him to lose more hair. That just brought on more grief from your mother. To add insult to injury, your mother had to start having an affair with her boss at the bank. That nearly killed your father.”

During this short expose, Mr. Cecil had been trimming Larry’s shaggy mop into a respectable, boarding school haircut. “I think we’re ready to start the next phase of your makeover.” Mr. Cecil pulled out the electric clippers from the cabinet, turned it on, and plowed down the center of Larry’s pride and joy. Not one muscle flinched on Larry’s face or body, but his eyes knew the rest of the story.

“Your father loved you so much. Your mother poisoned you to him even before they divorced and the two of you moved away. Your father and I would sit here for hours trying to figure out how to get you away from that woman. Your father and I became very close. He was my best friend. He was more than a friend.”

With that said, Mr.Cecil turned Larry toward the mirror so he could look at the five-o’clock-shadow on the top of his head. “Oh, I am not going to leave it like this. Don’t you worry. You see your dad wanted you to be just like him. I intend on seeing that that happens. This little laser wand is the ticket to the new you.” Mr. Cecil deliberately started burning off each little hair on Larry’s head. “Do you remember the few times you would come here with your dad when you were a kid? Your mother hated it when you came here with him. It was perfectly fine for her to be a slut and screw around with every power-mad man in town, but your dad couldn’t have . . . Well, I guess she didn’t want anyone else to get any from your dad since she wasn’t. Stupid bitch. This is looking really good, if I do so myself. You’ll be ready for your first toupee in just a few minutes, Lawrence. In fact, I have your dad’s first toupee sitting right over there.”

Larry remembered that toupee. His dad was still wearing that toupee when Larry started first grade. He remembered his dad picking him up from school. He didn’t really understand why his dad’s hair looked the way it did and the other kid’s dad’s hair didn’t. His dad’s hair was dark brown, but his toupee was a lighter shade of brown. He remembered asking his mom about it. Boy did that cause all sorts of trouble. He remembered them fighting one time when he in the second grade. He walked into the living room just as his mom ripped off his dad’s toupee. He remembered how old and ashamed and embarrassed his dad looked. His mom just laughed at him and threw the toupee in his face.

“Oh, Lawrence you are going to look so handsome in your toupee just like your father did when he first wore one.” Mr. Cecil turned Larry toward the mirror. Although he was only 24, Larry saw a middle-aged man sitting quite still in the chair. For the first time he really saw just how much he looked like his father. No wonder his mother had thrown him out of the house on his 18th birthday. He looked just the same way his dad did on the day of that shocking fight. That was the first time Larry had ever seen his dad bald. His dad had tried so hard to hide it from him. Mr. Cecil took the toupee off the old leathery wig stand, applied some tape to the tape tabs, and placed the toupee on Larry’s silky-smooth scalp. For the first time since Mr. Cecil had started using the mister, Larry could feel something, but it wasn’t something he wanted to feel.

“Ah. I see you are feeling the side effects of the mist. You see you are going to be just like your dad.” Mr. Cecil slowly combed the toupee into place.  It set apart from Larry’s hair in texture and color just like it had on his dad’s head. “You might as well dump that silly little girlfriend of yours. You’ll never be able to get it up for her or any other girl ever again. Oh, I see that excites you. Gee, I hope you wear boxer shorts like your dad did.” With that, Mr. Cecil removed the cape, freed Larry’s engorged member, and kneeling down proceeded to suck Larry so hard he nearly was yanked from the chair. Larry had never had a blowjob so powerful. When he was all through and not leaving one drop behind, Mr. Cecil zipped Larry’s pants. Larry just sat there staring at the image of his new look. He didn’t even see Mr. Cecil take a small bottle and mist him in the face with it. In seconds, the feeling began to return to his body. Mr. Cecil helped him up and walked him to the door.

As they walked out onto the stoop Mr. Cecil said, “Now, Lawrence, I know you are a bit confused about all of this. I understand. I did all of this because of your father. I know it is what he wanted. Don’t worry. You look great in a toupee, just like your dad did. I also know that you will always wear it. You see, what you had on top will never, ever come back. I saw the look on your face when you saw how bald you were in the mirror. That is just how your dad looked the day your mom embarrassed him by ripping it off in that fight. Yes, I know all about that. You see they were fighting about me. He told her he was going to leave her for me. You probably don’t remember that. But you see Lawrence I didn’t just do all of this for him. The day your mother took you away was a very sad day for your dad. He lost more than just you did on that day. She had let you come here to the barbershop to say goodbye to your dad.  You never even bothered to come into the shop. You stood outside here on the stoop. Your dad and I walked outside to see you. I turned to go back inside to let the two of have a moment alone. Do you remember what happened next, Lawrence?”

Larry did. He always remembered it. He remembered it as if it were yesterday. He was standing on the top step nearest the sidewalk looking down at his dad and Mr. Cecil. Mr. Cecil turned to walk inside. Without thinking, Larry did exactly as his mother had done and grabbed at Mr. Cecil’s toupee.  There in his frightened, twelve-year-old hands was Mr. Cecil’s pewter toupee. Mr. Cecil spun around to grab his toupee, tripped on the bottom step of the stoop, fell, and hit his head. That is all Larry remembers ever happening.

As if awakened from a trance, Larry realized where he was. He turned around to look back at the barbershop. What he saw was a burned-out hovel and a pile of garbage with what looked liked a sign on top. All he could make out was “MR. CECIL’S.”

Larry started walking toward the funeral home. What just happened? Was it all a dream? The autumn wind picked up. As if by instinct, he touched the top of his hair. Then, he knew. It was no dream. It was both a nightmare and a new reality.

THE END

[berrygoblin]

I posted 2,892 times in 2022

That's 1,323 more posts than 2021!

1 post created (0%)

2,891 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thesmilingfish

@dedkake

@spockvarietyhour

@wilwheaton

I tagged 2,891 of my posts in 2022

#stargate - 1,118 posts

#sga - 960 posts

#stargate atlantis - 932 posts

#joe flanigan - 684 posts

#john sheppard - 659 posts

#rodney mckay - 298 posts

#david hewlett - 276 posts

#sg1 - 225 posts

#stargate sg1 - 224 posts

#art - 212 posts

Longest Tag: 76 characters

#remember that time america elected trump rather than have a woman president?

My Top Posts in 2022:

In case anyone was wondering what my avatar is😊

NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

2 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[swldx]

RNZ Pacific 1307 10 Mar 2024

7390Khz 1259 10 MAR 2024 - RNZ PACIFIC (NEW ZEALAND) in ENGLISH from RANGITAIKI. SINPO = 55445. English, s/on w/bellbird int. until pips and news @1300z anchored by Vicki McKay. Landlords will once again be able to claim tax deductions for interest on residential investment property from the start of next month, David Seymour says. The policy was promised among tax reforms announced by the new coalition government late last year. Seymour, the leader of the ACT Party and the Associate Minister of Finance, said the change would benefit both landlords and renters. Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick will be the Green Party's new co-leader alongside Marama Davidson, as James Shaw steps down. Last month, Shaw said he would be stepping down from his duties as co-leader in March. Donald Trump has posted a US$91.6 million (NZ$155.4m) bond as he appeals against the verdict in E Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit against him. A jury in January found Trump owed the former columnist millions of dollars for defamation when he denied he sexually assaulted her. A judge had rejected the former president's request for more time to secure a bond to cover the penalty. Trump also owes over US$400m in a separate fraud case. Portugal's criminal police agency PJ said on Saturday it arrested a member of Italy's Camorra crime group who has been on the run for two decades. PJ said in a statement it made the arrest in the country's northern region and that the member of the Camorra, as the Naples version of the mafia is known, was the target of a European arrest warrant. The first official photo of the Princess of Wales since her abdominal surgery in January has been released by Kensington Palace. The image, taken by Prince William at Windsor earlier this week, shows the princess with her three children. The photo is accompanied by a Mother's Day message along with a "thank you" from the princess for the public's "continued support". She is not expected to return to public duties before Easter. @1303z trailer for RNZ "Pacific Waves". @1304z Weather Forecast: Fine, cloudy periods with odd showers in the afternoon. @1305z "All Night Programme" anchored by Vicki McKay. Backyard gutter antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, beamAz 35°, bearing 240°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 12912KM from transmitter at Rangitaiki. Local time: 0759.

[vomitnest]

"Nothing can be a secret in the United States. Over forty billion dollars is spent each year to spy on the enemies of corporate America."

"He 'll wake up, "replied McKay. Bottles were also found at the house where they were staying. The F.B. I. claimed they were going to be used as Molotov cocktails. In 2010 David McKay was facing 30 years in prison.

The authorities would not take such drastic actions and spend so much money if they did not believe Food Not Bombs was effective. Corporate concern that the public might support policies that redirect money from the building of bombs towards food, healthcare, education and other programs that would make America really secure has inspired an extensive campaign of police repression against Food Not Bombs in the United States. The authorities are also worried about the ability of Food Not Bombs to provide food and logistical support to protests against the policies of the government and corporations."

[doortaste41]

Generate Income Being Funny

It feels a bit weird to share this with people now, due to the fact that I believe it sounds a bit amusing. The truth is that today it's absolutely apparent to me that I are accountable for how I feel and how I handle my life. Just for the record, I've experienced some major challenges in life, much like everyone does from time to time. However as I found out: It's not about what takes place to you, it's about how you manage it. OGet an Early Morning Ritual. If you do not leap out of bed in the morning then you require to obtain a regular early morning routine to follow, to promote health and action. Early morning rituals can include exercise very first thing to get the endorphins streaming, spending a long time in the sun to absorb some much required vitamin D (great for bones and muscles), the sun is likewise extremely excellent as a state of mind elevator. Eat a healthy meal to start every day off looking after your health. There is no excuse to not have your own morning routine, get up earlier and start tomorrow. Prepare the night prior to so there are no reasons. Don't use recycled jokes and stories, the faux pas of public speaking. As you have actually probably experienced this yourself while listening to speeches prior to, hearing familiar stories countless times previously are bound to generate groans rather of laughs. Discover appropriate timing. Timing is necessary also if you wish to discover to be amusing. Laugh line must be offered at the ideal timing. When you just had an amusing conversation with your pals and an hour later on you have actually thought about something that is amusing, stating it after everything has actually cooled down and the laughter has actually passed away down might not be amusing anymore. To be funny, you need to be quick too. It is necessary to understand what you're passionate about. Men and females alike link deeply to someone who has a deep understanding of what they truly take pleasure in. If you're passionate about your comics collection, another person may not be. Nevertheless, the shared regard that one can obtain from expressing something they enjoy is really significant; it's how all of us communicate it. ORead a Great Book. Reading is and stimulates the brain believed to prevent Alzheimers disease. Obtain into a reading practice of a minimum of one hour a day. And select books that will make you feel excellent about yourself and your future. At this time it possibly self help books, funny books or topics you are interested in. Attempt to leave the unfortunate, self soaked up bios and books alone for the time being.

In 1930 Walt Disney likewise entered comics with the "Mickey Mouse Book" released by Bibo and Lang. It was 9 by 12 and 20 pages long. Inside the comic were likewise video games, stories and songs. This was truly more a magazine than a comic and it truly wasn't till 1931 that the very first true Mickey Mouse comic came out. It was 32 pages long, 5\u00a01/2 by 8\u00a01/2 and published by David McKay Business. Over 50,000 copies of this comic were released. Between 1931 and 1933 there were a variety of Mickey Mouse based comics that were published. There are book of dank memes of other methods to make a good living using humor. Try to think of commercials that are particularly efficient. Chances are the commercials you considered were funny. This is since a great joke is memorable. Marketers have understood this for decades.

[eelhound]

"Climate change has long been compared to an approaching asteroid by incredulous scientists and activists who ask, as they tear their hair out, if we’d respond with the same denial and delay to the kind of planetary disaster immortalized in end-of-history blockbusters like Armageddon. Those movies have conditioned us to assume that no, we’d put together a plucky team of characters, rough around the edges but with a lot of heart, who, with the help of modern science and unlimited government resources, would win out over the space rock. Their only obstacles would be their own personal issues, their inability to work as a team, and the immensity of the task itself.

[Adam] McKay and David Sirota, the journalist and former Bernie Sanders speechwriter who cowrote [Don't Look Up's] story, flip that timeworn scenario on its head. What if stopping the actual disaster wasn’t the hardest part? What if the hardest part was convincing anyone to even bother trying?...

The people of the world of Don’t Look Up decidedly aren’t the problem. Bar patrons coax the horrible truth about the government’s inaction out of our heroes and respond with concern and violent outrage. A sweet Midwestern Christian boy played by Timothée Chalamet casually assumes the comet isn’t real, but changes his mind with evidence and exceedingly gentle persuasion. At a Trump-like rally, Jason implores the crowd that they 'Don’t look up,' until a doughy, red-hatted attendee does, and sees the comet clearly streaking right at them. 'Fucking lied to us!' he yells.

In a reversal of the prevailing liberal narrative since 2016 — which either casts all ordinary Trump voters as irredeemable, bigoted villains, to the point of fantasizing that they lose their health insurance, or dumps the blame on nonvoters for failing their politicians — it’s the country’s elites and institutions, including the media, that are the real problem in Don’t Look Up. All corrupted by money, they mislead, manipulate, and distract the rest of us from what really matters. Maybe this is why the film’s been met with surprising hostility from a lot of the mainstream press, which have complained chiefly about the film’s lack of subtlety.

But subtlety isn’t always a virtue. Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War classic that McKay’s film has been widely and justifiably compared to, was hardly a masterclass in understatement, featuring a US military advised by a Nazi scientist with a sentient, murderous hand, and its final shot of a cowboy pilot practically orgasming on top of a falling nuclear warhead. There are different ways to make a movie, and not every climate film has to be Paul Schrader’s excellent First Reformed. The impressive streaming numbers for Don’t Look Up so far suggest McKay and Sirota’s approach has been the right one for their purposes of shaking the public by the shoulders and begging them to pay attention...

The Strangelove comparisons stick because both movies do a similar thing: They take a fundamentally absurd, nonsensical piece of logic that’s central to our politics — the nuclear policy of mutually assured destruction in Kubrick’s film and the denial of and even profit-making delusions toward the climate crisis in McKay’s — and let them play out in front of us. The results are laughable and unbelievable. It’s insane that people in power and influence would jeopardize stopping the literal apocalypse because they either saw it as a moneymaking opportunity or because they didn’t want to talk about bad news.

And yet this is the maddening reality of the climate crisis today, where business and political figures insist that preventing planetary disaster is too expensive and would cost jobs, and probably the most progressive anchor on cable news casually justifies the lack of his network’s climate coverage on the basis that it’s a 'ratings killer.' Just last week, one of the nation’s top newspapers giddily celebrated that leaders around the world were abandoning their climate pledges and 'starving the issue of political oxygen,' something it labels 'climate realism.'

For all the critics’ concerns that the movie is undermining its own goal, or that it’s stealing the thunder of hardworking climate campaigners, it’s worth looking to actual scientists and activists. There the film has been near universally positively received, one of the few bright spots in a year full of gloomy climate news. The gripes about its lack of subtlety haven’t landed with climate scientists, who instead recognize the scenes of the astronomers vainly trying to warn a pair of professional cable news morons not as over-the-top satire but as a reality they’ve lived through.

The scariest thing about Don’t Look Up is that absurd as it is, it barely exaggerates. Much of our political elite are just as greedy and foolish, our media just as vapid, and our response to impending disaster exactly as mind-bogglingly irrational as in the movie. But there is one major difference (and it does involve a spoiler): it may be too late for the characters in Don’t Look Up, but it’s not for us in the real world. Let’s prove McKay wrong by not sharing his characters’ fate."

- Branko Marcetic, from "Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up Captures the Stupidity of Our Political Era." Jacobin, 2 January 2022.

[thebowerypresents]

Dirty Projectors and Deerhunter Are a Winning Double Bill at Webster Hall

Dirty Projectors and Deerhunter – Webster Hall – September 11, 2019

We’ll likely look back on the end of the previous decade (2008-2010) as a particularly fruitful time for music, but there’s also a good chance that at that time, you were obsessed with some bands you’ve long since forgotten. This wouldn’t be the case for Deerhunter and Dirty Projectors. In an era when music lovers were traipsing their way through blogs to find the next best thing, Deerhunter and Dirty Projectors both secured their legacies carving out their own paths untethered to any larger movements of the day (remember chillwave?). Last night at Webster Hall, both bands managed to take rock music someplace new at a time when it seems increasingly impossible.

Ten years later and they’re sharing a stage at Webster Hall, which Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox was happy to return to again. “I’m glad this venue is back and I’m glad it hasn’t changed,” said the frontman, regaling the audience in the building’s history with the Dadaist movement to the Riot at the Ritz show, in which Public Image Limited played behind a screen and caused a riot, back when the place was still called the Ritz.

The bands switched sets each night of their two-night stay at Webster Hall, with the Dirty Projectors starting off Wednesday’s show. They’ve taken on many forms in their run as a band (I’d implore any fan to take a peak at their lengthy former members section on Wikipedia). In their current lineup, they’re perfectly equipped to handle the shape-shifting nature of their music. Felicia Douglass’s soulful coos complement David Longstreth’s sporadic guitar rhythms. As the main songwriter, Longstreth does himself no favors with the music he writes himself into, having to spider his hands up and down his guitar neck, fingerpicking riffs through usually sparse rhythms. Their songs ebb and flow with such ease that it’s easy to forget how difficult they must be to play.

After a complete breakdown and rebuild of the stage came Deerhunter, with Cox donning thick black glasses, a long overcoat and a luxurious shawl. He gradually lost clothes and accessories as the set progressed. If the delicate melodies of the Dirty Projectors are water vapor, Deerhunter’s are the deep, deep well. There’s truly nothing better than that band locking into a groove. “Take Care” felt like a tornado of sound ready to suck everything in with it. “Desire Lines,” sung by Lockett Pundt, began gently but ended feeling like a runaway train. While “Helicopter” brought on an entire atmosphere of its own making. September 11th tends to bring with it an acute sense of the passage of time, in a city otherwise pretty unsentimental about such things. Spending the end of the day with two beloved bands worth remembering forever was a good way of staving off the nostalgia. —Dan Rickershauser | @D4nRicks

(Photos courtesy of Dan Rickershauser.)

[lelcj115]

Don’t Look Up! Film Review

The film Don’t Look Up directed by Adam McKay premiered on December 5, 2021 and features a hub of A-List celebrities foressing a satirical plot on the climate crisis. Taking a look at Adam Mckay, his inspirations were derived from the 2019 book, The Uninhabitable Earth where David-Wallace Wells criticizes the climate crisis. Many common themes between the two mediums are portrayed through the use of the many catastrophic effects of climate change between the plot of the movie and book. To say McKay encapsulated what it meant to live through the political controversies of today’s climate crisis is an understatement, and here’s why:

The plot of the film begins when two scientists, Kate Dibiasky and Randall Mindy, discover an enormous comet hitting Earth, with the potential of ending the human race and obliterating the planet. In a panic, they start reaching out to many asteral and federal defense organizations to try and plan different ways to protect Earth. McKay utilizes a structure of intensity and tension in the beginning of the plot to display the true horrific sense of what is to come. As the two michigan state scientists embark on an adventure to shout it to the world, they experience multiple hurdles. In a whirl of chaos, the beauty of the film creeps many hidden messages of satire and dark humor through characters and themes. To identify this as a scientific black comedy would suffice, as the ideas of morbidity of the planet drives the movie and plot. Some comedic aspects that McKay uses as relief points is the repetition of Kate Dibiasky’s, “the snacks are free” line, when her team arrives at the White House. 

To foreshadow the ridiculousness of the White House scene and characters, from Donald Trump, I mean President Orlean, to the general, he charges the scientists for snacks, otherwise deemed free. Kate Dibiasky, throughout their entire adventure, relates back to that one moment in time as comedic relief. Some say that this is a dig at the United States’ lack of free and universal healthcare as other countries see this system as a human right. The snacks symbolize our healthcare system and the general symbolizes big pharma and the government. 

Understanding the real-world connection these characters have, it’s no surprise that Peter Isherwell, one of the antagonists of the movie, is meant to represent the antagonists of real-life. Elements of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk are summarized in the character of Peter Isherwell. There was a quote, “Rockets are cool,” by Elon Musk that I think would be very fitting as a line of Peter Isherwell. His character is robot-like with a stupefied innovative mindset that many of these modern-day colonizers have. Something as simple as rockets being cool could slide as a line he would say, especially in the comedic sense. 

When digesting the characters, I come to realize that many of them are A-list celebrities, what a great budget this film had. The use of these celebrities increases the impact of the message they are sending out about climate change. To list a few, Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio are the two main characters who eventually meet Meryl Streep, the president, and Jonah Hill, the president’s son and advisor. I think the reasoning behind why so many A-listers decided to make an appearance is due to the fact that this movie is not far from a wow-factor. From the morbidity to the comedic elements and the connections of real-life people to characters, the exposure these A-listers would get, both negative and positive publicity, is astounding. Unfortunately, I don’t think their impact of trying to bring about climate change awareness had much of an affect on the viewers. Others who have seen the movie had let the meaning go over their head and derived the plot to be terrible. 

When looking at the reviews, many people describe the plot of this movie as mid-tier. It’s the characters that my community seems to have a problem with. When asking around about the movie, many people stated that they didn’t really understand the goal. It was too complex for them to catch onto after only one viewing. Furthermore, they also regret the morbid ending. Viewers like happy endings yet McKay was trying to be a realist in the actuality of climate change and possibly another mass extinction, as he literally portrayed in the ending. They did, however, enjoy the brontoroc eating President Orlean at the end. 

Personally, I think this movie was great. From the acting to the plot, McKay did a great job in his symbolism and metaphoric aspects. Is this better at explaining climate change than a documentary? Quite possibly. Many Americans choose to ignore the global impact we have on the climate-which could be why they didn’t find this movie entertaining- so who’s to say they would even want to watch a documentary. Furthermore, there is an extremity with film movies that documentaries don’t convey, connection with characters. And even more-so, McKay chose an incredible group of A-listers to promote this idea. The movie was great if you were able to grasp at the different themes presented, otherwise you wouldn’t have liked it.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air

Back in 2009, I found the best technical book about climate change I've ever read: David McKay's SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR:

https://memex.craphound.com/2009/04/08/sustainable-energy-without-the-hot-air-the-freakonomics-of-conservation-climate-and-energy/

McKay's book was a first for me: not a popular *science* book, but a popular *engineering* book, one that simply parameterized the way that we create and use energy, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusions about the tradeoffs we'd need to make to save our world.

McKay's figures included things like the total number of solar photons that strike the Earth, the total tide-stresses exerted by the moon, the maximum possible efficiency of a plane-shape cylinder through air, etc.

All of these represent the absolute best-case scenarios for various energy usage, production and storage problems, and anyone proposing a climate measure that exceeds these maximums is either ill-informed or actively lying.

That volume, with its lucid prose and superb data-visualizations, begat a whole series. In 2011, there was SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS WITH BOTH EYES OPEN by Julian Allwood and Jonathan Cullen.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/11/17/sustainable-materials-indispensable-impartial-popular-engineering-book-on-the-future-of-our-built-and-made-world/

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS adopted McKay's axiom of focusing on making small changes to large causes, rather than large changes to small causes.

Thus it zeroed in on the role that concrete and aluminium production play in emissions, after showing that all other material production amounts to a rounding error when compared to these two factors.

2015 saw the publication of URBAN TRANSPORT WITHOUT THE HOT AIR, which adopts the same "small changes to big causes" approach by focusing on private automobiles (and the urban layouts they demand) as the major driver of emissions.

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/12/03/urban-transport-without-the-hot-air-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts/

Author Steven Melia explores the potential - and limits - of buses, bikes, walking, rail, etc, and the role that planning plays in changing private automobile usage, and makes an excellent case that urban design is more important than transit links for reducing car usage.

It's been half a decade since that last HOT AIR book, and now, fantastically, we have a new volume in the series: Sarah Bridle's FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE WITHOUT THE HOT AIR.

http://www.uit.co.uk/food-and-climate-change-without-the-hot-air

Bridle's volume is an important addition to the series, and uses a subtler knife - rather than opening with the small change in a big thing, she instead sketches out the emissions associated with a variety of prepared meals, organized by breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner.

All of this is framed around the idea that each human on Earth must rapidly draw down their food emissions to no more than 3kg/day if we're to meet the 1.5'C global warming target.

Bridle tots up a cup of tea, an apple, bacon, a sandwich, a steak, fish and chips, etc, and shows how they fit into this picture. As the reader is drawn through this narrative, the inescapable logic of energy narrows down to an inexorable conclusion: we eat too many animals.

Even leaving aside all questions of animal cruelty and human health, there's no escaping the fact that cow and sheep products, including milk, cannot be central to our diets if our species is to survive.

Other meats - poultry, fish, and pork - are vastly more sustainable, but still must be drawn down in our daily eating in favor of plant-based diets (Bridle's very good on explaining how different methods of animal rearing have different emissions profiles).

Moreover, a huge fraction of our food emissions are the result of the inefficiencies of home cooking: heating up your whole oven to cook a potato or a ready-meal massively increases the emissions relative to the same food at a restaurant where many items are cooked at once.

Finally, waste is a huge contributor to emissions, and household kitchens are the worst culprits by far: while industrial food prep offcuts are sold off as animal feed, household waste (including massive volumes of spoiled food) might end up as compost, or worse, landfill.

Like the other HOT AIR authors, Bridle's clear, nonthreatening, technical language, brilliant data visualizations, and example grounded in our daily experience make this a powerful read.

For all its gentle, moderate language, it comes to a devastating conclusion: our species' survival depends on eating more plants, with more centrally (and efficiently) prepared meals.

As with the other HOT AIR books, we're reminded that climate adaptation means significant changes to our lives - changes as profound as the industrial revolution. Bridle devotes significant language to discussing the social factors involved in such a shift.

It's hard to imagine a better addition to the HOT AIR cannon: a volume that boils a complex, urgent issue into a clear, undeniable set of parameters with equally clear conclusions.

If you want to experiment with Bridle's findings and methods, she's got an excellent "climate stack calculator" that lets you quickly assess the emissions associated with different food.

https://www.takeabitecc.org/calculator.html

There's also a free ebook edition of this book; go to whatever ebook store you use and you'll find a copy for $0.00 that you can "buy" and download.

(One more note before I close out: there's another HOT AIR volume, David Nutt's spectacular DRUGS POLICY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR, which had a new edition last year)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/02/be-the-helper/#davidnutt

(I didn't include it above because while it is an unmissable, essential volume, it doesn't deal with climate change)

[geezerwench]

01/07/2022

Cirsten Weldon, QAnon "star." Dead.

Included in article:

On Jan. 3, radio host Doug Kuzma died while infected with the coronavirus.

In August, QAnon promoter Robert David Steele died of the virus shortly after posting a picture of himself in an oxygen mask and vowing to still refuse the vaccine.

In September, a QAnon follower named Veronica Wolski became a cause celebre in QAnon circles after she was hospitalized with the coronavirus. QAnon fans besieged the hospital with phone calls demanding that Wolski receive ivermectin, the deworming drug used by some as an unproven coronavirus treatment. Wolski died of the disease later that month.

Scott McKay, a QAnon personality known as the “Patriot Streetfighter,” said he would publicize the names of doctors and nurses involved in treating Weldon, saying he wanted to “put the fear into these medical professionals” in a Telegram post. McKay proposed the hospital staff be sentenced to death, or be murdered in vigilante violence.

[whtthefck93]

“We’re all 100% for sure gonna fucking die.”

Don’t Look Up was a masterpiece. Uses the metaphor of a meteor sure to destroy earth as a method to discuss our inability to combat climate crisis.  “Human narcissism and all that it has wrought, including the destruction of nature, will finally be our downfall.”

And it is just so fucking ironic that the reviews of the movie itself would mirror the criticism lobbied against the media in the film itself. Scenes show over and over again how the public don’t want to hear about the meteor (or climate change) and so the scientists shouldn’t share the information or they shouldn’t be so uptight about it. They have to be pleasant and light about it all.  

Reviews of the movie cite that: “The film is “blunt” (according to David Fear in Rolling Stone), “shrill” (Samuel R. Murrian, Parade Magazine) and “self-conscious and unrelaxed” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian). Luke Goodsell of ABC News Australia believes the director, Adam McKay, “just doesn't know how to let people enjoy things—even if it is their own destruction.” In these critics’ views, it’s fine to make movies about the climate crisis—just as long as you do so in a way that soothes and placates the viewer. You must under no account employ “bombastic, shake-you-by-the-shoulders direction” (Simran Hans, The Observer).”

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE FILM IS CRITIQUING ABOUT THE MEDIA AND IT’S ABILITY TO PROPERLY TRANSMIT THE IMPENDING DOOM OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS. Like the media and reviewers played right into the script laid out for them in the film. 

Shit made me cry.

[swldx]

RNZ Pacific 1233 5 Jun 2023

7425Khz 1158 5 JUN 2023 - RNZ PACIFIC (NEW ZEALAND) in ENGLISH from RANGITAIKI. SINPO = 45333. English, music until pips and news @1200z anchored by Vicki McKay. The Auckland police are calling on the public to come forward with any information about the home invasion that led to the death of 71 year old Linda Woods' in Kaikohe last week. They have found a DNA sample from a pair of cut-off shorts and shoes the offender left behind which they hope will lead to a breakthrough. A supreme court judge Stephen Kós has been knighted for his ongoing services to the judiciary and legal education. Justice Kós was appointed to the Supreme Court 2022. The ACT Party is proposing a new Ministry of Regulation with the sole purpose of clearing what it calls a "jungle of red tape". ACT leader David Seymour made the policy announcement to a crowd of around 600 at the party's annual conference. International law experts say it's unclear what a stronger defense relationship between New Zealand and Japan will look like. There's a push for greater defense cooperation in the indo-pacific region by Australia, Japan and South Korea. The Japan agreement shows. New Zealand is included in that push. Sports. @1204z trailer for RNZ "9 to Noon". @1205z Weather Forecast: Rain with some heavy falls. @1206z "All Night Programme" anchored by Vicki McKay. Backyard gutter antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, beamAz 325°, bearing 240°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 12912KM from transmitter at Rangitaiki. Local time: 0658.

[shannendoherty-fans]

People, September 9th 1991

High School Confidential

By Tom Gliatto and Michael Alexander.

Photos by Mark Sennett.

Beverly Hills, 90210 Gets Its Heat from a Dangerously Cute Cast of TV's Hottest New Stars CONFIDENTIAL MEMO: FROM: The Vice Principal TO: The Faculty, High School U.S.A. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what happened when we didn't prepare for Bart Simpson last fall. The school was flooded with rude, antieducational T-shirts. Some cows were had. Well, as a new school year gets under way, I believe we face another daunting challenge: Brace yourselves for Beverly Hills, 90210. That's the Fox drama about unworldly twin teens Brandon and Brenda Walsh (played by Jason Priestley and Shannen Doherty), recent transferees from Minneapolis to the Hills of Beverly. There they struggle to assimilate into the fast-lane lifestyle of West Beverly Hills High School, where the kids come equipped with BMWs, call waiting and designer surfboards. In the process, the teens examine their emerging identities and the problems that adolescents everywhere face.

The show languished in the Nielsen ratings against Thursday powerhouse Cheers last year. But Fox had no replacement, so it stayed. While we were on summer vacation, new 90210 episodes began airing, and the show landed in the Top 20, becoming the most popular show among teenagers. To some extent, I take responsibility for having ignored 90210. I made the mistake of reading newspaper critics instead of my daughter's diary, and so I believed, as Howard Rosenberg sniffed in the Los Angeles Times, that the show was merely a "ZIP code for stereotypes and stock characters." Little did I know that this show would mesmerize teens by doing emotionally realistic shows that involved adolescent rebellion, alcoholic; parents, a breast-cancer scare and plenty of worrisome teen sex. "Most shows for adolescents," says 90210 creator Darren Star, "seem like they are written by 50-year-olds who think teenagers behave like 7-year-olds."

It also doesn't hurt that the show's male stars, Priestley and Luke Perry (who plays brooding loner Dylan McKay), are "to die for," as my daughter puts it. These two have each been receiving about 1,500 fan letters a week. So be vigilant: Surely some of these will be written by our students...during class! And I'm afraid that 90210 is only going to get bigger with our kids, if producer Aaron Spelling is to be believed. "I thought The Mod Squad and Charlie's Angels got a lot of publicity in their heyday," says Spelling, whose company produced those shows, "but it doesn't compare to this. It's crazy. We have merchandising coming out of our ears"—a complete line of T-shirts, beach towels, notebooks, etc. "And now these actors can't walk down the street!"

Or even streak through malls. You probably saw those alarming news reports about a frenzied mob of 10,000 fans that stampeded Perry when he appeared at a south Florida mall last month. "It's a little scary," says Perry. Scarier is the amount of time students will waste this fall discussing Luke. And Jason. And who is sexier. I provide some information on the two. Jason Priestley, 22, plays Brandon Walsh, a model of thoughtful level-headedness. In real life, however, the brown-haired, blue-eyed star, who started acting in commercials at age 4 and played an orphan on that very nice NBC sitcom Sister Kate, is no Oliver Twist. He likes dirt bikes, bungee jumping and is a chain-smoker (just about the whole cast puffs it up—but not on-camera). Vancouver-born Priestley likes to hang out in Las Vegas. As for his real romantic life, he was reportedly dating actress Robin (Doogie Howser, M.D.) Lively last spring, but it seems likely that now he is too busy for such dalliance;. He must be on the set 14 hours a day, five days a week. To avoid ever-present fans, Priestley says, "I look different from my character when I'm just walking around. I don't shave, I don't dress like Brandon."

On the show, 26-year-old Luke Perry (Brenda Walsh's boyfriend, Dylan) sports a leather jacket, dagger sideburns and a squint that spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e. Although he grew up and graduated from high school in Fredericktown, Ohio, he seems to have attended James Dean wise-guy classes. Perry, who played country-boy Ned Bates on the ABC soap Loving, entertains the 90210 cast by strutting around bare-chested making jokes. Does he have a girlfriend? "No. You know how I can get in touch with Linda Hamilton?" What kind of music does he listen to? "Tom Jones is awesome." Are he and Priestley ever mistaken for each other? "He's mistaken for me on his good days." And 90210, he says, is "the best show on television, except for Jeopardy!" We should act quickly, faculty, when we see any signs that Beverly Hills, 90210 is disrupting normal student activity.

How abnormal might things get? Consider: "It's almost like there are cults," says Brian Austin Green, 18, the North Hollywood High grad who plays the cutely dweeby David Silver. "Girls go to school the day after the show, and they actually become these characters. They say, 'Okay, today I want to be Dylan, you can be Brenda, you can be Brandon.' " Needless to say, students caught pretending to be TV characters should be brought directly to my office for detention. But you know, it might not be a bad thing if our students could show some of the good sense that the 90210ers display in coping with the pressures of fame and fortune. Jennie Garth, 19, who plays the very sexy, very blond, very snotty Kelly Taylor, is particularly admirable. The youngest of seven children, she grew up on a farm near Champaign, Ill., until her schoolteacher parents moved to Phoenix when she was 13. "Living in a small town and coming from a very tight and close family instilled a lot of standards that I need to live up to," says Garth, who just bought a home in Sherman Oaks. She also recently supplied her parents with the down payment for their new home, setting a splendid example for today's youth.

According to a tabloid that someone left in the faculty lounge, Memphis-raised Shannen Doherty, 20, a veteran of such wonderful shows as Little House: A New Beginning, is the only cast member to be accused of behaving like "a spoiled brat" on the set. But she maintains she is no such thing. "I think everybody gets in a bad mood," Shannen says. "You do not work 16-hour days and not start feeling it. But I have never thrown a tantrum. I've gotten upset on the set, but it's never been just to be a bitch. You have to stand up for yourself in this business. That was something I was told when I was 12 years old and working with Michael Landon."

As with about half the cast members, Doherty is in a relationship—in her case, a real-estate developer with whom she's exchanged commitment rings. "You really have to date a while before you decide if this is the person you want to marry," she says with Brenda-like candor. Almost sounds like the relationship could be a future 90210 plot. "The problems of young people have accelerated," says Aaron Spelling, "and so have their feelings and thoughts." The show, he says, has kept pace: Even with their Clearasil-perfect complexions and plump allowances, the students at Beverly Hills have encountered their share of problems. "We had the guts to make Luke Perry be a member of AA," says Spelling. "We had Jason, our star, drinking and driving. That's reality."

And, apparently, the adulatory fan mail often includes a sad dose of that reality. "I got a letter the other day from a girl who mentioned the show we did on parental drug abuse," says Perry in a rare moment of seriousness. "She wrote about catching her father freebasing in the basement. I get letters like that all the time, from people all over the country." Gabrielle Carteris (at age 30, she's 90210's oldest cast-kid), who plays Andrea Zuckerman, the bright student who comes from the wrong side of Rodeo Drive, remembers an encouraging close encounter in a grocery store. "One girl came up to me after we'd done the breast-cancer show," says Carteris. "She said, 'I went home with all my friends and we checked our breasts for lumps.' "

In conclusion: Maybe I didn't need to write this memo. Maybe things won't be that bad, even if every locker in every corridor has a picture of Jason, Luke, Shannen or Jennie in it. Perhaps our dear little school is more like West Beverly Hills High—at least the TV version—than I thought. That's what Ian Ziering, 27, thinks too. "The reality on the show pretty much mirrors the way life is all over, in terms of teenagers," says New Jersey—bred Ziering, who once did Fruit of the Loom underwear ads and now plays 90210's curly-headed jock, Steve Sanders. "There's a mystique about Beverly Hills. But that's not what keeps people tuning in. The show could have been Montana E-I-E-I-O." By the way, should any student pronounce his name "eee-an," correct him or her, please. It's "eye-an."

-- WHEN BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 PREMIERED last October, Highlights, the student newspaper at Beverly Hills High, ran articles mocking the school's TV counterpart, West Beverly Hills High. "They said that the show was a joke," says Jenny Brandt, 14, a sophomore at the 1,900-student school. But as the story lines improved and Jason Priestley and Luke Perry became stars, the jokes stopped, and Brandt found herself, like many of her pals, glued to the set on Thursday nights from 9 to 10 P.M. "No phone calls allowed," says Brandt. "Except during commercials." Hope Levy, a 17-year-old senior, has taken fandom a step further with her friends. "We have little handmade cards," she says, speaking from her mom's car phone. "They say you're a member of Club 90210." While some kids think the show treats them as snobby stereotypes, most agree with sophomore Jordan Rynes when he says, "It's like a soap opera for teens. The shows dealing with drinking and drugs are the most real—adults don't realize how accurate it is."