The words, images and the social appendage of myself. Be it a book or a picture or the words from my head, there are just facets of who I am and the way I see the world around me. Hopefully it gives everyone a glimpse beyond the superficial impression.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
My kids will look back on these computers we use and say to their peers, “can you believe how ancient they were? You couldn’t just touch the screen! You had to use something called a “mouse”!
For a loop.
Time travel as a plot has been around since “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. H.G. Wells imagined that time it could be travelled and shortly after Albert Einstein came up with the math to postulate that it was a possibility.
Since then we’ve seen time travel depicted in pop culture, from under the radar books like “Replay” to its spiritual cinematic, comedic counterpart “Groundhog Day” to quasi sci-fi dystopias such as “12 monkeys”. A few years ago Denzel Washington had a passably entertaining time travel flick with “Déjà vu”.
The elements and processes of time travel are debatable, ranging from inherent paradoxes of even setting a single step into the past, as Ray Bradbury masterfully scripted in “A Sound of thunder”, (skip the movie version, it’s horrible) to the fantastically built short story “All you mutants…” by Heinlein.
What Looper has coming before it are stories of a plot element that ranges from the awful, with a film like “Time cop”, to the beautiful, where time was depicted as a tidal ocean in the phenomenal novel “All of an Instant” by Richard Garfinkle.
Looper was beautiful. It was simple in its aesthetic and not in your face sci-fi. It is accessible to casual and hard core genre fans. There were a few predictable elements that were setup nicely and the payoff was done in a way that didn’t leave unanswered questions to the audience. The time travel was an easily explained concept and the consequences of interacting with the past were dealt with in fairly realistic ways and dealt with paradoxes cleverly and the movie wasn’t reduced to a deus ex machina plot resolution.
For anyone wanting to see it, I definitely recommend it. A well told emotional story with few weak spots. Being that it centered on organized crime using time travel for illegal gains the movie was a bit bloody and had some sexual overtones without being explicit.
Ultimately, it was a crime story about a gangster with a heart trying to undo wrong. Time travel was a just the element used to make this not another gangster drama.
It lived up to its precedents and delivered entertainment.
The Dirty Truth About Finding Nemo
As we’ve mentioned several times before, Disney movies are far from the innocent cartoons they pretend to be. And Pixar, which joined Disney in 2006, isn’t slacking on their end, either.
Take Finding Nemo. It’s a heartfelt father-and-son story in which an entire family of clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) is viciously devoured by a barracuda, and then the son is abducted by scuba divers and forced into performing peepshows for a sociopathic human child.
Marlin, the father of the titular clownfish, goes on a harrowing journey to rescue his son. With the help of Ellen DeGeneres the Fish, Marlin outsmarts sharks, whales, hungry birds, and jellyfish. Nemo and Marlin are reunited and — with their odyssey over — live happily ever after.
Disturbingly happily ever after.
We touched on this topic briefly before, ignorant of the implications — but sometimes ignorance is bliss. You see, a clownfish colony — which doesn’t stray far from its anemone host — is dominated by one male and one female. These two are the only ones who are trading fluids in the entire group. Why? Because all clownfish are born male. Why? Because Mother Nature is one crazy broad.
Naturally, the next question is “Where did that male clownfish get his woman bits from?” Well, clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites, meaning that the male can transform himself into an intoxicating lady quicker than Wesley Snipes in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
So what does this mean for Finding Nemo? Well, when the female in the colony dies or disappears, the dominant male will change into the dominant female, and the fish who was waiting in line behind him takes over as the new top guy.
Remember that Nemo’s mom became fish food in the first act, along with all of Nemo’s brothers. This makes Marlin the dominant male, and Nemo the second-most dominant. Are you starting to pick up what we’re putting down, preferably while wearing latex gloves?
You know that tiny fish egg that Marlin nurtured, cared for, and almost died for? Yup, he was totally just trying to get his son home so they could repopulate their colony.
In other words, once Marlin rescued Nemo from that Australian dentist, he basically led his son to the anemone boudoir, popped on “Lemon Incest” by Serge Gainsbourg, spread his new ladylike fins, and bellowed “TODAY YOU BECOME A MAN AND THE MAN OF THE HOUSE.”
And given the fact that Pixar meticulously researched marine life for Finding Nemo, someone during the production process must have realized, “Hey, we’re totally making a more fucked-up version of Oedipus Rex starring fish.”
We’re not going to grouse about biological accuracy here — this is a movie with a talking sea turtle, after all — but if you’re going to make a heartwarming G-rated animated flick about a father-son duo of anthropomorphized fish, maybe you shouldn’t choose a species that bangs the shit out of its relatives during an emergency. Likewise, this knowledge makes Finding Nemo on Ice a billion times more mind-shattering than it normally is.
The New York Times on 12-12-12, in 1912.
Enjoy the day.
12-12-1912. What a strange date indeed.
If you ever find yourself in the lava fields of the Kilauea volcano the cool air and the warm air meet as the gentle altitude gives way and slopes towards the ocean where new Earth meets ancient ocean.
Here, as the clouds cascading over the mountain give yield to the warm rising air from the ocean it leaves a fine mist that hangs cool in the air.
As an unseasonable and welcome warm hangs over Wisconsin, a fine morning mist hangs in the air. Though its not as tropical, its nice to have nature exude such a fond sensory memory.
My son said to my wife, “mom, there’s a ghost behind the t.v.” Of course she thought he was being funny, “oh? Do we need to move since we have a ghost?”
He looked at her, puzzled about her goofy response, “no mom, there’s a real ghost behind the t.v.” and sure enough there was.
Long shadows-
Summer rain gives way to summer wane. Cooler breezes make crisp the air. Shadows grow longer as we turn away from the sun. Warmth becomes a thought for posterity. Goodbye, long summer days.
