Laserdisc Rot

Sorry for not posting last week. I was working on one of my books instead. I try to write no matter what every week and on weeks on which I can't find the time, I push myself to post to the blog. The fact that this has been a weekly blog recently is simultaneously depressing but also a release as an excuse to sit down to write no matter what. This week's post comes with the warning that it posts spoilers for a recent streaming show, a 35 year old movie, a 64 year old movie, and a 69 year old book. If you want to consume all this media in a small window like I did before reading this, that's fine. I'd worry about you like my loved ones worry about me, but it's fine. It also comes with additional trigger warnings - there is mention of pet death and sexual assault in this. If either of those are a bit much, it is mentioned just the once, but I'll understand and I'll see you next week - if I haven't written in a week. I just finished the book, originally The...

Old and busted... This weekend, we replaced our backyard door. I had never replaced a door before this weekend. I have done consecutively more ambitious DIY construction projects like this and we needed this done. And the budget for a job like this drastically drops if you try to do it yourself. ... and new hotness. While I was working on it, one of my kids was absolutely surprised that I was doing it. He's seen me do other projects, but gaping at the big hole where the door once was he said that he didn't know that I could do construction work. I told him that, not only could we do construction work - we could do whatever we wanted. I've wrestled with what I call "neoliberal brain" - a remnant of living in a neoliberal society that told me that if I sorted my plastic bottles into recycle cans I could save the world; I naively watched private corporations dismantle public services and further silo ourselves as third-spaces got bought, sold, and monetized. I was a ...

I like to consider myself an armchair Batman pop culture historian. I once toyed with the idea of making a podcast over some of the studying I've done - but as I mentioned in this defense of 1966 Batman , "do we really need another white dude talking with false confidence on a niche topic?" I'd still like to write full posts on them - maybe even some kind of book? Whether or not there's interest in something silly like that, I take watching media on The Batman very seriously. In my research on Batman villains, I happily consumed the 1966 episodes, skimmed the Wikipedia synopses on the episodes of Super Friends , reveled in the Batman The Animated Series , and had hit or miss of the pre-Nolan films. From there, you suddenly have an explosion of Batman: Year One , Batman Begins , Batman Beyond , The Batman , Beware the Batman , Batman: Brave and the Bold , Son of Batman , Batman and Harley Quinn , Batman: Gotham Knight , Batman: Gotham by Gaslight , Batman: The Dark...

As I mentioned almost two months ago , I've been doing art on the daily. It's still going on. Today marks my 60th day of making art every day  and I'm still loving it. It's been an absolute treat watching my art improve. And now I have another report for this goofy blog. Almost a month ago, I started a project of painting tarot cards based on films that are special to me. The choice wasn't always a perfect fit for the tarot and the film, but each film is special to me for some reason and I wanted a chance to showcase them. That's what I'll be doing today. 0 - The Fool Film: Monsieur Hulot's Holiday Year: 1953 Director: Jacques Tati Every journey starts with a single step. The Fool represents beginnings in many ways. I'm not sure Tati's famous clown, Hulot, is the perfect fool, but once this image was in my head, I had to exorcise it. Deeper into the Hulot series, Tati uses M. Hulot's general ignorance of how society is "supposed" to...

As I've stated On Here, I've started a non-profit that is all about making movies more accessible in Appalachia. Between Sony becoming a champion of killing physical media ( which I railed against a few weeks back ) and the general toxic affect capitalism has on small towns (a topic that I've been brewing on for a while, so expect a post about it at some point) its becoming harder and harder for folks to consume media - this is exaggerated the poorer you are. Communal screenings is something that is not just anathema to both the presidents of Sony and Netflix - it's something they think is dying and they're doing what they can to drive a stake into its heart. I, not so respectfully, disagree with them. People showed up for Charade  !! This past weekend, our non-profit hosted our very first event! We held a free screening of Charade  (1963) for the community. We worked with a local tattoo parlor, Woolly Worm, that has an artist lounge in its backroom for a venue. We...

I had a call with my best friend from college the other day. While I went into software development for the web, that guy is a scientist playing with plasma physics. He’s also a world-class Ultimate Frisbee player, but that’s probably best for another blog. Anyways, he asked me my thoughts on AI. I gave it to him straight: I believe Generative AI to be an unforgiving and unforgivable technology. I stole that phrase from Ursula Franklin, who was an amazing woman. In her 1989 Massey Lecture, The Real World of Technology , she says that “nuclear power is an unforgiving and unforgivable technology.” She says this as a research physicist that refused to work with nuclear power. She said that nuclear power left an indelible mark on both the planet and mankind and that no use of it could excuse that unethical side effect. I believe the same thing with Generative AI. While there is nothing as dramatic as Hiroshima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island to point to as an example of the unforgiving im...