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...