Science Just Cornholed Space-Time!

From friend Jarreau:


http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html *


* Yes, I know it's a couple of days old. And YES, I know they haven't started smashing atoms. But they will. And soon.

The Strange Bloody Fate of Coil Island - Chapter 4

(Start at the beginning here)

Page 1 – 5 panels

Panel 1: INT. of station, DANNY has drawn his gun and is standing at the doorway, looking out into the rainy night. BUCK is kneeling down, looking at the package on the floor. A pool of blood and water has begun to collect under the package.

DANNY: Don’t touch it!

BUCK: Didn’t aim to.

SANDMAN (off-panel): I wouldn’t do that, Agent Salvador. One of those fellows is a sniper.

Panel 2: DANNY slams the door shut and gestures at BUCK to sit down.

DANNY: Get down!

Panel 3: Same shot, DANNY sits with his back against the door. BUCK has pressed himself against one of the desks.

SANDMAN: …But he might not be around these parts yet.

Panel 4: DANNY crawls over to the package on the floor.

Panel 5: Close on DANNY’s hand holding a pen, prodding the bundle and pulling some of the wrapping aside.

BUCK (off panel): What is it?

Page 2 – 5 panels

Panel 1: Close on DANNY’s face. He’s less grossed out than suspicious.

DANNY: Why…

Panel 2: Medium on SANDMAN trying to get a better look from his vantage point – he’s craned his neck a little to see better.

SANDMAN: A trophy, I’d imagine. Each one’s supposed to leave a trophy in their style for each kill they get.

Panel 3: DANNY uses a handkerchief to pull a bloody brick out of the bundle.

SANDMAN: What did you get? Eyes? A hand? Sex parts?

Panel 4: DANNY holds a half-bloodied wallet with the handkerchief. A couple of loose teeth fall away from the wallet as he pulls it out.

SANDMAN (off panel): Well…?

BUCK: It’s a wallet.

DANNY: And teeth. And please, don’t encourage him.

Page 3 – 4 panels

Panel 1: Danny is going through the wallet while BUCK looks on.

BUCK: Ain’t you afraid of messin’ up the prints or…

SANDMAN: Yeah… he’s got worse things to worry about than evidence chains.

BUCK: … And who’s he? What’s goin’ on?!

Panel 2: DANNY is up and walking now, looking at the license from the wallet.

DANNY: Deputy Buck, according to our man in the cell we’ve got six killers on the island.

BUCK: Well who’s he?

DANNY: Papers call him the “Sandman Killer.” One of ‘em. Maybe.

Panel 3: BUCK is somewhat near the cell now, with his hand on the butt of his gun. He’s looking with a certain amount of fear towards SANDMAN.

DANNY (off panel): Stay back.

BUCK: Um…

DANNY (off panel): Don’t panic on me, Deputy. You and me need to find the guy from the license… Rudy Dekker… see if there’s anything to save.

Panel 4: DANNY is beside BUCK in front of the cell. Both are looking towards SANDMAN. DANNY is very serious – pissed now.

DANNY: We’re gonna talk when I come back.

Page 4 – 4 panels

Panel 1: From SANDMAN’s angle in the cell, he’s looking out as DANNY and BUCK head out of the station.

SANDMAN: Yes we will.

Panel 2: DANNY and BUCK are out in the rain, standing on each side of the car, both reaching for the handles. BUCK looks down at the front of the car.

BUCK: Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeit!

Panel 3: Low angle on the car – we see that both passenger side tires are deflated, and we see BUCK’s feet.

BUCK (off panel): My cruiser’s ‘round back!

Panel 4: DANNY and BUCK are in the garage where the police cruisers are kept. From this angle we see their reaction over the fiery roof of the car as flame spits out the windows.

... Starring Christopher Walken

Cracked has an article about the most badass presidents of all time.

Linking to it is just an excuse to pitch my idea of a Christopher Walken as Andrew Jackson in "Andrew Jackson and the Vengeance of Fu Man Chu."

Fu Man Chu would either be played by Chow Yun fat.

Or Christopher Walken.

It'd be a buddy action flick where maverick president Jackson must beat back the time traveling steampunk zombie armies of Fu Man Chu.



Could easily play...




... and fight...



... but maybe not so racist.

"Irritainment"

Popular among Cartoon Network's popular late-night Adult Swim lineup is "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job." Created by and starring Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, it could loosely be described as a sketch show. It's comprised of (at times) interconnected surreal vignettes which revel in low production values and a public access aesthetic.

Where the show excels (depending on your type of humor) is in deriving comedy from the almost arbitrary and often complex and frustrating rules of the "Tim and Eric" world. Laws, products, and interactions are all governed by a sort of passive hostility towards the characters and even the viewer. Advertised goods will only marginally function and may in fact harm the consumer, interactions are tense and predicated on barely-contained hostility, and sketches will carry on well beyond the point of comedy into the realm of of active irritation.

It's entertainment through irritation, a sort of masochism whereby the viewer wants to be made miserable or put themselves through the paces of being grossed out and confused. The generally look and feel of the show is one set in a world where no one is comfortable in their skin and the rules seem off somehow. Watching "Tim and Eric" is to subject oneself to bad makeup, ugly, clothes, harassment, badgering, bad manners, loud and prolonged noises, and seizure-inducing colors.

"Tim and Eric" is not the first show on the AS lineup to do this: while earlier programs produced at the network's inception trafficked in the nostalgia ("Sealab 2021," "Harvey Birdman," or "The Brak Show") they were aggressively populated with mean, stupid characters out to thwart each others' goals and motivations. Their retro chic look (repurposed characters cast off from old shows from decades past) merely propped up often unpleasant characters who were nonetheless fun to watch.

What "Tim and Eric" did was remove any character who was in on the joke, who would acknowledge the frustration or futility of their world. I'm tempted to form a connection here between Tim and Eric, this type of comedy, and the work of Andy Kaufman. But the thing is, Andy Kaufman went out of his way to keep the audience out of the loop. It was only with hindsight that we knew he was even telling a joke.



But "Tim and Eric" functions with the complicity of the audience. I'm convinced this trend began on AS with "Aqua Teen Hunger Force"* where sympathetic characters were gradually removed in favor of elliptical and illogical complications whereby the motley assembly of characters was unable to move forward with the damn story.

Not to get all philosophical on your ass, but what does this say about us as consumers of media? I mean, the audiences for these shows aren't huge, but they are sustainable and comprised primarily of the young. What kind of masochism motivates us to want to see this and what are we getting out of it?




*I am somehow convinced that the ATHF movie is one of the funniest things produced in years, and doubt that any argument otherwise will stick. The opening concession sequence is bar none one of my favorite things ever, coupling metal with angry foodstuffs singing about torso biting.

Fragment - Across the Wasteland

Fragment – The Savage

Because the Savage had the sun at his back and because of the steady loss of blood from Abby’s ear used to be and out of her chest it was hard to aim. She had no time to bandage her wound while keeping her rifle on the Savage – there was just no way.

She shifted her weight in the dirt, aiming up at the ridge. She was prepared to roll if he threw another spear, but didn’t know what fuck all good it would do. The Deacon once told her that muties could pass one of their bone-tipped spears right through a body at 1000 yards. Abby didn’t know anything about that, but she knew this one threw faster than she could draw on him.

That was something new.

So was this: she’d never heard of anyone being able to pay one of the grey-green skinned savages to do anything. Abby promised to revisit the question of how Jude got this one to come after her.

A high keening noise to her right, and Abby rolled to the left avoiding another of the Savage’s spears. It buried its six foot shaft in the sand beside two feet to her right. It was reassuring to think that maybe he was having trouble seeing her from up on that ridge.

Still, him and the compadre she shot didn’t have all bad luck: Abby spat out a wad of blood onto a patch of yellow sand. The spear that lanced her lung had gone straight through, which, all things considered was a plus. But on the way in and out it’d broken at least a rib. Worse still, breathing was a bastard.

But Abby noted that this wasn’t how she planned on dying. She’d make Jude patch her up after he answered her questions and before she shot him between the eyes.

For the second time today she lost sight of the Savage. This caused Abby to run through what could be approximated as fear for her. She scanned the ridge over the gunsight: nothing moved, not even the wind. Deacon would have said even nature conspired to bring Abby to the end of her path.

Of course, for what man, woman, child, or mutie was this ever not the case?

She sniffed the wind. What came back to her: the smell of her last spent round… her own blood and sweat… the recently-cured leathers of the dead Savage lying face down100 feet away. She thought about putting another round into the body, this line of thinking towards getting the Savage’s blood up. Abby rejected that line of thinking: she’d need the bullets if and when she caught sight of the Savage again.

She knew from the westward movement of the light that she’d been pinned here for five hours or more. She’d been skewered for half that, at least. An hour more and Abby wouldn’t have the strength to hold the rifle up.

Was he just waiting on her to die? Savages not being know for their patience, Abby didn’t count on it. Still, there was some inscrutable strategy at play, and Abby was having trouble sussing it out. Abby thought she’d been told that Savages would pound the earth with their palms to attract members of their tribe.

She pressed her ear to the ground, hoping to hear the tell-tale beating… getting nothing more than the pulsing of her own heart.

Abby lay like this for a while – enough for the sun to travel further west and long enough to allow the Savage to get within five paces of her. From the surprise in his gross black eye, he obviously thought she was dead when he came upon her. Her being dead didn’t preclude him from keeping a spear poised to strike.

It was only his startlement that allowed Abby to pull the trigger those four times before he could throw. Abby lost track of how much longer she stayed there – was it even the same day? She knew the Savage’s blood was cold and sticky on her cheek. But it hadn’t been long enough for carrion birds to decide that the two of them were fair game.

She propped herself up using the rifle, but used the mutie’s spear as a walking stick. Jude’s shack was near enough. She thought maybe he should do his doctoring before telling her what she needed to know. Thinking of how she’d probably have to ask her questions, Abby thought it best to let Jude keep his hands intact for the time being.

"It was Billy... Billy Conner!"

Due to a missed train Saturday (thanks, LIRR) I missed the chance to see some Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling with my friend Jeff (who will undoubtedly swear brutal revenge on me tomorrow at work).

But as slim consolation I was reunited with one of my childhood terrors - The Beast Within (1982). It's a strange mix of hostile Southern yokels, murder mystery, and body morphism horror... Tobe Hooper by way of David Cronenberg.

The film is about a couple and their teenage son revisiting a small Mississippi town where something... traumatic... happened to the mom 17 years ago. The 17-year-old son (eh, you see what they did there?) is going through some kind of changes, and the return to this town is making him stranger... more decapitate-y.

If you were to do a keyword search for this movie, the words hillbillies, rape, decapitation, psychics, revenge, and mutant cicada rape, would pretty much dominate any description of the film. There's very little on that list doesn't sound like cinematic perfection to me*.



Of course, the movie comes from a style at the time where horror movies would share some of the pacing and tone of a TV movie and a cast comprised of TV regulars (seriously, check the IMDB page of the actor who plays Sheriff Pool).



It's a great snapshot at early 80's horror, sharing more in common with a drive-in film than anything else.

Where the The Beast Within is anxious about the stability of the biological form and our failed attempts at burying our genetic heritage, Earth X is downright obsessed with conjectural origins of the species and how ultimately, it all means something.

I finally got around to reading that this weekend (burdened as I was with free time) and I have to say I was... not bored? That's the best I can really say about it, as the miniseries really took about 10 of its 12 issues to actually get to the point. But when it finally did, it was an interesting attempt to create a unified cosmology for the Marvel Universe. Well, not THE Marvel Universe, but one of the other ones where Spider-man has gotten old and fat, Dr. Doom's bitten the dust, and just about everything is grim.

Earth X takes place 20 years in the future, where everyone is a mutant, seemingly the result of a failed experiment on the part of Mr. Fantastic, and something ominous is about to happen. I would complain that the book relies on its readers previous familiarity with the characters and history with the Marvel U, but the series exhaustively, exhaustingly details the histories of every little character, both in-story and with little prose pieces following each chapter, filling in the details of the 20 year gap.



It's essentially alternate universe continuity porn that has a hard time telling a story in its present tense. It's lots of, "Look at Tony Stark - shut-in, and the tentacle rape of New York by Hydra." I'm not 100% sure who the target audience was for the project at the time, but I could see people dropping it during the original run. It's the kind of thing DC would publish periodically to explain away a Supergirl's many costume changes or something along those lines, but it serves less of a function for Marvel which has always been the company whose stories take place in the world right outside your door (their words, not mine).

Like The Beast Within it has everyone freaking the fuck out when their bodies start going through funny changes, with hair growing in funny places, and each person just wanting someone to love them for being special and different.

Don't rush out to read it (unless you want to see some truly gorgeous art by Jim Krueger based on Alex Ross's character designs). But do see The Beast Within. Because, you know, mutant cicadas, and all.

* Wait, let's not all go crazy here - it's not the RAPE part that makes the movie cool; it's the MUTANT CICADA RAPE part that makes it a must-watch.