Month: July 2024

The wonderful world of television

I could’ve sworn that, some time ago, I posted an old 1920s magazine cover about television that I found quite interesting, but it appears I have done nothing of the sort and I can only assume I did this on my old Tumblr. Anyway, never mind that cos here’s another one I’ve found via Pulp Librarian:

I am, obviously, somewhat struck by the shape of the screen on this thing; apart from being a bit ovoid, it’s also notably somewhat widescreen. I find this quite remarkable, given this wasn’t even really a thing in cinema yet; there’d been experiments with wider images than the 1.33:1 standard going back to the Corbett & Fitzsimmons fight in 1897, and the year this was apparently published (1927) Abel Gance had just unleashed Polyvision, and in the couple of years following there would be a handful of other attempts. But it was hardly a common industry practice, so I’m not sure why our cover artist here was envisaging wider-screen TV… I mean, when Hollywood started going widescreen in the 50s it was in competition with the rising popularity of TV, whereas in 1927 it wasn’t trying to do anything of the sort. The sort of thing that only puzzles me, I’m sure, but there you go.

I wonder, too, if our artist was envisaging sound as part of the package, which would’ve been REALLY forward-looking. In 1927, of course, sound was yet to become the film industry revolution it soon would be—like widescreen, it had only really been limited and experimental—so I’m wondering if the artist envisaged that thing at the top of the screen as a speaker. As it happens, Experimenter Publishing, who published this thing, also had a radio station which, in 1928, started doing experimental TV broadcasts as well using their radio frequency, but they broadcast silent TV, so if that is supposed to be a speaker it was way ahead of the publisher’s own reality (TV with sound would be a thing not long after, apparently). Anyway, just found that kind of pleasing on a sort of retro-futurist level; I suppose just showing a TV of any sort was kind of futuristic in 1927…

Biden’s decision: bad for small business…

Well, one line of small business, anyway:

I always found the “Let’s Go Brandon” thing a bit baffling, but, thanks to someone on Bluesky, I’ve since discovered that stores like this, actual brick and mortar stores, exist(ed) to sell LGB merchandise. And, well, now that Biden’s withdrawn from the presidential race, he’s kind of… well, wiped out all the value of that stuff, hasn’t he? I mean, it wouldn’t have had much of a shelf life anyway cos it was obviously dependent on Biden’s own shelf life, but I’m quite amused by the idea that he himself was the one who killed it…

This had better work

After weeks of Biden being told (mostly by the media) to stand down after the debate debacle, and after weeks of refusing to do so… well. Yeah, the election has taken an interesting turn that I’m not sure it really needed, it’s already sufficiently interesting… still, when the donors are threatening to withhold the cash if you don’t fall on your sword, I don’t suppose that leaves you with many options, does it.

Anyway, we now have the prospect of President Kamala Harris in November (not yet set in stone, the convention still has to make it official and there may be other contenders), which, if nothing else, is going to force the New York Times to change its recent tack, which has largely consisted of opinion pieces trying to suck up to Trump by going on about Biden being too old and out of it (as if Trump is neither of those things); now that the evident Democrat contender is nearly two decades younger than the other guy (who is now the oldest presidential candidate ever), they can’t talk about her age in the way they did about Biden’s. Just her gender and her ethnicity (not only is she mixed-race, she’s part Jamaican part Indian! She’s not even part white! How will Nick Fuentes ever cope?), which I’m sure will be enough for the Right once they get over the initial “shit, we have to attack her now instead of the old prick”…

Why do I feel like Will’s mother wishes she could say the same thing about herself? Also, the stepchildren she inherited from her husband don’t exist, apparently? Are kids not real if you didn’t give birth to them? But, frankly, I’m more worried by the Left’s response…

…cos I can see that happening too. I mean, I’m absolutely not a Biden fan and the US’ support for Israel in recent times has been obviously abhorrent, but… the alternative is Trump. People know this. And they’d still vote against Biden. The idea that it might be more important to get the Democrats back in first and THEN hammer them about things like Israel once we’re secure against the cult threat doesn’t seem to occur to them. Trump gets in, things just escalate, and the cult won’t give a fuck about your moral outrage. STOP IT.

Anyway—for better or worse they’ve finally shat and got off the pot, so maybe, just maybe, the Democrats can start putting an effort into actually winning this election. I just hope this is the trick that does it for them after all the discourse…

The pen is mightier, etc

I’d never heard of Conway Stewart until today, but I’ve certainly heard of them now for the worst possible reason…

Um… promoting your super-expensive fountain pen with an inspiring quote from DAVID IRVING about how HITLER was the greatest thing to ever happen to THE FUCKING JEWS? In fairness to the company, they were as horrified as they should’ve been when it was pointed out to them:

And immediately threw this “agency” under the bus rather than, you know, take responsibility for posting a quote by HOLOCAUST DENIER DAVID IRVING. I mean, clearly no one at the company itself is paying attention to this shit; if they didn’t know who Irving was, you’d think they might have seen the name “Hitler” and considered that a red (and white and black) flag…

Step on the gas!

One of the greatest things I’ve discovered lately is that the Norwegian word for “speed” is “fart”:

And this was the obvious consequence for this film on its Norwegian release. This is one of the best things I’ve learned in a foreign language since I discovered the original vocalist for Gorgoroth was called “Hat”. Which is Norwegian for “hate”, but obviously rather different connotations in English…

Not so Tenacious?

One of the unexpected casualties of the Trump shooting appears to have been Tenacious D…

…and evidently all it took was one ill-judged joke made from the stage right here in Sydney the other day; Kyle Gass celebrated his birthday at the show, Jack Black asked him if he had a birthday wish, and Gass responded with “Don’t miss Trump next time”.

Which… not exactly in the best of taste, no, and as this piece of tut-tutting moralising notes, many people probably thought something of the sort after the news broke but were tactful enough not to say it in front of several hundred people (hey Karen? Seen what the Right have been saying about killing and violence in recent times? Go tell them off and then come back if you want to talk about “democratic civility”). Ralph Babet got the vapours so hard he demanded the band be deported immediately, cos apparently an American making a bad taste remark about another American while in Australia should be a crime according to him (I suppose when you’ve got such a hard-on for the far right as Deej does, insulting Trump should be an international crime).

But then Jack Black got even more vaporous, and posted to Instagram the above text, cancelling the tour and “all future creative plans”… which is not an overt admission that the band’s broken up as such but a lot of people are apparently taking it as such. And a lot of people are disappointed, particularly the people who’d bought tickets to the band’s first local tour in a decade… and quite a few people are wondering “what the fuck, Jack?”, cos for one (again, admittedly bad taste) joke to apparently end a decades-long friendship is… kind of extreme?

The idea that Black is freaking out about his movie career suddenly drying up after this is one I’ve seen a few people bring up, and… yeah, I can buy that. Gass (who, incidentally, did issue an apology that should’ve ended the affair) doesn’t seem to have an exactly mega career outside Tenacious D, where Black has, presumably, further Kung Fu Panda sequels and so forth. That’s a lot for him to potentially lose… and apparently worth more to him than decades of friendship. Why do I feel like there’s a lot more to this story than anyone’s admitting? I’m not even a fan of the band or anything, I mean, I always thought “Tribute” was terrific but it never inspired me to dig any deeper… I just find the whole thing strange.

And how is his majesty doing?

It’s been a few days now since that shooting, we should check in on the orange one…

…aaaaand he’s fine. Nothing wrong with him except morally, as ever. Good to see that coming so close to death has made him realise the preciousness of life and driven him to focus on stuff that actually matters.

And he’s got friends looking after him too:

Insofar as the mask was ever on, it’s irretrievably off now. I can’t wait to find out just what Oolong expects from Glorious Bleeder for this, though, cos I’m sure that 45 million has strings attached.

And, well, sometimes you’ve got to feel sorry for the guy:

Frankly even I can’t work out what Trump has done to deserve this. Personally I can only hope Farrago’s new constituents in Clacton don’t mind him abandoning them immediately like this, I mean, it’s only a week or so since they voted him in and he’s already shirking his responsibilities to them to go and gently cup the balls of some elderly American man who isn’t even a resident of the country, let alone the constituency. Still, they voted for him, they deserve whatever they get…

Meanwhile on RM Brown’s channel:

There’s a couple of issues about this theory that God saved Trump (apart from the fact that it presupposes God’s existence, obviously) that I find problematic:

One, if God was protecting Trump, why did he let the shooting happen at all? Why didn’t he stop the shooter from firing in the first place?
Two… frankly, someone died. And another man apparently required multiple surgeries for the injuries he sustained, plus two others were apparently hit as well. Why didn’t God protect THEM? Did he decide they could just go fuck themselves? These pricks gushing about God saving Trump aren’t making as good a case for God as they think they are…

And blood and wine were on his hands

Well, then, let’s get on with something comparatively frivolous. Stuffed to the gills with uptempo chart smashes and pop hits that’ll have you snapping your fingers, tapping your feet, singing in the shower and all that jazz, it’s nothing if not colossal and upbeat… or at least it might be if it actually were, which it isn’t. This is what it actually is instead:

    1. The Jesus & Mary Chain, Kill Surf City
    2. Slab!, Fourth Warning
    3. Age of Chance, Bible of the Beats
    4. Killing Joke, Bloodsport
    5. Yello, Crash Dance
    6. Johnson Engineering Co., Full Circle
    7. Loop, Black Sun
    8. Play Dead, In Silence
    9. Executive Slacks, In and Out
    10. Crime & The City Solution, Her Room of Lights (For Lisa)
    11. Helios Creed, Sex Voodoo Venus
    12. Virgin Prunes, Theme for Thought
    13. Material, Detached
    14. Scientists, Human Jukebox