The Bedlamite Hustle
Christopher Rufo mingles with the dysmorphics of “Decolonizing Gender”:
The panellists represented a wide range of idiosyncratic identities, expressed in a mixture of New Age and intersectional language—the more obscure and oppressed, the greater the status within the community. The main presenter, trans activist Malcolm Shanks, said he was a descendant of black slaves and Taíno tribesmen and “used to identify as gender fluid,” but has been “identifying more recently as a little bit more gaseous or plasma-like.”
Needless to say, the educational content is somewhat outlandish, often farcical and stupefying – essentially, a shit test for the neurotic, the credulous and the chronically pretentious. Mr Ganesha Gold Buffalo, for instance, a trans activist and prostitute, tells us that his expertise is rooted in “Waking up at four in the morning, five in the morning, every morning, to sounds of my ancestors screaming from outside my window, coming from the ground, coming from the earth.” His mind, we learn, “was decolonised” in nearby woods by howling “nature spirits.” Mr Buffalo, who identifies as many things, bemoans his “constant struggle under colonialism,” and his need for affirmation as a woman with a penis:
I one-hundred percent want to still be able to look in the mirror and see every part of myself as a woman, see every part of myself as a two-spirit trans woman, a beautiful being: my moustache, all of my facial hair, my untrimmed brows, my fat ass, my belly, my big dick, everything.
Other participants – again, self-styled educators – air equally challenging demands, including a belief that they should be addressed with seemingly random words, depending on whim and state of mind at any given time. “I want you to call me ‘Mommy,’ ‘Queen,’ ‘Daddy,’ if I want you to,” says Randy Ford, a transgender activist for the Lavender Rights Project, and whose pronouns are she, her, and goddess. Other terms of address include cyborg, unicorn, and Wakanda.
Along with the lists of stipulated pronouns and honorifics, and repeated demands for cash “reparations,” and tales of ghostly visitations by long-dead ancestors, the decolonisers of gender also share their extensive scientific knowledge. Specifically, that “There’s no such thing as male genes or female hormones or a male body.” You see, these things, which don’t exist, are merely diabolical constructs of the white devil. Hence the reparations, of course.
Videos of the bedlamites and their teachings can be found here.
The organisations mentioned in the piece all receive taxpayer funding, and all have programmes aimed at children.
expressed in a mixture of New Age and intersectional language—the more obscure and oppressed, the greater the status within the community.
Wokeness and woo, as our host would say.
Our host also uses some fancy words for utter insanity, but when confronted with irrationality and stupidity on the scale above, any succinct descriptor would prove inadequate. Or like most of us, we simply admit that words fail.
The main presenter, trans activist Malcolm Shanks, said he was a descendant of black slaves and Taíno tribesmen and “used to identify as gender fluid,” but has been “identifying more recently as a little bit more gaseous or plasma-like.”
Maximum honk.
Maximum honk.
Heh. There is, I think, quite a lot of honking to be done.
The crux of Shank’s argument was that white European colonizers committed genocide against indigenous people and replaced the natives’ peaceful, non-binary gender system with an oppressive “colonial gender binary.”
*Citation needed.
And what’s with this peaceful fantasy? Everywhere else on the planet, humans could be downright cruel, but the Americas were all rainbows and unicorn farts? Seems I read that some groups were still practicing human sacrifice when Europeans arrived.
There is a solution. Decolonize yourself!
*Citation needed?
How about the history of the Black Hills of Dakota?
Which were “stolen” by the the white European colonisers from the Lakota Sioux,
Who had previously stolen them from the Cheyenne,
Who had previously stolen them from the Kiowa,
Who had previously stolen them from the Pawnee,
Who had previously stolen them from the Crow,
Who had previously stolen them from the Arikara,
Who had previously stolen them from the Clovis,
Who had previously stolen them from whoever was there beforehand etc etc back to the first amoeba.
Extra points will be awarded for every time a self-identifying descendent of these proud indigenous peoples refers to the hills as their “Historical Sacred Lands” or any variation thereof which includes the words “Ancestral” or “Tribal”.
…and replaced the natives’ peaceful, non-binary gender system with an oppressive “colonial gender binary.”
As most accounts would have it, tribal skirmishes and wars might win land, treasure and WOMEN. I have yet to read of gays and lezzos being the preferred booty and shudder to think of the outcome, if half a dozen captured beauties, when dragged to their destination, prove gifted with male appendages.
After a good curry washed down with several beers, I have also been known to identify as a little bit more gaseous.
Maximum honk.
Band name? Maximum Honk and the Flatulent Dog F***ers.
I have yet to read of gays and lezzos being the preferred booty and shudder to think of the outcome, if half a dozen captured beauties, when dragged to their destination, prove gifted with male appendages.
I have read that a common Native American practice was to castrate (supposedly?) effeminate boys to be “used” as women, so to speak. Maybe also the occasional war captive? But this was a Native American tradition and therefore was deeply sacred.
identifying more recently as a little bit more gaseous or plasma-like
Like all his “genders”, these are just passing phases.
…being the preferred booty…
ISWYDT…
Like all his “genders”, these are just passing phases.
Ask him to draw his phase diagram.
Rather than “effeminate boys” I should have written “insufficiently warlike boys”. That is, boys who exhibited insufficient aggression and eagerness to kill and torture. At least that is how I vaguely recall it.
You see, these things, which don’t exist, are merely diabolical constructs of the white devil. Hence the reparations, of course.
I’d be willing to give them reparations if they would decolonize and go into the woods and heal by living like their venerated ancestors without all the trappings of wypipo on their colonization. Of course the zoom meetings, fake nails, and nose rings will be hard to come by, and it would be interesting to see what Mr. Gold Buffalo will take in trade for his services.
At least it’s refreshing to see them get to the point: “Fuck you, pay me.” Finally, some honesty.
What’s remarkable, I think – aside from the bollocks about gaseous identities, pre-colonial genderless utopias, and the howls of ghostly ancestors, etc – is the absolute shamelessness of the hustling:
There’s something quite vile about the kind of person who would encourage the credulous to cultivate – and then exploit – pretentious, collective guilt. It’s as if they’ve taken the common signatures and comorbidities of gender dysphoria – the unrealism and narcissism, the Cluster-B personality disorders – and made them into a business model. A way to squeeze cash from pretentious lefties. And of course, the taxpayer.
Some people really do need slapping. Just once, but quite hard.
all receive taxpayer funding
Hey, a buck here, a buck there… soon, you’ll be talking ’bout real money. That isn’t being used by you – because it’s theirs, dontchaknow?
PS – my “native” ancestry doesn’t seem to do much yelling, howling, or moaning. They must be off doing something else…
Thomas Sowell famously pointed out 1) if you could not personally have prevented some injustice (such as it happened 100 yrs ago), you cannot be guilty of it and 2) untangling all the injustices and historical bad things is impossible. This is doubly so when the woke insist on lying about all the historical things such as claiming that only white people had slavery. The English and Irish frequently raided each other for slaves 1500 yrs ago. In the 1700s the English “pressed into service” irish for the navy. The Arab slave trade was extensive and I think led to covering their women to protect them.
The movement to get reparations is you are Indian is simple grifting. Indians can stay on a reservation but they do not have to. My friend in the suburbs was indian married to a white man and it only came up once. Sure you can be resentful but if whites had not come you would still be hunting deer with a bow and arrow and not even with a horse. The modern world does not discriminate against indians either.
There is no “oppression” of gays and lesbians in the West. Do they feel oppressed because people celebrate weddings and families? Too bad, that is not oppression that is envy. The rate of murder of trans people is entirely due to trans prostitutes and we can understand what happens in those cases (I didn’t say condone). There is no epidemic of trans murder. As to people looking at flamboyant trans funny, well we look at clowns funny too, or people with too many tatoos.
There is no “oppression” of gays and lesbians in the West.
TRANSFHOBEEE!!!
(is that how it’s supposed to work? ’cause I can’t think of any “oppression” either – even back in the dark ages (1970s Village People anyone?)
Did my ancestors do terrible things to the Native Americans? Sure. But their descendents lives are much better thanks to the technology we can offer them! I think it could reasonably be said that the harm done to them (As a collective, at least) has been outdone by the good. So it’s fine.
Does that sound callous? Well how is that not what reparation’s are? You hurt my ancestors, so give me shit? We can’t bring back the dead, but we can help their children. The natives of North America were some of the most primitive people on the planet, being far behind even the people of South America who had at least some architectural skills. Their technology was advanced by thousands of years. What tribe wouldn’t sacrifice many of their warriors, or sell their women, for such treasure?
As far as I’m concerned, not only is the Trail of Tears not my fault, but the reparation’s have already been paid. All that’s left now is to end the socialist hell that is the Indian Reservation system.
But their descendents lives are much better
What? Don’t you know that an all natural lifestyle leads to a more fulfilling 30 year lifespan? Now pay me!
(Especially after how nicely mine treated yours. Scalps, anyone?)
I’m a bit slow on the uptake tonight
Flatulent Dog F***ers
*** = art or uck? Either will do though the second has a better “ring”.
“Uck”. Both because it is disgusting and because “screwed the pooch” is the cleaned-up version of an old military expression for “messed up very very badly”.
And after all, the Zombie blog among others has documented the existence of out-and-proud dog-f***ers.
Progressivism was once the enemy of class and caste systems. What counted was your accomplishments, not your identity or ancestry.
That seems to have undergone an inversion.
Is a “flatulent dog f***er” someone who both has gas and coitus with dogs, or someone who has coitus with gaseous dogs?
“Flatulent” should refer to their utterances.
[ Constable returns to David’s establishment, notebook in hand. ]
What’s all this then? You’re all going to have to explain this hate speech.
[ Constable returns to David’s establishment, notebook in hand. ]
I always knew this place would turn into an episode of Marple.
I always knew this place would turn into an episode of Marple.
If you have the option, go for Miss Hinchcliffe and not Miss Murgatroyd.
I always knew this place would turn into an episode of Marple.
Unless it is in a village, in which case there will be weekly murders.
[ Changes will under suspicious circumstances. ]
Unless it is in a village, in which case there will be weekly murders.
Just as long as it doesn’t become a village in which people are pursued by bouncing weather balloons.
Just as long as it doesn’t become a village in which people are pursued by bouncing weather balloons.
[ Starts work on first draft of Miss Marple in Midwich. ]
[ Starts work on first draft of Miss Marple in Midwich. ]
Let’s just hope it doesn’t end up like these at a Barnes & Noble
Another vicious white supremacist attack.
Miss Marple in Midwich.
Would watch.
Would watch.
Heh. Well, they’re set in the same period, roughly, and both involve cosy village life and suspicious, rather untoward events, so it’s not entirely without potential.
I remember a science class where they said “fluid” covers both liquids and gasses, since they both flow. I don’t know if ionized gasses also flow, but I bet they do.
+1
identifying more recently as a little bit more gaseous or plasma-like
I say we heat him up until the electrons strip off and see what happens.
People who identify as a fluid or a pony or a plane are not talking about gender but about a fetish. People don’t even know what words mean anymore. And why should I care that someone feels like a fluid? Unless he can ooze through prison bars or do other cool tricks it affects me not at all.
I knew you were dying to know…
https://crosscut.com/focus/2020/09/already-stigmatized-sex-workers-have-fewer-choices-pandemic
Miss Marple in Midwich.
We’ve been talking about crazy people, so would this be Midwich Cuckoos?
And slavery too.
Denying human nature exists or is expressed in some, politically favoured, groups is to dehumanise the members of those groups.
I say we heat him up until the electrons strip off and see what happens.
There’s too much stripping off already.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t end up like these at a Barnes & Noble
These people. This. FTLOC I am so bloody tired of these idiots, who of course think they’re the smart ones, who insist on believing that the US, and especially anyone in it to the right of Ivy League faculty, is some sort of fascist, Nazi, fascist…did I say fascist?…entity. No matter how hard people, the sane people on that thread, try to get the point across that those books have not been banned, the smart ones insist that they have. Especially this guy:
Yet he’s “educated”. He’s the smart one. People don’t get this far out of whack on their own. This is the way a lot of people, “educated” people think. They’re smart. They’ve read books. Not done much of anything else however.
Those “banned book” displays never included the conservative books that have been removed, boycotted, un-published, and so on.
This is the way a lot of people, “educated” people think.
It was a grave mistake to tolerate any leftists in the schools and universities.
[ Changes will under suspicious circumstances. ]
Where’s the witchcraft or nudity? There’s usually one or the other. Or the long lost illigitimate son or daughter back for revenge. Could this involve a henchlesbian who got drunk and had a child in one wild moment of passion? I sense a genre change and a bodice ripping.
Those “banned book” displays never included the conservative books that have been removed, boycotted, un-published, and so on.
Hell, they don’t even include Dr. Seuss. But do any of my white women friends on FB let that give them pause? Nooo. Maus! MAUS!!!
But do any of my white women friends on FB let that give them pause?
Same with regard to the white liberals that I know…or knew. Eff em all, I no longer have any doubts as to what they would happily do to me.
Midwich Cuckoos
Ooh, that’s a good movie (the original).
Ooh, that’s a good movie (the original).
“You’re not thinking of atomic energy. You’re thinking of… a brick wall…!”
As I think we discussed before, years ago, the 1960 film, despite its limited budget, stands up quite well. Better than the inferior sequel and the terrible 90s remake. (There’s a new adaptation, a series, on Sky, though judging by the trailer and the clips I’ve seen, it doesn’t inspire much confidence. When the writer and director of the remake use “Thatcherite” as an obvious, unassailable pejorative, and enthuse about erasing key male characters, then that doesn’t bode well. )
Speaking of films, one of the silliest things in “Idiocracy” was the notion that in the future all restaurants would be Taco Bell.
Modern “educators” and leftists in general summed up.
Modern “educators” and leftists in general summed up.
Let’s not forget the scrupulously progressive Mr Ned Resnikoff and his anxieties regarding tradesman and how they may have voted.
Note that Mr Resnikoff felt it necessary to publicly share his effete meltdown, in which he regards professionalism and good manners as somehow suspect, in order to establish his ‘progressive’ credentials.
[ Added: ]
As I said at the time, the dynamic is sort of, “I feared that, despite his civility and professionalism, this broad-shouldered prole might at any moment sense my disdain for his kind, rise up in a rage, and then strangle me with his big, unmoisturised hands.”
Modern “educators” and leftists in general summed up.
Source: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education, by William Deresiewicz, June 1, 2008
Let’s not forget the scrupulously progressive Mr Ned Resnikoff and his anxieties regarding tradesman and how they may have voted.
He deleted his Facebook post, so we can only read the excerpts that other people screen-shotted. Amusing.
“But he was also a middle-aged white man with a southern accent who seemed unperturbed by [the election] news.”
That immediately led me to wonder whether Resnikoff had said something to test the plumber’s political opinions but was alarmed when the plumber ignored the bait. Lefties do have an unpleasant predilection for such behavior.
“I have no real reason to believe he was a Trump supporter or an anti-Semite, but in my uncertainty I couldn’t shake the sense of potential danger,” he wrote. “I was rattled for some time after he left.”
Paranoid Jewish leftist. Woody Allen’s comedic parodies of these people are in fact understated, not over-the-top. These hysterics are consumed by their fantasy ideas of what Christians and conservatives are, and are almost entirely incapable of seeing reality no matter how often they encounter it. Furthermore, their obsessive fears telegraph what they would do to us if they had the power.
I was also amused that he had to have a plumber in to clear a clogged drain. Does he not know the basic practices that prevent this? In my experience, and from talking to plumbers, a large fraction of apartment dwellers know nothing and will not learn–and as a result apartment managers have to do much more frequent maintenance than is the case where people own their homes. But Resnikoff is a Smart Person who is competent to tell us all how to live.
Also foolish: paying professional plumber rates to clear a clogged drain. Lots of skilled handymen out there who can clear drains, replace faucets, and so on. Is Resnikoff too stupid to know this? Or so socially isolated that he has never gotten recommendations from his neighbors?
He deleted his Facebook post, so we can only read the excerpts that other people screen-shotted.
I’m trying to imagine what it must be like to be post an account of an innocuous social interaction – a visit from a polite and efficient plumber – as if it were an event of enormous sociological import, and personal danger, while revealing to your peers, and to many others, just how irretrievably neurotic you are, and while smugly blaming your own bizarre mental processes on complete strangers who voted for Donald Trump. It’s boggling stuff.
while revealing to your peers, and to many others, just how irretrievably neurotic you are
His peers will agree with him, which is why he reflexively posted that. He only deleted the post after normal people started mocking him. We can be pretty damned confident that he has not changed his opinions since then–only become a little more careful about what he says in public.
Among my friends I count a plumber, a bus driver, a carpenter. I just don’t try to talk about AI algorithms with them and we have a great time. Snobbery is not a good look.
In addition, I have found that a good many academics are not nearly as smart as they think they are and are terrible at reasoning about social/political matters. They are way more tribal than average. They cannot digest that a higher min wage hurts young black men or that shutting oil pipelines in the absence of a way to store solar power will shut down the economy. And these are only single step chains of logic.
Among my friends I count a plumber, a bus driver, a carpenter. I just don’t try to talk about AI algorithms with them and we have a great time. Snobbery is not a good look.
In addition to snobbery, it is sometimes a sign of a damaged personality who cannot talk about anything else. I have known some tech geeks who are incapable of conversing about anything but their professional fields–and usually cannot adjust their speech to the knowledge level of their listeners. Painfully tiresome to endure. Imagine that you are conversing with someone about some very human matters, and one of you makes an off-hand reference to something related to engineering, whereupon the geek sitting nearby breaks in attempting to change the subject of the conversation to engineering.
Also: I generally don’t try to talk shop with people: I don’t bring up police matters with cops, science and engineering with STEM field people, and so on. If I have an occasional specific question I’m curious about or if they bring up such topics that’s fine, but I have found that most people prefer to not talk shop when socializing. That is a mistake that most sf fans make: They want to ask writers about their stories, about their peers, etc., but writers are like other people and have varied interests. (And are probably tired of hearing the same questions over and over.) I have had dozens of enjoyable dinners with writers in which we never (or extremely rarely) talked about their work or about their field. I occasionally made reference to such things in letters, but that was about it.
In addition, I have found that a good many academics are not nearly as smart as they think they are and are terrible at reasoning about social/political matters.
Indeed, indeed.
Victor Davis Hanson has been talking about this for a number of years now, including in one of his most recent podcasts. Podcasts are free, essays require a subscription (which is worth the money.)
They are way more tribal than average.
Yes, tribal and snobbish. They think they are Superior Minds because that is what teachers told them all through school. Furthermore, they spent their entire lives in the school-to-university pipeline and so know nothing about the outside world. What they “know” is only what they read and hear from their peers who are just as ignorant.
Source: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education, by William Deresiewicz, June 1, 2008
In Philip Roth’s I Married a Communist, the college student narrator meets the working class, who at the time were idealized from a distance rather than demonized from a distance: “And there we were. There I was. There it was, the world where I had long secretly dreamed of being a man. The whistle blew, the gates opened wide, and here they came – the workers! The little guy! The common man! The Poles! The Swedes! The Irish! The Croatians! The Italians! The Slovenes!”
The revelation he claims to have had with the plumber sounds like a fabrication from movies like Sullivan’s Travels or Trading Places where Worthington Winthrop Windsor III is a fish out of water in “the real world”. He really had no exposure to the plumber class until the age of 35? Nothing that ever needed to be repaired, washed, carried? Didn’t watch his parents deal with tradesmen? Was he really completely unequipped to set the simplest possible tone – “good morning, thanks for coming, the thing that’s broken is over here”.
Ok, Charles Murray has covered how separate this class has become. Businessmen marry MBA classmates instead of nice girls from the typing pool, so that middle class kids no longer have working class relations. And upper middle class kids sent to private schools instead of to the same local school as the kids of bus drivers.
But I’m pretty sure that ambitious Ivy League students are hyperaware of their own privilege, not out of any sympathy or obligation to the working class, but as part of the point scoring game where you enumerate your own privilege to pre-empt a rival bringing it up against you. And book-smart college students have for decades been generously granting that book smarts aren’t everything, that there are multiple intelligences, that IQ testing and grading in general are problematic, etc. The elites don’t strut around, they’re all modest and self-critiquing like Deresiewicz is, he’s not a lone voice against that system, he’s speaking in the system’s own voice.
Deresiewicz’s article reads like either any one of a million college admissions essays (here I am showing my broadness of mind by telling a story against myself, who by the way can speak multiple foreign languages) or any one of a million submissions to an undergraduate magazine where a student with a sliver more exposure to “the real world” lectures the other students about their privilege.
Meanwhile, I am not at all sure what is happening here.
I once worked occasionally with a dog trainer who held classes in the multi-purpose room of a very liberal church in a very liberal city. Said church held a special service of healing the day after the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, I am not at all sure what is happening here.
“BECAUSE I AM VALID.” As people secure in their identity tend not to say.
Started to post something like this last night but stupid browser reloaded and lost half my post. Thus I don’t readily have available the Tweets that I had read elsewhere that were in regard to the Tweetle Beetle Battle twixt the WaPo “journalists”. Whomever the tweeter was had looked up the main players’ schooling backgrounds and all three of the primary players had elite educations, expensive private schools including one, the originator of the dustup I think, who attended a boarding school in Switzerland. This before attending Harvard/Yale/Ivy Somethings.
It is my perception, perhaps wrong so someone correct me, that most of these elite boarding schools lean heavily in the lib-arts domain. Between that and the connections they foster, much of the east coast journalism pool is made up of these types of people. WASPy Woody Allens but lacking the sense of humor. The lib-arts thing is the real killer. Oh, they’ve read Thoreau thoroughly, along with James Joyce, Flaubert, etc. But can they build a birdhouse, let alone design one? Were you even to raise this issue with them, as I have with somewhat similar people though not specific to birdhouses, they generally fail to grasp the importance. The perception leans toward thinking that the physical birdhouse is the desired end result and not the process of thinking through such things and actually building something objective.
As I’ve said here repeatedly, too much fiction is bad. Such people, and it goes well beyond boarding schools, have little ability to grasp the real world. Which is why, similar to the kind of city Jews pst314 references who are consumed by their fantasy ideas of what Christians and conservatives are similarly see a world of “banned” books even when said books are right in front of them for sale in the open at a book store and are also equally obtuse as to the idea that schools and even libraries have to draw the lines somewhere in regard to what they keep and what they do not keep depending on the age appropriateness of their clientele. And why they never see the real book bannings of Dr. Seuss or anyone else who runs afoul of the hard-leftist shrieking ideologues even when said moderate lefties profess to be against “cancel culture”. And why they can get all worked up about something like Maus not being used in a curriculum for children vs. Dr. Suess being really, actually banned. And don’t get me starte on why I cannot find Hobbes’ Leviathan or similar in any library that I frequent.
Going back to it goes well beyond boarding schools, while I greatly appreciated much of the fiction that I was exposed to even in my public schools there was still an excessive amount of introspection. Even in books that lacked that aspect from the author’s intent it would get worked into the theme/discussion/etc. A failure to appreciate such navel gazing, to roll one’s eyes at such, was seen as being somehow a lesser human being. One who had not achieved the enlightenment of the smart…smaaaart people who didn’t know how to change a tire. To criticize such, as I have done in even conservative…”conservative” forums gets sledgehammered into a Narrative of “well, you’re just not a reader”. I have found it bloody impossible to get it through such people’s heads that a person can be fairly well-read, certainly broadly so, yet have concerns about dangers of a society living in castles in the sky.
They cannot digest that a higher min wage hurts young black men or that shutting oil pipelines in the absence of a way to store solar power will shut down the economy.
My wife used to belong to the local environmental group, but because she had a different upbringing from them (i.e., poor), she has a different idea of what environmentalism means.
When one of the member was praising the rise in gas prices because it’ll encourage a shift to electric cars, my wife asked what poor people were supposed to do when they can’t afford the means to get to their low-paying jobs. The conversation went downhill after that.
(BTW Farnsworth M Muldoon at 12:28, the movie is “Demolition Man,” which turns out to be a prescient as the Babylon Bee these days. And in another example of tone-deafness, the crew at “How Did This Get Made?” ragged on the movie, but as “good” leftists completely could not see the movie’s themes of corporate state-induced conformity and suppression of free speech.)
The revelation he claims to have had with the plumber sounds like a fabrication
Probably to encourage other morons to mimic the behaviour and attitude… to infect vulnerable minds with the sickness.
BTW Farnsworth M Muldoon at 12:28, the movie is “Demolition Man,” which turns out to be a prescient as the Babylon Bee these days
Thanks, been a spell since I saw either, but both are prophetic…
Idiocracy everything was a Carl’s Hr./Hardee’s IIRC
The revelation he claims to have had with the plumber sounds like a fabrication
Could be: That’s a reasonable supposition, especially considering how routinely the left lies. But I do see it as possibly a real and accurate account, given how paranoid and delusional so many leftists are.
Unless it is in a village, in which case there will be weekly murders.
You’re usually fine, unless the names of those villages begin with, or are located in, “Midsomer”. Which, incidentally, is filmed hereabouts in the Home Counties in lots of delightfully photogenic villages, and where the real-life body counts are pleasingly low.
Midwich Cuckoos
[T]he 1960 film, despite its limited budget, stands up quite well.
I think it stands up well because of the limited budget. The filmmakers couldn’t just drape the film with elaborate and expensive special effects, instead they had to rely on the performances from the cast, who, with the exception of the lead (Hollywood favourite George Sanders), were all lesser-known, reliable character actors who gave solid, intelligent performances. Unlike Christopher Reeve in the unwelcome, un-needed remake.
You’re usually fine, unless the names of those villages begin with, or are located in, “Midsomer”.
I don’t know, going by your tv shows y’all are stacking bodies like cord wood in small villages from Shetland to Penzance.
re fiction introspection: The books we had to read were full of introspection too and I did roll my eyes. I thought “catcher in the rye” was so full of it. red badge of courage, johnny got his gun and so on. When I discovered that there were books about real stuff (westerns, history books about WWII, biographies, science) as well as LOTR and scifi, I was hooked on reading. I have read that one reason boys don’t like to read in school is that they have to read girl books.
…while I greatly appreciated much of the fiction that I was exposed to even in my public schools there was still an excessive amount of introspection.
Yes. Introspection can be done well, but the lit crit crowd prefers it to be overdone. For an example of well-done introspection, I am planning to re-read Gregory Benford’s Cosm, which does have passages in which the protagonist, a young untenured experimental physicist, worries about what to do and whether she has made the best choice.
Unlike Christopher Reeve in the unwelcome, un-needed remake.
The 90s John Carpenter version is pretty awful. And attempts to transplant the story to other locations and the modern day haven’t been very successful. The original’s period setting is important to the tone of the thing and makes the isolation of the village, and what follows from that, more plausible. The cosy cultural and racial homogeneity of the time also highlights the otherness of the children, who do not resemble their ostensible parents and do not share their values.
Idiocracy everything was a Carl’s Hr./Hardee’s IIRC
Forgot that bit. I see why they can be conflated.
The… homogeneity of the time also highlights the otherness of the children
Indeed, and I remember that that’s one of the points raised in the novel. Various human cultures – Inuit, Mongolian, Aboriginal and Russian – all globally diverse yet regionally homogenous, experienced similar unwanted violations, and as the resulting children were clearly not of those groups, took brutal action to remedy the situation. Which also highlighted something else quite interesting – the “primitive and uncivilised” (from the novel’s perspective) cultures recognised that these children were a possible threat and dealt with it immediately, whereas the “sophisticated, civilised” ones didn’t until it was almost too late. I wonder if there’s a lesson in that?
see a world of “banned” books even when said books are right in front of them for sale in the open at a book store
In cases like this I like to try the analogy of movie ratings. Most parent seem to grasp that certain movies are inappropriate for children however “worthy” they might be. I ask them, if they feel that a movie that has been rated ‘R [Restricted]” or ‘AA [Adult Accompaniment]” has been banned ? usually, they can acknowledge that such a movie has not been banned, merely not available for viewing by all ages. You can then try to point out that parents voicing their concerns that certain books may only be suitable at certain age levels are not trying to “ban” the books, just not making them part of the syllabus.
I have had mixed success with this approach, I will readily admit.
Indeed, and I remember that that’s one of the points raised in the novel.
I read the book decades ago and don’t recall some of the details. But if memory serves, the children are to some extent sympathetic, insofar as they aren’t cartoonishly malevolent or entirely sure where they came from. There’s no unveiling of some diabolical masterplan. The children can, however, anticipate how events will unfold and are obliged to act accordingly. I suppose the sense of inevitability is a large part of what made the scenario rather chilling.
They want to ask writers about their stories, about their peers, etc., but writers are like other people and have varied interests.
I recall being at a con panel with two venerable comic artists being asked what kind of art they did in their spare time and the audience being clearly disappointed with the answers “mostly portraits of my friends and family” and “I’ve been getting into watercolour landscapes lately.” They obviously wanted to hear that their favourite artists spent all their free time drawing Batman or something but for that generation it’s clear that comic art was a job, not a calling.
Some years ago a random fan managed to wrangle an interview with Bob Rozakis, the editor-in-chief of DC comics at the time the superhero-themed Hostess Fruit Pie ads came into being, and flat-out asked him what the hell he was thinking when Hostess walked into their offices and offered the contract. Rozakis’ response was “probably something like ‘Great!’ followed by ‘How much?'”. The fact that Rozakis et. al. just didn’t care about the “artistic integrity” of their creations seemed to upset him.
Ah, “artistic integrity”. It’s as if these kids have no idea that artists have to make a living—or how hard that is and how few succeed and how brief success can be. Anything that earns income is welcome. SF artist Don Maitz earned extra money for many years painting the Captain Morgan rum advertisements. Kelly Freas was paid big $$$ by Queen to expand his famous The Gulf Between painting into a series to illustrate a rock album. Good for him! I’ve known a number of SFartists who never made a living at it and all their lives had to have regular jobs.
Besides, why can’t artists have wide interests in theme and style? Fans who want only more works just like the ones before are a perennial pain. Besides, landscapes and portraits are good ways to work on ones craft. I personally think that Frank Kelly Freas’ drawings tend to be better and more interesting than his paintings that got all the attention. And fans may not like watercolors but they have many merits. (Have you guessed that I don’t have much in common with most fans, whose taste and depth are so limited?)
From listening to many writers I think the general attitude when Hollywood offers money is to take it and run. If the studio can be persuaded to not rape the original story that’s great, but extremely few writers are well off enough to demand full control or veto power.
Have you guessed that I don’t have much in common with most fans, whose taste and depth are so limited?
LOL the devil you say.
extremely few writers are well off enough to demand full control or veto power
Pierre Berton, the Canadian columnist, humorist and in his later years pop historian, tells the story of his books on the history of the Canadian north being made into a miniseries, for which he had executive producer credit. He imagined strutting around the set advising the costumers on the correct number and size of buttons on the military uniforms and the length of sideburns and so on, and was quite chagrined to discover that aside from “oh, hey, you’re the author” no one gave a damn what he thought.
aside from “oh, hey, you’re the author” no one gave a damn what he thought.
And most writers just don’t know much about how to translate a story from the page to the screen–and especially how to do it within budgetary constraints.
I suppose “executive producer” means nothing unless the contract clearly gives the author control. Otherwise the producer has the decision-making power and everyone else can only make suggestions.
It must be a lot easier for an author to have control over scripts: Always sell the option rights with a proviso requiring final script approval. This ought to work best when the author has a reputation for being reasonable.
I’ll just leave this here.
I suppose “executive producer” means nothing
It’s one of those interesting titles that can mean a lot of things. Practically, it just means you get royalties for being in the credits. It’s often used as a way to pay an author beyond just the optioning of their work. It can also mean “showrunner”, which is akin to “left hand of God”. So you can understand the confusion.
Always sell the option rights with a proviso requiring final script approval
My experience has been that no one will option a work with that kind of rider. Even multi-millionaire A-list actors don’t get that. The closest I’ve ever seen is Antonio Banderas and Tom Cruise having riders that no actor is allowed to appear taller on screen than they do, which is at least easy enough to accommodate.
I’ll just leave this here.
Look, the reason I insist on subtitled anime over dubbed is that I get severe cognitive dissonance when the English dub doesn’t match the subtitles, and they never do. It has nothing to do with being a snobby purist.
Much.
Look, the reason I insist on subtitled anime over dubbed…
I will bow to your vastly superior knowledge of anime. You should not take my memory as gospel truth, but I seem to recall seeing foreign movies with bad subtitles although I cannot remember any details at all.
much
And of course there are no areas of art and culture in which I am at all a snobby purist. Total slice-of-demographic man-of-the-people, that’s me.