Signal Wave

wave.gif

Good morning, all!

This is what I'm listening to lately...

It's from Heart's second album, the 1977 hit Little Queen.

littlequeen.jpg

In my pre-teeens, this was an album I liked, and respected even more than I liked. However, I hadn't listened to it in about 30 years.

Its re emergence into my life came courtesy of my hatred for mp3 players.

I really, really hate mp3 players. I hate the actual hardware, the interface, what it's like interacting with the machine. In recent years, this has meant that I listen to music a lot less, mostly on my PC or car radio, or on various ancient tech that I've either bought off ebay:

walkman.jpg

or appropriated from my friends when they moved on to more fashionable tech. This is Kate's boombox, unparalleled for use in all housework situations:

boomboom.jpg

The power cord to the boombox got lost sometime back in the mists of time, so Kate got a replacement cord. Sadly, the replacement only works on Tuesdays when there's a new moon in Sagittarius and it's raining, so the box basically runs on C batteries. When the batteries get low, they decide they can't cope with the effort of playing a CD, so for the past few days I've been stuck with my old cassette tapes while doing housework. It's been interesting rummaging around in various commercial tapes and mixes that I had around the mid to late 90s, which is about the last time I used cassettes.

Hence Little Queen and "Barracuda."

I couldn't figure out why I kept thinking about Hillary Clinton while playing "Barracuda," until it occurred to me that the song is about someone telling scurrilous lies in order to sell a product.
Hmmm.

I've been watching The Rain, which is an excellent Danish science fiction thriller.

the rain 1.jpg

It's not exactly a zombie story, but has many similarities to zombie literature. A terrible virus spreads throughout Denmark, causing an epidemic. It spreads both through contact and through the air. But the main vector is (you guessed it), the rain. Every day it rains, and the rain spreads the virus. The father of the main characters, a scientist, works for a company, Apollon, that is apparently involved in both the creation of the virus and the engineering of the weather pattern that disseminates it.

apollon.jpg

At the beginning of the story, the father has turned on his employers and decided to try and find a cure.

rainfather.jpg

Why don't his employers want to find a cure? Sweet, sweet military industrial money.

He believes he has already engineered a cure by injecting his son with the virus. Yeah, that's right. He deliberately injected his son repeatedly with the virus.

Yeah, that's right. The scientist deliberately did something that stupid. He, as they say in Bride of the Monster, tampered in God's domain:

Unlike Bride of the Monster, The Rain actually has very good acting, and very solid, good writing, if you want to watch a hovering-on-the-edge-of-apocalypse story, or a "He tampered in God's domain" story. But it's dark. Man, is it dark. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep watching it. Its examination of the dysfunctional things fathers can do to sons while serving militarism and profit might be more than I can take.

I like apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature (I wouldn't be much of a science fiction fan if I didn't, I guess), but I don't always have the psychological wherewithal to get through it these days.

I didn't read much this week. Well, I did, but the book wasn't good enough to pass on to you guys. 'Nuff said!

How are you all today?

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Dawn's Meta's picture

One of my all time favorites:

[video:https://youtu.be/Zv69q_oeDOk]

Wishing for better days with people caring for each other.

Loved Babylon 5. Some good actors. Long arc.

I love that we can play YouTube music C99ers suggest while reading. Bluetooth on our old speakers. Yeah, not as good as original vinyl or CD, but I can roam around forever.

Mandolin Orange
https://youtu.be/iOHkyZ62jjQ

DH is playing Heart of Gold for our daughter's wedding.

https://youtu.be/WwaIWAH9OtQ

Why some 'Share' links show up as album covers and others don't?????

Thank you.

up
0 users have voted.

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dawn's Meta

And actually liked the whole album. I wonder where it went?

I definitely had a cassette of Dog and the Butterfly.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dawn's Meta
It might be the best TV show I've ever seen, although I grew up in a sort of golden age of TV, so it would be competing with All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, The Muppet Show, and many other gems.

As far as science fiction on tv goes, it's clearly the best. And I say that as someone with a lifelong devotion to Star Trek.

However, I'm with J Michael Straczynski on this one; when Majel Barrett came onto his show as Lady Morella, the widow of the dead Centauri emperor, he put this line into her mouth:

"This place has become a memorial to his unfinished work."

Brings tears to my eyes every time.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
... for years i listened to babylon 5 fans raving about it. i read online their furious denunciations of Deep Space 9 as a total babylon 5 rip-off. etc.

finally, somewhere in the last year, while desperately evading reality, i was on netflix or prime, and thought, what the hell, and clicked on B5.

i could not make it through the first episode. i mean ... i was shocked at the inadequacy of the writing and the acting. it was ... it was ... it was just bad. not "original battlestar galactica bad", or "The A Team" bad ... but bad.

heart, on the other hand -- they were the bomb. it was a real drag that Roger Fisher was a dumbass and a dick, because they were never the same after Ann (with plenty of reason) tossed him out of the band. not too long after that, the record company told them they needed songwriting help, and hooked them up with a couple of very well-known professional composers of horrible formulaic pop music ... resulting in their biggest selling, absolutely suckiest records, in the early to mid-80s. blech.

here's the best 9:15 of heart ever set to video:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC1xr44Ow5U]

breathtaking stuff

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@UntimelyRippd

Star Trek: The Next Generation time to settle in, rather than basing their ideas of it solely on "Encounter at Farpoint," or that hideous racist episode in Season 1, it's useful to give Babylon 5 time to settle in as well.

If you want some decent season one episodes, try "Parliament of Dreams" and "By Any Means Necessary." Also, "Deathwalker," "Signs and Portents," and "A Voice in the Wilderness" are good.

Trust me when I say you are missing out if you do not give this series another chance.

As for Deep Space 9, I tried it, of course, being a passionate Star Trek fan as well as a Babylon 5 fan (I believe what Straczynski was saying in "Point of No Return" is that there is no reason for animosity between the fan bases or between the shows--you can be a fan of both).

My problems with Deep Space 9 have nothing to do with any perceived competition with or ripoffs from Babylon 5. My problems with Deep Space 9 have to do with some very ugly propaganda. Seeing as how I have the greatest respect for Ira Behr and some others involved with the show, I want to be very specific in my criticisms. Peter Allan Fields should be fucking ashamed of the episode "Crossover," a deeply hateful political and moral gesture which retroactively poisoned one of the best episodes of the original series. In a gesture worthy of Lee Atwater, it took something profoundly inspirational and made it into a sewer, basically pushing the same message that the original Battlestar Galactica was pushing: these idiots who believe in peace and justice will wreck everything. Roddenbery was no saint, but had he still been alive and involved with Star Trek, that episode would never have aired. And it shouldn't have.

Then there was the character of Odo, one of the best characters on the show played by one of the show's best actors--a character which also happened to be the embodiment of the modern mass surveillance state made attractive by the acting ability of Rene Auberjonois and cutesy lines and humor. I have never seen a more extensive twentieth-century attempt to make mass warrantless surveillance and its perpetrators appealing. Odo can remain essentially invisible whenever he wants, which enables him to spy on anyone and everyone. There are literally no limits, legal, moral, or technological, to his ability to spy, aside from the fact that I don't believe he can survive unprotected in deep space or the cauldron of a volcano.

So my problems with Deep Space 9 have nothing at all to do with Babylon 5. I hope you will give the series another chance. I can't watch this scene without crying:

Damn it, I'm tearing up again.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal "Oh, you enjoy living in paradise? Well, we do all the dirty work. And we answer to no one."

up
0 users have voted.

Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner

Babylon 5 was, among other things, a critique of fascism and, actually, all forms of authoritarianism. Most of the time, Star Trek is too. Not DS9, though.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Dawn's Meta's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal cheesy, really liked the main cast. Olmos was very good I thought.

I wore out Dog and Butterfly on tape.

Thanks for the SciFi analysis. Star Trek was my first ( as a kid was too scared of Twilight Zone, and some of the early science fiction TV.) Star Trek seemed like parables to me.I still have friends with libraries of Star Trek, so we watch in our jammies. Those and The Thin Man series.
The Thin Man
Of the Star Trek movies the Voyage Home about whales is my favorite.

up
0 users have voted.

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

@Dawn's Meta
years ago, and starred Lorne Greene as Admiral Adama. It was ... pretty bad. The only decent episode(s), in my opinion, were the ones with Lloyd Bridges and the semi-miraculous appearance of the The Pegasus.

The rebooted BG, from the mid-2000s, was a very different animal, and, especially in the first 2 seasons, was (also in my opinion) about as good as TV science fiction can get. The pilot makes that one episode I saw of babylon 5 look like a school project.

BTW, did you know that Lorne Greene was Canadian? It's probably a coincidence, but there's an episode of the original BG where they put together a commando unit to go down and raid a planet ... and amongst their cool commando gear are these cool futuristic helmets ... which were in fact, CCM hockey helmets painted 100% black.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@UntimelyRippd one of my all time favorite albums is Hymns of the 49th Parallel by kd Laing

[video:https://youtu.be/Z2jEWE_POvw]

All Canadian singer, songwriters.

up
0 users have voted.

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

@Dawn's Meta
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ExF4nQ7T4]

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dawn's Meta

except for the last half hour of the series.

I was referring to the original Battlestar Galactica. Olmos' remake has very good politics. Great storytelling too, up till the end. And then...well. Sad

In the original, people who want peace have pushed for a less aggressive attitude toward the Cylons. Peace talks are about to start in the first episode. But they never happen because of an unprovoked Cylon attack.

No sense of responsibility on the part of the twelve worlds for creating the Cylons or anything else, is ever explored. At least not that I remember.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

A couple years ago at the last convention I went to. It was pretty awesome and interesting. However, I distinctly remember when I picked it up from the author and was about to purchase a book from him he winced and said, "Uhm... don't get that one. This one's Much better."

So, decided to finally pick up the book in question and I now know why the author didn't want me to read it. Cringe fest. I did a little checking after I was stunned to find so many bad cliches and awful characters in a writer's work that I usually like and found that the reason was that most of the characters were write ins from Kickstarter backers. So many Mary Sues... and artwork that looks like someone desperately trying to glamorize a bad renfair costume.

On the other hand, the book on that they did with the book they did on the Islamic empire analogue was pretty good. Just like the rest of the RPG, romanticized to the 9th degree, and I honestly got to the point where I was snickering my ass off because they've tried to go gender neutral on laws and customs (Hey, very openly liberal/progressive authors...) which leads to some hilarious mental images which they fully embrace. (When they got to the part with the female Mohammad analogue I couldn't help but bust a gut. I'm half hoping some dickhead gets offended, because the Catholics never gave a shit about their analogue which existed for 20 years without a peep.)

Overall dealing with a bit of a rough patch. Unfortunately about this time every year I get the wonderful experience of dust, smoke and random explosions at random times. Also known as the couple weeks around the 4th of July where some asshole just has to get celebrating early. Course if you complain, you're just unpatriotic and an asshole for complaining because so many other oppressed people have it worse... You should think about them... the poor man who has no other entertainment but to detonate explosives... Ugh...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV2C9_MAJ0E]

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks

I knew there was a reason I was starting to feel unpleasant. And I don't have anything like your reason. But I hate how anxious I get when the damned fireworks start.

I generally stock up on food, hide in my house and watch videos, just like I do on 9/11. But you can't entirely escape the noise.

I am so sorry dmw. A soundproofed room would be nice, wouldn't it?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal My one purchase for myself. Noise cancelling and surround sound. Heavy Metal on standby. Smile

And I pretend to be somewhere else. Been playing a bit of Stellaris recently. Fun game. Space Opera Empire building that steals from pretty much every single SF franchise for enemy empires. Way too complicated but my daughter and I both enjoy it. Even if she tends to play Vulcans and I tend to play Starship Troopers. Smile (Seriously, they steal from everybody. Been up against Skynet Analogues and Klingons in the same game.)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uttlRqHpvNs]

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks

Universalis, which I believe is by the same company. I have not yet dipped my toe into those games. They do seem a bit complex.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Sorry I'm late...the newest addition to our family, a three-legged puppy (Hopper) got himself tangled in the wires under my desk. I tried pulling the cords on my desk to get them away from him, but must have missed one because one hearty tug managed to hook my full coffee cup and spill it all over me, my mouse, and my monitor (?!?) I guess it was splash damage.

/facepalm

Now everything smells like coffee, and not in the best way. But there are far worse smells he could have inflicted on me, so I guess I'm grateful?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Last week I went down the Korean Film archive hole, thank you very much. The openculture site has a lot of links to a lot of movies, that is where I usually go for brain candy.

Christopher Lee (RIP) was great for doing The Wicker Man I think, a terrible movie but someone had to do it. Found it in the commons on archive.org. pagans unite
I guess because limpet mines were also in the news, I had to dig up a digitized vhs copy of Don Knotts turning in to a fish for the USNavy, and bombs away! meh
---KNOW MY HISTORY
Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps — Anchor Editions

The military seized her photographs, quietly depositing them in the National Archives, where they remained mostly unseen and unpublished until 2006.

some quotes

“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”

— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942

hackernews:

masklinn 4 hours ago [-]
Californian farmers were also very interested in booting japanese farmers out and taking over their land.

Not just because it was good land, but because japanese family farms were very efficient and proficient "truck farms" (growing cash crops like strawberries, peppers, beans, gourds, … for markets and restaurants): californian japanese farms had almost 10% of that market before the removal order, and their farms were worth ~$250/acre on average, versus ~$40 US average.

Stumping for the "victory garden" was a direct consequence of the internment order, and tens of millions worth of truck crops unexpectedly missing from the market.

huh

“The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on American soil, possessed of American citizenship, have be come ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.

…It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these are organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity.

The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”

— General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command

I have been to Angel Island many times, stood where they stood.

“…At that time, our internee numbers printed on a piece of denim and pinned on to the back of our coats, made us appear and feel like true criminals.

“We were transported by a ferry boat to Angel Island in the bay to couple of buildings which were the old immigration station in past years. There we were stripped naked as in Sand Island and given a rough physical examination. The main building was a two-story frame building and we were herded into one large room upstairs lined with three tiers of bunk beds. This island seemed to be used as training grounds for new recruits, for we could hear and see them being marched around under the sergents’ [sic] brisk ‘hup, two, three, four’ from early in the morning for the whole day.

“The air was crisp and fresh with trees, shrubs, and grass covering the hilly slopes of the island. Pretty birds which I had never seen back in the islands, flitted among the trees vibrating the air with their sweet music. I saw a tiny humming bird for the first time with its blurring wings. It darted among the branches, stopping motionless for a few seconds at some flowers. I’ve seen them illustrated in books and read about them, but seeing them for the first time gave me a thrill.”

A hummingbird fell at me feet on the river path a couple weeks ago, it had the funk on its bill from unclean feeders, I discovered that after going back to "rescue" it from the 102F heat and seeing it close up, magnified. already late At least it didn't suffer from the hot sun, maybe it suffered less I don't know. RIP little hummer.

PEACE

up
0 users have voted.

@eyo

The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.

It's like the joke:
"Hey, look at this thing I bought from a door-to-door salesman -- it's an elephant repeller!"
"But ... there aren't any elephants around here ..."
"See! It's working!"

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@eyo

Sometimes when I don't "see" somebody for a long while, I start to worry. Internet friendships are weird that way, y'know?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal thanks, and cheers for internet friends. I am just trying to stay alive, clinical depression eats my life sometimes I can't relate to anything or anyone. When sane, there are many people here I'd love to meet someday, that would be great. peace dream

Pete Townshend - Face The Face
[video:https://youtu.be/NS3nRcwWktA width:400]

PEACE and LOVE
theworldofherdreams.jpg
by Diane DiMassa
(C) Giant Ass Publishing
Vote for Chicken the Cat

up
0 users have voted.
Deja's picture

@eyo
My heart aches when I read and think about what this country's officials did to those innocent people. I've read some of their diaries and they're heart wrenching. Vienna Sausages sticks in my mind from one diary. No familiar food for years. One of the photos in your link shows a pregnant woman. Another shows a mother with 3 fingers holding a suitcase and 1 finger clinging to a very young girl's shoulder/upper arm, keeping the child squished safely between Mom and older brother as they await their fate. Those kids were most likely citizens by birth. Mom might have been too.

Thank you for sharing this, lest we forget. And no, I was never taught any of this as a child, neither in school, nor by my family.

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

and MP3s aren't the top audio quality, but they and other vormats like ogg and vorbis have their good points. On my computer, my phone and my tablet I have software/apps to play music that are much more user friendly than real mp3 players ever were, and whch handle a lot of different formats. This enables me to put a huge collection of tapes, albums and cds that I ripped to mp3 or ogg format on just about any device I get my hands on and carry around yet more on a thumb drive. I can take my phone or tablet into the yard along with a cheap bluetooth speaker and listen to music all day while working, and since it's just background, the lossy compression doesn't really bug me anymore than the lo-fi speaker does. If I get bored, I can fire up slacker or jassradio and listen to what they generate for a while. I literally have a cabinet full of CDs stored on more than one small device Smile

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --