In keeping with my previous post about Voyager 2 getting a new lease on life, I thought I’d write one about a moment when an old band (well, old by pop standards) made an incredible comeback. Duran Duran, those darlings of the early days of MTV, did it in 1993 with the song Come Undone, which is by far my favorite of their works.
Enjoy!
If there’s one kind of story I’m a sucker for, it’s the has-been-makes-a-comeback. You know the formula: a once-great hero (i.e. athlete/cop/musician/artist) is down on his luck. They’re disrespected, lonely, and all but forgotten. But then, with the help of a much younger and optimistic (or older and wiser) companion, the hero gets a burst of inspiration. They discover that they still have vast, untapped powers, and through great discipline, courage, and sacrifice, they focus those powers on a new challenge. Then, at the climax of the tale, they face that challenge and triumph.
I have, of course, just described every single Rocky movie (yes, even Rocky II) as well as 10% of all the Hollywood movies ever made. My favorite cinematic example is a little movie from 2005 called The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins. But I tend to like any variation of the formula, even the most banal and overused variety.
Continue reading “Old Robot Cheats Death”Well, another summer is about to begin, and, once again, I don’t plan on seeing any of the summer “blockbusters” that are coming out. I just can’t work up much enthusiasm for the big summer debut. The problem is that now, in my 50s, I have seen so many movies that I recognize the same characters over and over in an endlessly repeating loop. Don’t believe me? Check out the list below…
The Dark Prince
Brooding, sexy, and smart, the Dark prince is often caught up in a hopeless battle against a larger system that is both impersonal and oppressive. These guys don’t smile a lot.
Famous Examples:
The Vixen (with a Brain)
This archetype is reserved for actresses whose sex appeal is so strong that it blasts off the screen like a blowtorch. But the magic comes when the viewer realizes that there is much more to these women than just a pretty face. Often portrayed as a scarlet woman or a femme fatale, this archetype always has a troubled past and is unable to sustain a genuine relationship.
One of my favorite sites on the internet is openculture.com. As the name implies, it’s a curated collection of the best permanently free culture on the web, from free college courses, movies, images, audiobooks, and history lessons.
Here’s a recent post that I found weirdly fascinating. It’s about how the ancient Romans had fewer cavities and dental problems than we might expect. What was their secret? (Hint: it has to do with less sugar.) I think I liked it because it ran contrary to the tendency most modern books and movies have when it comes to dramatizing the past. Usually, it’s portrayed as unremittingly violent and brutal, or (even worse) nostalgically sweet and winsome.
My guess is that most people in the past lived lives that, while not exactly happy or carefree, were not that different from our own. (And, no, I wouldn’t like to trade places with them.)
Why the Ancient Romans Had Better Teeth Than Modern Europeans
As I get older (and older), I begin to suspect that I will, eventually, become nostalgic about literally everything in my past. Right now, I am feeling nostalgic for old TV commercials.
If you grew up in the 1970s and 80s, like me, you watched a lot of TV commercials. Like, thousands and thousands. And as much I hated most of them, at least they were flogging products that I could…you know…actually use.
Since I cut the cable-TV cable a decade ago, most of my TV consumption has been via YouTube, and I have found myself bombarded with ads for various IT groupware products, web hosting sites, industrial-grade machines, religious groups, and exotic home decorations. WTF? How did the vaunted algorithms, in all their wisdom, pick this menu of irrelevancies to inflict on me.
Don’t get me wrong. I love YouTube, and I am grateful that it exists. And I know that they have to pay the bills somehow, so I try to watch the ads. (Yeah, I know, there are ad-blocker plugins out there, but I find myself morally opposed to them.) Still, these ads suck.
So, yeah, I am sentimental about old-world commercials. Here is a classic, landmark ad that I remember from 1977, the same year as Star Wars was released.
I could write a whole post on the various covers of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451 that have come out over the years, as other people already have. My favorite is this one from the 1970s (the time of my childhood). It’s by a great illustrator named Barron Storey.
I like it because it shows the main character, Montag, immersed in a kind of hell, which is a great metaphor for the authoritarian dystopia that he finds himself in. Also, Montag looks kind of like a bad-ass.
Everybody has heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but most people think it only affects people in the winter months. Some poor souls like me get in the spring, when the weather here in Central Florida starts to get hot and muggy and yet there is relatively little rain to wash the abundant pollen out of the air. This leads to chronic allergy attacks and, for some, depression.
This is probably why I’ve always preferred to vacation in cold places, and why I still think longingly of moving to a cool, mountainous state like Vermont. It’s probably just a fantasy, and I’m sure there is no real escape for people with bad allergies like mine. But hey, a guy can dream…
Here’s a useful article for people like me.
If I had to make a list of the 100 people who most contributed to my boyhood reading, imagination, and fantasy life, Ray Bradbury would probably be at the top, with Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov a bit lower. Ridley Scott would be in there, too, as would a couple of women, including Ursula K. Leguin and D. C. Fontana. But somewhere in the top five would be Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry was, of course, the creative genius behind the original Star Trek, which began the most successful entertainment franchise in history. Note that I did not qualify this by calling it the most successful science fiction entertainment franchise; Star Trek’s influence goes far beyond that. With Star Trek, Roddenberry changed the character of his culture at the time. And after reading Lance Parkin’s biographical work, The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry, I was even more convinced of this assessment.
Roddenberry was a World War II bomber pilot who later worked as a cop in the L.A.P.D. His post-war America was one of anti-communist paranoia, racism, social upheaval, and nuclear nihilism. And yet he was somehow able to transcend his own history, becoming a liberal and forward thinking writer. He also had a fertile imagination and a tremendous work ethic. It was largely due to his tireless dedication to the writing process (he churned out screenplays with the regularity of a sausage maker) that he was able to break into the burgeoning TV industry, finally becoming a producer of entertaining, mildly liberal, but in no way revolutionary shows like The Lieutenant starring Gary Lockwood (later of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame).
Continue reading “What I’m Reading”
My name is Ash Clifton and I’m a writer of mystery, sci-fi, and literary novels. I’m starting this blog as a replacement for my old blog, Bakhtin’s Cigarettes, which I maintained for over a decade. I’ll be reposting some of my favorite essays from BC, as well as new stuff. I’m also hoping to post stuff about my latest fiction.
Thanks for coming, and I hope we all enjoy the ride.
Ash Clifton, Writer 