Tag Archive: apocalypse


Let us imagine the end of the world as we know it

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Gender, Music — Leave a comment
August 22, 2019

EARTH ABIDES by George R.Stewart (1949)

earthIsherwood Williams (Ish) is not much of mixer which is just as well because most of humanity has just been wiped out by a deadly virus.

You might imagine this means the horror of piles of corpses lying everywhere but the dead bodies have either all been buried or we assume that all the victims gathered together in medical centers to tidily expire en-masse.

When we meet Ish, he is laid up in his remote mountain cabin after a snake bite. This poison seems to be the reason he is immune to the pandemic.

When he recovers he finds that civilization as he knows is has disappeared.  Being a pragmatic and practically-minded kind of guy he resolves to cope with the great disaster methodically and logically. He gets a truck, food supplies, weapons and a dog. His trusty hammer becomes both a life saver and a symbol of his enduring strength. Continue reading →

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SUBURRA – WHEN IN ROME…..

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Italy, Movies, Politics, Television — Leave a comment
November 8, 2015

SUBURRA directed by Stefano Solima (Italy, 2015)
suburra

If, this year, you had been inclined to follow the age-old advice to do in Rome as the Romans do you might have attended a Mafia funeral, joined those protesting against travel disruption or become embroiled in one of the numerous corruption scandals.

2015 has been a veritable ‘annus horribilis’ for the Eternal City.

In this context, the movie Suburra looks less like a work of fiction and more like an depressingly realistic depiction of current events.

The title takes us back to ancient times, referring to the notorious red-light district of the city. The 21st century equivalent is an equally squalid world where prostitution, institutionalised crime, violence and general levels debauchery are routine. Continue reading →

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LORI NIX : NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Filed under: Modern Art, Photography — Leave a comment
July 11, 2013

The Library – Lori Nix (2007)

 Kansas born, Lori Nix  is a photographer who doesn’t like leaving her home studio.

She builds dioramas to create illusory  worlds but these are not reassuring fantasy kingdoms.

Her  2007 collection “The City”  has an apocalyptic feel.

This is what she said about it:

“I  imagines a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of its human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function.

The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man’s encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring”. 

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PORTLAND NOISE

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February 19, 2010
Quotes from contributors to People Who Do Noise an excellent documentary film by Adam Cornelius (2008):

Smegma - "Portland is like San Francisco in the 1960s"
Pulse Emitter - "It sounds like the apocalypse - but joyful"
Yellow Swans - "It's about deterioration"
Honed Bastion - Anyone can do it - that's partly the point"
Oscillating Innards - "Noise is more punk than punk"
GOD (bryan eubanks and leif sundstrom) - "This music cannot be commodified"
Kitty Midwife -"You hear everything differently"
Josh Hydeman -"Why would anyone play noise unless they had some social or emotional problem?"
Soup Purse - "You take out the music elements - this is Bladerunner music"
Sisprum Vish -"To be human means to be wrong"
Argumentix - "Pop music doesn't work any more"
Redglaer - "It's about textures and energetic states"
With Caro - "It looks fucked up and sounds fucked up"
Daniel Menche -"Music is like one's own blood - so amplify it! As loud as possible -make the speakers bleed"
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ATHEIST’S PORNOGRAPHY

Filed under: Atheism — Leave a comment
June 2, 2008

stairstohell

An interesting long article by Ian McEwan in Saturday’s Guardian about the state of the planet vis-a-vis the way beliefs in the doomsday scenario now seem scarier with the rise of religious extremists. He laments the fact that a recent questionnaire in America revealed that only 12 per cent believe that life on earth has evolved through natural selection without the intervention of supernatural agency. He says:
“To the secular mind, the polling figures have a pleasantly shocking, titillating quality – one might think of them as a form of atheist’s pornography.” A glimmer of hope is that the poll results are unreliable, he asks the question: “From the respondent’s point of view, what is to be gained by categorically denying the existence of God to a complete stranger with a clipboard?“

The piece ends with these wise words:

“The believers should know in their hearts by now that, even if they are right and there actually is a benign and watchful personal God, he is, as all the daily tragedies, all the dead children attest, a reluctant intervener. The rest of us, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, know that it is highly improbable that there is anyone up there at all. Either way, in this case it hardly matters who is wrong – there will be no one to save us but ourselves“.

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