New blog post up (Sept 1)

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Hey cool a new blog post! What striked me on first reading, other than length and excellence, was your point that Spencer made the fallacy of taking a biological concept -Darwinism- and applying it to economy. But isn't the irony that Darwin himself took an important cue for his biological theory from the economic works of Malthus, a proponent of the Manchester capitalism school of thought going back to Adam Smith's "invisible hand"? So you could just as easily argue that social darwinism preceded -avant la lettre- darwinism and Darwin was just the first to apply it to biology. All the more proof that societies at any given time are guided by one or two big ideas at most which express themselves on all fronts, be it religion, economy, art, law, science, philosophy, work, housing, government and so on. The big idea in the west since the 19th century obviously being 'everyone one for themselves'.

[semper occultus]

Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

man I was thinking about mentioning that ...this never-ending flood of re-made films is getting slightly insane-making - its the totally shameless & brazen cheek with which they re-gurgitate a slimy lump of barely digested pap like Hulk or Spiderman onto your plate & your supposed to just lap it up ......

filter them out & the sequels & prequels & what's left ?
apparently there are 2...2...separate re-makes of Children of the Corn underway - is it even worth one ?

50 Upcoming Movie Remakes (Yep, 50!)

Complete List of Upcoming Horror Remakes, 60 Remakes

[Canadian_watcher]

well, the re-made is in keeping with the environmentalist theme that over-arches the entirety of humanity these days, 8bit and semper... as far as it goes for the music world I view it with disdain when all the artist does is sample and loop. But there's some really interesting re-making happening, too.

I'd argue that true creativity out there (as always) in the shadows. It is art with commentary (if you want to look for it) and also it is creativity with a good helping of playfulness.

Steampunk.. past meets future, historical sci-fi: the bending of the continuum: pulling transhumanism into the past. It also has the environmental theme: reduce/reuse/recycle only without any reduction.



Jeff - great piece... like molecular gastronomy but with words.

[8bitagent]

Hey cool a new blog post! What striked me on first reading, other than length and excellence, was your point that Spencer made the fallacy of taking a biological concept -Darwinism- and applying it to economy

Sounds like Adam Curtis has his next Beeb mockumentary!

Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

man I was thinking about mentioning that ...this never-ending flood of re-made films is getting slightly insane-making - its the totally shameless & brazen cheek with which they re-gurgitate barely digested Hulk or Spiderman onto your plate & your supposed to just lap it up ......

filter them out & the sequels & prequels & what's left ?
apparently there are 2...2...separate re-makes of Children of the Corn underway - is it even worth one ?

50 Upcoming Movie Remakes (Yep, 50!)

Complete List of Upcoming Horror Remakes, 60 Remakes

To me it's one of the many signs of the way things are headed. (And yeah, Hulk and Spidermen were rebooted just a couple years after the last one...theres even talk of rebooting Batman after Nolan)


A perfect complement to Jeff's new blog post is Patton Oswalt's article in Wired

In order to save pop culture future, we’ve got to make the present pop culture suck, at least for a little while.

How do we do this? How do we bring back that sweet longing for more that spawned Gears of War, the Crank films, and the entire Joss Whedon oeuvre? Simple: We’ve got to speed up the process. We’ve got to stoke the volcano. We’ve got to catalog, collate, and cross-pollinate. We must bring about Etewaf, and soon.

It has already started. It’s all around us. VH1 list shows. Freddy vs. Jason. Websites that list the 10 biggest sports meltdowns, the 50 weirdest plastic surgeries, the 200 harshest nut shots. Alien vs. Predator. Lists of fails, lists of boobs, lists of deleted movie scenes. Entire TV seasons on iTunes. An entire studio’s film vault, downloadable with a click. Easter egg scenes of wild sex in Grand Theft Auto. Hell, Grand Theft Auto, period. And yes, I know that a lot of what I’m listing here seems like it’s outside of the “nerd world” and part of the wider pop culture. Well, I’ve got news for you—pop culture is nerd culture. The fans of Real Housewives of Hoboken watch, discuss, and absorb their show the same way a geek watched Dark Shadows or obsessed over his eighth-level half-elf ranger character in Dungeons & Dragons. It’s the method of consumption, not what’s on the plate.

Since there’s no going back—no reverse on the out-of-control locomotive we’ve created—we’ve got to dump nitro into the engines. We need to get serious, and I’m here to outline my own personal fantasy: We start with lists of the best lists of boobs. Every Beatles song, along with every alternate take, along with every cover version of every one of their songs and every alternate take of every cover version, all on your chewing-gum-sized iPod nano. Goonies vs. Saw. Every book on your Kindle. Every book on Kindle on every Kindle. The Human Centipede done with the cast of The Hills and directed by the Coen brothers.

That’s when we’ll reach Etewaf singularity. Pop culture will become self-aware. It will happen in the A.V. Club first: A brilliant Nathan Rabin column about the worst Turkish rip-offs of American comic book characters will suddenly begin writing its own comments, each a single sentence from the sequel to A Confederacy of Dunces. Then a fourth and fifth season of Arrested Development, directed by David Milch of Deadwood, will appear suddenly in the TV Shows section of iTunes. Someone BitTorrenting a Crass bootleg will suddenly find their hard drive crammed with Elvis Presley’s “lost” grunge album from 1994. And everyone’s TiVo will record Ghostbusters III, starring Peter Sellers, Lee Marvin, and John Candy.

This will last only a moment. We’ll have one minute before pop culture swells and blackens like a rotten peach and then explodes, sending every movie, album, book, and TV show flying away into space. Maybe tendrils and fragments of them will attach to asteroids or plop down on ice planets light-years away. A billion years after our sun burns out, a race of intelligent ice crystals will build a culture based on dialog from The Princess Bride. On another planet, intelligent gas clouds will wait for the yearly passing of the “Lebowski” comet. One of the rings of Saturn will be made from blurbs for the softcover release of Infinite Jest, twirled forever into a ribbon of effusive praise.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/f ... ture/all/1

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

Also talking about movies, nice Franju reference with the "eyes without a face" heading. I was just reading about him earlier in my trusty Time Out movie guide from the 90s (no mention of post 2000 crappy remakes!) with a handy index on directors, countries, actors and subjects, and all his movies seem like they are in rigorous intuition territory, so I'm really looking forward to watching them all if possible.

[justdrew]

[Bruce Dazzling]

Amazing post, Jeff.

It makes me think about the immortal words of Axl Rose:

Where do we go now?

As for this...

Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

Welcome to the future.Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

Welcome to the future

It would seem to me that Terence McKenna might have nailed it.

The spiral is tightening.

[Nordic]

this President too is a Celebrity Apprentice to the Criminals Without Borders

I just got to there, and had to come running over here and tell you that I have a serious man crush on the mind of Jeff Wells.

Or maybe I was just distracted.

[8bitagent]

Amazing post, Jeff.

It makes me think about the immortal words of Axl Rose:

Where do we go now?

As for this...

Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

Welcome to the future.Autotuning, lolcats, mashups, remixes, endless franchised film reboots and dubstep "music" pretty much represent the end of the bus line called society to me.

Welcome to the future

It would seem to me that Terence McKenna might have nailed it.

The spiral is tightening.

damn, perfect analogy. really nails it

[Project Willow]

tl;dr


......

Well done Mr. Wells.

[norton ash]

Terrible beauty has a long gestation period.

Outstanding, Jeff!

[justdrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question

[Laodicean]

Wow, that was an incredible read...

Thank you, Jeff! No doubt made me:



I'll drink to Mutual Aid, indeed!

Journey set sail was to leave
Cause I'm only birds & bees
Lose and news and all things be
Sunlight garden low red blossoms
Moon tides of the sea

When struggling for a magic grain
We throw our life to the winds like rain
For goodness sake

Spare your failings and take the ability
To strengthen
No spirit can stimulate all minds
Blossoms of days to come

Blossoms of days to come

Move away from your western guns
Travel towards eastern suns
Far above all earthly goals
A pledge for creation's soul
Spirit finds fresh morning and the dew
Of precious things

Hope is a phoenix building wings to fly
And what we wish shall be
Like a breathe of fresh air
Safe and secret powers
That no love can spare

Move away from your western guns
Travel towards eastern suns
Far above all earthly goals
A pledge for creation's soul

Far above all earthly goals
A pledge for creation's soul

Move away from your western guns
Travel towards eastern suns
Far above all earthly goals
A pledge for creation's soul 2x

Far above all earthly goals
A pledge for creation's soul

[wintler2]

Thanks Jeff, super, particularly for: dismantling the transhumanists; for paraphrasing disaster capitalism "Capital has exhausted its first fuels, and now it's the creation of poverty, not of wealth, that makes the world go 'round."; for "this President too is a Celebrity Apprentice to the Criminals Without Borders"; for calling for creative fiction; and for

To Foucault, Sade's totalitarian egoism and radical refusal of solidarity with others was a liberation from the prison of civilization. I would say instead that rather than a breach with civilization, Sade represents stark continuity with its own germane madness. "They wept. No one was moved": is this an extract from an Abu Ghraib interrogation report, or The 120 Days of Sodom?

; for .. tl;dr. Lots great points well made, and at 11k words a patronus against superficial culture!

Was intrigued by your end:

The vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation has become the doom of the world, and it's not going to check itself. Who can stop it? Let's not say it's impossible. Let's ask if it's necessary.

If i understand you, Yes it is necessary to stop the death cult, and yes that is regardless of whether we think 'winning' is possible. It is the morally right course, the only course with much hope of survival for any of us, and the much richer experience, imho.

[barracuda]

dubstep "music"

C'mon now - what's wrong with dubstep? It seems like a perfectly servicable artform to me, even if it does lend itself to the robot.



Please don't use quotemarks against it. You sound like my dad talking about punk.