Grave Pictures for Nancy St John

Nancy has passed away and nobody I know is willing to talk to me about it.  

We go to the grave alone, I guess.  

In honor of Nancy, here are some pictures I did about the grave.

I recall the eulogy from The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung

With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue;

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie;

Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore,

Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

Nancy St. John 1954 - 2024

I am still reeling from the news that Nancy St. John is dead.

How can someone be just a few years older than me be (a) so much more accomplished and (b) dead? 

Not her best picture:

https://variety.com/2024/film/people-news/nancy-st-john-vfx-producer-gladiator-dies-dead-1236189089/

Rewriting History about Hamas and Israel

Its fun to see Jew haters and murderers work to rewrite Wikipedia in an attempt to attack Israel.  It will be interesting to see how that battle plays out.  Since the Jew Murderers are well financed by Russia and Iran, will the so called rich jews stand up for their rights and the truth or will they fail?

My favorite is when they delete all references to the Hamas charter or call Israel "Settler Colonization" and deny their history like all good Jew haters.

Columbia One

If Harris wins, it is at best a draw unless the democrites also win the house and the senate.  Assuming they do, there are a list of things they have to do or it was all in vain.

0. End the filibuster.

1. Add term limits to all federal judges and the supreme court.

2. Correct the imbalance of the supreme court.  Contrary to what you have been told, it doesnt matter how.

3. Pass reproductive right legislation.  Let the right wing nuts appeal it to the supreme court.

4. Pass legislation that makes it impossible for Murdock, Musk, Bezos etc to own important media all by themselves.  Make it so that the people own the media.

5. Prosecute Donald Trump for *all* his crimes.

6. Enforce the 14th amendment.  See to it that election deniers are not in a position of power.  

Nothing less than all of these is acceptable. 

Since these wont happen, it is time to accept that we need a second american revolution.  

_________________________

Its fun to see people's negative reaction to these images.... either because they are AI generated or because they hate America or because they hate people like me who are emotional.  It isnt clear.

The Test of Character

In southern literature there is something called "the test of character".  In this trope, the main character, or one of them, has to choose between doing the easy thing and doing the right thing and doing the right thing is much harder.  

Several friends of mine are unfortunately in a situation where they have to choose between doing the selfish thing or doing the right thing and I am sorry to say that they are probably going to do the selfish thing. 

This is my expectation and it makes me sad but then at least I will know.  The cost is that I will be more cynical, but then what did I expect.   

I am already bitter, but maybe not bitter enough. 

If you dont know what I am talking about then nevermind, you will never understand unless you have had the experience.

"The Test of Character"

Blog Comments and Brain Death

This is the kind of stupid shit we get when I open up blog comments to just anyone.  Read this, it was posted two years ago.  

The point is, they may use words like "statistical" but I doubt they know what it means.  My guess is that this could be a Russian troll or an American Republican.  In the latter case, they are just being stupid.  In the former case it is sad that American counter intelligence has failed to protect us.

The Meaning of Lost (2004-2010)

[update in progress]

I dont always watch a show or movie when it first comes out.  But the ability to download episodes or seasons of important media product (Thunderbirds Are GO!) has transformed my ability to self-medicate chronic insomnia with productive show review.

For the purpose of self-medicating insomnia, I can heartily recommend Lost (2004-2010).  Six seasons of a group of people thrown together seemingly at random on a plane flight from Sydney to LA which goes off course and crashes on a mysterious island.  Indigenous peoples, the struggle for survival, evidence of mysterious scientific projects and ancient cultic influence from thousands of years ago.  It turns out that many of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 may have connections to each other in ways that are slowly revealed.  A struggle for good and evil.  An island with the ability to hide itself and move its position.   A paralyzed man who is healed.  A monster that appears to be black smoke.

But what does it all mean?

That was the question then and that is the question now.  There are many attempts to answer the questions posed by this show and below are my two cents worth.

First, I think we are entitled to ignore what the writers / producers say about the meaning of the show.  The meaning of a great work of art (like Thunderbirds) will necessary evolve as our culture evolves.

Second, there are many little mysteries planted all throughout Lost some of which are answered and many of which are just ignored.  That may be too bad but I don't think it distracts from the bigger picture.  To pick just one example, what do the numbers mean?  It doesn't matter.  Maybe it was just supposed to be entertaining.  Maybe it would be better if they did mean something significant.  But I think its meaning is straightforward: they are a device to signal to Hurley that there is meaning in the universe, that there is some structure, even if he does not know what it is.

Third, I think that there are important story elements that can not be ignored but are there to facilitate the next two points.  The Island is clearly important as a place where these various things happen, it has its own fantastic(-al) semi-explanations for its power, pockets of exotic matter for example.  And I dont think that there can be much doubt that Oceanic Flight 815 is iconic and central to the fates of our characters.  Don't get me wrong, these elements are important but they are in a sense details leading up to the primary themes.

And those themes are as follows (a) our interpretation and understanding should be mystical not scientific, (b) our main characters have been brought together to work out issues that need to be resolved before they can go on to the "next place" and finally, therefore, (c) I think that Lost is clearly in that genre of fiction that is loosely described as the journey of the soul on its path from life to the hereafter.   

There is an additional theme that involves our characters involvement in some sort of higher level battle between light and dark, good and evil.  In that, Lost also falls into a genre that we might call Manichean.   The struggle between good and evil.  Maybe even Zoroastrian.

There is also some narrative device ongoing in parallel which suggests that the characters are  experiencing some sort of alternate reality where Oceanic Flight 815 does not crash and where they are not on the island.  Thus there is some parallel universe mechanism ongoing.  I think this is loosely connected to the mechanism by way the interrelationships between the characters is exposed.

The characters work through serious problems as they prepare for transfer for what comes after. Those who are not ready stay on the Island for a while.

Although I am no expert in this, I think that there are numerous mystical belief systems that Lost is a derivative of. Another cinema example of this is Jacob's Ladder (1991) in which our main character is subjected to a number of end-of-life experiences as he is prepared for his death and the soul's journey to another plane of existence. Ghost (1991) is probably another example of this genre. 

Therefore Lost is based on the delusion that there is some sort of system and mechanism for life-after-death, in which important issues can be worked out for those who are chosen, for those who are "candidates".  There have always been fantasies of such a mechanism embedded in many religions that help some people feel better about their inevitable and horrible fate. 

Oh yes, those visual effects.

Lost is an example of a show with huge numbers of episodes where the special photographic effects help sell the story in only a few minor ways.  Even though the story is filled with mystical and mysterious elements and the story advanced with more traditional physical effects, there is basically only one concept that is a special photographic effect.  And that of course is the smoke monster.  The other effects are model effects (plane breaks up in flight), explosion effects, and makeup effects.  There are lighting effects in a few places.  And of course there is set design.  All there to advance the story.  The only "exotic" effect that I noticed was the smoke monster which was one of the only absolutely conclusive pieces of evidence that there was something unworldly happening.

The lesson I want to suggest here is that the show made good use of visual effects.  The effects were not gratuitous.  They were economical and designed to advance the story.  Many modern movies and shows could learn from this example.