Category Archives: arts

bagboys get the chicks?

Who knew?

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superhero rays

In the Spiderman movie that appeared a year ago, one striking departure from canon was to have a bio-engineered spider, rather than a radioactive one, bite Peter Parker. (Makes more sense anyway.) I wondered at the time, would Daredevil make … Continue reading

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can immortals be said to have a life-cycle?

On reading The Silmarillion I was mildly bothered that, in a story mainly about Elves, Elvish children are never mentioned. (Half-Elf children appear in a couple of episodes, as baggage.) Children are relatively scarce among immortals (because they spend a … Continue reading

Posted in cartoons, prose | 1 Comment

philistines everywhere

My One True Ex refuses to believe that my telephone plays Night on Bald Mountain, insisting that it sounds more like the theme from Doctor Who.

Posted in me!me!me!, music+verse | Leave a comment

demilitarize fictional space!

Don’t you wish that just once there could be a tv series where the chief executive of a space station is called Mayor or Abbess or even Baron rather than Commander?

Posted in cinema, futures | Leave a comment

assuming, of course, that he really exists

A correspondent asks: Incidentally, why does Schwarzenegger do so many epist[e]mological films? We’ve got the 6th Day, Last Action Hero, Total Recall, The Running Man . . . (and one I haven’t seen) . . . . Kindergarten Cop.

Posted in cinema, humanities | Leave a comment

still looking for a set of Elvish filters

Living languages are always changing; the most conspicuous way they change is in their sounds, and this change is generally regular — which is why it’s possible to imitate another dialect even if you’ve never heard the particular words spoken … Continue reading

Posted in arts, language | 2 Comments