Twisted Spinster

Remember that bizarre pie rant Obama went on? Well, I found this and about laughed my ass off. McCain! Why you no like pie?????

I’ll bet if you pointed out to professional ^sparkleAthiest^sparkle Richard Dawkins that he’s just allied himself with his arch-enemies the Krazy _boo!KKKristian_boo! fundamentalists with this upcoming project of his —

[…]to write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in “anti-scientific” fairytales.

…(you know, like — ha-aatcha! — Harry Potter) he would be totally flummoxed. The book promises to be crushingly boring and I’m sure the young folk will avoid it in droves:

“I plan to look at mythical accounts of various things and also the scientific account of the same thing. And the mythical account that I look at will be several different myths, of which the Judeo-Christian one will just be one of many.

“And the scientific one will be substantiated, but appeal to children to think for themselves; to look at the evidence. Always look at the evidence.”

Zzzzz… It may, however, appeal to snarky teenagers as well as those mentally marooned in their teenager years who, like Dawkins, can with a straight face promote the Philip Pullman fantasies while decrying fantasy as a genre. Not to mention, who can be a-okay with taking a bit part in (and thus promoting) Doctor Who, which show despite being classified as “science fiction” has about as much connection with science as Lang’s Fairy Tales. In any case, I am sure that Mr. Dawkins’ real animus against fantasy stories (except for the Pullman novels) is due to the Christian underpinnings, or influences, manifest in works such as the Harry Potter books, Tolkien’s saga, and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series which happened to be Philip Pullman’s own obsession (and the reason he wrote the openly anti-Christian His Dark Materials series, as a take-that against Lewis).

Not coincidentally, the current run of the Doctor Who series has been heavily influenced, via its Dawkins-fan executive producer, Russell T. Davies,* by the Pullman novels — especially in the heavy use of the deus ex machina to keep the plot moving. Then again, Doctor Who wouldn’t be anywhere without said literary device — the actor playing the lead wants to quit the show? Then we’ll just pull a previously unmentioned alien body-changing magic trick out of the script’s ass! And so on — so maybe Mr. Pullman was just as influenced by the show which after all is a British institution, like tea and crumpets and warm beer and everyone owning an odd-looking small dog.

(*Note the quote at the link — “People were falling at his feet … We’ve had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.” Insert your own ironic when-man-ceases-to-believe comment. I wonder, though, if he is worshipped by Who fans for his atheism or for the fact that he is married to Lalla Ward, who played the second Romana?)

Because…

(Stolen from this site. I really need to get a life…)

OK, this is totally tacky and wrong. And not safe for work or home or anywhere. Really, they’ll not only think you’re a geek, they’ll think you’re a perverted geek. (That is NOT a double-thingie-whatever! It is so not! What?)

Don’t worry, when Our Lord and Master Obama takes over there will be none of this nonsense on the internet anymore. Every single site on the web will be dedicated to Seriousness and Improving the Impoverished Lives of Our Impoverished and Oppressed Brethren and being Green and also all ads will be green and made of 100% organically grown Free Trade hemp.

Update: I. Can’t. Stop.

A present to all my fanz.

Back to sorting out all my stuff, of which I did not know I had so much. When did my apartment become a Tardis?

Update: I have no life, so here’s the real ending to the last episode of Season 4 of the new Doctor Who.

I can’t stop: oh. noes.

Um… PS: I guess it’s some Livejournal rule, but the X-rated wonders promised within by the “say U R at least fourteen” button that pops up at the links are more juvenile than X-rated. Still, probably NSFW.

This little bit of news just makes me think wistfully of one of my favorite scenes in the new Doctor Who — here’s a transcript, because I have no idea how to rip a scene from a dvd:

The Master: No, no, no, before all that I just want to say… Thank you. Thank you one and all. You ugly, fat-faced bunch of wet, snivelling traitors.

Cabinet minister: Yes, quite… very funny. But I th-

The Master: No, no. That wasn’t funny. Hmmm, you see I’m not making myself very clear. Funny is like this [He smilies manically] Not funny is like this [He frowns] And right now, I’m not like – [He smiles again] – I’m like [He frowns] because you are traitors. Yes, YOU ARE! As soon as you saw the votes swinging my way, you abandoned your parties and you jumped on the Saxon bandwagon. So, this… is your reward.

[He pulls out a gas mask and puts it on]

Cabinet minister: Excuse me, Prime Minister, do you mind me asking, what is that?

The Master: [muffled behind the mask] MphIt’s a gphass maskph.

Cabinet minister: I beg your pardon?

The Master: [He pulls up the mask] It’s a gas mask. [He grins and pulls it back down]

Cabinet minister: Yes… but um.. why are you wearing it?

The Master: Well, becauph omph the gphass.

Cabinet minister: I’m sorry?

The Master: [Pulling up the mask again] Because of the gas. [He pulls the mask back down]

Cabinet minister: …What gas?

The Master: This gas.

[Gas sprays into the room, killing the ministers inside]

Cabinet minister: (Drowning) You’re insane, Saxon!

[The Master grins behind his gas mask and gives a double thumbs up]

(It’s from “The Sound of Drums” from Season 3.) Who knew a scene featuring a character that was being used to make fun of then-British PM Tony Blair could be so prescient? Then again, they don’t call politics the other oldest profession for nothing.

(And, apropos of nothing, here’s a satire of a “next” season episode list of Doctor Who.)

You know that scene in the second part of the Doctor Who Season 3 finale where the Master, who has been elected Prime Minister of Britain, gasses his entire cabinet to death after calling them dirty little traitors for jumping parties to join his government? Yeah.

They are going to do an updated remake of V, the 80s science fiction series about reptilian aliens disguised as humans who take over the Earth. Back then it was a Nazi metaphor. Wanna guess what it’s going to be in the 00’s? You get three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Speaking of tv shows, I can guess what the show The Cleaner is about without ever watching an episode: an unpleasant, harsh-voiced harridan bitches at the long-suffering, Jesus-like hero for an hour. Yeah, I’m gonna watch that.

Yup, I have another one! (Ignores chorus of groans.) It’s not that I haven’t had anything more to say on the subject, I’ve just been preoccupied with other things. This one will be short, though. (Ignores sighs of relief.) Anyway… now, I like the new series a lot, but it’s not perfect. And among the many imperfections of the new series is the apparent attitude on the part of the new show’s creators that Rose Tyler was the “perfect companion” to the Doctor. Excuse me, I think not — while I think Rose was a fine character she had lots of flaws, and if you ask me her effect on the Doctor was not a good one, despite what current production team might think. She might be the favorite companion among those who have only watched the new series, but anyone who cut their teeth, so to speak, on the old “classic” Who will tell you the perfect companion now and forever will remain Sarah Jane Smith. (And I think the new series people know that, which is why I suspect they fobbed her character off so abruptly at the end of the Season 4 finale. I mean what was up with that — she just runs off? After all, Donna wasn’t jealous like Rose was; she would have been glad to invite Sarah Jane into the Tardis for a cup of tea or something. Anyway, the whole ending of the last episode was bizarre — I’ll get into that someday.)

Since I haven’t received my last check from work (it wasn’t in the mail box today, so I guess I’ll get it Monday) Update: the check came in — I thought I had seen the mailman turn down our street, but he seems to have a bizarre and circuitous route and must have come in later — but I’m still going to be staying close to home this weekend. (Or maybe not. We’ll see.) Oh well, that will give me a chance to clean this place up and make it homelike for the brief time I’ll be here. Right? Right… I did throw out some old art class junk that I’d been lugging around, and some other items that I knew I wouldn’t use and didn’t need. I’ve gone through some of my clothes — I want to get them down to what I can stuff in my suitcase, which by the way I bought in Woolworth’s in London in 1981 and I will not throw out until it crumbles in my hands. It’s one of my few souvenirs of England, a country it looks like I will probably not be able to visit ever again no matter how much I want to. It’s just too painful to see it go even further to the chavs and Muslim fanatics. Well, I’ll always have Doctor Who.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I watched the “classic” episode “The Invasion of Time” recently, thanks to Netflix. In fact, I haven’t returned it yet. (I also have Shaun of the Dead and four Firefly episodes still to watch — I just haven’t been in the mood.) It wasn’t bad for an old episode — there is a great scene near the end where the Doctor (in his Tom Baker incarnation) is carrying around a Big Fucking Gun, and he gets to use it too (and on a Sontaran, one of the more annoying of Doctor Who villains; really, I can’t stand those big toes in space suits, whoever came up with them as a tedious metaphor on militarism — ooh, they even have “stiff necks!” — needs to be slapped several times). After having endured David Tennant’s shell-shocked pacifist take on the Doctor this is unbelievably refreshing. (And in another Tom Baker episode, “Planet of Evil,” the Doctor gets to sock a guy in the jaw. Awesome.)

Anyway, the episode isn’t perfect, but it has its moments. It’s the companion Leela’s swan song from the series — the actress playing her got sick of being a piece of dumb eye candy — so I guess that’s why throughout the whole show she wears her tiniest outfit yet, a kind of tankini made of what looks like ivory silk (but is probably polyester). She’s definitely there “for the dads,” as the saying goes, and I’ll bet the dads loved this episode. There’s her entirely gratuitous scene where she’s swimming around in the swank pool in the Tardis, and then there’s this one scene where she’s bending over the Doctor, who’s been knocked out by some Time Lord thing, and you can see right down her cleavage all the way to France.

If I have one complaint about this episode it’s not the cheap special effects (that’s considered a feature, not a bug, for Doctor Who) but the fact that the Time Lords and Gallifrey just aren’t alien enough. I don’t suppose they could have come up with much on their budget of fifty pounds or whatever, though, but there could have been subtle things they could have done. See, for example, the Vulcans as portrayed in the “Amok Time” episode of the original Star Trek series. That show may have had a slightly higher budget but what made the scenes there more “alien” was really the way the characters were portrayed. And there was nothing like that cheesy organ music, or whatever the hell that was that played when the Doctor was going through that ceremony to make him class president or whatever. It’s things like this that make you realize that Doctor Who is really just about an Englishman who travels through time and space and otherwise gets to do things that residents of staid, old Blighty aren’t allowed to do. But on the whole, watching it was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Speaking of aliens, I never reviewed Buckaroo Banzai. Well. I remember when I saw it in the theater thinking “that’s something I’ve never seen before.” It was unique in my scifi movie watching experience: a hip, ironic, comical, yet serious science fiction movie. Or so I thought at the time. Remember, most science-fiction in the sixties and seventies was either serious, didactic, cautionary stuff that picked up on the whole “the world’s gonna end” of something (whether nuclear armageddon, a life-crushing ice age — the notion of global warming back then would have brought mostly sighs of relief — or uncontrolled pollution) fears running through society, or else straight “action adventure” like Star Wars that was basically nostalgia with space ships. This was different: a movie showing eccentric people who, however, weren’t too different from some of our nuttier school pals or even us (at least in our dreams) dealing with aliens from some weird other world who also seemed to have personalities and a hint of background. Now after enduring over two decades of hip, ironic, meant-to-be-serio-comic nonsense coming out of the film factories, not to mention a more varied science fiction output, Buckaroo Banzai has lost much of its burnish. It was still fun, however, and if the dvd appears in the bargain racks somewhere I might pick it up. Peter Weller was kind of blank as the hero, Jeff Goldblum once again played himself (as he always does), and Ellen Barkin was more irritating now than she was when I initially saw her, but there isn’t much she could do with the part as written, which is a neurotic take on the standard damsel-in-distress. But there are all those bright 80s colors, John Lithgow, all those guys from Quincy, M.E. in bit parts, aliens giving each other the finger and sitting around bored watching tv when they are supposed to be fearsome and evil, the “nest,” etc. The plot was confusing so I won’t go over it here (something about aliens trying to take over the world and free themselves from another dimension, Peter Weller is some sort of singer-neurosurgeon-kung-fu-master… I dunno). A great party movie when you don’t really need to pay attention to dialogue and stuff.

More later. I watered my tomato plants, so of course rain clouds are advancing, and I need to go to the store for a couple of things I forgot. Be back later. Oh — and thanks to everyone who has contributed to my fund so far. You all deserve a personal email, but I downloaded the Paypal alerts with your emails in them to my laptop and then my laptop died. When (if) I get it fixed I’ll send you all a thank you note — for now this will have to do.

PS: I revamped my main gateway page with links to all my old websites — or as many as I could still link to. A couple of my early blogs are gone due to server crashes or incompetence on my part. But if you are at all curious about My Past on the ‘net (at least from 2001 to today), you can have a look.

Update: I forgot to mention one of the inadvertently funny moments in the Doctor Who episode I talk about above: the Doctor asks where one of his fellow Time Lords is — they had taken him into the Tardis to hide from the invaders — and Leela says “in the bathroom.” Now if you’re American and don’t know that “bathroom” to the Brits means a room where you take a bath — in other words, the room with the swimming pool I mentioned — you’ll have a vision of the character, meant to be a crusty old super-dignified sort, sitting on the commode.