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Archive | September, 2019

A Removable Feast

By on September 30, 2019 0

I remember when the following story about the then-upcoming Battlestar Galactica show (the 1978 version) appeared in TV Guide. (For our younger readers: back in the Pleistocene, the magazine TV Guide was pretty much the only way of knowing which shows were on which channels at which times. The magazine still exists, but pointlessly.)

Unfortunately, when the promised banquet scene was shot, no one realised the food was anything significant and so they only shot the actors’ faces, and all this work was for nothing:

SciFi SongFest, Songs 224-225

By on September 30, 2019 0

Two songs about the perils of galactic travel ….

224. Blondie, “Dragonfly” (1982):

225. Leslie Fish, “Ballad of Transport 18” (2002):

Tunes Across Time

By on September 29, 2019 0

Tonight I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing Postmodern Jukebox play at Auburn’s new Performing Arts Center.

For those unfamiliar, Postmodern Jukebox’s schtick is to perform pop songs from one era in the style of some previous era and/or different genre – which is something I’m a sucker for.

Given the group’s vast rotating inventory of material and ensemble of performers, there’s no way to know ahead of time which specific songs or singers to expect tonight; but here are some samples of the kinds of thing they do:

SciFi SongFest, Songs 221-223

By on September 29, 2019 0

Three Kafkaesque nightmares:

221. Pink Floyd. “The Trial” (1979):

The visuals are from the 1982 movie The Wall:

222. Leslie Fish, “The Paper Sea” (1989):

223. Yes, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” (1983):

This one I chose not for its lyrics, but for the accompanying video, which looks like someone crossed Kafka’s The Trial with The Matrix, despite airing 16 years before the latter. (Indeed, I strongly suspect that this video influenced The Matrix.)

SciFi SongFest, Songs 217-218

By on September 27, 2019 0

Two songs about an apocalyptic future:

217. The Police, “Omega Man” (1981):

The title references the 1971 film The Omega Man, which in turn is one of several movies based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend (the most faithful adaptation being the 1964 Vincent Price version).

218. The Misfits, “Astro Zombies” (1982):

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