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SciFi SongFest, Songs 236-238

By on October 5, 2019 0

You Will Live Under the Sea, this (quite beautiful) book assured me when I was a kid:

A companion volume added that I would also go to the moon, just like Bobby and Betty.

Well, I don’t think any of that’s quite going to work out. But here are three songs about the life submarinous:

236. The Beatles, “Yellow Submarine” (1966):

This song was presumably the inspiration for Hagbard Celine’s golden submarine in the Illuminatus books.

When I was in college, a parody song (not by me!) was in circulation, about students studying in the Cabot Science Library: Calc in A, and Chem in D / in the Cabot Library / We all live in the Cabot Library / Cabot Library, Cabot Library ….

237. The Beatles, “Octopus’s Garden” (1969):

I first heard this song as a kid as part of the soundtrack for an underwater nature film at San Diego’s Reuben H. Fleet Science Theatre:

238. Decemberists, “Mariner’s Revenge Song” (2005):

I’m ethically opposed to revenge, but aesthetically I often find it pleasing:

Plus an animated video:

And another:

And another:

And another:

And another:

And another:

And a partial other:

And a live-action cover version:

(The lead in this last oddly reminds me of Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride. The age gap between the two men looks a bit more than fifteen years, but ….)

(Clarificatory Edit: By “the two men” I don’t mean Cary Elwes and this guy; I mean this guy and his intracetaceous companion.)

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:

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 64: Julius Caesar

By on September 12, 2019 0

In the most high and palmy state of Rome
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets

From the periphery of Roman imperial power, in yesterday’s The Miracle Maker, to the epicenter, in today’s Julius Caesar (“Shakespeare: The Animated Tales,” 1994).

The way that Caesar’s cape flaps behind him reminds me of Beowulf’s similarly flapping cape back in Part 1.

Inexplicably, this adaptation changes the manner of Brutus’s and Cassius’s deaths. What happened to “Hold then my sword … while I do run upon it” – which I remember vividly from my old Classics Illustrated comics?

Even before the comics, my first introduction to this play, and to Shakespeare generally, was when my mother bought me a recording (pictured below) of speeches from Julius Caesar and The Tempest. (Oddly, the cover artist seemed to think he was illustrating Midsummer Night’s Dream. I mean, I suppose the chap with wings there could be either Ariel or Puck, but his companion can only be Nick Bottom.) Even without context, and having no idea which side to root for, I was fascinated by the exchange of funeral speeches between Antony and Brutus. (I still am!)

The Talents of Ted Chiang

By on September 10, 2019 0

I’ve just finished reading Ted Chiang’s recently-published second short-story collection, Exhalation: Stories. I’m happy to report that it’s just as good as his first one (from nearly two decades ago – Chiang is definitely a guy who focuses on quality over quantity), Stories of Your Life and Others. (See Joyce Carol Oates’ review of the second collection here.)

Chiang is the kind of science-fiction writer who appeals especially to philosophers (while remaining scientifically literate and responsible). He tackles such issues as free will and fatalism; the impact of information technology on our self-conception; the exploration of world histories, forms of consciousness, and even types of universe very different from our own; and the value of empathy. Even his story titles often evince a philosophical sensibility: “Hell Is the Absence of God”; “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”; “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling.” Highly recommended!

His work was also the basis for the critically acclaimed first-alien-contact movie Arrival (the one with Amy Adams, not the one with Charlie Sheen).

I’m currently part of a science-fiction-and-philosophy reading group that recently discussed the first collection and is preparing to discuss the second.

And I can’t quite believe that I’m the first person on the internet to think of this title, but apparently I am. Sorry not sorry.

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