Tom Doyle

I reviewed the Chris Columbus film Young Sherlock Holmes back in the 80s--curious to see how it compares.

Agreed--my logical brain just shut down in the horror of the moment. IIRC, it was at the culmination of a downward narrative spiral for them.

The Bardo of the Toys. I think they actually "die" in that scene and in the end they incarnate into their new lives.

Whatever its ups and downs, LOTR has the perfect ending, with a sadness that readers learn to cherish. And given the prequel madness on large and small screens, that may be the only thing that's saved it from somebody attempting a sequel... so far.

On the writing side, it's a gift (and far from a given) to be able to end one's story, and on one's own terms. The patron saint of this for me is US Grant racing to finish his memoir as throat cancer was killing him. But we have plenty of examples in our genres where the author didn't get to finish

The part where Theseus feels the oncoming Thera disaster still haunts me.

Saw Michael Shannon's REM tribute band last night--the album for this tour is Life's Rich Pageant. Always loved this bit from "These Days"--maybe now more than ever:
"All the people gather, fly to carry each his burden
We are young despite the years
We are concern, we are hope despite the times"

You're saying you'd prefer a Mesoamerican end times? Me, I'm looking forward to the great anti-apocalypse, when humanity finally decides we're too old for this sh*t, and then declares to heaven & hell "come at us, ye bastards."

It was different (but not better) not too long ago, when power and status was still correlated with the number of people in one's sphere of control (like how Russian lords counted the number of "souls" on their land). But yeah, once that connection became less direct, we became extra.

On the plus side, I'm not sure this mass manifestation of Freud's thanatos drive is necessarily global--the US is getting hit particularly hard, but whether the afflicted nations succeed in bringing everyone else down too is still in play.

My internal head canon of this version of the end times is that we're a simulation designed to see how a world might get through its early nuclear age, but after the success of that experiment, they just left the thing running, w/ no further tweaks to keep it on the rails or deal w/ program entropy

Morning thought: in the Star Wars films, we get lineages, not families--if it's a family, it gets killed or broken fairly quickly after appearing on screen.

Eric H. Cline over Gibbon. @digkabri.bsky.social

Yeah, Claude is more like a name for the big AI from season 3 of Westworld.

The biggest apocalyptic heart breaker (though not a big hit) of the 80s was Chris De Burgh's "Transmission Ends."

Timing is interesting: 2 terms is kind of 3 1/2 years plus 3 1/2 years, but not quite. So following this line of interpretation, would he only get 3 years of the current term?

But he's no Sam Neill. Such a disappointment for the big bad. Even the mortal head wound was barely a scratch. But fits with one argument I've been making--that the warnings in Revelation are for believers who will be deceived, not "I told you sos" for nonbelievers...

But on the necessity of the destruction Krishna is clear, and won't take no for an answer.

I think there's still an effective spiritual path here--it's the one in the Gita (but not as interpreted by Gandhi and others). To destroy what must be destroyed without attachment, because it's our dharma to do so. Or the ethos of the Zen archer. In practical terms, it's a long task--can't burnout.

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Soylent Green is papers! Papers!

Beam that pun away, maximum dispersion!

How about Carlos Castaneda though (as goofy as Von Daniken but less poisonous)? Skilled humans transforming into all sorts of helpful creatures--but they're also high as kites.

Even that money has been tending to run astray already (medical plans not started, etc.). Easier just to hand the praetorians some of the cash, and/or keep them busy on the streets.

Just bouncing it around in my own head. It's a shame that Von Daniken is so poisonous--praying for aerial war machines a la Chariots of the Gods would also be cool.

I think they'll get to just killing us pretty quickly--the level of corruption means that very little money will trickle into work camps.

Or would they have prayed for post-human style alterations of temporary duration--e.g., people with the speed and burden capacity of horses? Though the survival of certain megafauna via magic/prayer would be interesting--though a little warm where the Olmecs lived for e.g. mammoths.

Interesting how this happened to Russia in Ukraine as well--corruption really shows when the demands of reality are strictest.

A military vet I know (he can claim the quote here if he wants) says that he/others used to be able to stop a lot of questionable plans by continually asking "And then what?"

I have heard the princesses singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing for me.