EPISODE 532: NOTHING EVEN HAPPENED
This is G2, people. Come on, lift up the spirit.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
I want that girl to have everything and also to host one of the debates.
(Are there debates? Do debates still make sense in 2020land? When you’re not speaking do you put back on your mask? Or does the whole thing happen on Zoom?
I so want to be in the Zoom Presidential Debate MeetUp.)
The moon the last few nights has been a crescent of blood orange crescent hanging low in the sky here in Los Angeles.
It’s the fires, I’m sure. I can taste them in the back of throat tonight, after I sat out for a few minutes writing. You can smell them on the cool breeze too, at first like the scent of fireplaces walking home from school at night in the winter, but then chalkier somehow, and hot not in terms of heat but affect, like a scalding after the pain has gone away.
I have a good friend who does horoscopes -- not so much You’re a Virgo so take a Libra out to drinks this week but the full star charts. I’m not a horoscopes person myself, but from what I can put together it seems a massive undertaking, literally trying to follow the movements and interactions of many different objects in the universe. I wonder if from the inside it’s sort of like quantum physics, a system of causality so incredibly complex that in the end it becomes something fantastic and magical in the literal sense.
And for those who scoff and think it all mumbo jumbo it’s worth asking, Have you ever wondered about the electron? It occupies space only in retrospect – and not just a specific space but space at all. How is that possible? What does it even mean? And how is it science?
And while we’re at it because I’m an English major I have to ask, are we in some way the electron? Whether in some part or whole do we too exist fully only in the traces we leave? Is that what we mean by soul? Or fear? Or love?
Spooky moon, you do get me thinking.
The DNC Happened. I caught bits and pieces of it. I have to say, I applaud the states who decided to use the roll call to be hilarious. Not just because political conventions are generally a nightmare to watch, but because a sense of humor draws people together, and joy is like yeast –when shared, it creates more of itself. (For instance, this glorious piece of writing in the Washington Post.)
(I guess that means joy is also like gremlins? Which reminds me of this amazing Key & Peele sketch.
Have you ever heard the origin of the Gremlins idea? I don’t know it, but I suddenly find myself suddenly hoping that the creator of the concept loved Smurfs and was like, how do we make that edgy?
Okay so you know how I am. So it will not surprise you that after typing that last graph I hit the Google for an oral history of Gremlins. And the internet rewarded me.
Screenwriter Chris Columbus originally wrote Gremlins as a spec script to show off his writing abilities, and never intended on it being made. Spielberg loved the idea and bought it up immediately. The original version of the script was much darker, having Gizmo transform into Stripe, and containing a scene in which Billy’s mother is decapitated and her head thrown down the stairs.
Umm….
There’s also an oral history of Gremlins 2, which basically confirms everything in the sketch above. (Truly.)
DNC —> Rhode Island Shrimp Joy —> Gremlins —> Smurfs —> Gremlins—> Joy.
HEY LOOK GUYS IT’S THREE TWEETS
Over the weekend I stumbled on this thread about Dick Grayson, aka Batman’s first Robin. We’ve yet to see a real portrayal of Robin in the movies so I realize all most of us have is 60s TV Robin, which is you know, a thing that happened.
But if you’re at all interested in the character, this thread is fascinating. The point being, basically, what makes children cool is that they grow up to be their own people, so stop tring to force them into yourself.
(Also, when it comes right down to is, is there any better sales pitch for Twitter than popping in on a Sunday afternoon and having someone out of the blue for no reason dropping a thread about Dick Grayson?)
Why now, Facebook? Why at all?
Lastly, You know you’re in trouble when Dwight Schrute has become your Spirit Animal
BONUS ROUND: THREE VIDEOS!
Some day when people ask But did any good television come out of this crazy nightmare time I will make them sit down and plug into their brain USB the first three minutes of this interview. Truly some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in the last five months.
The moment when we look around Leslie Odom Jr.’s room and see all the Hamilton paraphernalia is genius.
This is at first kind of horribly painful—is it me are Zoom songs quickly becoming 2020’s flash mob — but stay with it and believe it or not it does get pretty spooky.
WAIT, THERE’S A PODCAST WITH A COOL IDEA IN IT TOO!
The BBC has a radio series on historical moments that have affected today. And as part of a recent series on the Spanish Flu, it offered this fascinating idea that the children’s story conceit of having the main characters be orphans begins in the wake of the Spanish Flu.
Peter Parker, Superman, Harry Potter, the Narnia kids — how wild would it be if they all find a key part of their origins in literary conventions that emerged from a pandemic.
(At the same time, can I just I feel like we’ve had enough pandemic for now, 2020. If you could just please go…)
THERE’S EVEN A SONG YOU GUYS
Just heard this for the first time. It has knocked me down.
I don’t know how it is that a song about a thing that didn’t happen can call to mind so much, but then again we are all made of electrons aren’t we. :)
Have a great week.