That's Why Your Robot Never Worked
Jan. 9th, 2005 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004"See all that stuff inside, Homer? That's why your robot never worked!"
A quiet Sunday reading the paper, and books, and other nonelectronic things, and copying Season 2 of MI-5 from TiVo to VHS for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeregenest, who was in a scary and freakish and random accident. It sounds like he's going to be OK, mercifully, but he will, I assume, be convalescing for a while. (On reflection, odds are good that Jere's already seen the MI-5s, but it's nice to have a project.)
I was amused by this quote in the Sunday Book Review:
Here's the problem with 'Write what you know': What too many aspiring writers know, it turns out, is that a suburban American adolescence causes vague feelings of sadness—especially when one's formative years include a dying grandparent or housepet.
Yes, indeed. Substitute "Canadian" for "American" in that sentence and I know that problem all too well. (See, Homer? That's why my novel never worked...) The review in question goes on to say "It's the lucky writer whose story is familiar to himself and exotic to his readers," which then made me think of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, a bit of a trendy must-read novel a few years ago that I had somehow missed. L gave it to me over the holidays, and it was great. Highly recommended. One of the funniest books I've read in a long time. The feckless Gen-X hipsters therein reminded me an awful lot of me and my own friends in the PC 1990s, at least until the Russian mob shows up and starts breaking their kneecaps. That didn't happen to me and my friends as far as I can recall. (See how my uneventful Canadian adolescence has prevented me from being a literary prodigy? Oh the pain.)
I posted another rambling essay today about Ben Franklin and the Turk and 18th-century robotica over at my big boy website. Halfway through that post I mention that I have "another cool anecdote about the Imperial Academy of Science in St. Petersburg in the 1700s that I want to tell you." I know, I know, most people would be content with just one such anecdote in their life, but you are blessed with me as a friend, so you might as well enjoy it. Check this shit out: Peter the Great, Tsar from 1682 to 1725, was a passionate collector of monsters. In the 1690s, he began assembling a collection of anatomical and zoological monstrosities and abnormalities, living and dead. In 1704, he ordered that midwives throughout Russia were strictly forbidden to kill or hide newborn children with deformations. All "monstrous" births were to be turned over to the clergy, who would deliver them to his Cabinet of Monsters in St. Petersberg. After Peter's death in 1725, the Cabinet came under control of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
"Cabinet of Monsters." Nice ring to that. Well, I doubt I have to tell you what I'm thinking: If those "monsters" were not giants and hermaphrodites and hydrocephalic kids but actually, you know, monsters... you could have a crazy 1700s Russian League of Extraordinary Gentlemen adventure, or some very cool backstory for the Russian version of the BPRD in a certain long-threatened Soviet Hellboy Delta Green game.
What else? Oh yes.bryant's Best Movies of 2004 post is up, which is great, and relieves me of having to write one. I spent a lot of 2004 passing off a combination of Bryant and Anthony Lane's opinions about movies as my own, so it seems appropriate to just link to his Best Of list now. My only gripes with his list? I'd drop Sky Captain. I found it dull and disappointing, and I can't help thinking that caffeine and a sense that "I should like this" is deluding Bryant and my other geek chums who still champion the film. And where is the love for Napoleon Dynamite? But other than that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A quiet Sunday reading the paper, and books, and other nonelectronic things, and copying Season 2 of MI-5 from TiVo to VHS for
jeregenest, who was in a scary and freakish and random accident. It sounds like he's going to be OK, mercifully, but he will, I assume, be convalescing for a while. (On reflection, odds are good that Jere's already seen the MI-5s, but it's nice to have a project.) I was amused by this quote in the Sunday Book Review:
Here's the problem with 'Write what you know': What too many aspiring writers know, it turns out, is that a suburban American adolescence causes vague feelings of sadness—especially when one's formative years include a dying grandparent or housepet.
Yes, indeed. Substitute "Canadian" for "American" in that sentence and I know that problem all too well. (See, Homer? That's why my novel never worked...) The review in question goes on to say "It's the lucky writer whose story is familiar to himself and exotic to his readers," which then made me think of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, a bit of a trendy must-read novel a few years ago that I had somehow missed. L gave it to me over the holidays, and it was great. Highly recommended. One of the funniest books I've read in a long time. The feckless Gen-X hipsters therein reminded me an awful lot of me and my own friends in the PC 1990s, at least until the Russian mob shows up and starts breaking their kneecaps. That didn't happen to me and my friends as far as I can recall. (See how my uneventful Canadian adolescence has prevented me from being a literary prodigy? Oh the pain.)
I posted another rambling essay today about Ben Franklin and the Turk and 18th-century robotica over at my big boy website. Halfway through that post I mention that I have "another cool anecdote about the Imperial Academy of Science in St. Petersburg in the 1700s that I want to tell you." I know, I know, most people would be content with just one such anecdote in their life, but you are blessed with me as a friend, so you might as well enjoy it. Check this shit out: Peter the Great, Tsar from 1682 to 1725, was a passionate collector of monsters. In the 1690s, he began assembling a collection of anatomical and zoological monstrosities and abnormalities, living and dead. In 1704, he ordered that midwives throughout Russia were strictly forbidden to kill or hide newborn children with deformations. All "monstrous" births were to be turned over to the clergy, who would deliver them to his Cabinet of Monsters in St. Petersberg. After Peter's death in 1725, the Cabinet came under control of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
"Cabinet of Monsters." Nice ring to that. Well, I doubt I have to tell you what I'm thinking: If those "monsters" were not giants and hermaphrodites and hydrocephalic kids but actually, you know, monsters... you could have a crazy 1700s Russian League of Extraordinary Gentlemen adventure, or some very cool backstory for the Russian version of the BPRD in a certain long-threatened Soviet Hellboy Delta Green game.
What else? Oh yes.
bryant's Best Movies of 2004 post is up, which is great, and relieves me of having to write one. I spent a lot of 2004 passing off a combination of Bryant and Anthony Lane's opinions about movies as my own, so it seems appropriate to just link to his Best Of list now. My only gripes with his list? I'd drop Sky Captain. I found it dull and disappointing, and I can't help thinking that caffeine and a sense that "I should like this" is deluding Bryant and my other geek chums who still champion the film. And where is the love for Napoleon Dynamite? But other than that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 12:50 am (UTC)I hadn't read it yet.
Smithers! Garbo is coming!
Date: 2005-01-10 12:51 am (UTC)Seriously, I thought it was another odd example of
Hey, we should do Delta Green this week if DM doesn't work out.
Re: Smithers! Garbo is coming!
Date: 2005-01-10 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 09:33 am (UTC)But the Maskelynes have not escaped me -- I'll get them, with their astronomy and their invisible battleships and their whist-playing, poetry-writing robots.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 10:29 pm (UTC)Well that would have been a neat trip, but I can see that the column, which was swell of course, was full up already. Have you ever done anything with the mechanist John Merlin? Seems like a natural. I love the image of him roller-skating through 1790s London, giving people electrical shocks.
But the Maskelynes have not escaped me -- I'll get them, with their astronomy and their invisible battleships and their whist-playing, poetry-writing robots.
Not to mention vanishing the Suez Canal and being a bunch of islands in the South Pacific for some reason.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:06 am (UTC)MenMonsters of Action!no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:22 am (UTC)In my saner moments, I suspect two things: that I am right in my assertion that it's perfectly crafted pulp, and that the pulp serials sucked rocks. I've been watching Ace Drummond one episode at a time before Huey Long's Men of Action, and while it's great for setting the mood, lemme tell you... it's an awful piece of cinema. I mean, it's just dreadful. The acting is wooden and condescending, the action scenes are ponderous and goofy, and the plot is just an excuse to string together acting and action scenes.
This would imply, if true, that Sky Captain is a perfectly crafted replica of something that sucked in the first place. Which would explain a lot. But that's a hard sell of an argument, since we all think we love pulp to pieces. Nah. We just love Indiana Jones, which deviates from the formula.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:29 am (UTC)That same heresy has occurred to me from time to time. What does Indy provide that Sky Captain doesn't? To me: villains, a genuine sense that the heroes are in peril, a sense of humor. Now, do the original pulps have that? My guess is, some do, many don't. I got a DVD of Flash Gordon serials in my stocking; I'll let you know how it goes.
(I love that you show serials before the Huey Long game, btw. I'm definitely stealing that if Red Madness 2 ever happens.)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:35 am (UTC)The Indiana Jones/love interest banter seems to me to draw upon the screwball comedies of the 30s; same era, different genre.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 05:52 am (UTC)Frankly, I'd take the last 3, flaws and all, over Temple of Doom any day of the week.
Not so much The Shadow though. There's no getting past the gigantic casting error of Penelope Ann Miller.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:13 pm (UTC)2) I think the old pulp movies and stuff look terribly wooden and cheesy to our modern eye for the same reasons a lot of other old movies look terribly wooden and cheesy - film was just starting out and everybody was still in radio/stage mode and trying to figure out how the heck to make these talking pictures things work. And there wasn't the need for "realism" that we feel today. I mean, look at the comics from that era too. It looks like they can't draw a "realistic" looking person to save their lives. Where were the Alex Ross's of the 1930s, rendering beautifully photo-like portraits of early pulp superheroes? They were employed in advertising and elsewhere because this new medium didn't demand it. Yet.
So given that, yes the old pulp serials look horrible when you compare them to Indiana Jones but only because we (most of us anyway) saw Raiders first and that's what we thought pulp serials should be like.
Wasn't I having this conversation with someone else recently? Weird.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:25 am (UTC)In all seriousness, I liked it but it didn't have the emotional depth to really captivate me. I also docked it a notch for the cheesy "we're a success so we're adding an scene and asking you to see it again" campaign. Look, I saw your damned movie when nobody was seeing it; don't make me double dip! Grr.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:00 am (UTC)I trust for consistency's sake you've also kept Star Wars off your 1977 list>
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:19 pm (UTC)And yet, you're lucky in that you're not also replacing "suburban" with "Prairie" which, toegther with "adolescence," would form the classic insufferable hat trick of CanLit cliches.
(The judges would also accept "remote northern mining town" or "Cape Breton.")
Also, "cabinet of monsters." Hee. That's gold! Gold!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 06:39 pm (UTC)Hmm. My Mom was born in a remote mining town. How can I spin this?
ps That recommendation of The Russian Debutante's Handbook is aimed largely at you (among others). Check it out if you haven't already.
Napoleon Dynamite? Peter Nitrov Glyzerin!
Date: 2005-01-14 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 03:47 pm (UTC)