The world has become tumultuous: COVID-19 is slowly taking over the planet. The Cancel Culture
movement is killing coolness, the woke (sic) mob is aggressively rewriting history (for once not being
written by the victors), the Black Lives Matter activity, it seems as if most
everyone has to have an external enemy to be felled. I think it’s sad people
have stopped thinking for themselves and the others are simply standing by
allowing this to happen. But it’s a good time to lose one’s self in alternate
worlds, even if they are artificial ones. And that’s what I did this month.
1. Razor’s
Edge on DVD: After fighting in the trenches of WWI, an
adventuresome young man returns home with “survivor syndrome,” afflicting him
because he survived the war when many of his comrades did not. This phenomenon
weighs upon him so heavily he goes off to find himself and loses his socialite
fiancée in the process. Years later, when he returns, she will stop at nothing
to get him back, even though she is already married. This was greatly portrayed
by Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney as the flustered fiancée he left behind. I
wouldn’t call it a remarkable movie, but I’d confidently say it's a movie done
remarkable well.
2. The
Jesus and Mary Chain “Psychocandy” on CD: How could a band
with a drum kit consisting of two drums, a forever out of tune guitar and a
bass with two strings be any good? Maybe they’re not, but they’re different, so
different in fact you can’t help but take notice of this two-brother duo from
Scotland. William and Jim Reid sing with vocals not unlike that of boys whose
voices are undergoing physiological teen aged changes, but there’s something
about this band I find truly compelling. Their first hit song, “Just Like
Honey,” spawning from this debut album, basically stole the drum rhythm from
1963’s The Ronnette’s “Be My Baby” and went on to 45 in the UK record
charts. The stand out song for me, however, is “The Hardest Walk,” which was
featured on the seminal John Hughes film, “Some Kind of Wonderful.”
3. The
Day it Rained Forever by Ray Bradbury: A collection of
short stories by the esteemed Ray Bradbury who admitted his stories weren’t
about science fiction per se, but more like stories about people, which they
indeed, were. I’m halfway through the book on my Kindle. There’s nothing stand
out so far, but Bradbury’s stories are as exquisite as sipping ice tea on a hot
night from a squeaky chain porch swing on an old front porch. His stories
always leave you with a certain kind of gentle pay off. He makes prose writing
sound like poetry and he will always be one of my favorite writers.
5. Blue Oyster Cult “Some Enchanted Evening” on CD: I picked this up, and eager to get home and listen to it I was chagrinned to find it was a live album. (I thought it was a greatest hits album when I read the track list.) Still, after two playthroughs it’s grown on me. All I ever really knew of BOC was their radio hits, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Godzilla.” Listening to this, I discovered “E.T.I (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)” which is now my favorite BOC song by far. Now I really do need to find a greatest hits album. Interestingly, it turns out this album is by far their best selling album of all time. Interesting trivia: BOC was one of the first bands to use lasers onstage.
6. Days
of Thunder on 4K Blu Ray: I remember going to a
theater to watch a move in late 1989, early 1990 and seeing the preview for
this movie. I was a Tom Cruise fan, and the movie depicting him as a mysterious
race car driver showing up late to test drive a car was the ultimate tease. And
then I went to the same theater to watch the movie when it came out. I wasn’t a
fan of NASCAR, but the movie was done so well it ultimately made NASCAR an
interesting subject for me. Revisiting it again after all these years on its 4K
presentation made me see it more for what it was: a heavily stylized Hollywood
roller coaster ride, but that’s okay! It’s a fun movie. In an interview with
director Tony Scott, he stated he and Cruise both loved showing “the flight of
the cars.” The 4K treatment pulls this off with aplomb, the stock cars aglow
with colors, screamingly loud making their way around the round venues. Tom
Cruise stated he loved Scott’s energy for films, and Jerry Bruckheimer
(producer) described Cruise as hard charging and a brilliant actor. And they
all admitted casting Robert Duvall in his role as the car builder/crew chief
truly brought something special to the movie.
7. Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman:
(I’m borrowing this from my Goodreads review, but it sums it up exceedingly
well.) This book was as fun of a read for me as The Wizard of Oz series.
It began slow and the characters took a while to earn my interest, and then
suddenly I didn't want to put the book down. And that ending, best ending I've encountered
in ages. It made me instantly yearn for a sequel. Gaiman's characters will hold
a place in my heart and I won't be surprised to find myself searching for Lamia
in the crowd of any public place from now on. Gaiman's diction and his use of
description caused me to reread sentences just to hear the melody of the words
again. "Seeing the Marquis' bloated body slowly float by face down in the
brown sewage like a stately funeral frigate," this is golden. And this is
why I can't wait to discover more Neil Gaiman.
8. Elite
Dangerous on PC: Often called Euro Truck Sim 2 in
space, I realized I had been way too long away from this game and decided to
revisit it. I had forgotten how difficult landing at spaceports was in the
game. After several attempts I finally rage quit and wrote the game off in a
Steam status entry. The next day after I had cooled off, I tried again and met
with some success. The game really is a chill game. Who would have ever known
as a kid in the late 60’s when the space race was in full swing that fifty
years later, I would be piloting through the universe in my own space ship,
hauling goods to and from distant planets and making money doing it? This game
is an absolute gorgeous game with an uncanny ability to make you feel as if you
really are flying a space ship complete with the loneliness and the required
attention to detail you’d need to do the real thing. Andy Kelly, my favorite PC
Gamer writer once wrote about a pilgrimage he made in this game to a far
outpost space station. His journey took him 90 minutes of real time flying just
to get there. He said it was a rite of passage of sorts. Every trip in this
game feels like that to me. The game universe is so huge that if you discover a
star in the game the developers name it after you. How cool is that?
