4/23/23-4/29/23

Live Free or Die Hard

For some reason when I was visiting my parents’ house where they were prepping me to take care of the house while they’re on a 3-week road trip up and down the East Coast because my dad is determined to visit Europe before he dies and wants to see if traveling with my mom is a viable option, he insisted that we watch this.

I’ve never seen a Die Hard movie before, so I guess this is, by default, my favorite film in the series. And you know what? It isn’t terrible. I’m not going to say it’s great or anything, but it’s a totally serviceable action movie, and it has all the hallmarks of a mid-2000s film: a nonsensical plot about “hacking;” Alienware computers; Justin Long for some reason. It works just fine, but I wouldn’t watch it again.

Manhunter #8: “Speed of Life” by Steven Grant, Vince Giarrano, et al.


 

I’m finally making an effort to get through my massive back catalog of floppies, and I started out with this one that I think was one of the bargain bin titles that my brother gave me for my birthday. I’ve never read much superhero comics, and that certainly doesn’t help me when trying to navigate this book. I have no idea what was happening on any page, but here is my best attempt to sum up what happened.

Two guys are fighting, one of them is likely the titular Manhunter, and the other one is a guy with metal skin and a weed leaf on his chest that I think is Captain Atom. They’re talking about something. A guy turns into a dog? Then there’s a great page that’s just a nuclear explosion with a few sparse text boxes about how Captain Atom’s fate is inherently tied to the destructive power of the nuclear bomb.

Then some white lady is collaborating with a dude in a horned helmet who’s power seems to be that his face is always in shadow. They’re chasing after a guy who, I think, can die a lot but come back to life or something? Then Manhunter (I think) shows up, and takes car of the horned man, before trying to corner the guy who dies a lot who, in turn, shoots himself in the head. Then it ends.

I don’t know what the hell was happening in this, but I have to admit it was oddly compelling. Maybe it was just the first part of this issue where Manhunter and Captain Atom are exisistentializing, but I don’t know. Luckily, I don’t have any more issues of Manhunter, so I don’t have to think about this ever again.

Rory Blank Hell Zone Issue #47: “Landfill Content” by Rory Blank

 

This is just a zine of fake magazine ads for psychotic shows, a good amount of which are hosted by James Corden, seemingly designed to torture him for all time. Like he deserves.

Shade, the Changing Man No. 62: “Nasty Infections Part Four: Heart Attacks” by Peter Milligan, Richard Case, Andy Pritchett, Rick Bryant, et al.


 

One of the first Vertigo series, but one that I feel was sidelined in favor of the legacy of Sandman and Doom Patrol. And usually people are referring to Morrison’s Doom Patrol and not Rachel Pollack’s, which is insane given that Morrison’s run wasn’t published under the Vertigo imprint until it was reprinted into collected books.

Anyway, I was surprised at how unmoved I was by this. Again, it doesn’t help starting in the middle of a storyline, but I felt like I had a less of a grasp on what was going on than I did when reading Manhunter. That’s what you get with the existentialist Brits, I guess. I mentioned Doom Patrol and Sandman earlier, and I felt like this issue of Shade was situated in a weird in-between between these two series; the threat that was facing Shade was one of those weird ones that the DP faces, but the titular character feels too close to Dream to me. I don’t like Sandman, btw. I’d have to read more of Shade, The Changing Man to really get a proper estimation of the series, but I can sort of see why it never got the reprints the other titles did.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Yeah, that’s not too far off.

This is my second time trying to get through Neuromancer and I’m happy to say that I actually enjoyed it quite a bit this time around, especially when I was able to get a handle of the difficult writing style. This is a world which is filled with a ton of unusual lingo, jargon, and technical language and none of it is explained to the reader. Why would it be; these characters already know all this stuff and don’t need it explained to them. I can understand why it would be such difficult thing to adapt it into a movie without dumbing it down for a lowest-common denominator audience.

The story of Neuromancer is filled with conspiracy and shady characters: following a protagonist who’s pulled into a job that doesn’t make sense, slowly unraveling the plot while a cyberbabe who’s as hot as she is deadly and guy who is definitely evil and cannot be trusted tags along. If I was some sort of asshole, I would maybe refer to this as a Mechanoir (not to be confused with The Marchenoir Library by Alex Degen).

The first time I read this I was put off by the casual amount of sex that Case (protagonist) has with Molly Millions (cyberbabe) and the immediacy of it. It’s not too long after they meat that they’re going at it. But the more I read it, the more I appreciated the eroticism running through it at any given time. Molly is definitely an erotic fantasy girl, but she’s still supremely competent and top=notch assassin, using her eroticism as another tool in her arsenal.

But, sex is much more ubiquitous in the world of Neuromancer, in general. There is, at one point, a show using holograms at a fancy restaurant for the idle rich that basically amounts to a very stylish rape fantasy. The future is a place where sex is not the meaningful connection it can be in today’s culture, but it might also be one of the few things the people of Neuromancer have left.

It’s hard to not get bogged down in details about this book, and I feel like if I could go on forever if you let me, but, despite feeling overwhelming in times, it was still easy to get through with a nice amount of momentum to keep me going through the more difficult parts.

SOUND

Mood by Rødhåd

Aequilibration by JakoJako

Isles by Bicep

Communards by The Communards

Not as good as Bronski Beat! Very weird that one of the guys in this wen ton to be a priest in the Anglican church.

GAZZA (Original Score) by Blanck Mass

Colours by Circulation

Fresia Magdalena by Sofia Kourtesis

Everybody Makes Mistakes by THIRD WIFE

WELCOME TO THE FARM DISC 2 by Various Artists

Pretty great compilation, very few low points.

Blacklight Fantasy by Freaky Chakra

I don’t know. Wasn’t really feeling it.

A Mutual Antipathy by Scuba

500 Euro Cocktail by CJ Bolland

Dimension Intrusion (25th Anniversary Edition) by F.U.S.E.

BEAUTIFUL techno.

Crystal Cult 2080 by Legowelt

Neon Life by Push

Synthwave, but some of the better stuff.

Nídia by Nídia

Arla II by Overmono

Sick Parrots by Voiski

Much better than the cover would suggest. It isn’t really a synthwave album.

Forgotten Hill by Chihei Hatakeyama

Palaces of Pity by Malibu

Lamentations by William Basinski

Billy B, tha God, does it again.

Freek Funk by Luke Slater

The Unexplained: Electronic Musical Visions of the Occult by Ataraxia (Mort Garson)

Relisten. This sounds much more modern for a Moog album from the seventies.

Modern Driveway by Luke Abbott

Epoch (Deluxe Edition) by Tycho

Not pure electronic music, but fine despite that.