May 2020 – An Echo That's Reversing

Coronavirus – Tue 26 May 2020 – None of us are safe

I suspect now that none of us are safe. Well, the very wealthy are, but “us” being the comfortable and comfortably employed middle class will start feeling this. It’s such an un-fact-based feeling that is born of a destructively un-fact-based time that I hesitate. Someone on Twitter had said that we’re not going through a pandemic but rather through a catastrophe. So much else is tied in with the virus, and even ignoring Trump’s gross exacerbation of the situation, we have: a collapsing economy with attempts at revival increasing deaths (The meat industry is trying to get back to normal. But workers are still getting sick — and shortages may get worse. The Washington Post, 25 May 2020), federal and international disunity creating archipelagos of mitigation, disrupted food distribution resulting in massive livestock euthanasia (Opinion: Livestock Farmers, Without Options, Turn To Euthanasia, NPR, 16 May 2020), and a collapse of trust in basic science (‘How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’, The Atlantic, 21 May 2020). The last item results in a justified mistrust but is the result of active poisoning of those institutions. The CDC, once the world’s laboratory, has been cooking the books.

None of this has really touched me at all, but buffers are only buffers until they wear thin and catastrophe hits the mark.

The Hammer vampire trilogy

Shudder has Twins of Evil, the third film in Hammer Films’ Karnstein Trilogy so–even though they’re not part of a single story–I had to hunt down the first two and watch them in order.

Previously:

November 2015 – Jess Franco films including his Karnstein/Carmilla-inspired Female Vampire
July 2018 – Franco’s Daughter of Dracula, another with a Karnstein vampire

Currently:

The Barb Wire canon

Updated the next day

Continuing my Great Literature series begun with Red Sonja and Conan, I’ve started reading the Barb Wire saga.

She’s a part of the Dark Horse Universe. We forget (or even don’t know) about it because of the supremacy of the DC and Marvel mythologies; like Greek and Roman, in no particular order, since so many of the super strength, super fast, invisible, other-dimension-origined, et al. are merely different manifestations of the same gods. Dark Horse fits into this framework but on a smaller scale and with some indie differences. For example: there is the odd character Concrete who is a man with his body replaced–for some reason–with a minimal-featured stone body, and who has to learn to live in his new circumstances. It’s more middle-aged Bildungsroman than superhero. Dark Horse’s polished indieness is appealing in a different manner than the experimentation of less established indie publishers. Solid yet daring.

Art in the time of hate

From Ian Pace’s blog:

English Country Tunes is what I collected together in the summer of 1977, as impressions of what was going on. I didn’t live too far from Lewisham where there were riots , so all of that was noise going on while I was trying to write.
Interview between Ian Pace and Michael Finnissy on English Country Tunes, February 2009

Coronavirus – Wed 13 May 2020 – The spread

Over the past week, I’ve started having dreams overtly about the virus and am surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. Maybe covert manifestations–stressful dreams, rudderlessness–were occurring prior. We went to the drive-in on Saturday for a friend’s birthday and so my visit, masked, to the bathroom there has had me hyper-aware of any physical quirks that may-or-may-not actually be manifesting.

The White House is infected.