Hoje Maggie Thatcher faz 80. Em homenagem à data, uma música do Elvis Costello:
I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child’s
Face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that child’s lips?
Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh I’ll be a good boy, I’m trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
When England was the whore of the world
Margaret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
The black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn’t
Haunted by every tiny detail
’cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal
And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it’s only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn’t angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you’ve only got the symptoms, you haven’t got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose head’s like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame
Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
I think I’ll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
’cos when they finally put you in the ground
They’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down __________________
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Canção do Carrasco
O último post não tinha nada a ver com Nova Orleans. Este tem.
Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry,
and I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky.
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River.
Then I'm gonna sit right here until I die.
I met her accidentally in St. Paul (Minnesota).
And it tore me up ev'ry time I heard her drawl, Southern drawl.
Then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin' in Davenport,
And I followed you, Big River, when you called.
Then you took me to St. Louis later on (down the river).
A freighter said she's been here but she's gone, boy, she's gone.
I found her trail in Memphis, but she just walked up the block.
She raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone.
Now, won't you batter down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, roll it on.
Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans.
Go on, I"ve had enough; dump my blues down in the gulf.
She loves you, Big River, more than me.
Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry,
and I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky.
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River.
Then I'm gonna sit right here until I die.
I met her accidentally in St. Paul (Minnesota).
And it tore me up ev'ry time I heard her drawl, Southern drawl.
Then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin' in Davenport,
And I followed you, Big River, when you called.
Then you took me to St. Louis later on (down the river).
A freighter said she's been here but she's gone, boy, she's gone.
I found her trail in Memphis, but she just walked up the block.
She raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone.
Now, won't you batter down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, roll it on.
Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans.
Go on, I"ve had enough; dump my blues down in the gulf.
She loves you, Big River, more than me.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Supah Brain Explody
Liberality for All
Muita gente critica os quadrinhos de super-herói por serem um gênero conservador - afinal, o tema básico do troço são super-homens defendendo o status quo. É até curioso que, atualmente, a maior parte dos roteiristas desse gênero conservador seja de esquerda (com direito a porrar o Bush, no Authority). Mas tem gente que volta às raízes, e tem gente que vai muito além delas e estaciona na extrema direita da extrema direita, como na pérola do fascismo Fox News linkada.
LIBERALITY FOR ALL #1 It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City...And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations dominated ultra-liberalism.
(Read complete synopsis) or (see 5-page preview)
Series concept: What if today's anti-war Liberals were in charge of the American government and had been since 9/11? What would that society look like in the year 2021? What would be the results of fighting “a more sensitive war on terror” and looking to the corrupt United Nations to solve all of America 's problems? In Liberality For All , the reader sees a vision of that future where there is only one justified type of war…the war against Conservatives and their ideals
LIBERALITY FOR ALL #1 Is getting major publicity in the talk radio world, with much more to come. To our knowledge, no book in over 10 years will be made known to so many people, outside the comic community.
WARNING: Expect this to sell out very fast.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Monday, May 02, 2005
What is cyberpunk?
The Matrix has been hailed as a cyberpunk movie. Is it? I don't think so. Now, of course one can call whatever one likes cyberpunk, just as you can call April Lavigne punk. In fact, a lot of punk is about calling others unpunk, and it should be admitted that cyberpunk bears a tenuous connection to punk as a musical gender, and even its connection to punk aesthetics isn't so tight.
Why isn't it? Because it's Star Wars - or Dune - with "virtual reality" added in. (Note- this is not a dismissal of the technical and scientific inaccuracies of the Matrix movies. Cyberpunk isn't "hard" science fiction, itself). Let's make a list of cyberpunkisms, and see if the Matrix fits
1 - Broken Dreams - Heroes come from the sprawl. Think Depression, rather than Dystopia. The world is not decaying, but decayed - and humans have been displaced by the gleaming chrome corporations. "Red Star, Winter Orbit" is before Year Neuro. Heroes glean hope from cockroach droppings - but it's still hope, and they still dream. The decadence is not just social, it's physical. Count the references to shiny stuff and the references to obsolete junk. Junk wins 4-1. (The Matrix is all about the slick, although the first movie retains this aspect by referencing "the desert of the real." No huge raves and togas yet, just slop. The chicken-tasting gruel is probably the cyberpunkest bit of the Matrix.)
2- Badassatron - In fantasy and science fiction (even cerebral fantasy and science fiction, usually) heroes are badasses. Conan, Fafhrd, or Mazirian could face on whatever their world had to offer and win. Molly, if she ever tried to tack Hideo head-on, would just die. And she knows that. She may be a competent razorgirl, but he is a "stone-cold killer from the vat up." Case may be smart, but there's always the nagging feeling that the grey-haired people who live a strange half-life, organic hearts for the corporations, are just toying with him - as is, definitely, the AI Wintermute-Neuromancer. (There's a half-hearted go at this. However, Neo is "the one." Messiahs aren't very helpless.)
3- Riding the Tiger - The sense of urgency should always be a big part of it. And a large plot device is the "artifact." Chrome is far better than the heores, but she has no chance aboutthe Russian icebreaker they use to burn her. However, using it is dangerous. Everything the heroes use is dangerous, and the bigger the target, the bigger the chance the weapon may be turned against them. If they chose safer weapons, or try to face the corporations with their own resources, they will wound, not kill. Hosaka helicopters coming for the cheap coffin-hotel. (They can stop to have a talk with the oracle. What urgency is there in the movie is of the action-movie sort - the hero, busy with something else, has only a few seconds - yeah, right - to save the world/girl/etc. There is, of course, no big break, since the hero is already The One, and just has to go through the standard Hero's Journey steps.)
4 - Cyber - The loss of humanity is everywhere. There are characters who are jacked full of circuits, but more important are the ones whose soul has been taken over by the corporations, described as the dominant life form on Earth. That's important; Man's enemy are not machines, but corporations. Machines are wonderful, strange, alien. Wintermute doesn't take over the world and quash humans, it doesn't change anything at all. Its concerns are not our concerns, it is perfect in its isolation. Human beings altered to be tools are a truer symbol of the genre. Hideo, not Neuromancer. Even the latter - in the form of a "Brazilian urchin" (heh - pivetes do America, c. 1984) has been shaped by the corporations to be a tool. Though, unlike our finite human heroes, it does transcend that society.
5 - Heroism - from holding on to your principles or your friends to saving the world - is a big part of it. It's just that the heroes are closer to Bilbo than to Conan.
Of course, Bilbo isn't slick; you'd never catch him in mirrorshades and trenchcoats. But he was Tolkien's Everyman. And everymen in the future-that-was of this particular cyberpunk don't use magic rings to become invisible, they use sendais to see the invisible world, that is, jack into the matrix. Surreal landscapes, four-dimensional and in a trillion different colour channels are the mode of hacking, not grubby keyboard-punching. For all of the punk in the name, the reference is not musical, but visual. (I suppose this one counts. But it comes, in the literature, as something that balances the other stuff. Case, the low-life ex-hacker, manages to be a hero of sorts. Neo is a hero, pure and simple, not Everyman who manages not to betray himself.)
All four aspects can be glimpsed at (the gruel, again) in the first movie. In the latter two things become downright camp, complete with the blandest sex in human history and the Big Ewok Rave. And the challenge whereby the hero has to kiss Monica Bellucci - and pretend to like it! (The next challenge, I suppose, would be eating through a wall of chocolate.)
Why isn't it? Because it's Star Wars - or Dune - with "virtual reality" added in. (Note- this is not a dismissal of the technical and scientific inaccuracies of the Matrix movies. Cyberpunk isn't "hard" science fiction, itself). Let's make a list of cyberpunkisms, and see if the Matrix fits
1 - Broken Dreams - Heroes come from the sprawl. Think Depression, rather than Dystopia. The world is not decaying, but decayed - and humans have been displaced by the gleaming chrome corporations. "Red Star, Winter Orbit" is before Year Neuro. Heroes glean hope from cockroach droppings - but it's still hope, and they still dream. The decadence is not just social, it's physical. Count the references to shiny stuff and the references to obsolete junk. Junk wins 4-1. (The Matrix is all about the slick, although the first movie retains this aspect by referencing "the desert of the real." No huge raves and togas yet, just slop. The chicken-tasting gruel is probably the cyberpunkest bit of the Matrix.)
2- Badassatron - In fantasy and science fiction (even cerebral fantasy and science fiction, usually) heroes are badasses. Conan, Fafhrd, or Mazirian could face on whatever their world had to offer and win. Molly, if she ever tried to tack Hideo head-on, would just die. And she knows that. She may be a competent razorgirl, but he is a "stone-cold killer from the vat up." Case may be smart, but there's always the nagging feeling that the grey-haired people who live a strange half-life, organic hearts for the corporations, are just toying with him - as is, definitely, the AI Wintermute-Neuromancer. (There's a half-hearted go at this. However, Neo is "the one." Messiahs aren't very helpless.)
3- Riding the Tiger - The sense of urgency should always be a big part of it. And a large plot device is the "artifact." Chrome is far better than the heores, but she has no chance aboutthe Russian icebreaker they use to burn her. However, using it is dangerous. Everything the heroes use is dangerous, and the bigger the target, the bigger the chance the weapon may be turned against them. If they chose safer weapons, or try to face the corporations with their own resources, they will wound, not kill. Hosaka helicopters coming for the cheap coffin-hotel. (They can stop to have a talk with the oracle. What urgency is there in the movie is of the action-movie sort - the hero, busy with something else, has only a few seconds - yeah, right - to save the world/girl/etc. There is, of course, no big break, since the hero is already The One, and just has to go through the standard Hero's Journey steps.)
4 - Cyber - The loss of humanity is everywhere. There are characters who are jacked full of circuits, but more important are the ones whose soul has been taken over by the corporations, described as the dominant life form on Earth. That's important; Man's enemy are not machines, but corporations. Machines are wonderful, strange, alien. Wintermute doesn't take over the world and quash humans, it doesn't change anything at all. Its concerns are not our concerns, it is perfect in its isolation. Human beings altered to be tools are a truer symbol of the genre. Hideo, not Neuromancer. Even the latter - in the form of a "Brazilian urchin" (heh - pivetes do America, c. 1984) has been shaped by the corporations to be a tool. Though, unlike our finite human heroes, it does transcend that society.
5 - Heroism - from holding on to your principles or your friends to saving the world - is a big part of it. It's just that the heroes are closer to Bilbo than to Conan.
Of course, Bilbo isn't slick; you'd never catch him in mirrorshades and trenchcoats. But he was Tolkien's Everyman. And everymen in the future-that-was of this particular cyberpunk don't use magic rings to become invisible, they use sendais to see the invisible world, that is, jack into the matrix. Surreal landscapes, four-dimensional and in a trillion different colour channels are the mode of hacking, not grubby keyboard-punching. For all of the punk in the name, the reference is not musical, but visual. (I suppose this one counts. But it comes, in the literature, as something that balances the other stuff. Case, the low-life ex-hacker, manages to be a hero of sorts. Neo is a hero, pure and simple, not Everyman who manages not to betray himself.)
All four aspects can be glimpsed at (the gruel, again) in the first movie. In the latter two things become downright camp, complete with the blandest sex in human history and the Big Ewok Rave. And the challenge whereby the hero has to kiss Monica Bellucci - and pretend to like it! (The next challenge, I suppose, would be eating through a wall of chocolate.)
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