Thursday 16 March 2017

Stealthy alien invasion!

Story idea:

Venus is inhabited by clever and sneaky aliens who have been watching us for a long time. Being both clever and sneaky, they've managed to hide their presence from us.

They've had their eyes on our planet, so like their own, for a long time, but the climate is far too cold for them. So they've been nudging us along, giving us gifts of technological ideas (telepathically) knowing full well that we won't have the common sense to use the gifts wisely.

Terraforming (venuforming?) our planet by proxy by encouraging us to cause runaway global warming. Once we're all dead, they'll move in and get some extra lebensraum.

Nah. Could never work. Could it?

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Tuesday 14 March 2017

Blogroll addition...

Welcome, the acerbic writings of James Howard Kunstler.

I'm currently about a third of the way through an audio version of his latest book, Too Much Magic Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation (Unabridged).

Well worth a read/listen in my opinion. He's not someone to cloak his disdain in polite dissemblage. What he has to say is probably familiar ground for most readers of this blog.

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Friday 10 March 2017

The land of everything there ever was...

Well, that's the internet, isn't it?

Once upon a time, if you wanted to find something out, you'd have to search for it, or work it out for yourself. Now, if you want to know how many cows there were in France in 1937, you just have to google for a few minutes, and the answer will be there somewhere.


But there's one thing I've never been able to find, that I'd really like to see again. So this is an appeal. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I'm looking for an animated film. I watched it, very late at night, on UK television, back in the early 1990's, although it could have been made a little earlier. It was in colour, and I think was made by a producer from Eastern Europe.

The storyline is ultimately noir. Evil wins.

The plot hangs on two characters. Good, and evil. Good is an artist, that wishes to make a pleasant, colourful, happy line of events. Evil is a skeletal, (hooded?) monochrome figure that constantly attempts to thwart the happy, colourful, good storyteller. Evil's efforts are overcome by the creative and happy ideas of Good, until finally, Evil cuts the line.

I have no clue beyond watching it, a quarter of a century ago, almost certainly while pissed and stoned.

Still, I'd love to see it again, if anyone out there has any ideas. If you do find it, it's well worth a watch.

Happy hunting.

A couple of bits that I vaguely remember...

Good creates something bright and beautiful. Bad drops a grey boulder on it. Good makes the boulder bloom in bright and beautiful flowers. Unremittingly happy, he is. Good is an avatar of the story's Author.

The end comes when evil manages to procure a big pair of shears or scissors, and after gaining access to the Author's castle (breaking the barrier between creator and created), snips the story line, preventing the author from writing new ways for good to prevail.

The author sits in a garret. He has a long thin nose, with a dewdrop on the end of it. His stone walled room is lit by candles.  He writes, with a quill, and what he writes is enacted in the world he creates.

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