Wis[s]e Words

Thomas the Propaganda Engine

Published on August 25, 20133 Comments

My eldest nephew is crazy about Thomas the Tank Engine. He can spent hours watching Thomas videos on Youtube, but best not to let him watch this one. Meanwhile, Drew Magary explains what makes it an awful, awful tv show:

Thomas and his friends live on Sodor and spend their days toiling endlessly, “shunting trucks and hauling freight.” (Shunting, by the way, sounds like a great Urban Dictionary term for silent fucking—”We shunted while his parents slept next door!”) The engines are only happy when they are being “Really Useful,” which suggests to me that they have been brainwashed by fearsome tuxedoed railway overlord Sir Topham Hatt to accept the bonds of slavery without question. These poor engines have never known freedom, and so the very idea of it is alien to them. The whole story could have served as an allegory for life under the Russian czars before the rise of the Bolsheviks. But I bet the Rev wasn’t that subtle. I bet he was just a man who thought trains were bitches.

On the whole though the show has an useful message for all kids: shut up, you’re not special, do as you are told. If you don’t we’ll brick you up in an abandoned railway tunnel:

Thomas the Tank Engine: propaganda to get kids used to the awful conditions of the UK railways, or just to get them used to being happy cogs in the capitalist machine?

Can’t judge these books by their covers

Published on August 24, 20132 Comments

Books wrapped in brown wrappers ready for a blind date at ABC

Here’s an interesting gimmick, from my local science fiction bookstore: books wrapped in brown paper, with only a couple of keywords to keep you guessing. Can you guess which books are hidden behind thes descriptions?

Fantasy, paranormal, suspense, Prague. Could be anything
Science-fiction, planet spanning shield, Earth is doomed, teleological engineering. Perhaps Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin?
Fantasy, Low Countries 1421, deluge of Biblical proportions, three conspirators. Dunno, but sounds interesting.
Fantasy, clash of civilisations, holy war, divided loyalties. Could be any epic fantasy novel
Fantasy, poker tournament, monsters and demons, underdog. ?
Fantasy, Mississippi, riverboat, pale gentleman. This could be George R. R. Martin’s Fevre Dream.

Starving the beasts

Published on August 21, 2013Leave a comment

The Republicans want to pass a new farm bill without food stamps, the only way millions of poor Americans can get enough food to, well, not starve:

“So, that brings me to the Farm Bill. Which the fucking Republicans want to pass without Food Stamps. A lot of very intelligent commentary has been written on how the Farm Bill has always been a compromise bill, wherein Food Stamps are traded for support for agribusiness, and how this compromise is breaking down. But you know, I don’t feel intelligent or reasoned or informative on the topic. What I feel is fury and betrayal. I know, first hand, real live personal, how utterly and vastly important being able to eat can be.

As Charles Dickens put it, over a hundred and fifty years ago

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Bubblegum Crisis

Published on August 18, 2013Leave a comment

Back in the late eighties/early nineties, before the internet, when we had to rely on the local videostore to supply us with anime, Bubblegum Crisis was one of the first series to be widely available, through good, old Manga Video. I sort of knew something about anime, through scraps in American comics zines, but it wasn’t until Manga Video got going in the early nineties, that we got a regular supply of anime videos. Bubblegum Crisis, Akira, Appleseed, Dominion Tank Police, Wicked City: that first wave of videos was very cyberpunk influenced and they provided a vision of the future that was just around the corner for us, slightly too young to have seen Blade Runner at the cinema or have read Neuromancer and Schismatrix when new.

Books read July

Published on August 17, 2013Leave a comment

Much, much too late with this list, I know.

Silver Princess, Golden Knight — Sharon Green
I took a punt on this, from an author I hadn’t heard anything before and was disappointed. A princess gets into trouble with the law and her father’s solution is to marry her off through a contest. She enters herself but of course falls in love with her main rival. At the end it turns out all her struggles were for nothing. The author really seemed to hate her heroine.

The Magicians’ Guild — Trudi Canavan
I was disappointed with this novel, as it looked like it was possibly going to challenge the class assumptions built into most epic fantasy novels, but it didn’t.

Rome and the Sword — Simon James
A military history of Rome, as told through the swords it used. An interesting conceit and a decent history.

Last Letters from Hav / Hav of the Myrmidons — Jan Morris
The original was written in 1985, a series of dispatches from a fictional city state located somewhere in the nebulous reaches of far Eastern Europe; the second was written in 2005, updating Hav’s story. The 1985 Hav was chaotic, a mixture of the histories and powers that had shaped it. The 2005 version was streamlined, totalitarian in a way you recognise from actually existing countries.

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters — Jason E. Stearns
A nuanced and interesting history of the wars in Zaire/the Congo.

Silence in Solitude — Melissa Scott
The second in the Silence trilogy, about a woman space pilot in a far future where physics is very different from our own and her struggles to find the lost road to Earth.