[lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wokshevs@xxxxxx>, "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:14:23 -0700
I can see this is a regional thing. The world is composed of two regions,
Southern California and the rest of the world. Out here where we invented
all those shows you list, we consider "old" anything that isn't current.
And don't bother invoking New York shows. They can't make chili either.
Notice the old show I was referring to:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/series/Total-Recall-2070 It ran from Jan 7, 1999 to
June 8, 1999: definitely old. Think of the computer you had back in 1999
and you'll have some idea of how we in Southern California count time.
The shows you list are older than Total Recall 2070, but they are all old -
at least here where we create all this stuff.
Did you notice that someone set fire to some of our movie sets? King Kong
no longer has a home. Sad things happen from time to time, but we plan to
rebuild. We can sometimes see the sun shining through our smog, and we are
quite sure that you all envy us that.
As to my actual age, we age differently from the rest of the world, so it
wouldn't help you to know.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: wokshevs@xxxxxx [mailto:wokshevs@xxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 11:16 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Lawrence Helm
Cc: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
"Old TV series"?? Lawrence betrays his youth here. (I'd say 24, maybe 30,
tops.)
For this middle-aged fellow, the connotations of that expression denote the
likes of:
The Jack Benny Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
Bonanza
Danger Man
Have Gun Will Travel
The Andy Griffith Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
I Love Lucy
The Prisoner
The Tonight Show (w. J. Carson)
Perry Mason
The Naked City
Father Knows Best
Leave It To Beaver
There's more, but this is beginning to be embarrassing.
Memphis over Detroit tonight: 4-2.
Walter O.
Quoting Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Dear Mike and Irene,
>
> I recently discovered http://www.entertainment.msn.com/video/ It
contains
> many of the episodes of old TV series. I just finished watching the
> episodes of Total Recall, 2070. As I watched I thought of Irene more than
> once. The series assumes that gasoline powered vehicles are a thing of
the
> past; although the matter isn't discussed or philosophized about.
Rickshaws
> have come back into their own and bicycles proliferate. The impression I
> often got was of Bladerunner - that sort of look. One of the episodes
had
> to do with a family that wanted to keep it's "genetically flawed" child.
> Society has become logical and prudent. It isn't prudent to allow
children
> to develop who will turn into criminals. That is not the point of this
> episode, merely an assumption. It turned out that the "flawed" gene had
to
> do with leadership. The child would be a born leader and competing
corrupt
> businesses wanted to get that gene. The main characters are detectives
who
> solve crimes.
>
> The Bladerunner/Total Recall look is common in many of the SF movies and
> series I've watched. It is pessimistic to say the least. If there is a
> "pathology" involved it isn't a personal one, in my opinion, but a
societal
> pathology. We are "too many" as we read in Jude the Obscure so we seek to
> pull the plug, or rather we think we ought to and just go on living and
> feeling guilty about it.
>
> I've often puzzled about the "genre" term "Science Fiction/Fantasy." I've
> never read a formal description of it, but it seems to me that it is
Science
> Fiction if it is pessimistic like the movies and series I've mentioned.
If
> it is optimistic then it is fantasy, the implication being that pessimism
is
> reality and optimism is wishful thinking.
>
> Early in my life I was influenced by William James Varieties of Religious
> Experience. In it he concludes that there are two sorts of religious
people
> whom he terms "sick souls," and "healthy souls." The sick souls dwell
upon
> their sins and feel God's ultimate punishment will be well deserved. They
> are regularly in prayer asking God to forgive them, but they never expect
> him to and wouldn't respect him if he did. The healthy souls are very
> different. Yeah they've sinned too, but so what, everybody does, God said
> forgiveness was available and they readily accept it and move on.
>
> I think James' designations can be applied to society as well. Yes, the
> pessimists, whether pathological or not, seem to have the upper hand.
They
> seem to have a cornered "reality" at the present time, but we optimists
will
> never see things their way. Think of the very pessimistic 1984. Hey,
> George, you were wrong. Your society hasn't come into existence - neither
> has Fahrenheit 451. I don't really want to hear any quibbles about this.
> Yes, there is more capability for observance possible, but a 1984 can't
> exist in a democracy, at least not in any democracy we know at the present
> time. The slightest little intrusion and you will hear the offended
> screaming 1984, but 1984 never came to pass, nor book burning, etc., etc.
>
> I'm not expecting a return of the rickshaw either. I am optimistic about
> these things. Just think of the computer. Do you remember what sort of
> computer you owned ten years ago? Now look at it. Do you really think we
> won't be able to do the same thing with transportation? Well, of course
you
> do. Sorry.
>
> Irene, you'll probably love Total Recall 2070 if you haven't already seen
> it. The only vaguely optimistic element in it that I can recall is the
> colonization of Mars, but that is bad and ugly just as it was in the
> Swarzenegger movie.
>
> Irene may be the "sickest soul" (in the William James sense of the term)
> that we have on Lit-Ideas, but do we even have any "healthy souls." I am
> more optimistic than Irene, but so is everyone. If we scaled "sick" at
the
> left end and called that "1"; and "healthy" at the right end and called
that
> "100," I might give myself a 60. William James was a psychologist so he
> uses the terms "sick" and "healthy," but if I recall correctly, we are not
> sick or healthy as a matter of choice. It is something we have grown up
to
> be. In the Total Recall 2070 sense, perhaps we have been allotted a
"sick"
> or "healthy" gene, or perhaps our attitude is a result of our experiences.
>
> If Irene continues into the New Testament as she reads the KJV she will
come
> across Jesus telling his followers something like, "In this world, ye
shall
> have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."
It
> is a belief that moves some of us out of a pathological sickness and into
a
> sort of health, albeit one most of us don't hang onto or practice with any
> consistency.
>
> Lawrence Helm
> San Jacinto
>
>
> From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Mike Geary
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 9:12 AM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
>
> Dear Irene,
>
> Pay no attention to the stalking tigers. Let me be your shining city on
the
> hill, emulate me. Many, many times on old Phil-Lit I was accosted by
> various and sundry souls who hated my guts. "Shit-head", they would
scream
> and "Snot-nosed know-nothing". I would react with fury and immediately
sign
> off the list. But every time I'd say to myself, "So you're going to let
> them win? That's just what they want you to do." After ten or fifteen
> times of signing off then humiliating myself by signing back on, I finally
> resigned myself to the reality that some people just don't like me. OK.
> Accepted. They're not my problem, I'm their problem. There's no one on
> this list that I wish weren't here. There are many that I wish would
> contribute more often. There are some that I disagree with
philosophically,
> politically, aesthetically, but I actually enjoy reading their posts the
> most. Some posts can irritate me, so do many of mine irritate others I
> know. Perhaps they're the ones we need to read most carefully.
>
> I hope your last post wasn't a Lister's suicide note. You have many,
many,
> many more people to piss off. Who will speak for the bad-childhood reared
> souls if you leave, who will speak for the doomed earth, who will speak
for
> the vegans and vegetarians and the trees. Who will excoriate humankind
for
> its stupidity? Stay, Irene. Pay no attention to Phil Enns. He is lost
in
> the jungles of Borneo. He's forgotten what it's like in sit at table with
> fine wine and knives and forks and discuss topics with people he dislikes.
> He's all loin-cloth now and dancing around a fire, calling on the gods to
> send some mercy his way. Just give him room and he'll just have to make
> room for you.
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andy <mailto:mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: lit-ideas <mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 9:47 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
>
> I've been thinking about this post below, and have decided that I need to
> take some time off from posting on this list. I'd like to thank you all
for
> listening to my no doubt misdirected rants and I'd like to wish you all a
> nice summer. I just thought I'd mention that the Seekers took their
melody
> for the Carnival is Over from the song Stenka Rasin. I've pasted the only
> link Youtube seems to have. The fact that it's from their farewell
concert
> is sheer coincidence. The words from S.R. superimpose perfectly but
> needless to say the Carnival is Over is not S.R. I listened today to,
talk
> about a rant, Marshall Goldman carrying on about Petrostate Russia. The
> U.S. does exactly the same things they do (our Veep is straight out of
> industry, etc. etc.), but that's different. It's so sad that he spends
his
> life studying something that he can't find one good thing to say about.
Why
> not find another country to study? Anyway, no Persian princesses being
> thrown overboard here (BTW, Iranian beluga caviar is golden today because
> beluga sturgeons rescued the princess and brought her home):
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nze8B39OB0k
>
> Here is a musical tango version of S.R., put your dancing shoes on; the
> writing on the record is Polish from what I can tell:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN-tNwcJosg&NR=1
>
> Then pour a nice drink and try a jazzy, pretty version of Dark Eyes (Ochi
> Chernye):
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itbJkf74z24
>
> And with that, have a nice summer all.
>
>
>
>
> --- On Sun, 6/1/08, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sunday, June 1, 2008, 2:21 AM
> Robert Paul wrote, in response to someone's little rant:
>
> "Noted."
>
> Someone is doing their 'Andy' routine again. I think of it as
> watching a psychodrama. Sometimes farce, sometimes tragic, always
> pathological.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
> Yogyakarta, Indonesia
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG.
> Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 269.24.4/1477 - Release Date: 6/1/2008
> 5:28 PM
>
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 269.24.4/1478 - Release Date: 6/2/2008
7:12 AM
Other related posts:
