Monday, March 2, 2026
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Dark City . . .
“Dark City is an action movie — and like all good sci-fi movies,
it has aliens in it, too. The aliens have the problem that they
do not possess individual identities or souls, and for that reason,
their race is on the brink of extinction. To prevent this from
happening they perform experiments on the inhabitants of the
city to learn the secret of individuality and to eventually acquire it.
The key ingredient is memory.”
— Chapter 13 of SHELL BEACH: The search for the final theory,
by Jesper Møller Grimstrup, published on January 10, 2021.
“She did not ask herself if the Shorter Way was really there,
did not wonder if she was easing into a delusion.
The issue was settled. Here it was.”
— Joe Hill, NOS4A2 (p. 680). William Morrow, April 30, 2013.
A different “shorter way” —
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Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Escape from Dark City
The title refers to the 1998 film "Dark City," whose protagonist
seeks an escape to "Shell Beach."
Another postcard, in memory of album cover art director
John Berg, who reportedly died at 83 on Sunday —
Click album cover for a background story.
See also the Log24 post "Hits" (January 5, 2014).
"Well, she was blinded by the light…"
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Monday, April 12, 2010
Mathematics and Narrative, continued
Saturday's post quoted a mathematical narrative with the following opening sentence–
"Let G be a finite, primitive subgroup of
If that narrative were a novel, its opening might win a Bulwer-Lytton prize.
As might the opening of another nonfiction narrative—
"What are we are doing?"
A partial answer to this profound metaphysical question
for fans of the classic film "Dark City"
(which was written in part by one "Lem Dobbs")–
Part I — Fiction —
Wednesday August 4, 2004Shell Beach “It was a dark and stormy night….” – Opening of A Wrinkle in Time, a classic novel by Madeleine L’Engle. For those who seek religious significance in the name of Hurricane Alex: “Alex Proyas directs this futuristic thriller about a man waking up to find he is wanted for brutal murders he doesn’t remember. Haunted by mysterious beings who stop time and alter reality, he seeks to unravel the riddle of his identity.” – Description of the 1998 film Dark City
[See also June 14, 2005.] |
Part II — Nonfiction —
Part III — Fiction —
"The bench on which Dobbs was sitting
was not so good."
— B. Traven, opening sentence
of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
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Thursday, January 5, 2006
Thursday January 5, 2006
Dark City
I stood in the cold on the porch
And could not think of anything so perfect
As man’s hope of light in the face of darkness.
— Richard Eberhart,
“The Eclipse”
Monday, December 12, 2005
Monday December 12, 2005
For Jennifer Connelly
on Her Birthday:
on Her Birthday:
Collector’s Edition
And the price is right!
Related material:
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Saturday June 25, 2005
Merry AntiChristmas!
Religious Symbolism
at Midnight:
Related material:
Star Wars 6/13/05,
Dark City 6/14/05,
and De Arco, as well
as the following from
July 26, 2003:
|
Bright Star and Dark Lady "Mexico is a solar country — but it is also a black country, a dark country. This duality of Mexico has preoccupied me since I was a child."
— Octavio Paz, |
||
|
Bright Star
|
Amen.
|
Dark Lady
|
Comments Off on Saturday June 25, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Thursday June 16, 2005
Final Arrangements, continued:
"Joe Strauss to
Joe Six-Pack"
(Editor's sneering headline
for a David Brooks essay
in today's New York Times)
and Back Again
"I was emptying some boxes in my basement the other day and I came across an essay somebody had clipped on Ernest Hemingway from the July 14, 1961, issue of Time magazine. The essay was outstanding. Over three pages of tightly packed prose, with just a few photos, the anonymous author performed the sort of high-toned but accessible literary analysis that would be much harder to find in a mass market magazine today….
The sad thing is that this type of essay was not unusual in that era….
The magazines would devote pages to the work of theologians like Abraham Joshua Heschel* or Reinhold Niebuhr. They devoted as much space to opera as to movies because an educated person was expected to know something about opera, even if that person had no prospect of actually seeing one….
Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's, middlebrow culture, which is really high-toned popular culture, was thriving in America. There was still a sense that culture is good for your character, and that a respectable person should spend time absorbing the best that has been thought and said."
— David Brooks,
The New York Times,
June 16, 2005
The Time essay begins by quoting Hemingway himself:
"All stories,
if continued far enough,
end in death,
and he is no true storyteller
who would keep that from you."
Here is the top section of today's
New York Times obituaries.
New York Times obituaries.
Here is the
middlebrow part —
— and here is a link that returns,
as promised in this entry's headline,
to "Joe Strauss" —
complete with polkas.
* "Judaism is a religion of time, not space."
— Wikipedia on Heschel.
See the recent Log24 entries
Star Wars continued,
Dark City, and
Cross-Referenced, and last year's
Bloomsday at 100.
Comments Off on Thursday June 16, 2005
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Wednesday June 15, 2005
Cross-Referenced
From today’s New York Times,
a review of a Werner Herzog film,
“Wheel of Time,” that opens
today in Manhattan:
From the June 13-14
midnight Log24 entry:
midnight Log24 entry:
“With a little effort, anything can be
shown to connect with anything else:
existence is infinitely cross-referenced.”
— Opening sentence of
Martha Cooley’s The Archivist
These images suggest
a Google search on the phrase
“crucified on the wheel of time,”
which yields the following.
 DARK CITY (1998)Crucified on the Wheel Of Time. A visual feast. |
From Dark City: A Hollywood Jesus Movie Review —
“There is something mesmerizing about this important film. It flows in the same vein as The Truman Show, The Game, and Pleasantville. Something isn’t real with the world around John Murdoch. Some group is trying to control things and it isn’t God.”
Amen.
Related material:
Skewed Mirrors and
The Graces of Paranoia
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Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Tuesday June 14, 2005
ART WARS:
Dark City
Jennifer Connelly at
premiere of “Cinderella Man” —
In memory of Martin Buber,
author of Good and Evil,
who died on June 13, 1965:
“With a little effort, anything can be
shown to connect with anything else:
existence is infinitely cross-referenced.”
— Opening sentence of
Martha Cooley’s The Archivist
|
Woe unto Isaiah 5:20
|
As she spoke |
The world
|
Jennifer Connelly in “Dark City”
(from journal note of June 19, 2002) —
And, one might add for Flag Day,
“you sons of bitches.”
Comments Off on Tuesday June 14, 2005
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Wednesday August 4, 2004
Shell Beach
“It was a dark and stormy night….”
— Opening of A Wrinkle in Time, a classic novel by Madeleine L’Engle.
For those who seek religious significance in the name of Hurricane Alex:
“Alex Proyas directs this futuristic thriller about a man waking up to find he is wanted for brutal murders he doesn’t remember. Haunted by mysterious beings who stop time and alter reality, he seeks to unravel the riddle of his identity.”
— Description of the 1998 film Dark City
See also ART WARS of June 19, 2002.