Data:
Meta:
Update at 5:18 AM Saturday, Sept. 24 —
See also "Brainstorm" in this journal.
Friday, September 23, 2022
Saturday, August 14, 2021
North of Big Snake
The title refers to a Log24 post of Feb. 8, 2021.
Detail from an image in that post:
By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us." — Arthur Koestler
Related Hollywood remark:
"You've blown communication
…as we've known it… right out of
the water. You know that, don't you?"
— Cliff Robertson in Brainstorm (1983)
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Sunday, July 11, 2021
Night at the Museum: After Yang
See Wang Wei: Journey to the Source of the Peach Blossom River .
Related Hollywood remark:
"You've blown communication
…as we've known it… right out of
the water. You know that, don't you?"
— Cliff Robertson in Brainstorm (1983)
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
Westworld
On a new HBO series that opens at 9 PM ET tonight —
|
Watching Westworld , you can sense a grand mythology unfolding before your eyes. The show’s biggest strength is its world-building, an aspect of screenwriting that many television series have botched before. Often shows will rush viewers into plot, forgetting to instill a sense of place and of history, that you’re watching something that doesn’t just exist in a vacuum but rather is part of some larger ecosystem. Not since Lost can I remember a TV show so committed to immersing its audience into the physical space it inhabits. (Indeed, Westworld can also be viewed as a meta commentary on the art of screenwriting itself: brainstorming narratives, building characters, all for the amusement of other people.) Westworld is especially impressive because it builds two worlds at once: the Western theme park and the futuristic workplace. The Western half of Westworld might be the more purely entertaining of the two, with its shootouts and heists and chases through sublime desert vistas. Behind the scenes, the theme park’s workers show how the robot sausage is made. And as a dystopian office drama, the show does something truly original. — Adam Epstein at QUARTZ, October 1, 2016 |
"… committed to immersing its audience
into the physical space it inhabits…."
See also, in this journal, the Mimsy Cube —
|
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves," "… he lifted a square, transparent crystal block, small enough to cup in his palm– much too small to contain the maze of apparatus within it. In a moment Scott had solved that problem. The crystal was a sort of magnifying glass, vastly enlarging the things inside the block. Strange things they were, too. Miniature people, for example– They moved. Like clockwork automatons, though much more smoothly. It was rather like watching a play."
|
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Friday, August 19, 2016
Operation Outbrain
The above clickbait was "Recommended by Outbrain." The photo
shown does not appear on the site linked to. Background on the photo —
See also Brainstorm in this journal.
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Thursday, July 21, 2016
Memorial
Part I
From this journal in September 2012 —
Part II
See "The Shining (Norwegian Version)" from December 2011.
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Saturday, July 20, 2013
Vril Chick
A Brainstorm for Jo Lyxe :
Swastika logo of the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind
at the University of California, San Diego.
Soundtrack: Under the Iron Sky .
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Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Place of the Lion
For C. S. Lewis, who was born on this date in 1898,
and Natalie Wood, who died on this date in 1981
"He was accustomed to receiving manuscripts from strangers…."
— C. P. Snow on mathematician G. H. Hardy
"Whoever you are— I have always depended on
the kindness of strangers." — A Streetcar Named Desire
From this journal on September 24, 2012—
|
"A single self-transcendence" — Aldous Huxley From an anonymous author at the website Kill Devil Hill— "This little story… has that climactic moment of Kill Devil Hills also appears in a 1983 film—
"Suppose it were possible to transfer — Trailer for "Brainstorm" (1983), |
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Monday, September 24, 2012
Nice Job, Jimmy
"… and now thanks to Philo T. Farnsworth,
we have 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.'"
— Jimmy Kimmel at last night's Emmy Awards
Related material—
Aldous Huxley in last evening's Log24 post—
"Embraced, the lovers desperately try
to fuse their insulated ecstasies into
a single self-transcendence…."
From an anonymous author at the website Kill Devil Hill—
"This little story… has that climactic moment of
heightened awareness…. This is a moment where
two individuals become one, empowering them
to transcend the limitations of their own individual
frailty and society. It's an epiphany, an almost
divine spark. It is an experience when one plus one
don't equal two, but something far greater."
Kill Devil Hills also appears in a 1983 film—
"Suppose it were possible to transfer
from one mind to another
the experience of another person."
— Trailer for "Brainstorm" (1983),
the last film of Natalie Wood
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Saturday, September 22, 2012
Hook
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Monday, December 5, 2011
The Shining (Norwegian Version)
A check tonight of Norwegian artist Josefine Lyche's recent activities
shows she has added a video to her web page that has for some time
contained a wall piece based on the 2×2 case of the diamond theorem —
The video (top left in screenshot above) is a tasteless New-Age discourse
that sounds frighteningly like the teachings of the late Heaven's Gate cult.
Investigating the source of the video on vimeo.com, I found the account of one "Jo Lyxe,"
who joined vimeo in September 2011. This is apparently a variant of Josefine Lyche's name.
The account has three videos—
- "High on RAM (OverLoad)"– Fluid running through a computer's innards
- "Death 2 Everyone"– A mystic vision of the afterlife
- "Realization of the Ultimate Reality (Beyond Form)"– The Blue Star video above
Lyche has elsewhere discussed her New-Age interests, so the contents of the videos
were not too surprising… except for one thing. Vimeo.com states that all three videos
were uploaded "2 months ago"— apparently when "Lyxe" first set up an account.*
I do not know, or particularly care, where she got the Blue Star video, but the other
videos interested me considerably when I found them tonight… since they are
drawn from films I discussed in this journal much more recently than "2 months ago."
"High on RAM (OverLoad)" is taken from the 1984 film "Electric Dreams" that I came across
and discussed here yesterday afternoon, well before re-encountering it again tonight.
And "Death 2 Everyone" (whose title** is perhaps a philosophical statement about inevitable mortality
rather than a mad terrorist curse) is taken from the 1983 Natalie Wood film "Brainstorm."
"Brainstorm" was also discussed here recently… on November 18th, in a post suggested by the
reopening of the investigation into Wood's death.
I had no inkling that these "Jo Lyxe" videos existed until tonight.
The overlapping content of Lyche's mental ramblings and my own seems rather surprising.
Perhaps it is a Norwegian mind-meld, perhaps just a coincidence of interests.
* Update: Google searches by the titles on Dec. 5 show that all three "Lyxe" videos
were uploaded on September 20 and 21, 2011.
** Update: A search shows a track with this title on a Glasgow band's 1994 album.
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Friday, November 18, 2011
Plot Summary
IMDb Plot Summary for
Brainstorm (1983)
Brilliant researchers Lillian Reynolds and Michael Brace have developed a system of recording and playing back actual experiences of people. Once the capability of tapping into "higher brain functions" is added in, and you can literally jump into someone else's head and play back recordings of what he or she was thinking, feeling, seeing, etc., at the time of the recording, the applications for the project quickly spiral out of control. While Michael Brace uses the system to become close again to Karen Brace, his estranged wife who also works on the project, others start abusing it for intense sexual experiences and other logical but morally questionable purposes. The government tries to kick Michael and Lillian off the project once the vast military potential of the technology is discovered. It soon becomes obvious that the government is interested in more than just missile guidance systems. The lab starts producing mind torture recordings and other psychosis inducing material. When one of the researchers dies and tapes the experience of death, Michael is convinced that he must playback this tape to honor the memory of the researcher and to become enlightened. When another researcher dies during playback the tape is locked away and Michael has to fight against his former colleagues and the government lackeys that now run his lab in order to play back and confront the "scariest thing any of us will ever face"— death itself. Written by Eric van Bezooijen.
See also researcher John Gregory Dunne and "Lucero Puro" in this journal.
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