STOP!
MASSIVE SPOILERS LIE AHEAD!
I MEAN…
YUGE!
AND THAT’S NO JOKE!
Finally saw Joker
I’ll keep this short:
- It’s a masterpiece.
- All the controversy surrounding its release – incel triggering and/or otherwise – is laughable.
- My faith in Hollywood’s ability to create magic has been restored.
- I wish I could have attended its Cannes premier so I could have participated in the 8-minute standing ovation it received at the conclusion of its showing.
- If, at a minimum, it, Todd Phillips, and Joaquin Phoenix don’t win all major awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor respectively, then the awards are completely irrelevant.
#convincemeimwrong
THE GOOD KILL – A Review by Gina Rae Mitchell
I would like to sincerely thank Ms. Gina Rae Mitchell for taking the time to read The Good Kill and write such a fantastic review for it.
I could tell when first visiting Gina’s website packed full of book reviews, author interviews, and all kinds of other interesting information from gardening tips to tasty recipes that hers was a platform I would love to get my book profiled on. So, as you can imagine, I was very grateful when she responded in the affirmative to my review request.
And grateful I am indeed for throughout the entire time it took from my initial request to Gina posting the review today, it has been nothing but a pleasure to work and correspond with her.
Right from the beginning I signed up for her newsletter and I’m glad I did because it offers way more than just links to her latest book reviews. Had I not been on her list I would have never known to add apple cider vinegar to my bone broth to better soften the bones so my dogs/boys can better enjoy them without me having to worry about them choking on a shard!
There’s so much cool stuff on her site that you’re sure to be amazed when you head over there to read her review of my book.
So be on your way now to Gina’s site… and don’t forget to sign up for her newsletter!
Thanks, Gina!
Had to stream my way to France to finally get me some decent Neo Noir
And by decent I mean kickass…
And dark.
Really dark.
But that’s what one should expect with a Claire Denis production, non?
Oui.
THE TELEPORTER by Lee Hall – A Review
BOOK | FICTION | HUMOR
THE TELEPORTER
LEE HALL
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★
What if there was a power like no other? What if one drunken slouch happened to stumble where nobody has stumbled before and discovered the ability to teleport!
Publisher’s Book Description
Just when you thought there were enough super hero stories in this world, we made another one…
Kurt Wiseman is your average mid-twenties slouch with a serial thirst for alcohol, that is until destiny calls upon him to stumble where no man has clumsily stumbled before. By day he works for a familiar sounding, power hungry, media controlling, mega rich American businessman who represents everything wrong with society today. Whilst investigating this politically loaded story arc Kurt accidentally acquires a super power like no other. The ability to teleport!
Before he can think about saving the day, Wiseman must endure a journey of self-reflection by earning the trust of his friends and overcoming his greatest weakness, booze. Even if the path is filled with comic book cliché, inappropriate one liners and genre busting fourth wall action.
Not all heroes in this world are the same and with great power comes the possibility to go viral! This is a story that will unite humanity…
Kurt Wiseman is the Teleporter!
This is a fun, breezy read of a book that delivers on exactly what the author set out for it to do, and that is, essentially, to have it be a fun, breezy read of a book.
How do I know this? Because we’re told as much in an author’s note at the end of the book.
“I set out to create this story with one goal in mind, which was above all, to make people laugh…” – Lee Hall
Mission accomplished, Mr. Hall.
And not only does our besodden superhero Kurt Wiseman (cool name) humor us with his meh Millennial mentality, he does so while locked in a life-or-death battle with the (stereo)typically corrupt corporate (never noticed how similar the words corrupt and corporate are in appearance until now) tech executive and his conglomerate of clownish henchmen, all while reminding us along the way of the dangers and unintended consequences of technology run amok, among other timely and topically important issues of the day.
Now, would I liked to have found the story with more fully developed characters and settings? Sure. But we must remember our tale is narrated by our slacker superhero so the sparsity in development can be considered almost apropos, as it leaves me feeling as I did as a parent when dealing with my own similarly-aged Millennial offspring who are equally adept at providing just enough information needed to keep them out of any serious trouble.
Bottom line: this is an all-around enjoyable book. Simple as that. So…
Read it.
Laugh with it.
Eddie Money’s Music will Forever be 💲💲💲, yo
My very first concert, the July 19, 1980, World Series of Rock at the Cleveland Stadium, also happened to be the very best and most memorable concert I’ve ever attended.
That day was one massive mess of merriment and music…
Bereitschaftspotential Shmereitschaftspotential
As a wanna be Existential Absurdist who’s all in with team Existence Before Essence, my initial reaction to most universal-type questions, whether they be a priori, a posteriori, or somewhere in between is usually…
Meh.
I mean, such blathering existential debates to me are complete and absolute exercises in futility…
In other words, it’s absurd to think we can ever determine absolute answers to such squishy questions as what does it mean to be or are we living in the matrix of some alien simulation or what have you.
To me it’s the mystery of the how and why we exist that makes life… and death… so interesting, and which is why I couldn’t care less about such questions.
Usually.
The Atlantic posted an interesting article recently about how scientists have been in a decades-long effort to determine whether free will is a thing or not by monitoring our brain waves to pin down exactly when a decision is made. It appears, since discovered during research back in the Sixties, that there is some level of brain activity happening right before a decision is made, and which is referred to in a very nice yet severe German term of bereitschaftspotential, or in English, the readiness potential, and which to some was translated to prove that there is no free will.
But since we know most scientific studies are wrong, that old study from the Sixties has been disproved and the “free will” debate rages on; hence the purpose of the heretofore referenced Atlantic article, and hence the triggering of this here post by yours truly.
Whatever.
Who cares whether or not free will can or cannot be proven, right?
When it comes to waking up every morning and your most important decision is whether or not to put on a clean pair of underwear before you head out for another day of mind-numbing labor in order to fuel your mind-numbing existence, who cares whether you do so because you choose to or because some greater force has chosen for you to do so…
Either way you’re gonna have to drag your hopefully cleanly underweared bottom out of bed and head on out to work or whatever it is you do during the day to fill and fuel your existence so it just doesn’t matter…
Right?
Well, maybe it doesn’t necessarily matter whether free will exists or not, but according to this Atlantic article, it does matter whether or not you believe it does exist.
According to the article, those who do believe in free will are better, more productive workers.
Makes sense, right?
Right?
I mean, if you believe that only you are responsible for your actions, then the actions that you choose to take and make should have more meaning to you than ones would if you believe you’re doing nothing more than behaving like a puppet on a string.
And it isn’t just the workplace that is impacted. People who believe that free will is an illusion are less creative, more prone to conform, less grateful…
It appears, at least according to this article, that if we as a society were suddenly to collectively believe that life is pre-determined, then we are pretty much doomed.
Now, since we already know most studies are wrong, there’s a good chance the studies this second article is based upon are also wrong, which would mean then that maybe our entire social structure doesn’t dependent upon whether or not we believe we’re living in the matrix…
But my gut says it does.
And it’s going to be harder for me now to ignore those glitches in the alien matrix computer simulation machine…
And to be the steadfast and self-assured Absurdist that I once used to be.
Or at least the Absurdist that the alien matrix computer simulation machine once led me to believe that I used to be…
#believeinfreewillforgodssake
Featured image courtesy of the SCIENCEMAG.ORG article “Philosophers and neuroscientists join forces to see whether science can solve the mystery of free will”