"Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate."
-- Orson Welles
Links:
- Rick Santorum says liberals make it uncomfortable to shower at the YMCA.
- Johnny Rotten reviews Katy Perry
- Cenk Uygar interviews Reza Aslan
- Science Fiction University: Table of contents to Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories
5 comments:
Good morning, Mr. Glass.
Just finished the podcast, and thought I'd note that the Serling-portion ("mustn't offend anyone who might buy our products") at the end was particularly interesting.
Enjoy your weekend.
---Kevin Holsinger
Mr. Glass,
I'm a dedicated listener of The Professional Left. Please keep up the good work.
I'd like to hear your (both you and your better half) thoughts on the economic capture of the American people. We are all struggling so much just to live day to day that working for real change becomes very difficult, and this is not a byproduct; this is the means by which we are kept controlled. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.)
If we had better paying jobs (or a job period), if we had Medicare for All, if we had more economic freedom, we would be much more able to be proactive about changing our government and those people in it. Occasionally, I hear you and Blue Gal hit on this topic, please hit it harder. The funny thing is that both the left and right agree that Wall St is completely out of control and a cess pit of corruption and fraud. We cannot make progress until Wall St is defanged.
As it is, I count our blessings everyday that I watch the Republican party auger deeper into the shit pile. we couldn't ask for a better ally in our work for reform. We could ask for a better example of a political party completely beholden to it's bankster masters.
Not that I think the Democratic party is all that much better, it has become 100 shades of grey (whereas the Republican party has fallen thru the glory hole in the out house and is now happily wallowing in it's own shit.) I know both side don't do it, but let's please keep banging on the Democratic party because that and grass roots work is all that can bring about change.
I've read back through this rant and I realize I'm a crappy writer, I do need an editor (feel free to pitch in), but I've managed to end up with a last paragraph steep with crappy erotic innuendo so it isn't all bad.
Yours,
Glen
I remember getting the hardback version of the book "The Twilight Zone" as a child, probably not long after it's first release.
The short story version's of these episodes I had already seen on television were amazing. Serling was above all, a first rate writer..my favorite next to Bradbury at the time.
Later, I came to see him as one of the many geniuses to emerge from what I thought of as "The Men in the Grey Flannel Suits" era.
All these guys, returning from WWII, trying to make sense of American society as the economy exploded in the 50's and 60's.
They had first hand knowledge of how things had gone so terribly bad in Europe. How economic forces had driven societies insane, how dictators had exploited "other" fear to propel themselves to power ect...and found themselves in the middle of the Mccarthy era, watching America apparently trying really hard to repeat the same mistakes.
They were also in a sense trying not repeat the mistakes of their own WWI era fathers. Allowing institutional societal racism to go unchallenged. (As in "Gentlemen's Agreement" and other great stories of the day.) Racism was a theme Serling attacked so repeatedly in his writing, it was almost his overarching narrative.
...But many of his main characters were reflecting realizations he was coming to as a man of his age.
There was one episode of TLZ, where the character played by Gig Young I believe, is so overwhelmed by modernity, he transports himself back to his own idyllic childhood and tries and warn his younger self of what a meaningless existence he is about to encounter.
Of course you are correct in your assessment of the great pains he endured to try and tell relevant meaningful stories in the T.V. world he hated.
I really loved the first few seasons of Night Gallery for instance. Before the network ruined it and Serling by trying to turn it into a juvenile paranormal soap opera.
Serling is getting much darker at that point, and you can tell he is starting to lose his faith in the overall morality of man in general.
Unlike the Twilight Zones, there are few redemptions in Night Gallery. Greed, avarice and pettiness are all on display in each story. With Karmic comeuppance dispensed liberally in the endings.
Serling was able, maybe better than any other 20 century author, to use scifi and horror in a sense as a societal mirror and in doing so expose the true horrors, and the real enemies we faced... and it usually turned out to be ourselves.
You comments about Greenwald on your podcast were very concise and to the point. Does Bluegal ever go over your written posts? Just asking.
Greenwald, in my humble opinion is trying to cover the ground of journalist, editorial writer and lawyer. I am not sure what is going on at the Guardian, but I think they should try to get him to pick one of the three and start following the rules of craft.
Fritz,
Thanks.
No, BG never reviews my copy, although she sometimes alerts me to typos and such.
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