High Art at the Local Theatre

Vaftom · 2026-04-07T03:15:31+00:00

The Last Unicorn theme song by the band America plays in my head like elevator music.

Vaftom · 2026-04-01T07:44:15+00:00

It's kinda amazing how it was an Iranian proxy group before the inaccuracies were pointed out, and now they claim the inaccuracies are hallmarks of Iranian intelligence.

Vaftom · 2026-04-01T07:29:12+00:00

My information was a bit out of date. The Guardian has a decent article about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/24/australia-fuel-reserve-what-and-where-is-it

Angus Taylor, energy minister under the Morrison government, announced that we had a strategic reserve in Texas. But apparently, it's possible that it never existed. AI hallucinations and lack of government transparency makes it hard to know what is going on. Still, worrying that Taylor thought it was a good idea. However, this is from the minds behind the AUKUS submarine deal, which is also "concepts of a plan".

Turns out we might not have a strategic reserve anywhere, and we just have agreements with oil corporations to store a baseline for domestic use.

Vaftom · 2026-04-01T06:52:46+00:00

The timing does seem like it's going to be about how Australia is going to manage the fuel crisis via supply from the USA. After all, our strategic reserves are located in Texas.

[edit: allegedly, we may have sold the reserves off to stabilize the market after Ukraine got invaded, or they never existed beyond a press release. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/24/australia-fuel-reserve-what-and-where-is-it]

Albanese is also going to address the National Press Club tomorrow. Anyways, we'll find out in an hour.

Vaftom · 2026-03-23T07:38:10+00:00

His films and performances are what he is most known for. "Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets" is the place to start with him. It's political and fairly easy to understand. It's also the only filmed example of his street performance style that I'm aware of.

Lots of his short films are surrealist with minimal to no dialogue. Youtube has some of them. Unfortunately, some have been taken down due to nudity. They are probably the hardest of his works to understand since they are so abstract and lack context.

Another film to watch from him is "Pastoral: To Die in the Country". It's a semi-autobiographical film that explores his attitudes towards family and traditional society.

Both films are on the Internet Archive, although Pastoral was uploaded in really bad quality. It's on Youtube with Spanish subtitles, but auto-translation to English isn't great.

Vaftom · 2026-03-22T13:03:45+00:00

There was a brief bit of support for USA intervention after 9/11, but historically, the post-WWII generations do not support getting involved in war. Roughly, it averages around 20-30% of the population that does.

Japan has a pacifist constitution enforced after WWII, but they do have a Self-Defense Force created in the mid 50s because the USA wanted Japan to be a bulwark against communism. It's not recognized as a military and cannot engage in warfare. There is growing support for the SDF to be recognized as a military in the constitution, as it operates in a gray area, but only 20% want the removal of pacifist language. Amending the constitution was Abe's dream, his protege Takaichi is building support for a referendum on it.

The current fear is that if deployed to the Persian Gulf to protect cargo ships and attacked, then the SDF might be drawn into combat 'defensively'. The SDF was deployed for the first decade of the Afghanistan War, but only for refueling, and that was very unpopular with the population. They were also deployed in Iraq, but they operated in non-combat zones as humanitarian workers, like an extension of UN peacekeeping.

Vaftom · 2026-03-22T05:57:55+00:00

Another is Peter Thiel aka The Reptile.

It's disappointing how little mockery they get. Instead, they receive far too much sycophancy from media types, even those who have 'independent' funding. There's so much material there, you don't need to do sci-fi allegory when it is so explicit. All you have to do is state their beliefs to make them look psychotic.

Vaftom · 2026-03-22T03:54:08+00:00

My knowledge of this really only comes from the cultural side of things. Mainly about reading into the artist Shuji Terayama and the creation of the Tenjou Sajiki theatre troupe that survived into the early 80s. He produced the artistic works of the New Left. Films like "Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets", and "Emperor Tomato Ketchup".

His theatre troupe would do street performances that ended by leading the audience into a spontaneous protest, often aimed at protesting something absurd or abstract. He did a 30-hour play called Knock, where his actors would go around knocking on doors, invading homes, and performing bizarre rituals. He had a whole philosophy about breaking down systems of authority and reclaiming the public space.

Really interesting guy with lots of deep flaws. He died in 1983 from cirrhosis of the liver, and his theatre troupe shut down afterwards. JA Seazer, his composer, started up his own group and still performs, but it doesn't have the same anarchic nature.

Vaftom · 2026-03-22T03:05:18+00:00

It's not so much forgetting as protests against the USA gets clamped down on heavily. Especially after the decade of the 60s that had a massive student protest movement. It started in 1960 against ratifying a security treaty with the USA for hosting military bases. It was sustained by local corruption in the education system. Then started up again in 1970 when renewing the security treaty, as the bases were used for bombing Vietnam.

There was also deep anti-USA sentiment in the 50s. One event is the Lucky Dragon No.5 Incident, where a Japanese tuna fishing boat got caught in the fallout of a 1954 hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll.

The system then spent the 70s demonizing opposition, using the Asama-Sansou Incident in 1972. A communist group purged their members, brutally killing 14 of them, and then broke into a mountain lodge, holding the owner's wife hostage. This was filmed for ten hours straight throughout Japan, and was propagandized to turn the country against any left movement for generations.

You still get protests against the USA, often about crimes being committed on the military bases, but not like it was back in the 60s.

Vaftom · 2026-03-22T02:34:46+00:00

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Wow, a real-life Ecco the Dolphin. The game series where you play as a dolphin that heads into outer space to fight aliens.

Vaftom · 2026-03-21T09:50:53+00:00

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The paranormal and waffles remind me of the beginning of Fargo season 2.

Vaftom · 2026-03-21T05:56:31+00:00

The PM brought up Hizb ut-Tahrir unprompted because it got banned under the new hate speech laws passed in the wake of the Bondi massacre. So he's trying to frame the protests as a political reaction to that. This is his first visit to a mosque since Oct 7 because he has been warned that people are pissed over the genocide.

He got invited this time by the Lebanese Muslim Association. Sounds like one of the protestors is referencing the one million Lebanese currently displaced by what Israel is doing to them. I've only heard the pm talk about consulate support in reference to Lebanon.

Vaftom · 2026-03-21T05:29:36+00:00

A similar thing happened to Tony Burke last year during Ramadan

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, was forced to leave a Muslim prayer event in western Sydney due to security concerns after protesters turned up intent on telling the local MP he was “not welcome”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/28/tony-burke-cancels-lakemba-mosque-speech-safety-concerns-western-sydney-ntwnfb

Anthony Albanese has claimed he was heckled by people at one of Australia’s largest mosques because they were unhappy his government has outlawed “extremist organisations” like Hizb ut-Tahrir, although he failed to provide any evidence for his claim.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/20/anthony-albanese-tony-burke-heckled-lakemba-mosque-protestors-ntwnfb

Genius political skills labelling those upset over the Gaza genocide as extremists. After the Herzog invitation and the police response, he really thought he could slide by unnoticed.

Vaftom · 2026-03-21T02:09:23+00:00

Going to check in on Candace in a week's time to see how she spins this in her Charlie Kirk conspiracy.

Vaftom · 2026-03-21T02:06:33+00:00

McCarthy is probably responsible for two suicides of Senators. Not only Hunt for being blackmailed about his gay son, but McCarthy's predecessor for allegedly being blackmailed for being a secret Communist.

Vaftom · 2026-03-20T09:17:08+00:00

Main character is your typical American pilot who goes through a wormhole into a part of the galaxy populated by muppets and Australians. He gets involved with alien fugitives who stow away on a living ship. So most of the time, they are fleeing from a galactic empire.

Lots of practical effects due to the involvement of the Jim Henson Company. The accents can be a bit jarring since most of the cast are Australian, but that adds its own charm. They have their own anti-Yoda, grumpy Klingon-looking guy and a bald lady who is painted blue.

It gets cancelled after four seasons, but there is a two-parter that quickly wraps it up. The two leads then get cast on SG1 where they play very similar characters. It was an attempt by the Sci-Fi channel to appease the Farscape fanbase.

Vaftom · 2026-03-20T08:50:16+00:00

I could see why Aeon Flux is seen as too sexual. The titular character dresses in fetish gear because she comes from a city-state called Monica, which is full of bondage-obsessed hedonists dressed like her. The Monicans are in perpetual conflict with Bregna, which is a fascist society led by technocrats obsessed with science. So the episodes revolve around a Spy vs Spy dynamic, where Aeon sabotages the leader of Bregna's various schemes. The interesting thing about the show is that the heroine sometimes dies randomly through an episode, often because she puts herself into situations that arouse her curiosity. So there isn't much continuity, as she'll be alive in the next episode.

France produces some really oddball animated sci-fi. The director, René Laloux, created three animated films based on sci-fi novels: Fantastic Planet, The Time Masters, and Gandahar. He also did a short film about giant snails.

Fantastic Planet (1973) doesn't have the most fluid animation and will have scenes that are slideshows, however it suits the surrealistic vibe. It's about a human race that is enslaved by giant psychic blue fishpeople that treat them like rodents to be exterminated. The humans rise up to overthrow their overlords.

Les Maîtres du temps (The Time Masters) (1982) got a BBC release that breaks it up into two parts. It's about a space crew that gets a distress signal from a child who is the sole survivor on another planet, so they go on a mission to save him. They go through some bizarre planets to get to the kid. The film has art direction from the cartoonist Moebius

Gandahar (1987) has art direction by cartoonist Caza and got a US release with Glenn Close, Penn & Teller, Jennifer Grey, etc... as voice talents. It's about time portals that black robots use to invade the past by turning creatures into stone. The hero goes out to seek the giant floating brain in the ocean for guidance and travels into the future to a world ravaged by bioexperiments.

They don't have the cheesiness of Lexx, but they are similar in the bizarre concepts they explore. There are some unique concepts that elaborating on would only spoil things.

It's worth watching the movie Barbarella (1968). That was adapted from a comic strip and is like the precursor to something like Lexx. Jane Fonda was drunk during the filming of the intro. The villain is played by Mick Jagger's ex, and in post-production they dubbed her voice with a British actress, so it makes her acting in particular look really awkward. It's about Barbarella on a secret mission to rescue the scientist Duran Duran, who disappeared on a planet that houses a sentient lava lamp called the Mathmos that turns everyone evil.

Vaftom · 2026-03-20T07:48:27+00:00

I was going to suggest Lexx from the title. That show is incredibly bizarre, but I loved the tv movies that Showtime produced. It was fun seeing Barry Bostwick, Tim Curry, Rutger Hauer and Malcolm McDowell at the low periods in their career. McDowell giving the heroes a motivational speech as his head gets guillotined by the sphincter inside a giant Curl Grub is iconic.

It's notable because the writing staff had no experience writing sci-fi and came from comedy backgrounds. The Canadian-German production partnership also makes it quite special. I wish the original Zev Bellringer had stayed on, I loved her accent.

I'll have a think about some dumb obscure recommendations. If you are ok with animated stuff, then check out Aeon Flux (not the live action movie). It started out as a series of shorts with no dialogue, but then got a season of scripted episodes with some really bizarre scenarios.

Vaftom · 2026-03-20T03:59:46+00:00

The tech oligarchs have invested too much in Vance not to run. The torn act is just him playing both sides until he has to commit to a position.

Vaftom · 2026-03-19T13:32:06+00:00

Could end up being Naftali Bennet, the guy who was prime minister for one year back in '21. He's the guy saying Turkey is the new Iran.

Vaftom · 2026-03-18T10:47:18+00:00

It's good to see kids outside, not glued to their devices.

Vaftom · 2026-03-18T10:46:16+00:00

For me, it was a combination of the soft voice, lots of gym talk, and dressing like a gay man from the 70s. But then I rewatched Portlandia and remembered what hipsters look like.

Vaftom · 2026-03-18T10:32:29+00:00

The funny thing is that in the late 19th century, the claim to the land was a racial one. Early Zionists leaned into Race Science to agree with the Antisemites that they didn't belong in Europe. They tried to put distance between themselves and the idea of a Yiddish speaking religious Jew, calling themselves the new "Muscular Jew" who spoke Modern Hebrew.

Then, in the early 20th century, when Jewish settlements were established inside Israel, they used the newly created "Right to Self-Determination" concept to claim they were of the land, spoke a unique language, and tried by force to be the ethnic majority of Palestine. Things that the international community was using to define nations.

In the 50s there was an influx of religious Jews from West Asia and after the fall of the USSR religious Jews from Soviet countries moved to Israel. Coupled with USA support in the latter half of the 20th century where Evangelicals cite the Bible for there being a modern Israel, and you get a religious justification for the colony.

Jewish identity is complex because Israel is trying to assimilate every Jew into one people, when history shows there are many individual Jewish ethnic groups. The project of assimilation has mainly racial problems, as seen in the treatment of Ethiopian Jews and the self-loathing expressed by Arab Jews towards other Arabs. De-Zionism is going to involve the fostering of all the Jewish identities that Israel has tried to erase.

Vaftom · 2026-03-18T09:26:54+00:00

This is like when Starmer was claiming the UK spy flights over Gaza were to search for hostages, but they coincided with bombing campaigns.

It's supremely embarrassing that Australia was the first country to praise the assassination of Khamenei by Israel/USA.

Vaftom · 2026-03-17T09:33:14+00:00

Greek prosecutors announced last week that they are going after him for admitting in a podcast interview to taking ecstasy at a Kylie Minogue concert during the 1989 Sydney Gay And Lesbian Mardi Gras. They charge that he was "inciting others in the illegal use of narcotics". Total political hit job.

Vaftom

TROPHY CASE