My most recent newspaper column about the resurrection of zombies as a pop culture phenomenon generated a lot of solid - and fun - feedback (in that way, it was unlike most of my columns which tend to generate lots of right-wing hate mail). The basic premise of the column is the thesis of World War Z author Max Brooks: namely, that our interest in the entertainment industry's fantastical undead - whether zombies, vampires or other ghouls - is connected to a more general sense of apocalypse in our real lives.
To that end, a few people pointed out to me this post from the great website io9, which looked at this idea in empirical terms:
There's been a huge spike in the production of zombie movies lately, and many of them seem to be inspired by war. Everything from 28 Days Later to Zombie Strippers make explicit reference to wartime, as did seminal 1968 zombie flick Night of the Living Dead. Is there really a connection between zombie movies and social unrest? We decided to do some research and find out. The result? We've got a line graph showing the number of zombie movies coming out in the West each year since 1910 - and there are definite spikes during certain years, which always seem to happen eerily close to historical events involving war or social upheaval...
You can see that there are distinctive spikes in zombie popularity - and they always seem to fall slightly after a huge political or social event has caused mass fear, chaos, or suffering. That's why World War II, Vietnam, and the current Iraq War are all followed by a zombie rush at theaters.
In other news, I saw Zombieland last night and loved it. A good mix of horror and comedy (more of the latter, really).
There's a lot of chatter out there about 2012 being the end of the world - so much that it's going to be a movie called 2012. A lot of that chatter is based on a supposed Mayan prophecy saying that's what's going to happen. Now, though, Mayan leaders are saying it's not true. Check out this AP dispatch for what the Mayans are really saying.
Before moving to Denver, I had no idea that there is so much folklore, legend and conspiracy theory surrounding the city's airport. But, indeed, there is. Jared Jacang Maher wrote the definitive Westword piece on all the hype, and now has a blog constantly updated about the speculation. Check it out - it's pretty interesting.
So what would really happen if there was a worldwide infection of zombie infection? University of Ottawa professor Robert Smith tried to answer that question in a recent academic study. I'm not kidding - it's a full-on research report looking soberly at the possibility. Check it out here.
On my AM760 drive-time radio show here in Colorado, I had the chance to interview actor, writer and director Fred Savage - yes, that Fred Savage. We discussed everything from Wonder Years to his current project, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the latter of which is now getting great reviews.
Making a good movie trailer is clearly an art unto itself - one very different from making a feature-length film. What's so interesting is that two previews for the same movie can make that movie look entirely different.
It's so easy to forget that most of the best media products are multimedia - that is, not just images, but images and sound. That's especially true for the best video games like Halo. Check out this Seattle Times profile on the guy who composes Halo's music:
Just as "Star Wars" wouldn't be "Star Wars" without the awesome soundtrack by John Williams, "Halo" wouldn't be the same without the evocative music of Marty O'Donnell.
The iconic video game's signature music was created by a former advertising jingle writer who has done audio for Bungie, the studio behind "Halo," since its early days in Chicago.
I love the Halo music in particular because it's Gregorian-style chanting is almost religious. When I hear that chanting, I know it's time to relax and have some fun.
Just in case you didn't find wolves or coyotes scary on their own, check this out:
New DNA evidence reveals that coyotes have bred with wolves in the the northeastern United States, turning mice-eating coyotes into much larger animals with a hunger for big prey, such as deer.
We've had a few high-profile coyote attacks here in the Denver area this year - and now I wonder if they were, in fact, coywolves.
As any reader of this blog knows, I'm sorta obsessed with society's obsession with zombies. So this caught my eye:
In study titled "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon", researchers scanned 1.7 kg (3.8 pounds) of a dead salmon while it was shown images of humans in various social situations. It's not clear how long the salmon had been dead by the time it was studied, but Craig Bennett at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says he scanned it about an hour after picking it up from the supermarket, so it was definitely already a goner.
So what did he and his colleagues find? Bizarrely, a region of the dead salmon's brain lit up during the task.
New Scientist goes on to posit that this was a false positive reading - but it is really creepy. I mean, the definition of a zombie is a dead brain that is actually reanimated.
Popular Science reports that scientists have isolated the botanical gene that produces THC, the active ingredient of marijuana. This is good news and bad news for those who like to get high:
Finding the genes opens the path to either create drug-free hemp plants for industrial purposes, or to develop plants with much higher concentrations of the psychotropic chemical.
So basically, they can use the discovery to either destroy the existence of THC, or make super-powerful, THC-on-steroids ganja.
The Environmental Working Group has just released a nifty new tool to check your cell phone's radiation levels. I was due for a new phone anyway, so I used the tool to find one with a low radiation level (the Samsung Alias). The tool is really easy to use - and with new studies out asking new questions about cell phone radiation, it can't hurt to buy a low radiation phone the next time you have to buy one.
My friends and use a lot of very weird terms and variations of words. For instance, something good is known as a "blatant blatancy." To feel so full that you feel fat, you say you feel "like a fat Jared" - that is, the formerly fat version of Subway's Jared Fogle. But my favorite term is "to Clark" - a verb meaning, as my good friend Matt Villano says, "To overly plan an adventure in an attempt to make sure everyone will have a great time, only to see the plans backfire, causing disastrous results."
Matt can be a huge Clark. In fact, he arguably has a case of Clarkitis - an inflammation of his Clark lobe (same goes for me, of course). This makes him perfectly suited to being a travel writer, and I highly recommend his post on his latest experience clarking himself into the ground. Check it out here.
I wasn't able to attend the local Lebowskifest here in Denver this year, but I encourage everyone to watch this local news dispatch on it. As you'll see, the local reporter, Eli Stokols, incorporates the movie's most famous lines into his report. He's a good man...and thorough...and his report is absolutely hilarious. Check it out.
I'm gonna stop complaining about my occasionally slow Internet service after reading this:
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country's leading internet service provider....
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT's offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
My only question is about the carrier pigeon - how do they know exactly where to fly? How are they trained to do that?
This sounds absolutely absurd, but is actually true:
As playoff races heat up across Major League Baseball, superstitious fans and statisticians may want to include one more factor when trying to guess which team will come out on top: What concessionaire is selling hot dogs at the ballpark? According to a look at the numbers by Workers United, baseball teams with home stadiums that use Aramark to sell beer, hotdogs and other ballpark snacks, get caught stealing bases more, hit fewer home runs and have worse "luck".
I watched Flashdance this weekend while sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. It just happened to be on TV, so I watched it (yes, I am that lame). My major revelation in watching the film is that the lead male character, Michael Nouri, looked in 1983 just like Adrian Grenier - the dude from Entourage - looks today. In fact, the resemblance is so striking, I think Adrian Grenier might be Michael Nouri, which would, of course, make Michael Nouri a real-life Christopher Lambert from the Highlander, or Richard from Lost.
Like most nerds, I'm a huge believer in the power of Star Wars and the Star Wars ethos. However, I never knew Star Wars had become an official religion.
As you can see over at io9, there is, indeed, a growing collection of religious art around Star Wars - and it even includes icons from the Empire (which I would have thought would be part of a Satanic anti-Star Wars religion).
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