A couple of examples from music:
Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick album, which is one 43-minute song. Quoth Ian Anderson, after Aqualung: “if the critics want a concept album we’ll give them a concept album and we’ll make it so bombastic and so over the top.”
People eating up the pop song “Tubthumping” which was performed by the anarchist and anti-political Chumbawumba
[QUOTE=Zebra]
There was a man, in NYC and I think around 1800 he pulled this prank. He was well known and he talked up the idea that Manhattan Island is sinking. The southern tip had to be cut off and dragged to the northern end of the island, and he would personally lead the workers. Just show up tomorrow and bring your shovels and saws and ropes.
People showed up. A lot of people showed up.
Several hundred people showed up with shovels and saws and ropes and picks.
[/QUOTE]
Honestly, if you are going to piss off several hundred people with a prank, why do so in such a manner that leaves them armed with lynching ropes and sharp objects? That can’t end well.
mm
[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
If I recall correctly {and I’m open to correction on this; it’s been a couple of years since I read it}, the political system began when a bunch of military vets returned from a disastrous World War to find a shattered society preyed on by spivs, criminals and black-marketeers, got pissed off, hung a few people from lamp posts, and began reforming the political system on military lines, based on the patriotic and self-sacrificing civic virtues instilled by military service. That could just about have been written with a straight face after WWII, but after Vietnam Heinlein’s fetishisation of the military as all that was good and noble about society began to look distinctly queasy.
[/QUOTE]
Somewhat. The emphasis in the society was on civic duty, and you earned the right to vote by serving society in some capacity, such as working for the government. The book focused on people who’d joined the military, who basically (in Heinlein’s terms) had flunked the civil service exam, and thus could only earn the right to vote by enlisting. Given that Juan Rico and his friends were all pretty smart, it means that to be a pencil pusher down at the DMV, you had to be a freakin’ genius. (Heinlein discusses this, and the fact that most people miss the thrust of his book in Expanded Universe).
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Somewhat. The emphasis in the society was on civic duty, and you earned the right to vote by serving society in some capacity, such as working for the government. The book focused on people who’d joined the military, who basically (in Heinlein’s terms) had flunked the civil service exam, and thus could only earn the right to vote by enlisting. Given that Juan Rico and his friends were all pretty smart, it means that to be a pencil pusher down at the DMV, you had to be a freakin’ genius. (Heinlein discusses this, and the fact that most people miss the thrust of his book in Expanded Universe).
[/QUOTE]
I may be remembering this a little wrong, but I seem to recall one of the hallowed authority figures in the book telling Rico, with disgust, that it had become “fashionable” for children of educated middle class families like Rico’s to enlist with the service for a minimum tour and get the franchise, since there had been no war for a while, and that those in command made a point of making those enlistee’s peacetime service hard enough to kill some of them, just to prevent them from getting off easy.
Here in America, even the Marines see fit to court martial a sergeant who kills one of his soldiers in training.
Also, I can remember some talk about the government recruiting people with special talents for certain jobs, but no mention of that conferring the franchise without accompanying military service. If they did pick their brains and let them vote that way, then either Heinlein shot another hole in his ‘the thinkers can’t do anything right’ argument, or his ideal government just out and out decides who is worthy to vote in its own elections.
But I still think one of the best arguments against Heinlein’s philosophy comes from the The Tough Guide To The Known Galaxy’s entry on Libertarian Militarists.
[QUOTE=Strain of Thought]
I may be remembering this a little wrong, but I seem to recall one of the hallowed authority figures in the book telling Rico, with disgust, that it had become “fashionable” for children of educated middle class families like Rico’s to enlist with the service for a minimum tour and get the franchise, since there had been no war for a while, and that those in command made a point of making those enlistee’s peacetime service hard enough to kill some of them, just to prevent them from getting off easy.
Here in America, even the Marines see fit to court martial a sergeant who kills one of his soldiers in training.
[/quote]
Deliberately killing soldiers is a crime. Having said that, training is dangerous. There are deaths in US military training all the time. Not all of them make the news, either, because they’re so commonplace. The philosophy that the military uses for training is that there are benefits to make sure that the training missions are designed to be as bad, or worse, than anything reasonably expected to be encountered in the field.
And they do accept that there will be some mortality with this.
Actually, all the special jobs I recall being referenced were part of the Federal Service, and so would confer franchise upon the person who successfully completed that service. The placement sergeant mentioned to Rico that some position is found for anyone who wants to volunteer, even if it’s being a guinea pig for environment suits on Titan.
The other consideration I’d like to point out: It’s a bit unfair to blame Heinlein for not including the Vietnam experience in his book written in 1959. While there were US forces in Vietnam then, the experience that I believe most people consider The Vietnam War really is from the period following Johnson’s buildup, through to the Fall of Saigon.
This is in no way meant to say that you shouldn’t look at the work through the lens of that national experience, just that it’s no more reasonable to blame the author for not including that in his novel, than it would be to criticize fiction from the fifties for not following modern conventions of male-female interaction. It happens, of course, but it misses that, IMNSHO, any work has to be evaluated in relation to the mellieu that produced it.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Deliberately killing soldiers is a crime. Having said that, training is dangerous. There are deaths in US military training all the time. Not all of them make the news, either, because they’re so commonplace. The philosophy that the military uses for training is that there are benefits to make sure that the training missions are designed to be as bad, or worse, than anything reasonably expected to be encountered in the field.
And they do accept that there will be some mortality with this.
[/quote]
So of course we’re begging for a cite or two.
-FrL-
Frylock, my initial position is based on what I remember being told during my own service.
Which I grant isn’t an acceptable cite.
So, let’s consider this training accident . A night helo op, low to the earth, in a relatively developed area. They caught a power line, and went down. Five killed.
It is obvious reading the article that it would be safer to fly such missions during daylight, or at higher altitudes. But because of the needs of the sort of missions they were training for, certain risks were accepted.
This doesn’t mean that errors weren’t made, but the easiest way to avoid a repeat of this accent - flying daytime only training missions - isn’t going to happen. Even though night flying low to the earth is more dangerous.
[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
The only intended satire in Starship Troopers was the costume design, and I doubt Verhoeven realized even that (he has shown no penchant for satire, and very little sense of humor). The rest was straight adventure. The “satire” rationalization came long after the film came out as a way to fight back against the general (and generally correct) impression that it was a godawful movie.
The conversation probably went like this:
Studio executive 1: That was awful. What can we do to make it seem like it was done deliberately?
<Long pause>
Studio executive 2: I know! Let’s call it satire!
Studio executive 1: Great idea. It’s a satire.
Paul Verhoevan: What’s a satire?
[/QUOTE]
Wow. I wanna live in *your *world. First of all, it was the *studio *who sold the movie as straightfaced, so your imaginary dialog is about 180% from reality. Secondly, despite your authoritative insight into what Verhoeven did or didn’t realize, he very explicitly did intend ST as a satire, mostly of war movies. His most explicit sources–he mentions them in the commentary track–were Triumph of the Will and all the Hollywood-made “buy bonds” propaganda movies of the WWII era. Anyone who can watch the scene where the one-armed, legless army recruiter says, proudly, “The army made me the man I am today,” and *not *get that it’s a satire, well, just, you know, imagine an impolitely sarcastic remark here.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Are you whooshing us, by pretending to know practically nothing about Paul Verhoevan even as you vilify him? If not, rent Flesh and Blood, listen to the director’s commentary track, then come back here and admit that Verhoevan not only understands satire, but understands European history in a way you do not.
[/QUOTE]
Yuh. As messy as Flesh and Blood is–and as wide of the mark as Verhoeven’s intentions often fall–his commentary track reveals, for example, his loathing of the Catholic church and its destructive history in Europe, which informs almost every scene of the movie.
[QUOTE=lissener]
imagine an impolitely sarcastic remark here.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think we need to!
Zombielicious!
I think Conservapedia might be satire.
Woody Allen’s Vicki, Cristina, Barcelona I think is a stealth satire about he whole “Passionate Artist” trope that some women love.
Fourthed. That has just got to be the literary equivalent of ‘the emperor has no clothes’, because its got such a reputation as an unparallelled classic no critic is going to chance their reputation by telling the truth, it is, in the words of Father Dougal, “A load of old bollocks, Ted”.
You know, the thing about Scientology and LRH is that he had a really wonderful idea in that you … “Start a religion of your own and get people who are close to their deaths to give you or donate to you all their money and worldly goods. Then you can call it all a donation and make it all tax free and shit in the face of the IRS.”
I mean, like them or hate them … (and I pretty much hate them) … you really must respect the idea. What a fantatstic idea. Isn’t it?
I mean, you think about it for a while and you just burst out laughing and laughing and laughing until you bust a gut.
It is just hilarious! Isn’t it?
And the long and short of it all is that the govt is basically F’ed! There is nothing they can do. They started the IRS and they were the ones who decided to make it all tax exempt. So now, they have to live with that decision and Scientology is just F’ing them inside and outside and has been doing that for what? 50 years now.
It’s just so funny. But it’s also so sad. Tragic really. So many people have been hurt so badly by this ugly scam.
You don’t think it’s right to call it an ugly scam? Well, you know it’s based on the fact that some invisible aliens suck the souls out of our bodies and go into our bodies when we die and live their lives using our bodies. Don’t you think that is a scam?
Sure does sound like a big scam to me. Either that, or it’s designed to give crazy people something to do with their money when they die and LRH is just laughing his way to the bank.
LRH made out like a bandit. Don’t you think?
Pretty sure he isn’t laughing anymore…
But just as tragic as a lot of elderly people going without needed medicine, living miserly lives, just so when they die they can leave a fortune to a catholic or christian org.
Blair Witch Project - I’m surprised so many people were fooled by it.
Andy Warhol used to piss on some tin and listen to people wax poetically about the deep meaning of it IIRC.
If this is so, why did they even go to the trouble of making a monster model for the witch? That ended up not getting used in the film, but you can see it online if you google.
That seems to me like they were genuinely making a horror movie.
I think (that is I hope) that I wasn’t the only person who was wooshed by Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code.
I’m not sure this is true but I read somewhere that Edgar Allen Poe convinced the city of Baltimore that a transatlantic balloon was going to land there on April first.
They also released an action figure of the witch.
The greatest woosh d’art is clearly Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.
Think about it. You’re an 18-year old girl on vacation with your literary boyfriend and a couple of his best buds. You’re stuck in “the year without a summer.” Everyone gets bored sitting around the cabin, so to liven things up, Lord Byron challenges everyone to write the scariest story they can think of.
And Mary Shelley comes up with a book people are still talking about 200 years later, which started as basically an overgrown campfire story. What a hoot!
Maybe this post is a woosh, but it seems to me that Mary was the only one who took the idea seriously. Or maybe she was the only writer good enough to make it work.