Weekend Reads (May 21): UFOs, Cannes, “Bluey,” Vangelis (RIP), Texas vs. Big Tech
Recommended weekend reading material for May 21, 2022.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
Earlier this week, Congress met to discuss the existence of UFOs, er, I mean, UAPs, or “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.”
At a May 17 hearing of a Congressional subcommittee devoted to national counterterrorism and counterintelligence, U.S. leaders spoke in serious tones about the many reports — some firsthand from military personnel in the air — of mysterious, unidentified objects that for decades have been sighted in the skies over Earth. It’s the first time a Congressional committee has publicly addressed the topic of unexplained aerial sightings, as NBC News reports, in more than 50 years.
Related: NASA’s Curiosity rover probably didn’t discover an alien portal on Mars. Or maybe that’s just what “they” want you to think.
According to new data from the Hubble space telescope, something “weird” is going on with how our universe’s expansion.
When the space telescope started gathering information about the universe’s expansion, however, it turned out to be more quick than models had predicted. Astronomers predict that it should be about 67.5 kilometers per second per megaparsec, give or take 0.5 – but observations show it is around 73.
There is only a one in a million chance that astronomers have got it wrong. Instead, it suggests the universe’s evolution and expansion is more complicated than we had realised, and that there is more to learn about how the universe is changing.
The Cannes Film Festival officially began earlier this week, and The Playlist has compiled a list of 25 must-see films at this year’s festival. Their picks include George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, Park Chan-Wook’s Decision to Leave, and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.
After a long wait, Top Gun: Maverick finally zooms into theaters this month. Bilge Ebiri reflects on the movie’s elegiac tone and imagery, and what that says about its star, Tom Cruise.
Maverick is enormously entertaining, but watching it makes for a surprisingly emotional experience. That’s partly due to what happens onscreen, but a lot of it has to do with the memories the film evokes — memories not just of the first movie but of everything that has happened to the world, and to us as viewers, since then. If Cruise was the sign under which my generation came of age, then what to say about the fact that America has changed even more than he has?
Bryan Walsh sings the praises of Disney+’s Bluey, and explains how it helped him become a better father.
Watch the show enough times — and in our home we have watched it many, many, many times — and you can see the tugs of impatience and frustration begin to edge into the screen. How many times, after all, can an adult play “Postman” or pretend that the floor is lava? But each time Bandit still does it — in part because, as the Australians say, “it’s gotta be done,” but also because he loves his children. And more than that, because he loves to live in the worlds they create.
I’ve never watched Bluey (our kids are no longer in the target audience), but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. However, I had a similar parenting experience while reading Ms. Marvel.
Electronic music pioneer Vangelis (born Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou) died this week in France, where he was being treated for COVID-19. He was 79 years old. Vangelis was arguably best known for his movie soundtracks, including Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Alexander. His music also appeared in the 2000 Summer Olympics, the 2004 Summer Olympics, and the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
Another one of my favorite Vangelis compositions is “Fields of Coral,” which was recorded for his 1996 album Oceanic and appeared in the first season of Stranger Things.
The Lassie Foundation — aka, one of the best indie-rock groups you’ve probably never heard of — answered a few questions about the process of revisiting and reissuing some of their older releases.
Once we agreed on which songs to do in the studio, we just showed up. No rehearsals. No discussion about a concept or direction. We hadn’t played together in this iteration of the band in almost 20 years — I wonder if maybe that time apart doing other projects gave us each enough confidence to come to the studio with our homework done and ready to show the class. We recorded at The Cave, where Josiah quickly dialed in the sounds, and we just ran with it and finished the music in one short session. There’s a great energy to these recordings — to me they feel like a band that believes in itself the way we did going into those first two albums.
The band just released Cave Sessions, which features updated versions of four of their songs, including one of my favorites: “I’m Stealin’ to Be Your One in a Million.”
Related: Everything I’ve ever posted about The Lassie Foundation on Opus, including my recent review of Cave Sessions.
This is a fascinating piece. What do you do when one of your favorite artists is caught up in antisemitic conspiracy theories, but those same conspiracy theories are what made their music so weirdly intriguing in the first place?
Matt Pike’s interest in David Icke and his brash statements at large met mostly shrugs from the metal community for more than a decade. But in recent years, there has been so much conversation — within metal and, of course, far beyond it — about how a fan might and even should respond when an artist they adore does something they find odious or dangerous. I was now not only that fan, increasingly confounded by what Pike had to say, but also a journalist who’d been interviewing him for four years. I could ask Pike what he believed and why he believed it. That was my first responsibility. And only then, I could decide if I were going to remain a fan — or, perhaps, back away.
Texas recently passed a law with the intention of preventing social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from censoring user content. Andrew Egger considers the ramifications for the internet as a whole.
Social media companies have argued that attempting to comply with the new law will both harm users’ experience of their products and be functionally impossible, given the vagueness of parts of the statute. The trade groups representing them in court have already appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the injunction blocking the law. Failing to do so “would compel platforms to disseminate all sorts of objectionable viewpoints,” tech trade association NetChoice argued in a filing last Friday, “such as Russia’s propaganda claiming that its invasion fo Ukraine is justified, ISIS propaganda claiming that extremism is warranted, neo-Nazi or KKK screeds denying or supporting the Holocaust, and encouraging children to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior like eating disorders.”
On the one hand, I sympathize with frustrations that Facebook et al., have an undue influence on the public discourse, and they’ve proven time and again to be less-than-accountable for their decisions. (I’ve written about this before.) On the other hand, how can any conservative worth their salt support this type of vindictive, authoritarian legislation in good conscience?
In the meantime, if you’re worried about Facebook et al. censoring your content, then the solution is quite obvious: buy a domain and start your own website.
From the Blog
It might not be as well-known as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney+, but the FOX-owned Tubi has a pretty sizable catalog that’s filled with some real gems — if you know where to look. Or, you can just watch some of my picks.
I’ve combed through Tubi’s archives to find 30 such gems. Not all of them are Tubi exclusives, but regardless, they were all delightful finds. They highlight the diversity in Tubi’s catalog, which includes everything from classic Hollywood blockbusters and vintage horror to martial arts classics and acclaimed anime.
Related: Every month, I post my recommended picks from among the new titles arriving on Netflix et al.
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