You know what? The dude that quit his blog was totally right. We knew it was coming, but there’s something about seeing those stripes up there that just makes it so real. Pass the Crispy Green Bean Fries, will ya?

The dystopian future toward which we are plunging cannot boast even the bleak dignity of 1984. Turns out we’re headed straight for Futurama. The New York Times this weekend featured a video of Google cofounder Sergey Brin’s disembodied head rolling about on a screen at a distant seminar, atop a proto-robot contraption instantly recalling the world of Fry, Leela and Bender.

The rest of the Times’ coverage of this seminar focuses more or less on one Raymond Kurzweil and this thing called Singularity University, which is where a bunch of rich maniacs plan to figure out, among other things, how they can live for hundreds of years.

The Singularity is when we humans finally merge with The Machines, apparently, and Singularity University started as a Silicon Valley wheeze funded by a number of Google’s founders, kind of with a view to planning for the big event. I hate to even think of the beta testing for that, but whatever. And some even wackier-sounding stuff goes on over there at S.U., I must say. The Times blandly reports that Mr. Kurzweil, a famous inventor, is planning to attempt to resurrect his father, for instance.

There is a certain charm to imagining the hallways of Singularity University ringing with diabolical laughter and the seductive accents of Vincent Price, delivered by guys in mad-scientist hairdos and loads of black eyeliner. But there really is a dark side to this story.

“The Singularity is not the great vision for society that Lenin had or Milton Friedman might have,” says Andrew Orlowski, a British journalist who has written extensively on techno-utopianism. “It is rich people building a lifeboat and getting off the ship.”

That’s right, there are people who are not just willing but planning to live in a world where they get to live three or four or ten times longer than the “Have-Nots, who are hampered by their antiquated, corporeal forms and beliefs,” which is what the rest of us are called at one point in the subject article.

I can’t imagine how anyone would choose to be a Have, is the thing, if all but the very rich are going to be Have-Nots. These guys like Raymond Kurzweil and Facebook board member Peter Thiel hold the primitive worldview derived from the likes of Ayn Rand or Werner Erhard, where it’s pretty much your duty to grab everything that isn’t nailed down, and that in itself proves your “superiority” and/or “fitness to survive.” (There’s some weird connection between libertarianism and the desire to live forever-and such arguments often drag Darwin in, somewhere or other.) That they’ve grown so rich and influential owing to their own energy, intelligence and inventiveness literally qualifies such people for Eternal Life, perhaps they are thinking. If so, they might try reading Franz Werfels’ Star of the Unborn, which takes a considerably more nuanced and thoughtful approach to these questions.

In any case, I have got the same problem with this gang of would-be immortals that I do with the Pat Robertson kind, viz., who could bear to survive in such company? Or in such circumstances? Please, give me hell with the Marx Brothers over Jerry Falwell’s harp-strumming game show Heaven, any day. (I always imagine the PTL Heaven as the set of The Price is Right, for some reason, well I guess because that whole Left Behind concept of the afterlife really is rather like a game show that you can win, and others must lose, and really who could stand that for even one moment?)

If indeed the very rich come to be able to live for 700 years, or even “forever,” I predict a very brisk trade for suicide booths like the ones Martin Amis recommended building recently, though not for the reasons he gives; he means for the olds who are suffering from dementia to wander in there voluntarily and have “a Martini and a medal.” (In Futurama, you may recall, such booths are called “Stop-and-Drop” and cost a quarter to use.)

I suspect that the end of a unifying vision for humanity, one that would include all the family of mankind in whatever benefits can be secured, really would be enough to do a lot of us in right there. Seriously, plutocrats! Who do you think is going to be willing to park your cars and clean your house? What private chef will prepare your Longevity Cuisine? Get a grip on your sordid, febrile imaginations and go cure malaria, why don’t you?

Maria Bustillos is the author of Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork and

Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman.

“The phrase ‘I know the town like the back of my hand’ suggests that we have near-perfect knowledge of the size and position of our own body parts, but these results show that this is far from being the case. Our results show dramatic distortions of hand shape, which were highly consistent across participants.”
-University College London researcher Matthew Longo discusses his new study on position sense which “shows the brain maintains a model of the hand in which our fingers are perceived to be shorter and our hands fatter than they actually are.” Basically, when you’re trying to find something in a dark room your brain thinks of your elegantly tapered digits as thick little sausages. Obviously there’s an easy dick joke to be made here, but I’d prefer to keep things classy and correct. I mean, it is Science. What? You insist? Sigh. Okay. Longo went on to suggest that the brain also seems to distort perceptions of penis size, particularly among scientists, who are endowed with much larger genitalia than commonly understood. You happy now? Me neither.

Teresa Jungman, final survivor of Britain’s “Bright Young People” (a group which inspired and produced “not only some of the most celebrated novelists of the early 20th century, but its own literary form”), has died at the age of 102.

by Matt Ealer

The first time I heard Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was on the soundtrack for Joel Schumacher’s 1995 Warner Brothers superhero blockbuster and subsequent cultural whipping-boy Batman Forever. Ol’ Nick the Stripper has famously donned the hair shirt for his involvement in the album, calling it a cynical cash-grab. I think that’s pretty stupid, given that the song he contributed to the record encapsulates, in just a few minutes, all the things I think are important about Batman. This is far better than director Christopher Nolan would later do with six whole hours.

Here we have Nick in the character of a burnt-out former hep cat, like a Steely Dan song run through a meat-grinder, looking at his mates in The Big City and being disgusted by them; the greed, the depravity, the lack of bottom. The lack of soul. Priests with blood on their chins, God too pissed up in heaven to bring down the Armageddon. And there’s these kids standing around. What are these fucking kids gonna do, man?

Well, they’re looking to the sky, Daddio. They’re looking to the sky because there’s a motherfucking Bat-signal shining against the dirty gray clouds. This is the thing. Sure Batman is about the dirt and the grit and the evils of the suspicious and cowardly lot. But it’s also about a man who decides to rise above that-who literally becomes that light shining in the sky.

If you forget for a second that Batman is supposed to be salvation in a blue cowl and light gray tights, if you keep him down in the muck, then you’ve lost the soul of Batman. You’ve missed the point. This song-it’s called There Is A Light, after all-contains the point in it!

Producer Peter MacGregor-Scott filled the record with songs that were not of but “inspired by” the movie in an attempt to make the movie “more pop.” Which is also kind of silly, in that the songs that were added were kind of less pop — U2 and Seal were in it, the great Lenny Kravitz penned/produced/played track with Brandy emitting a smokey slow burn over tight but unobtrusive funk was too. On the other hand, I wouldn’t call Jeremy Enigk bellowing non-words to serrated post-hardcore riffs “pop.”

Also, the movie itself was already plenty pop! All the movie references in the costumes, the pop psychology in the dialogue, Chris O’Donnell playing Dick Grayson like the hip, eventually decimated Jason Todd, explosions and a light-up Batmobile facing off with stylized ’40s gangster rides.

This movie, for me, feels more like the first third of Glamorama, when Victor Ward is still in New York being glitzily fabulous amongst the ruin of America’s soul, than any other film explicitly made under the guise of being a Bret Easton Ellis film has felt like Bret Easton Ellis. It’s all the best parts of Warhol and Lichtenstein turned inside out and devoured.

As such, a thing the movie and the soundtrack both do with excellent aplomb is dole out sugary, true religion pop with a biting undercurrent of darkness. Sure, Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face is hacky and ridiculous. But he’s also a Demented Elvis Impersonator in a way that Kurt and Kevin could only have hoped to be in that movie about the Demented Elvis Impersonators.

And half his face is explicitly a big purple, festering bruise! The shitty one-liners start to take on this cosmic resonance that no Big Important Speech issuing from pretty, pretty Aaron Eckhart, later in the same role, ever could. Because really, if you were Two-Face, would you take long monologues about The Nature of Evil, or would you cackle along to your own horrid jokes? I think you would cackle, cackler!

The film and soundtrack are all like this. Bits of pop culture turning inward and eating themselves because, at base, we are all complete wackos. (That’s a technical term.) Billowing clouds of black, soot and shadows both, shot through with neon green. (Fuck the orange/blue contrast!) Towers of Greek Adoni given to fascism next to circus freaks and tribal native cultural tourism. A dazzling playground that will kill you.

And Batman has to sort this out. He becomes both Bruce Wayne and Batman — maybe because he wants to, but also because we need him to. People with this idea that Batman has to stay in a Bat-olescence, a teen constantly crying over his fucking parents, seem pretty childish to me. Batman has to grow up eventually. Because if not, we’re left with that dick Superman as the undisputed head of the DC Universe, and NOBODY WANTS THAT.

So why the animosity? Why the Razzies and hatred? Well, the given reason is crass commercialism, that the movie was more a toy ad than a film. Some will just reply, “Nicole Kidman,” but they say that about Eyes Wide Shut too so I don’t pay them no mind.

Surely no one’s winning an Oscar here, but the idea that Ledger’s disjointed and weirdly ham-handed take on the Joker deserved one is a bit of a fluke anyway. This is a genre film, and while I think the best of them can rise above that (Superman: The Movie, Batman Returns, and uh, yeah), we’re looking for symbols and signifiers, not immortal reincarnations of the Bard.

So let’s step back a bit to Two-Face. Here we have a sociopath that actually plays out the Madonna-whore complex in his villain lair; lending a sociopathic air to the Madonna-whore construct itself and foreshadowing the expert deconstruction of heteronormativity in general that will come in Batman and Robin. (Oh yes, it will.)

Okay, I’m not going to turn this into a Batman and Robin defense, that is for another day. But there was a good deal of gender politics put into these two mainstream Hollywood superhero blockbusters aimed at moving action figures and Happy Meals, and I don’t think that gets dealt with enough. I mean, Batman is approached for a make-out session by a Dr. Chase Meridian, naked but for a virginal pure white sheet, who then tells him to buzz off in favor Bruce Wayne. (AND, I MEAN, POISON IVY IS A WALKING VAGINA DENTATA.)

Comics scribe and zen drug guru Grant Morrison was right to call these movies “the gay Batman” (I don’t think he was quite right to tell you to “switch off your brain,” but I’ll take what I can get). I think a lot of the critical reaction against these movies, from a fanboy (and oh do I mean BOY!) perspective, comes from a deeply homophobic place. The fanboys recognized these threads and were frightened by an openly gay director putting nipples on the Batsuit, challenging heteronormative relationships by making them look dull as death on one hand and psychosis-inducing on the other.

Remember, this is from a creative milieu that overreacted to the certain perceptions of nature of Bruce and Dick’s relationship by making it an ironclad part of Dick’s character that he has slept with EVERY SINGLE FEMALE CHARACTER in the entire DC Universe. Don’t even get me started on the atrocious gender politics of the Nolan films, notable for the great feat of making even the superhero genre more retrograde. (No seriously, just let me stop here. I am not kidding.)

But hey, maybe I’m totally off base here and should quit harshing on bros in my style. Fine! I think the cries of commercialism look a little different now in the midst of a crumbled music industry and a crumbling movie industry hanging on by its 3-D glasses. Batman Forever is a perfect product — the film and the album work perfectly together and complement each other. Toys are toys and any mainstream superhero film will have them. (Your thousand-dollar Dark Knight mini-statue is a toy, nerd.) But these two things that actually may be considered and criticized as art work a wonderful balance between the light and dark, the camp and grit that is Batman.

Look, I don’t even necessarily agree with the Batman/Bruce Wayne conceit as set up in this film. (I’m much more of the belief that there is a third persona, Batman with his mask off in the Batcave, the one that only Alfred and Dick Grayson and maybe Superman know, the one played so convincingly by the incomparable Michael Keaton chewing on his glasses thinking over Jack Napier or Oswald Cobblepot or pulling a Cat-claw out of himself with a forlorn but not loveless sigh.)

But it provides a great place to start. And, again to Morrison, I’m a big believer in the contention that those who care about this character should care about Bob Haney’s groovy social justice Masked Manhunter the same amount they should care about Frank Miller’s keening, petulant Dark Knight.

And no one has ever shot the Batman-falling-through-space scene the way Schumacher did — hurling himself after a bound and gagged Robin and Chase rushing to a watery grave, the blast and *chink* as the Bat-grapple clings to the hard surface, Elliot Goldenthal’s triumphant, awe-struck score pushing down with the rushing winds then rising up from the tide below like a chorus of angels to lift our hero up. It’s an iconic element of the Batman lore, that he — just a man — can do this thing. And no one has even gotten it more correct. It still gives me goosebumps.

So mainly what I’m saying is, your entrance was good; his was better. The difference? Showmanship.

Matt Ealer can see your bat signal.

This is pretty embarrassing, but one night, when I was a freshman in college, my friend Todd and I got so high from smoking pot that we thought we could read each other’s minds. We were in my room doing too many bong hits and one of us (I’ll take responsibility, though I don’t remember for sure) had the brilliant idea of, “What would happen if we drank the bongwater?” I know: yuck: we might as well have eaten used cigarette butts. But this is the state we’d put ourselves in. So we drank the bongwater.

We had just recently met (this was shortly before I ruined a bunch of very stupid t-shirts Todd had printed up) and we were becoming friends. And I guess being stoned enough to think that we might be entering some new chemical dimension from drinking pot-infused water, combined with the experience of finding a like-minded person who lived on the same floor of what up to that point had felt, at least to me, like a dorm filled with strange people to whom I couldn’t so much relate, well, we thought we had discovered some kind of magic. We had my roommate Jeremy, who didn’t smoke pot and was observing our idiotic behavior with a sort of anthropological fascination, administer a test with index cards: we were to close our eyes and think of geometric shapes and draw whatever images came to us. We were sure we’d end up with the same shapes on the cards. We were sure we’d made an important scientific discovery.

It didn’t work, of course. We did like ten rounds of it: nothing. Oh, well. We went on to have a long conversation about how Steely Dan was the best music to shave to. Because their sound was so synesthetically smooth. (This theory, by the way, has been scientifically validated.) Jeremy was very nice about it all.

I tell this embarrassing story in the hopes that anyone in South Africa who might be considering smoking the dried up brains of endangered vultures in order to better predict the outcome of the Wold Cup for gambling purposes WILL NOT DO SO. From Scientific American:

The custom stems from the traditional medicine known in South Africa as muti. The vulture brains are dried, ground up and then smoked in cigarettes which supposedly give the users visions of the future. In addition to dreams of winning lotto numbers or sports teams, practitioners say the practice can give users an edge on taking tests or help their business attract more clients. A tiny vial of vulture brains sells for around $6.50, according to an article from AFP.

Now, I guess there’s no way I can be one hundred percent sure that smoking dried up vulture brains doesn’t give you clairvoyance. But, you know, it’s definitely as disgusting as drinking bong water. My guess is that it’s not actually going to help anyone win any money. And that whoever does it might come to regret it later. And most importantly: leave those poor bird brains in their bird heads, where they belong!

Confederate Motors and Gawker Media have reached a settlement in the motorcycle maker’s libel claim (which is well-described here). It got a little heated along the way! There was a correspondence of the cattiest variety. Wrote the lawyer for the motorcycle maker: “In my opinion, your ability to research ‘journalistic’ sources is equalled only by your ability to research legal proceedings.” Replied Gawker Media: “I cannot be bullied,” etc., pursuing this will be bad for your client, that kind of thing. Love it. And now that they’ve settled? Well! Writes Ben Sheffner at Copyrights & Campaigns: “according to PACER, that leaves only one live case pending against Gawker in federal court: the ‘McSteamy’ naked threesome copyright battle in the Central District of California.” Just one active lawsuit in a federal court for an outfit of, what, nine websites? That’s actually pretty amazing.

Everyone is talking about vuvuzelas, and most people are not happy about them. This is a very important issue! But what is a vuvuzela, you ask, and why does it cause such irritation? We have answers! A “vuvuzela” is the affectionate nickname Venezuelan men use when they refer to the vulvas of their wives or girlfriends. (I kinda just did a quick Google search on that, so it might not be 100% accurate.) As for why they are annoying, we’re just gonna let Science field that one. Now you know! [Image via]

Over the weekend, a Jewish publication sent me an email. They wanted to pay me to write an essay! They thought it could be called “Why I Hate Israel, “because it would be a piece “which develops the ideas you are already publishing,” which is how the editor put it to me. I had to, as the poet famously said, wonder: Did I accidentally publish my Israel-hating dream journal? After ascertaining that the editor wasn’t actually kidding, I checked The Awl’s page for Israel: hmm, mild critique of Israel’s handling of the Gaza flotilla, a summary of Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker piece on Gaza, a rather de facto pro-Israel take on the Times Jerusalem bureau, and uh oh, we quoted Turkish newspapers and published a piece very critical of a dumb Israeli PR outfit that strives to make untoward connections in Americans’ minds between Israel and the MENACE of MUSLIM 9/11 TERROR. Weirdly, nothing in there about how I hate Israel! But I guess I could see how the mistake could be made.

Well? I think this is just a sign of how, if you assume you are speaking to intelligent people, and don’t issue a thousand disclaimers, then guess what: it can be assumed that you hate Israel, because you’re maybe mildly critical or because you’ll mention unflattering facts when they are facts! Hi, every country has unflattering facts, HAVE YOU MET ENGLAND, and do I EVEN have to explain that repeatedly, when I live in a country that was (and kind of still is!) built on slave labor? And you know what? If you hate Israel, that pretty much means you hate Jews. And so: Why do you HATE JEWS so much? Please explain yourself.

But, but-you’re thinking-Jews are awesome, you horrid Jew-hater!

The most irritating and troubling part, I think, is that we all do have to acknowledge (over and over again, for real) that, in the real world, people actually hate Jews so much. Oh my God, everyone still hates the Jews. Believe it! And if the hard Christian wing of the Tea Party crowd weren’t mostly convinced that, yay, the End Times are here, because blah blah the Jews are back in the promised land or whatever, and therefore are sort of uncomfortably pro-Israel, then this would be the worst time ever for the Jews, because don’t think that gang wouldn’t be lunging at every “Jew Banker Friend To MUSLIM PRESIDENT” or whatever that they could. (Allies, take ’em where you can!)

So, nobody can say BOO about Israel without a 2000-word disclaimer that includes, among others, the words “Ramallah” and “but of course” and “to be fair” and “history of persecution” and the like.

This is just a long wind-up to our announcement that the latest website in The Awl Network (not to be called The Awl Network) will be for, by and about Jews!

We call it: Jews Today!

Nah, I’m totally just kidding. There’s really no money in a site like that.

It might not be the absolute very best way I can think of to drive around Houston, Texas. (That might not be the absolute very safest link to click on if you’re at work, by the way.) But if I do ever find myself cruising that famous suburban sprawl, I would be sure to cue up local rap legend Scarface as a soundtrack. The title track to his latest mixtape features B. James and Monk Kaza, and was co-produced by Seattle’s Jake One, who has been doing such great work with Philadelphia’s Freeway recently. Driving music always travels well.