19 May 2007

The Shelter


As panic ensues, The doctor locks himself and his family into his basement bomb shelter. The same gathering of friends becomes hysterical and now wants to occupy the shelter. All of the previous friendliness has vanished and is now replaced with bitter hate, and soaring desperation as pent-up hostility and suppressed emotions boil to the surface


Well at home with the kids.

Do you want curry for breakfast..'yes Dad'.

I and quite a few other people I know have become obssessed with the fact that breakfast cereals are a social construct...with all social constructs, if you don't like them and life seems more fun, chuck em out and start again.

Rip it up and start again.

As you know from previous blogs there are two sources of my antipathy to flakes of corn, etc, in packets.

1) The whole post-modern academic trip, if you work, study or clean for too little pay in the world of academia, you will have come across conference posters for events such as 'plumbing for post-humans' or 'Decentred identities in the later novels of Douglas Hurd', on decaying concreate walls, all very quaint.

Well what is rational in the fashionable obscurity of out there French thought? Simply the modernist narrative notion that more is up for grabs about what we do, in society, than we might think. So if you don't like how things are, do them differently...I guess though even doing them differently means that you are a subject, shaped by all sorts of objective forces. But it is fun to eat something tasty for breakfast, even if taste, is shaped by some one other than you.

2) The notion that evil corporations are feeding us food that is not only unhealthy but unexciting. Felicity Lawrence is the person to read on this.




Before curry we watched an episode of the Twilight Zones, 'The Shelter'.

Great fun, the middle class Americans are at the doctor's birthday party, here the announcement that an unidentified object is posed to destroy Springfield.

The doctor and his family go to their nuclear shelter, their friends insist on being let in, when the Doctor refuses, they batter the door down.

This of course means that all will die.

It is heavy on socio-biology that we are all vicious animals, that if don't protect our family in the shelter, if we let the others in, all will die.

The responsible vicious animal protects his or her own, works hard, investing in a bomb proof bunker.

I guess in the 1960s when this went out, it played to Cold War paranoia.

The other solution is communal, get the local authority to build a shelter.

Not having a nuclear war is a better preventative solution, 'The Shelter' transmits an ideological message, about competition, individuals, freedom, etc.

The Simpsons, which good for them, borrows plots right, left and centre, built like all culture on allusions to pre existing plots, takes the Shelter, has a comet about to crash into Springfield, Homer kicks Flanders out of his family shelter, to save his yellow kids. More here

The wiki oracle notes 'The plot is reused in The Simpsons episode "Bart's Comet", Ned Flanders builds a bomb shelter, and due to his Christian faith cannot refuse anyone in town from entering, until he himself is forced out by the cramped quarters.'

Hundreds of Springfield citizens pile in but the comet burns into a harmless cinder.

On the train to Headcorn, read them the article in this week's Economist on bullet trains in China, a lot of good stuff in the Economist, well written, excellent research and hey whats the point of reading stuff you agree with, every Telegraph reader should read the Morning Star as well.

Not open source, I am sure they will not worry about me open sourcing, one paragraph found amusing on the way to Staplehurst:

Meanwhile, newspapers complain of a lack of manners on some trains. “Rough passengers” who litter, spit and “improperly use train services” have been reported in several provinces. Some travellers, perhaps believing that they need to get their money's worth, have resorted to stealing the taps from the carriage lavatories.

National Vegetarian Week coming up, I have been veggie since 1986, so back to veganism for at least a week....I think this will demand investment in a huge bag of cashew nuts.

Finally according to the wiki oracle, 'the shelter' is also a hard core hare krishna punk band (or is this conservapedia boys and girls trolling us with interesting lies?)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Shelter is a Hare Krishna hardcore punk band formed by Ray Cappo of Youth of Today. The band broke up in 2001 following the release of their last album, The Purpose, The Passion. In 2002, with a new drummer and a new guitarist the band toured Europe and the eastern US again in support of "The Purpose. The Passion" before going on extended hiatus.

In 2005 Ray Cappo recorded a new 11 track album entitled Eternal with 10 new songs and a re-make of "In Defense Of Reality." Eternal was released in May 2006 by Goodlife Recordings. Ray also did an European tour with a few members of Dutch hardcore bands functioning as the band.


[edit] Discography
In Defense Of Reality (Equal Vision, 1991)
Perfection of Desire (Revelation, 1992)
Quest for Certainty (Equal Vision, 1995)
Shelter Bhajan (Equal Vision, 1995)
Standard Temple (Equal Vision, 1995)
Attaining the Supreme (Equal Vision, 1995)
Mantra (Roadrunner, 1995)
Beyond Planet Earth (Roadrunner, 1997)
Chanting & Meditations (Krishna Core, 1998)
When 20 Summers Pass (Victory, 2000)
The Purpose, The Passion (Supersoul, 2001)
Eternal (Goodlife Recordings, 2006)

[edit] External links
Shelter Myspace

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