I honestly didn’t intend to neglect this weird wonderful space.
However, I do get distracted by shiny things.
And life can also be distracting.
In the midst of all of this, I:
1. Picked up a new hobby (miniature building/painting)
2. Rejoined Twitter
3. Quit Twitter again (thanks in no small part to a maniac purchasing it and forcing it to devolve even further into a post-apocalyptic nightmare hellscape)
4. Quit watching the news (it is very bad for my mental health; I now only get my news from two sources: bbc.com and clickondetroit.com)
5. Binge watched all of the Fast and Furious movies. I watched the trailer for Fast X and was curious. They are the film equivalent of Tom and Jerry or Road Runner and Wile E Coyote cartoons, only dumber and with more fambly. By the sixth film, I was cackling and decided that they are fun. The eighth film has a scene that I rewound and rewatched a few times. Jason Statham glides onto a plane and saves a baby. It is fun…preposterous, but fun. Every once in a while, it’s ok to check your brain at the door and cackle with something preposterous and have fun. Either that, or after 10 films (including Hobbs & Shaw, which is a legit good action movie), I am suffering from Helsinki Syndrome.
6. Rejoined Instagram. This is a recent development. I was feeling disconnected. This has, of course, been exacerbated by the pandemic. I toyed around with the idea of starting something at Mastadon and inviting my friends. In the end, that was too complicated. I settled on Instagram. After a few tentative posts, I am fully on board with this. I love it. For the most part, I reconstructed my friend network from Facebook. I follow my friends, fellow miniature enthusiasts, writers, artists, and lots of puppies. Seriously, you have no idea how many puppies I follow. So far, it has been a nice, wholesome experience and it has fulfilled its primary objective: to reconnect me to the world in a positive way.
It was summer of 1979, I was five years old and two years into my Star Wars fandom. My mother dropped my sister and I off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house to stay the night. Mom and Dad were going to see the new film Alien. I don’t remember being disappointed about not going to the movie. I was only five and Alien was a very hard R. Plus, I always liked staying at my maternal grandparents house.
The story of my parents’ first experience with Alien is part of the family lore. Dad loved it. Mom spent most of the film’s running time sitting in the lobby. She bolted right after the infamous Chestburster scene.
Her reason?
“I didn’t want to be in the same room with that thing.”
The idea that there was a movie that was powerful enough to rattle my mother was very interesting to me. The film’s marketing campaign was also interesting.
In the late Seventies, movie studios were still trying to figure out how to market blockbuster movies to kids. After the success of Star Wars and the associated toys (of which I owned several), Twentieth Century Fox wanted to capitalize on the box office success of Alien. In their minds, Star Wars and Alien were both science fiction and therefore the same. Never mind the fact that Star Wars was fun for all ages and Alien, as stated above, was a very hard R.
Therefore, the powers that be thought that it was a great idea to market toys to children that were based on a film that they couldn’t see. Kenner, who was responsible for the successful Star Wars toy campaign, released a 12-inch figure of the alien and a board game. Neither of these products were on the shelves for long because parents loudly complained to stores and Kenner. Plans for 3 3/4” figures were abandoned. I don’t recall ever seeing the game or the figure in the wild.
You would buy this for your eight year old, right?Fun for all ages!
Another product that was popular with kids back in the day was bubblegum cards by Topps. This worked really well for Star Wars, so they tried it for Alien. For some reason that is lost to the sands of time, my mother bought me one pack of the Alien cards. I don’t know why, but I am glad that she did, because this is what kickstarted my fascination with the film.
I vividly remember five of the cards. Two of them, shown below, were publicity shots of Ian Holm and Sigourney Weaver.
Holm and Weaver
Two other cards depict John Hurt’s character Kane in very different moments. Looking at it now, I am amazed that the first card shown below ever saw the light of day. It shows part of the infamous Chestburster scene. Granted, you can only see part of the blood stain and the actual hole in Kane’s chest is obscured by Parker. Still, this was not appropriate for a five year old to have.
I also don’t understand why my mother never bothered to look at the cards, especially after her experience with the film. Given my history with horror, you will be surprised to find out that this didn’t scare me or give me nightmares. I didn’t know anything about the Chestburster scene, so I had no context for the first card was showing me. It just piqued my curiosity.
John Hurt in two very different scenarios.
The last card that I remember owning is the best of the five – The Space Jockey. This is the card that I spent of lot of time studying. The Space Jockey was responsible for launching my imagination into the stratosphere. What is that thing? A fossil? A pilot? And look at how large it is compared to the astronaut. I wanted to see this thing in action. The Space Jockey remains one of my favorite images and is a high watermark in film design.
The image that launched my imagination into the stratosphere.
A few years later, my sister and I spent a few days with my paternal grandparents. Early in the trip, Grandpa took us to the library. I made a b-line to the science fiction section. One book stood out to me amidst the stacks of science fiction classics: A L I E N.
During the Seventies, publishers used to release “movie” novels. These are distinct from the usual tie-in novelizations. The movie novel reprints stills from the film in chronological order. Think of a comic book that uses still frames from the movie instead of art. The library had the movie novel for Alien. I couldn’t believe my luck. I grabbed it off the shelf. I was still too young to watch the movie, but this was the next best thing.
My own personal Necronomicon.
I knew that I wouldn’t be allowed to check the book out, so I had to make the most of my time and look at it in the library. I excitedly scanned through each page. The images were incredible. I got a really good look at my Space Jockey. The Facehugger, shown below, was a new one to me and I didn’t know what to make of it. And the Derelict spacecraft was eerie and cool.
A crucial moment.
Then I got to the big moment: the Chestburster. My heart was racing. It was gruesome, bloody and I couldn’t believe or understand what I was looking at. There is a book in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories called the Necronomicon, which is a tome of forbidden knowledge. That is exactly what the Alien Movie Novel felt like to me at that moment. I knew that I shouldn’t be looking at that book, but I couldn’t look away. I was mesmerized. Unfortunately, my time at the library was ending so I had to stop at the Chestburster scene.
The chestburster in all of its’ gruesome glory.
Looking back, the one thing that surprises me is that I wasn’t scared by any of this. I was fascinated and I wanted to learn more. I needed to see that movie. I knew that a full court press with my parents wouldn’t work because I was still too young.
So I waited.
Around the same time, when I was in the fourth grade, my parents were thinking about loosening my viewing restrictions and letting me watch certain R-rated movies. They told me that they were willing to experiment and let me watch Saturn-3, a science fiction film starring Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, and a young Harvey Keitel. If I could handle it, then I would be allowed to watch other R-rated movies of their choosing.
I was excited! I let everyone at school know that I was going to see my first R-rated movie. The night came and we watched it. The movie was ok. It isn’t one of the bedrock foundational science fiction films and I have never felt a desire to revisit it. The important thing for me is that Saturn-3 was a right of passage. I was now in the R-rated movie club.
Two years later, Twentieth Century Fox finally released Aliens, the long awaited sequel to Alien. I was in the sixth grade. This was when I started the full court press to my parents. I wanted to see Alien. I was ready.
My parents said no.
Repeatedly.
When I was in the eighth grade, my family moved and I switched schools. Many of my new classmates had already seen Aliens and were quoting a lot of the dialogue from it. I was jealous, because I still hadn’t seen it. I stopped bothering my parents about Alien, because I wasn’t getting anywhere with them.
Then, one Saturday morning, Mom was going out to run errands. I wanted to go with her, but she told me to stay home with Dad. When Mom got home a few hours later, I noticed that she had two VHS tapes from the local video store. When I tried to peek at the titles, she told me to wait for her in the living room.
Mom rented Alien and Aliens for me to watch with Dad.
My time had finally come!
This is, by far, one of the best double features that I ever watched. This was before HD and widescreen televisions, so I was watching a square pan and scan image. But it didn’t matter. I was enthralled. The Space Jockey was everything that I hoped for. The Facehugger was a great jump scare. The Chestburster was brilliantly gnarly. The rest of the film was absolutely thrilling.
I was hooked.
I also liked Aliens, which is a terrific action-adventure thriller.
However, my favorite is still Alien. It is tied with Blade Runner as my all time favorite film. I have spent the decades since that blissful Saturday studying the film. I have many books in my library about the making of Alien. I have purchased many iterations of Alien on home video. As shown in the pictures below, my office desk is littered with Alien memorabilia. My wife commissioned Ben Templesmith to create the Alien in watercolor for me.
A L I E N Collection Part 1A L I E N Collection Part 2Ben Templesmith A L I E N Watercolor
I tracked down a used copy of the Alien Movie Novel online. It is now a part of my collection. It brings back a lot of fond memories. I rewatch the film at least once a year.
Best of all, my Alien fandom lead me to my wife.
Back in 1997, I was attending Michigan Technological University in Houghton. It’s located about as far north as you can get in the Upper Peninsula. Anyway, I was in the middle of obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree and staying in one of the dorms. I was on my way back to my room from class and passed by a beautiful woman. I had never seen her before and wanted to introduce myself. However, I was not bold and somewhat self-conscious, so I kept on walking.
Throughout the coming weeks, I kept seeing her around the dorm. One day, I went to lunch in the cafeteria and found her sitting with some mutual friends. I got my food, sat down, introduced myself, and commenced with eating and listening. She was talking about how she was looking forward to the new Alien film Alien Resurrection. She was excited because it was going to be directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet the director of City of Lost Children.
I thought that I was one of the only people who knew about City of Lost Children, to say nothing of the fact that there was this beautiful woman who was eagerly awaiting the new Alien film like I was.
I am not exaggerating when I say that cartoon birds were floating around my head while Vivaldi’s Spring played.
(Sidebar: We saw Alien Resurrection separately during a break from school. It was a profound disappointment, one of the worst films in the series, and easily Jeunet’s worst film. My wife said, “Jean Pierre Jeunet betrayed me”. He ended up getting his mojo back with his next film, Amelie.)
We ended up having breakfast together every morning for the remainder of the school year and became good friends. It turned out that her parents are from the same area as my maternal grandparents, so we knew about the same places.
After we graduated, we ended up living near each other and hung out. The Director’s Cut of Alien played at one of the local AMC theaters and we went on opening night. I finally got to see one of my favorite movies on the big screen. And, I got to see it with one of my favorite people in the world. I was transfixed. My wife spent most of the running time with her face buried in my armpit.
The rest is history.
And it all started with a pack of bubblegum cards in 1979.
Horror is the most personal and subjective of any genre. We are not all scared of the same things due to our different life experiences. When I was a child, I was prone to nightmares and easily scared. Because of this, my parents actively kept me away from anything related to horror. They developed this philosophy (which lasted until I was in the seventh grade) because of my encounters with the Incredible Hulk, Jaws, Carrie, Star Trek, and E.T.
My first memory of being scared is when I was three years old. I was excited for the premiere of the Incredible Hulk tv show on CBS. My mom turned on the TV, left me with my dad and went to a neighbor’s apartment a few doors down. As soon as David Banner transformed into the Hulk, I screamed, ran out of our apartment sobbing, and banged on the neighbor’s door until my Mom came out and took me home. I didn’t watch the series until many years later. Fortunately, I was able to get over this fear relatively quickly.
This son of a bitch traumatized three year old me.
The same cannot be said for my fear of Jaws. I never actually watched the film when I was a child. I couldn’t make it past the poster. Picture it: we are in the middle of the ocean and see a swimmer. Below the waterline, there is a large predator with multiple rows of sharp teeth that is about to chow down on the swimmer and they do not see it coming.
I don’t remember when I first saw the poster. It has been ever present in my life and terrified me. It made swimming completely out of the question. I wouldn’t even go near swimming pools. Just hearing the famous theme music gave me anxiety and I turned away whenever there was even a hint of footage on TV.
One childhood memory that my mother always likes to remind me of involves the vacuum cleaner. One night, she left it in my bedroom. I couldn’t sleep because, in the dark, the vacuum cleaner looked like a boat on the ocean and my mind immediately went to Jaws. When they started showing it on network TV, I scanned through the TV Guide to find the ad so that I would know where it was and avoid it.
I didn’t actually watch Jaws until I was 19. It instantly became one of my favorite films. My wife and I watch Jaws annually on July 4th. This year, we watched it as part of a double feature with The Life Aquatic. The poster still scares the living shit out of me.
Don’t even get me started on this son of a bitch.
My next encounter with horror caught me completely by surprise. When I was in grade school, reading the new TV Guide was my weekly ritual. My mom brought it home from the grocery store and I took it to my room and read it cover to cover. At some point in the mid-eighties, I was reading through that week’s issue and found a promotion for Brian DePalma’s Carrie, which was set to debut on WKBD TV50. The ad, shown below, shows Sissy Spacek covered in blood and obviously in distress. In the moment, the ad didn’t bother me. However, when I tried to fall asleep that night, I couldn’t get the image out of my head. The look of absolute horror in her eyes terrified me.
Afterwards, I patrolled the local video stores just to find out where the video cover was so that I could avoid it. Around the same time, my mother bought me an issue of Starlog, one of the premiere science fiction film magazines of the day. The publisher of Starlog was also responsible for publishing Fangoria, the premiere horror film magazine of the day. In my issue, there was an ad for Fangoria that showed a few of the covers. One of the covers had an image of Carrie, which was the size of a postage stamp. I clipped the ad out of the magazine and threw it in the garbage.
I went on to become a huge Stephen King fan and read Carrie when I was in college. I watched the remake that came out a few years ago. It’s a great story. I still haven’t watched the original film. Every time I think I’m ready, I chicken out.
What can I say? Old terrors die hard.
On Twitter, Shout Factory announced that their rights to the film are lapsing this year. Once they sell out of the collector’s edition that they released a few years ago, it will go out of print. So, I finally bit the bullet and purchased the blu-ray. I have a feeling that I’ll write something about it after I watch it.
This image from TV Guide scarred me.
So, when I talk about horror films such as Jaws and Carrie, the next thing that pops into your mind is Star Trek, right?
No?
Me neither. Which is why my first viewing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was a shock to my system.
It was the summer of 1982. I was looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek movie. The trailers were exciting. I remember staying at my maternal grandparents’ house shortly after the film came out. They had a neighbor with a daughter that we occasionally spent time with. We were playing in the backyard and talking about the new Star Trek movie. She saw it before I did and talked about Khan using “bloodsuckers”. I didn’t know what she was talking about. It made me a little apprehensive. However, I thought “It’s Star Trek, how scary could it be?”
Finally, my parents took me to see it. I eagerly sat in the theater with my popcorn. The film started with James Horner’s stirring nautical score. The opening Kobayashi Maru sequence was great. Then, we cut to the U.S.S. Reliant. Chekov is the science officer. He and Captain Terrell beam down to the surface of Ceti Alpha VI and find the villain Khan and his crew of superhuman misfits. So far, so good. When Chekov and Terrell refuse to tell him why they have come to the planet, Khan implants them with indigenous Ceti eels that render them susceptible to suggestion. The eel attaches itself to the brain by entering the body through the ears!
Even with the early warning, this scene surprised and scared the living shit out of me.
Star Trek betrayed me!
Over the passage of time, I have given a lot of thought about why this scene is so damned effective. The combination of James Horner’s score, the editing and the performances of Walter Koenig and Paul Winfield really sell it. Also, the idea that a creature could crawl through your ear, go into your brain, and take away all of your agency is fucking terrifying.
I still tend to skip past this scene whenever I rewatch the film.
Fuck you, Ceti eels.
That same summer, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial came out. As a child of the Eighties, I was contractually obligated to see it. So, one summer day, my mother took my sister and I to see it at the Denniston Cinemas, our local movie theater. The movie was ok. In it, there were several scenes that featured Peter Coyote and a team of men-in-black in hazmat suits. I didn’t think anything of it in the moment.
Smash cut to the following morning. I knew that something was wrong when my mother greeted me with “Are you OK?” I had no idea what she was talking about. Apparently, I woke my parents up in the middle of the night by banging on their door and screaming “The Men! The Men!”. I said that I was fine, wasn’t the least bit scared and went about my day. The next morning, I woke up and I immediately knew that my mother was upset at me. Apparently, I woke up my parents and my sister doing the exact same thing as the night before. This time, I sat on the edge of my sister’s bed in tears.
You might have noticed that I used the word “apparently” twice in the previous paragraph. That is because, to this day, I have no memory of doing any of it. The film wasn’t the least bit scary to me and is one of my least favorite Spielberg films. However, it must have wreaked havoc with my subconscious. I think that this is one of the reasons that I am fascinated by dreams and the subconscious mind.
My subconscious had a lot of fun with this one.
In reading about these memories, you are probably surprised that I ended up becoming a major fan of horror. This warrants a second look:
The Incredible Hulk was my first experience with body horror.
Jaws was my first experience with creature features.
Carrie introduced me to Stephen King.
My E.T. sleepwalking experience aroused a fascination with dreams.
All of the line items underlined above went on to become majorinterests of mine. Body horror was a major subject of David Cronenberg’s early films and he became one of my favorite filmmakers.Creature features are a staple in the diet of most budding horror fans. I grew up loving Godzilla and eventually graduated to Alien and the Thing. Stephen King is a titan in the world of horror and count books such as ‘Salem’s Lot and the Stand amongst my favorites. Finally, dreams are an amazing subject that feature prominently in the works of H.P. Lovecraft and films such as Dreamscape (a fun slice of Eighties horror) and the Exorcist.
Two weeks ago, my wife and I were in Chicago for the C2E2 convention. I did not attend the convention itself due to hearing issues. I tagged along because Chicago is a great city and we were meeting my brother-in-law and mutual friends. At this point, coronavirus was in the news, but it was still an “over there” type of thing.
Coronavirus issues started ramping up in the news last week, but it still seemed off in the distance.
Even at the beginning of the week, things seemed normal. And then, gradually, events escalated. I have received daily updates from my workplace home office. By the end of the week, the home office suspended all business travel until further notice. No one can conduct meetings in the conference rooms. All meetings must be conducted virtually from your desk. Everyone must bring their laptops home with them every night because the situation is fluid and the office could institute a work from home policy over night.
Yesterday (Friday) was my day off. My wife’s workplace instituted a work from home policy, so she was working in the office upstairs. Our usual practice is to do our grocery shopping over the weekend. Usual stops include Target, Busch’s and Trader Joe’s. I suspected that shopping was going to be dire, so I went out first thing in the morning.
My first stop was Target. Even at 8am, the shelves were practically empty. My understanding is that people in my area started panic shopping Wednesday and Thursday night. The Target employees were clearly tired and, unfortunately, their day was just starting. I was able to purchase most of the basics, with the exception of distilled water for my BPAP. The cashier told me that they receive one delivery truck every day and two trucks on Sunday. I’m not out yet, so I’ll try again tomorrow.
After dropping off the Target packages at home, I ventured out to Trader Joe’s. They were busy, but everything was orderly. I was able to purchase meat, freezer food and some snacks.
This morning, my wife and I went to Busch’s to get additional items. Some of the shelves were bare. However, we were able to purchase a lot of staples (i.e. milk, cheese, etc).
I have a few takeaways from our experiences over the last couple of weeks:
Social Distancing – Due to my hearing damage, this is something that I have a lot of experience with. I can’t go to crowded areas because they are way too loud. What we are currently experiencing is my typical routine on a much larger scale. However, even though it is an inconvenience, social distancing is vital right now. We need to take care of each other now more than ever. It will help level out the demand on medical care facilities. Also, it will protect people who already have serious medical conditions (i.e. the elderly, cancer patients, etc.). I plan on calling my boss on Monday morning and informing him that I will be working from home for a little while.
It’s Chaos, Be Kind – This is something that I learned from Patton Oswalt. Even though we are practicing social distance, we can still take care of one another. At Target yesterday, a fellow shopper couldn’t reach the Kleenex boxes on the top shelf and asked for my help because I have “long arms”. I grabbed three boxes for her. It only took a moment and she was able to go about her day. (I remember being severely annoyed in the moment, but that was because my mind was on the fact that toilet paper was almost sold out and what was left over was $24 for a 24 pack.) This morning, a fellow shopper and I struck up a brief conversation about our experiences over the past few days. It is important that we be kind. It only takes a moment and it costs nothing. Take a moment and reach out to your loved ones by text/phone/social media.
Take Breaks – Whenever there is a world crisis, my first instinct is to binge on the news. This is something that I have a lot of trouble with. It is also one of the reasons why I quit social media two years ago. After we returned from C2E2, I rejoined Twitter because I missed some of the cultural conversations. Right after this, coronavirus news ramped up. Ever since then, I have steadily tried to manage my news intake and my anxiety. For example, after I finished shopping, I spent the rest of the day listening to the Tangerine Dream boxed set “In Search of Hades: The Virgin Recordings 1973-1979” while reading “Kill the Dead” by Richard Kadrey. Over the years, my wife and I have built a massive media library. We have plenty of books, movies, music and video games to catch up on. It is important to stay informed. However, it is equally important to give yourself a break. If you are able, go for walks. Read that book that has been on the top of your book pile. Watch a movie. Watch something silly.
This isn’t quite how I expected to jump start the SWI blog.
We live in very weird times right now.
The Starry Wisdom Institute is here for you.
If you are on Twitter, you can follow me @InstituteStarry.
Please take care of yourselves. Stay safe and healthy. Be kind to each other. We have a long way to go, but we can do this.
I started my Social Media Adventures in 2003. A friend introduced me to Friendster. It was interesting. The concept was that you had a virtual space online to hang out with your friends. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very popular and no one was using it.
Around this time, the same friend introduced me to LiveJournal. LJ was an online virtual microphone. I finally had a public forum for my thoughts. Brilliant! Many people in my circle of friends at the time got into LiveJournal. The results were, as you might expect, mixed. We ended up posting online every sad sack thought that popped into our heads; thoughts that, under normal circumstances, would be put into a private diary. At times, it appeared to the casual observer that we were having a competition for “Saddest Entry”.
In the end, my friends and I turned LiveJournal into a giant circle jerk of sadness.
(Editorial Note: The Starry Wisdom Institute apologizes for the vulgarity displayed in the previous statement. Our esteemed director insists that the description is accurate.)
Thankfully, the LiveJournal craze did not last long and everyone moved onto other things.
In 2005, MySpace came along. Friends from college and high school started getting in touch with me. Some of this was good. There were many people that I wanted to catch up with. There were also people that I would rather have stayed in dim memories of the past. Thankfully, MySpace made it easy to ignore people that you didn’t want to talk to.
Twitter was introduced to the public in 2006. I was intrigued by the concept: express yourself in 140 characters or less. It was fun…at first. Over the years, I started following musicians, filmmakers, journalists and writers. It appeared that I had a direct link to the minds of people that I admired. At first, this seemed like a great thing. I thought that I could learn all of their tricks and secrets. However, over time, as the news of the day got more intense, my Twitter feed blew up. I was getting outraged over everything. And the worse the news got, the deeper I fell into the rabbit hole.
In 2007, I joined Facebook. This was a social media supernova. It combined the blogging of LiveJournal and the stream of consciousness of Twitter. The algorithms that it uses are rather impressive. Enter all of your personal data (i.e. college, high school, place of work, hometown, etc.) and it finds people that you might know (even people that you don’t want to get back in touch with). Everyone is on Facebook. It has become a mainstream utility…a living journal where we can post anything and everything in real time.
In 2010, Instagram came onto the scene. This was a nice simple photo-centric social media tool. Again, many of my friends joined Instagram and we posted random photos. It was fun.
In 2011, Google got into the social media game and created GooglePlus. I don’t have much to say about GooglePlus because I honestly forgot that it exists. No one uses it.
In 2012, I got into the habit of relaxing on the couch with the TV on and my iPad in hand. The TV was background noise and my attention would be focused on refreshing my Twitter and Facebook feeds.
This is a terrible habit for me because, after awhile, everything became background noise.
It reached critical mass in 2015. Twitter was becoming a cesspool. I justified staying with it by telling myself that I was staying informed. This bled into Facebook. A few people on my friends list had some…interesting opinions. As a result, I learned how to keep people on my friends list and remove them from my news feed.
By 2016, people started weaponizing social media. You can get onto Google and look into this yourself. I am not going into it here. Let’s just say that living in constant anxiety and anger is not healthy and I got exhausted. So, I tried an experiment. I deleted the Twitter and Facebook apps from my devices. In order to use them, I had to log in on the web. Because I make my passwords impossible to remember, logging in takes effort. After some time away, I started feeling better.
In April of 2017, I deleted my Twitter and Instagram accounts.
On the afternoon of August 23, 2018, I deleted my Facebook profile.
It is September 21, 2018, and I am officially out of the social media business. I feel better. A lot better. Everyone doesn’t need to know what I’m thinking all of the time. Conversely, I don’t need to know what everyone is thinking all of the time. My thinking is clearer. I have regained my ability to concentrate. I am finally reading F. Paul Wilson’s Secret History of the World series (which might be the subject of a future entry).
I am also writing again.
If you enjoy Social Media, then by all means keep using it. Just know what you are signing up for. Even though you pay nothing for the services, you should understand that nothing in life is free.
This leads us, in a circuitous way, to the point of today’s post:
When social media is involved, you are not the customer. You are the product.
In the real and digital worlds, always mind your surroundings.
We are in the midst of cleaning, unpacking and organizing the place. The next time that you visit, you may find that we have chosen a different colour scheme or font. It is very much a work in progress.
Before we get too far, introductions are in order:
My name is Joe. I am the Director and Caretaker of SWI. I am also a writer, filmmaker and professional engineer. Earlier this year, the venerable Dr. Thaddeus Zorren decided to retire as Director and Caretaker of the Starry Wisdom Institute after an illustrious 44 year career. I am honoured that he handpicked me as his successor. When I asked Dr. Zorren why he chose me, he stated, “You have always been the caretaker”.
I have been involved with various forms of social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, myspace, Friendster, etc.) since 2003. For the past few years, I have witnessed a toxicity settling into social media. I questioned whether or not social media was appropriate for me. As an experiment, I deleted my Twitter and Instagram accounts in 2017. After a few weeks, I noticed that I wasn’t missing them. In 2018, I am finally taking the plunge and deleting my Facebook account.
SWI is my online home.
The Starry Wisdom Institute is dedicated to studying the Weird and the Eerie, in all of its forms. We will discuss film, music, literature and (occasionally) engineering. At the bottom of each entry, there will be a
The Starry Wisdom Institute 