Thoughts on the arts, society, politics, and various geeky topics.
This is the blog of Janice Dawley. Why is it called “Central Cortex”? Well, the Cortex was the interplanetary equivalent of the internet in Firefly, a show I was totally into back in 2003 when I first created this blog, and I’ve never changed the name since then. Strangely enough, I’ve barely written anything about Firefly here, but I’ve written a LOT about other TV shows and movies, as well as literature, politics, various cultural topics, and my own life.
Through the grace of someone else’s DVR, I’ve been watching some of the new TV season. This year there’s a rash of “speculative TV”, which is cool. Too bad so many of these shows seem to be rehashes of earlier ones. I haven’t mustered any interest in either Chuck (rehash of Alias and/or Johnny Mnemonic, but with a geek as the main character) or Reaper (rehash of Dead Like Me, but with a geek as...
Back when I slogged through IMDB’s list of “sci-fi” film and TV to pick out my top 25 of the past 25 years, I noticed some stuff with high ratings that I hadn’t seen. Netflix ahoy! Just recently I finished one of these shows, Space: Above and Beyond. It didn’t take too long, because like some other worthies it was prematurely cancelled. S:AAB (as it’s abbreviated by fans) ran from 1995-1996 on...
To whoever created an account with the name “Tom Metzger“, it’s been deleted. Buzz off, racist asshole.
Since my first blog entry on China (The new Yellow Menace?), I’ve continued to monitor the news, mostly via the New York Times, and note the trends. It’s been really interesting! There was a fallow period of a few weeks after the pet food, medicine, and toy scandals, but the spotlight is back with a vengeance this week. Here are some major stories I read over the weekend: Scandal and...
A roundup of interesting innovations I’ve been hearing about:
WikiScanner maps anonymous Wikipedia edits to locations via
Google Sky added to Google Earth via
NetFlix now offers online viewing (too bad it’s PC- and IE-only)
Biodegradable plastic ware reduces waste (seen and used by me at City Market members meeting!)
This movie is a fascinating mess. It’s about a black television producer, Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans), who is put on the spot by his obnoxious white boss (Michael Rapaport) to come up with a hit show. In a sort of “screw you, go ahead and fire me” gesture, he develops an idea for a modern-day minstrel show, complete with watermelon patches and characters in blackface who can’t resist...
I only got out one post for International Blog Against Racism Week while it was still happening, but you know… there’s never a wrong time to call out this shit when it happens. And lo and behold, yesterday, when I was at work, something gross and racist happened. I’m a computer geek, and on Sunday I spent my day reorganizing the server room. We had a lot of cables left over...
It’s the second annual International Blog Against Racism Week. Think racism is a thing of the past? That it happens some other place, not where you live, or in your favorite entertainment, or in your virtual hangouts? If so, you should read some of these posts as background material, then follow up with these. One data point that ties directly to one of my favorite topics, television: The...
I just watched the 1979 animated movie Watership Down, based on the book by Richard Adams. When I was in my teens I read the novel somewhere between 10 and 15 times. It’s in my bones in a way that only, maybe, The Lord of the Rings can rival. Now that I think of it, these books might have appealed to me in similar ways. They’re long, and lumpy, and full of detail and landscape...
I recently finished the first three books of the Elemental Logic series by Laurie J. Marks. They are grave and thoughtful books about violence, personal responsibility, and friendship in an occupied land where magic works in unusual ways. The issues that are dealt with are serious, and I feel I owe the books (and author) the respect to say both what worked and what didn’t in the series.