Now playing: Leave things alone

1. 'Food stamps y'all' – Ohio Players (1973)
2. 'Plaything' – Roisin Murphy (2019)
3. 'Two Faces' – Lee Fields and the Expressions (2019)
4. 'My Name is Dark' – Grimes (2019)
5. 'You and I' – Caribou (2019)

Now playing: Doug revisions

1. 'So heavy I fell through the Earth' – Grimes (2019)
2. 'Swimmers' – Zero 7 (2019)
3. 'Incapable' – Roisin Murphy (2019)
4. 'Delius' – Kate Bush (1980)
5. 'Here sometimes' – Blonde Redhead (2010)

Futureworld

If America didn't land the first man on the moon, would that be an excuse for it fucking up everything else? That is the set-up for at least one comedy routine and Ronald D. Moore's For All Mankind which retcons the Apollo mission as a catch-up to the Russian space program. By putting the USSR there before the States Moore casts the Americans in the role of the can-do guys, a compelling premise for as long as you can forget they could-did.

This tethers the space walk, and not just for history buffs. Mankind's "what if" science fiction is in the tradition of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle but instead of topsy-turvy, Moore has merely fudged the dates. The drama relies almost entirely on in its fidelity to real life, or at least a 4K update of previous versions: First Man, which was a shakier take on Apollo 13, which was a more carefully explained version of The Right Stuff. NASA dramas count-down reliably. Men with flat hair! Women around the TV! Controllers smoking with impunity! The cigarette work in Mankind is at a Michael Bay level. The space scenes never rise above Kubrick's, although the snap-zoom on the command module is a VFX nod to Moore's Battlestar Galactica remake, the first two seasons of which were up there with The Prisoner.

But the series is not real. So, post-pesky Russians, where will Moore's Picard plot-wheel land? Red Dawn 2019? The Astronaut's Wife? Mankind's wives are too lively to hail from Stepford. Maybe that Wernher von Braun will turn out to be a Nazi. That'd really be fucked.

Now playing: Nicole's CGI boat

1. 'All Lost Time' – The Bishops (2013)
2. 'Violent Light' – AOS (2016)
3. 'Hysteric' – Yeah Yeah Yeahs (It's Blitz, 2009)

What can I do about my dreams

Amazon | Smashwords | Scribd | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books 

Now playing: He drinks double hernias

1. 'I Got Time' – Chad (2019)
2. 'Uptown Top Ranking' – Althea and Donna (1977) 
3. 'Reykjavik' – Brolin (Cundo EP, 2013) 
4. 'Heart on my sleeve' – Bryan Ferry (Let's Stick Together, 1976)
5. 'Who'll stop the rain' (12" extended version) – Heaven 17 (1982)
6. 'Un si beau dimanche' – Alëem (1996)
7. 'A Gift' – Lou Reed (Coney Island Baby, 1975) 
8. 'Go!' M83 feat. Mai Lan (2016)

Are you awake?

Forgotten

Robert Fripp is fighting to be recognised for the greatest guitar feedback of all time:

Fripp wrote in his post, “The dispute centres on the refusal of PPL and the David Bowie estate to acknowledge that [Fripp’s] contribution to the ‘Heroes’ and ‘Scary Monsters’ albums is that of a Featured Player. This accreditation as a Featured Player is supported by Brian Eno, Tony Visconti, David Bowie himself (although the terminology was not then in use), and the Court Of Public Opinion over four decades..."

Full story at Variety (and on Fripp's Facebook page. Robert Fripp is on Facebook.)

Meanwhile at Vulture Rachel Handler has interviewed the wonderful Fiona Apple:

You've always been good at that — controlling your own narrative. How did you develop that power?

I don't even think it's a power. I do think I've always had it. It's honestly a direct result of me never getting people's phone numbers and never getting chummy with a lot of people. So then people don't think of me to call up and badger to come out and do stuff. So I never go out and do stuff, because it's never expected. My family hasn't seen me at Christmas celebrations for years and years. So I just don't get invited anymore. [Laughs.] I mean, that's an exaggeration. 

I assumed in the beginning I could do whatever I want. If you're just doing that from the beginning, and don't have any doubt about it, then that's how it goes. I had no idea I was setting my own narrative by not acting a certain way or taking anybody's advice.

Full fantastic interview is here.

Now playing: Chicken sandwich on a hot dashboard

1. 'Save Me' – MNDR (2019)
2. 'Lark' – Angel Olsen (2019)
3. 'Desert Man' – Bat For Lashes (2019)
4. 'Jacques' – Tove Lo with Jax Jones (2019)
5. 'Temple of Sorrow' – M83 (2019)

Enhance, stop. Move in. Stop

One grows old. The Matrix is still wonderful but no modern employer would threaten to fire lax developer Neo; likewise the governor's car accident in Blow Out would be captured on every bystander's cellphone if not Google Maps. Twenty-first century disintermediation is the enemy of plot because in the classic thriller all trivia is crucial and all exposition is a distraction. Blow Out's Zapruder paranoia that a darker world lurks in a grainy frame is an artefact of film: digital would clean things up. (In Snake Eyes multi-cameras almost cracked it.) The mistakes in Brian De Palma's films remain for all to see. Watch them again and again.

The night

Life is ordinary in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: the only action is in the movies, so when action erupts at the conclusion of the film the audience knows they have left reality for a fictional narrative. The big surprise is the moment after that moment when Jay Sebring opens the gates to 10050 Cielo Drive and invites Rick Dalton to join them in the real-life house of death: Maurice Jarre's score from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean plays eerily, the gates open and Rick hesitates before crossing the shaded threshold. As the camera drifts up and away, we see he has joined the victims in a moonlit dream. It's a plangent moment, more La Dolce Vita than Sergio Leone.

There is a western in Quentin Tarantino's latest, and a child actor cowgirl who lectures Rick on political correctness (double burn: she considers Walt Disney the greatest genius of the 20th century), but mostly the movie is about driving, listening to music, hanging out – the boredom of movie-making and aimless killers-to-be. The awkward voice-over is balanced by at least two other scenes in which characters provide redundant narration: a hippie at Spahn ranch watching Cliff Booth through an insect screen, and Cliff watching Rick's TV episode of FBI, a class of meta-reference Brian De Palma, another Italian filmmaker, pulled for Body Double. Hollywood is a gentle European exercise in style and form. Even Al Pacino delivers softly. Tarantino the writer is running on fumes – the dialogue doesn't spark like it used to, and the flashbacks feel like a patch-up – but Tarantino the director is new and good; almost wise.

I love trouble

Jessica Jones wasn't great all the way through but then again neither was Columbo. The Marvel series started off like McCloud: a detective series short on mystery but with charisma to burn. At the beginning most of that was from Krysten Ritter but as the show became more of an ensemble piece shared by Rachael Taylor and Carrie-Anne Moss it evolved into better drama. The first season was cold, the second stop-start but the third fitted like a good-bad pair of jeans: episodic, confined to a few rooms, people talking about big things happening off-screen that would otherwise be too expensive to film. In the end Jessica Jones' last season felt like something Netflix ordinarily doesn't do – it felt like TV.

Now playing: Rooftop scene intro revised

1. 'Still Woozy' – Lucy feat. Odie (2018)
2. 'Biig Piig' - Perdida (2018)
3. 'Allocate' – Damien Jurado (2018)
4. 'Honestly' – Nana Adjoa (2018)
5. 'Where The Light Comes In' – Sarah Neufeld (2017)

Now playing: Birducopia

1. 'Tempo' – Lizzo feat. Missy Elliott (2019)
2. 'Breaking your silence' – Generationals (Reader as Detective, 2019)
3. 'wander into' – ann annie (wander into, 2019)
4. 'Melt' – Daniel Wohl (État, 2019)
5. 'I'm a living sickness' – The Calico Wall (1967)

Now playing: The comma splice expands consciousness

1. 'Let You Know' – Flume feat. London Grammar (2019)
2. 'Room Without a View' – Judy Nylon (1982)
3. 'Trash Me' – Malaria! (2008)
4. 'High' – Little Dragon (2019)
5. 'Follow My Girl' – The Japanese House (2018)

Now playing: 'Are we in Holland?'

1. 'Right Here, Right Now' – Giorgio Moroder ft. Kylie Minogue (Deja Vu, 2015)
2. 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' – Sophie Ellis-Bextor (some coked-up promotional folly, probs, 2009)
3. 'Sing it Back' – Moloko (very live, Roisin killing it, 2007)
4. 'New Life' – Depeche Mode (live In Hamburg fab-four style, 1984)
5. 'The Time is Now' – Roisin Murphy (Later with Jools Holland and just generally in a good place, 2001)

Now playing: Relax muscles in your face

1. 'Keturahwaltz' – Daniel Knox (Chasescene, 2019)
2. 'Doin Time' – Lana Del Rey (2019)
3. 'Ember 1' – bvdub (Explosions in Slow Motion, 2019)
4. 'Blink' – Hiroshi Yoshimura (Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental and New Age Music 1980 -1990)
5. 'Light Years' – The National (I Am Easy To Find, 2019)

New short story

I have a new short story out: Aurélie, a 13,000-word noir, first part of two, cover by the great Derek Henderson. Available now at Smashwords, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books and Kindle.

Now playing

1. 'Passaggio A Nord-Ovest' – Jon Hassell (1995)
2. 'Submission' – Miles Davis and Marcus Miller (1987)
3. 'Mars' – MNDR (2019)

Mirror, Mirror, Mirror

Director Nicolas Meyer wrote Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) by combining ideas from at least five screenplays, a whatever-works approach that broke a production impasse to create a fan and critic favourite. It feels like the writers of Star Trek: Discovery have been using the same method, grabbing ideas from Trek universes and beyond and seeing what sticks.

A lot hasn't. The Dune-style spore drive made the universe too small. The Spock storyline undermines Michael (can't it just be about her?). The Klingons' game-of-thrones grinds. The Matrix squid ships, Tilly as Radar, Pike as Draper are cute riffs but not game changers. The neuroses of Stamets and Culber became so pronounced Michelle Yeoh's Georgiou (or is she, I've lost track) had to make a scolding meta-intervention to remind us some characters still fuck. The promise of a sexier Trek teased by Enterprise way back in 2001 has never materialised. Again this series shows how much 2004's Battlestar Galactica did it better. Ronald Moore's remake eclipsed Roddenberry's vision as completely as Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass's Bourne lapped Bond.

But Discovery's Borg storyline is the origin story we never knew we wanted. The Next Generation villains were Trek's best: cold colonisers, the Federation turned up to 11 – the good guys' mirror self. The plot development suggests the augmentation of Discovery crew members like Keyla and Nhan is more than just eye candy. And thus after two seasons of false starts the new Trek has found its shape. The final eps of series two are queued up to watch now. Engaged.