The New York Toy Fair 2012 is wrapping up today, but this year’s collection makes me envy the kids who will be getting these toys for Christmas next year. Nerdy toys galore were shown off, including but not limited to: Ghost Busters statues, Portal 2 toys (including portal gun), The Dark Knight Rises action figures, Marvel and DC superhero collectibles, and so much more. The Toy Fair ends on a high note, hosting the largest toy bank of the year.
While we’re talking about toys, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying releases February 28. This new Marvel game means that role-players everywhere can stop converting to D20 Modern or other systems just to play a Marvel themed campaign. The game promises to be better than the previous half-assed Marvel RPGs that have been released. It uses the Cortex Plus rules set made famous in the Leverage and Smallville RPGs. The basic game releases at the end of the month, but several expansions such as Civil War are planned as early as March 2012.
We’ve heard many rumors of a Smallville continuation. Everything from another season of the television show to a novel has been alleged. Last Thursday, DC comics gave us the official scoop, announcing the official Smallville Season 11 comic series. The comics pick up where the show left off, and we can expect to see several of our favorites return including Green Arrow and Chloe Sullivan-Queen.
Marvel has given us a teaser of the first showdown from Avengers VS X-Men. The second comic’s cover features Gambit going head-to-head with Captain America and Spider-Man fighting Colossus. It looks like Marvel is determined to give us showdowns never seen before.
All of the comic news from the big boys is great, but it pales in comparison to the awesomeness announced by IDW comics. In possibly the most epic crossover ever, Dr. Who and Star Trek: The Next Generation will come together in a new comic. The Dr. and his gang will join the crew of the Enterprise for what’s bound to be a great adventure. We should know more when it is officially announced this week at the Gallifrey One convention in the UK.
Do you want to see a comic documentary with a focus on the rise of women in comics? If so, a Kickstarter account has been opened to fund such a film. The documentary, Wonder Woman! The Untold Story of American Superheroines is seeking the funding to debut at South by Southwest this March. If you are sick of all the male-centric comic documentaries focusing on Superman and Captain America, this is your chance to help get this movie off the ground.
Moving out of comics and into the movie world, the first preview for the Tim Burton produced Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has arrived. The movie drops into theaters on June 22.
There is a new live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the works, and it looks like they’ve found a director – Jonathan Liebesman, who helmed Battle: Los Angeles and the upcoming Wrath of the Titans.
We’ve known about the inevitable Transformers 4, but I don’t think anyone was expecting Michael Bay would use it to reboot the series. It’s official now since the producers are tossing around the word reboot, but I don’t know if they’re using it correctly. Producer Lorenzo di Bonavantura tried to correlate Transformers 4 to Amazing Spider-Man, but really only ended up saying they weren’t doing a full reboot. I’m not sure what their definition of the term is – it could be anything. A new storyline? A new cast? New Transformers? It’s all up in the air, but the fourth movie is aiming to release June 29, 2014.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance releases in a few days, and now co-director Brain Taylor is onto his next project. He just happens to be writing and directing a live action movie based on the totally rockin’ Playstation demolition derby Twisted Metal game. That’s right Sweet Tooth and other favorites such as Doll Face will be appearing on the silver screen.
“Since then, anything that’s got a good rhythm to it that makes people move I really like, no matter what genre of music it is..” – M.I.A.
M.I.A. latest album is Arular is being propelled by the dancehall hit “Galang.” But beneath the surface of this danceable fun track there is a power and politicalness that M.I.A. has carried with her whole life.
Occupy Wall Street has gone from a overzealous cry in a somewhat posh Canadian produced magazine to a genuine movement that has emerged as reaffirmation of civil disobedience in this country as quickly as it has become an international brand embodying the best and worst of American pop-culture.
The last time I wrote about Occupy Wall Street, protestors had only been camped out for five days; since then the camps have be removed after becoming established in cities around the world. And while the original, loose-collective approach to the movement was an advantage, it’s time to move to phase two of Project Mayhem.
There’s no reason to abandon the basic principals of anarchy that can lead to consensus at the General Assemblies, allow for committees to focus on certain aspects according to individual desire, or the intelligent manner in which a leaderless movement is free from scapegoating tactics. Like Tyler says, “You determine your level of involvement.”
Despite my tongue-in-cheek references, it’s nearly shocking the way that life seems to be imitating art. Or, at least movies based on that art. Both Fight Club and V for Vendetta have become evolved symbols of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and in the same manner that Libyan rebels adopted the former royal flag of their country, the origin doesn’t matter as much as the spirit.
If the Egyptian revolution is indeed the inspiration for what drove a movement here in America, then we should also take note of their continuing struggle – overthrowing one leader in exchange for brutal military rule. Violence responding to violence doesn’t seem to work out very well in modern revolutions, not in Greece, not in South East Asia, and not in America. There are many reasons why a violent revolution can fail, just as there are many reasons why a non-violent movement can fail.
In either case, there must be some sense of optimism and humanitarian unity or else there is no revolution at all, only our own self-fulling Apocalypse.
If you are reading this, you are being tuned into the frequency of #EtherSec. If it wasn’t clear before, Anonymous is merely a common identifier for people who believe the current structure of our global society should be drastically altered to improve conditions for all. A group of people under this banner have decided to engage in the next evolutionary action, one that doesn’t take place in the streets, but rather in minds.
#EtherSec is difficult to describe, much like the larger Anonymous movement, because with no leadership, individuals move in different directions. There have been four initial releases connected to #EtherSec, but how long those links will be active remains to be seen, and no doubt more have popped-up over time as more join the idea.
The basic premise of the movement is that the quantum reality of our universe is partially affected in a very real way by our thoughts. The emergence of social media technology has caused an exponential increase in people to empathize with one another on the global level as we approach December 21st, 2012.
And that’s where things start to go off the deep end. You’re going to need a bigger bong.
How much of #EtherSec related content is pushed out by a select number of people, or more likely a loose band of several people, is unsure. Still, the basic notion of the movement hinges on a sort of spiritual power within the individual, and that within each of us lies the ability to shape reality in the context of our collective imagination.
Confused? It’s okay. The premise of this movement seems to lie within pop-science of movies like What The #%@$ Do We Know?, Love, Reality, and The Time of Transition, The Awakening, and more – a loose knowledge of string-theory, and the optimistic anchor that we are in control of our future and our various realities of the multiverse.
Now, how much of this should by taken seriously is up to the reader, to you. If humanity can manage to keep its collective shit together for long enough, there indeed may come a time when a singularity happens for some of the human race. Whether or not this comes about as a blossoming of empathy on the mental level across every conscious being on the planet Earth this year, or rather at a point in which the capacity of technology begins to exceed the physical structure of our organic bodies to create a new form of humanity for the select, privileged few in the future remains to be seen. We are in The Fourth World War.
Recently, Alan Moore – the creator of V for Vendetta along with David Lloyd – was interviewed backstage in England after a conference on the notion of reality. It’s fitting that the mind who helped create a character, loosely based on a violent zealot, that was then transformed into a movie hero, and twisted into a symbol of individual freedom on a global level is on the same wave as the #EtherSec crew.
Good news though, the best way to get on board with all the new changes is drugs! But, before you get ready to lace up your matching Nike hightops and drink the Kool-Aid, there are some things you should consider. To start, the more you watch and listen to the different opinions, instructions, and guidelines, the more #EtherSec starts to sound like a religion. And when I say religion, I mean a cult. All religions are cults in one way or another, in that they force a person to believe in a set of conditions, but some cults are worse in that they inspired people to hurt themselves and others.
Perhaps this spiritual evolution of the Occupy and Anonymous movement was inevitable. As people began to be evicted on a coordinated level across the country from public spaces, and as more low-level hacktivists are picked up by the FBI, the most likely place for the energy to flow was inward.
#EtherSec’s most basic flaw, as others have pointed out, is that at least some of the communications suggest perceived dark forces, that those in power are actively working against those of us who are aware of these quantum level connections exponentially woven through shared ideas. The truth, in my opinion (subjective, obviously), is that we’re holding ourselves back as a species. There are not dark forces, only ignorance and people turned into oppressive tools by a series of unjust systems we ourselves created and uphold. One of the most horrifying things we can acknowledge within ourselves is the potential for unlimited devastation. The flip side is that we also have the potential for infinite creation.
The central problem with #Ethersec and any “Quantum Protest” is that many outside of true believers probably don’t see their actions as affecting this reality. And no matter what people may claim, saying that truly believing in something is the essence of that system’s power, and that if you don’t then it doesn’t work, isn’t a viable solution to the problems at hand.
Still, as we come full-circle (after all, life itself can seem an infinite loop), as Adbusters release their 100th issue, that issue is dedicated to the spiritual insurgency of people around the world. Ideas spread like electricity.
For this global revolution to survive, we must remain positive. Ours should be a happy rebellion, one of dancing and art; not naive, but ultimately optimistic. If we can’t rejoice in our transformation as a society, then what are we struggling to achieve? And if #EtherSec, or any other movement, can help individuals retain their optimism and keep alive the idea that together the world can be radically transformed for the better, then it is probably a positive movement.
Remember, a spiritual transformation is an individual movement. Don’t believe outright – research, test, come to your own conclusions. Be skeptical. All Gods are false gods, even ourselves. Think like a scientist, love like a monk. We all have to find our way, but we’re still all in this together. One relatively tiny blue dot in the vastness of space. We must thrive together, or die alone.
I have always felt a little indifferent about Valentine’s Day. It seems cliché to hate it, stupid to love it, and all in all, just another day of the week. I don’t think I have ever had a spectacular Valentine’s Day even when I was in a relationship. In college, my boyfriend at the time told me we were supposed to go to dinner and then he wound up not being able to afford it. I was crushed. But I remember one other day, in the middle of the summer when he left a single red rose under my windshield wipers, and he hid so when I looked around the parking lot I didn’t see him until when I turned around, he was right there kissing me. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life, and it was also just another day.
A few Valentine’s days ago my boyfriend at the time and I went to a romantic dinner at a candlelit historic restaurant in Boston’s Beacon Hill district. The tables were so close together and we were both so tall that we looked like bulls in a china shop trying to be classy and quiet amidst normal sized couples. We wound up eating so much food and dessert that we couldn’t even make room for drinks afterwards, and we were both massively uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. Sexy.
I feel like Valentine’s Day is just one of those days that winds up making people feel bad, so I usually just do what I always do on every other day: hit the bars. If anyone is out at a bar in Boston on Valentine’s Day chances are they’re single. The odds of running into a guy lying about having a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day are slim to none, so I look forward every year to some guilt free bar scene action.
One year ago today I was with four single friends. One guy had just been dumped (they got back together), one had just been snubbed my by best friend and was nursing a bruised ego (he is now happily in a relationship), and then there was me and my friend Lindsay, two girls who can’t seem to be tamed. We were drinking twenty three ounce Harpoon UFO drafts and knocking back shots of Jameson when I glanced up and happened to meet eyes with a guy standing across the bar. I leaned into my friend Jay not-so-stealthily, “he’s CUTE!” I whispered, quickly looking away, my cheeks burning.
Not two seconds later I had a shot of Patron placed in front of me, and the bartender gestured towards that guy across the bar. “It’s on him,” the bartender said. I looked up and the guy was holding a shot as well, and I knew that there was no turning back now, I had to rip this shot and act like tequila didn’t make me throw up in my mouth. Turning down salt and lime, I got the shot down the hatch and stood up to go say thanks. I flashed my best smile and held out my hand, and I met Dan.
I remember leaving the bar that night with a smile stuck to my face. Who goes to a bar and meets a guy on Valentine’s Day? It was perfect, so sappy, so lame, and oh my god, why couldn’t I stop smiling? That night was the start of something that wound up being silly, tumultuous, fun and pretty important. Dan has become a staple in my life, someone I call when I need advice, need a drinking partner, need a pep talk on getting over an ex. We just got back from an 11 day cruise with a few other friends, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime with whom to spend that time in paradise with. Looking back one year later I can’t help but still have a smile stuck on my face.
It’s funny, how life works out. I always thought that Valentine’s Day was just another day, and it is — but you never know when life is going to hand you someone special — and as always, extra points when that someone special is holding a shot of tequila with your name on it.
“I’m not big on heroes. I’m more interested in the fact that he’s not just a hero. I think the whole Gunpowder Plot is extraordinary and should be put on film.” – Hugo Weaving
Hugo Weaving had a difficult task when he reteamed with the Wachowski brothers and their director James McTeigue on their adaptation of the Alan Moore and David Lloyd graphic novel V for Vendetta. James Purefoy had already filmed some scenes as V then was let go, giving Weaving only a few days to prepare before coming to set to replace him. But Weaving relished the challenge and rose up and according to reports from the first screening of V for Vendetta; they’ve pulled off an amazing film.
