Midrange Weekly Dec 21
Your Weekly Round Up On What’s Got The Midrange Staff’s Attention
Jamie was forlorn and existential even when the weather was nicer
Midrange Staff @midrangeyvr
Welcome back to Midrange Weekly, where the team surveys the weeks events and waxes intellectual only on the topics they have a cursory knowledge of or have seen trending on twitter. Either/or. A lot happened in Trump world this week, not the least of which included our little orange chetto pondering declaring martial law and seizing voting machines with none other than failed international man of mystery Michael Flynn. That he thinks it’s criminal that Congress may try to supbeana his tax returns but it’s within his mandate to arbitrarily impound state voting machines would be funny if someone made it up instead of it actually happening. As this is already depressing, let’s move onto other things. The vaccine rollout may be predictably messy but at least Star Wars fans don’t want to kill each other along sectarian lines of the franchise for a change. Let’s dig in.
BEFORE WE GO ANY FUTHER THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE SEASON 2 FINALE OF THE MANDALORIAN
Some Thoughts On Anti-Vaxxers
CBC
Despite the agonizing slow burn that has been 2020, it’s wild to the degree that the vaccine went from some distant hypothetical only to be deployed in a alternate reality in which we had our collective shit together, to a real thing that is really happening. The first round of vaccines have reached BC citizens along with other parts of the world in the first clear indication that we are reaching the end of this errant and ghoulish mess. Of course, in something analogous to the idea of no good deed going unpunished, one can’t enjoy the fruits of vaccination without having to put up with an unhealthy dose of anti-vaxxers. To hear these people spin their bullshit webs is objectively tedious under the most benign of circumstances. Putting up with them now when we desperately need to ameliorate our pandemic conditions is exquisitely infuriating. It may seem difficult- and indeed demoralizing- to parse through and negotiate the various arguments these individuals lay claim to, mostly because it is.
The garden-variety anti-science sub genre is divorced not just from reality, but from their own personal contextualization. To all who would argue that vaccines don’t work, or is worse than the disease, or is likely prone to severe and wide spread side effects, I would simply suggest they pull up their own immunization record from their birth and have them google all of the diseases on that list that they won’t get. I’d like to think that would shut them up but who the hell knows. Even more infuriating are the anti-vaxxers that dub themselves of something of a counter culture pioneer, proudly displaying their conspiratorial hubris as if to indicate their intellectual and therefore moral clarity. They are often the first to refer to the rest of us as sheep for acknowledging that simple logic and understood narratives of the day’s events often coincide. They do so without a hint of irony that their neurotic distrust of nearly anything consensus oriented leaves them the most vulnerable to being conned by the flimsiest of counterfactuals and those that would be purveyors of them. These are the people that are positive the Obamas- somehow- conspired with China to engineer the virus. They tend to litigate with obnoxious certitude that the vaccine will allow George Soros to control us or will contain a microchip that will track your every movement. Putting aside for a moment what the fuck do you think your phones do, I’m curious to see the Venn Diagram of those with these reservations and the unabashed sycophants of the technocratic delinquent Elon Musk, who among other things has literally said he wants to put chips in our brains. But I digress.
I think the flavour of anti-vaxxer that inspires my venomous bile more than any is the conscientious abstainer, based on the grounds that they just don’t know what’s in it. After all, they aren’t going to put just anything in their bodies, especially if they don’t know the details of its contents. Rather than suffer from another rage induced seizure at the thought of such incoherent discourse, I’d instead offer a brief, and by no means complete, appendix of things that if a person has ever put into their body, they are prohibited from making such an argument in perpetuity throughout the universe.
-Tylenol
-Hot dogs
-Any drugs that aren’t weed or mushrooms
-Red bull (or any of its putrid cousins)
-Crystal Pepsi
-Movie theater popcorn butter
-Grocery store sushi
I could go on but you get the idea. On a final note, learning that certified shit heads like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham got the vaccine before many health care workers in America is enough to make me want to turn in religion just so there is some kind of hell for them to go to. Rather get biblical on anyone though, I’ll let Twitter succinctly summarize my thoughts. -Tristan
People who should’ve been vaccinated before Marco Rubio:
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) December 21, 2020
– my mom
– everyone’s grandma
– everyone’s grandpa
– every nurse
– every doctor
– every person who didn’t spend the last ten months telling people this modern plague is “no big deal.”
– Dolly Parton
Let’s Talk About The Mandalorian
Disney+
As far as climatic affairs go, it’s hard to find much fault in the finale of The Mandalorian’s second season. Its crescendo was as dramatically impressive as just about any series arc this year, to say nothing of it’s visual fidelity (at least for the first part) and the pure concentrated fan service it provided. When Mando bested Moff Gideon in a Beskar spear (kinda cool) versus dark saber (dumb) duel, but there was still half an episode to go, it was clear the show had something up it’s sleeve and it was big. Sure enough as soon as that lone X wing docked with the imperial cruiser, we knew it could only be Luke Skywalker coming to save the day. And did he ever. With vividly choreographed aplomb and just a hint of merciless savagery, Skywalker eviscerates an entire battalion of mechanized dark troopers the show had spent several episodes insisting were unstoppable killing machines. Not to him, as he cut them down with casual efficiency. A lot of avowed Star Wars fans will tell you this was a moment they’ve been waiting several generations to see, and it’s easy to see why- it was rad as hell. Admittedly, the de-aged CGI on Mark Hamill’s face was rather bad, but it always is when that sort of thing is attempted. I’ve just grown to accept it as the perpetually undercooked technology that it is. The actual fight leading up to him revealing his face was marvellous. Extra points for the scene direction and claustrophobic ambush on Luke’s part, mimicking Darth Vader’s slaughter of the rebels in Rogue One and visually implying a generational symmetry in the fighting styles of the Skywalkers.
Yes, we can agree it was pretty awesome, but I do have some gripes with what transcribed that I feel are both warranted and endemic of the franchise as a whole. Chiefly is my frustration that no matter what direction any of the Star Wars appendices go in, they can just never seem to get away from the Skywalker family drama. Time in time again, across so many stories and mediums, it keeps coming back to them. Everything one way or another gets tangled in their personal history creating a myopic and suffocating canon in what is supposed to be a narrative ecosystem the size of a galaxy. The Mandalorian, more so than any recent Star Wars property, was a chance to get away from all of this. Mando, a bounty hunter in the spirit of Boba Fett himself, was meant to be antithetical to the moral crusade and dogmatic Jedi values that define the Skywalker saga. To shoe horn that stuff back in seems regressive, leading one to ask just how small is this universe, when everyone seems to know Luke or Anakin at some point. As the sequel trilogy has shown, if Star Wars can’t move on from these characters in pursuit of something genuinely new, it’s storylines will continue to cannibalize themselves to the point of implosion for the entire franchise.
I’d also like to direct some frivolous umbrage at these dark troopers. The fact that they have a canonical origin in one of the more appreciated Star Wars games is not nearly enough to further justify their existence. That the show asks us to consider a storm trooper with it’s only weakness- the human inside the armour- removed to create a battle droid is portentous of impending doom is some serious laundering of Star Wars history. Basically it’s pretending that we didn’t have an entire prequel trilogy of battle droids that were so laughably incompetent that by the end they were indeed played for laughs. These things were cannon fodder, or more specifically light saber fodder. The prequels even emphatically suggested the cloned, but still sentient, troopers were a step up from the remedial circuitry of the clumsy droids. Now we are supposed to pretend they are death incarnate simply because they are painted black? Absolutely not.
Lastly, it’s tragic that Luke and Boba didn’t get a quick scene together. That would have been fun. Maybe in season 3 perhaps. Also we would have to assume that at some point Mando tells Boba that he gave the kid to Skywalker, and I definitely want to see that scene play out. “You gave him to WHO?” Boba might shriek. “YES I KNOW HIM”. -Tristan
FLUX FIVE
This Week:
Hailu & Dahlak Band “Wede Harer Guzo 2016 re- release Awesome Tapes From Africa
Lee Gamble “Folding” 2019 In A Paraventral Scale EP
Kool & The Gang “You Don’t Have To Change” 1974 Light Of Worlds
Amon Tobin “Long Stories” 2019 Long Stories
Aphex Twin “Strotha Tynhe” 2001 Drukqs
Enjoy! - Mick
Things From The Internet We Liked
The Avalanches Release The Last Great Album Of 2020
Aussie pop culture curators and commentators have released their third LP We Will Always Love You, and it’s a sprawling array of ideas, guests, and samples. There’s a lot going on and much of it to terrific effect. The track Wherever You Go is one of the more affecting standouts so far.
Christmas Comes Early From the Oh Sees And Finding Ways To Deliver Live Music
This past Saturday California Psych legends the Oh Sees released a “live” pre-recorded show for their fans to watch. It’s the second one they’ve dialled up over the past few months. Treated like watching a live show, with a specific time to watch and opening songs from other acts, the Levitation Sessions (affiliated and run by The Black Angels festival organization Levitation) have proved to be a fun avenue for artists to perform for their fans while also generating some much needed income. For the past six months, groups like Holy Wave, Boogarins and Frankie and the Witch Fingers, and the proverbial Oh Sees have showcased new songs, sold t-shirts and posters while also providing their fans much needed entertainment.
Below is a clip of one of best songs from this recent show. If you want to learn more or follow along for future showings, check this link.
How Donald Trump May Look To Be Above The Law And Why We Shouldn’t Be Surprised If He Tries
Vice recently dropped this short video detailing how Donald Trump might use his executive powers to pardon himself before he leaves office on January 20th. Three scenarios are provided, all of which are beyond reasonable for anyone with self respect or morals, which, as we all know, Trump possesses neither of. He will attempt this for sure. How he’ll get away with it will be interesting to witness. Buckle up for a wild ride to the finish for this guy.
These four years man, wow, will history not be kind on the American people when they look back on his era.
Not My President?
Over at the Twitter Making Podcasts Great Again you’ll find arguably the best Trump impersonator of the last 4 years. It’s pretty great.
Donald Trump has never heard of Jared Kushner (youtube link below) pic.twitter.com/7v2xy7xKUo
— J-L Cauvin (@JLCauvin) December 18, 2020