Apocalypse Lost
Here are some of the fragments which have passed through my hands recently. I am not going to link them, for in the days of the Cold War, things were retrieved in the old, difficult, paranoid ways.
1. 99 Red Balloons (Nena): This song was a sort of a one-hit German wonder, originally composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen (music) and Carlo Kagres (words), and translated into English by Kevin McAlea. It's a vision of innocence, pulp fiction, and sudden death. Red balloons, indeed.
2. Forever Young (Alphaville): Another German group, and the year was 1984. This is an elegy to the end of the Cold War, written as if from the viewpoint of a peculiar madness which cannot quite grasp that the whole conflict is over.
3. Fallout and Fallout II: These computer games epitomised the post-apocalyptic CRPG. Built on an engine which would one day be utterly familiar to players of Diablo and suchlike, Fallout took you from a deeply buried underground colony in search of spare parts for your water supply and ended with you making the world safe(r) from insane cyborgs. The sequel was even better!
4. We Didn't Start The Fire (Billy Joel): This song, a collection of seemingly haphazard historical items, concealed a whole cornucopia of meaning, the least of which is the idea of, "Well, then. Who did?" The driven rhythm matches the lyrics in winding up the listener. It's a great adrenalin-boosting track.
5. Dinner at Deviant's Palace (Tim Powers): It looks and feels like post-apocalypse novel written as fantasy. It's a gritty and painful bildungsroman, if you like. But mostly, it's a great story in a barren land.
6. A Canticle For Liebowitz (Walter Miller): Another novel, this one dealing with the nature of religion after the apocalypse is some time gone. Rather moving, has a sequel which doesn't quite make it.
And that's it for now.
Labels: Cold War, Fragments, Remembrance
7 Comments:
How terrible, you've left out Winds of Change!
hardly, it's in we didn't start the fire...
allow me to help
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire
Hm. Interesting. Did you know that I was born in March, 1989?
Sir, I saw a really nice calendar in Borders, of Russian Icons for next year 2008. It's rather expensive though. $40 around there.
As a fellow relic of the Cold War, I consider the lack of Winds of Change completely unacceptable. :)
I gather that nobody noticed that this was a list of things I had actually come across again recently, rather than a list of things that anyone compiling such a compendium should include.
It's not my fault that certain things didn't come my way in the last few days.
I love 99 Luftballons. But you came across the English version, yes? 5. is something I've been desiring for a long, long time.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=t5jaRipA5_M
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5V7XaFn_0rI&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qBYoarsGLXc&feature=related
because I cannot find any tears to cry for you,
hear are some metaphysical subliminal sorrows
wha. got so many dancers around ah? I'm almost jealous.
Anyway, I was blogging around, and you know what you told me of the Prophet and the Lady?
Check out this link:
http://unorthodox-.blogspot.com/
Merry Christmas!
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