A while ago in the theater, I saw a preview for "The Hunger Games", a truly creepy movie that will likely become a doomer porn classic. It's so presciently malevolent that I may not be able to stand to watch it, when it is released next month. People are fascinated with apocalyptic movies, probably because, deep down, everyone knows that we can't continue plundering and polluting the earth indefinitely. The feast is just about over, and a grimly implacable waiter is approaching with a very large, expensive, unaffordable tab.
Today when I came across this music video which is, I gather, related to the movie somehow, I was less than surprised, but still shocked, at the scenery where it is set.
The location is somewhere outside Nashville, Tennessee. Do we see any dead trees? And where is the understory - the mountain laurel, the dogwood, the ferns?
This is pretty much identical to the desolate woods in New Jersey, where trees are either lying on the ground, standing dead, or broken, and there is little remaining beneath but litter and brown leaves.
It's infinitely bizarre to me that people accept this landscape as the new normal - see the prior poston Wit's End for pictures of how trees are supposed to look, and used to look...before we started remorselessly poisoning them with air pollution.
Gail, I appreciate your posts, distressing as they are. Re: Hunger Games. This trilogy has been very popular with teens. It's very readable (I've read it - 70 years old!). Good thing; it may make teens imagine that BAU is not sustainable. Another teen trilogy begins with Shipbreaker: teen boy is a semi-slave breaking up old oil tankers in a gulf state. Most people are semi-slaves, genetically modified crops rule, tho' they are continually menaced by diseases. If this gives kids something to think about, I say it's good.
Thank you so much for that information! I confess, I am so out of touch I had never heard of Taylor Swift until I happened to click on the video (because of the trees). I gather she is a big star. I looked for another music video of hers that was some sort of award winner (White Horse) and she strikes me as utterly insipid - maybe that's why she is so popular.
Anyway, I had no idea the movie is based on books. I will have to read them - I am almost afraid to go to the movie when it is released!
Gail, I so appreciate your posts tho' they are very hard to read. Re: Hunger Games: the trilogy has been widely read by teens. The good thing is, they may be getting into a mindset about an ugly future that they will need to adapt to, and it will not be BAU. There are other good books for teens. One is Shipbreaker, first of another trilogy. Theme: most all humans are destitute; genetic crops dominate the food chain; kid hero is a semi-slave taking old oil tankers apart for their metal and ocaisonally the oil left behind, to be sent to the rich left in this polluted and damaged world. Gives kids something to think about Petronelle
It is true, most kids that I know have no idea whatsoever that life isn't going to continue along exactly as it has been. Even most of the young people I talked to at Occupy do not see beyond the economics to the underlying peak resource/pollution problems.
Any advice you have to make posts more readable would be appreciated!
Wow.. it is devastation... hmmm reality as a movie set...
ReplyDeleteWe just came back from the woods. Exactly the same devastation here, 350 miles away.
ReplyDeleteCatman
Gail, I appreciate your posts, distressing as they are. Re: Hunger Games. This trilogy has been very popular with teens. It's very readable (I've read it - 70 years old!). Good thing; it may make teens imagine that BAU is not sustainable. Another teen trilogy begins with Shipbreaker: teen boy is a semi-slave breaking up old oil tankers in a gulf state. Most people are semi-slaves, genetically modified crops rule, tho' they are continually menaced by diseases. If this gives kids something to think about, I say it's good.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for that information! I confess, I am so out of touch I had never heard of Taylor Swift until I happened to click on the video (because of the trees). I gather she is a big star. I looked for another music video of hers that was some sort of award winner (White Horse) and she strikes me as utterly insipid - maybe that's why she is so popular.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I had no idea the movie is based on books. I will have to read them - I am almost afraid to go to the movie when it is released!
Gail, I so appreciate your posts tho' they are very hard to read. Re: Hunger Games: the trilogy has been widely read by teens. The good thing is, they may be getting into a mindset about an ugly future that they will need to adapt to, and it will not be BAU. There are other good books for teens. One is Shipbreaker, first of another trilogy. Theme: most all humans are destitute; genetic crops dominate the food chain; kid hero is a semi-slave taking old oil tankers apart for their metal and ocaisonally the oil left behind, to be sent to the rich left in this polluted and damaged world. Gives kids something to think about
ReplyDeletePetronelle
It is true, most kids that I know have no idea whatsoever that life isn't going to continue along exactly as it has been. Even most of the young people I talked to at Occupy do not see beyond the economics to the underlying peak resource/pollution problems.
ReplyDeleteAny advice you have to make posts more readable would be appreciated!