Duran Duran sings 'Psycho Killer' and other spooky songs for Halloween

Happy Candy Corn Day, when I usually blog about monsters. I'll do that tomorrow. Today, I want to share some music with my readers. Watch shuttermuze's Duran Duran Halloween Show - Psycho Killer (Encore Theatre at the Wynn, Las Vegas) October 31, 2022.


Duran Duran in costume playing Talking Heads on Halloween — I couldn't resist. Talking Heads is one of my favorite bands — (Nothing but) Flowers is the theme song for this blog, after all — and my opinion of Duran Duran has grown over the decades. Forty years ago, I thought they were a band of pretty boys who sang shallow dance-pop songs. Not for me. Then I learned two things about them that made me respect them more. First, my friends and I watched Barbarella together. When the villain introduced himself as Durand-Durand, we all looked at each other and thought, "no way." Yes, way. I listened to a radio interview of Simon Le Bon, who confirmed that the band had indeed taken their name from the character. Score one for a unique inspiration. In that same interview, Le Bon said that Duran Duran wanted to be to video what Pink Floyd was to stereo, the first to explore the technology to the fullest. The band had greater artistic aspirations than I had given them credit for. Score two. Since then, I've been a fan. It helped that they performed the title song to a James Bond film, View to a Kill, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song - Motion Picture. Good song, but not a great Bond flick; geology makes for a poor mad science.

Follow over the jump for live performances of two original songs for the album.

Record comments and 500,000 page views for September 2015 and other meta

September 2015 was a month of milestones.  I posted the 2500th entry, the blog surpassed 500,000 page views over its history, and it set a new record for comments during a month with 74.  The blog also earned 12,893 page views.  Time to review my page view goals from Record page views for August 2015 and other monthly meta to see how that stacked up with expectations.

I conclude with my readership goals for September, which aren't very high.  September 2014 saw only 11,785 page views.  To beat that will require 393 page views per day for 11,790, which is the minimum goal.  The low goal of ending a day ahead entails 406 page views per day for a total of 12,180 total.  The medium goal of a five percent increase over last year would be 12,390 total or 413 page views per day.  The high goal would be at least 13,000 page views to keep the streak going, which would mean 434 page views per day.  As of tonight, the blog is exceeding all these goals, but it's only the first week.  There are 23 days left in September.  Stay tuned.

While it was the first month since February not to exceed 13,000, it still met all other readership goals by increasing page views over September 2014 by 1108, 9.4%.  As a consequence, the blog earned 429.77 page views per day and 368.37 page views per post.  Those weren't records, but they were good.  On the other hand, the blog had an average of 2.47 comments per day and 2.11 comments per entry.  Those are records!

To celebrate both the 500,000th page view and 2500th entry, which was Happy Labor Day from Detroit!, I'm posting the theme song for this blog, (Nothing but) Flowers.


Also to celebrate the record number of comments, I'm sharing the most commented on entries last month.

Thanks to a battle with several persistent spammers, Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties, posted August 3, 2014, is now the most commented on entry in the history of the blog with 52 comments, half of them deleted.  It started off with eight comments.  Thirty more were posted during September 2015, making this the most commented on entry this month.  Fourteen more came in October, so it will likely be the most commented on entry this month as well.

The most commented on entry actually posted during September was Blog recommendation: You Might Notice a Trend posted September 25, 2015.  It earned seven comments thanks to a conversation with the writer of the blog that was recommended.  That wasn't enough to place it in the top ten, as it earned only 69 page views last month, 85 according to the raw counter.

Follow over the jump for the most liked and most read entries of September 2015.

Nemesis: essay and song

I found out yesterday the topic of this year's student essay contest--Nemesis.  It just so happened that I thought about posting a music video to the song of that name by Shriekback for Throwback Thursday yesterday, but I was running late and had already posted for the day.  On top of that, I was right on schedule for number of posts and page views for the month, so I decided to skip it.  It ended up being my best day for page views so far this month.

Today, I'm going to an event sponsored by the same committee who also came up with the essay idea, so I'm posting both the video and the essay prompt.  First, the video, which is from Shriekback's live show, Shriekback Jungle Of The Senses Part 1.


(Nothing but) Flowers may be the theme song for the blog and as such may be my theme song now, but "Nemesis" was my personal theme song before that.  It mentioned both prehistoric animals and parthenogenesis, which were subjects of my M.S. and Ph.D. research respectively and was a cool song to boot.  That's why I wanted to post it yesterday.

Follow over the jump for the essay prompt.

Perspectives on the next doomsday from The Archdruid and me

In Nablopomo for February: Perspective, I made a programming note.

I also like to examine how other bloggers see things.  In fact, I have more than a week's worth of material saved up from previous months about The Archdruid, Kunstler, Nebris, The Hipcrime Vocab, Julie Bass and others that I didn't get around to posting.  This month's theme looks like a good excuse to do that.

Here is the oldest conversation with Greer that I hadn't yet posted, my response to 2030 is the New 2012 along with his reply.

One of Greer's recurring points is that, whenever a date for doomsday comes and goes, a new one comes along.  The new date is 2030, which has no basis in any external event or prophesy.  At least 2012 tied into the Fake Mayan Apocalypse.  Greer explains that the timing has an internal logic, not an external one, one which I understand.

Greer: It’s thus surely no accident that 2030 is about the time the middle of the Baby Boom generation will be approaching the end of its statistically likely lifespan.

Me: I was wondering why that date, other than the combination of a nice round number with a time close enough to be threatening, but not too alarming.  I would think something more concrete, like either 2029 or 2036, when the asteroid Apophis, aptly named after an Egyptian deity of destruction, would fly close enough to Earth to have a chance of colliding.  Your explanation, though, makes sense given the narcissism of the Boomers.  This way, they maintain their importance even in death, while not having to give up anything beforehand.

My comment ties back to this passage.

The third factor, which relates to the second one, unfolds from the historical tragedy of the Baby Boom generation, which is massively overrepresented in apocalypse fandom just now.  The Boomers were among the most idealistic generations in US history, but they were also far and away the most privileged, and the conflict between those two influences has defined much of their trajectory through time. Starting when the Sixties youth culture crashed and burned, the Boomers have repeatedly faced forced choices between their ideals and their privileges.  Each time, the majority of Boomers—there have always been noble exceptions—chose to cling to their privileges, and then spent the next decade or so insisting at the top of their lungs that their ideals hadn’t been compromised by that choice.

I'm a Boomer myself and I've been examining the position of my generation relative to its generational neighbors for more than 20 years, which I how I became acquainted with andelku of Contemplating the Hedgehog, so Greer's observations rang true.  He described the major philosophical conflict within Boomers and how it has panned out over the past 50 years.  It's one of the reasons why I have the feeling that we're like the Moties, doomed to crash our civilization, and why I've determined to be a Crazy Eddie trying to prevent that.

Follow over the jump for more of this conversation, along with the theme song for this blog.

Post 500: (Nothing but) Flowers at TED

For my 500th post, I'm going to stick to the Nablopomo theme for April of Poem by posting another version of the theme song for this blog, "(Nothing but) Flowers." This version is a live version performed at TED in 2010. Backing up David Byrne is Thomas Dolby and the string quartet Ethel, who served as TED's house band that year.




Here's what the song's Wikipedia entry has to say about the lyrics.

The lyrics describe a world where modern progress has been reverted to a more natural state, due either to a political movement or by a necessity, such as dealing with overpopulation. While the protagonist may have once been in favor of the transformation, he finds himself now missing the modern conveniences and culture of the industrialized age.

I described both my love of the song and how the lyrics express my ambivalence about the transition to come as well, so instead I'll let David Byrne talk about the importance of lyrics.




Back to regular posting tomorrow.

The theme song for this blog

 
Having lots to write about, but not enough time or energy, plus a commitment to post every day on this blog, results in this musical interlude. At least now this blog has a theme song, even if it's one that I've loved ever since I first heard it more than 20 years ago.

From Wikipedia:

(Nothing But) Flowers  is a song by the rock band Talking Heads. It appears on the band's final album Naked, released in 1988. It was also released as a single accompanied by a successful music video, which featured innovative uses of typography by graphic designer Tibor Kalman. In addition to the band, the song features Kirsty MacColl on backup vocals and The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. It peaked at number 79 in the UK Singles Chart.
...
The lyrics describe a world where modern progress has been reverted back to a more natural state, due either to a political movement or by a necessity, such as dealing with overpopulation. While the protagonist may have once been in favor of the transformation, he finds himself now missing the modern conveniences and culture of the industrialized age.

Yeah, that's me. I actually like modern consumer society, but I know it's not sustainable, and it makes me sad that "this, too, shall pass." So, I've resolved to work to make the best possible sustainable future possible, while knowing that it might not happen. Yeah, that's a Crazy Eddie for you.

I'll see if I'm up to a Detroit news linkspam or another installment of Contemplating the Hedgehog tomorrow.