Frank Swain is the author of “How To Make A Zombie: The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control”
Today in Huffington Post Blog, Swain writes “ Why Zombies Are Real ” with an embedded slideshow of “11 Reasons Zombies Are Real”:
1) Zombiism is enshrined in law in Haiti
2) The author William Seabrook once met one
3) There are published scientific papers on human zombies
4) Pusher wasn’t just a story on “The X Files”
5) Soviet scientists claimed they could resurrect people over 50 years ago
6) And so did the Americans
7) Outbreaks of insanity do happen now and then
8) Mind control chips were implemented fifty years ago
9) England’s resurrection doctors completely redrew our ideas about death
10) Parasites are nature’s true zombie makers
11) You may well be a zombie already
Each of those titles has a slide section of text and is altogether a rather expansive set of readings about “real life” zombies.
This may be another case of my seeing zombies where they may not be, but this evening on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in colloquy with Senator Brown (D-Ohio), Senator Isakson (R-Georgia) stuttered a bit.
This wouldn’t be noteworthy except that the topic was emergency preparations of the Center for Disease Control as related to terrorism (anthrax). And the stutter was specifically regarding agency efficiency, and the actual stuttered syllables were “tap-tap”, as in double-tap.
CDC is kind of the crucible … it was CDC within days that tracked down the anthrax … That’s the kind of tap-tap, timely effort
As described in Wikipedia, “double-tap“:
A double tap or controlled pair is a shooting technique where two well-aimed shots are fired at the same target with very little time in between shots.[1][2] Instruction and practice of the double-tap improves overall accuracy as shooters often do not have the gun fully extended on the first shot meaning the second of a double-tap is usually the better. … shooting zombies with a double tap is one of Columbus’s rules in the movie Zombieland.
AND the CDC has also officially endorsed the use of zombies to teach emergency preparation. The CDC has used zombies in official government promotional health awareness campaigns and also published scholarly article showing useful educational effects for teaching emerging infectious diseases through zombie pop-culture.
I doubt Senator Isakson’s stutter was intentional and even if it was he probably wouldn’t admit it. But either way it sure was zombie-coincidental.
[Also his word choice of "crucible" is related to witchcraft through the classic modern American play by Arthur Miller]
Maddow Blog: “How zombie lies maintain their grip” by Steve Benen is about Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, and zombie lies about Benghazi.
Why do zombie lies maintain their grip on so many people?
Answer: By “repeating politically-motivated falsehoods” on major news networks.
Tomorrow night, June 15th, in NYC Central Park the 1960′s band “The Zombies” play a free concert in the park, headlining:
The Zombies / Django Django / Adam Green & Binki Shapiro / DJ sets by Modest P
And of course, it’s Fathers‘ Day weekend. As I’ve written before “The Zombies are your Daddy” but also “Not your fathers’ zombies“. So which is it?
Central park is a man-made park. It is the illusion of nature inside the heart of the city. A simulation of Nature that is both natural and not natural. Zombies represent the destruction of binomial categories. They are neither dead nor alive. They are neither your daddy nor not your daddy. Which is not the same as being both; except perhaps they are that too – both and neither. A complete rejection of the totalitarian assumptions of language labels. Which is an anti-captialist perspective and yet they is promoted by the biggest of corporate machines.
Concerts in the park also have a long history of mixed message – See Next Magazine lists its Top Five Central Park concertsby Alex Erikson – But leaves out Simon and Garfunkel performing for over 500,000 people in the 1981. More recently events became a bit too rowdy. The police presence when Dave Matthews was there in 2003 was intense and so Bon Jovi in 2008 was limited to just 60,000 people. In the post-Occupy police city, it is surprising that they even try to have public concerts. And yet the philharmonic events are treated differently where suddenly it becomes acceptable to open bottles of wine in the park (despite NY Code – Section 10-125). So I wonder how many (audience and police) will turn out for “The Zombies” tomorrow and whether wine is permitted…
Meanwhile see also Upworthy: “The Real Reason They Still Play ‘Mrs. Robinson’ On The Radio” by Sara Critchfield:
It’s because a huge percentage of stations’ playlists match all across the country.
With infographic showing six big corporations control 90% of our media, so that 213 corporate executives are our daddies. Who controls Central Park SummerStage? Who controls the zombies?
See also Lacan‘s “Name of the Father“:
The Name-of-the-Father (French Nom du père) is a concept that Jacques Lacan developed from his seminar The Psychoses (1955–1956) to cover the role of the father in the Symbolic Order. Lacan plays with the similar sound of le nom du père (the name of the father), le non du père (the no of the father), and les non-dupes errent (the non-dupes err) to, in the former case, emphasize the legislative and prohibitive function of the father and, in the latter case, emphasize that “those who do not let themselves be caught in the symbolic deception/fiction and continue to believe their eyes are the ones who err most.” (citing Zizek’s “With or Without Passion“)
This morning on the “F” train to Queens I saw this subway advertising for JetBlue.
The ads say (among other slogans):
“Air on the side of humanity.”
“Piloted by people, not policy.”
“Never take the “R” out of free”
The conspicuous “R” (the main character in “Warm Bodies” referenced this week on “Jeopardy!” and to be released DVD this Friday!) and the mention of “humanity” in relation to air and in terms of having sides, and “people” as pilots (not robots?) and policy (looks like police) — and in other Jet Blue news, “Passengers, JetBlue settle suit over pilot rampage“:
yelled about terrorism and Sept. 11 during a flight in March 2012 … not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of interfering with a flight crew. An expert said he had a psychotic disorder caused by a lack of sleep
The many multicolored “i” symbols personify travelers boarding a plane; a bunch of zombies boarding a plane? The letter “i” as in the personal pronoun, and source of ego-functions? But it should be capitalized – lots of sleep deprived little castrated ego’s trying to board a plane…?
This ad campaign is about zombies, right?
Monday, June 10th, the television game show “Jeopardy” included a category “Zombies Are Coming!”.
The contestants saved it for the last column of their first round. The round also included a category about satire from “The Onion” and another called “Text Me” about internet acronyms. Roman leader, Caligula was mentioned, (Trebek calls him a “fun loving guy”) in the $1000 question for “Better Follow Me” category.
Then the Zombies category including clues about Nazi zombies, video games, AMC, Rob Zombie, Bela Lugosi, Pride and Prejudice, brains, and “R” from “Warm Bodies” (and contestant “Jason” does look something like the actor who plays “R”, when he was in “X-Men: First Class”).
“Jeopardy!” is itself a sort of zombie classic been on the air for so many years. And it’s always so much fun but with the internet, it’s amazing that it’s still on TV. It’s a testament to the power of nostalgia and the quality of the subtle advertising. Like when the game ends and the two contestants who lose have their name changed to “Aleve“. The advertisements are embedded in the show.
And zombies were in the traditional advertising spots too — in local commercials aired during the first break a commercial for Monster Jam coming to NJ this Saturday and featuring trucks named: “Zombie“, “El Diablo”, “Scooby Doo”, “Grave Digger”… And before that was a NY Lottery commercial with an assembly line of baby doll parts.
Perhaps “monster trucks” and “baby doll parts” are both types of Jeopardy-trivia zombie (I think I know some powerhouse trivia minds and also some baby doll assembler minds). And speaking of the types of people who like puzzles, recall previously Zombies in NYTimes Crossword Puzzles – but now some Monster Truck is going to run me down for equating quiz shows and crosswords…
Maybe I’m just cynical but I just assume that game shows (and crosswords) get paid advertising to embed words into the clues; maybe not.
“World War Z” is getting tons of press for being an overblown budget, for censorship in China and for the likelihood of being nowhere near as good as the book (what few movies are?).
Meanwhile recall the author of the book is Max Brooks, who is Mel Brooks son. And Max is certainly very familiar with the plot of “The Producers” and recall Mel told a story about Max wearing a Nazi uniform to a dinner party as a child. And “Max” is a character’s name in “The Producers”!
SO you have to wonder, is it possible that this Brad Pitt movie is designed to flop? Perhaps a similar theory regarding Sylvester Stalone’s “Bullet to the Head”.
Is it possible that the plot of the 1968 movie is an ongoing Hollywood business practice?
MAX BIALYSTOCK: You were saying that under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit.
And to quote another Mel Brooks classic, “Spaceballs“:
Yogurt: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower.
And also the cross-promotions – like with Muse song “Isolated System” which has a new music video featuring WWZ clips, but the original video is better; running from generic digitization effects (which is already a better version of the modern zombie):
Remember, Zombies, it’s a business ($5 billion!)
