DejaMorgana's New Writeups

America, we need to talk (person)

2009-08-16T02:36:41Z

It's 2009. Near the corner of Future and Fucked, a group of men in battered work clothes is standing. Everybody in this group has a pocket communicator/computer more powerful than anything imagined in the original Star Trek: a device that they can use to talk to anybody else anywhere on the planet, listen to a whole day's worth of music or pick out new music recommended for them by computers, or read any document in a computer network that contains close to the sum of all recorded human knowledge. Every man on this corner holds a piece of The Future in his pocket. And what are they doing here? They're waiting to see if any white contractors will come by to hire them for a day's work, cheap immigrant labor building the Brave New World one luxury condominium at a time.

A couple of blocks away, a multiracial group of people is marching towards Future Street chanting for immigration reform, while a decidedly melanin-challenged group is waiting for them at the corner of the town green,…

anarchist army (essay)

2009-07-22T12:32:04Z

Once upon a time in the real world, I was a tank driver. Several times during my three years of active duty, my company was stationed at a forward defense post on a border that had been cold for almost two decades, but had in the past been the setting for some of the most fabled tank battles in the history of modern warfare.

Previous wars had taught us that if the enemy decided to mount an invasion, they would need to be stopped before they reached the north-south line of hills to the east of our post. The hills being mostly too rough for vehicles to pass, any invasion force would have to come through them at certain choke points. If they got past the hills, they would enter a region that had a thousand hiding spots, nearly impossible to control. And if they got their artillery into good spots in that area, they could just sit there and bombard our population until we gave up or died. This was the high ground. If they pushed us out of this area, it would take most…

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (review)

2009-06-30T04:34:33Z

"I'm fifty feet under the enemy's... scrotum!"

I think that line just about sums up this movie. A line like that tells you everything. It says that the enemies are really, really big, that the dialogue is far beyond ridiculous, and that the whole movie is going to rely on cringeworthy visual gags. If you need any further points of reference, I'll tell you that this line is delivered by John Turturro, shouting into a Jordanian walkie-talkie which magically connects him directly to the admiral of an American naval fleet, while climbing up the side of an Egyptian pyramid which is apparently on American soil within spitting distance of Jordan's most famous archeological site. And the enemy does indeed have a scrotum dangling far above Turturro's head.

Yes, the movie is really that bad. And did I mention the latest additions to the Autobot team, a pair of "twin" hatchbacks who turn into particularly clumsy bots, spend…

Migraines and Miracles (fiction)

2009-05-19T04:31:50Z

July 13, 1977 ... Unlikely Orpheus ...

3: MIGRAINES AND MIRACLES

The Java House was quiet when I got there a little after three o'clock. Roberto was sitting behind the bar, reading Chavez's "Autobiography of La Causa". A tiny old woman with a shocking mane of white hair was doing a crossword puzzle, two teenagers sat by the window not looking at each other, and Susan was sitting at a table in the back with an empty cup of coffee. Gato Barbieri was on the stereo, doing his thing.

I really hoped Susan wasn't going to ask me to meet Zee. It would have been so nice to just sit there and rap with her while Barbieri played his sax. I never got those moments anymore. I could feel this city coming to a boil. It was an almost constant thing. There was tension everywhere. The big money was leaving town in a steady trickle, cutting jobs by the hundreds. Street kids were getting militant, but…

Pixie Hollow (place)

2009-05-17T18:57:26Z

Okay, so if you have any contact with American girls between the ages of 5 and 25, you probably already know that Pixie Hollow is where the Disney Fairies live. And now the other three of you know, so we can move on to details.

Disney are nobody's fools. You don't get to be the number one name in family entertainment, shaper of copyright laws, and owner of several of the world's most famous icons and most profitable movies, by ignoring trends in consumer behavior. While other entertainment companies were lamenting the rise of Internet file-sharing, DVD piracy and the death of the movie theatre, Disney were actually laying the groundwork for a reinvention of the entire empire. They saw Harry Potter selling billions of copies, and kids reaching around the bookstores for anything even remotely like Harry, and they reacted appropriately by investing heavily in the publishing arm of the company, putting out more and more titles under the multiple imprints that they own and seeking…

Unlikely Orpheus (fiction)

2009-05-15T18:28:48Z

What came before

Jimmy was late. I tried to make the cup of coffee last, but it was still long gone before he got to the Java House. Roberto must have seen how tense I was. He kept looking my way with a worried expression. I could tell he wanted to come over and rap with me, get me to talk about what was going on. But he knew me well enough to stay away. I wished he would come over. You spend enough time showing everyone how tough you are, eventually you find yourself all alone just when you really need help.

But I had made that bed myself, and now I had to lie in it. So I sat there all by myself, thinking about what I was planning to do. Because sometimes you really did need help. It didn't matter how tough you were. Sometimes you got into a situation you couldn't deal with by yourself. Carol was in that kind of situation now, and I was going to help her. But I couldn't do it alone.

I needed for the…