Retro-Futurism 5: Dreams of the Metropolis

Poster for Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).

I've found a great collection of retro-futuristic pictures of urban concept art at Dark Roasted Blend.  These are speculations about a future in which "living in mega-cities was considered a privilege. That gleaming Metropolis on the horizon? - Something to aspire to, the glorious destination to dream about, to shape your life accordingly and reach it as the utmost reward... Such ideas were popular in the infant days of futurism, in fantastic literature on both sides of the Atlantic. Thankfully the 'mega-urbanism' dream is replaced today by quite the opposite idea of an affluent living in the country."  Mega-cities are a futuristic concept from the 1920s that shaped much of the twentieth century's idea of cosmopolitan life.

Music for the Last Sunday Afternoon of the Summer

On your way to a café?  Or sleeping in, having brunch, settling in to watch football?  Sunday afternoons, especially as summer draws to a close, are filled with frozen moments of happy times mixed with frustration at all we still have to do in the year.  There's also a lingering low-key depression the seasons begin to turn, a Proust-like nostalgia.  Over at Andrew Scott's blog, there's a post entitled "Another Summer": "Summer 2010, will not be back, ever."  I know summer doesn't technically end for a few more weeks, but for most people, this weekend is the turning point.

Travelling to Elysium? Don't Forget Your Blackberry

Amber Tears by Fred Harper.  Last Rites Gallery (New York).

MSNBC reports that people are asking to be buried with their cell phones, Blackberries and Gameboys:

"'It seems that everyone under 40 who dies takes their cell phone with them,' says Noelle Potvin, family service counselor for Hollywood Forever, a funeral home and cemetery in Hollywood, Calif. 'It’s a trend with BlackBerrys, too. We even had one guy who was buried with his Game Boy.' Anecdotal evidence suggests being buried with a favorite tech device is on the upswing. The Future Laboratory, a London-based think tank, commented on the behavior, noting it in places like the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa."

Perhaps tech gadgets will be incorporated into sacred last rites, like Kafka's short short short story about the leopards:

“Leopards break into the temple and drink the sacrificial chalices dry; this occurs repeatedly, again and again; finally it can be reckoned upon beforehand and becomes part of the ceremony.”

Continuity for DC's Character Terra ... Concluded!

Terra and Ravager by Craig Cermak. Commission (2007).

Today's blog post concludes the history I'm writing for DC's character Terra, which covers her entire continuity from 1982 to 2010. I've backdated it so that all the pieces on that topic are together. The link to the final entry, which covers the character's third incarnation (Atlee), her appearance in Blackest Night, and Elseworld versions of Terra, is here. The entire continuity is here.

Retro-futurism 4: Russians in Space

Russian drama set on one of Saturn's moons. Техника Молодежи (Youth Technics), Russia (1954).

Retro Soviet space art!  I ran across this collection on Dark Roasted Blend via Brain Release Valve (blog names~!).  First published in 1933, the magazine Техника Молодежи, or "TM," has long specialized in innovations, space, fantasy, new appliances, scientific inventions.  Its home website is here. A blurb on it here describes it as the source of inspiration for generations of scientists who grew up reading it.

Socialist Space Workers, Техника Молодежи (Youth Technics), Russia (1973).

View all posts on redefining Retro-Futurism.

Continuity for DC's Character Terra Continued ...

Terra by Pat Bollin. Convention Sketch (2010).

Today's blog post continues the history I'm writing for DC's character Terra. I've backdated it so that all the pieces on that topic are together. The link to the entry, which covers the character's impact on DC storylines in the latter half of the 2000s, is here.

Space Colonization and its Historical Precedents 3: Space Travel as Exploration

American Progress (1872). This vision of manifest destiny embodied in American settlers moving westward was painted by John Gast.

The Space Review has an August 2 article up by Stephen Pyne, "Space Travel as Exploration," which is a topic I have touched on in a couple of earlier posts here.  My view is that space exploration is part of a long theme in human history of exploration, colonization and imperialism. Pyne repeats some things I considered (seems I am in with people who he says take the long historical view): "The Viking landers on Mars are but an iteration of the longships that colonized Greenland. The Eagle, the Command Module orbiter, and the Saturn V rocket that propelled the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon are avatars of Columbus’s Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. The “new ocean” of interplanetary space is simply extending the bounds of the old."

Continuity for DC's Character Terra Continued ...

Terra by Ryan Odagawa. SDCC Convention Sketch (2010).

Today's blog post continues the history I'm writing for DC's character Terra. I've backdated it so that all the pieces on that topic are together. The link to the entry, which takes the character up to her doppelgänger's death in 2007, is here.