Haul away, you rolling king

[sovay]

So the first pieces of news that greeted me when I woke up were the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the punishment of Arisia for supporting a strike, neither of which was a great chaser to the realization that yesterday's excruciating headache did not have the decency to buzz off overnight, but I also saw via spatch this wonderful production still of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984):



It is so effectively in character and outside the plot that it looks like fanfic. Have some links.

1. Elie Mystal and Ken White, "Should the North Carolina Gun Store Billboard Targeting 'The Squad' Be Unconstitutional?"

2. Ethan Siegel, "Astronomy Faces a Field-Defining Choice in Choosing the Next Steps for the TMT."

3. Philip Miller, "Biennale." The magazine is dedicated to islands, which I love.

I was supposed to spend the day with my niece, but the current circumstances are looking like spending the evening with her. She wants to watch Ponyo (2008), which I haven't seen in almost a decade. I think I can manage to do that.

Comments

[sara]

I once taught Buckaroo Banzai as an example of a utopia. Good times.

I have a lot of questions about the Epstein thing. I notice he's dead the morning after the night before, e.g. after the disclosure of all those affidavits. It looks pretty sketchy.

Or he's a narcissist who couldn't resist the urge to stir the pot one last time, which...is certainly a thing I've seen people accomplish via suicide in the past.

[rachelmanija]

It's also possible that he genuinely did suicide, but people knew he would if given the opportunity and they deliberately gave him the opportunity.

[lauradi7dw]

There have been a number of informative posts on twitter that include (without specific instructions) how easy it is for an institutionalized person to commit suicide in the fifteen minutes between safety checks, even if the place took him to be seriously at risk. And it has been pointed out that he has a long history of lying very well, so might have been convincingly "better" since the previous incident.
And it's not like people haven't killed themselves in NYC jails in the past.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, of course. But in this particular case, it's extremely convenient for a lot of extraordinarily rich and powerful people that he never go to trial, strings had already been pulled at the highest levels to give them immunity and secrecy, and now that it looked like it all might be coming out, he dies. I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories but this case already involves massive, high-level conspiracies. I find it fishy.

[sara]

Oh, I think that's exactly what happened.

It's certainly a traditional way for someone who was a pimp to royalty to go out.

[kore]

It does seem awfully reminiscent of "Caesar would appreciate it if you fell on your sword to preserve his reputation," doesn't it?

[sara]

Like, history offers us some guidance on how things often end for this kind of dude.

[kore]

That's what T thinks. I think it might have been a little more pointed than that, given all the dirt that was clearly about to come out, maybe/probably involving Trump. I just hope the investigations aren't conveniently over now that he's dead.

[sovay]

I just hope the investigations aren't conveniently over now that he's dead.

I've been linking this, because I hope they mean it.