Saturday, June 20, 2009

Rare Phobias Publishes Its First Edition

Rare Phobias, a new quarterly publication documenting uncommon fears, released its first edition this past week. The cover story examines New England's iconic stone walls and their true history. For decades these walls were thought to have been used to keep cows in their pastures, but Rare Phobias has uncovered evidence pointing to the Occult and bizarre Satanic worship rituals. Puritans were so fucking weird, right?

Friday, June 19, 2009

Collide This!

The recent release of “Angels and Demons” features the Large Hadron Collider, an immense particle accelerator comprised of miles of behemothian tubing and buried beneath the increasingly neutral country of Switzerland. Affectionately dubbed, “God’s festering bowels” by its operators, the LHC is without equal in size and can endure high-energy particle collisions paralleled only by Rush Limbaugh’s “burrito day” underwear.

Scientists, ever diligent in their quest to cock-slap God directly in the face, hope to use the LHC to find the elusive Higgs boson particle. The Higgs boson can cure cancer and has been theorized to have the capacity to make AIDS its bitch—

--wait, after checking Wikipedia, it appears that the particle might, might explain where gravity comes from. Hang on—how much has this cost? Six billion?

SWITZERLAND!

Michael Cera to Be Awarded Nobel Prize

The Swedish Academy, bequeather of the prestigious Nobel Prize, has recently added a new controversial category in addition to the more traditional awards in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and the like. The first “reactionary” prize to be revealed, the nascent “Waldonian Penis” award was developed for the sole purpose of awarding it to “child” actor Michael Cera.

On Tuesday, Peter Englund, the reigning Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, gave some insight into the reasoning behind the prize’s nomenclature: “We were watching Arrested Development and Superbad and we realized that Michael Cera, in all of his work, above all other actors, exhibits a strong desire to be ignored, passed over, and generally trivialized as the invisible, non-threatening cherubic high school student. What’s that about? So we decided that we wanted to give him some sort of pity-award, and we thought it only appropriate to name the award after the most elusive thing known to Man. What’s more invisible, better hidden than Waldo? Waldo’s penis, that’s what.”

When asked what he thought about receiving the less-than-coveted Nobel Prize in Waldonian Penis, Michael Cera quickly took the pattern of the wallpaper behind him and disappeared from sight.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Quotes Lost in History

Many great men and women of our past have been immortalized as famously witty, a trend that unfortunately has only survived to mock the notoriously dense (Bushisms, mainly). However, in addition to the white and the male, history favors hyperbole; many of our quotable predecessors had their fair share of off-days, as these recently exhumed quotations suggest:


“’Jews’? I said ‘juice’. I hate juice. Fruit allergy.”

-Adolf Hitler

“By the time I had graduated from high school, I had developed four new models of loop quantum gravity, I independently rediscovered the calculus, and I translated Virgil’s The Aeneid into fourteen distinct Khoisan “click” languages. It is my own burning love of knowledge that causes me so much dismay when I read that national standardized testing scores have plummeted in nearly every school district across the country. I propose that we reevaluate our core education paradigms, and really ask ourselves, ‘Is our children learning?’ Oh, I’m sorry, did I say ‘Is’? How foolish of me. Clearly my large, powerful brain is so full of complex mathematical theorems and the like that I slipped up there for a moment. Please don’t print what I said on a billion t-shirts, that’s all I ask.”

-G. W. Bush

“Oh, hello officer. Charles Manson? Yeah, I know him. He sent me a demo tape of some of his stuff, and I really liked it. In fact, I sent him a letter saying that I had talked to a producer buddy of mine and that he wanted Charlie on the label. But I guess it got lost in the mail. Why? Is he in trouble?”

-Brian Wilson

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Film Review: Innocence

Director Mamoru Oshii’s Innocence is by far one of the best movies I have ever seen, inside or outside the anime genre. Not only does it greatly surpass its predecessor, but its unique blend of 1950s noir, plausible futuristic biotechnology, and engaging philosophical discourse creates a stand-alone masterpiece.

[ Note: This review assumes that you have seen GITS in some other form; therefore, I won't be providing a synopsis, but there are plenty online to choose from... ]

THE LOOK

Innocence is dark movie visually, a clear stylistic choice that reflects and compounds the director’s jaded quasi-dystopian vision of the future. Like the more popular anime series that followed it, this film seamlessly blends 3D CGI models with fluid 2D animation, giving many scenes an added dimension of both space and believability. While a dark, ominous palette dominates much of the environment, it serves to emphasize the rare instances of color and action, whether they be gunfire, Batou’s HUD, or an elaborately gilded mansion. You might find yourself fiddling for the brightness settings on your machine, but unless you can’t see what’s going on at all, I’d recommend leaving the movie as it was intended; it’s especially effective during the more thrilling parts.

The movie is shot in a futuristic noir style, with Batou driving his vintage car along rain-splattered streets, then abandoning his wheels to walk through dimly-lit derelict back alleyways, hands thrust into the deep pockets of his trench coat. Though the movie follows both Batou and his less-cyberized partner Togusa, Batou’s lack of a family and superhuman strength present him as the lone private eye/outsider archetype, working on his case but also searching for something more.

The future is not presented as fully utopian or dystopian, but rather a realistic prediction of technological advancements based on present trends. The human mind (or ghost) has been fully cyberized, able to be transplanted into synthetic bodies of nearly any shape or form. There are no flying cars, no laser guns, no jetpacks; all technological improvements are logical and pragmatic. For example, Batou and Togusa are ordered to look into the production of “gynoids”, or sentient robotic sex-dolls. It’s true what they say, if man can conceive it, he will also find some way to have sex with it.

THE CONTENT

Innocence, like the first film, is chalk full of philosophical issues and maxims. This is one of the qualities that separates GITS from the more generic anime movies (no mechas in this one). That being said, you won’t find any mangacized craziness in the animation style (think the opposite of FLCL).

The scene where Batou fights a Yakuza cyborg is just as interesting as Kim’s discussion on the perfection of dolls; the philosophical discourse provides a much-needed break from the action so that viewer never has an adrenaline overload.

I’d highly recommend this one for those of you who have seen the first and were let down, or have seen the series and were blown away. In any case, it’s a great movie all on its own, and one of the few that I can watch over and over.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Very First Known Correspondence between Thomas Edison and inventor Nikola Tesla

RE: CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL

Greetings KIND SIR,

My name is Thomas Edison, founder of EDISON MACHINE WORKS. I have recently inherited a large sum of money (US $250,000) from a Nigerian nobleman who is interested in my applications for ELECTICITY. Specifically, Prince Nakambu would like to adapt my DIRECT CURRENT system for his palace, but he is WARY of DC’s inherent faults. Presently the money is frozen in an OVER-SEAS bank account until I can improve upon the DC design and make it a viable transit for electricity OVER LONG DISTANCES.

I would like you to confirm your INTEREST in working for me IMMEDIATELY via telegraph. I have heard that you have been working on a design for a system that utilizes ALTERNATING CURRENT, and I must say that I AM IMPRESSED. I have authorized my accountant to mail you a check for (US $50,000), and in return I would like to glance over your ideas. Please send your blueprints to my secure EDISON MACHINE WORKS PO Box in SWITZERLAND and after I MARVEL IN YOUR INGENUITY I will send them right back.

I am looking forward to your reply and I want to stress my desire to PROTECT YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY with a secure blanket of CONFIDENTIALITY. I would never spend the rest of my life DEFAMING you.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,
PRINCE THOMAS EDISON

Monday, June 15, 2009

The Feminism Movement at Skidmore: An Exercise in Futility

While I was attending Skidmore, I was made very aware (forcibly, I might add) of the feminist movement on campus. Though I had long been conscious of the national movement, our local version was exceedingly confusing to me. The women would annually adorn themselves with bright colorful buttons that read, “This is what a feminist looks like” (which I later discovered cost 500 dollars of the students’ money to manufacture). I still don’t know what this button hoped to accomplish by existing, but I’ve heard the word “awareness” thrown around by strong, sinewy fingers tipped with a lavender nail polish.

First of all, I’m irked that a good deal of the opposite sex that has an affinity for wearing unfashionable buttons assumes that I don’t know how to visually discriminate between feminists and normal women. A normal woman moves through life like her male counterparts. A feminist is a woman who has a Nazi-like drive to document the fact that she is, indeed, a woman. In fact, by calling themselves feminists they reduce themselves to the label itself at the expense of more equalizing terms. For many Americans, Feminism carries with it a negative connotation, one that implies radicalism, ultra-idealism, almost to the point of fem-supremacy and sexual segregation. It’s almost like having a foot fetish and calling yourself a pedophile; besides the term being used in an etymologically unsound manner, it just carries a great deal of baggage that you don’t want when declaring your love for feet at the community pool.

Secondly, openly declaring feminism can be considered hostile from a male point of view, akin to singing “Dixie Land” at a black Louisiana Baptist Church. I understand that feminism ultimately fights for equality, but considering that we’re at a liberal-arts college where the female-to-male ratio is 60/40, wearing a feminist button is superfluous; I’ll just err on the side of caution and assume that you don’t reminisce about the 1950s, when barking “Make me a sandwich!” was an even more popular way for a man to consummate the marriage than intercourse.

A prime example of this hostility came in the form of a table that was set up in the campus’s student center during “feminist week” (or something akin to it). The table turned out to be the source of the campus-wide plague whose symptoms included a black “X” inscribed on the back of the right hand, along with an incessant compulsion to pester people into getting the same ugly tattoo. Curiously though, the X’s only appeared on the hands of fellow males. Intrigued, I ventured over to the booth only to be confronted by a large Mao-red poster splattered with crudely-painted black lettering: “I promise to not assault a woman with this hand today”. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this statement. Apparently men were signing over their right to strike their fellow female students. Madness!

First of all, if I had any intention of assaulting someone I certainly wouldn’t give up so easily just because I had a black mark on my hand. “Officer, some guy just punched me in the back of the neck!”

“Well, what did he look like? Did he have any identifying characteristics?”

“He had a black “X” on the back of his hand.”

“A black ‘X’? But every guy who had that drawn on his hand promised to not assault women. You’re a liar. Get out of here, you lying liar. Leave now, before I arrest you for slander. God, you’re such a liar. And I thought I’ve seen everything.”

Secondly, what about the men who suffer abuse at the hands of women? Why can’t we have women promise to not subject men to mindless chatter or those giant ugly bug sunglasses? To insinuate that men have an inherent desire to beat women is insulting and confrontational, and to assume that a little black “X” is going to stop them is just stupid. This is the type of crap that gives feminism a bad name. I’ve never assaulted a woman before, but now I wouldn’t mind socking whoever came up with this. Unless, of course, she’s bigger than I am.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Debunking Human Vestigiality

There are widely believed to be certain human body parts that no longer serve any function, and thus they are dubbed “vestigial”. I don’t believe in human vestigiality, but not because I don’t believe in natural selection. On the contrary, hearing evolution referred to as a "theory" along with watching a pregnant woman sustain a blow to the stomach illicit from me the same expression of horror and disgust. No, the problem I have with labeling a body part “vestigial” is that it implies an inflated level of knowledge and understanding on humanity’s part that I find to be unjustified. Scientists are notorious for reversing past discoveries,[1] and it’s only a matter of time before we ascertain the hidden functions of “vestigial” anatomical features.

However, because the scientific community is currently occupied with more pressing matters (such as finding the elusive Higgs Boson particle and inventing a military weapon that utilizes the resonance frequency of the human skull to beam the booming voice of Allah into the heads of Iraqi terrorists), I will single-handedly take on the Herculean task of determining the various functions of each supposedly human vestigial element that immediately comes to mind.

A. The Appendix

The Appendix has long been considered the epitome of the vestigial organ. But according to a well-respected online database,[2] the appendix might be responsible for “maintaining gut flora” and/or training the immune system during the fetal stage of human development. Frankly, I don’t consider either explanation plausible. It’s just as likely that the appendix is the three-dimensional manifestation of a four-dimensional organ that serves different purposes at various stages in our lives.

At the infantile stage, the hyper-appendix serves as a reservoir for mucus, saliva, baby vomit, urine, and dung. The various bodily fluids are stored in four-dimensional space, effectively hiding it from our world. The organ itself extends into hyperspace as a large fleshy sac, able to hold sixteen to twenty gallons of baby-goo. This explains how something so small could house a seemingly endless supply of nastiness.

But as we grow older, our brain physiology allows for increasing complexity and maturation. The hyper-appendix’s evolution parallels that of the mind and is actually responsible for the development of the personality. During pre-pubescence the hyper-appendix’s sac-like extension becomes departmentalized, with each cell generating an organic compound responsible for the various human personality traits.[3] The allocations of certain characteristics are dependent on sex, age, nationality, and education. Are you a young, white, affluent female? Chances are, you a bitch.

So as you can see, the scientific world needs to rethink its conventional theories regarding the appendix's supposed "purpose". Perhaps the organ is a beacon for the Flying Spaghetti Monster; you never know.

B. The Wisdom Teeth

The removal of the wisdom teeth serves simply as a rite of passage for middle-to-upper class white people. Have you ever met someone who hasn’t had his wisdom teeth removed? Don’t you just want to slap him in the face?



[1] Barbequed steak, artificial sweeteners, and UV rays are now all carcinogens, while once again gamma radiation can make you smaller, larger, super-strong, or governor of California.

[2] I am equating “respect” with “popularity”, which seems to be the working model for politics, religion, and high-school cliques.

[3] Phrenologists, it seems, were looking in the right direction. But only in a figurative sense, of course, since the organ they really wanted exists in a dimension to which they could never point.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Zombology

Zombie movies have always been an integral part of my life, much like Church or bathing for normal people. (I bathe daily, but if it meant missing a zombie flick on television, I’d just throw a towel over the couch and spray myself with Febreze.) Over the years I’ve discovered that zombie movies evoke very different reactions from the people in my life. My father, for instance, gets so much joy out of monster movies that he will loudly repeat lines he remembers regardless of where we are. My family had flown to New Orleans to visit my grandparents, and on the first night there we went out to an upscale restaurant for dinner. When the waiter brought us our food, my grandfather (ever to jibe us for being Northerners) exclaimed, “Now y’all Yankees ah goin’ to get to eat some real soul food!” The word “soul” triggered my father, who, having recently watched “Army of Darkness”, twisted his face into a devilish grin and cried, “I’ll swallow your soul!” My mother kicked him under the table, but my grandfather didn’t respond in the least. It was unclear whether his failing hearing had saved him from having to decide on an appropriate reaction or if the codes of Southern hospitality recommend ignoring tourettes-like outbursts.

My girlfriend feels very strongly about zombie movies, but lacks the positive enthusiasm that my father and I have. At first I assumed that she hated zombie movies because she was afraid, since so much of the horror genre is off-limits when we make trips to the rental store. But after a good solid round of whining and badgering, she revealed that zombie movies bore her; in fact, she doesn’t find monster movies of any kind very scary. It’s the realistic horror that frightens her (to the point of irrational hysteria, I often mutter under my breath), specifically films that depict women being assaulted or sexually abused. She suggested a scene from the horror film Saw as an example: a stranger breaks into a woman’s house at night and after tying her up together with her daughter, he threatens to blow their brains out with a handgun.

“Do you see?” she asked me as I stared blankly, “That could really happen, and that’s why it’s terrifying!”

“Personally, I find the threat of being devoured alive by an undead horde much more existential and disturbing, a fate transcending your trite and pedestrian fears that are more befitting the average lobotomized ‘Lifetime’ viewer.” Actually, I didn’t really say that. Instead, I offered these words of comfort: “If you were ever attacked in real life, you’d probably be in so much shock from being raped and stabbed that you wouldn’t have time to contemplate the gravity of your situation.” This, like half the things I say to my girlfriend was met with a barrage of tiny bony fists with each individual punch carrying so little force that the resulting dull, throbbing pain was miraculously unmarked by a bruise. This attack, at which most women seem to be particularly adept, is the reason why there are fewer reported cases of domestic abuse against males. Without proof, there’s no point in bringing it up with the law. Maybe my girlfriend's right; real pain is much more terrifying than the imaginary.

Zombology

Everything that I understand about the world I have learned from zombie movies. Actually, what I mean to say is that I could have learned everything from zombie movies. Most people dismiss these films as uninspired gore-fests, the intellectual equivalent of clowning in the world of theater. However, zombie films have more to offer than just cheap scares and the canonized chainsaw-to-the-face; this slice of American culture offers a wealth of information about what we humans think of our bodies, our society, and our place in the world.

Historically, zombies are deceased individuals brought back to life by Voodoun witchdoctors known as bokors. The undead then serve these African sorcerers and aid them in their dark magic ceremonies. In the last few decades zombies have come to represent much more to the American public, no longer serving as mere familiars or ghoulish servants. Because zombies are creatures that are human in origin, movies starring the undead give us the opportunity of self-examination and allow us to recognize important social trends and human concerns.

In fact, there is so much pertinent self-reflection inherent in even the most mediocre undead cinema that I suggest our public schools adopt a zombie-oriented curriculum. Our children can benefit from “zombology” in almost every core discipline, including but not limited to art, philosophy, and biology. Besides, we should jump at the chance to make learning more interesting for today’s youth. In the following sections I will present a number of common K-12 disciplines and develop my proposition that zombie culture can provide a plethora of pertinent information.

Welcome to the International School of Zombology.

ART

It’s said that Jackson Pollock was heavily influenced by patterns of blood-splatterings that he found freshly spurted throughout the remains of an isolated Midwestern town. Pollock was the not the first artist to be influenced by the work of our undead brethren; Van Gogh, the classic Dutch post-impressionist painter, is the only artist known to survive a direct zombie attach and live to paint a self-portrait about it. A letter that he later sent to his sister (a correspondence long assumed to be the product of insanity and thus had been, until now, left unpublished) revealed the details of Van Gogh’s encounter with a zombie:

“My dear beloved sister,

I have seen the sky painted with the brightest of rosy hues, yellows and cyans more exquisite than anything produced by my contemporaries. On another note, a rather decrepit-looking fellow accosted me and took a rather nasty mouthful from my ear this morning. The hot oxygenated cardinal reds gushing from my bubbling canal were breath taking in their vibrancy, more beautiful than any pigment I have come across.”

PHILOSOPHY

The application of the zombie genre to the field of philosophy is more obvious than with other disciplines. First of all, there is a popular maxim that poor people often say: “The only certainties in life are death and taxes”. If your annual salary is as low as mine, then the latter doesn’t really apply to you. But death has always been a concrete truth for humanity and life in general. Death is feared, expected, and sometimes desired. For the depressed death is a release from the seemingly endless tortures of everyday life. And for those who aren’t writers or artists, death can be frightening, a dark mysterious existence whose nature is unimaginable. But one thing that everyone can agree on is that death is necessary, and in the grand scheme of things it’s good. Without death, the world would become overpopulated, Hitler would still be alive, and it’d be much harder to eat a hamburger that’s lowing as you take a bite. Zombie movies provide us with an alternate reality where the dead don’t stay dead, where death stops being a passive threat of inevitability and spurns fate as its emissaries actively take lives. The only thing more frightening than dying at the hands of the undead army is knowing that you will join its ranks post-mortem.

While zombies force us to reconsider the facts about death that we’ve taken for granted, the modern depiction of the living dead in film reveals to us our own stubborn reluctance to give up the now antiquated idea of mind/body duality. Man has often wondered “where” his soul is and how it is tied to his body, looking for both the metaphysical and corporeal anchor of the mind. Many of today’s zombies reflect the Descartian philosophy that the mind and body are indeed separate entities, one as ethereal and the other bodily. The body may survive after the mind is gone, still engaging in its most base and animalistic functions.[1] In general we fear our biological instincts because they are not under our control, and so zombies epitomize the worst-case scenario based on this fear. (Of course, if you’re the type of person who finds confronting humanity’s most base and vulgar qualities entertaining, you can always ride the New York City subway system and save yourself the price of a movie ticket. However, riding NYC public transit increases your chance of actually being eaten alive, or masturbated upon, which is a fate worse than death.)

On the other hand, many people would like to think that they are irreducibly complex (to borrow Michael Behe’s phrase) and that human beings cannot be condensed to mere biological components. More contemporary portrayals of the undead follow a monist philosophy; because the brains of the undead are often reported as degenerated and atrophied, their minds (which according to monism are manifestations of the chemical reactions in the brain and are thus are completely dependant on the welfare of the body) suffer the same fate. I believe that this change can be attributed to the developing fields of neuroscience and neuropsychology; as our understanding of human anatomy increases, the zombie mythos adapts and presents some very interesting introspective conclusions regarding human nature.

BIOLOGY

Our knowledge of human biology is constantly changing and improving, especially in regards to our brains and how consciousness arises. For one thing, the forever-illusive homunculus[2] (or physical representation of the mind in the brain) has long been believed to be the brain in its entirety. “Shoot the brain and the body dies” has long been canonized as the most efficient method for killing a zombie, implying that whatever is controlling the body is confined within the cranium. And when neuroscience became a more popular field and the prefrontal cortex’s role in personality and behavior became common knowledge (popularized by the most famous neurological patient, Phineas Gage), zombie movies followed suit by introducing more anatomically sound explanations for the existence of zombies. Resident Evil, for example, exemplifies this willingness of the zombie industry to adapt to the dynamic field of neuroscience: in the R.E. universe, zombies are humans who have been infected with a deadly virus that attacks the brain. The virus eats away at the frontal lobe, leaving the victim a mindless shell of his former self.

Romero’s 2005 Land of the Dead also demonstrates an increased understanding of neurology. The “protagonist” zombie, affectionately dubbed “Big Daddy”, continues to “work” at the gas station which employed him in life. In the opening shot Big Daddy is shown attempting to fuel a car that is no longer there, suggesting that the areas of his brain responsible for storing and recalling implicit memories (and thus habitual exercises) have been preserved. These implicit memories may suggest how a zombie can perform past habitual activities without having any conscious knowledge (or at least severely limited levels of conscious knowledge) of doing so.

The “limited consciousness” theory is supported by a later scene in the film where Big Daddy kills Dennis Hopper’s character by trapping him in a crude gasoline/propane firetrap.[3] Big Daddy seems to be exhibiting a rudimentary thought process when he utilizes past knowledge to solve a problem in a new, unfamiliar environment. While most zombies appear to only crave the taste of human flesh, Big Daddy kills for revenge, not by instinct.

The need for an updated version of zombie biology also reflects the general public’s growing impatience with the religious or “soulless” explanation for the undead.

RELIGION

The famous tagline for Romero’s Dawn of the Dead claims that “when Hell is full, the dead will walk the earth”. The concept of the “zombie” is understandably intertwined with religion. While the word “zombie” originates from the Voudoun “zombii”, the idea of the dead terrorizing the living is present in almost every culture. From Arabian “ghuls” to Medieval “night shades”, the undead can be found equally in the folklore of Eastern and Western societies, new and ancient. The fear of Hell being full may speak to modern Western society’s dissatisfaction with the ethical and moral corruption of current times, the frustration with governmental and socially sanctioned debauchery. As anyone who has seen a zombie movie knows, it’s always the arrogant jerk and skank who die first (even before the black guy). In contemporary films there seems to be an overabundance of less-than admirable characters, and so oftentimes much of the movie is spent happily anticipating their grizzly deaths.

The threat of an undead army also speaks to the Christian fear of Armageddon and the degeneration of a society dominated by Judeo-Christian values. 28 Days Later’s church scene demonstrates the degradation of the Church construct and the seemingly indiscriminate destruction that will ensure during Earth’s last days.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Zombie movies paint an accurate portrait of general social concerns, many of which are a product of the last century’s industrialization and technological advancements. The exponential growth of biotechnology, for example, has inspired movies like Resident Evil and Doom. Uncontrolled genetic and viral experimentation is a prevalent concern for many paranoid citizens, especially those who still refer to East Asians as “Chinamen” and begin every other sentence with “Back in Naam…” Xenophobia is also a pertinent issue for a post 9/11 United States occupied by citizens with conflicting opinions regarding border policies and immigration laws. The waves of undead are the epitome of “the other”, and perhaps more specifically, they represent the hoards of non-English speaking immigrants who are flooding in from all sides. The fear of overpopulation runs parallel to this xenophobia; as population increases we all feel the effects of a declining economy, one that is unable to support the multitude of heavy consumers that prey upon it.

MATHEMATICS

Zombie movies provide some much more practical applications in addition to abstract social commentary. For instance, the more successful zombie hunters/escapees are particularly adept at rationing their supplies, a skill that is invaluable for anyone who ever goes camping or drives through the Midwest. Efficiency and vigilance is required to fend off the undead, and the living must be able to calculate food amounts, ammo quantities, the weight of items that need to be carried, and days needed to travel. It’s important that individuals know how to identify and pack the essentials, particularly weapons and food. Surviving is definitely contingent on mathematical skill and accuracy.

PHYSICS

The physics of zombie movies can prepare the general viewer for many worst-case scenarios, such as fending off an attacker (alive or dead) or hunting out of necessity on a camping trip gone awry. Zombie film ballistics allow us to discover what rounds are best for piercing entire torsos, while melee attacks show us what ordinary household objects can be used as deadly weapons. Flight of the Living Dead teaches viewers that golf putters, umbrellas, and even bare fists can all be used to behead an attacker at close range. It should be noted, however, that this might only be possible if the attacker’s flesh has been severely weakened by decomposition. The author does not suggest trying this on a deer or that asshole who lives across the street.

ENGLISH

English is the only core subject to which zombie movies cannot directly contribute. The argument that Milton made in his Aeropagitica could potentially be applicable to a zombie film’s screenplay; after all, you can’t know what good literature is without first knowing what bad literature is (and vice versa). But even Milton would agree that the school systems would never accept that bullshit (the “whitest of excrement”, I believe he said).

There is a reason that the zombie genre has been (and will continue to be) so successful in America. For one thing, we’re all gun-toting hicks at heart and nothing twists our britches in a knot like watching a zombie’s head explode. But more importantly, zombie movies offer a concise medium for social commentary, which in turn can be used for educational purposes. Today’s youth is more or less born with ADHD, so as responsible, understanding individuals we should embrace any method that gets kids engaged in learning the basics of academia.


[1] Interestingly enough, zombie sexuality is something curiously absent from most zombie movies. Undoubtedly filmmakers are wary about simulating necrophilia on the big screen (even when between two consenting parties), and any scenes displaying ghoul-on-ghoul action would either be inappropriately humorous for a horror flick or excessively disturbing. I can think of only one film that successfully pulls off the depiction of undead copulation: Peter Jackson’s 1992 Dead Alive (US title). However, the subsequent infanticide of the zombies’ offspring arguably offsets any lasting humor that the conception would have had.

[2] The homunculean theory of consciousness is inherently flawed as it dictates that the human consciousness is composed of a smaller “self” who observes the plethora of sensory input data the brain receives. However, there is no explanation as to how the smaller “self” observes what it does, and thus yet another tinier “self” is needed to explain the workings of the smaller “self”. This argument is akin to Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity” theory, which attempts to prove the existence of God by claiming that certain biological systems are so complex that they had to be designed. The logic behind this argument rests on a shaky foundation, however, since an entity able to create something complex would necessarily be as complex or more so than the invention, and then we’ve entered a vicious cycle to which there is no end in sight.

[3] I can’t help but imagine that this scene would have been much funnier if the actor playing Big Daddy looked more like Hank Hill from King of the Hill. Who else loves propane that much?