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The existence of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has ruined my ability to talk about Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. I keep calling it "Strange New World" in front of students.

I find this an extremely interesting observation from my backwards looking postmodern position. There is something almost Baudrillardian about a society which instantly transforms the present into history and so views its own present existence through a historical lens.

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"Our culture is essentially comprehensive, and immediately changes all events into historical representations." - Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History

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I don't know if it's my favorite, but I recently watched Night of the Lepus and was smiling and laughing the entire way through. Watching that movie was like receiving a warm hug, a bowl of soup, a lung full of nitrous oxide.

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Last night I had a dream that the doctor from Voyager was made federation president. Now I wait to see if that was a premonition or just the fever.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A Night to Dismember, directed by Doris Wishman. It's one of the first slashers, she started making it very shortly after the release of Halloween. I recommend seeking out the original version on YouTube, it is quite interesting.

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While watching Star Trek it's cool to see that horned melons and Buddha's hands are the most popular fruits in the galaxy. Every culture seems to eat them, including in the delta quadrant.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In this case I've Heard the Ammonite Murmur. I have no memory of ever having heard of this film, but at some point in the past I decided I wanted to watch it.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Finding obscure films on my Letterboxd watchlist that I know nothing about, no one I follow has seen, and I have no memory of adding.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Reading Althusser is annoying because he's both extremely clear and extremely repetitive. For a second I genuinely thought there was a printing error because he used the same two sentences word for word.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The problem with movies about historical events is that invariably ten minutes in I will pause the movie and then spend longer than the runtime of the film reading about those historical events. I just can't stop myself.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Watching the Russian dub of an Italian film because the version actually in Italian only had English subtitles for 50% of the dialogue.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Mandy (2018) lives up to the hype! Absolutely beautiful movie that actually has something to say about psychedelics, their history and culture.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

How am I so bad at sleeping that I injured both my left elbow and right wrist? Just keeping both arms in terrible positions somehow.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I tried grinding the leaves to boost extraction. It works well for all three. The black tea style leaves are the most interesting and closest to real tea, but with no bitterness at all. There is some hope for this project, especially if I can find a more bitter leaf to blend it with.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The first taste test results! I've learned that mulberry leaves are naturally a bit sweet and have no bitterness at all. The tea was less flavorful than I'd hoped. I think my leaves were harvested too late in the season so the tree had already started pulling nutrients away from the leaves.

The "green mulberry leaf tea". A teacup, the picture taken from above to show the nearly colorless liquid inside. It's only barely more yellow than pure water.

The "oolong mulberry leaf tea". Picture of the teacup taken from above to show the extremely pale yellow tinted liquid inside. A bit more color than the green, but not much.

The "black mulberry leaf tea". Picture taken of a teacup from above to show a lovely amber colored liquid inside. This actually looks like tea!

Tasting Notes:

Green mulberry tea:

Western style, 200° water, 4 minutes, 2 cups of water for 1.5 grams (too weak). Almost no color, slightly sweet taste, a bit like weak camomile. After several more minutes in the pot the sweetness increases, but no additional flavor and minimal additional color. Will try again with more leaves and hotter water.

Oolong mulberry tea:

Western style, 200° water, 4 minutes, 1 cup of water for 2 grams of tea. Light yellow color. On the nose a few toasted notes and some vegetal notes. Tastes a bit like real tea! There is still the same sweetness, stronger in this brew. There is a bit of a toasted breadcrumbs note, but it's faint. Some nice green flavor too. None of the floral notes I was hoping for. After a few more minutes of steeping the flavor is the same. Will try again with more leaves and hotter water

Black mulberry tea:

Western style, 212° water, 4 minutes, .5 cups of water for two grams of tea. Beautiful amber color. On the nose, sweet forest floor notes. Definitely still damp leaves and dried fruit. Tastes a bit savory, still with classic mulberry sweetness, surprisingly vegetal for a black tea, no bitterness at all. Certainly the most complex of the teas, though still a bit weak even at a high leaf to water ratio.

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Michael Moore retroactively changed from satirist to prophet for his movie Canadian Bacon. I'm not happy about it.

The best action films make you think a lot immediately after they're over. The worst slow cinema makes you think about anything other than the movie you are watching.

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I think that some action movies effectively replace your thoughts while you are watching because they are engrossing in a way that gives you no space outside the film. Slow cinema on the other hand forces you to think a lot because nothing is happening and that nothing isn't explained.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Judging by wuxia films, wandering martial arts master was probably the best job you could have in medieval China.

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Did Tom Hardy get the role of Bane because of Star Trek Nemesis? His character has some really similar backstory details.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Reposted by Fopling

That's a good example, one is enough to prove your point that TOS isn't so totally one sided. I was very annoyed at the suggestion that Star Trek was fundamentally utilitarian and overstated my case.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Perhaps my most niche beef yet, but Will Menaker just doesn't understand Star Trek at all based on his review of Star Trek: Insurrection. He claims that the primary ethical maxim of Star Trek is "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" this could not be more false.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Make your favorite film sound as boring as possible without giving away the title. Two men are stationed on a remote island to care for important infrastructure. They have absolutely nothing to entertain them but their chores and talking to each other at meal times.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I do enjoy hearing the scaremongering Republican political ads that just tell me good things the Democrats have done. "They gave healthcare to millions of illegal immigrants" great! I guess I'll vote for them again this year, I hope they keep it up.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I have to admit the people pointing out that Hegel is misinterpreting Spinoza are probably correct. But who among us as a young romantic hasn't gotten excited with their roommates and misinterpreted a philosopher? I'm just glad I didn't write anything down when I first discovered existentialism.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Kids these days and their lingo and celebrities with incomprehensible names. What does "At the juke joint Jelly Roll's cats called Lead Belly a dead hoofer till he blew his wig" even mean?

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It's so funny when an episode of Star Trek wants to impress you with alien ships that dwarf star fleet ones. Like, what reason could you have to use military ships that can carry a million people each for standard patrols?

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Reposted by Fopling

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 16/09/2024

The people reviewing Skinamarink on Letterboxd haven't seen the work of landmark feminist director Chantal Akerman and it shows.

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Reposted by Fopling

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Messed up that Michael Moore has retroactively acquired the gift of prophecy.

The poster for the film Canadian Bacon. It depicts a boot with the Canadian maple leaf about to step on the statue of Liberty

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Reposted by Fopling

Margaret Killjoy @margaret.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

i have lived among mountains older than bones there is a beauty and fire to youth, but I will rest on stone older than trees on hills that watched the rings of saturn as they were born

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

My nervous system is millions of miles long and mostly composed of different wavelengths of light.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

On the left we have the green tea, it's a little darker than I wanted because I steamed it for about 30 seconds too long. In the middle we have the oolong style leaves. These are lightly oxidized and then roasted to get a complex flavor. Finally we have the fully oxidized black tea style.

Three containers of leaves arranged on a cutting board. From left to right, we have a container with large green leaves varying slightly from bright green to a bit darker. In the middle the leaves are still pretty bright green, but they are yellower and more crinkled. On the right we have very dark green, nearly black leaves that have been rolled into tubes.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Processing done, now to let them sit for a couple weeks before doing the taste test.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I've suddenly decided to pick a bunch of mulberry leaves and process them as if they were tea. I'm making a mulberry green, a mulberry oolong, and a mulberry black (red) tea. Hopefully they all work out and I'll be able to say which is my preference

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

How come Nagel didn't read this to answer his question? Is he stupid?

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Animorphs: the series directly responding to the Thomas Nagel paper What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

See if you can fit Don't Torture a Duckling in at the end. It's less political, but still extremely compelling about the plight of poor southerners.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Suggesting a double feature of films about Southern Italy. Start with The Leopard so you see the foreign oppression and the moment of unification with the north, then watch We Still Kill the Old Way to see how little changed in a century and how empty the promises of unification turned out to be.

Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Slay the Spire 2 makes me wonder if this is about the implied world of the game or the abstracted game mechanics. I don't know if I'm fighting with a sword or playing a card game.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Gallagher recognizes the fundamental truth of semiotics, that it is a web of signs leading to other signs. The signified, if it ever existed, is unimportant to the interplay of signs. These comics are arguably some of the most truly postmodern (or at least post structuralist) art being made today.

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Fopling @fopling.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

"Corporate needs you to find the différance between this picture and this picture"