The blog to end all blogs. Reviews and comments about all and everything. This blog is NOT affiliated with YouTube, Wikipedia, Microsoft Bing, Gemini, ChatGPT or any commercial vendor! Links don´t imply endorsement. Many posts and comments are ironic. The blogger is not responsible for comments made by others. The languages used are English and Swedish. Content warning: Essentially everything.
- Böcker? Nej, de försvann redan innan de där jäkla robotarna. Varför frågar du, pysen?
Eftersom böcker är mer hållbara än "AI" och internet, så är det givetvis en studie i vansinne att förstöra böcker för att träna datorer. Så det här är faktiskt avancerad kulturvandalism.
Det betyder att det inte längre kommer att finnas några böcker kvar när högteknologin kollapsar circa 2100. Eftersom våra herrar och mästare förstörde dem för att föda högteknologin. Som var dömd att kollapsa.
Vi har mött fienden som orsakade den mörka tidsålderns barbari...och fienden var vi själva.
För övrigt så skiter jag fullständigt i Iliaden och Odyséen. Så nu vet ni det. Den där filmen alla har snackat om i typ ett halvår nu har förresten premiär först imorgon fredag. Vilket jag inte hade en aning om. Och jag tänker göra mitt yttersta i att inte bry mig om den heller...
Har ärligt talat inte orkat läsa hela krönikan (finns det ingen AI-sammanfattning?) men det slog mig att kulturbarnens "organiska" språkbehandling är så jäkla usel att AI antagligen kan höja kvalitén på deras output. Såvida inte AI-verktyget tränar på just Aftonbladets artiklar...
Och ärligt talat skiter jag i åsiktsmaskinernas contretemps.
Thomas Sheridan discusses "Cyclonopedia" again. As I pointed out before, this book seems to be part of a postmodernist milieu also encompassing "New Materialists" and such. I checked them out years ago, and was stunned to find that they were animists or animatists rather than materialists. "New" materialism indeed!
The idea in this particular piece of theory-fiction (at least as interpreted by Sheridan) is that oil is sentient and really a kind of god or rather demon, a Lovecraftian entity if you wish. It´s jealous of the Sun (the "real" divinity) and wants to control humanity, which it does through the Abrahamic religions. While the poor author of "Cyclonopedia", Reza Nagarestani, may have meant the book metaphorically (but who knows), our man Sheridan insists that it´s literally true. The supernatural is real, deal with it!
This is just the first part of Sheridan´s presentation, but I previously linked to a conversation with ChatGPT in which he proposed that the Petro-Demon is migrating and trying to take over AI (including ChatGPT). Here is that link again:
Är tillräckligt gammal för att komma ihåg när Jack Hildén var bäbis. Bokstavligt talat. Okej, så han är kulturskribent på AB numera.
Har ingen aning om vad det här bråket handlar om, men det låter väldigt "in house". Och betydligt tråkigare än gamla goda Montergate (a.k.a. Sveket från Hanna Fahl).
Men okej, jag gillar inte DN-Pravda, så jag antar att jag oxå dreglar av skadeglädje. Något, något.
- Everyone in this wicked country is insane, I´m leaving for Andalus!
Like most Swedes, I watched "Ivanhoe" (on-off in my case) again this New Year´s Day. That is, the 1982 version featuring James Mason & Co. There are many strange plot twists and ditto holes in the movie. So I decided to ask Gemini AI about them. Double check them at your leisure. One such is that the Norman knight Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is implicitly described as a pagan?! Apparently, in Sir Walter Scott´s novel the villain is taunted by a heathen Saxon witch. Ahem, why was this left out of the film? It would have made an excellent addition to an already pretty colorful cast!
In Walter Scott´s novel "Ivanhoe", is the character Front-de-Boeuf described as a pagan?
In Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, the character Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is not described as a pagan. Instead, he is portrayed as a Norman nobleman and a nominal Christian, though one who is depicted as brutal, blasphemous, and profoundly irreligious.
The confusion regarding paganism in the novel typically stems from his interaction with another character, Ulrica (also known as Urfried), and his behavior during his deathbed scene.
Religious Identity and Beliefs
Nominal Christianity: As a Norman knight and baron, Front-de-Boeuf belongs to the Christian faith.1 In Chapter 22, while attempting to extort money from Isaac of York, he explicitly swears by his faith to prove his resolve:
"I swear to thee... by the gospel which our church teaches, and by the keys which are given her to bind and to loose, that my purpose is deep and peremptory."2
The "Blasphemer": While he identifies as Christian for social and political reasons, the narrator frequently labels him a blasphemer and a parricide (having murdered his own father).3 He shows no genuine piety and mocks the Church, even while fearing the "hell" it describes.
The Deathbed Scene: As Front-de-Boeuf lies dying in the burning Castle of Torquilstone, he is terrified by the prospect of the afterlife.4 He does not turn to pagan gods; rather, he is haunted by his Christian sins and the "fiends" he believes are coming for him.
The Real "Pagan" Connection: Ulrica
The term "pagan" is explicitly used to describe the beliefs of Ulrica, the elderly Saxon woman who set fire to the castle.5
Pagan Hymn: As the castle burns, Ulrica sings what the narrator calls a "wild pagan hymn," invoking ancient Saxon deities such as Zernebock, Mista, and Skogula.6
Curse on Front-de-Boeuf: On his deathbed, Ulrica taunts him by saying that these ancient Saxon gods (which the Christian priests call "fiends") will be his only comforters.7
Ett ensamt rymdskepp på väg mot Vega i Lyrans stjärnbild...
Jag vet inte, jag tycker ändå att Björn Wiman låter naivt optimistisk på något märkligt sätt...
Har inte lyssnat på intervjun med Gun-Britt Sundström, vet knappt vem hon är, men detta verkar vara sant: "Enda möjligheten att ha något hopp är såvitt jag kan begripa om man har någon tro på en övernaturlig verklighet".
Det vill säga: om verkligheten faktiskt är så mörk som pessimisterna hävdar. Och Wiman verkar vara en av dessa...
"There was a time when every tree, every brook, every hill was thought to be alive. The world is a haunted forest. Modern man has tried to exorcize it, but the ghosts still whisper." - Attributed to C S Lewis, but ChatGPT couldn´t find any credible source for the quote, so it´s probably apocryphal. But chilling nevertheless! Fairies?
Our man Sheridan is angry again. Apparently, some Wokies claim that the Goth subculture is "cultural appropriation" because it´s vaguely Egyptophiliac and since the ancient Egyptians were Black or colored...well, you get the point. I think Sheridan himself was into "post-punk" in his insufficiently misspent youth, hence his reaction here. I also asked ChatGPT about the Goth scene and its alleged connection to (ancient) Egypt...
Is the so-called Goth subculture to some extent based on ancient Egyptian culture as depicted in Hollywood movies and so on?
That’s a fascinating and perceptive question — and yes, there is a real (if indirect) link between the Gothic subculture and the Hollywood–Egyptian aesthetic, though not in a simple historical or genealogical sense. It’s more about shared symbols, moods, and imagery that entered Western pop culture through 19th–20th century art and film.
Let’s unpack it clearly:
🖤 1. Origins of the Gothic Aesthetic
The Goth subculture that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s — around post-punk bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Cure — drew mainly from:
Victorian mourning culture (black lace, death imagery)
Romanticism and Decadence (Byron, Poe, Baudelaire)
Gothic fiction (e.g. Dracula, Frankenstein)
German Expressionist film (Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)
However, the visual and mystical side of Goth also absorbed a broader occult–Egyptian–esoteric imagery that had already been circulating for a century.
🏺 2. Egyptian Revivalism and Occult Symbolism
Starting in the 19th century, after Napoleon’s campaigns and the decipherment of hieroglyphs, Egyptomania swept Europe. Ancient Egyptian motifs — ankhs, pyramids, mummies, scarabs, eye symbols — became associated with:
Death and the afterlife
Mystery and immortality
Secret knowledge (occultism, Hermeticism)
Groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and later Aleister Crowley’s Thelema explicitly incorporated Egyptian deities (Horus, Nuit, etc.) into Western esotericism. These symbols filtered into art deco, cinema, and popular occultism — and eventually, into the visual lexicon of Goth.
🎥 3. Hollywood’s Role
Hollywood reinforced this link between Egypt and the “darkly romantic”:
The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff established the mystical–erotic–deathly Egyptian archetype.
Egyptian imagery (tombs, amulets, eyes, mummies) became shorthand for death, magic, and eternity.
These visuals reappeared in music videos, fashion, and album art by later Gothic and darkwave bands — often via the Art Deco revival of the 1980s.
So while Goths didn’t take their cues directly from Pharaonic religion, they inherited an Egyptianized visual language from 20th-century Western media — which had already mythologized Egypt as the “cradle of ancient mystery and death.”
⚰️ 4. Examples in Goth Culture
The ankh — Egyptian symbol of life — became a Goth and vampire subculture emblem (notably through The Hunger [1983] with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve).
Egyptian motifs appear in the fashion of artists like Siouxsie Sioux (black kohl eyeliner inspired by Egyptian art) and in darkwave album covers.
Occult rock and Gothic literature sometimes merge Egyptian and Christian funerary motifs — both expressing fascination with the threshold between life and death.
🔮 5. In Summary
Influence Source
Contribution to Goth
Victorian Gothic
Death imagery, mourning, melancholy
Romanticism
Emotional intensity, the sublime
Egyptomania / Hollywood Egypt
Mystique of death, eternal life, esoteric aesthetics
Occult revival
Symbolism (ankhs, eyes, tombs) and ritual imagery
Post-punk art
Stylized darkness and theatrical identity
So, to your point:
→ The Goth subculture isn’t “based on” ancient Egyptian culture itself,
but it absorbed Egypt’s cinematic and occult reinterpretations — the version filtered through Western romanticism, 1930s Hollywood, and the occult revival.
Egypt thus became part of Goth’s shared symbolic vocabulary of death, beauty, and mystery — one of several mythic sources (alongside medieval, Christian, and Romantic ones).
Would you like me to trace how The Mummy (1932) and The Hunger (1983) specifically shaped Egyptian aesthetics in the Goth scene? Those two films are key bridges between Egyptomania and Gothic style.
Are the claims about a full-scale genocide in King Leopold´s so-called Congo Free State really Woke-revisionist history?
The first link goes to an interesting article in "The American Conservative" which argues that the real threat in the Congo at the time were the Arab slave-raiders and various local warlords (many of them cannibals). The essay is a scathing criticism of the book "King Leopold´s Ghost", which claims that 10 million people were killed in the Congo Free State during Leopold´s rule of the area.
The second link goes to my old review of a book published in 1897 dealing with precisely this issue.
Or paranoid as a paddy? Seriously, I take zero-zero responsibility for the content of this content-creator. Linked here as a "free speech test" mostly...
DIK-förbunden gillar inte den nya kulturkanon (kulturkanonen?) och tycker visst att den är en "nationell uppfostringskampanj". Vilket väl kan stämma. Å andra sidan står väl DIK för en kultursyn som närmast för tankarna till en anti-nationell uppfostringskampanj. Fast den bedrivs ju inte via en av regeringen beslutad kulturkanon. Den bedrivs närmare bestämt via läroplanen istället. Och då är det tydligen okej.
