Video

Blockbuster Crossroads, Summer ’23

| Steve

Barbie or Oppenheimer: which wolf will you feed? The death drive or joie de vivre?

I can’t fairly judge Oppenheimer because I haven’t seen it, but I’ve made my singular choice for the summer blockbuster season. Barbie look squarely at the finality of death (no joke!) in order to affirm life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it considers death more intimately than ‘Oppenheimer.’

Both titular figures am become death. Oppenheimer irrevocably expanded the human species’ capacity for mass murder by orders of magnitude. Barbie chooses to be human and defer, here and now, to mortality’s own hidden schedule. In so doing, her movie celebrates and multiplies the joys of our world. It is an improbable outpouring of grace on a global scale. It comes at the cost of the millions of tons of plastic garbage it also serves to create, but if it’s a choice between the two, I’d prefer Barbie’s fallout to nuclear winter.

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Just Housing – Move Along

Video | | Steve

The City of Olympia invites you to Move Along!
This is Orion Canning and Just Housing’s project. Steve Bakker as The Cop.
From Just Housing:

The city of Olympia, as well as cities all over the United States, have ordinances that make it illegal to sit, lie, or camp on city property. These ordinances target homeless populations, giving police the ability to harass or arrest the most vulnerable members of the community just for resting, a basic human need. They are tantamount to making it illegal to be too poor to afford housing.

This month, the US 9th Circuit Court has ruled such laws unconstitutional, violating the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the 8th Amendment, but they remain on the books in Olympia.

Update: The City of Olympia demanded our video be removed by YouTube. We think we have fair use grounds to satirize Olympia tourism ads, but we’ve chosen not to fight it.