Rich Horton positively reviews the ‘09 year at Farrago’s Wainscot.

As ever, we appreciate his thoughts.

If Dark Star had been his only produced film, I’d still be a fan of Dan O’Bannon. I used BombNumber20 as my online handle for awhile.

But he also has Return of the Living Dead and Dead & Buried on his resume. He also wrote the first draft of Alien (which CHUD tells me was originally called Star Beast), the screen adaptation of Total Recall, and some of Heavy Metal.

RotLD is, in a lot of ways, more my kind of film than the original Night of the Living Dead. In Dan O’Bannon’s universe, things go wrong. They don’t just collapse or snowball. They go completely sideways and then explode. And they do it without heavy moralizing and without any particular human failing to blame … except perhaps old-fashioned, commonplace stupidity.

Dan O’Bannon died yesterday at the age of 63. Hopefully someone is feeding him brains so he doesn’t feel the pain of being dead.

Update: The Guardian has a good write up of the man.

Andrew Sullivan’s blog today pointed readers to yet another blogger’s summary of the PhilPapers surveys, in which hundreds of professional and semi-pro philosophers responded to a number of basic metaphysical questions.

Among them was the question of free will, and the vast majority believe that the universe is either deterministic in a way that is compatible with free will or that free will does not exist at all. Leaving aside my own libertarian leanings (both metaphysical and political), it is clear that the people have spoken.

And since the universe functions in this way, and since Amazon added an important new item this weekend, you have no choice but to choose to pre-order Farrago-founder Darin Bradley’s novel Noise.

Immediately. The universe demands it.

Guest blogging again at Jeff Vandermeer’s place, Rima Abunasser takes a look at the malignant sexuality and imperialistic drives behind some popular holiday music.

She also offers at least one acceptable alternative. In that spirit, see the good and the worst of holiday music after the cut …

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Fair Warning: the following may cause Ye Olde Double-Take Whiplash and/or bring about a gut rupture and a bruised tailbone when you fall out of your chair. Those of us who wander in the deepness of Farrago’s Stygian Broom Closet know this nerd passion.