Greetings!
I made it: I published the first issue and I am here for the second one!
I worked on the first issue of this newsletter for two weeks and somehow managed to publish it like a student project: In a hurry and half-baked. But I managed to take the first step and that is what it counts.
Considering that I passed that introductory phase with that first e-mail, now I should talk about what I plan to do.
I am planning to treat the first several issues as a testing ground. Not in terms of reach though… All I want to do for now is to be able to create a consistence. I do write a lot of things every single day, but every new thing comes with its own schedule because they are all different.
I’ll discuss what’ll happen after that.
I wrote a lot last time. So, I am going to make it short this week. It was a dry week anyway… 🤷♂️
So, let’s begin…
Torrents, DVDs and MP3s as arms…
On Wednesday, Mashable published a story about Torrents of Truth, a group that tries to spread the news regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially to Russians.
What we have learned over the last couple of months is that nearly the entire world has turned its back on Russia, including Hollywood companies and since Russian theaters are not able to screen new productions, they turned to older ones. Moreover, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) has become a hit again. This led Russians to use torrents to reach new movies. We already knew that Russians were keen on using torrents but the situation made it an obligation for those who want to be able keep up with the world of cinema.
As a side note, they also started to download the entire Wikipedia in Russian language (see the first issue of this newsletter).
As a result, torrents became new channels to distribute news, especially in Russia, considering that other channels are under strict control of the Russian government or left the country all together.
This reminded me of another attempt to overthrow another dictator, Kim Jong-Un, but with USB drives and microSD cards that contain the episodes of popular TV shows and movies, like Friends (1994-2004).
There was also another attempt against the North Korean dictatorship: A South Korean activist airdropped anti-Pyongyang leaflets and thousands of DVDs of The Interview (2014), a movie which caused a lot of problems between Sony Pictures and North Korea.
The movie tells the story of two journalists who are invited to the North Korea to interview Jong-Un Kim (an obvious wordplay based on the name of the real dictator Kim Jong-Un, which made me think “why did they even bother?”), and recruited by the CIA to kill him.
It caused a lot of problems because it was denounced as an act of terror by the North Korea and they also demanded Sony Pictures to not to release the film. Also, a cyber attack was carried out against Sony Pictures by North Koreans (allegedly) But the movie ended up in theaters, albeit in significantly low numbers, and on torrent.
The movie has a plot that you might deem as absurd but it is not far from reality if you think about the weird friendship that has been going on for years between Kim Jong-Un and Dennis Rodman.
Before I wrap up this section, I have to mention that Henry Rollins is also on a mission to bring world peace. He is a proper traveler and he carries (maybe was) a hard drive filled with MP3s both to store new music that he finds and to spread what he already has. He believes that if people who are on different sides of a border realize that they are listening to the same thing or become fond of same bands, songs etc. things will go quieter and more peaceful.
He might be right!
Rest in Peace, Internet Explorer
This might be the shortest section of this issue but here is the news: Microsoft officially retired the Internet Explorer and now I feel old.
I felt the same when we abandoned the concept of DVD stores (a thread below, embedded the first tweet, the rest is a screenshot)…
To understand how I approach this thing, you can just watch this video about the last Blockbuster DVD store (it is the YouTube video from the last tweet of the thread).
And when we discontinued our landline subscription, when last phone booths were taken away, stopped using the Telegün teletext (Turkish videotext, like BBC’s Ceefax)…
Long story short: R.I.P. Internet Explorer (1995-2022)
John Willliams, the GOAT
According to an interview published by the Associated Press, legendary composer John Williams is planning to retire after the new Indiana Jones movie, whose full name is not yet announced.
Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Superman, E.T., Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Schindler’s List, Jaws… In total, he composed music for more than 150 movies, he is known as the best film composer of all times and that’s about right.
It made sad to learn that he is going to retire, but knowing that he is 90 and he could retire in his 60s, and still be considered as the most successful film composer of all times, makes me happy that we were able to listen to his music for an extra 30 years (I’m almost 33 by the way).
I would love to bombard you with links to his music, but that would be overwhelming so I am going to add just one that fits the situation:
Mr. Bean is back (sort of)…
I ended the first issue by talking about Steve Martin, one of the greatest comedians of all time. I thought that I might make this thing a tradition for this newsletter and I had two candidates for this week, one is Norm MacDonald, a comedian who is known to be a “comedian’s comedian” who passed away recently, and Rowan Atkinson, especially in the context of Man vs. Bee.
I chose to write about Rowan Atkinson, because Netflix released a new series called Man vs. Bee, that tells the story of a housesitter who has destroyed everything (the house that he has look after, cars, art works etc.) after engaging in a war with a single bee, which I’ll return to in a minute.
Obviously, I came to known Rowan Atkinson with his iconic character, Mr. Bean. As a kid, I loved to watch him deliver brilliant (slapstick but not grotesque) performances.
Surprisingly, he became a cultural thing in Turkey too. People were making jokes about Mr. Bean, especially when someone does something silly or acts clumsy.
Then, as I grew older and started to learn English, I started to watch stand up comedians and TV shows, which changed my thoughts on Rowan Atkinson. He was not a comedian who only does slapstick comedy but he is quite a sharp-witted man. But, I also learned that Mr. Bean, the original TV series, only had 15 episodes. Still, he was able to create international success!
But what made him stick (internationally), in my opinion, was his slapstick humor that goes beyond others. While others would do slap, fall, funny face jokes, he made it an entirely different thing and created a world that is perfect for his kind of humor.
Perhaps one of my favorite performances of him is the “Invisible Drum Kit”:
Man vs. Bee reminded me of this sequence. I just finished the series and I can say that although it is not his best work, I realized that I missed his comedy. I started to watch it with my parents and it turned into a binge-watching session. Started and ended. Although it has 9 episodes in total, it is not long.
However, I remembered a sketch from Mr. Bean, which has the same plot and it was just amazing. I highly recommend you to watch both, starting from this sketch called “Picnic”:
Also, I was amazed by the animation of the bee in the movie and also, Turkish dubbing artists, not just only for this movie but in general, deserve a “hats off”.
I know I should have mentioned Blackadder of all, but let’s leave it to another time.
Epilogue
I tried to keep it short and managed to do it. I guess that’ll be all for now.
You can find me on Twitter* and Instagram, or you can visit my website.
*any comment is appreciated.
Have a nice week…
🖐
Comments by Erdem Akın Temel