Month: December 2024

ASFO 2024–12–28

Key phrases for our final show of the year include “influencer–management companies”, “ten thousand Ronald Reagans”, and “the last full measure of devotion”. Also, the news from Finland should seriously call into question some of the more popular energy strategies, and the Chaos Computer Club is raising money for some folks who really need and deserve it.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–12–31 “The future development of mankind, on the spiritual no less than the material plane, is bound up with the conquest of space.” On this final (366th) day of the year, I take the opportunity to read Arthur C Clarke’s famous essay The Challenge of the Spaceship (the version from the 1961 book of the same title).
  • 2025–01–03 “The domain of the virus is apparently the threshold between what we have known in the past as the animate and the inanimate.” Back to Bucky Fuller and Utopia or Oblivion — The Prospects for Humanity, which seems very appropriate as we begin this Glorious Future Year of 2025.

ASFO 2024–12–21

Canadian retaliation? It’s more likely (and more effective) than you think! Also, a description of some potential future “Man and Atom” merchandise (or supporter premiums) I am working on ; Skylab helmets making a comeback ; and more of my thoughts on some of the many things people mean when they refer to “the gold standard”.

Objects In Mirrors Episode 37: “In A Row?/Xmas Special” (2024-12-20)

  • Fever Ray – Keep the Streets Empty for Me
  • Thursday – White Bikes
  • Tribulation – Poison Pages
  • Peter Murphy & Boy George – Let the Flowers Grow
  • Love and Rockets – So Alive
  • M83 – Temple of Sorrow
  • Justice – Generator
  • Mary In the Junkyard – Bear Walk
  • Interpol – Obstacle 1
  • Explosions In the Sky – Welcome, Ghosts
  • The Vandals – Oi to the World!
  • Darlene Love – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

ASFO 2024–12–14

Pressure vessels occupy a great deal of my attention today, but gosh darn it! They’re important. Also postage stamps. Lots and lots of postage stamps. Give me an excuse to use them, won’t you? And a couple of comments about politics and current affairs, which I can’t totally ignore.

Supplementary Show

2024–12–17 The tail end of The Music of the New Life, and beginning of Prevailing Conditions in the Arts, from Utopia or Oblivion (1969) by R Buckminster Fuller.

Objects In Mirrors Episode 36: “Trans World Anonradio” (2024-12-13)

  • Willie Dunn – I Pity the Country
  • Los Pakines – Venus
  • Fairport Convention – Si Tu Dois Partir
  • Super Djata Band – Maliden
  • S.E. Rogie – Please Go Easy With Me
  • William Onyeabor – Atomic Bomb
  • Pearl Sisters – 커피한잔
  • Bernadette Carroll – Laughing on the Outside
  • Groupe Minzoto Ya Zaïre – Mfuur Ma
  • Kyrylo Stetsenko – Play, the Violin, Play
  • Africa Negra – Bo Cu Sete Ladron Ni Que Bo
  • The Lijadu Sisters – Come On Home
  • John Philips & The Steps – Ayo Ke Disco

ASFO 2024–12–07

The last third of this broadcast is a jeremiad against the schooling system in the United States, including a recommendation of a book with which I do not necessarily wholly agree, but which I find usefully thought–provoking : How to Survive in Your Native Land, James Herndon, 1971. We get there by way of some updates on my activities, reflections on democracy in various countries, and a consideration of the “precautionary principle”. (More discussion of the gold standard will have to wait.)

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–12–10 “We can say that world society through overspecialization has reached the brink of extinction.” More of The Music of the New Life from Utopia or Oblivion : the Prospects for Humanity by R Buckminster Fuller.
  • 2024–12–13 “What we mean by understanding is : apprehending and comprehending all the interrelationships of experiences.” Yet more of The Music of the New Life from Utopia or Oblivion : the Prospects for Humanity by R Buckminster Fuller.