Saturday 21 February 2015

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and Post-Sleep Utopia?


Almost fell asleep last night whilst watching Philip Kaufman's excellent remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. As you know, if you're familiar with the story, you must not fall asleep! That's when they get you. That's when the pods containing your exact replica send out tendrils which wrap themselves around you in order to complete the transformation. I don't quite get how it works, though. I mean, that's some plant...it can extract your DNA and quickly create a perfectly functioning replica in a few minutes? Minus all that emotional stuff we have to put up with. 

Perhaps that would be a good thing. We'd do no harm to each other because, presumably, greed, ego and psychotic power-hungry behaviour wouldn't exist either. No love or hate. Is that a fair exchange? Men are already accused of being 'cold' in many instances. How else can we explain the horrors they inflict on each other, as well as innocent women and children? What drives them to kill in the name of politics and religion?

These thoughts cross my mind (and yours too, I'm sure) as I watch the latest horrors reported on the news. Mass killings...beheadings...serial murders etc. Extremist religion as a new cause for some kids...join the ultimate gang, the one that makes the locals on your housing estate look as dangerous as The Famous Five. That's hardcore. Book a flight to an exotic land, join up, get given guns, training...it's the ultimate buzz! Plus, your social network updates are really interesting...'Learning to use a semi-automatic'...'Shot someone today'...'Spent most of the week learning how to destabilise Western democracy and create an air of paranoia amongst all infidels with a view to taking over the world'...that sort of thing. I mean, it's beats 'Having a coffee in our favourite place' or 'Knitting a new jumper!', doesn't it? Selfie, me with grenade-launcher...

Anyway, if the aliens can plant their pods all over the world it might bring peace to the planet. I'd probably prefer the music that would emerge too. I imagine it would mostly sound like the computer music experiments of the 60s. Or at least if aliens want to play, say, violins, they'll be knocking out some superb, minimalist serial music. They'd want to programme everything...glitchy, noisy, abstract sound...it would be better than neo-Folk 'emotional warbling you get on Later With Jools Holland

So perhaps next time I'll sleep easy, not worry about doing so...and wake up to complete contentment.


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