PixlBit

I'd like to build my own library of media favorites, so I'm starting this month. It begins with what I'm already looking back on, the early '90s. So here's what I got for 1990 in TV, film, games, music and books. 

TV:

Two of my favorite Brits, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry recreate for TV P.G. Wodehouse's series of Jeeves books. It's about an upper class Brit with nothing to do, Wooster, and his Valet, Jeeves. The idle rich gentleman is daft and always getting into trouble, and his valet is sharp as a tack and gets him out of it with ever more clever solutions. Hilariity is assured. I discovered both of these comedians from their roles in Blackadder. Then I saw their skit comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie [1989] and was completely hooked after that. That Huge Laurie went on to become the lead character in American TV show House was a shame to me because I wanted more Fry and Laurie collaborations. This DVD collection, when I can purchase it, will be watched regularly. 

Film: 

I saw this in a small theater in upstate New York when I was doing Primal Therapy. It's a collection of different stories related to Kurosawa's dreams. Kurosawa is, of course, the much celebrated Japanese director of such classics as Rashomon, Seven Samurai and many others that influenced many American directors such as George Lucas. I still distinctly remember the one sequence where he enters a Van Gogh painting to the sound of Chopin's Raindrop Sonata. It's a great film and worth rewatching many times. It's in the library. 

Games:

This was the sequel to the 1987 arcade game Sky Shark I played at a pizza shop in my college town of Clinton, NY. It was litteraly the only arcade game around. When I discovered there was a sequel years later, I picked up the Genesis port (which is where the image is from) and really liked it. Both games are vertically scrolling shooters in the style of Xevious. They take place in a kind of WWII environment but you fly a biplane as if it was WWI. The designs of the enemy tanks and armored bosses really interested me. They were based solidly in WWII technology but sometimes fantastical. I would totaly have both arcade cabinets one day if I could find them. It'd be my own sharknado of arcade machines. 

Music:

You know, I've never actually heard this album, but I've heard the one just after this, Strangeitude. Erpland is their second, and I've always wanted it. I felt like, at the end of the 80s, that prog rock was truely and firmly dead. My favorite 70s prog bands had all basically sold out and become more mainstream (except maybe King Crimson). Fish had left Marillion too, and I was thinking there would be no more prog bands to follow. Along comes Ozric Tentacles to revive my hopes. I didn't find out about them until years later, but I wish I had known them at the time. I would have been a true fan of theirs. Well, it's never too late. I'm putting it in the library. 

Books:

I discovered this later on too, but it has become one of my favorite nature books. This first release is very technical, showing in great detail all of Holldobler and Wilson's findings about those amazing insects and their elaborate communications systems and social networking. I also learned the term "eusocial", which is the highest level of organization of sociality. They came out with a more popularized version of this later called Journey to the Ants, but it is so simplified, it barely interested me. The Ants won a Pulitzer prize, and I think it led to a popular interest in ants resulting in several ant movies like Antz [1998] and A Bug's Life [1998]. I love nature books, especially in depth hard science ones like this. It's library matterial for sure. 

And that's 1990. 1991 to follow.