The Cozy Catastrophe Club
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Donald Trump Responds to Swastika Flags Flown During Boat Parade - Newsweek
Greetings mutants and norms!
In recent news, there’s just been a bunch of neo-Nazis at a Trump rally. Trump has claimed the neo-Nazis were a false flag, but I doubt that. However, there was another MAGA boat that drove past them to splash them and knock them around, so clearly, this doesn’t mean Trump and his supporters are all secretly the neo-Nazis the left media likes to paint them as. It simply points to the real issue, which is how divided people are. Even people in the same party, and not just the Republicans, are turning violently against one another.
A mere day before then, people were stranded as a violent riot broke out. It’s not remotely just Trump, since at Kamala’s rallies, pro-Palestine activists would also break out into violence. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue.
We have also had the third assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Man with loaded gun arrested at checkpoint near Trump's rally in Coachella | AP News
The DNC riots in August were actually predicted back in May.
This is why I invite you to join the Cozy Catastrophe Club. There’s no such thing as a cozy catastrophe, but there’s a cozy club you can join while all the catastrophes rage on. We wouldn’t be hopeful monsters after all without a bit of hope.
Brian Aldiss, another British science fiction writer, disparaged some of Wyndham's novels as "cosy catastrophes", especially The Day of the Triffids.[22] This became a cliche about his work, but it has been rebutted by many more recent critics. L.J. Hurst commented that in Triffids the main character witnesses several murders, suicides and misadventures, and is frequently in mortal danger.[23] Atwood wrote: "...one might as well call World War II—of which Wyndham was a veteran—a 'cozy' war because not everyone died in it."[20]
In The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, the global satellite array malfunctions, the result is what most people think is a meteor shower, everyone invites their friends to watch it, and 99% of the world’s population goes blind sometime afterward as a result, leading everyone to get eaten by some bioengineered plants that didn’t use to be a threat. In real life, the global satellite array functions just as intended, the result is the news media, everyone invites their friends to watch it, and 99% of the world’s population goes psychotic sometime afterward as a result, leading to the complete collapse of society, and there aren’t even any scary plants that walk around and eat people, just American elections that are conveniently timed to align with Halloween.
The Day of the Triffids was named thus because H. G. Wells was originally going to name The War of the Worlds, The Day of the Tripods. I think we should watch The War of the Worlds, everyone knows it’s fake now, and no one kills themselves instead of watching the news, everyone still thinks it’s real, and people start killing each other. Or as the same friend who introduced me to the idea that yes, you can still watch radio plays in 2024 because she watched a lot of science fiction radio plays growing up put it:
Get your attention off the news and keep your mind intact! Join the Cozy Catastrophe Club! Our first play was the BBC Nikola Tesla Wireless Radio adaptation of Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke and the second was the same version of The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Even though the club was not formed then, I discussed Childhood’s End and the idea of evolution here, and I also discussed The Chrysalids as being similar and much more hopeful and enjoyable, even if Childhood’s End is interesting and probably objectively the best thing Arthur C. Clarke ever wrote. John Wyndham is just criminally underrated since his best work seems better than Clarke’s, plus he has much more variety of output and a better understanding of the future that isn’t “You’ll get a metal house, a computer that fits on a desk, and a robot servant! But people, society, ecology, and everything that matters will definitely be the same 1.5 billion years from now.” The third radio play is TBD and we’ll probably have audiobooks as well as the occasional film, show, or play. Suggestions welcome in the comments! Watch parties will be announced as well, including for the two we already picked! You can just watch at home, you can watch on your own time too, we don’t care! Just have fun watching things and if you want to, you can talk about it with us, or with your friends, or keep it to yourself!
Childhood’s End:
The Chrysalids:
I intend to do something with Rocky Horror Picture Show this Halloween as well. The makers of the Cozy Catastrophe Club (unnecessary plural) did create Halloween in May just to make up for the fact I missed it due to wanting to boycott basically all movies last October, so this should surprise no one. I’ll post about that as soon as I have something to show for the Cozy Catastrophe Club.
