Where Camping Meets Doomsday Prepping

With the inevitable collapse of American society amid pandemic and political polarization, I've found myself unable to resist the lure of camping gear recently. Not only have I spent some down time during work hours checking out Wirecutter's guides to various camping items, but I've also started looking at the same lists of gear on CNet.

It all started in February or so, when the extreme weather in Texas caused all those blackouts. I mentioned then that I'd picked up a solar panel for charging my phone and other electronics, but since then I've been obsessed with finding power banks that could power my laptop, or jump-start my car, or even run household items with AC plugs. Everything that I've seen on Amazon is expensive, or not quite what I'm looking for, but I feel like it's a matter of time before something comes out that I can make use of.

Beyond that, though, I've had a look at articles on what to keep for emergencies, such as first aid kits and receptacles for fresh water, and at articles on stuff to take on a socially distanced road trip to a national park. All of it looks so appealing, from the outdoor dish set to the portable table to the cooler.

All this research on camping and outdoor gear reminds me of my trip to Joshua Tree a few years ago, which occasioned a round of REI expeditions where I picked up snack food, camping dish wear and a headlamp. There was so much stuff that looked fun and useful and that would surely turn me into the indomitable outdoorsman I'd like to be, although I'm also realistic enough to admit that I probably wouldn't use it so much if I did have it. After all, I haven't gone camping since then - between the pandemic and my girlfriend being a little less enamored of the idea of roughing it for a few days in some remote forest among bugs and predators.

Still, I find it interesting that I'm so taken by all this stuff. I guess I just like that it's all so versatile and tidy - presumably bringing out a lot of interesting equipment, unfolding it expertly, and then squaring it all away into small corners of my trunk or garage appeals to the OCD in me.

It doesn't help that I can imagine how I'd use it all. For example, we'd drive up to Yosemite, confident in the knowledge that we wouldn't have trouble with gas stations because I'd be carrying a canister of gasoline for my car. Once we arrived, I'd pull out the collapsible table and chairs, set the table with the stackable dishes and cups, and extract our lunch from the cooler (which apparently can keep ice frozen for a week).

We'd keep our devices charged during lunch with the solar panels hooked up to the 1,000 watt portable generator, which is all electronic so it can't poison us with carbon monoxide fumes. Said generator could also power everything up to and including a fan, to keep cool and ward off bugs. And on finishing, we'd pack everything away back into the car and go for a walk, or back home, or wherever we wanted.

Part of what fascinates me is the idea that going camping doesn't have to be grim and full of deprivation (without going to the other extreme of glamping) - if you do it enough, you know what you need so you bring stuff that lets you cook, relax and keep yourself entertained. The other thing is that sense of order that comes from knowing that the set of dishes you brought stacks into a neat little cube, which you place on top of the cooler that holds all your sodas and snacks.

The other, other thing is probably borne of the pandemic and all this time I've spent at home, which is the feeling of being able to go anywhere and be prepared for it. My vacations have usually been to cities, which I can navigate fairly well even if I don't know the language (as long as there's Starbucks, public transportation and cafes where I can read for an hour). My beloved city breaks feel impossible to achieve at the moment, even being fully vaccinated, since I don't feel comfortable getting on a plane and some places still aren't letting tourists in, so road trips are probably the most likely ways of getting out of the house for a few days.

Though the real limiting factor is bathrooms. Using a campground toilet is one thing, but I'm not quite at the point where I (or my girlfriend) would feel comfortable using a bucket we've brought ourselves. So for the moment it's probably better that I don't go on any REI shopping sprees...

British Sea Power is Dead. Long Live Sea Power

Just discovered today that English indie band British Sea Power has dropped the "British" part from its name and will henceforth be known as Sea Power. My first inkling was when I saw a Youtube video by someone called Sea Power, which made me wonder if it was BSP, a band I've loved since 2004 or so, but with whom I've lost touch in recent years (as I have with all bands, frankly).

So I went looking around, and found that they had indeed changed their name, and they explain why here. It's hard to disagree with their reasoning, especially given the turn that British politics has taken since June 2016 (but also that it was taking long before then). With the Tories spending the last decade ginning up xenophobia and isolationism by invoking the so-called glorious past, especially the Empire and WWII, it must feel increasingly difficult to maintain a name like "British Sea Power".

They say in that Guardian article that the name was originally intended, in part, as "1950s situationist", but I can also imagine that there are sections of the British music-listening public that couldn't pronounce that word, let alone define it (not that I can really define it either - I assume it has something to do with Dada?). And not to put too fine a point on it, especially since I've only seen them live twice, but you can imagine a section of their fans that maybe doesn't understand that the WWI uniforms, lyrics invoking places in Britain, and all other trappings isn't meant to be an uncritical lionization of Britain's past.

That is to say, were there fans at BSP shows who weren't in on the joke? Did BSP worry about getting co-opted by skinheads the way Madness, Morrissey and Joy Division have been, to varying degrees? If so, it's a shame to see them giving up the fight against people like that.

My only quibble (and it's truly just that) is that Sea Power doesn't have the same ring as British Sea Power.  Realistically, I don't see why it should change my opinion of their first two albums, The Decline of British Sea Power and Open Season, as some of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic music in my collection (outside of the avant-garde that I have). The first album, Decline, is so much about Britishness that I couldn't help but love it, while Open Season in my memory sounds like a Victorian trophy cabinet - though that might just be because of songs like Victorian Ice and Oh Larsen B.

Much of my most British music is strongly urban, tied to cities like London, Manchester or Glasgow, but Sea Power's the only one that seems to engage with the countryside, the past and the forgotten parts of Britain (like their song Canvey Island, off third album Do You Like Rock Music?). Their singular vision was demonstrated nicely by their writing a new score to Man of Aran, a 1920s documentary about people living on the desolate west coast of Ireland; and also by selling mugs emblazoned with British Tea Power (one of which I have back in London).

I have no reason to expect that the name change heralds a shift from these themes. But as I say, it feels a little like they're ceding the fight over what's "British" to the worst proponents of the term, right at the time when England, and Britain more generally, needs someone to articulate a left nationalism that encompasses a nautical (as opposed to naval) tradition of the country, and that champions appreciation of nature and the countryside as something for all people, rather than the Tory/nimby impulse to keep the countryside green for the landowners.

It's interesting that they received a lot of interview requests from far-right channels like GB News and Russia Today in the wake of their name change, because it's hard not to see it as a salvo in the ongoing culture war. I applaud them not talking to those outlets, and I wish them success in their next albums - my Great British Music Relisten hasn't arrived at SP yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Spoiler-Filled Thoughts on Marvel's Disney Plus Shows

It's been a couple of weeks since I finished Loki, and since then my girlfriend and I have watched a couple of the documentaries that Disney+ has about the making of the three MCU shows they've launched in the past year. Overall, I think they've been decent, though I liked some better than others, as I'll explain below.

WandaVision

For me, this was probably the strongest of the shows. The central conceit/mystery, in which Wanda and Vision are inhabiting a different sitcom idiom each episode, was a great showcase of the strengths of TV versus movies, as well as a nice love letter to TV sitcoms. The episode riffing on 80s shows was especially strong for me, since that's the decade I grew up watching sitcoms like Growing Pains and Family Ties.

It also had a nice set of references to stuff from the comics, like Wanda and Vision's original costumes, and tied into the upcoming Dr Strange sequel, though that part would have been more effective if said sequel hadn't been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. My favorite thing, however, was the way it reused certain side characters from older Marvel movies; Darcy from the Thor movies and Agent Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp were not only fun to see again, but they played really well off one another. It was also cool to see Monica Rambeau show up, grown up since her appearance in Captain Marvel and acquiring her powers.

However, the real "holy-shit" moment for me was the appearance of the X-Men version of Quicksilver, Wanda's brother Pietro. I'd found it interesting that the twins had been appearing both in the MCU and the strand of X-Men movies that kicked off with X-Men: First Class, and that the MCU immediately killed off their own Quicksilver while the X-Men films dispensed with Wanda at some point (I don't actually remember when she disappeared from there). And, ever since Disney bought the part of Fox that owns the X-Men films, I'd been wondering when they'd integrate the X-Men with the MCU (though I'm not really a fan of that idea).

In fact, I'd kind of expected that this integration would take place during the Infinity War/Endgame movies. As I saw it, the writers would use Thanos's unlimited power not only to destroy half the universe, but would break the bonds between universes and bring the X-Men in to help out. Things didn't turn out that way, so seeing Quicksilver "recast" was a fun Easter egg, though it's too early to tell if it will go anywhere.

Falcon and Winter Soldier

If WandaVision was the strongest of the three shows for me, then this was unfortunately the weakest. I'll hasten to add that it wasn't exactly bad - the relationship between the two leads was fun to watch, for the most part, and it featured some good meditations on what it means to be Captain America in today's world.

But the reason I call it the weakest of the three is that I'm not sure it earns its six episodes. There's a lot of business about Sam and Bucky coming to terms with stuff, and more about the Flag Smashers being angry, and more about USAgent also being angry, but it didn't feel like anything different than what we'd seen in the movies - and so that's why I think it might have been as effective as a 120+ minute movie than a six-hour TV show.

Such is the fate of all shows that follow something as formally exciting and innovative as WandaVision - it can seem a little bland to go back to the old style of making MCU stories when you follow something that played around with the format so well.

Another possible ding is that it doesn't feel like it leads into something the way WandaVision does. We've established Sam as the new Captain America, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a new bad guy (who also appears in the post-credit scene in Black Widow), but it's unclear what it's leading up to. That said, I do look forward to seeing what that will be, since that thriller side of the Marvel Universe has always appealed to me.

Loki

This was another fun one, and if it didn't play with the MCU brand/form as much as WandaVision, it was still a nice departure from the usual type of stories. It also helps that it was anchored by fan-fave Tom Hiddleston, showing off the complex version of Loki we've gotten in recent MCU films. That and the other Loki variants, particularly Alligator Loki.

From an in-universe perspective, it was nice to see what happened to Loki after he broke the timeline in Endgame by disappearing after his capture back in 2012, and how that leads into the upcoming Phase 4 of the MCU, where we'll encounter Kang the Conqueror (this seems to be another show that leads into Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness).

Getting back to my theories about integrating other properties into the main MCU, the storyline about the Time Variance Authority and its efforts to keep the timeline pure and uncluttered seems to point to a way that they'll be able to incorporate the X-Men movies, i.e. by having them happen on an alternate Earth.

The other thing I really liked about Loki was the design of the TVA. The technology all looked like it belonged in a 60s-based vision of the future, which made it very appealing - indeed, the TVA offices and the infinite city that they occupy look like an interesting place to hang out.

Because these shows all led into future MCU stuff, it'll be interesting to see how the franchise evolves as new movies come out. One nice thing about the MCU has been the way that it could incorporate lots of different types of stories, and these three shows have been a continuation of that trend. The hope is that Marvel can continue to be relevant and entertaining as Phase 4 progresses, but if it maintains the quality of these shows then it'll be in good hands.