Never Be Bored
30 August 2020
Something in the sky
The Vast of Night, 2019 Andrew Patterson film. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal; The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick; purple moonlight pages by R.A.P. Ferreira.
In a small town in 1950s New Mexico, a switchboard operator hears a strange noise over the radio. She calls up her friend, a radio show host, who puts the sound over the air, in hopes someone will be able to identify it.
The Vast of Night, streaming on Amazon Prime, is a beautifully filmed homage to classic sci-fi/horror—the town's name is Cayuga, after The Twilight Zone's production company, and the radio station is WOTW, after H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds, which was later adapted into the infamous 1938 radio drama. But The Vast of Night is an excellent movie in its own right too—it creates a creepy atmosphere in long tracking shots and slowly zooming close-ups, the writing is excellent, and the two lead actors play off each other so well.
Come along with Fay and Everett for one fateful night, as they try and find out just what could possibly be making that staticky hum on the radio.
For another retro sci-fi story, try The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. A meteorite hits the Chesapeake Bay, setting on motion massive climate change that will eventually make Earth uninhabitable. So it's time to get ready to go to Mars. It's got that same sense of urgency and trying to make sense of the unimaginable of The Vast of Night, and similarly stresses the importance of listening to people, no matter who they are.
I love how The Vast of Night plays with the flow of information and misinformation—rumors and gossip, who said what and when, being limited by the things you don't know—especially in the context of the limitations of 50s technology. For a nonfiction take on how we understand information has changed over the years, check out The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick.
If you were able to keep up with the rapid fire wordplay of The Vast of Night, maybe you'd like the jazz-rap album purple moonlight pages. In the first song, "DECORUM," R.A.P. Ferreira smoothly introduces himself and the band over a groovy beat, almost like a radio host would start a show. Close your eyes and picture driving through the desert at midnight, turning on the radio as "CYCLES" comes on. "It was gonna be a big summer, you know, a big summer..."