Barry Puzzle

[!SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!]

When I saw Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One (2018) and the entire movie was hijacked by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), I started making up various scenarios in my head. I did not think they would go and make a bunch of other movies where an entire other movie invades the plot wholesale.

In Spiderman: Far From Home (2019), the movie is invaded by every other iteration of Spiderman with their original actors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, and the villains from the two first Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, the Green Goblin (2002) and Doctor Octopus (2004), also played by their original actors, Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina. Sam Raimi would go on to direct Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), the back half of which, and I realise this is controversial but we all know it's true, is basically an 1980s Evil Dead movie.

On a whim, and knowing nothing about it other than the off-screen drama, I decided to watch The Flash (2023). About half way through the movie, it effectively gets hijacked by Tim Burton's Batman (1989), played with remarkable aplomb 37 years later by the same Michael Keaton, including the music and many of the props. There is a bizarre section in there with Superman played by Christopher Reeve, presumably a reference to the 1979 movie, and Superman played by Nic Cage, who as far as I know, only auditioned for the role when Tim Burton was in meetings for the unproduced Superman Lives in 1997. (There is also a delightful tag at the very end where Bruce Wayne is played by George Clooney, presumably a reference to the Joel Schumachar movie, Batman Forever (1995), that no one talks about.

This the same Nic Cage, who played a Humphrey Bogart noir-style Spiderman in Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018), a multiverse movie which thankfully does not get invaded by another specific movie but instead gets invaded by tropes. A multiverse movie which is not connected to anything is Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), which also does not get taken over by another specific movie or even tropes.

Here are some songs in the very unfamiliar 10/4 time signature. You can still count them out on your fingers. Anything is possible. Do whatever you want.

Just Like You Imagined by Nine Inch Nails.

Everything In Its Right Place by Radiohead.

Take Ten by Paul Desmond, the same hilarious wiseacre who wrote "Take Five" for a bet. Yes, he is kidding around but also this is definitely in 10/4.

After an exhaustive investigation involving academic specialists in five disciplines across seven decades, the truth can finally be revealed: the Jews are behind Israel. 

“What we’ve seen is an organised effort to establish and maintain a political organisation for decades,” said Simon Goldfarb, who presented the report to the UN on behalf of a highly-secretive research group. “Every step of the way, Jews have been controlling everything.”

The shocking news came as Israel celebrates the 75th anniversary of its creation by the U.N. in 1947 in the hopes that Jewish people might have at least one place on the planet they could live without being in constant fear for their lives.

“The Jews already control all our media and the major international finance organisations,” said Goldfarb. “Now it turns out that they literally own an entire country, lock stock and barrel.”

When Goldfarb presented the U.N. with the report, he claims he encountered a global conspiracy to silence his investigation.

“I knocked on many doors, including those of countries I’d never heard of before,” said Goldfarb. “Everyone said that they already knew this and they didn’t care. Clearly there is one rule for Israel and another rule for everyone else. Well, I intend to keep making noise until people accept the truth.”

Goldfarb claims he has been banned from speaking in twelve countries and subject to laughter and mockery in dozens of others. He currently lives in Iran. 

“Every single president and prime minister of Israel has been a Jew,” said Goldfarb. “They’re behind everything. The judges, the army, the civil service. It’s Jews all the way down. I can’t understand how everyone is OK with this.”

I co-run a light-hearted, informal (well, we try) podcast called The Jib with my friend Seamus. It's about the many and varied schemes of (mostly) the FBI and the CIA. He does most of the FBI episodes and I do most of the CIA episodes.

Here is a constantly-updated list, for my own reference as much as anything else, of the CIA episodes of The Jib alphabetically by country:

Afghanistan (Episode 8): Operation Cyclone

Albania (Episode 48): Operation Valuable

Angola (Episode 59): Operation IA Feature

Australia (Episode 12): The Dismissal

Cambodia (Episode 61): Operation Menu

Chile (Episode 35): Operation FUBelt

Cuba (Episode 16): Operation Mongoose

Cyprus (Episode 50): Operation Attila

Democratic Republic of Congo (Episode 26): Patrice Lumumba

Dominican Republic 1492-1916 (Episode 52): Operation Power Pack 1

-Dominican Republic 1916-2025 (Episode 53): Operation Power Pack 2

Egypt 1856-1956 (Episode 66): Operation Musketeer

Grenada (Episode 45): Operation Urgent Fury

Guatemala: (Episode 6): Operation PBSuccess

Haiti 1492-1915 (Episode 37): Operation Uphold Democracy 1

-Haiti 1915-1985 (Episode 38): Operation Uphold Democracy 2

-Haiti 1985-2023 (Episode 39): Operation Uphold Democracy 3

Iran 4000 BC-1953 (Episode 20): Operation Ajax

-Iran 1953-1979 (Episode 62): Iran II

-Iran 1979-2026 (Episode 63): Iran III

Laos (Episode 22): Operation Barrel Roll

Nicaragua (Episode 33): Iran Contra

Panama (Episode 43): Operation Just Cause

Philippines (Episode 18): Operation Vampire*

Syria (Episode 41): Operation Timber Sycamore

Venezuela 1522-1914 (Episode 55): Operation Oil 1*

-Venezuela 1914-2024 (Episode 56): Operation Oil 2*

Vietnam (Episode 10): Operation Passage to Freedom

“Why are Muslims so angry all the time?”

Talk to one Muslim and you’ll think you have a handle on Islam. Talk to two Muslims and you will never be sure. While there are broad schools of thought and general agreements about the most general aspects of Islam, there are widely divergent interpretations about all of it.

Whenever you see “Muslims think X...” or “Muslims believe Y...” there is a great chance that whatever follows is wrong. For instance, a recent survey of Indian Muslims revealed that 6% of them don’t even believe in a god. This was around twice the percentage of Hindus and Christians who gave the same answer. 

In the West, we have been trained to see “Muslims” as a single block of opinion and the more dramatic Islamists get all the air time but that’s not how it works in real life. 

For instance, the above photo shows Muslims in the subcontinent demonstrating in support of France against the Islamist attacks in Paris. Muslims in the Maghreb will tend to be less tolerant of France’s shenanigans. It’s not coherent, therefore, to say that “Muslims” either support France or don’t support France. Some do and some don’t.

“Fine. So why are the angry ones so angry all the time?”

Let’s say you’re a MENA Muslim. If you watch American media, until very recently, you’ve noticed that the only roles identifiably Arab actors get are terrorists or otherwise shifty characters. You know that people have been thrown off airplanes for “looking too Muslim” or “speaking Arabic”. 

The centuries-long project of promoting a negative perception of  Arabs in Western culture is called Orientalism by Edward Said whose book on this subject is recommended reading.

You are aware of the cultural genocide of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in China, and that no one cares. You also notice the pre-ethnic-cleansing moves being made in India and no one cares about that either. You are aware of the genocide against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. No one cares, not even the Nobel Peace Prize winner living in their country. Israel continues to force Palestinians to live under “apartheid” but you’re not even allowed to mention that. In some Western media, the word “Palestine” cannot appear unless it is in quote marks. Even in Europe, that bastion of human rights and freedom, a literal genocide was committed by Serb forces (of the former Yugoslavia) against two separate Muslim populations: Albanian Kosovars and Bosniaks. 

All over the world, Muslims are being harassed and murdered and no one gives a shit. And it can’t be because people don’t generally care about these things, because you, this MENA Muslim we’ve been second-personing for some paragraphs now, see how the recent invasion of Ukraine caused justified consternation across the developed world. There are just some things the Westerners are not allowed to talk about and so they never hear about them.

You know what you do hear about? Muslims don’t like drawings of Muhammad. Did you know that? You can talk about that all day. You can talk about Salman Rushdie and that awful Iranian death warrant. Or hijabs. You can talk about how oppressive those headscarves are all day. I have posted critically on my atheist blog about the Muslim obsession with the image of Muhammad and Islamic dress codes (and I will post critically about Islam in the future) but if you’re going to talk about only these things and say nothing about the literal genocides that are currently being planned or carried out, at least by the two most populous countries in the world, I can see how you, my hypothetical MENA Muslim friend, would find that frustrating. 

Maybe we should be asking why so many Muslims aren’t angry enough. 

“What about ISIS?”

ISIS is a gang of murderous Muslims who are motivated by a belligerent interpretation of Islam. There’s not much point in pretending that it’s not “real Islam” or “proper Islam”. It’s enough that they think they’re “proper” Muslims. Other Muslims would correctly point out that the vast majority of the victims of ISIS are themselves Muslims but everyone seems to care only about the Western victims. (You could argue that the true nature of ISIS was revealed when they accidentally attacked Israeli forces and immediately apologised.)

In Mellow Yellow by Donovan, the guy messing in the background (but who doesn’t have any actual lyrics) is Paul McCartney.

In Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six, the “female” vocal is Jack White giving it 110%. 

In You’re So Vain by Carly Simon, the back-up vocal is Mick Jagger.

In Chain Reaction by Diana Ross, the back-up vocal is Barry Gibb.

In Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel, the back-up vocal is Kate Bush.

In We Love You by The Rolling Stones, the back-up vocals are John Lennon and Paul McCartney. 

In I’m The Ocean (and every track on Mirrorball) by Neil Young, the back-up vocal is Eddie Vedder.

In Money For Nothing by Dire Straits, the opening vocal is Sting. 

In Love Yourself by Justin Bieber, the backup vocal is Ed Sheeran.

In Fame by David Bowie, the backup vocal is John Lennon.

Part of a series of my OnlySky articles. This was published in April 2023.

When I grew up in Ireland in the 1980s, it would take months for a movie to go from general release in America into my local cinema. Nowadays, everything is everywhere all at once. Apparently, anti-trans propaganda is following the 1980s protocol.

You might have heard a story. It’s always the same. It comes from someone you trust. This person insists that it was told to him by someone close to the source. A child in a local school is identifying as a cat. This child has furthermore demanded a litter tray be provided by the school to accommodate their new identity.

It may seem like this is a harmless fun story that adds some local colour to your morning news trawl. However, they are dangerous lies. Right-wing anti-trans politicians use these lies to galvanise public opinion against trans kids.

If you can’t spot the pipeline from litter box stories to damaging policies targeting trans people, you are in the right place.

Where did this stupid story come from?

The source of this myth may be an op-ed published in the Christian Post in 2016. The title of that piece is “Should We Provide Litter Boxes for People Who Identify as Cats?” Refreshingly,  there is no suggestion in the piece that it has ever happened. The writer is also kind enough to unambiguously link his hypothetical scenario to an attack on “transgender rights.”

There was a dramatic uptick in these stories in 2022. This was possibly related to the 2022 mid-term elections in November of that year.

In January 2022, a school in Michigan issued a statement on Facebook about the “false message” and “wild accusations”. The comments underneath that post demonstrate a very common reaction to the debunking of these stories. One Facebook user said that while that story had been proved false, “it wouldn't be surprising if it did happen”. For some, it seems, the rumours do so much damage that a full retraction does nothing to repair it. Maybe that’s the point.

In March 2022, Republican Nebraska state senator Bruce Bostelman apologised for spreading the rumour. At least one newspaper was good enough to explain how this rumour is linked to “laws to ban transgender students from using bathrooms.”

In August 2022, Boston Children’s Hospital had received “a large volume” of threats which appeared to be a “very coordinated campaign.” The hospital “does not perform genital surgeries as part of gender-affirming care on patients under the age of 18.”

In September 2022, Republican law-makers in Tennessee claimed there was a “crisis” of cat students across the state. There was not one single case.

On 3 October 2022, CNN debunked the “bizarre hoax claim”, this time promulgated by Scott Jensen, a Republican candidate in Minnesota.

On 12 October 2022, the rumour got a bump from Joe Rogan. “My friend, his wife is a schoolteacher and she works at a school,” he said, citing his source. It’s always someone you know. He later very begrudgingly retracted the claim.

There were soon similar claims in Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Illinois and even Prince Edward Island in Canada.

In late October, John Oliver demonstrated how trans people are targeted at every level of society by violence and intimidation. Part of his show discussed the “humiliating nonsense” spread about trans people, “perhaps the stupidest of which” is the litter box rumour.

In November, a school in New Hampshire had to deal with the “disruptive and demeaning hoax”. Again, it was emphasises that these stories are maliciously “used to ostracize LGBTQ students”.

So far, the only case of any school anywhere using cat litter boxes involves rather grim preparations in case of school shootings in a Colorado school.

We have this in Ireland too.

Bang on schedule, in January 2023, a school in Cork reported “a string of completely false claims” about a student identifying as a cat. The school was good enough to explain the these stories were invented “for the purpose of fear-mongering over gender non-conformity.”  

Just last month, similar rumours were spread about Thornhill College in Derry in Northern Ireland. The school described the rumours as an elaborate hoax.

Why would people believe this gibberish?

It’s a mix of yellow-press sensationalism and our old friend, conformation bias. Every single official who made this claim in public was right-wing. Right-wing politicians in the Republican party are currently engaged in a “coordinated national campaign against trans rights”. The ultimate expression of this campaign is hundreds of anti-trans laws in almost every state.

If you already suspect that young people choosing their identity is inappropriate, this story will appeal to you. If you already believe that trans people should not be accommodated in the education system, this story will appeal to you. If you have anti-trans feelings but have an atavistic understanding that this puts you on the wrong side of history, you can gloat along with a story that hits all your prejudices without mentioning trans people at all.

What can I do?

If we have been fooled by these stories, we shouldn’t feel too bad. They are specifically designed to take advantage of our weak human brains. The good news is we can be better. When we hear a story that seems fantastical, we can wait for confirmation from any reputable news sources. My aunt who knows someone who heard the story is not a reputable news source. If a story seems to fit dramatically into our opinion on a very tense cultural issue, we can be suspicious. We all love the dopamine hit we get from Being Right but we don’t have to let it control us.

I thought I'd post about this because everyone says "SNL is terrible now" and "it was better ten years ago" but they have been saying this literally since 1986. I am old enough to rememember when everyone hated the cast you think are the best. Yes, you, foolish reader.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite SNL sketches. I hope you like them too.

Black Jeopardy (2016)

This was part of a series of Black Jeopardy sketches which was usually some light-hearted ribbing of the working-class African-American experience. This episode with Tom Hanks was the same, but he was playing a MAGA Republican "redneck".

Over the course of the sketch, the black people on the show slowly discover what Marx wrote about in 1848: that working class people have more in common with each other than they ever will with the people in charge. Except this time, it's funny.

White Like Me (1984)

In this sketch, Eddie Murphy "whites up" and discovers that being a white person in New York is like living in a different reality.

Meet Your Second Wife (2015)

In this gameshow, male contestants are confronted with their (future) second wives.

It was a little on the nose in my case but also very funny.

More Cowbell (2000)

For some reason, people outside the United States can't see this, but you're probably all familiar possibly the most famous SNL sketch in history. It's even got its own Wikipedia page.

What Up With That? (2009 - 2021)

This is a recurring sketch and they are all on YouTube, so I just picked this one at random. The central conceit is that a talk show host invites famous people on his show but they never get to say anything because everything devolves into a funk jam.

Also, Lyndsey Buckingham.

Papyrus (2017)

The story of one man's completely reasonable and understandable obsession. Everything he does in this clip is fair. The first time I saw this, I watched the whole thing again from beginning to end.

Recently, they made a rather lovely sequel called Papyrus 2.

First CityWide Change Bank (1988)

A rare on-screen appearance by Jim Downey, a writer on SNL for 30 years. This was the first sketch I ever saw on an episode of SNL, when they were being re-run on MTV Europe.

There's just something about the lines "usually on the same day" and "volume" that made me laugh. Here's Kevin Nealon in another one.

The Grouch (2019)

I used to think that putting "Joker Parody" in the title was overkill, but it's been a few years and people might not remember the trailer for the gritty, realistic take on The Joker that Todd Phillips made. See the original trailer here to get the joke. Also, it won't make any sense unless you've seen Sesame Street. Every frame has funny. And the soundtrack is amazing.

If they get David Harbour (or Lady Gaga I guess?) back on they might do one for The Joker 2.

This is my favourite scene in Reservoir Dogs.

The movie mostly takes place inside a warehouse, so the atmosphere is controlled, the light level constant, and so on. There are some external shots. The first bit when they leave the restaurant and do the slow-motion walk, short flash-backs to the robbery and some other stuff are outside, but basically the movie is set in one room, like a stage play. Also, this particular scene happens after a long, extremely tense, period of indoor business.

This is a three-four second bit of the movie which is a guy walking across the road from the warehouse to the car. That's it. And I love it.

I love it for all sorts of reasons. First of all, it's like a palate cleanser for the madness which you know will follow. It's like the solo in a Nine Inch Nails track, where you get to relax for a moment before he launches into the next gut-wrenching verse of relationship, sex and drugs chaos. It's the bits of the Iliad where they're having dinner before they get back to the serious business of spear-throwing, head-slicing mayhem. It is a moment of nothing.

I also love it because anyone passing by who sees the man walking to the car would think nothing of it. It's a guy walking to a car. Totally normal thing. Maybe it's a bit odd that three guys are hanging out in a Los Angeles alley all dressed like Marcello Mastroianni in Eight And A Half, but that's not a big deal.

Quentin Tarantino used to take a lot of criticism for his movies being ultra-violent and superficial. But if you actually watch his movies, there isn't that much violence in them at all. In fact, most of them are just two or three guys talking in a room. Watch Inglorious Basterds again and tell me that's not 95% two or three guys talking in a room. And in at least one movie, there is one scene of a guy walking across the road.

The bit that comes afterwards is also the only scene (I think) shot from a first-person perspective, which is something of a jar, but it works, for that very reason.

Almost every international human rights organisation has explained why Israel is an apartheid state, including the United Nations and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who all conducted comprehensive reviews.

Zionists and their friends often accuse these organisations of bias or even antisemitism, that the reason they accuse Israel of being an apartheid state is because they hate Jews. This is ridiculous, but let's operate inside the delusion.

The Israeli Jewish-run human rights group, B'Tselem, has produced many reports explaining how the apartheid system works in the occupied territories. Here is one called The Occupation In Its 51st Year. There are more such documents on their site.

The Israeli Jewish-run human rights group, Yesh Din, has produced many reports explaining how the apartheid system works in the occupied territories. Here is one called The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid. There are more such documents on their site.

The Israeli Jewish-run paper of record, Ha'aretz, has published many articles about the apartheid system in Israel. Here is one called Israel is an Apartheid Regime. There are more such articles on their site.

And it's not just humans rights and media organisations.

Amiram Levin, who headed the IDF Northern Command said there is "absolute apartheid" in the West Bank.

Yossi Sarid, a former Israeli cabinet minister and ex-leader of the opposition said, "it is apartheid".

Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel, said if "millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state" and that Bibi Netanyahu and his friends are "undermining the foundations of Zionism and Israeli democracy".

Israel’s former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, said, "We established an apartheid regime..."

In 2021, 25% of American Jews agreed outright that "Israel is an apartheid state".

Former prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said in 1976 that if Israel did not evacuate the entire West Bank of Palestinians, "I don’t think it’s possible to contain over the long term, if we don’t want to get to apartheid". (The Israelis have not yet evacuated the West Bank, although they're giving Gaza a pretty thorough sluice.

Tamir Pardo, the former director of Mossad (Israeli national intelligence agency), said, "There is an apartheid state here."

In 2015, another former head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, said that Bibi's policies would lead to either a binational state "or an apartheid state".

There are many more.

I used to write a weekly column for OnlySky, as some of you may know. 

Some time ago, an OnlySky contributor posted in the general Slack channel:

Who's at the American Atheists Convention in Phoenix this weekend?!

To which I answered a few days later: 

Hopefully no unaccompanied women.

This is a facetious reference to the more-than-one high-level sex harassment scandal to hit American Atheists in recent years. 

A little over a week later, I found out that OnlySky Media had merged with American Atheists. All the non-core writers are on suspension while they are taking command-level decisions about how to restrucure the entire media platform. There is no target date for the re-launch but it should be “later this year”.

When I learned of the merger, I felt compelled to add context to my previous message.

There exists the possibility for all sorts of reasons that my contributions will no longer be welcome. In any case, there has been no communication with any of the non-core writers in the Slack channels since the 25th of April 2023. I think I’ve been soft-fired.

I liked writing for OnlySky. I stand by all the pieces I wrote for them. For instance, I like my articles about the influence of the Catholic Church in Vietnam and Islamic dress codes and feminism and that one time I was targeted by a global advocacy group for sharing information that remains publicly available on their own website. 

1979: The Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) a fantastic Japanese electronic band, records “Behind the Mask”. 

1982: Quincy Jones recommends it to Michael Jackson, who re-writes the lyrics and records it for the Thriller album, but it doesn’t make the cut. That 1982 cut was only released in 2010.

1983: YMO do a great live version for their Propaganda tour. 

1984: Greg Phillanges, who played keyboard for Michael Jackson, does a rock cover version of the Michael Jackson pop re-write.

1986: Phillanges, who also played keyboards for Eric Clapton, plays on the Clapton version, probably the best-known iteration.

1993: The Human League record their version in collaboration with what’s left of YMO, turning it into a bouncy piano number. Is it even a 90s track if it doesn’t have a bouncy piano rhythm line?

My friend Seamus and I write, edit and present this podcast about the FBI and the CIA and the crazy business they get up to.

The aim is to make it interesting and funny.

Here are some famous non-classical pieces in 3/4 time. You’ll probably recognise the music in all of them but you might not know the names of the tunes. 

This is Sobre Las Olas (Over the Waves) by Juventino Rosas. It was later covered as The Loveliest Night of the Year by Mario Lanza.

This is Lara’s Theme by Maurice Jarre from the Doctor Zhivago soundtrack.

This is And The Band Played On by John Palmer and Charles Ward.

This is Moon River by Henri Mancini from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s soundtrack.