What to wear to the Apocalypse Mark Morford

[madokie]

T his much we know for sure: The End Times are going to look extremely cool.

Have you noticed? Have you seen the previews, the TV shows, the films, the sneak peeks, the fine cinematography? Apparently the end of the world as we know it will be a full-on, grunged-out, epic rock n' roll fantasia, a massive, ruined spectacle of post-industrial chic, all cool grays, charred whites and musky sepia tones bouncing off bombed-out landscapes and towering mountains of smoking wreckage, flaming buildings that look like fantasy sculptures worthy of a Bosch painting and intergalactic doomsday fireworks that make Burning Man seem like a Cub Scout cookout. Sexy!

Do you like leather? There will be a lot of leather. Shredded, strapped on, tied off, animalistic, godless, tasty. It will go well with all the smoke and dirt, exposed beams and angular glass shards, a landscape full of endless, mysterious possibilities for looting and ransacking and generally just looking superwastedcool as you try desperately to dig up tiny slivers of hope for the future of humankind. Together with your team of young and leather-clad co-survivors you'll fight off all the other freaks who appear to be rather vile and unshowered and want only to harvest your large intestine for a snack.

You have but to examine the pop culture evidence. "Legion." "Book of Eli" "Road Warrior." "2012." "The Matrix." "Terminator." "Day One" (new TV show, upcoming). "FlashForward." "Lost." "12 Monkeys." "Deep Impact." On and on, an endless variation on a singularly delicious theme: Baby, we love us some apocalypse. We love to fetishize and fantasize how it all might go down because, well, destruction is built into our very cells, it feels like a foregone conclusion anyway, and of course God is all about the wrath and the blood and the wild techno orgies at the end of time. I mean, isn't She? ...

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(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/01/13/notes011310.DTL&nl=fix)

[Berry Cool]

1. He's so right, and he could have added many more examples.

"Did you notice that the only female humans who ever seem to survive Armageddon fully intact are skinny, smoking hot brunettes who know martial arts and can slice up large moose a with a pocketknife while not caring a whit that their ragged leather bra strap just fell off their shoulder again oops oh dear? You gotta be ready."

Why does he think Sarah Palin is so popular with her fans?

[AlienGirl]

10. Skinny, smokin'-hot brunettes, check...

At least on this site they're fully clothed.

Tucker

[madokie]

2. Kick

[Hekate]

3. LOL that is too funny and my first chuckle of the day!

Thanks for the comic relief, madokie.

Hekate

[madokie]

4. Morford does that to me

makes me laugh even when I'm not in the mood.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. LOL @ Apps Store...

and Chrome Messengers.

I love Morford.

[mdmc]

6. $$

[gratuitous]

7. Yeah, the apocalypse never looks like Haiti

The stench of death, the screaming and the moaning and the dying and the starving.

[jdp349]

8. Great piece

loved it!

[AlienGirl]

9. Ha! Again, Seattle sets the trend, remember I was talking about "doompunks"?

[Motown_Johnny]

11. I think they have it all wrong.... getting all the religious nuts "raptured" away will create a

paradise on Earth.



Isn't that what the Bible promises?


First all the religious nuts are taken off the Earth and then Jesus returns to create a Heaven on Earth without all those that have been taken up.


Sounds good to me, the sooner the better.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. This rube doesn't even mention Fallout 3.

Writing an article on the genre of apocalypse fiction without mentioning Fallout 3 is like writing an article on novels that involve anthropomorphic farm animals that are really allegories for communism without mentioning Animal Farm.

[AlienGirl]

13. Apocalypse is on the mass mind lately, even more than in the 80s