10 Evolutionary Links (including Seavey/Perry video)

1. Gerard Perry and I talk on YouTube about evolutionary themes in this summer’s Edge of Tomorrow, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Lucy.

2. In 1982, a mere year after Road Warrior, Wendy O. Williams drove a schoolbus through a wall of TV sets for this impressive Plasmatics video (h/t Charles Hope) -- though as Frances Bean Cobain (progeny of another rocker who, like Williams, committed suicide with a gun) recently said, we must be cautious about romanticizing violence and death (h/t Jackie Danicki).

3. Art itself evolves, and it’s hard to believe that Plasmatics video was a mere four years after this clip of Donny and Marie performing a Steely Dan classic, which is the sort of thing that necessitated punk, I suppose.

4. All our griping aside, gradual refinement is everywhere. Recall, for instance, that Johnny Sokko and his giant robot did not work quite as well in live action as in anime.

5. In biological evolution proper, sometimes the survival advantages or disadvantages aren’t quite clear enough for odd variations to get weeded out or to become widespread, as with polydactyly, and so you get the occasional family with twelve fingers.

6. Speaking of evolving situations, have we worked out whether we’re, like, on Iran’s side or al Qaeda’s side in the Middle East yet? Does it matter if Israel’s at war with Syria when we decide? How’s that all shaking out? Should we just kinda blunder around over there and see what happens, maybe denounce Russia or something?

(But in all seriousness, despite the temptation to just fume about Cheney’s unending arrogance and declare a pox on everyone ever associated with him: a sincere R.I.P. nonetheless to Fouad Ajami, not to mention everyone recently beheaded in Iraq.)

7. In other post-Bush coalition-reformulating news, you can watch online Friday at noon as the Cato Institute hosts, yes, Ralph Nader in conversation with paleolibertarians Dan McCarthy and Tim Carney plus anti-Bush conservative Brink Lindsey (h/t Clinton White House veteran Sarah Federman, for added ecumenicism) on the topic of corporate/government cronyism.

8. If you need lighter fare: you survived Sharknado...you may well watch Sharknado 2 next month...but are you ready for the evolving horror of the...BLOOD GLACIER (h/t Peter Suderman)?

9. Luckily, the real world full of big dogs and small kittens evolves more like so, with even trans-species recognition of gentleness, youth-status, and playfulness possible.

10. In fact, I declare that July on this blog shall be an upbeat “Month of (R)evolution,” phasing in those overdue permanent refinements to my aging Web presence. More soon.