Don’t Dream It’s Over
Crowded House

There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But you’ll never see the end of the road
While you’re travelling with me

Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won’t win

Now I’m towing my car, there’s a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion but there’s no proof
In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page

Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won’t win

Now I’m walking again to the beat of a drum
And I’m counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only the shadows ahead barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief

Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
Don’t ever let them win

Also, it’s not exactly pop culture, more like high culture,(means, it’s boring and slow but it’s beautiful for us old folks) but “The Sacrifice” by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Tarkovsky rules. Andrei Rublev, there’s one for all you gnostic freaks. Incredible.

The fact that you’re working on anything literary regarding the Apocalypse in order to get a book deal is “creepy”. You could very well be part of the problem. Thank you for reminding me why I don’t like to read blogs as often as I used to…

I’ll now go back to my life.

There is reportedly a TV miniseries remake of _Rosemary’s Baby_ in the works. It includes material from _Son of Rosemary_, Ira levin’s sequel book, which specifically concerns the Apocalypse.

Don’t forget Ingmar Bergman’s classic film, _The Seventh Seal_.

However, Zardoz is well worth considering from a bunch of other angles: religion and class, the nature of God, the nature of immortality, etc.

Two top-quality sci-fi books are Earth Abides and Day of the Triffids. PKD’s best post-apocalypse novel is Dr. Bloodmoney - gives a great sense of what daily life could be like. I need to re-read Deus Irae.

If for some bizarre reason you haven’t read everything Robert Anton Wilson ever wrote, the Illuminatus! trilogy he co-authored is about immanentizing the eschaton.

Recently in pop culture, Joss Whedon’s two main shows were all about the apocalypse. Buffy and Angel fought the end of the world on an episode-by-episode basis. Season 4 of Angel was a drawn-out, 22-episode arc about the Apocalypse, and Season 7 of Buffy did something similar.

FX has a made-for-TV movie airing next month about the world ending, playing off of peak oil. I forget the title.

Don’t forget about Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s wonderful novel, Good Omens.

Rosemary’s Baby ends just as the story gets interesting, but I suppose that’s about the apocalypse.

The Animatrix beautifully depicts the end of the world that preceded the Matrix trilogy.

Lots of P.K. Dick’s books are post-apocalyptic, especially the early ones, but I think his best portrayal of Armageddon would be The Divine Invasion. Oh, yeah! He also has this one awesome short story, set in post-apocalyptic America, where every day a man telepathically projects himself into the past in an attempt to keep a nuclear war from starting. It’s called “Psi-Man.” You can find it on the internets if you look hard enough. He also wrote a short story called “The Defenders” about a post-nuclear-exchange Cold War earth, where both sides are forced to live undergroud, the irradiated surface maintained by robots. Finally a team from America goes up to see the surface, and discovers the robots have been lying: the fallout has passed and the land is green again. But the robots seal up the tunnel to keep those still below from discovering the truth, and the team on the surface starts a new life on a empty planet, befriended by a team of Russians stuck in the same situation. But I suppose you’re looking for more religious apocalypses…

I think Showtime has a post-apocalyptic show called Jeremiah, obviously with some religious themes.

FOX had an End Times show earlier this season called…well…it was called something. It was rather forgettable and FOX apparently thought so too since it was cancelled with alacrity. The concept was that the antichrist was a hot blonde teen, and the catch was she had to consciously accept and embrace her evil nature for the end of the world to actually start. So each week a charismatic demon would try to tempt her into using her unholy powers to kill people, etc. etc.

Terminator 3 ends with Judgement Day.

And since pop culture isn’t just fiction but also news, think what would have happened had Bush suffered damage from that grenade in Tbilisi, or if those Hasidic extremists in Jerusalem had managed to fire a shoulder-launched missile into the Dome of the Rock.

one of the other things i want to “explode” is the notion that peak oil, global warming, etc - are any different from more “mythological” variations of the armageddon story. the whole point of them is that we believe them to be TRUE and that they are clothed in contemporary language and symbolism