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theburnham.bsky.social
Chris Burnham
@theburnham.bsky.social
3.9K followers 650 following 2.6K posts
Artist of Batman Inc, Nameless, Die!Die!Die!, Nixon's Pals, and The Unstoppable DOOM PATROL!
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Reposted by Chris Burnham
rydog.bsky.social
We are now further away from the theatrical release of Raiders of the Lost Ark (June 12, 1981) than it was from the year it takes place in (1936). We have reached the Indiana Jones event horizon.
November 27, 2025 at 12:49 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
nedraggett.bsky.social
Hell with it, I'm just going to post the whole thing here via screencap and alt text. It's Kaleb Horton, man, his writing always deserves the second read, especially since it could have just easily been lost forever like so much else. Read it, share it.
A look at forgotten Hollywood landmarks By Kaleb Horton Let's say you come in from down south, and you're looking for an unsung movie landmark. So you fly in to LAX, rent a car, blow right past Hollywood, leave Los Angeles county heading north, go over the Grapevine, gape at the monumental hills and, wow, there really is a Smokey Bear Road, then you turn off the air conditioner when the sign tells you. Once you come down the grade too fast and see the world's loneliest Denny's, you're well on your way to what you're looking for – the middle of nowhere. You're going to Kern County to find the spot where Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of the greatest scenes in movie history, the crop duster sequence from "North by Northwest." It takes place in Indiana, of course, but the Indiana road sign and the imported corn field can't deceive this Bakersfield native. The parched and desolate heat of the scene feels too much like Kern County. The scene people know off-hand — Cary Grant running from an airplane — isn't why "North by Northwest" is a classic. The film's greatness, as was often the case for Hitchcock, lies in its build-up, its suspense, its mood. The plane moment is almost anticlimax. It is those five minutes before Grant's desperate escape that constitute a mathematically perfect suspense scene. So expert is Hitchcock's hand that he creates suspense, a slow burning dread, with no camera tricks and no music in broad daylight. Grant's character is a prototypical James Bond. His perfect suit, fast wit, high-alcohol tolerance and effortless charisma have got him out of every predicament so far. In the city, among people, he has powers. Take him away from people, put him nowhere, and he's just like us — totally helpless. He has no powers: His suit is no good out here; his million-dollar tailoring and perfect haircut is just vanity now. No amount of pretending can provide escape. Here, is the one place where he can die, and he gets by on the grace of God. All he can do is wait for what's coming. So when you seek the lost landmark of this scene, you're looking for an idea as much as a place. You're on Highway 99 now, going 30 miles north of Bakersfield, looking for an unassuming patch of dirt that carries spiritual weight. The scene was filmed neart Garces Highway to the west of Delano. You'll think there's a handy exit for it. There's not. You'll probably get lost in Delano, counting on a connection. You're at once a million miles from Hollywood and a hundred miles away. It's lonely. The horizon sprawls forever like there's nothing past it. There are broken down trucks on the side of the road, plumes of smoke from faraway fires. You'll find Garces eventually. You'll pass a bar called Rosy's Place, abandoned houses, an oil field, a prison, a cemetery, a sign that says "we clean headstones," and a whole lot of gold-on-brown punctuated by an occasional trailer or car going faster than you. You're looking for where Garces meets Corcoran Road. That's where this "North by Northwest" scene was filmed. You'll get a vague idea where it is but you'll never be exactly sure, since there's little impetus for clear signage 10 miles from a prison. Maybe Corcoran Road is unlabeled. Besides, that Indiana sign and the prop cornfield haven't been there in 56 years. If you're anything like me, you'll lose the light and call it a day, unsatisfied with the route you took. You return to I-5 northbound. From the 5, you'll meet Route 46, and go through a place called Lost Hills, then back in to the location from Corcoran Road instead. That's how Hitchcock probably did it. More intuitive. Still in the middle of nowhere, but on your way to Corcoran Road, you're right next to another Hollywood landmark: Blackwells Corner, James Dean's last stop. It's a glorified Texaco, and gas is 50 cents a gallon more than it should be. They sell Jelly Bellys and '50s kitsch artifacts — plates with Marilyn Monroe's face on them, and so forth. They really figured out how to cash in on death. You don't want to stop here. But I stopped. I asked the kid at the Blackwells Corner counter how to get to Corcoran Road. He gave me a look that said "there's no reason to go there," and then wearily told me where to go anyway. I was about 8 miles from the destination. Going there is a meditative experience. You're not just going to the middle of nowhere. You're going to the perfect nowhere. Going alone, in the hypnotic heat of the Central Calfiornia Valley, you might even forget what year it is. There is no reason to believe the road would be so well preserved for half a century, intimately tied to the career of an actor born in Bristol 111 years ago, but it has been. There's an abandoned house. A barn with a cross on it. But almost nothing has changed in 56 years. At some point new lines were added on the road. There's overgrowth where there didn't used to be overgrowth. A couple discarded Budweiser cans from who knows when, but mostly it's identical. This is the same sleepy loneliness that Alfred Hitchcock used to make great art in 1959. And that may sound dull, but tranquility is the point. You stand on that dirt and there's no distraction from what's in your soul. It's an inner destination, not an outer one. I told my grandma about it when I got back to Bakersfield. She told me her Uncle Harold thought it was the prettiest road in America. And she showed me a picture of a Corcoran grade school class posing in the dirt with Grant and Hitchcock. It's just a field trip picture. The kids are fidgeting, many with arms folded, some shielding their eyes from the sun, all with obedient smiles. They'd all be in their sixties now, but they'd remember where this road is. It emphasized the ugliness of James Dean's last stop becoming a place to sell T-shirts. It's about what we preserve, and what we don't, and what we remember, and what we don't. It's easy to find shrines to morbidity and hard to find meaningful places. For those, you have to go looking.
November 26, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
benitocereno.bsky.social
Here comes Santa Claus

In stores next week
The six different covers for Startling Tales of Santa Claus 20205 Annual
November 25, 2025 at 9:46 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
Very annoyed with any podcaster who is younger than I am. Fuck you @nochorus.bsky.social, you’re 48 now.
November 26, 2025 at 5:12 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
johnpontoon.bsky.social
This is, at essence, an essay about the insane destruction of medicine and science in the USA at the hands of Trump and RFK2. Those shit-clowns are very much making every effort to cripple the most fundamental forces of living and pursuing happiness. I don’t understand why we suffer them to live.
charlescmann.bsky.social 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 1d
In 1924, Calvin Coolidge's 16-yr-old son played tennis on the White House grounds w/o wearing socks. He got a blister and was dead from infection a week later.

This is unthinkable today—which is why I wrote this series. Cuz the systems that save us from this kind of fate are in urgent need of care.
charlescmann.bsky.social 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 1d
For a yr, I've been working on a series for The New Atlantis about the vast systems that underlie our lives. Our ancestors built them up over decades to fend off hunger, thirst, darkness and disease. But too few of us know about them—and they're all at risk. The conclusion is now available online:
November 25, 2025 at 9:31 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
I don’t think I knew that Alan Moore wrote some weird old Star Wars comics. Added to the infinite wish list!
November 25, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
sarammedinaramis.bsky.social
At West Point there is a plaque...
November 24, 2025 at 2:52 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who’s coming to save you?
November 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
theburnham.bsky.social
Impossible question: Does anyone have a copy of Boston Blackie: Bloody Shame on hand? I need to see one of the first pages from my story, but I don't have any idea where my copy of it is! Thanks!
November 25, 2025 at 4:43 AM
theburnham.bsky.social
Impossible question: Does anyone have a copy of Boston Blackie: Bloody Shame on hand? I need to see one of the first pages from my story, but I don't have any idea where my copy of it is! Thanks!
November 25, 2025 at 4:43 AM
theburnham.bsky.social
No, Charlie Brown, I expect you to die!
andykhouri.bsky.social Andy Khouri @andykhouri.bsky.social · 3d
Ah, you think darkness is your ally, Charlie Brown?
erikburnham.bsky.social Erik Burnham 💬 @erikburnham.bsky.social · 3d
Is it safe, Charlie Brown?
November 24, 2025 at 2:01 AM
theburnham.bsky.social
Goddamn dog ate the other 35 and now I need $400 to get his stomach pumped.
eBay listing for 116 out of 151 pokemon hersheys kissed. $350
November 23, 2025 at 11:30 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
Maybe I’m getting boss baby vibes, but this sounds just like Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, which came out a few years earlier.
Omega, a guy in a big brass Galactus helmet, yammers at a few Doctors Who. From The Three Doctors. In the serial, the solar engineer Omega (Stephen Thorne), the creator of the experiments that allowed the Time Lords to travel in time, seeks revenge on the Time Lords after he was left for dead in a universe made of antimatter.
November 23, 2025 at 7:56 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
Goddamn kids keep stealing my Xerosic’s Machinations
November 22, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
ernie.tedium.co
If you have been sharing that Malwarebytes article on the Gmail thing, you should note the giant correction up top.

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Update November 22. We’ve updated this article after realising we contributed to a perfect storm of misunderstanding around a recent change in the wording and placement of Gmail’s smart features. The settings themselves aren’t new, but the way Google recently rewrote and surfaced them led a lot of people (including us) to believe Gmail content might be used to train Google’s AI models, and that users were being opted in automatically. After taking a closer look at Google’s documentation and reviewing other reporting, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Gmail does scan email content to power its own “smart features,” such as spam filtering, categorisation, and writing suggestions. But this is part of how Gmail normally works and isn’t the same as training Google’s generative AI models. Google also maintains that these feature settings are opt-in rather than opt-out, although users’ experiences seem to vary depending on when and how the new wording appeared. It’s easy to see where the confusion came from. Google’s updated language around “smart features” is vague, and the term “smart” often implies AI—especially at a time when Gemini is being integrated into other parts of Google’s products. When the new wording started appearing for some users without much explanation, many assumed it signalled a broader shift. We’ve revised this article to reflect what we can confirm from Google’s documentation, as it’s always been our aim to give readers accurate, helpful guidance.
November 22, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
animenewsnetwork.com
The "Frieren Looking Up" Art Trend attracted some Big Names in Animation! Excited for Season 2?
November 21, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
fantagraphics.bsky.social
The Jim Woodring 2026 Art Calendar is fun for the whole family--get 30% off and free media mail shipping now during our Early Black Friday sale! https://ow.ly/XUUo50XusR8
November 22, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
writerlaurabee.bsky.social
Gmail users!!

They've turned on AI scraping by default now...Here's how to turn it off.

Pass it on!!

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
A new Gmail update may allow Google to use your private messages and attachments for AI training. Here's how to turn it off.
www.malwarebytes.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
booksofm.com
If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.
November 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
tylerfromtheinternet.com
🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡❤️
gothamist.com Gothamist @gothamist.com · 6d
A U.S. postal worker on Long Island is accused of trying to help a man escape from ICE custody earlier this month, according to a federal criminal complaint: https://gothamist.visitlink.me/YNagDp
US postal worker charged with breaking man out of ICE custody on Long Island
Police arrested the worker and the man she tried to free.
gothamist.visitlink.me
November 21, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
smudgebap.com
nostalgia is a scam invented by big new to sell more old
November 19, 2025 at 7:29 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
I got my Event Horizon comps today! The art in the actual book looks fucking diseased! I want to read it with dishgloves on so I don’t get infected! Good work, Tristan Jones!
November 20, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Reposted by Chris Burnham
narf16.bsky.social
Event Horizon Dark Descent #3 by @cjward.bsky.social, @tristansbones.bsky.social, @pipmartin.bsky.social & Alex Ray. We are in the hell dimension now and the shit has hit the fan. This comic is so brutal! Variant cover by @theburnham.bsky.social #EventHorizon #DarkDescent #IDW #Comics #Comicsky
November 19, 2025 at 5:56 PM
theburnham.bsky.social
Hey nerds, are Michele Soavi’s Italian police movies worth tracking down?
November 19, 2025 at 12:56 AM
theburnham.bsky.social
Damn LEGO Pokémon coming out next year. Maybe they’ll cancel each other out and I’ll spend no money on it at all..?
November 18, 2025 at 10:33 PM