Strokes video: Sirius or delirious?

[Contributor Casey Dolan, who will be weighing in here on many things digitized, is starry-eyed and bible black:]

The new Strokes video, directed by Warren Fu, pays its respects to both Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” with a floating black monolith and lysergic cyclotron finale and Godfrey Reggio’s “Koyaanisqatsi” with sped-up footage of the human ant farm. Worthy homages, but it’s all dross.

A time capsule containing the holy relic of a holographic Strokes performing “You Only Live Once” is shot into space following a nuclear exchange. Destination? The dog star, Sirius, beacon to our galaxy. Interesting choice, but Sirius A or its miniature dwarf star, Sirius B? Either place and the capsule would be boiled. Scientists put Sirius A at 8.6 light-years from Earth. The capsule’s onboard tracking monitor puts Sirius at 40,000 light-years.

Ehh, so what if Fu fudges the numbers? It’s all an exercise in style, but forget the song. There’s utterly no connection between song and image. Hey, you might say, Sirius has played a significant role in millennialist thinkers over the centuries (not to mention lent its name to a satellite radio outfit). That’s Fu’s dog-eared ace up his sleeve. The star was the projected destination for the French, Swiss and Canadian cult, the Order of the Solar Temple, a modern mystical update on the Knights of the Templar, but many members managed to have an earthly death before immolation by a celestial object.

||| Go here to watch it. Think of it as a trip to outer space.