Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Movies Music Quackery Science

Tim Minchin’s “Storm” to be animated

As regular readers know, I really like Tim Minchin’s take on skepticism in general and on alternative medicine in particular. His piece de resistance thus far in his career is a “nine minute beat poem” entitled Storm, in which at a dinner party our performer is forced to deal with a female version of Mike Adams spewing nonsense about “natural remedies,” how “science doesn’t know everything,” how “there’s more” than just the material world and “you can’t know anything,” and how big pharma is just out for profit. Minchin’s slapdown of this woo-filled nonsense is epic and hilarious.

It turns out that Skepchick Tracy King is working on an animated short film based on “Storm.” The official trailer looks really cool:

I can’t wait to see the finished project.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

15 replies on “Tim Minchin’s “Storm” to be animated”

I had to go to YouTube to watch STORM–your link says “taken down by user”. I’m going to try to commit this to memory.

Apropo of the bit from the clip: I was listening to a “Fresh Air” interview (from last Friday, I think) with respected actor Stanley Tucci (you owe it to yourself to see “Big Night” if you haven’t already) and it turns out his wife died of cancer recently. However, according to Stanley, it wasn’t the cancer that killed her but the fact that they didn’t use “alternative medicine” on her soon enough. Ugh.

Thanks for your *humourous* comment, Antaeus.
I had figured that the majority of the readers of this page are intelligent (though I now figure there may also be an exception or two), and that some would enjoy reading about a complex medical case.
Antaeus, forgive me if it offended you that I shared it here, and please ignore it.
Everyone else, ENJOY!
🙂
cheers,
bennymay

Heh. I’ll look into it, though anyone who thinks the ‘alternative medicine proven to work is called medicine’ might want to check out Dara O’Brien, who’s used a very similar line. I’ve got no idea who did it first.

Its at about 03:00, but the whole clip is funny.

Patrick, it’s called convergent evolution 🙂 I don’t imagine that line to be too hard to come up with for a smart witty comedian.

@Patrick

Dara O’Briain has become my favorite comedian–he is definitely the smartest. His “put them in a sack…” line has gained wide popularity in the skeptic community. I now see comments here and there that say things like, “we’re going to need a really big sack” in response to this and that quackery.

I’m glad you found Dara O. There are lots more at YouTube–keep watching!

Comments are closed.

Discover more from RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading