Warning: Rabbit hole! ~ 11-22-63, Time Travel, George Wallace, Donald Trump, et al. - & Al!

The weekend found me rolling down one of those easily stumbled into internet rabbit-holes.
(NOTE: As the post is longer than normal, with numerous links, it'll remain on top for a couple of days.)

It all started after having watched DVDs of the TV miniseries based on Stephen King's novel 11-22-63. I read and much enjoyed the novel some time ago, was keen to see how the film version stood up, so acquired the 2xDVD set. It stands up reasonably well, in fact, though some detail had to be omitted due to time constraints, even though the mini-series is 450 minutes long. Some elements, including an extra character, have been added in order to better fit the new format. The bones of the story remain easily recognisable, especially in its final turns.

Teeny-tiny nutshell of storyline: Time: the present. A single strand time portal to a certain date in October 1960 is discovered in a Maine diner. Someone decides to use it to try to stop the killing of JFK in 1963 by exiting present, remaining in past for 3 years +, changing past, then returning, having been away from present for only 2 minutes.

In case a passing reader might not want the full story "spoiled", don't read the links above. All I'll say here is that, after the mini-series ended, I was left with a question. "Why was George Wallace so bad?" I was strongly advised by husband to Google for information. This I did. Wiki has it all, also worthy of perusal, an NPR article by Debbie Elliott: Is Donald Trump a Modern-Day George Wallace?

“Sometimes life coughs up coincidences no writer of fiction would dare copy.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

Fork in rabbit-hole led to: George Wallace's natal chart, HERE. First glance indicates this is the chart of an unbalanced type, with awkward potential! I notice that Wallace had Moon conjunct Regulus. Regulus is what I've always thought to be the catalyst beneath Donald Trump's surprising success. I note that Wallace's time of birth at Astrodatabank, though given "A" rating is based "from memory". I suspect the time could be a bit off at 26.6 Cancer - early Leo rising would be a far better fit - this from my own experience of living with Cancer on the ascendant! Wallace had no Air in his natal chart - that's an important difference between his chart and Trump's.

A blog post at Ohio Astrology next slowed my rabbit-hole descent:
A Fire Moon in the Crowd. The blogger's take on rabble-rousers' astrology is intriguing - do take a look! Wallace is included there, along with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

At this point, a random "George Wallace" link led me down yet another rabbit-hole fork, to a forum (a few do still manage to exist in this Facebook-heavy world). This forum is, I discovered, a newer version of an old-established forum taken down by its creator fairly recently, perhaps due to net fights or bad feeling surfacing, and lack of a moderator. The new forum :
Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory.

I gathered that Neil Howe, co-author of that door-stopper of a book "Generations" as well as a later volume, The Fourth Turning, once participated in the forum, as I think did the author of Horoscope for the New Millennium, E. Alan Meece (both books sit on my bookshelf). The forum offers a few good reads, though some exchanges tend to fall into the the tl;dr (too long, did not read) category, when debates arise.

The forum had no focus on George Wallace, I'd landed there due to a single mention of Wallace in a post on the forum by an astrologer. I think this link should go to the thread in question. Forum member "Eric the Green" (E. Alan Meece perchance?) had done extensive research into the natal charts of USA presidents and candidates, historically, allocating a scoring system based on various astrological factors (which I've yet to find detailed). Explanation of his system perhaps existed on the original forum now defunct. George Wallace appeared in a list:
1968: Richard Nixon 17-6*, Hubert Humphrey 11-4**, George Wallace 2-6 J (+ Mars rising)
Didn't convey much to me, but I found a few interesting items while rolling around the forum generally - having fallen down this rabbit-hole, may as well take full advantage of surroundings!

Back on surface ground, what conclusion, if any?

Having been thoroughly disoriented after reading of 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th Turnings I'd almost forgotten about George Wallace! He certainly does appear to have had things in common with Donald Trump. He drew on similar popular feelings of disenchantment with the establishment, and fears of "the other": African Americans in Wallace's time, Muslims and/or Mexicans in 2016.

SPOILER (don't read if looking forward to reading or seeing 11-22-63).
When the time traveller of Stephen King's novel returns to the present after spending 3 (or 5) years in the early 1960s, managing to prevent the assassination of JFK, he finds, to his horror, a very different city (and world) awaits him. He's told that JFK was president for 2 terms, then George Wallace was elected. During intervening years the city had been laid waste through bombing, the population left homeless, starving. We're not told detail in the mini-series, but the novel has it all, and it's pretty darn scary! The sight of what had happened was enough to propel our time travelling character back to 1960 once more, to reverse all that he had wrought.

Time itself had tried, again and again, to warn him that the past should not, could not be changed. The past had "pushed back" against change, made his task difficult, near to impossible, yet he had persevered, determined to carry out the important mission his old friend, Al of the diner, had set for him, and with the best possible intentions.

“The past is obdurate.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

Thoughts: why would a guy like Wallace have been elected after 2 terms of JFK? The novel has an explanation. Basically, though Republicans were determined to reverse things. Do we have something akin to that now?

The novel and film are pure fiction, of course.

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it harmonizes, and what it usually makes is the devil's music.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dream-clock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

That was one messy rabbit-hole!

Coming (Quite) Soon

We had intended seeing Interstellar before now. Maybe we'll eventually make it to the cinema before the film disappears from the schedule. Until we get to see that movie, a couple of tidbits relating two others, for the future, which could be worth a look.

British director Paul Greengrass, best known for The Bourne Ultimatum, is to bring George Orwell's 1984 to the big screen (again). Orwell's dystopian novel will be produced by Scott Rudin, whose hits include The Social Network and Iris. No casting details for 1984 have yet been announced. John Hurt played the novel's lead character Winston Smith, in an actual 1984 adaptation of Orwell's 1984 by Michael Radford, best known for Il Postino.

I wonder who'll play Winston Smith this time? Someone a prospective audience will recognise and, more importantly, accept in such a role might be Brian Cranston of Breaking Bad; or Damien Lewis of Homeland and Band of Brothers. Either would have me impatiently waiting for the movie's release! Please don't let it be Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks!

See here: BBC.com News/Entertainment
Also, clicking on "1984" in the Label Cloud in my sidebar will lead to several other relevant posts.

Director Josh Boone is planning a set of four films based on Stephen King’s 1978 long-winded novel The Stand. There has already been a TV adaptation of The Stand, as a mini-series. I think we've seen it, but cannot be certain. Having read a brief synopsis of the theme, oddly it doesn't ring many bells.

The Stand is yet another dystopian tale - they are proving popular, guarantee lots of bums on seats. If film-makers keep over-egging the dystopian pudding with many stale oeufs, though, the audience might soon be turned off. There's always the argument that younger film-goers almost certainly will not have read the novels, and likely haven't seen earlier adaptations, so the do-overs will seem new to them.

These two do-overs don't irritate me as much as some other re-makes have done. 1984 could benefit from a 21st century perspective (knowing what we know now); and The Stand, as long as the director doesn't go into full-on horror/smash-bang mode, but makes a thought-provoking set of movies, could bring the story to an entirely new audience, as well as to some who have read the 800+ page novel, and/or seen the earlier adaptation, but would appreciate a refresher.

See screenrant.com