To life.

Gotham City🏢

                                 

Welcome to Gotham City 

When you hear the word "Gotham," many probably think of Gotham City, which served as Batman's home and first appeared in comics in the 1940s. Gotham City, whose atmosphere and appearance were influenced by the infrastructure of New York, got its name from a store called 'Gotham Jewellers'.The recent TV series Gotham locates Batman's early genesis in the famous Cortlandt Alley in Chinatown, where the young Bruce Wayne witnessed the death of his parents. The term "Gotham City" is forever associated with the Batman comic universe.In fact, the nickname goes back to the naming of the city of Gotham, and it had the advantage of being a simple, simplified city with a rather vague connotation that illustrated the city's status as the center of the DC-Comics universe, rather than a city with its own history in real life.

Brooklyn bridge, NYC

Gotham City

It was New York's 42nd Street that would later become a strong influence on Gotham City, and for storytelling purposes, Batman's city had to be brutal. By reintroducing Dark Ages into a modernized setting, it became a new interpretation of Batman and the city.     

Much of 42nd Street in the rejuvenated graphic novel of Batman, and Gotham City remains an important part of the Batman myth, whether it's the city that created the Bat and its villain, the Joker, or Gotham itself.

42nd Street, NYC⬇️

Gotham City

As we have seen, the story of Batman is as much a story about New York City as Batman and Joker is about Gotham.  

Joker's first speech

The Joker appeared as 'Arthur Fleck', who gave a speech about society on a comedy talk show, and proved successful when he became the first villain to become the most famous villain in New York's history and one of the most popular in the world. 

Crime Alley was the place where Bruce Wayne witnessed the murder of his parents:

The murder of the Waynes😡

Other prominent infrastructure of Gotham include its first police department- Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) which has been inspired by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

New York City Police Department (NYPD)

Gotham City Police Department (GCPD)

Even though Gotham City was plagued by crime in its early years, it was never to be the dystopia of corruption that it would become.  It had a police department, a city council and a mayor. The city's status as an independent metropolis meant that this was just your typical metropolis.     

Even when the city was finally called Gotham City in Batman #4, early editions described it as a city that was cursed, loved by others, and that could be considered a great success and tragedy all at the same time.  

The power of the traditional mafia families diminished as they began to lose ground to the Penguin and other supervillains that appeared in the wake of Batman.

Penguin 💣

The first recurring Batman villain was The 'Joker', a member of one of Gotham City's most notorious crime families. He was featured in the first issue of Batman #1 and appeared in a flashback in which he was a merciless serial killer with a broad grin. His biggest enemy was not Batman, but Harley Quinn. 

Joker 😈

Although the Dark Knight was certainly one of the most famous crime fighters in the world, people are surprised to learn that he was not the first hero to defend Gotham. The Golden Age of Gotham was lived by Alan Scott, the son of a prominent New York businessman. He settled in Gotham and tried to rid the city of crime with the help of his father, and slipped into the role of Batman as his protector. 

Alan Scott💪

Batman 👿

Eventually, the Batman family would grow to include crime fighters like Catwoman, Gotham City's next best crime fighter. The term Gotham, was chosen not from the telephone book, but from "Gotham City," the name of the city in New York City in the USA. 

Catwoman💀

That's all folks! Thanks for making it up till here. 

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Rest: the much needed sanity-potion

Source - Lovethispic | Image by - Take a breath and let the rest come easy

Our modern obsession with productivity has blinded us to the fact that we lull ourselves into a false sense of entitlement to be productive, to wander in and out of work as if we were absent. Infinite hours of work as a badge of honour confirm our work ethic, but what it really expresses is a lack of respect for ourselves, our time, our fellow human beings and our environment. 

Being calm, instead of being passive, is actually an act of resistance, and it is treated as a form of self-control and not as a means to an end in itself. Because rest is so often confused with laziness and wrongly measured as success, it must be a priority, because we must measure success wrongly.     

Without rest it may seem unproductive, but in fact there is a lot of healing and rejuvenation of the mind going on. We often forget that a lot is developing on Earth, even if nothing is visible on the surface. 

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Sci-Fi🔭/ Spirituality🔱

The photo below was put across Madrid bus stops in 2020. The poster hugely comprises of a real mirror with the text announcing its release- it reads, "Black Mirror, 6th season, live now, everywhere." The series focuses on the human and technology relationships in a rather bleak perspective.

Black Mirror was quite popular on Netflix in recent times. The show explores how we live in a post-modern world of information technology, cyberterrorism, virtual reality and cybercrime. Despite its success, one good thing about Black Mirror is that relatively unknown actors have been cast in lead roles. 

Science fiction is a strong genre, as it aims to predict and explore possible future scenarios. Most of its episodes represent a terrible future in which humanity's obsession with technology has led them into adverse situations. The most memorable Black Mirror experiences, especially at the beginning of the series, leave you alternately horrified and hypnotized by what the episodes say about the way we interact with technology. The show is simply one of the smartest and comprehensive science fiction works of recent times.

It is a matter of fact that in today's world, science fiction hugely focuses on all that could 'go wrong' in the world with its highly intelligent devices. Sci-fi needs to move a bit away from space opera and fantasy to overcome the mood of 'digital-darkness'. I believe that today's science fiction is too bleak a representation, incapable of opening up new perspectives to the betterment humanity. This is not just a question of sci-fi pop culture, it is a question of our fallen culture and the nature of humanity as a whole. Perhaps the most obvious way science fiction depicts spirituality is the use of predictive forces (pun intended).

Arthur Clarke, is one such example who has managed to shed a better light over the ability of fiction to reshape the world through the technologies of the future. He had not only succeeded in writing a spectacular novel about the future, but also in bringing satellite communication to the pages of the popular Wireless World magazine before anyone had even conceived the idea.

Source - lightmellenium | Image by - lightmellenium

Science fiction stories have been around for decades, but the race between America and the Soviet Union gave them a new energy and meaning. When Jules Verne wrote "From the Earth to the Moon" in 1865, the first manned mission to the Moon seemed like a fantasy flight. Soon after, Vernes's words proved to draw a startlingly accurate vision of the unfolding future when the Apollo 11 mission, which touched down on the lunar surface a little more than a century later. 

To the moon 🚀

Science fiction continues as a fantastic story - going back to the roots of human civilization, with its own history, exploration and discovery. Author and critic John Clute outlined a science fiction story that begins with a scientific revolution that would shape modernity. The story originated from the idea of unprecedented events that would be triggered due to the innovations arising from science. It roughly reiterates the fact that the world we live in is indeed a world of mystery- a place of wonder, of limitless discovery. 

📚

Philip K. Dick is the author of a series of stories exploring the relationship between science fiction, religion and spirituality coupled with his own personal experiences. His collection of letters and notes was published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other publications and is one of the most popular collections of his writings to date.One can also immerse oneself in the secular side of spirituality like the famous astronomer Carl Sagan.

Breathe 🌿

It's clear that the truth is, just as Carl Sagan once said, " 'Spirit' comes from the Latin word 'to breathe'. What we breathe is air- which is certainly matter, however thin it might be. There is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter outside the realm of science. Science is not only compatible with spirituality, but it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages. When we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life; then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is purely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both."

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