May 31, 2006
memorial day 2006
I celebrated--if that is the word--Memorial Day by performing (with the Rhythm Workers Union) at an event in Frederick, Maryland, called Frederick's Days of Reflection on the Human Cost of War. Most of the performers were like us: peaceniks, progressives, artists, etc. I couldn't think of a better way to remember the soldiers and civilians lost in war, by creating, through music, a joyful energy for peaceful change. I just wish more Frederickans had come out. As you can see from the picture, most of the seats at the bandshell were empty. The picture is a little misleading: it was too hot to sit in the seats under a burning sun; most of the folks were hidden in the trees around the park, safely in the shade.
Accompanying the event was a project of the American Friends Service Committee, an exhibit called Eyes Wide Open, which displays the empty combat boots of soldiers killed in Iraq. The exhibit travels to different cities, and caters its message to the local community. In the case of Frederick, it was an exhibit of 40 pairs of boots, tagged with the names, ages, and hometowns of Maryland and Distric of Columbia, side by side with a visual representation of the thousands of Iraqi civilians killed during the war.
That was Sunday. On Monday, when Memorial Day was actually celebrated, I looked for, and read, peace poems. Here is one of them: from America: a Prophecy, by William Blake.
"For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease."
William Blake, America: A Prophecy, 6.15
May 23, 2006
(no need to) scan this blog entry!
Google has been even more zeitgeisty than normal lately. Last week, Dilbert featured Google and its Death Ray (used to shoot a satelite out of the sky and into Dilbert's house, to keep him from developing his new search engine). Then Leslie Walker, in her technology column for the Washington Post, wrote about Google's controversial project to scan whole libraries (University of Michigan, Harvard), to the litigious chagrin of the big publishers that are suing them for copyright infringement.
And then there was the rampant, Google-inspired technophobia at BookExpo America 2006, held at the DC Convention Center this past weekend (how did I miss that?), reported by the Washington Post (p. C01). In a keynote, the venerable John Updike "threw the book" at Kevin Kelly, author of "Scan This Book!" a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, in which Kelly had the effrontery to praise Google's library scanning efforts.
First of all, I can understand Updike's fear. Updike writes "literary" fiction, a genre almost extinct in today's marketplace. He makes his living from the sale of books. Of course he's concerned when some over-Wired technogeek like Kevin Kelly crows about how in the future all books will be part of the digital commons, accessible for free on the Web. That would put him out of business.
But then the big publishers don't give a shit about "literary" fiction any more than bibliophobic technogeeks (and I'm not saying Kelly is bibliophobic: he just wants universal access to books). They publish Updike because he's a "brand name." Updike would have a hell of a harder time if he was starting out now. Most of the big publishers are part of huge conglomerates that demand impossible profit margins, which means crappy books like The Da Vinci Code get published, with huge advances, and baby Updikes get shut out.
So profit-driven conglomerates and schlocky writers are just as much the enemy as Google.
I consider myself a bibliophile AND a technogeek. I don't see how they need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I've argued (and I'll argue here) that digitization has helped renew book materiality, by letting us see old, interesting books (case in point: William Blake) online that would otherwise be locked up in a library far, far away.
Digitization has made me appreciate books more, and not just because they make me nostalgic for a time in which books were the supreme form of media. Digitization highlights the technology of media, helping us see what a brilliant technology the book is.
I often think that many of those who criticize Google's efforts to scan library books have not actually used Google's Book Search. Yes, whole copies of in-copyright books are scanned and included in the service, but that's only to enable searching the text. Only a few pages of books are accessible at any one time. Book Search also includes such things as tables of contents and indexes, allowing the person browsing to get a good sense of the book. All this information can only help to sell books.
All that said, I still remain a little skeptical of Google's ambition to create a huge, universal library. I always get a little uneasy when a huge corporation claims it is doing something altruistic. But as long as they keep their ads off the scans of those old books, I'm down with it for now.
May 16, 2006
darfur is dying game
In the Washington Post I saw an article featuring an educational game about being a refugee in Darfur. It's called Darfur is Dying (the link is below). I went to the site and played it. It's a very primitive game, in terms of the things kids play these days, but an effective political education tool. It would work well in classrooms--that is if the message was not deemed too political. Or a good thing to attract young activists, who are so used to game culture, in order to build an activist network. I find it interesting not just because it's an online game, but also because it's an activist multimedia campaign, something I'm really interested in (being an activist and a multimedia dude).
There are two parts of the game. First you choose a Darfurian refugee for an avatar. There are eight of them, male and female, ranging in age from 10 to 30 years old. Then you go forage for water. Using arrow keys, you run across the desert looking for the well, while Janjaweed militia members chase you in a bearing-down army drab green jeep. You can change direction, or hide behind boulders by hitting the space bar. Six times played, I almost made it once: I got to the well, and almost got back to the camp, before the militia captured or killed me. When you get captured or killed, your avatar fades into a ghostly presence. You have to choose another one to go on.
Then you go to your refugee camp. You use your arrow keys to transport water from the well to garden plots and help make bricks to build new structures. When the Red Cross flashes, if you go to the clinic tent, your camp health gauge goes up. You track the gauges below the game space: camp health, day number, threat meter, and water and food supply. If the Janjaweed militia comes, your threat meter goes up, and they take water and food supplies, and destroy buildings. Also, around the camp are little question marks that you mouse over and get a word balloon with mini-stories about victims of the Janjaweed.
I think this is more a game for activists, than gamers per se. As activism, it's an interesting, and creative, development. I think as an political educational website (with the game embedded) it's well designed, in terms of function and visual presentation. And who can resist a game? It's one of those things that's tailor- (or coder-) made to pass on to your other email lists, spreading the word "virally" (as the game makers say in their "about" page).
This is a "virus" I approve of, as an activist and multimedia person, and I show my approval by providing the link:
May 12, 2006
veronica mars season 2 conclusion
On Tuesday, I watched the last episode of season 2 of Veronica Mars. I have since been having a debate with my housemate, and major Mars-ian, Sarah. She thinks it was a good episode. I thought the writing was inexcusably sloppy.
I WILL BE REVEALING PLOT POINTS, so if you're, like, waiting for season 2 to come out on DVD (in August), STOP READING HERE.
My main problem was the implausibility of the resolution of the season-long mystery of who blew up the school bus that killed six students at Neptune High. Turns out it was "Beaver," younger brother of Dick Casablancas, one of Veronica's nemeses. This was a kid who was always overshadowed by his older brother and by more assertive characters on the show. He was romantically paired with computer whiz Mac (friend of Veronica), which was kind of adorable, though he seemed quite confused and ambivalent about consumating the relationship with Mac. In this he seemed like a fairly normal, sensitive, vulnerable teenager. He was also involved in the Veronica rape plot from last season (as an innocent bystander, but one who did nothing to help Veronica), so he wasn't a complete angel, and he did break up with Mac at one point in a nasty way during season 2.
In this last episode, it was revealed that Beaver was a victim of the sexual abuse of creepy town mayor and little league coach Woody Goodman. And that two other kids killed in the bus crash were also sexual abuse victims, and were about to come forward about the abuse--though Beaver begged them not to.
Well, it turns out Beaver blew up the bus to keep the other two abuse victims quiet. Why exactly? Not really explained. If it stopped there, at him being merely a mass murderer, it might have still worked. But then, in a roof-top showdown between Veronica and a gun-wielding Beaver, we find out that Beaver not only blew up the bus, but he also raped Veronica after all (when she was zonked by a date-rape drug), AND put a bomb on Woody Goodman's plane (which Keith Mars, Veronica's dad, was supposedly on), and he triggers the bomb with his cell phone, right there on the roof, blowing up the plane, just to torment Veronica! So he raped Veronica, blew up a bus full of kids, and then blew up a plane supposedly carrying her dad, not to mention the ex-mayor and loads of cops. He also tortures Veronica with her zapper. Finally he takes a shot at Logan, who, of course, comes to the rescue and saves the day. Beaver ends up jumping off the roof, killing himself. So we can add that bad deed to his resume of evil.
I think the piling on of dastardly deeds, on this heretofore benign kid, all in one episode, was way too over-the-top. Someone somewhere said that when a character completely changes in the last chapter, or episode, that's an example of bad writing. Such is the case here. One of those dastardly deeds would have been believable, but three or four? And then bragging about it like your run-of-the-mill psychopath? Nah. Beaver was a victim of the writers, who used him to tidy up not just the plot points from season 2, but season 1 as well. The writers might also have done more with Beaver's secret fury, the I'm-so-unappreciated-and-abused characterization of Beaver in this last episode ("my name is CASSIDY!!"), rather than making him totally evil.*
There may be one explanation for what I'm calling bad and sloppy writing in this final episode. The writers might have piled on Beaver, using him to tie up the plot points for both season 1 and 2, because of the very real possibility that Veronica Mars might be cancelled. Despite its good reviews and Emmy nominations, the show is regularly one of the lowest-rated shows on television. Besides, next year the show will significantly change, with many of the principals going on the college, so it would seem to be a good time for a cancellation. I sure hope it doesn't happen, and we can return to good writing next season, but if it does, it would explain the sloppy writing on the season 2 conclusion.
*That said, I think the "hit" on the evil Aaron Echols, killing him after he got an acquittal for the murder of Lilly Kane, was quite plausible, surprising, and even satisfying (for this pacifist).
May 2, 2006
another TV marathon: Carnivale
Last night I finished my latest (and last for a while) TV marathon: the first season of HBO's Carnivale.
It was very serendipitous how I came upon the series: I was in the video/DVD store (Video Americain in Takoma Park--they always deserve a "shout out") and was looking for an interesting TV program to marathon and came across Carnivale. Not having cable, so knowing nothing about it, I checked out the disk containing the first two episodes.
Wow. It only took me one episode to get hooked (actually, just one title sequence; more on that below). When I brought that disk back, I got the next two in the series, and so on: in one week, all 12 episodes of season one.
Since there was only one season at the video/DVD store, I thought maybe this was a series that had not survived more than one year. Then I Googled the show, and discovered there was a season two currently in progress. O happy day! Only after I finished watching season one did I discover something not so happy.
So what's to like about this show? The acting is terrific, with a great cast, especially Nick Stahl as Tom Joad-esque Ben Hawkins and Clancy Brown as radio preacherman Brother Justin (the two main protag/antag-onists) and Clea Duvall as Sophie the Tarot-card reader. The writing and directing are also first-rate, starting with the show's creator Daniel Knauf, and a whole stable of writers and directors, for the most past a different writer and director for each show. That's certainly something that intrigues me: the ensemble nature of the enterprise--actors, writers, directors--which is only fitting for a show about a traveling carnival in the dustbowl American West of the 1930s. The special effects are also done really well, which is only fitting for a show about two mystical figures battling it out for the soul of humanity (who have lots of wild, telegenic dreams and visions), with the help of the non-usual suspects--carnies, rousties, blind mentalists, bearded ladies, strong men, dwarfs, etc.
The story is one of the oldest in the world: good vs. evil at the end of days. I'm normally not attracted to strictly dualistic story lines (including Christian apocalypticism, from which Carnivale draws much), but Knauf and company did enough ironic variation on the old story to keep me engaged.
As usual, I have something to say about the "paratext"--or perhaps a better term would be "paramedia"--in this case, the title sequence (mentioned above), done by Angus Wall and Scott Boyajan of an outfit called A52. HBO is right to feature this title sequence (including "making of" bit) at their website. It's a brilliant piece of animation and remediation. It's a series a camera zooms into Tarot cards with classic art by the likes of Michelangelo, Raphael, Goya, Brueghel (no slouches there, but I must ask: where is William Blake? He'd have been perfect), which morph into 1930s newsreel footage. It's an almost vertiginous immersive experience and pretty mind-blowing, even after you've seen it ten times. But you can check it out on your own:
http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/behind/credits/index.html
There is also a screen saver and series-related game, not to mention bulletin boards etc. at the HBO website. I've downloaded the screen saver and game but haven't done anything with them yet. I went to the bulletin boards after finishing season one and that's when I discovered the not-so-happy news that this show, which was nominated for seven Emmies in its first season, has been cancelled at the conclusion of its second season. As I said above, I started watching thinking there was only one season, but then learning there was a current second season made me very excitedl. O well, at least I have one more season to watch, once it finally comes out on DVD. But it sure doesn't make sense for me to plug into the online viewing community at this point, since the show is done. Though I might mention that, according to the boards, lots of folks protested the cancellation, many by cancelling their HBO subscription. Since I don't have an HBO subscription, I can't cancel mine, but I can mention it to my "readers." Though there is plenty more good stuff at HBO; I'm not ready to condemn them completely ( they might send Tony Soprano after me).
The show may continue in some form, and not just in syndication or DVD shelf-life. My friend Marc "Things As They Are" Ruppel says a film might be in the works to deal with the loose plot lines left at the end of season two, and maybe a game as well. I think it would make a terrific graphic novel as well. If Ghostworld can go from graphic novel to film (many other examples, of course), why not Carnivale going from television to graphic novel? Works for me. Here's the HBO show site:
And now it's almost time for Veronica Mars--the penultimate show of season two!