Here's the problem: People Have Sex.
Well, okay, that's an over-generalization of the problem. People Having Sex is not, in and of itself, that big of a deal. Sex can be a very useful thing, not only for procreation, but for the delight of intimacy, the chances to explore another person on an emotional and physical level, or even just the satisfaction of lustful impulses. Sex is a basic component of the human condition, the problem occurs when I have to write about it.
Let me explain why:
Whenever there is hue and cry over a child model being stuffed into something low-cut and skanky, I get annoyed when people decry it as the sexualization of children. My annoyance comes out of the word choice: it's not the sexualization of children, it's really the pornographication of children. The choice of words is revealing about the way society views children.
I remember being thirteen, the age at which my characters currently are. I remember it quite vividly, with the sort of wry nostalgia I hold for most of my past (I said what? Why? I can't possibly have been that arrogant. Oh. Oh, that's just sad...) I have equally vivid memories of myself at other ages, including cracking dirty jokes with friends on the playground in grade three, in which I would have been eight or so. Now, doubtless these were not the most hilarious jokes about copulation ever voiced by humankind, but the sophistication of an eight-year old's humour is not my point (for the record, my jokes were ace). We can not sexualize children anymore than we can colourize them: children already have sexuality. Please note that I am not using here in the sense of specific orientation, but to simply note that they have an instinctual libido. Freud's Psychosexual development is a theory I've always found to be rubbish in the details, but what I do find notable is its acceptance of youth and erogenous experimentation from a very early age. There's a quote by Donna Tartt that I use in Part Two of Benton, which I'll use again here:
I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence...
I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.
To put my own spin on it, let's look at the term “innocence.” I actually think children are innocent, but in a different way than the people who decry the loss of childhood innocence do. There's a myth that children these days are more exposed to sex than they've ever been, but this is a ridiculous statement. It's not that there more exposed than ever before, they're just more exposed they've been recently. The dichotomous Victorians, with their predilection for sex obsession mixed with puritanical sexual repression, created a social culture that hid sex from youngsters on a level not really seen before, at least from a Eurocentric standpoint. This “children should know nothing of sex [and therefore should not be aware of it]” culture lasted for about a century and a half. The modern, “sexy” media has clearly driven it off the rails. The people who decry the loss of innocence undoubtedly had the same lustful urges of youth, but they see their own past like many of us do: with rose-tinted glasses, and an ability to forget that which is inconvenient to our currently world view. The tight-ass pundit with his moral certainty turns a blind-eye to the “show me yours” experiences he had in kindergarten as he does to the pot smoking he did in college.
Children are innocent, but innocence doesn't mean an ignorance of sexual expression. What it means is that they are innocent of the adult, free of the prejudices of the grown-ups. Children (and I'm really using this as a catch-all for everyone 15 and under, here) grow up to be us, but its an evolving process. No one gets handed a maturity package at 16 that suddenly takes childlike innocence away.
When two young kids make the first fumbling gestures that are hooking up, they do so, by and large, without the concerns that will haunt them later in life. They're not weighed-downed with the memories of bad previous relationships. They're not worried with getting seduction “right,” or parsing couple doublespeak, or anything we create as adults to make our intimacies the minefields of past mistakes and weaponized miseries they become. No, the sexual explorations of the young are the only true innocent adventures we ever get in that particular sphere. Whether they are done out of curiosity, boredom, or the sweet, green love of first affection, the fact of the matter is that they happen. The young kids who walk far ahead of their guardians so they can have a quick snog by the lockers every time they turn a hallway corner out of sight are the perfect example of that kind of innocence. Those youngsters are innocent and naive: they honestly believe that the people lagging behind are completely clueless to the hidden romance going on under their noses. Us cynical, older bastards can look back on ourselves with disdain, and wonder how we ever thought we were fooling anyone, but you know what that leads too? It leads to us becoming one of the pundits, shouting that innocence is being destroyed, all because we can't come to terms with the fact that we were ever really that young, dumb, and carnal.
They aren't dumb, though. To me, that's the innocence of childhood. It's making jokes on the playground about daddy putting his car in mommy's garage and thinking you're really clever; playing doctor during a sleepover; or being oblivious of how transparent your cries of “did I show you this thing that is conveniently out of sight of our parents for the next forty seconds?” are. Kids aren't stupid (they instinctively know what parents will disapprove of), but in their innocence they just lump that with every other irrational parental disapproval, like staying up late watching movies, or pigging out on candy. Parents are a bunch of fun-hating old duffers, what do they know about life's pleasures? And, of course, there's the old refrain of “no one understand our love, no one has ever been as much in love as us.” As an adult, I have a tendency to smack that shit down hard whenever I see it, but that's because I'm a grumpy misanthrope. Our rite of adulthood (at least when it comes to “mature” relationships) involves having that kind of cloying ebullience beaten out of us by more experienced bitter people who want to spread their bitterness around. The forbidden fruit was only a problem because God was a colossal cockbite who planted a shame tree and then didn't give adequate reasons not to eat the fruit beyond “because I said so.” Occupy Eden would totally be speaking truth to power against that kind of ipse-dixit credentialist bullshit, I can tell you that. Who died and made him G-, well, nevermind. For those of you who don't care about my novels, here's the part where you should feel free to stop reading.
So, “What does this have to do with Benton,” I hear you cry. Well, first, it's sweet of you (if not a little ingenuous) to assume that every long winded thing I write has a point, but I swear this one does. Like I said, I remember being thirteen. I remember the eddies of hormones, the lusts and desires and so on. My characters are also thirteen. While Benton is certainly not as comprehending of his own libido as I was at that age, Min is much more aware of it, and Ash certainly is, having gone so far as to actually date people, albeit out of rebellion than any intrinsic romantic desire. What exactly are my limits as a writer when it comes to building the relationships I didn't even want in the first place.
I'm going to be honest. One of my initial plans for Benton was that I was tired of reading stories about a boy and a girl who were friends who always seemed to end up falling for each other. I was going to write a story about platonic friendships!
That... didn't work out, obviously. I mean, I started with the best intentions, but the problem was that I fell in love with my own characters, and by some kind of strange affection mimesis, the pure platonism I was aiming for sort of... went... away. So, now I'm stuck with two characters who are falling in love who weren't supposed too and then, woops, there I go, inadvertently adding a third member to the group and creating that which I hate more than anything: a love triangle. That's not actually the problem, I know how I'm going to handle the generals. The devil's in the details, ja?
What are my limits here? What is okay, and no okay to broach – not just morally, but narratively? I'm not going to be writing much about self-gratification, for example, this isn't that kind of coming of age story. Burgeoning sexuality ought to be addressed more obliquely, not jammed in your face like a shitty Michael Cera film, at least in this book. The answer isn't to eliminate sexuality either, though. My issue is in finding a happy medium between the two extremes, one that is narratively and emotional satisfying without coming off as titillating or exploitive. I'm afraid this particular diatribe isn't going to end with any kind of answers – these questions aren't rhetorical. Ash, Benton, and Min have a staring road ahead of them – how to I express it properly?
There is a place for good eroticism in stories. Even two weeks on, I'm still coming off the emotional high of Katawa Shoujo - not only a beautiful, non-exploitive look at dating in highschool for the disabled, but the few sexual scenes felt right, not just titillating pornography (although, to be fair, I've only played through Emi's path). Now,a re there going to be sex scenes in Benton? No. But again, I remember being thirteen.
It's almost funny. I wrote scenes of torture and no one batted an eye. I outright murdered my protagonist beyond my ability to account, and people said "that's an interesting concept." But if I wrote that "[blank} consensually fondled [blank] to the mutually satisfaction of both parties" - I would open such a can of worms, I can tell you that.
SEX! It exists, except when it doesn't!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, October 24, 2011
These Things Are Important
The other day I received this message in my OWL announcement system:
Please note the following:
1. The location of [Name Removed]'s office is now McCain building 1150a, but the time of his office hour is unchanged.
2. The time of [Name Removed]'s office hours is now Thursday, 2:30-3:30 pm, but the place is unchanged.
3. [John Smith's] office hour remains stationary in space and time alike.
Worried by the implications, I sent my professor the following communique:
Dear Professor,
I'm a little concerned. If, as you say, [John Smith's] office hours are both temporally and spatially fixed, wouldn't that render them completely inaccessible? Our planet both rotates around itself and orbits the sun - indeed, we in the Western Spiral Arm of this galaxy rotate around the galactic core and continue to constantly move outwards owing to the expansionary nature of the universe. If Mr. Smith's office is spatially fixed, it should physically be floating in space about a day or so behind us. Furthermore, if it is temporally stationary then time within it is no longer passing. This leads us to the following issues.
1) Any meetings within the office will, regardless of the time scheduled, never actually take place - not just because time no longer passes within it, but because the costly nature of university tuition makes it unlikely that Dal students could afford a trip into space to reach the office. Not even the one's with scholarships.
2) Although anyone who managed the now unlikely prospect of gaining access to the office would find themselves effectively immortal - untouched by time's passing - they would more pressingly be unable to receive answers for any questions they might have wished to pose to their TA. It would also mean that, should Mr. Smith take the essays that need to be marked to his office, lots of people's hard work would be lost. Once you entered the office, all temporal activity for you would cease, one would never manage to say "hello" much less get down to cases or mark papers or even sit down. Conversely, all of time might occur at once in a spectacular example of simultaneity which, while interesting, would be probably mentally traumatizing.
3) Mentally traumatizing students might lead to lawsuits or academic censure.
4) It seems a poor use of the Classic Department's doubtless limited budget to enact such rigid spatiotemporal restrictions on such a small office.
5) It further seems rude to the janitorial staff, who run the risk of being temporally imprisoned should they go to clean it - not to mention the overtime they'd need to be paid if we take the cost of space travel into account.
6) Although I am a Classics and History student, not a Physicist, I worry that this course of action might in some way violate the laws of thermodynamics. As you may know, the Dal Student Handbook frowns upon students violating legal laws, and we must assume that frown extends to the violation of the laws of nature
Perhaps a different tack is in order? If there is such a worry about the continued existence of the office as it exists within the flow of time, might it not be easier to re-locate the office into its own pocket dimension, one's who parameters were more securely controlled by the Department of Classics, or at the very least the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences? Although Mr. Smith is not my TA, I am concerned for the welfare of all my classmates. Potentially condemning them and a grad student to a potentially trans-finite existence that might out-live the heat death of the universe just to save wear-and-tear maintenance costs on a single room seems extreme, even by the standards normally adhered to by academia.
I hope this issue can be resolved with further harm to the fabric of the universe or loss of life/temporal-expression-of-one's-place-in-reality-as-a-conscious-creature.
Yours faithfully,
James Campbell-Prager
Please note the following:
1. The location of [Name Removed]'s office is now McCain building 1150a, but the time of his office hour is unchanged.
2. The time of [Name Removed]'s office hours is now Thursday, 2:30-3:30 pm, but the place is unchanged.
3. [John Smith's] office hour remains stationary in space and time alike.
Worried by the implications, I sent my professor the following communique:
Dear Professor,
I'm a little concerned. If, as you say, [John Smith's] office hours are both temporally and spatially fixed, wouldn't that render them completely inaccessible? Our planet both rotates around itself and orbits the sun - indeed, we in the Western Spiral Arm of this galaxy rotate around the galactic core and continue to constantly move outwards owing to the expansionary nature of the universe. If Mr. Smith's office is spatially fixed, it should physically be floating in space about a day or so behind us. Furthermore, if it is temporally stationary then time within it is no longer passing. This leads us to the following issues.
1) Any meetings within the office will, regardless of the time scheduled, never actually take place - not just because time no longer passes within it, but because the costly nature of university tuition makes it unlikely that Dal students could afford a trip into space to reach the office. Not even the one's with scholarships.
2) Although anyone who managed the now unlikely prospect of gaining access to the office would find themselves effectively immortal - untouched by time's passing - they would more pressingly be unable to receive answers for any questions they might have wished to pose to their TA. It would also mean that, should Mr. Smith take the essays that need to be marked to his office, lots of people's hard work would be lost. Once you entered the office, all temporal activity for you would cease, one would never manage to say "hello" much less get down to cases or mark papers or even sit down. Conversely, all of time might occur at once in a spectacular example of simultaneity which, while interesting, would be probably mentally traumatizing.
3) Mentally traumatizing students might lead to lawsuits or academic censure.
4) It seems a poor use of the Classic Department's doubtless limited budget to enact such rigid spatiotemporal restrictions on such a small office.
5) It further seems rude to the janitorial staff, who run the risk of being temporally imprisoned should they go to clean it - not to mention the overtime they'd need to be paid if we take the cost of space travel into account.
6) Although I am a Classics and History student, not a Physicist, I worry that this course of action might in some way violate the laws of thermodynamics. As you may know, the Dal Student Handbook frowns upon students violating legal laws, and we must assume that frown extends to the violation of the laws of nature
Perhaps a different tack is in order? If there is such a worry about the continued existence of the office as it exists within the flow of time, might it not be easier to re-locate the office into its own pocket dimension, one's who parameters were more securely controlled by the Department of Classics, or at the very least the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences? Although Mr. Smith is not my TA, I am concerned for the welfare of all my classmates. Potentially condemning them and a grad student to a potentially trans-finite existence that might out-live the heat death of the universe just to save wear-and-tear maintenance costs on a single room seems extreme, even by the standards normally adhered to by academia.
I hope this issue can be resolved with further harm to the fabric of the universe or loss of life/temporal-expression-of-one's-place-in-reality-as-a-conscious-creature.
Yours faithfully,
James Campbell-Prager
Monday, October 3, 2011
Benton And Music
The writing of Benton and its sequel would not have been possible without the hyper-reliance I have on musical leitmotifs, both for scenes and for individual characters. Spoilers follow, obviously, but here is a small selection of the tunes that I write too. Character's themes are first, followed by some comments on the music for individual scenes. The songs are either significant lyrically, musically or thematically. Ash's, for example, is musically significant more than lyrically, Benton's changes as his personality does, and so on.
Asha: Cornership's Brimful of Asha (Fatboy Slim Remix)
Mai Yamane Gotta Knock A Little Harder
Benton:
Book 1: Nelson Riddle's Your Zowie Face
Ben Folds Evaporated
Book 2: David Bowie's Quicksand (1972 Demo).
Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta
Efah: Maroon 5 (Kara's Flowers) Control Myself
Helena: ENOZ's When I Was Love (The guitar line more than the lyrics)
The Seatbelt's The Real Folk Blues
Note: given the connections between Farose and Icelandic, I would say that Sigur Rós' Starálfur is a song that Helena sang to her children to get them to sleep.
Líadan: A mix between Dare and Wo Qui Non Coin. And when I say "mix", I mean play them simultaneously. Do it.
Min: Matsuoka Yuki's Matsutte Matsutte! Irassha~i!
MIWP: Garry Schyman's The Ocean On His Shoulders
Queen Cordelia: Ben Fold's Selfless, Cold and Composed.
Perdita: The Delagdo's The Light Before We Land
Rob: The Seatbelt's Ask DNA
Andrew Cassiel: Gabriel Faure's Requiem in D Minor "Agnus Dei"
The songs Asha heard in her head when fighting the Kapnoi are first, Radiation Fox's Descend and then, most importantly, David Bowie's Bombers.
Ash's rainy day song is, natch, Sunao na Kimochi ~Aru Ame no Hi~ Haruhi no Omoi (Obedient Feeling ~That Rainy Day~ Haruhi's Thoughts) by Satoru Kousaki,
Benton passing through the pool and back into his world, all that sequence was inspired by Mai Yamane's BLUE (You're Gonna Carry That Weight). Actually, the importance of that song to the book as a whole can not be overstated.
The scenes in the mall came about by listening to The Divine Comedy's The Lost Art of Conversation more or less on repeat, along with most of the album Bang Goes The Knighthood.
Asha: Cornership's Brimful of Asha (Fatboy Slim Remix)
Mai Yamane Gotta Knock A Little Harder
Benton:
Book 1: Nelson Riddle's Your Zowie Face
Ben Folds Evaporated
Book 2: David Bowie's Quicksand (1972 Demo).
Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta
Efah: Maroon 5 (Kara's Flowers) Control Myself
Helena: ENOZ's When I Was Love (The guitar line more than the lyrics)
The Seatbelt's The Real Folk Blues
Note: given the connections between Farose and Icelandic, I would say that Sigur Rós' Starálfur is a song that Helena sang to her children to get them to sleep.
Líadan: A mix between Dare and Wo Qui Non Coin. And when I say "mix", I mean play them simultaneously. Do it.
Min: Matsuoka Yuki's Matsutte Matsutte! Irassha~i!
MIWP: Garry Schyman's The Ocean On His Shoulders
Queen Cordelia: Ben Fold's Selfless, Cold and Composed.
Perdita: The Delagdo's The Light Before We Land
Rob: The Seatbelt's Ask DNA
Andrew Cassiel: Gabriel Faure's Requiem in D Minor "Agnus Dei"
The songs Asha heard in her head when fighting the Kapnoi are first, Radiation Fox's Descend and then, most importantly, David Bowie's Bombers.
Ash's rainy day song is, natch, Sunao na Kimochi ~Aru Ame no Hi~ Haruhi no Omoi (Obedient Feeling ~That Rainy Day~ Haruhi's Thoughts) by Satoru Kousaki,
Benton passing through the pool and back into his world, all that sequence was inspired by Mai Yamane's BLUE (You're Gonna Carry That Weight). Actually, the importance of that song to the book as a whole can not be overstated.
The scenes in the mall came about by listening to The Divine Comedy's The Lost Art of Conversation more or less on repeat, along with most of the album Bang Goes The Knighthood.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Reposting my Facebook Rant That Was Then A OWL Rant and now a Blog Post.
I would like to highlight a problem I had with Bend It Like Beckham, specifically a false assumption in holds about character and sexuality. I have phrased my problem in the form of two rambling letters.
Dear Movies,
Just because you have a gay character does not automatically mean I will care about them, their hopes and dreams, or even like them. There appears to be this harmful idea that “being gay” is a well-defined character trait. I can call a character "energetic", "zany", "sinister", all of those come with their own expressions of modality that are the hallmarks of any trope. But if the only thing I can say about a character is that they are "the gay one", that's Very Bad Writing, akin to a character being there to fulfil the role of “woman”- it's treating a noun as an adjective.
To look at it another way, let's look a group most people are familiar with: the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron from the ubiquitous Harry Potter series. Each character realizes a particular role in the films/books. Harry is the one who is “brave”, the hero and driver of the narrative. Hermione is there to be the “smart” one, to have the expeditionary/expository knowledge to help Harry be able to drive where he needs the story to go. Ron is there because every story needs a buffoon, and to keep Neville from being a main character and thus ending the series by the end of the first book by sheer bad-ass awesomeness. But what if we changed how we define a character? Harry: Brave, Ron: Supportive(I'll be nice), Hermione: Woman.
One of those things is not like the other. That kind of phrasing is not only a sweeping generalization of everything a woman could potentially be, it's sexist and disingenuous to boot. Tokenism in the worst way, and it spreads a harmful worldview that you can be completely defined by your gender.
“But James, you snarky and slightly patronizing comment poster, you, what does this have to do Bend It Like Beckham, and why didn't Neville get his own spin-off?” I hear you cry. Well, the second question is far beyond the scope of this post, so I'll just stick with the first one. In the best Socratic tradition, I will answer this by posing another question, albeit one directed at the film as opposed to you, gentle reader, who patiently awaits enlightenment.
Dear Bend It Like Benton:
You have a character who admits he is gay. Explain why, at any point in the movie, I ought to care about him. No one ever expects me to root for "the straight one" just because the character is straight. Since he is not the main character of the piece, having him come out to our protagonist must serve some sort of purpose in the story, right? Was it to prove that Jess wasn't prejudiced? It... might, but she seems like a pretty forward thinking young woman, I don't think that was ever called into question. That can't have been the function. So it had to be that it was important we know that Tony was gay for our understanding of Tony's character. It must be important to the story that we know who Tony is.
Who is Tony?
He is friends with the main character. He has a crush on David Beckham. He likes soccer. He thinks the coach is cute.
And...
Um.
That's it, really. I looked it up on IMDB, Tony doesn't have a last name. He's just Tony, “the gay one”. Huh.
Why don't we play a game? It's called "Remove the Coming-Out Scene." First, you cut the scene where Tony says he's gay. Then, watch the movie and tell me if losing this scene has any impact on the story in any meaningful way shape or form.
If there is any change, its on how we interpret his gesture to enter into a sham marriage so that Jess can play soccer in America. But for me, his sexuality doesn't really change the nature of the gesture (which is a noble one, which we could add to his character list if I was in a more charitable mood, but since it's this fake-out deus-ex-machina that is immediately dropped, I'm not going to). Let's say we didn't know he was gay. He;s still entering into a (romantically) loveless marriage of connivence to help a friend. And had it gone through, Hollywood probably would have forced a sequel where they really fall in love and please all those Tony/Jess shippers out there, but realistically we have to take the movie as a complete package, concrete in its habitus (isomorphically emergent with its own structural conditions). At the end of the day (and end of the move), straight, gay, bi, non... hell, the guy could only be attracted to bumblebees; his sexuality in no way changes the nature of the gesture. He is willing to enter into a lie to help a friend.
(And regardless: that's nice in all, but for a sacrifice to be meaningful, I have to think that he's giving up something worth while. “Oh no, he's giving up his life of... really liking David Beckham?” Seriously, movie. Who is this guy, why should I care? What does he do for a living? Does he have a job, other friends, does he like movies, music, anything at all besides David Beckham? Will his sham marriage keep him from really liking David Beckham? Because I'm pretty sure Jess also likes David Beckham.)
If he was gay, and it was just accepted (i.e. no coming-out scene), then that would be great. I love to have gay characters who's sexuality isn't used as way to milk pathos from the narrative. As is, its used as disposable emotionality. “Huh, this bit of the film needs punching up, let's cram an awkward-yet-endearing “I'm gay” scene to pad out the run time and make us seem topical.” Who is Tony? It doesn't matter, he's just there to help the protagonist go kick a ball in a country that has an entirely different definition of the word 'football'. I need to know that Tony is something other than a manifestation of the main characters subconscious need for a perfect male friend who loves everything she does (Soccer. David Beckham. Soccer) without wanting to get in her pants.
There's a lovely test called the Bechdel Test, which a movie only passes if it meets the following criteria:
1.It has to have at least two women in it,
2.Who talk to each other,
3.About something other than a man.
I'd like to compliment the Bechdel Test with something I call The Prager Test. A movie passes the Prager test if:
1.It has a homosexual character
2.Who talks to the main character
3.About something other than a crush, or the main character's interests and problems.
Your character is gay? Fine, that's great. But it's not enough. Work with that, do something with that, define your character as, well, someone more than a one-dimensional plot point. Please. This heteronormative indifference is ever so aggravating.
Anyone needs me, My Little Pony Season 2 just started up, so I have to re-watch the premiere and finish my twelve volume series “Why Glee is the worst thing on television since My Mother The Car”
I remain, yours &c.,
James Campbell-Prager
(Corollary: Putting the gay character in peril does not mean I have any interest in seeing them live over dying. This holds true of "adorable" yet bratty children. If I simply hate them, I may be thrilled that they died. This is what's known as “Adric Syndrome” )
tl;dr: You're in university now. If you can't be bothered to read long things, drop out. Now. I'm dead serious. You will be crushed without mercy by an uncaring education structure that expects your reading skills to be at least at a grade eight level.
Dear Movies,
Just because you have a gay character does not automatically mean I will care about them, their hopes and dreams, or even like them. There appears to be this harmful idea that “being gay” is a well-defined character trait. I can call a character "energetic", "zany", "sinister", all of those come with their own expressions of modality that are the hallmarks of any trope. But if the only thing I can say about a character is that they are "the gay one", that's Very Bad Writing, akin to a character being there to fulfil the role of “woman”- it's treating a noun as an adjective.
To look at it another way, let's look a group most people are familiar with: the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron from the ubiquitous Harry Potter series. Each character realizes a particular role in the films/books. Harry is the one who is “brave”, the hero and driver of the narrative. Hermione is there to be the “smart” one, to have the expeditionary/expository knowledge to help Harry be able to drive where he needs the story to go. Ron is there because every story needs a buffoon, and to keep Neville from being a main character and thus ending the series by the end of the first book by sheer bad-ass awesomeness. But what if we changed how we define a character? Harry: Brave, Ron: Supportive(I'll be nice), Hermione: Woman.
One of those things is not like the other. That kind of phrasing is not only a sweeping generalization of everything a woman could potentially be, it's sexist and disingenuous to boot. Tokenism in the worst way, and it spreads a harmful worldview that you can be completely defined by your gender.
“But James, you snarky and slightly patronizing comment poster, you, what does this have to do Bend It Like Beckham, and why didn't Neville get his own spin-off?” I hear you cry. Well, the second question is far beyond the scope of this post, so I'll just stick with the first one. In the best Socratic tradition, I will answer this by posing another question, albeit one directed at the film as opposed to you, gentle reader, who patiently awaits enlightenment.
Dear Bend It Like Benton:
You have a character who admits he is gay. Explain why, at any point in the movie, I ought to care about him. No one ever expects me to root for "the straight one" just because the character is straight. Since he is not the main character of the piece, having him come out to our protagonist must serve some sort of purpose in the story, right? Was it to prove that Jess wasn't prejudiced? It... might, but she seems like a pretty forward thinking young woman, I don't think that was ever called into question. That can't have been the function. So it had to be that it was important we know that Tony was gay for our understanding of Tony's character. It must be important to the story that we know who Tony is.
Who is Tony?
He is friends with the main character. He has a crush on David Beckham. He likes soccer. He thinks the coach is cute.
And...
Um.
That's it, really. I looked it up on IMDB, Tony doesn't have a last name. He's just Tony, “the gay one”. Huh.
Why don't we play a game? It's called "Remove the Coming-Out Scene." First, you cut the scene where Tony says he's gay. Then, watch the movie and tell me if losing this scene has any impact on the story in any meaningful way shape or form.
If there is any change, its on how we interpret his gesture to enter into a sham marriage so that Jess can play soccer in America. But for me, his sexuality doesn't really change the nature of the gesture (which is a noble one, which we could add to his character list if I was in a more charitable mood, but since it's this fake-out deus-ex-machina that is immediately dropped, I'm not going to). Let's say we didn't know he was gay. He;s still entering into a (romantically) loveless marriage of connivence to help a friend. And had it gone through, Hollywood probably would have forced a sequel where they really fall in love and please all those Tony/Jess shippers out there, but realistically we have to take the movie as a complete package, concrete in its habitus (isomorphically emergent with its own structural conditions). At the end of the day (and end of the move), straight, gay, bi, non... hell, the guy could only be attracted to bumblebees; his sexuality in no way changes the nature of the gesture. He is willing to enter into a lie to help a friend.
(And regardless: that's nice in all, but for a sacrifice to be meaningful, I have to think that he's giving up something worth while. “Oh no, he's giving up his life of... really liking David Beckham?” Seriously, movie. Who is this guy, why should I care? What does he do for a living? Does he have a job, other friends, does he like movies, music, anything at all besides David Beckham? Will his sham marriage keep him from really liking David Beckham? Because I'm pretty sure Jess also likes David Beckham.)
If he was gay, and it was just accepted (i.e. no coming-out scene), then that would be great. I love to have gay characters who's sexuality isn't used as way to milk pathos from the narrative. As is, its used as disposable emotionality. “Huh, this bit of the film needs punching up, let's cram an awkward-yet-endearing “I'm gay” scene to pad out the run time and make us seem topical.” Who is Tony? It doesn't matter, he's just there to help the protagonist go kick a ball in a country that has an entirely different definition of the word 'football'. I need to know that Tony is something other than a manifestation of the main characters subconscious need for a perfect male friend who loves everything she does (Soccer. David Beckham. Soccer) without wanting to get in her pants.
There's a lovely test called the Bechdel Test, which a movie only passes if it meets the following criteria:
1.It has to have at least two women in it,
2.Who talk to each other,
3.About something other than a man.
I'd like to compliment the Bechdel Test with something I call The Prager Test. A movie passes the Prager test if:
1.It has a homosexual character
2.Who talks to the main character
3.About something other than a crush, or the main character's interests and problems.
Your character is gay? Fine, that's great. But it's not enough. Work with that, do something with that, define your character as, well, someone more than a one-dimensional plot point. Please. This heteronormative indifference is ever so aggravating.
Anyone needs me, My Little Pony Season 2 just started up, so I have to re-watch the premiere and finish my twelve volume series “Why Glee is the worst thing on television since My Mother The Car”
I remain, yours &c.,
James Campbell-Prager
(Corollary: Putting the gay character in peril does not mean I have any interest in seeing them live over dying. This holds true of "adorable" yet bratty children. If I simply hate them, I may be thrilled that they died. This is what's known as “Adric Syndrome” )
tl;dr: You're in university now. If you can't be bothered to read long things, drop out. Now. I'm dead serious. You will be crushed without mercy by an uncaring education structure that expects your reading skills to be at least at a grade eight level.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
If On A Costal Street A Traveler...
A Poem, aware of its pretentions. Apologies and defiance.
Tonight,
For reasons all my Own
I walked the darkened streets that are
a minor city's passageways.
To satisfy my cravings for a summer's wish
still unfulfilled,
I purchased late at night
two sandwiches of ice cream,
And continued out into the cool September air.
In my endless search for symbolism
I said why I had purchased two.
It was not just the sale.
The other was for absent friends.
The fool's gesture impressed no one
And none.
In any case I ate them both.
Eblis O'Shaughnessy
Could never dream or destroy.
To him I stand in opposition.
No skill or trade have I,
Merely endless dreams,
And the personal destruction that is creation
The living worlds
Lately writ by me
Have in their antecedent
A thousand others
That I failed to bring to life.
I have given up much of myself
Of late.
If only to give the flood of words
A fitting resting place,
Perhaps to give my tired mind
A little breathing space.
The phrases that seem so profound
Written in the moment on a chill autumn's night
(Whilst eating colder-still ice cream)
Once put to paper seem paltry things.
A dumb show filled with noise
Concealing empty meanings.
In lieu of absent, distant friends
I turn to doggrel verse.
Tonight,
For reasons all my Own
I walked the darkened streets that are
a minor city's passageways.
To satisfy my cravings for a summer's wish
still unfulfilled,
I purchased late at night
two sandwiches of ice cream,
And continued out into the cool September air.
In my endless search for symbolism
I said why I had purchased two.
It was not just the sale.
The other was for absent friends.
The fool's gesture impressed no one
And none.
In any case I ate them both.
Eblis O'Shaughnessy
Could never dream or destroy.
To him I stand in opposition.
No skill or trade have I,
Merely endless dreams,
And the personal destruction that is creation
The living worlds
Lately writ by me
Have in their antecedent
A thousand others
That I failed to bring to life.
I have given up much of myself
Of late.
If only to give the flood of words
A fitting resting place,
Perhaps to give my tired mind
A little breathing space.
The phrases that seem so profound
Written in the moment on a chill autumn's night
(Whilst eating colder-still ice cream)
Once put to paper seem paltry things.
A dumb show filled with noise
Concealing empty meanings.
In lieu of absent, distant friends
I turn to doggrel verse.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Fairy Logic
Fairy Logic, at least in the Craicéailte School, is unifying rather than fragmentary. To the largely Sylphic disciples of Craicéailte, there is no paradox in Zeno or rather, nothing of concern. That Achilles will never outrun the Turtle, while at the same time will naturally outpace it in seconds is not an issue that needs fixing. To many of the fay, accepting the contradictory is as natural as breathing, both statements are true. A paradox is not something to be solved but celebrated. To a Craicéailte, that you can empirically disprove a paradox of Zeno is irrelevant. In their fashion, Craicéailtes reject the idea of repeatable causality. Solvitur ambulando might have given credence to one point of view a one particular moment, but that is no indication that it will do so ever again. Holmes' maxim has no place in their world. Why rule out the impossible, when it so often occurs?
This is best expressed in the central Craicéailte concept known as Liused's Apophthegm, for which we shall take a brief detour to first contextualize before discussing its impact.
There has been no more enduring figure of second wave Craicéailte thought than Doctor Mell Liused (1693? - 1740). Liused was both a logician and temporal physicist, although it is the second discipline for which she is best know. Her work in that field was so revolutionary that next to none of her contemporaries grasped her mathematics or gating theories. Her work was to remain forgotten and ignored until it was rediscovered by Adalmar Wesserman in the late 1940s, who would both expand upon it and restore the good doctor's position in the eyes of physicists.
However, it is not her work on gating mechanics that is of interest to us. She remains a “patron saint” to Craicéailtes after her death owing to a series of documents know as the Gwrn-Mell Letters. In her youth Liused had studied under Dr. Gwrn Hywel (1651-1742) at Glorianna University in Gyre-Carling, and afterwords worked with him for a number of years. After Cordeilla III founded Ard Rí College (Fairy's first institution devoted purely to the study of worldgates) in far off Andlang, Liused did what was unthinkable in those days and travelled all the way to its Endymion chapter in Dome, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Until her early death, she would remain in constant correspondence with Dr. Hywel, and from the letters that survive we have a fascinating look at the life and times of intellectuals of the period.
In many ways, both doctors were of among the last of their era. Although he would die before the pogroms started, in Gyre-Carling Dr. Hywel was witness to rise of the neo-glamour movements that would see the deaths of thousands of academics and students in the century to come. To the neo-glamourists, the study of scientific principles was a rejection of everything a fairy was, they considered persons like Hywel to be species traitors. The extent of their destruction and the set-back to knowledge that their reign entailed is far beyond the scope of this book, so we shall touch upon it no further.
While the neo-glamour movement never had any force in Andlang, the economic and social toll of the Ranrike War would decimate the youth of the kingdom. There would be only of handful of young people able to attend universities, and it would be a long time before academic knowledge would be increased and improved by anyone educated in Andlang colleges.
For Liused and Hywel, then, theirs was the last flourishing of intellect before a dark age, and nowhere is this better reflected in Hywel's admonishments to his former student, who had been introduced to Craicéailtism at Ard Rí. For Hywel, Craicéailte thought was a form of scholastic nihilism, a rejection of everything a teacher should stand for. He sought to illustrate this by drawing attention to what he called the Pixie Dilemma. In brief, this is the demonstrative fact that, according to scientific law, a pixie cannot fly. Their delicate, lacy wings simply don't have the power or lift to make a creature of that body mass fly. But pixies do fly, regardless of their size or encumbrance.
Hywel believed that the Craicéailte approach was a destructive one to the pursuit of answers. The paradox of pixie flight, the solution to which (no doubt) lay tangled in science and magic, should be treated as a contradiction and be unravelled and solved. That the Craicéailtes wanted to celebrate the paradox was criminal, a learned fairy ought to find answers, not revel in their absence.
It was in Liused's response in 1711 where we find what we know call her eponymous Apophthegm. Their letters were written in the Vulgar-Carling dialect of south-western Sylphic, I am indebted to Mateo Cwna for the translation.
“A theory that is contradictory in itself cannot begin to explain the contradictions inherent within it. As persons of learning, we are expected to dismiss any such theory on principle. This is also true for any two theories that, should one be “correct”, the other is automatically “wrong”. And yet on the emotive, psychological level we accept both the reverse and the obverse all the time.
Do we not often hate one we love the most? Is there not often lust for one we wish to destroy? Why then can this acceptance of the contradictory not continue onto the physical plane? Why must the impossible be rejected in favour of partisan positions on that most subjective of nouns, the ever elusive Truth?
To accept that they are both true is not say that they should not be examined, debated or discussed. But it is a rejection of the concept of 'impossible'. We celebrate that which is contradictory because it shows that learning is without bounds. To 'take a side' is limiting. To accept both and build upon it is to leave the labels and boundaries of normative thought behind.”
It is important to know that Liused would later note that Craicéailte thought is one that works best in the abstract. Unlike other thinkers of the same school, who went so far as reject not just objective truth but objective reality entirely, Liused stressed that one should never abandon realist practicality. “One can, if one so chooses, build a house in mid-air having accepted both 'theories' that it will both collapse and never collapse. To do so, however, is at best specious and imprudent, at worst, outright fatal.”
An Excerpt From The Beat Betwixt the Pixie's Wings: A Fairy's History of Thought
Dr. Seumas Kermichil
Endymion University Press, 1997
Friday, August 26, 2011
Hollywood, Call Me
[Opening Scene: Superhero in an action-packed costume shows up during a bank robbery. He kicks major ass, throws shit, breaks the criminals against each other, saves the day. As bank patrons look on in awe, a little boy says "Who is that man, and where did he come from" with lots of "dawe"and "awe". We zoom in on the Superhero's chiseled jaw and cut to:]
TITLE CARD: [SUPERHERO'S NAME, MAYBE A SUBTITLE]
IINTERTITLE: "Six Months Ago"
Cut to: Cubicle in an office. Our Hero works at a computer. His boss comes over, lays a super hero outfit on Our Hero's desk.
BOSS: Bob, here is a uniform. You are now a superhero. Fight crime and do good while still keeping regular hours here.
HERO: Sure thing, boss.
REST OF MOVIE: AWESOME SUPERHERO STUFF, MINIMAL ANGST, EXPLOSIONS.
Fin.
HOLLYWOOD, CALL ME. I CAN SOLVE THOR, GREEN LANTERN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA'S PROBLEMs IN ONE SITTING.
TITLE CARD: [SUPERHERO'S NAME, MAYBE A SUBTITLE]
IINTERTITLE: "Six Months Ago"
Cut to: Cubicle in an office. Our Hero works at a computer. His boss comes over, lays a super hero outfit on Our Hero's desk.
BOSS: Bob, here is a uniform. You are now a superhero. Fight crime and do good while still keeping regular hours here.
HERO: Sure thing, boss.
REST OF MOVIE: AWESOME SUPERHERO STUFF, MINIMAL ANGST, EXPLOSIONS.
Fin.
HOLLYWOOD, CALL ME. I CAN SOLVE THOR, GREEN LANTERN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA'S PROBLEMs IN ONE SITTING.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
A Spotter's Guide
Rule One of magna-esque webcomics: If your protagonist isn't an asshole, he must wander around semi-aimlessly expositing every little thought aloud until the plot happens to them. Bonus points if they have amnesia.
Rule 2: Tell, don't show. What do you mean comics are a visual medium? God gave us Text Boxes, no?
Rule 3: Breasts!
Rule 4: The plot ain't going to unfolded itself. Do it now- lingering tension will just make your readers antsy.
Rule 5: Did you follow Rule 3? Angsting about breast size is neither hackneyed nor cliched, but is instead a vibrant and untapped source of drama and comedy that is not at all demeaning to any female character you might have.
Rule 6: There are plot coincidences, and then there is deus-ex-fabula. Always go for option 2- nothing says well written like an author placing a sign that says Vital Characters Assemble Here
Friday, February 18, 2011
A song for the cat
To the tune of Navigator
The bands, and the boxes
The laptops and cords
He chewed and he spat them,
That feline of lords
He minded not noises
That rose through the nights
And the morning hours rang with
His Yowls and his Flights
[CHORUS]
Aggravator, Aggravator,
Rise up and be gone,
The morning is here,
I have not slept too long.
The sun in this wee hour has barely begun,
And off to your food bowl I see you do run.
Brought in by the hundreds,
Mice and birds beware
Presented as gifts
And left here and there
You pray he'll bring dead ones
Because they don't squeak
As the live ones he drops off
Wake you when you sleep
[CHORUS]
A cat owners' curse
Is still yet his joy
That furry behemoth
That lovely wee boy
You'll put up with yowling
And the signs of cat brains
For the chance of a snuggle
When outside it rains
[CHORUS]
The bands, and the boxes
The laptops and cords
He chewed and he spat them,
That feline of lords
He minded not noises
That rose through the nights
And the morning hours rang with
His Yowls and his Flights
[CHORUS]
Aggravator, Aggravator,
Rise up and be gone,
The morning is here,
I have not slept too long.
The sun in this wee hour has barely begun,
And off to your food bowl I see you do run.
Brought in by the hundreds,
Mice and birds beware
Presented as gifts
And left here and there
You pray he'll bring dead ones
Because they don't squeak
As the live ones he drops off
Wake you when you sleep
[CHORUS]
A cat owners' curse
Is still yet his joy
That furry behemoth
That lovely wee boy
You'll put up with yowling
And the signs of cat brains
For the chance of a snuggle
When outside it rains
[CHORUS]
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Make Glad The Heart of Childhood
Well, it seems that Christmas at the Gougère-Rombaur household has once again limped across the finish line, exhausted yet still victorious. At this hectic point in child rearing, Reg and I take our successes where we can find them. We woke a little around seven in the morning, the clarion call of greed in our ears as our children heralded the arrival of more bedroom clutter. Faster than you can say whatever strange mumbled curse my husband groaned out when he woke, our children were at our bedroom door, their eyes so bright that it even mollified my loathing of early morning rising. In their hands they clutched their stuffed stockings tight, eager to begin the august and inviolable rituals of Christmas morning. Reg, whom I have selfishly molded into something resembling a morning person, clomped downstair to put on a pot of coffee. Will (at five our youngest) went with him, saying he needed to tell the pets about their stockings. Annie, seven, stayed with me, dancing around the bed in a flurry of grace and exuberance, extolling the virtues of the holy gentleman who filled our house with stuff for her. There's a Great Big Santa and an itty bitty Jesus, as a rather cynical priest of my acquaintance once said. In a sober whisper, Annie told me that she had made sure that she had gotten the most presents. I smiled wryly at this- Annie appears to have inherited my (in)ability with mathematics, because Reg and I had made very sure that the amount of presents was equal. Satisfied with her Christmas supremacy, Annie sat down with her stocking on the bed.
Reg, that stunning paragon of Yuletide virtue, came in at last with the blessed coffee, trailed by Will, who had chosen to eat a candy-cane for breakfast. It stuck out of his mouth at a jaunty angle. In his one arm he clutched his stocking, under the other he held Withnail (the cat-of-long-suffering), the arm looped around Withnail's rear, with his front half dangling, reaching desperately for the floor. With an amused look, I was informed by Reg that the dog, Sasha, had already opened her stocking, which explained the odd crunching noise coming from under our bed.
The Opening Of The Stockings is the first of several time-honored Christmas traditions, which started with watching the Muppet Christmas Carol the night before, the kids singing along to the songs and me quietly hiding my tears every few scenes. Christmas morning begins at an ungodly hour with the stockings on the bed, filled with candies and tiny toys, clementines and almonds. Annie is pure unfettered id, living only in the moment. She likes to pull everything out as fast as she can, spreading it in her corner of the bed, finding the thing she likes best and the fawning over it as much as possible. This year it was a pink sparkly cat comb that she immediately used on everyone but me- I was given a long, appraising look before she declared dramatically "I'm sorry, Father, but there is no hope for you. That hair... my comb is too late!" I took this pronouncement with as much dignity as I could. Will is very imaginative, living entirely in his own world, as grave and serious as a five year old can be. After handing the traumatized cat off to Reg, Will had pulled a Sleeply LaGoof, slowly taking out the candy cane and placing it beside him on the bed, leaving a pinkish stain on my duvet. Setting his Bolt toy over it as a guard, he carefully and slowly pulled out each item with a contemplative smile on his face. He likes to arrange them in some arcane order, occasionally showing something to Bolt for approval. Even when his sister tried to tame his unruly mop of brown hair, he kept to his task until he was satisfied.
By the time he was finished, Annie's attention had already switched tracks. She had first tried to open Sasha's stocking, but the dog could not be persuaded to climb out and relinquish her new bone, so she had turned her focus to Withnail, showing him his new catnip mouse and explaining to him in a rapid-fire stream of instructions about how he was to make sure this mouse lasted and stayed clean and so on. Withnail endured this with the same look of horrified panic and wounded pride with which he seems to go through life, the poor fellow. Soon enough, Annie's 'beans' and Will's attempt to use his wet candy cane to draw drove us out of the bedroom and downstairs, to commence the wrapping paper massacre once more. Soon the ground floor was littered with scraps of paper as Annie and Sasha struggled to outdo one another as agents of chaos. Annie feels that she has to emulate cartoon shows and reduce any wrapping paper to confetti, while all the revelry over-excites the dog, who is liable to grab wrapping paper debris and tear around the house, shredding it in the process. Eventually we end up on the couch, Reg and I side by side, Will on Reg's lap, Annie exerting her independence by curling up with some Barbies in the big armchair. As always, we sit down to watch Pee-Wee's Christmas Special, long on a dying VHS and recently and poorly transfered to DVD. We eat it with waffles, the only thing that Reg does better than I and, thus, the only time in which he is allowed to work in my hallowed kitchen unsupervised. We start later than usual- Will needs to make sure that both Bolt and his new teddy bear Ambrosias II (his predecessor having had an unfortunate encounter with Sasha six months ago) have a good view of the TV. As always, Reg and I argue over wether-or-not k.d. lang could have worn an uglier outfit, and I again declare it my life-long dream to have Frankie Avalon as my personal Christmas Card Slave. As always, watching this will make Reg throughout the day suddenly exclaim "Now all it needs is Charo!" to the general bewilderment of anyone around him. And again, as always, the end of Pee-Wee heralds the oncoming cold- getting dressed, bundling up and setting out for Christmas Day at Nana Gougère's- or Red Nana, as the children insist on calling her, in order to distinguish her from Grey Nana, Reg's mother. I will not go into too much detail here, as mother's post-Christmas Column is inevitably devoted to her yearly Christmas menagerie of relatives. Like every year, my mother commanded the sea of people with Pattonesque flair, her wooden spoon a riding crop as she barked orders, directed people around and tried to make order out of madness. Cousin Arthur's drunken carols at the piano were inappropriate for everyone (Darlene left him again), and Grandma Gougère has only gotten more cantankerous with age, until she espies her great-grandchildren, who seem to make her melt like hot butter.
The children are finally asleep, their fingers inexplicably still sticky from sweets. They were so buzzed from the sugar high that it took almost an hour of my sister reading them bedtime stories before they calmed down- thank God for Mairia Kalman. I hear the siren song of my childhood bed calling out to me, so I will draw this column to a close.
I hope you all had the most Merry of Christmases, and will have a very happy New Year.
I remain, as always,
Reg, that stunning paragon of Yuletide virtue, came in at last with the blessed coffee, trailed by Will, who had chosen to eat a candy-cane for breakfast. It stuck out of his mouth at a jaunty angle. In his one arm he clutched his stocking, under the other he held Withnail (the cat-of-long-suffering), the arm looped around Withnail's rear, with his front half dangling, reaching desperately for the floor. With an amused look, I was informed by Reg that the dog, Sasha, had already opened her stocking, which explained the odd crunching noise coming from under our bed.
The Opening Of The Stockings is the first of several time-honored Christmas traditions, which started with watching the Muppet Christmas Carol the night before, the kids singing along to the songs and me quietly hiding my tears every few scenes. Christmas morning begins at an ungodly hour with the stockings on the bed, filled with candies and tiny toys, clementines and almonds. Annie is pure unfettered id, living only in the moment. She likes to pull everything out as fast as she can, spreading it in her corner of the bed, finding the thing she likes best and the fawning over it as much as possible. This year it was a pink sparkly cat comb that she immediately used on everyone but me- I was given a long, appraising look before she declared dramatically "I'm sorry, Father, but there is no hope for you. That hair... my comb is too late!" I took this pronouncement with as much dignity as I could. Will is very imaginative, living entirely in his own world, as grave and serious as a five year old can be. After handing the traumatized cat off to Reg, Will had pulled a Sleeply LaGoof, slowly taking out the candy cane and placing it beside him on the bed, leaving a pinkish stain on my duvet. Setting his Bolt toy over it as a guard, he carefully and slowly pulled out each item with a contemplative smile on his face. He likes to arrange them in some arcane order, occasionally showing something to Bolt for approval. Even when his sister tried to tame his unruly mop of brown hair, he kept to his task until he was satisfied.
By the time he was finished, Annie's attention had already switched tracks. She had first tried to open Sasha's stocking, but the dog could not be persuaded to climb out and relinquish her new bone, so she had turned her focus to Withnail, showing him his new catnip mouse and explaining to him in a rapid-fire stream of instructions about how he was to make sure this mouse lasted and stayed clean and so on. Withnail endured this with the same look of horrified panic and wounded pride with which he seems to go through life, the poor fellow. Soon enough, Annie's 'beans' and Will's attempt to use his wet candy cane to draw drove us out of the bedroom and downstairs, to commence the wrapping paper massacre once more. Soon the ground floor was littered with scraps of paper as Annie and Sasha struggled to outdo one another as agents of chaos. Annie feels that she has to emulate cartoon shows and reduce any wrapping paper to confetti, while all the revelry over-excites the dog, who is liable to grab wrapping paper debris and tear around the house, shredding it in the process. Eventually we end up on the couch, Reg and I side by side, Will on Reg's lap, Annie exerting her independence by curling up with some Barbies in the big armchair. As always, we sit down to watch Pee-Wee's Christmas Special, long on a dying VHS and recently and poorly transfered to DVD. We eat it with waffles, the only thing that Reg does better than I and, thus, the only time in which he is allowed to work in my hallowed kitchen unsupervised. We start later than usual- Will needs to make sure that both Bolt and his new teddy bear Ambrosias II (his predecessor having had an unfortunate encounter with Sasha six months ago) have a good view of the TV. As always, Reg and I argue over wether-or-not k.d. lang could have worn an uglier outfit, and I again declare it my life-long dream to have Frankie Avalon as my personal Christmas Card Slave. As always, watching this will make Reg throughout the day suddenly exclaim "Now all it needs is Charo!" to the general bewilderment of anyone around him. And again, as always, the end of Pee-Wee heralds the oncoming cold- getting dressed, bundling up and setting out for Christmas Day at Nana Gougère's- or Red Nana, as the children insist on calling her, in order to distinguish her from Grey Nana, Reg's mother. I will not go into too much detail here, as mother's post-Christmas Column is inevitably devoted to her yearly Christmas menagerie of relatives. Like every year, my mother commanded the sea of people with Pattonesque flair, her wooden spoon a riding crop as she barked orders, directed people around and tried to make order out of madness. Cousin Arthur's drunken carols at the piano were inappropriate for everyone (Darlene left him again), and Grandma Gougère has only gotten more cantankerous with age, until she espies her great-grandchildren, who seem to make her melt like hot butter.
The children are finally asleep, their fingers inexplicably still sticky from sweets. They were so buzzed from the sugar high that it took almost an hour of my sister reading them bedtime stories before they calmed down- thank God for Mairia Kalman. I hear the siren song of my childhood bed calling out to me, so I will draw this column to a close.
I hope you all had the most Merry of Christmases, and will have a very happy New Year.
I remain, as always,
W. Gougère
Christmas 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Some Random Thoughts on Christmas
Odd Visitors
Do you think that Joseph was at all weirded out by the three Magi showing up carrying some rather unusual gifts for a new born? Think about it- Mary had just given birth, which means she was probably pretty "out of i"t at that point in time. A traumatic, unexpected birth in a goat barn alone in the middle of the night with only a panicking husband and a donkey to help. Add in the euphoria of proud new-mothers anywhere, and I'll bet you that she sat though the whole evening with beatific smile and slightly glazed eyes, sitting upright only because she was too tired to lie down. So there's poor Joseph: He's got a new-born kid, an exhausted wife and he's probably wondering why the shelter he is in is being slowly surrounded by rural peasant folk with their faces suffused with awe when all of a sudden three Babylonian/Persian/Yemenis show up carrying incense perfume and gold, saying it is "for the baby".
Maybe it's just me, but I'd be confused.
And Frith So Loved The Earth....
Hark the Hare, Auld Angels sing. I am convinced that this so-called "Christmas" carol is in fact a subversive coded message trumpeting the second coming of Hazel rich will banish are predators, and that the flayrah will be uncountable, silfray without end.
Christ! The saviour is bored!
I mishear this lyric constantly. The word is either 'born' or 'bore', but I always hear it as "And Mary, she bored Jesus, our saviour for to be" and the like.
Do you think that Joseph was at all weirded out by the three Magi showing up carrying some rather unusual gifts for a new born? Think about it- Mary had just given birth, which means she was probably pretty "out of i"t at that point in time. A traumatic, unexpected birth in a goat barn alone in the middle of the night with only a panicking husband and a donkey to help. Add in the euphoria of proud new-mothers anywhere, and I'll bet you that she sat though the whole evening with beatific smile and slightly glazed eyes, sitting upright only because she was too tired to lie down. So there's poor Joseph: He's got a new-born kid, an exhausted wife and he's probably wondering why the shelter he is in is being slowly surrounded by rural peasant folk with their faces suffused with awe when all of a sudden three Babylonian/Persian/Yemenis show up carrying incense perfume and gold, saying it is "for the baby".
Maybe it's just me, but I'd be confused.
The Three Magi, According To Western Theological Tradition
And Frith So Loved The Earth....
Hark the Hare, Auld Angels sing. I am convinced that this so-called "Christmas" carol is in fact a subversive coded message trumpeting the second coming of Hazel rich will banish are predators, and that the flayrah will be uncountable, silfray without end.
Christ! The saviour is bored!
I mishear this lyric constantly. The word is either 'born' or 'bore', but I always hear it as "And Mary, she bored Jesus, our saviour for to be" and the like.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Terrible First Line Competition Entry 2
By the time the puddles of olive oil and poodle fat had stopped burning, Terrence found himself deeply annoyed- not so much because he was dead, but because he would now never be able to tell Tina how little the last three years worth of Friday Fish n' Fungus meals had meant to him.
I swear, the quest for completed content will be brought to conclusion, dear readers.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Sweet memory: For lo the bridges burneth
Attempting to play Dwarf Fortress puts me heavily in mind of my five-year old self's attempts to play Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards: It's colourful, very pixelated, and I have absolutely no idea about what I am doing or how to do it. Should my dwarves spontaneously be run-over by taxi's or mugged by someone dressed as a villain from Cigars of the Pharaohs, my heart will be warmed by nostaligic childhood memories. Should my dwarves suddenly drop dead of STD's, then it'll be the memory of a an older child who tried to track down his childhood game memories and learned, for the first time, that LSLLL was game that you win by having safe sex, something of which my five year old self was unaware of.
However, I'm pretty sure my memory is lying to me. Our first computer (that I can remember) was the Mac Classic, which had a nine-inch monochrome CRT screen (And, Wikipedia tells me, ran at the now quaintly bizarre 512x342 resolution, and had 4MBs of memory). And I am also sure that the LSLLL mugger was not dressed in the weird purple Cigar of the Pharaohs outfit, partially because that doesn't make any sense, and partially because as I said, our CRT screen was monochrome- black and white, which means no purple robes.
I remember Felix the Cat: The Movie being something I was obsessed about for a brief period, but when I tried to watch it again, I had to turn it off in disgust. "Terrible"... doesn't even come close to describing it. Since then, I can't revisit treasured childhood classics, like the Lost in Space remake or David Lynch's Dune (I was a strange child) for fear that they won't be deserving of the the shinning altars I laid them on as a small boy. I'm sure Jim Varney will no longer be funny (although the theme song from Ernest Rides Again remains totally kick-ass). Ghostbusters I and II were actually funnier when I saw them as an adult. I'm sure Alien³ isn't as good, although I am sure the lovely Ms. Weaver is as intense as always. Pee-Wee is also better as an adult than a child.
Still, the bad outweighs the good. I used to watch Sonic Underground, which had Sonic and his siblings... fight evil villains by turning into nineties rock musicians.... who are hedgehogs. Yeah. Or the Caspar movie? It's really best not to think about that one. And the less said about Beyblade the better.
However, I'm pretty sure my memory is lying to me. Our first computer (that I can remember) was the Mac Classic, which had a nine-inch monochrome CRT screen (And, Wikipedia tells me, ran at the now quaintly bizarre 512x342 resolution, and had 4MBs of memory). And I am also sure that the LSLLL mugger was not dressed in the weird purple Cigar of the Pharaohs outfit, partially because that doesn't make any sense, and partially because as I said, our CRT screen was monochrome- black and white, which means no purple robes.
I remember Felix the Cat: The Movie being something I was obsessed about for a brief period, but when I tried to watch it again, I had to turn it off in disgust. "Terrible"... doesn't even come close to describing it. Since then, I can't revisit treasured childhood classics, like the Lost in Space remake or David Lynch's Dune (I was a strange child) for fear that they won't be deserving of the the shinning altars I laid them on as a small boy. I'm sure Jim Varney will no longer be funny (although the theme song from Ernest Rides Again remains totally kick-ass). Ghostbusters I and II were actually funnier when I saw them as an adult. I'm sure Alien³ isn't as good, although I am sure the lovely Ms. Weaver is as intense as always. Pee-Wee is also better as an adult than a child.
Still, the bad outweighs the good. I used to watch Sonic Underground, which had Sonic and his siblings... fight evil villains by turning into nineties rock musicians.... who are hedgehogs. Yeah. Or the Caspar movie? It's really best not to think about that one. And the less said about Beyblade the better.
Better authentic mammon than a bogus god
When is passion forgivable?
Gastrimargia, porneia, philargyria, lupē, orgē, akedia, kenodoxia, hyperephania. Working from Greek, the monk Evagrius Ponticus writes these down- to warn, to preach, to proselytize. Time and tide play with them, and these eight sins are later whetted down to the manageable seven, and as the language of scholarship becomes Latin, we get luxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia, ira, invidia and superbia. Socordia replaces acedia, but the intent remains the same, and we reach our modern Seven Deadly Sins, which most of us know- Lust and Gluttony, Greed and Sloth, Wrath and Envy, and ever ascendent, Pride.
Theologians have always been partial to our friends the sins, that is when they aren't fighting over Arianism, Nestorianism or Chalcedonian doctrine, which is just as fun as it sounds. Saint Aquinas, the dear, felt the need to divide gluttony into six different subcategories, the sort of inane minutiæ so beloved of scholars when they run out of the truly ground breaking ideas. Some enterprising fellow chose to whittle it down to three groupings- the sins of lustful appetite, irascibility and intellect. But all of this is the splitting of hairs- our sins are all those of the passionate bent. We find that this extends into both the social and legal milieu- we have crimes of passion, we accuse others of getting heated or riled up, and we mean it pejoratively. While we may describe a speaker as passionate, we also apply it as a derogatory adjective- the passions of "Latin women"- a euphamism to affectionately describe the same attitudes one might find in an angry, toy-throwing toddler.
When is passion forgivable? As a culture, existing in the Western-European tradition of the Song of Roland, the Matter of Britain, Gallic romantics and Mediterranean Lotharios, we raise these passionate people up while at the same time we condemn their passions as our sins. We go so far as to lock ourselves into a catch twenty-two. While we decry those who fall victim to their passions, that killjoy Pope Gregory I felt the need to add Sloth to our little list and thus condemn those one might think we would consider our greatest compatriots- those who have handily rid themselves of any passion whatsoever. Perhaps it's an offshoot of the Catholic guilt that St. Peter bequeathed to Europe, that masochistic glee of the constantly guilty. We let ourselves be passionate, write our stories and then we prostate ourselves in the confessional, overwhelmed by guilt. Then with God's love and our penance we're off again to unleash our passions on the world. For many of us that embodiment of all the sins, Henry Tudor, managed to deprive us of even confession, leaving only heavily mounting guilt as our passions rise and fall and we sin and sin again. The joy of our modern world is that we're free to confess our sins in any number of ways, from psychologist to blog post, but we've utterly eliminated culturally approved redemption and penance, save for the few lucky celebrities who get time in rehab clinics for the very wealthy. You've sinned, shame on you, feel guilty. And then that's it.
If modern culture is going to continue on it's way- so vocally, so at odds with our own conservative morality, than we require a new set of sins. My personal set of even would be Boorishness, Lack of Charity, Overuse of Buzzwords or Academic Jargon, Poor Hygiene, Crudeness, Violence Towards One's Fellow Man and Not Understanding That One Can't Carry A Tune And Yet Singing Anyways.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your thoughts. Write in what you feel should be the new sins of our modern world. I'll make it a contest. The one with the best sins will be allowed forgiveness with only three Hail Mary's and a single act of contrition.
...Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum par publius Karaoke....
Gastrimargia, porneia, philargyria, lupē, orgē, akedia, kenodoxia, hyperephania. Working from Greek, the monk Evagrius Ponticus writes these down- to warn, to preach, to proselytize. Time and tide play with them, and these eight sins are later whetted down to the manageable seven, and as the language of scholarship becomes Latin, we get luxuria, gula, avaritia, acedia, ira, invidia and superbia. Socordia replaces acedia, but the intent remains the same, and we reach our modern Seven Deadly Sins, which most of us know- Lust and Gluttony, Greed and Sloth, Wrath and Envy, and ever ascendent, Pride.
Theologians have always been partial to our friends the sins, that is when they aren't fighting over Arianism, Nestorianism or Chalcedonian doctrine, which is just as fun as it sounds. Saint Aquinas, the dear, felt the need to divide gluttony into six different subcategories, the sort of inane minutiæ so beloved of scholars when they run out of the truly ground breaking ideas. Some enterprising fellow chose to whittle it down to three groupings- the sins of lustful appetite, irascibility and intellect. But all of this is the splitting of hairs- our sins are all those of the passionate bent. We find that this extends into both the social and legal milieu- we have crimes of passion, we accuse others of getting heated or riled up, and we mean it pejoratively. While we may describe a speaker as passionate, we also apply it as a derogatory adjective- the passions of "Latin women"- a euphamism to affectionately describe the same attitudes one might find in an angry, toy-throwing toddler.
When is passion forgivable? As a culture, existing in the Western-European tradition of the Song of Roland, the Matter of Britain, Gallic romantics and Mediterranean Lotharios, we raise these passionate people up while at the same time we condemn their passions as our sins. We go so far as to lock ourselves into a catch twenty-two. While we decry those who fall victim to their passions, that killjoy Pope Gregory I felt the need to add Sloth to our little list and thus condemn those one might think we would consider our greatest compatriots- those who have handily rid themselves of any passion whatsoever. Perhaps it's an offshoot of the Catholic guilt that St. Peter bequeathed to Europe, that masochistic glee of the constantly guilty. We let ourselves be passionate, write our stories and then we prostate ourselves in the confessional, overwhelmed by guilt. Then with God's love and our penance we're off again to unleash our passions on the world. For many of us that embodiment of all the sins, Henry Tudor, managed to deprive us of even confession, leaving only heavily mounting guilt as our passions rise and fall and we sin and sin again. The joy of our modern world is that we're free to confess our sins in any number of ways, from psychologist to blog post, but we've utterly eliminated culturally approved redemption and penance, save for the few lucky celebrities who get time in rehab clinics for the very wealthy. You've sinned, shame on you, feel guilty. And then that's it.
If modern culture is going to continue on it's way- so vocally, so at odds with our own conservative morality, than we require a new set of sins. My personal set of even would be Boorishness, Lack of Charity, Overuse of Buzzwords or Academic Jargon, Poor Hygiene, Crudeness, Violence Towards One's Fellow Man and Not Understanding That One Can't Carry A Tune And Yet Singing Anyways.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your thoughts. Write in what you feel should be the new sins of our modern world. I'll make it a contest. The one with the best sins will be allowed forgiveness with only three Hail Mary's and a single act of contrition.
...Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum par publius Karaoke....
Saturday, July 24, 2010
What are we?
When they asked
And I knew
It was over, again,
Like before, and before
(What a time is has been!)
And I ask
Why it is
That they're going away-
When they asked
And I know
I have drove them away.
"I am sorry"
The words that I most hate to hear
"I'm am sorry"
Well frankly, my dear, I don't care
Because she said it, he said it, she said it again
And it's great that they're sorry
But they left all the same
They go off unburdened
They leave silence behind
To entreats and paens
They give no reply
And I ask
To my self
When the question is laid
What it is about me that makes it all seem
That absolute silence is preferably seen
As the option to take
Act as though I were dead
To never again hear the thoughts from my head
And I wonder
In anguish
Though detached, it is true
Because of the way that my thoughts are construed
I am always observing my every move
Critiquing myself, here on the outside
To myself I have never successfully lied
And I ask
As I watch it all crumble apart
Why in God's good name did I bother to start?
And yet, (in this moment, I'll unburdened my heart)
If the chance came again..... I'd still play my part.
And I knew
It was over, again,
Like before, and before
(What a time is has been!)
And I ask
Why it is
That they're going away-
When they asked
And I know
I have drove them away.
"I am sorry"
The words that I most hate to hear
"I'm am sorry"
Well frankly, my dear, I don't care
Because she said it, he said it, she said it again
And it's great that they're sorry
But they left all the same
They go off unburdened
They leave silence behind
To entreats and paens
They give no reply
And I ask
To my self
When the question is laid
What it is about me that makes it all seem
That absolute silence is preferably seen
As the option to take
Act as though I were dead
To never again hear the thoughts from my head
And I wonder
In anguish
Though detached, it is true
Because of the way that my thoughts are construed
I am always observing my every move
Critiquing myself, here on the outside
To myself I have never successfully lied
And I ask
As I watch it all crumble apart
Why in God's good name did I bother to start?
And yet, (in this moment, I'll unburdened my heart)
If the chance came again..... I'd still play my part.
Friday, June 25, 2010
A very personal letter
Dear authors of Girl Genius,
Stories have ebb and flow. Please allowed this current storyline to come to a goddamned end so we can have a breather and maybe feel comfortable in any given setting. It's been at least a year, JUST RESOLVE THE BLOODY CONFLICTS FOR A MOMENT.
Sincerely,
The Human Race
Stories have ebb and flow. Please allowed this current storyline to come to a goddamned end so we can have a breather and maybe feel comfortable in any given setting. It's been at least a year, JUST RESOLVE THE BLOODY CONFLICTS FOR A MOMENT.
Sincerely,
The Human Race
Friday, June 4, 2010
A Post Delayed
There is a moment where it all makes sense to me again. For a scant couple of minutes, I am no longer in the loop. No longer part of the web. For a moment, fit only for observation- although not an impartial one. I am hardly self centered enough to think that it revolves around me, but I consider myself a considerable force in getting fifty-odd technicians aimed in roughly the right direction long enough to bring us to this point. I am required to stand at the door, inside the house, and watch the show's delievery. For those few minutes, I have no headset, no technitions around me, just a little corner as the lights dim. The audience probably can't feel it, but the tension tastes bitter in my mouth. All those moments in the mind's eye- every failure, every delay, every mistake- they're all bound up in this moment, when I could choke on the tension. But in that moment, I remember why I wanted it in the first place- it was this, this being apart from those in their seats. That energy... that potential- it is Schrödinger's studio. Every waveform of every mistake and triumph exists on this empty stage. And then- the voices go, the lights rise, the actors enter. The play is observed and the waveform collapses. Wether it it will go well or not is now beyond my power. I have brought it to this point, and it is those under me who must now see it through.
So I return to my office, to do my paperwork and to only listen- the birthing of the show reaching my ears through a small black speaker. But that moment will stay in my mind, that little singularity of why.
So I return to my office, to do my paperwork and to only listen- the birthing of the show reaching my ears through a small black speaker. But that moment will stay in my mind, that little singularity of why.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
A Rebuttal to Mr. Ebert
I have so much respect for Roger Ebert, but he recently wrote this awful hate screed called Video Games Can Never Be Art, a sentiment really bothers me. I mean, he doesn't complain that CGI scenes in movies aren't art, after all the love and attention showered on it by artists, so what makes a CGI scene different from a video game? Control.
An audience member at a film is entirely at the mercy of what is on the screen- a director has to show or tell everything via the strictly linear progression of the film it was printed on. In a game, a director has to work around the movement of the audience- should the player choose to run to here or there, or do this or that- a director has to still be able to tell a worthwhile story without obviously limiting the movement of the player.
In film, a masterful director (and writer and so on) knows how to say everything they need to within the time limit of a film or an episode. Can your story survive segmentation, and be told in a two hour film, or twelve forty-five minute episodes, or a six-part miniseries each an hour long? A master film game director and writer (and, god knows, these are often far and few between) know that the length of their game runs anywhere from 30 to 100 hours, and it runs continuously. I mean, people can save and quit and you can have narrative arcs, but the story has to run continuously from point to point. Casablanca is a two hour self contained film- you're left asking questions at the end, but the story's narrative and major plots have been checked off and we're leaving the theatre feeling romantic and tragic and all that jazz. A game has to deal with the fact that by the end of two hours, you may only be finishing the tutorial, and the reveal of the game's villain, or the betrayal of a loyal friend may still be seven hours away, and the hero’s victory may not occur for more than an entire day in real time. That’s twenty-four hours worth of interaction that has to retain its ties to a narrative. The reason so many games are BAD is that they just can't sustain a story on that kind of a level. That being said, not all games are about story; many of them are just about having fun. Crafting beautiful worlds or landscapes to let people run around in, doing absurd things because they're having a good time. A complex musical game, where you've got to meld the harmonies of music into a unified theme to create lovely symphonic sound or the loopy absurdity of something like Mario- the little fat plumber in his overalls flying through outer space on a green dinosaur to save a princess from a giant, fire-breathing turtle. It’s absurd, and it’s hilarious and it is so much fun to inhabit this world.
Film needs to put you in a story- you need to care about the story and the people in it, and you'll suspend your disbelief because you care about who and what your seeing. A game needs to put you in a world, and it has to be a world where your interactions make sense, where things mesh together- and why we call a game broken when the world doesn't act in a way we feel makes any sense- when our ability to control our game-self is clunky or badly designed or where the actions of things around us are wrong.
I think I'm mad because I've been playing a game that understand story better than almost anything I've ever played before, Mass Effect 2, an epic trilogy, full of complex themes. An escaped slave who has no sense of herself beyond property, an angry young woman who was a test subject as a child, and carries around fury and baggage like you wouldn't believe. A scientist who struggles with having had to sterilize an entire species that threatened to conquer the galaxy, and now he has to watch them stagnate culturally and slowly die. The game always offers you a choice- what kind of person are you in this world? Are you the hero, who saves people and helps the downtrodden, or are you the selfish anti-hero, out only for yourself and not caring about who gets in your way. I care about the people in this game, because the actors who voice them aren't just phoning it in. Martin Sheen (Martin Sheen!) is an enigmatic and creepy head of a humanity first organization who funds your resurrection, but you can't trust him a millimeter. Michael Dorn as a belligerent viceroy, Marina Sirtis as a matriarch gone mad, Tricia Helfer, Adam Baldwin, Michael Hogan... the list goes on. These are sci-fi greats, and A-list actors, and they help build this world for you just as effectively as if they were acting on your DVD player.
I normally love Roger Ebert, but here he just comes off as a bitter old man who can't accept this kind of new medium. I can't help but think of Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille, when he gives his speech about how it’s more fun to write harsh criticism as a critic, but a critic really puts himself on the line when he comes to the defense of the new, because the new needs friends. Ebert was writing his piece as a response to a speech by a young woman who wanted to talk about why she thought games could be art- not always art, but have the potential to be. Ebert had to go and spit vitriol all over that. Games are often crap, but I have been as touched by the people of Mass Effect 2 as I was in the characters of Casablanca, or Star Trek, or as I did reading about the death of the boor Bolgs in the nuclear winter comic When The Wind Blows- and there's another medium that has to fight for people to give it a chance, for people to say that it can rise above pulp and be art. Ebert is just being old and spiteful, but it has got to hurt to the thousands of industry people trying to elevate their work so that a grumpy old critic will call it worthy. Andy Warhol painted a picture of a soup can, and we hail it a great art. Why can't we do the same to something like a game, which had hundred of artists and programmers laboring for years, and great actors lending their voices... when I'm old, and ranting that the Twitter holograms they beam into our brains will never be art, I hope I can remember that young people are trying to make something they can call their own.
An audience member at a film is entirely at the mercy of what is on the screen- a director has to show or tell everything via the strictly linear progression of the film it was printed on. In a game, a director has to work around the movement of the audience- should the player choose to run to here or there, or do this or that- a director has to still be able to tell a worthwhile story without obviously limiting the movement of the player.
In film, a masterful director (and writer and so on) knows how to say everything they need to within the time limit of a film or an episode. Can your story survive segmentation, and be told in a two hour film, or twelve forty-five minute episodes, or a six-part miniseries each an hour long? A master film game director and writer (and, god knows, these are often far and few between) know that the length of their game runs anywhere from 30 to 100 hours, and it runs continuously. I mean, people can save and quit and you can have narrative arcs, but the story has to run continuously from point to point. Casablanca is a two hour self contained film- you're left asking questions at the end, but the story's narrative and major plots have been checked off and we're leaving the theatre feeling romantic and tragic and all that jazz. A game has to deal with the fact that by the end of two hours, you may only be finishing the tutorial, and the reveal of the game's villain, or the betrayal of a loyal friend may still be seven hours away, and the hero’s victory may not occur for more than an entire day in real time. That’s twenty-four hours worth of interaction that has to retain its ties to a narrative. The reason so many games are BAD is that they just can't sustain a story on that kind of a level. That being said, not all games are about story; many of them are just about having fun. Crafting beautiful worlds or landscapes to let people run around in, doing absurd things because they're having a good time. A complex musical game, where you've got to meld the harmonies of music into a unified theme to create lovely symphonic sound or the loopy absurdity of something like Mario- the little fat plumber in his overalls flying through outer space on a green dinosaur to save a princess from a giant, fire-breathing turtle. It’s absurd, and it’s hilarious and it is so much fun to inhabit this world.
Film needs to put you in a story- you need to care about the story and the people in it, and you'll suspend your disbelief because you care about who and what your seeing. A game needs to put you in a world, and it has to be a world where your interactions make sense, where things mesh together- and why we call a game broken when the world doesn't act in a way we feel makes any sense- when our ability to control our game-self is clunky or badly designed or where the actions of things around us are wrong.
I think I'm mad because I've been playing a game that understand story better than almost anything I've ever played before, Mass Effect 2, an epic trilogy, full of complex themes. An escaped slave who has no sense of herself beyond property, an angry young woman who was a test subject as a child, and carries around fury and baggage like you wouldn't believe. A scientist who struggles with having had to sterilize an entire species that threatened to conquer the galaxy, and now he has to watch them stagnate culturally and slowly die. The game always offers you a choice- what kind of person are you in this world? Are you the hero, who saves people and helps the downtrodden, or are you the selfish anti-hero, out only for yourself and not caring about who gets in your way. I care about the people in this game, because the actors who voice them aren't just phoning it in. Martin Sheen (Martin Sheen!) is an enigmatic and creepy head of a humanity first organization who funds your resurrection, but you can't trust him a millimeter. Michael Dorn as a belligerent viceroy, Marina Sirtis as a matriarch gone mad, Tricia Helfer, Adam Baldwin, Michael Hogan... the list goes on. These are sci-fi greats, and A-list actors, and they help build this world for you just as effectively as if they were acting on your DVD player.
I normally love Roger Ebert, but here he just comes off as a bitter old man who can't accept this kind of new medium. I can't help but think of Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille, when he gives his speech about how it’s more fun to write harsh criticism as a critic, but a critic really puts himself on the line when he comes to the defense of the new, because the new needs friends. Ebert was writing his piece as a response to a speech by a young woman who wanted to talk about why she thought games could be art- not always art, but have the potential to be. Ebert had to go and spit vitriol all over that. Games are often crap, but I have been as touched by the people of Mass Effect 2 as I was in the characters of Casablanca, or Star Trek, or as I did reading about the death of the boor Bolgs in the nuclear winter comic When The Wind Blows- and there's another medium that has to fight for people to give it a chance, for people to say that it can rise above pulp and be art. Ebert is just being old and spiteful, but it has got to hurt to the thousands of industry people trying to elevate their work so that a grumpy old critic will call it worthy. Andy Warhol painted a picture of a soup can, and we hail it a great art. Why can't we do the same to something like a game, which had hundred of artists and programmers laboring for years, and great actors lending their voices... when I'm old, and ranting that the Twitter holograms they beam into our brains will never be art, I hope I can remember that young people are trying to make something they can call their own.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Such delay
"The psychology of the orgiastic as an overflowing feeling of life and strength, where even pain still has the effect of a stimulus, gave me the key to the concept of tragic feeling, which had been misunderstood both by Aristotle and even more by modern pessimists. Tragedy is so far from being a proof of the pessimism (in Schopenhauer's sense) of the Greeks that it may, on the contrary, be considered a decisive rebuttal and counterexample. Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and most painful episodes, the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustible vitality even as it witnesses the destruction of its greatest heroes — that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in order to be liberated from terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a dangerous affect by its vehement discharge — which is how Aristotle understood tragedy — but in order to celebrate oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity — that tragic joy included even joy in destruction."
-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
I've got previews in two weeks. I'll start posting agin when I start having the time.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Growing Old To Get Back To
Whilst in the midst of my evening washing-up, I was suddenly struck by the most poignant and ethereal memory. For merest fraction of a second I recalled with complete clarity the downstairs bathroom at my Grandmother's home in Don Mills. An odd room to remember so vividly, one might ask? Perhaps, but it is a room imbued with much memory. It wasn't always a bathroom. I believe in my very youngest days it was some sort of closet, or perhaps a pantry, I am not sure. Indeed, it may have always been a bathroom, and my memories are merely engaged in their constant habit of lying to me. When I was quite small, my grandparents decided to renovate their kitchen and dining room, a process that would, as I aged, be extended throughout the entire house until, when we sold it a few years ago, very, very little of the original sixties decor remained. I remember only seeing the white coverings over the kitchen hallway, and of visiting with my grandparents in the always chilly basement, where for the first and last time in my life had what I think were Ladies Fingers, a type of long confectionary cookie that have been an unrequited desire for the last seventeen odd years since I tried them. In addition to the kitchen redecorating (which would create a rather bizarre placement of electric ranges at an odd angle to a wall mounted oven, something I never understood), the little pantry or what-have-you was rebuilt into a small bathroom. Simple furnishings, just a sink, mirror and a toilet, with not even a counter or shelves. The mirror was oval (I think), functional if nothing to write home about, the sink a tad spindly and the toilet an unremarkable example of its species. The wallpaper was green, bright but not lurid, multi-hued but not overbearing, pseudo floral without ever merging into a precise geometric shape. A little white wicker wastepaper basket stood between the sink and the toilet, and there was a toilet brush behind. The toilet paper dispenser equally white and functional. The floor tile was the same as the hallway and the kitchen and dinning room, large six inch tiles of alternating terracotta and pale brown, with grey mortar in between. In fact, I think it was the only original furnishing still extant on the ground floor, the heavy stonework on the fireplace not withstanding.
Why is this little water closet so enshrined in my memory? Well, it largely has to do with its location, which I shall attempt to illustrate with some simple ASCII art:
,,,,, __ [->
->] ^
Those three lines are three doors. Following the arrows from left to right, you would go OUT from the the bathroom into the hallway, up and IN through the door to the kitchen, and the THROUGH to the living room via the door on the right. Make sense? Capital. That little bathroom was therefore at the almost intersection of the two most important rooms in the house. And that little rest room was quite pivotal. The always lovely smell of the soap (my grandmother never bought anything less then the nicest of soaps) would mix with the smell of roasted French chicken as you would stop to wash your hands before sitting down to dine. The agony of having to leave a fascinating conversation or witty story behind in the leaving room as you darted to the washroom because you urgently needed to pee. It was also a temperature affair. With the fireplace on, the living-room would get quite hot, and when dinner was under construction, the kitchen would be equally warm. That green sea of sweet smelling soap was then a place of refuge from the heat, a moment of cooling the senses before returning into the social fray. I would often dart out to that little loo and then stay in the relative coolness of the hallway; thinking back on it now I would venture to say that this may have been an incipient symptom of what I have decided to euphemistically call my “Screaming Child Early Warning System”. Those gathering could get quite noisy, and spending time in the cool and quiet bathroom and hallway was a way to disengage from all that noise.
I miss the house. I grieve for it, to be blunt, and miss it with a longing that fills me with such sorrow. I don't feel this way for many people. For me, what that house represented was serenity, a refuge from the chaos that was the world. It was in the economically troubled and oft-times emotionally turbulent house in Creemore, and in my less cash-strapped home in Guelph, that I spent most of my growing up, but my grandparent's home was the bulwark against turbulent change and uncertainty. With my grandparents death, and the loss of that house, I have at times felt anchoress. With no Grey Havens to find my way too, my feelings of being adrift seem only to have intensified.
When I was younger and in some ways dumber then I am now, one of my recurring fantasies was that was the home I wanted to settle down with my partner, perhaps renting from my grandmother, and start a family after attending some no-doubt prestigious Toronto university.
In various ways, all those elements are now long gone, and mostly to my detriment, although I note with a touch of deep humility that I am astonished to find myself in a relationship far more healthy, stable, loving and noteworthy then those that preceded it. I must then ask myself a question, and that is this. If such dream-elements can become true again, then may it might not be a sign that I am finally coming out of the sea of uncertainty that I have found myself lost in over the past few years? If this postulate is true, then one can only wish that I will find another serene harbour for a second home.
I can only hope it has nice bathrooms.
Why is this little water closet so enshrined in my memory? Well, it largely has to do with its location, which I shall attempt to illustrate with some simple ASCII art:
,,,,, __ [->
->] ^
Those three lines are three doors. Following the arrows from left to right, you would go OUT from the the bathroom into the hallway, up and IN through the door to the kitchen, and the THROUGH to the living room via the door on the right. Make sense? Capital. That little bathroom was therefore at the almost intersection of the two most important rooms in the house. And that little rest room was quite pivotal. The always lovely smell of the soap (my grandmother never bought anything less then the nicest of soaps) would mix with the smell of roasted French chicken as you would stop to wash your hands before sitting down to dine. The agony of having to leave a fascinating conversation or witty story behind in the leaving room as you darted to the washroom because you urgently needed to pee. It was also a temperature affair. With the fireplace on, the living-room would get quite hot, and when dinner was under construction, the kitchen would be equally warm. That green sea of sweet smelling soap was then a place of refuge from the heat, a moment of cooling the senses before returning into the social fray. I would often dart out to that little loo and then stay in the relative coolness of the hallway; thinking back on it now I would venture to say that this may have been an incipient symptom of what I have decided to euphemistically call my “Screaming Child Early Warning System”. Those gathering could get quite noisy, and spending time in the cool and quiet bathroom and hallway was a way to disengage from all that noise.
I miss the house. I grieve for it, to be blunt, and miss it with a longing that fills me with such sorrow. I don't feel this way for many people. For me, what that house represented was serenity, a refuge from the chaos that was the world. It was in the economically troubled and oft-times emotionally turbulent house in Creemore, and in my less cash-strapped home in Guelph, that I spent most of my growing up, but my grandparent's home was the bulwark against turbulent change and uncertainty. With my grandparents death, and the loss of that house, I have at times felt anchoress. With no Grey Havens to find my way too, my feelings of being adrift seem only to have intensified.
When I was younger and in some ways dumber then I am now, one of my recurring fantasies was that was the home I wanted to settle down with my partner, perhaps renting from my grandmother, and start a family after attending some no-doubt prestigious Toronto university.
In various ways, all those elements are now long gone, and mostly to my detriment, although I note with a touch of deep humility that I am astonished to find myself in a relationship far more healthy, stable, loving and noteworthy then those that preceded it. I must then ask myself a question, and that is this. If such dream-elements can become true again, then may it might not be a sign that I am finally coming out of the sea of uncertainty that I have found myself lost in over the past few years? If this postulate is true, then one can only wish that I will find another serene harbour for a second home.
I can only hope it has nice bathrooms.
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