When they read this...

Do you think they regret sounding like the way they do? Or do they not even notice?

I like pools, though I would expect them to make it a bit smaller.

Speaking of Chinese accomplishments...

Hobs forwarded this over to me. A nice interface I think for my Popo's favorite piece of art. It doesn't look like it at first, but it's a great segue for testing whether or not her grandchildren remember World War II.

I'm trying to find those one-wheel carriage things I keep hearing about.

I own too many books, y'know?

I missed a chance to post not-filler. Alas.

Also, now that I recognize scenery music so often used on This American Life as being from Philip Glass's score for Mishima--a fact both obvious and unexpected--I can't hear it without picturing someone committing seppuku.



And because I want it on dvd and when I think of Glass I think of Nyman and I was on youtube, Prospero's Books:

You're kidding, sir!

Chengora asked me my opinion on this slate piece about action scenes in movies. He further sent me this:

Interesting analysis. I was going to post a comment about martial arts movies, but the analysis already takes that into account. I wonder if the central focus of guns in action films set in more modern times requires more cuts in order to obtain the most visceral part of a fight. Whereas in martial arts movies you can do a close up of a face to establish the character's emotional state, then zoom out to a full body frame - in both cases you still have a sense of emotional/personal expression. I don't know if you can do that with gunfights, where the individuals are performing a much more limited set of actions.

To which I say, kidding, yes?

The gunfight, tension filled, is the hallmark of the western, the action genre of western cinema. Real gunfights take seconds, less than minutes certainly, they've always been extended so you can cat and mouse it, so you can linger on their faces. Heck, Once Upon a Time in the West is 60% extreme closeup, or some other exorbitant ratio.

That said, the post wanted to talk about fighting more than just action, and non-martial arts (this includes boxing) has typically ignored the skill part, endorsing showing mainly the physicality of fighting (ideally), and sometimes just the effort of it (grunting a lot). Some of this comes from a professional wrestling like obsession with big immovable men in their action stars--so much so it's interesting that they pin point Bruce Willis, the only action star out of the 80's to be built like a fit man, instead of a, well, professional wrestler.

I think it's funny that Bourne Ultimatum is such a high watermark, since that's the Bourne movie that conceded it's shaky cam aesthetic with a capoeria inspired fighter. You don't add that style in film if you aren't conceding to aesthetics, to the appreciation of the body and skill.

I think the piece finished with a very good fight, with Cronenberg's set piece in Eastern Promises. Possibly though, the other true fight on film is the one in Casino Royale, in the bathroom. The graceless but skilled killing of another person, in particular contrast in the most glamorous of movie franchises. If anything, the Bourne movies fetishize the skillful killer more than any other. It disorientates exactly when death is going to be inflicted.

Yowch.

A month and a half. This is insulting casual disregard for even the low bar of mediocrity is appalling...

On a sidenote, I think the New Yorker cartoonists' blog proves that they are funny, but normally not allowed to be.

King City Vol. 2 is being posted...due to the well documented woes of Tokyopop.

And I hear that in the next Harvest Moon you can ride an ostrich (which you presumably raise for eggs). Japan, you know my every weakness.

Onwards!

Not meaning to bum-rush China...

but this particular happening came up during my morning crawl through comic news. It's not terribly surprising, but I'm always astonished how wholesale copying can be now, at least James Fry and the Stephen Glass and the like made stuff up--this is like that Opal Mehta nonsense with Mad Libs plagiarism. Not exactly lazier, I guess, since printing and layout is resource consuming. But damn. It reminds me that I have a friend who was based in Hong Kong for a while, as a lawyer, and looking to work in China specifically with intellectual property, but didn't stay for, amongst other reasons, the complete lack of IP law/enforcement/basis of trying that specialization in China right now.

But in the midst of all this pent-up bad Chinaness, I wanted to point to a Slate piece (which I can't find right now, but I will) that put should put some of their development in context (which, I'm sorry, I can't resist, is not something the Chinese media is every involved in doing). Namely that while the process of modernizing China is inarguably flawed , this is an undertaking that has dragged the largest mass of humanity out of poverty ever. The scale doesn't excuse the Reign of Terror style of politics that has often emerged, but likewise it's an achievement on its own merits.

Actually, I mostly think that economic development, Communism (not that they're really so Communist anymore) did force the leveling of gender rights in China. I doubt it's equal, much as it isn't in the U.S., but given the extremely male-centric culture there's been a lot down for women's rights by China. Whether this will progress into a leadership and advocacy role when the economic gains by such moves aren't so obvious (or even develop into self-awareness of it) is in question. Imagine if the Edison Chen stupidness had provoked a discussion about the obviously skeevy at best(consenting adults aside) fact that a popular and influential male star took advantage of his position over more than half a dozen women, and will likely be the only one with a career after.

Or if instead of responding to the U.S. State Department's annual list of human rights violations, China responded with not a relatively week list of America's own, but statistics about the millions they can raise out of poverty? I mean, when Chinese achievements aren't "scientists" scraping off the Intel logo off microchips.

Oops, sorry, can't help it.

Nothing but respect.

for this.

It's not a working transformer costume, but it's the same in spirit.

I take back every mean thing I've ever said about China...

its tendency to confuse scarcity with quality, its passing familiarity with the normal definitions of quality, the nonexistence of the concept of intellectual property, its cultural self-aggrandizement and entitlement, its normally crap swipes...

All is forgiven. Re: Dave's Long Box post.

God, shameless commerce really is your best side, huh?

We don't want no european decadence!*

Eliot Spitzer has taken a tumble and, at least before the financial business this week, the NY media engines has revelled in a having a new topic outside of the Democractic primary campaigns--a nice break I actually. Curiously, I was more surprised (shock is too strong) than coworkers and the like about the situation. I don't think of myself as a prude (so I guess the real shock to me is the realization that I'm not the go-to cynic in every conversation--there was a time I'd have laid bets on that certainty) but no one seemed terribly surprised. Mind you , it could certainly be that one of those reflexive "Oh, that always happens things. Aren't they always?" Which is obviously not true, or else, well or else there'd be more stories. But there aren't, because I don't live in Rhode Island.

So anyway, it's nice and all that some quarters are taking this opportunity to talk about the true effects of prostitution. The results in Sweden of the legalization of selling sex combined with the criminalization of buying sex on trafficking, and prostitution rates in general being especially interesting. Some of the commentary touched upon this article by the inestimable Martha Nussbaum, which if you read, you will see focuses greatly on prostitution an how the laws and enforcement reflect other things, but begins with the trope of the American among sophisticated Europeans wondering about American prudery. Why for are we lingering on the prurient when there is so much more to discuss?

Well, beyond the fact that we in New York are one of the few cities with vibrant enough daily papers to have the need to for some tabloid fare, so obviously there's inches to fill, he was the freakin' attorney general elected on a reform campaign. Not by a little bit. It is possible that the reaction is less about the sex, then about the hypocrisy. Also, the sheer stupidness of a former prosecutor laying out the trail that he did. Not all laws are moral, but breaking the law usually isn't. **

Also in the past week, there was also the release of Funny Games by Michel Haneke. I think the AV Club lays out the most generous and informative take on it. I'm pretty sympathetic to these sorts of art stunts, and after seeing Cache (which I consider one of the finest films I've ever seen), I have a great deal of respect for the director, with a generosity of spirit I don't think I'd extend to either Lars Von Trier (pretentious European provocateur) or the genre related if not intellectually (or only disingenuously) torture porn and ultraviolence these days. Maybe Oldboy gets a pass, but god I hate locked room stories. Long exposition aside, a comment mentioned the fact that even if the movie were a success in the manner Haneke intends, that is as an indictment of the audience as complicit in violence in our culture, he'd probably think that we as Americans liked it because of the torture. So to the continent that created this and other insightful fare like Irreversibleah I say back off. We get it. You aren't that smart. Or we don't, like everyone else. This business is only slightly more annoying than the Americans don't have passports cliche.

But in the interests of equal time, I say it has been fascinating to see the likes Naomi Watts promoting arthouse fare on Leno and the like. And follow it on to Funny Games review itself, but alright. Maybe we don't get it.

*I don't actually care about European decadence.

** Edited to fix stupidity.

I'm deeply conflicted...

It's a thrill to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li together for the first time (though honestly, their styles kinda clash). It wasn't till the middle of this trailer that I realized that this was an American production (there's another version that reveals this as Neverending Story in China much more explicitly). I'm a bit fearful that this'll be Bulletproof Monk again...ah well, I'll probably still l see it. It won't be worse than House of Flying Daggers right? Right?

Also, Tan Dun--so over. Please get someone else. Use that fellow that Johnny To uses. Heck, get Johnny To some of that big Hollywood money and import his style. I like the actors from Asia too, but if you can't get them to commit to more interesting projects, then start pulling in the directors. We don't need no Edison Chen.

On this, the 101st post...

I bring you what I bring you best.

I want one of these.

These are neat. I linked to the source, but this is where I got it, and the banner ads at hobby blog embarrass me.

A bit older, but Jim Steranko's hair in this romance comic is fabulous. I keep staring at it.

And an oldie but a one-I-just-read-so-it-interests me. Namely in the comments.

This is why blogs exist

I want share the fact that every time I see a wil.i.am produced video supporting Obama, I want to change sides. God, they're like Apple commercials or something.

I have half a mind to start a facebook group called "wil.i.am made me switch" except it would increase my involvement in facebook beyond my accepted copyright-infringing board game playing.

I won't sully this virtual ground of intellectual discourse and items of marginal interest by actually linking to the videos, you can find it if yourselves if you like. Dipdive or some shit.

Still filler...

So obviously, I continue to lie about my involvement with this blog. But work feels like work even when I'm not working. Yes this is a link blog item, but let me say I never expected to read something like this on a major gaming gossip site--a smart article about sexuality and juvenile sexuality in video games that doesn't spend all its time mired in preemptively defending itself from charges that it wants to take everyone's cheesecake frosting or equating boobs with adult material. It's one of the smartest thing ever on one of these sites really ever. Possibly the only flaw being that as the writer's expertise/interest seems to be Chinese cinema, all the examples come from there. Already one or two of the thicker set in the comments section think it's a comment on just one national culture, and not gaming culture generally.

Without delving into what the approach to narratives should be in video games, the sooner characterization in games matures past sexuality = thongs--though, first things first, we need to go by adult = sex--the sooner we can all collectively sneer off the folks who try to rationalize porn trading cards in Witcher as being character building.

It's interesting, I think, how the fact that this sort of discussion is so rare shows how much the study of video games is. It's still mostly concerned with defining what a "video game" is and the admittedly big task of figuring out the mix interactivity, game, and narrative . . . in essentially expanding the vocabulary of how you talk about games. It's so much in its infancy it hasn't even come up with pretentious term for itself yet, like "interactive novel" or vide0 games* or something.

More or less, there are a lot of John Woos, a few John Fords** out there in gaming, maybe even a Spielberg, but no Hitchcock. Which is me trying to say, conventions in games aren't common enough (mostly a strength of gaming actually, that they can be so varied) that the master manipulators work in genres of games instead of narrative genres) that we have designers playing with audience expectations just yet.*** That self-aware design cycle might've begun in adventure gaming (if adventure gaming was even half as healthy now as when Sierra was churning out franchises it might've even gone past jokes) but mostly, not enough examples of manipulating audience expectation. I don't actually like audience manipulation, it turns into cheap shocks usually, but when you're meta enough to start designing that way, that's when gaming will have really matured.

Chengora, I invite you to finish Bioshock and tell me if I'm wrong.


* You have to see the zero, and know that Art Spiegelman wants adult comics to be called comix, by the way, or it's not funny.
** Sid Meier/Miyamoto in Zelda mode
*** Penn and Teller don't count.

I am a big fat liar, sincerely hcduvall

Content tomorrow.

I can hardly review something properly if I read it months ago, right?

It's going to be the first volume of Crossing Midnight, incidentally.

802

That’s the number of items rated on my account in Netflix. It’s a tally not so much from enjoying rating things (though click click refresh is a easy way to burn time and I do enjoy it), but the hope that whatever recommendation algorithm lurks behind may leads me to something interesting. Of course, with the inherent limitations of 5-star rating systems, the internet’s grade inflations, etc…

As I am of the anal and tedious sort, I’d like a two tier rating system for the quality of work and enjoyment factor. For example:

• Willow: 2, paint-by-numbers serial; 5, Mad Martigan earns undisguised love
• Lost in Translation: 4-5, good notes from the WKW class, great Bill Murray; 1, accomplished craft in the service of solipsism earns outright disgust
  

Well, maybe I do enjoy being judgmental more than most (and that’s why I’m anonymous on the internet). But Izicmo has mentioned something more useful. She advocates for the addition of a 2.5 rating. It’s meant for compelling mediocrity (Born Into Brothels, great kids, great story. Also, the Rough Guide to Poverty) or weakly received craft (Behind the Sun, possibly the prettiest movie ever. Thin as a sliver).

But all that’s a massive tangent bulking up the one item I wanted to blog. After you return something to Netflix, if you haven’t rated it, the website will ask you to rate the sucker and get two recommendations. The first result seems to actually be tied directly to the rating, the second's relationship probably being more diffuse usually results in a generic rec. I returned the first disc of Freaks and Geeks and gave it a 2 when asked.* Thusly, computron said, seek ye Red Dwarf and Band of Brothers. The first is pretty spot on, sloppy black humor being something of the opposite of Apatow’s verve. I decided to like and love the thing instead, but sadly failed to note what should’ve been my heart’s desire (Sunset Boulevard is the agreeable second pick). No, not 40-year-old Virgin. I did note what hate wrought. What am I guaranteed to love with the certification of hate to 70’s high school misfits? This. Ha!

* It’s well made, and has a lot going for it (even as I think it’s obvious why it didn’t hit). Man was I bored.

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

That’s better than any opening lines I could come up. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad is a manga cum anime that exemplifies the breath of the import flood of Japanese-created diversion that has my homegrown sorts of entertainments offsides lately. In brief, it’s coming of age time for Yukio (aka Koyuki), as an encounter with the bizarre dog Beck finds hi befriending its owner, Ryuusuke Minami. And adventurous hijinks later, in a band named after the dog. And what about Ryuusuke’ss sister Maho? See, interest piqued.

A pretty great premise I think, for a serial of any sort. I’d opted not to pick up the manga before as the art wasn’t for me, but read an interview* with the editor that talked about adapting it to an inevitable anime. A hard sell with manga, what with audio not being a sense that pages can convey, but the music seemed chosen with care—and the 30 volumes (6k+ worth of pages, probably) got compressed to one(!) season. Worth a shot.

And it does have a lot going for it. The characters are rounded, and the story grows naturalistically, if slightly cramped at times. I imagine a smoother revelation of the Olympic class swim coach also being a rock fan and guitar teacher, but maybe it’s just awkward because Yukio learns guitar in one summer, or one episode. But I’m happy not to read the 6 volumes it probably took. It pulls off a pretty hard feat of not being a melodramatic and subdued anime. There’s a moment when Koyuki is having a phone conversation with Ryuusuke early on in their relationship, and maybe because the latter was raised in America (or Holland, I can’t tell) he asks Koyuki not to add –kun and just say it suffixless. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to sound like a kid, and of course he’s all grown up, and Koyuki sits on the stair with the phone silently for a bit, and smiles. And if you know using a name without attachments indicates the closeness of family or lovers in Japan, it’s a pretty sweet scene.

Mind you, pauses don’t always work. Paul Gravett says that the financial constraints of Japanese cartoons sometimes makes animation less than fluid, and quiet moments could just be the studio being cheap. (He says cheap moments can have gravity actually, but I’m of the mind they’re just cheap here). So when longhaired figures mutter things sullenly in the rain, their eyes are covered by sulkiness—well, whatever, they’re teenagers, let’s let that go. The problematic part is the engrish (see: intro song). It’s one thing to have “Coko” instead of “Coke” and the cringe inducing “41nd street” or Ramonne Johnny—trademarks being what they are—but since they decided to “hit in America” and opt for lyrics in english, the misuse of language starts being a liability. The manga can’t do it, but here the music should be a star and not a misfire. I can ignore them in the joyful bop of the intro, but end of the day, some of the music sucks. “Full Moon Sways” (typing this out, I made a little vomitty sound).

Could be that this is just cultural misapprehension, or lack of effort—which is frankly a global game—but they don’t need to be complete sentences. Just you know, make more sense.**

In general, they sound like cheerful grunge, though doubtless the future holds more grand stylistic experiments with blues or punk, which I'm terribly frightened of. (Cowboy Bebop integrated music well, too, but “Real Folk Blues” was neither folk or blues--and that was the succesful anime. Samurai Champloo and Furi Kuri are a mite more successful. ) I don’t think the creators were shooting for the jovial Pearl Jam sound they ended up with in the Beck proper, but they seemed influenced by the biggest bands of the nineties mostly. (Ideally, I think they should go for a cleaner Dinosaur Jr., personally).

Well, I say it's worth watching.


* I’ve lost the link to it.
** I also question the use of foreigners for two incidents of gaijin related tomfoolery in four episodes: One a dangerous encounter with drunk marines(?); another two propositioning tourists (possibly it’s about the angry teen girl, but I dunno), but that might be a bit of national pride on my part. And as always, foolishness abides. Though the first scene is about more than plain idiocy.

A word from our sponsor*

Well, I haven't really gotten to what I wanted to get to lately...if it means anything to you three, I've finished the freelance assignment, so we're back in intermittent business here as well. To trumpet and herald the possible return of posts, I bring you something that's here because, to the best of my knowledge, it has never been remotely covered here despite inspiring the blog's name.

Announced at the best reason to go to Minnesota, GenCon: AD&D 4th Edition. It's got rules changes!

But much more importantly, it is Wizards of the Coast incorporating online play, which is ample reason for me to point out the real highlight of the article. Ladies and gentlemen, if it's not online, we're in meatspace. Couldn't have dreamed of a better term myself.

*Edited to make more sense. The whole post that is. I maintain that within 24 hours, wholesale changes may happen without notice to fix things. After that, they aren't mistakes. They are stylistic twitches that make things more better.

stupid nerds.

I like to avoid link blogging and said like filler, but I also like to waste time today, so...Dirk Deppey at the Journalista blog had an entry today (under comics culture) that referred back to a New York Times article that is the very definition of filler for the paper which discusses nerdiness as an expression of hyperwhiteness and nerds as specifically "refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded." Some of the weaknesses in that vein of argument are in called out in Deppey's piece. I'm personally trying to figure out if I've misread my childhood and becoming a nerd was some sort of active rebellion as opposed to a defensive posture. And while joining any group while young is partly a defensive move, I don't recall "I want to be a nerd" being a rallying cry the way even preppies might have had it. Of course, that means that every exclusively white youth culture is either an absorption of African-American culture or a rebellion from absorbing it.

I'm especially thrilled that this racial reading of subculture (not inherently a bad mode to be) involves deracinating Asians as a group (oops). Possibly, our nerdlike cultural typing has either having been absorbed as whiteness or is not counted outright. I know our nation discusses race in black/white primarily...but you spring up from California with this stuff then you got to cast a wider net. I'm sure I'm leaving folks out too, but then, I haven't written a book yet. So, filler, and embarssing academia. Awesome.

EDIT: Someone other then me's actually coherent response to the article.

ciencia del cohete

August 10th

Slumming in Shanghai

I never truly grasped how much puff there is in newspapers until I started reading them regularly. If mistake reading a trend piece looking for news, I mostly shrug, with the occasional shake of the head at a particularly poorly constructed segue. Now it’s evident that the advent of blogging that diarylike pieces has provided a new arena for fluff to appear. The New York Times is running some sort of series about people making homes in foreign countries, a interesting enough start point.

Not so much for the commentary about China or Shanghai, (despite the red state label)—though the broker stuff is kinda interesting to me—I was struck by this piece. Well, by about a page of this piece, before I got bored and skimmed the rest. I’m struck by the weird blinders on the writer, the lack of self-awareness combined with the sense that the writer is thoughtful. And don’t mean her interaction with China, and I actually don’t want to discuss China in this post, but the strange dissonance in the article.

She’s moving out of New York, tired of boutique shops on Bleecker and the $20 hamburgers.* The fear of terrorism is certainly real, but a good of her motivation to move seems to be related to escaping being surrounded by conspicuous consumption, even while marveling at the ease for finding a 2k sq. foot space plus for 1,500 a month (a couple hundred less than per capita in China). The experience of finding her newly renovated rented family house in old middle class neighborhood (the sort getting plumbing while developers force out tenants) with an oven, ac and heater is likened to finding a $150 a month apartment in New York back in the day. I tell you I can find an apartment in Shanghai right now for $150. It might come with a bucket.

So she’s leaving New York to Shanghai to escape conspicuous consumption, and I wouldn’t begrudge that, and I know this Home and Garden**, but what the hell? The theme in the piece that keeps coming is the energy in the new gold rush Shanghai is like living in early 70s New York. Target audience or not, what kind of dissonance is required to decide that's a good notion? Now, I didn’t live in New York in the seventies, but presumably she’s excited for the economy to bottom out and all the attendant crises. Much to look forward to. But her neighbors are thrifty and not wasteful. And the middle class and poor, they live near by. And I guess living next door to that might assuage whatever ill-defined (not even necessarily necessary) guilt she might feel.

Anyway, good luck to Shanghai, hopefully not actually beginning to feel the greatness of New York in the seventies, or it has an absolute shit decade to come.

* There is that foi gras burger though that’s bound to be more than twenty, but I still don’t know where to get a $20 burger other than in hotels.
** There’s always the occasional article about young people happy to be independent in soho and with the parents paying for freshdirect.