i can hear you

Well, expect gradual changed to this site over time. One of the first is I have enabled commenting on blog posts.

When I created this blog back at the end of 2001, I decided in a strict one way style of communication- I yap, and if people listen or not is no concern of mine. Sort of like my old radio show in college that aired at 6-8am on Saturday mornings. I was just talking into the æther as far as I cared.

But in the spirit of Web 2.0 and whatnot, I am going to try and better utilize the collaborative nature of the internet and stuff.

Feel free to give a shout in the comments, if only to let me know who all is out there reading.

cheers!

Looking cool

This is a shot I snapped of us at McCarren Park Pool for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Sonic Youth show.
us
Originally uploaded by Jedo.

much of muchness

Sorry for the long lag between posts, but a great deal has happened of late.

Namely, Lilia my blushing bride to be, has arrived in the USA for good, and now we are planning and executing our wedding in about a month. Interesting note- weddings are complex affairs and require a lot of work.

About 2 weeks ago we went back to my hometown of Lexington so family could finally meet her in person, and also introduce Lilia to the eccentricities of my southern roots, so that she had time to flee before it was too late. (To her credit, Kentucky did not phase her one bit)

Watch this space for more updates as the big day approaches.

gogol gadget drum!

Went to the Gogol Bordello show last night at Irving Plaza. It was pretty crazy. The opening band Kultur Shock from Seattle was very good too, and pretty wild- the two bands kept jumping out into each other's sets and joining in: an unbelievable amount of energy in the hall. At the end some of the band members rode a drum out over the audience like it was a ship. Definitely a band you need to see live.

Life = TV

I had the thought the other day that the reason that fundamentalists seem to be so hung up on apocalyptic visions is that they see human history to be like a novel, with a definite beginning, gradual ramping up, and then a big fiery conclusion, and a nice big THE END. Especially when the plot is centered around them- their struggle is the main struggle of the world. They have an almost pathological fear of being bit characters, or irrelevant to the story. So have a need to keep trying to hijack history, and keep the spotlight on them as they wait for the big ending.

I like to see human history as a fairly interesting TV drama, where you missed the first few episodes, so you don't exactly know how it all started, but seems to be going pretty good, and you know that sometime soon it will probably start getting to be really bad before eventually being cancelled, but you don't know when that is, and anyway, each little bit is pretty good on its own merits, so is good enough.

Anyway, I kind of suspect that if Bush wants his war with Iran to happen, he is going to need another 9/11 to happen to generate the will to go to war in the American people. Some tinfoil hat types might say that Bush & co. could engineer it, but really he dosen't have to. There are plenty of Islamic fundementalists out there in the world how probably have more to gain from the US-Iran war then the texas oil gang, and the apocolyptic born-again types Bush represents. So all Bush has to do is go on TV an make noises about how he is just on the verge of doing it... and all it takes is one little push... and the message could not be clearer. Blow up something in the US, and then Bush can attack Iran 'in self-defense' and the gulf between the west and the near east widens even more. Everybody wins!

Except for that 98% of the people caught in the middle who really don't have a dog in that fight.

Art and Arting

Marxy has an interesting post about the diminishing returns of cultural works, and points the finger at blogs. Basically the immediency and redundancy of newsblogs diminishes the the value of a piece of art, a band, or a film. And yet he didn't talk about how Movies used to have weeks of time in the theaters- but now movies make the bulk of their grosses on the opening weekend. You can't go see a film in a theater multiple times, since it is typically gone in 10 days.

One of the ideas I took from my Chinese art history class was the idea of static art as entertainment. What this means is that there is this tradition of the Chinese intelligentsia sitting in a peaceful room, drinking tea, and looking at a painting for hours on end. Seems very wise and profound? Perhaps, although their paintings were not constructed like ours. They were more like our graphic novels- on scrolls that extend for meters and meters, telling an involved tale. And even the paintings of landscapes which were intended to be hung on a wall and viewed all at once, did not use the tricks of perspective used in the west, and showed an involved environment with a great amount of detail. A traveler might be shown in the paining passing over a mountain, and they would be repeatedly depicted in different places on the mountain, showing each stage of the journey.

This method of viewing art, or Arting came to the west and sparked Cubism, and a whole host of post-modern ways of dealing with art. My point is that there are different ways of experiencing works, and the way that we might consume it now may not be the best way. So what if it is changing? In some ways recorded media is an aberration, and people's consumption is reverting back to the way it was before the invention of the phonograph or the printing press.

Adjusting for Inflation

Remember how in the 1930s, people payed $.10 for a good cup of coffee, but we don't think twice about spending many times that now a days for the same thing? That is called inflation, and and has been a side effect of our goring economy. Now just as people earn more now, (causing prices to rise) people are also living longer. People are spending more time in school in their youths, they are waiting longer to have kids, and are are being active later and later in life. It used to be that making it to the retirement age of 55 was a tough haul, but now companies are having to force people out at age 65 or even 70.

But the emotional significance of age has remained the same. We still think that a woman who is unmarried and childless at age 30 is a sad thing- and yet new advnaces in fertillity mean women are perfectly able to have children later in life. We think of 45 as middle age, and we think of 60 as "old" And yet our generation may turn out to have an average life expectancy of 110 or 120. Why is it that we are defining almost 1/2 of your potential lifespan as 'old'? Old should be the last little bit of your life where you sit around and tell stories, and yell at the TV...

So, assuming that people are living 25% longer these days, but when talking about ages, we act like nothings changed, we should be able to adjust for this inflationthis is my solution: its called the point eight solution. What you do is multiply your age by .8, and the result is your social age- it is the adjusted age that you should use when trying to make judgements about how you feel about your life.

For example, a 30 year old who is single, and childless should use their social age of 24 when thinking about their life. A person having a mid life crisis at age 45 should relax, since their adjusted age is in fact only 36. And someone who is approaching the age of 65 should remember that in terms of society, they are actually only 52.

Give it a try, and see if you think it "feels right" your age in years is simply a measurement of how many times the earth had gone around the sun since you were born- don't think of this as lying about your age- but simply adjusting for inflation. ^_^

Spring!

Wow, for some reason today seems to be a good day. Nothing I can really put my finger on. No huge event happened. Its just a nice warmish Tuesday in spring where everything seems to be clicking. I need to try and sit back and appriciate it more.

No deep thoughts today, unless that counted as one. Cheers!

The real world is Janky. Jenky is a great word I picked up recently. But I have been looking at mySpace of late, and the one thing that strikes me is how much effort people go to screw up their profiles. As a designer that is horrifying and fascinating.

I think that with the growth of stealth marketing, (ads masquerading as forum posts, blogs, podcasts, graffiti, etc.) People sense 'realness' as being half assed and screwed up. No matter how much an ad agency might try to imitate the "kids" they have a requirement from their clients that the message be legible and professional. And so the inverse is, to proclaim your 'realness' you have to be so broken and screwed up, that you are practically gibberish. In a word, Janky.

As the artificial gets more perfect, and imitative, the real has to become even more 'real' just to remain so. Artficially Janky.

Interesting moral in there somewhere.

and now for the healing

So one of the things that annoy me the most about 9/11 was that it occurred on the first fresh cool day of fall after a very long and muggy summer. That Tuesday had amazingly clear blue skies. So much so, that after that on days with deep clear blue skies, I would get edgy, as part of me began tensing in anticipation of some new disaster.

But as I discovered last week, no longer.

I have been playing Animal Crossing for the DS quite a bit since I got it back in December. And one of the things that happen in Animal Crossing is that when certain conditions are right, (namely a clear blue sky) a present will float across the screen, hanging from a red balloon. In the game, at that point you have to race to get under it, and shoot it down before it drifts off screen.

Walking to work last week, I noticed the sky was a brilliant blue wile walking through Times Square, and caught myself looking up for present bearing balloons instinctually.

You Rock, Nintendo.

on paper

I can recall as a kid getting into an argument with someone about whether vanilla was a flavor. I wanted a vanilla ice cream cone, and they were baffled by that- to their thinking, vanilla ice cream was simply the default, the black canvas upon which other flavors would be delivered. Don’t recall if I won that argument, but I always liked vanilla- and one of my strongest memorys as a child was sneaking a sniff of the vanilla extract bottle from the spice cabinet.

My feelings on paper are similar. I have been occupied with the logistics of getting the albatross moved, and set up, so much so I have not had much time to reflect on what happens next. When people ask me what I plan to DO with it, I tend to go blank for a second. I have a pretty good idea of how I want to do it, but exactly what has escaped me till recently.

Letterpress as a printing form has advantages and disadvantages, like any other method. It is good at making crisp lines, and problematic at doing many colors, gradients, or anything even vaguely photorealistic. I know that comic art (of limited colors) would look excellent on it, as well as text- the thing it was invented to replicate.

But I think its singular virtue over all other forms, is its physicality. It creates an impression in the page when it is used. Looking at the paper you can see a record of the action of the printing. And that is something completely separate from the content that was printed. So in that respect there is something a little post modern in letterpress- the medium becomes part of the message, if you use it to its full potential.

One of the things I have had the most requests for from people, is to know if I will make business cards for them- I have had 5 or 6 requests for that, even though I have no interest in spending my weekends printing hundreds of little cards- to make it worth the man hours, it will be far too expensive for them I think. And Letterpress is a great technique for business cards, diplomas, invitations. The thing that these all have in common is that the content isn’t the main thing. The paper is treated like an object. I think this is something that can be found in all ‘card’ type things. A card is a paper object- it has a use beyond just something you read. And as such it benefits from physicality of the letterpress process.

So I am not sure exactly what I am doing- I am continuing to research cards and work on my ideas. But I guess my point is that paper is more then just the medium- its my vanilla.

yeah, it's glib

So a thought that has been bugging me for a while is this. Photography has a transformative power, in that it is a hard copy of what we see. More then see, it is a copy of what captures out attention. Which is fine and cool, and all that, but the thing is by photographing something, we imply a certain amount of significance to that moment/composition.

The upshot of this is that photography has the power to make the ordinary extraordinary, and the extraordinary ordinary. (yeah, it's glib)

If there is an amazingly brilliant rainbow in Brooklyn one day, the next day you will be able to see 30 pictures of it cropping up in flickr. But when you see the pics, they do nothing for you because its a rainbow show, like the hundreds we have all seen before. Furthermore it is pretty clear why it was photographed- people were like "oh shit look at that! Where’s my camera!" An amazing event becomes very ho-hum through photography.

But if someone photographs a picture of a leaf on the sidewalk, then your attitude completely changes into something else. a very ordinary thing becomes a matter of scrutiny, since it is less clear why it was photographed. color? form? composition? It invites deeper though. By the mere fact it was photographed, you are drawn in to see why this particular shot captured the photographers attention. And afterwards, you remember that leaf photo for much longer then any rainbow or sunset pictures you may have seem.
Concrete wall
Originally uploaded by Jedo.

again ahead of the curve

So Speaking of movies, I thought this NY Times article was rather fascinating. I found it funny, because the box office slump they are talking about started around the same time I stopped going to the movies very often. Back through the 90's I went to the movies almost weekly, no matter what showing. I had a group of movie buff friends who (as Joss put it) go see anything that had a spaceship in it. And if it stunk, we would have a great time in the parking lot afterwards ripping it apart. Now I go to the movies maybe 5 or 6 times a year- and then only to see something I am really interested in.

Now it is not like movies have changed, there are still lots of really good work out there. But TV is about watching things while relaxing in your pajamas. Movies are a social spectacular experience. And somehow they have become much less entertaining in that respect.

Part of it is relative. Over the last 8 years, video game nights have emerged as a similar social experience. It is the social equivalent of having the guys over to watch the big game. Also people, (not me) are able to put together a home theater system that can create a spectacular experience approaching that of the movies. And certainly there are a lot of convenient things about being able to pause a DVD.

But on the other hand, movies have gotten even more expensive- not a small factor in this economy. But also while it is a social experience, they now hit you with 20 minutes of TV style commercials before the previews. Commercials you can't mute while you try to talk to your friends. The attitude seems to be "sit down, shut up and watch" as soon as you enter the theater.

Basically the movie's competitive advantage has been eroding due to technology enabling real alternatives; at the same time that they have undermined aspects of the reason people love them. No wonder they are in trouble.

Yet I still love going to the movies. I have a kitchen and I love to cook, but I still enjoy the whole experience of going to a nice restaurant. And even if I get a 75 inch plasma HDTV with Digital 7.1 sound, I am still going to go to the movies.

But the solution is not that hard. I think that the studios and the theater chains need to recognize the quintessential ideal movie experience, and then think of ways to play to their strengths. Sort of the Nordstrom’s solution- it’s not about the prices, its about the shopping.

Imagine a deluxe theater that treated you with the same level of service as you get going to the Opera. Imagine if the studios gave you a free copy if the movie on DVD at the end of the show- a version to show your friends. Imagine a theater set up line dinner theater, with a wait staff. Imagine a nice coffee shop style lounge to sit in before or after the movie. Would these things be more expensive? Sure. But one way is to play up the experience of going to the movies as a nice night out. There was a time when taking someone to the pictures was considered a nice date- now it is considered a cop-out date.

The situation is similar to back in the 1920s, when film was competing with Vaudeville, musical Theater, as well as all the other performances and activities that were available. That was when they built the movie palaces, and turned movie theaters into the dominate entertainment venue. They were selling an experience, and competing with other entertainment experiences.

By the 1950s, when television began to cut into this position of leadership, you saw the beginnings of the auteur movement. Basically at that point the content of the films became the draw, since movies could be more edgier and more explicit then the more tightly controlled TV programming. At the same time, you had people being better educated, and more interested in discussing film- they increasingly began relying on word of mouth, and seeking out Film reviews, rather then relying on Movie posters or commercials. Also since film looked richer then TV, so there was a push to richer colors, and wider screens, to maximize their advantage over television. The focus was to improve what was on the screen, (story, visual quality, F/X) and at the expense of the rest of the experience. Seats got smaller, theaters got more packed, the old movie palaces closed to be replaced with lobbies that are little more then food courts and video arcades.

With the appearance of the VCR, suddenly the aftermarket became increasingly important as part of the business model. Movies became products as well as being staged experiences. Studios became more focused on managing their IPs, and suddenly you see more sequels then original films.

Today Studios and theaters have gotten into this hole because they did not recognize that the advent of Cable TV, the internet, and advances in home entertainment. People can find any and all of the content they want in many different venues. The 'Product' the studio is selling no longer is that special. In fact the situation today has much more in common with the 1920s then anytime since.

Maybe it is time for them to bring the movie palaces back.

serenity

Well last night, due to a handy time from my sister, I found out about a press screening for Serenity up at the one of the movie theaters by the Lincoln Center. Universal was nice enough to allow any fans who wanted to show up, free admission. Probably letting the New York Times reviewer hear the audience reaction would help them “get” the film. I did have to slip out of work a little early to get to the 6PM show, and I was convinced that it would be full up by the time I got there. But in fact the theater was only about 3/4ths full. Universal only told a few people in the Firefly Fan scene about the screening 24 hours before hand. I am sure they did not want a rampaging mob of fans- this after all is to let the huge number of NYC based national film reviewers have the best viewing experience. So in that respect the mission was accomplished, I think.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, Serenity is a Sci-Fi movie that opens in about a month in the US. It is based on a truncated TV series from 2002 called Firefly. The premise is basically if you took just the Han Solo/Chewbacca part of Star Wars, and infused it with a whole lot of Old West flavor. It centered on a cargo/smuggling ship’s crew trying to survive in a dangerous time 500 years in the future. Since the show was created by Joss Whedon, (Buffy, Angel) it had a healthy mix of humor and action. Anyway, the series only managed to get through 14 episodes before it was canceled. A big disappointment for the fan base it was able to gather over that short time. But in the end it lived on as a DVD set, that managed to convince Universal to let Joss take the characters and the storylines started in the series, and film a medium budget film called Serenity.

Having seen it now, I can say that it was worth the wait. Fans are the toughest critics, and I am sure I am no exception- I will quibble about minor details about the film for a long time, I am sure. A geek is happiest when he is quibbling with other geeks about minutia. Its what we do.

I will say that possibly the biggest problem with the film is that it is almost too much. The first hour of the film is like a condensed version of the first season’s plot twists, while the second hour is like the Season finale and resolution. A lot of things that happen in the film would have been huge in the TV series- dictating the plots of 2-3 episodes, in the film get about 30 seconds to a minute, and then it rolls on. It was a lot for a fan to absorb as the film pressed on. Hopefully regular film goers will not find it bewildering and too ‘dense’ to enjoy. But stepping back I will say that everything happened in a way that felt true to the series, and there were no cheap plot twists.

In the end the film really shows a unique vision of Sci-Fi, something that has not been presented as a feature film before. And it is not like Star Wars, or any of the other space operas out there, so I think that it will strike people as a extremely unique experience. -and hopefully a good one that they will recommend to their friends.

(Firefly fans are greedy creatures. They are happy to have a film, but now their eyes are set on getting a trilogy of films… here’s hoping.)

::cough:: hack ::cough::

Well, I am somewhat miserable with a summer cold at the moment. Full of phlem and have a gravelly voice like Lance Hendrickson. So I thought I would give a quick gaming report.

I have not been playing much in the way of console games for several months now. I think WoW came along and snacked on all my free time, and when I burned out on that, there was not much out to grab my interest. So I have been mostly playing on the GBA on the subway. I am 95% of the way through the new Zelda game, which is great. I am kind of stuck getting to the final boss level, so I am giving that a rest. Instead I have pulled out my much loved copy of Mario Golf, and am trying to pick up and finish the story mode. Since I play on the subway, I think I am actually getting pretty good, being as the rocking and braking on the train is a fair handicap.

So I am looking at the New GBA DS, and the PSP. Both are quite nice machines that do evoke my old enemy- gadget lust. But neither has any games out that I am fired up about. I am sure when a Must Have game comes out on either, I will quickly succumb to their allure. For the DS, it is either Harvest Moon, or Animal Crossing. A DS golf game has some nice possibilities, given the possibility of using the stylus as a input device. The problem I see with the DS, is that it still seems hard to hold, and on the subway, that is kind of important. When it comes to the PSP, Katamari Damancy would probably be a system seller to me. Also there are quite a few PS2 games that I missed playing, which I would be good this time around.