I don't know if Bill at So Quoted should be happy or angry that the Instapundit himself is quoting Neal Stephenson.
(Here are searches of the respective websites with Neal Stephenson as a search term (Instapundit and So Quoted), Prof. Reynolds may have more in number, but as a percentage of the total output of each blogger, and also as to the quality of the mention, I think Bill shines in comparison)
(also, I seem to have only mentioned Neal Stephenson once, and it just happens to be how I earned my first Instalanche)
Either way, I agree with what the Instadude says in his post regarding the ridiculousness of making hypocrisy the greatest of all vices.
Hypocrisy is bad, but it's not the worst sins.
Even if you aren't Christian it's easy to see that we're all fallen creatures with much to atone for (though don't take this as accepting the concept of Original Sin (the Wiki on this concept is decidedly non-neutral), I find that view of humanity as pernicious as moral relativism (this Wiki is also non-neutral, but I guess anyone wanting to defend the concept of moral relativism against charges of subjectivity must recognize the inherent contradiction).
In my opinion there are intrinsic humanistic values that include forgiveness, empathy, and a recognition that redemption is possible.
Given the ideas I just expressed, to excoriate hypocrisy above all else would be, hypocritical.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query neal stephenson. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query neal stephenson. Sort by date Show all posts
12 September 2008
A Huge Week to Week Decline in the GGP!
I'm no financial expert, but I suspect that this week so one of the largest week to week declines in GGP in a long time.
What's GGP? You ask.
Gross Geek Product.
It's a measure of the total economic and bloggeriffic output by our nation's more geekish citizenry.
Two things hit this week that would have brought this number way down.
First is Spore being released on Sunday. Spore is Will Wright's new "Sim-Evolution" game. It's a big time sink, mostly fun, and the more detail oriented a person you are, the bigger time sink it turns out to be. Given that every stage of the game is customizable to an astonishing degree, ignoring just actually playing the game, if one were so inclined, one could spend hours just trying out different paint jobs on their creatures, or different roofs on their houses in the civ stage, or even different tonal moods for their world's national anthem in the space stage.
This game is huge, and huge in the geek community, so if you run a business and all of the sudden half your IT department missed a day or two, it's not an illness striking your business, it's this damn game.
As if that weren't enough to screw up the GGP, add to that the Tuesday release of Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Think of it as 935 hardbound, relatively small typed pages of pure, uncut, heroin (I'm including the 'calca', since true geeks don't mind 'doing the math'). SO, for the few non-god-game playing geeks out there who weren't struck unproductive by Spore, are more than likely Neal Stephenson-reading geeks who are in the midst of reading Stephenson's densely wrought (in a good way) alternate world satire of modern society (that may seem like a strange thing to say about a novel that focuses on tech avoiding math obsessed monks, but the kernel buried in this book is based on a 'what-if' extrapolated from our world grafted onto a not so alien culture).
My personal GGP has been hit pretty hard, as I've been afflicted by both Spore-playing and Anathem-reading, so other than the usual NFL related humiliation don't expect much output here for about another week.
What's GGP? You ask.
Gross Geek Product.
It's a measure of the total economic and bloggeriffic output by our nation's more geekish citizenry.
Two things hit this week that would have brought this number way down.
First is Spore being released on Sunday. Spore is Will Wright's new "Sim-Evolution" game. It's a big time sink, mostly fun, and the more detail oriented a person you are, the bigger time sink it turns out to be. Given that every stage of the game is customizable to an astonishing degree, ignoring just actually playing the game, if one were so inclined, one could spend hours just trying out different paint jobs on their creatures, or different roofs on their houses in the civ stage, or even different tonal moods for their world's national anthem in the space stage.
This game is huge, and huge in the geek community, so if you run a business and all of the sudden half your IT department missed a day or two, it's not an illness striking your business, it's this damn game.
As if that weren't enough to screw up the GGP, add to that the Tuesday release of Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Think of it as 935 hardbound, relatively small typed pages of pure, uncut, heroin (I'm including the 'calca', since true geeks don't mind 'doing the math'). SO, for the few non-god-game playing geeks out there who weren't struck unproductive by Spore, are more than likely Neal Stephenson-reading geeks who are in the midst of reading Stephenson's densely wrought (in a good way) alternate world satire of modern society (that may seem like a strange thing to say about a novel that focuses on tech avoiding math obsessed monks, but the kernel buried in this book is based on a 'what-if' extrapolated from our world grafted onto a not so alien culture).
My personal GGP has been hit pretty hard, as I've been afflicted by both Spore-playing and Anathem-reading, so other than the usual NFL related humiliation don't expect much output here for about another week.
19 November 2005
Pre-War Intelligence; Post-War Stupidity
Sorry few links, no facts, just observations and ramblings, follow along if you dare.
I've been re-reading Cryptonomicon recently (It resonates differently after reading The Baroque Cycle).
Its plotlines about cryptanalysis got me thinking about the current debate over intelligence. That book makes a pretty convincing case that intelligence was a deciding factor in the Allies swift victory in WWII (less than 7 years from the invasion of Poland to the VJ day)
In WWII the good guys had an amazing and comprehensive amount of intelligence. Yet huge errors that killed thousands more fighters on our side than seemed necessary in retrospect were made throughout the conflict. They had most of the important codes of the bad guys, and the bad guys were too arrogant to adjust to the facts as they presented themselves. The scene in Cryptonomicon where Admiral Yamamoto realizes that his communications have been compromised just as he's being shot out of the sky is comical.
The current mess isn't nearly as funny.
Collecting intelligence in Stalinist states (like North Korea, Syria, and formerly Iraq) is virtually impossible. When the state makes paranoia a part of the very structure of all human interactions than foreign 'wet' intelligence doesn't work.
Yet critics of the administration behave as if failures to collect perfect information in this atmosphere was part of some nefarious plot to deceive the U.S. people (ignoring the fact that these failures and false assumptions span Clinton as well as Bush's administrations and were reinforced by foreign intelligence, as well).
To paraphrase Sec. Rumsfeld, you go to war with the intelligence you have, not with the intelligence you wish you had. We still wouldn't know if Saddam had stockpiles of WMD had we not invaded. Inspections would have NEVER been conclusive. Saddam played too many games and the UN inspection regime was too reliant on being guided around the country by Iraqi minders to ever feel confident that the absence of evidence was truly evidence of the absence of WMD (and lest I forget to mention, WMD was one of many justifications for invasion, it wasn't the only case, or the strongest case for toppling a vicious dictator in charge of one of the world's largest militaries).
With the sanctions falling apart, and with European countries eager to sell Saddam whatever he was willing to buy, those WMD that weren't there in 2002 would surely well be on there way to being produced in scary quantities by 2006 had there never been an invasion.
The sanctimonious and wrong-headed bleating of many Democrats who now want to pretend that they were fooled into voting for the war would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
The polls would suggest that their bleating has drowned out the truth for the moment, hopefully that can be corrected before election time, and should the American people continue to listen to the bleating of sheep they will find themselves at the mercy of wolves.
Here's hoping that bloggers and projects like OSM.org will serve a sheepdog function and prevent the American people from becoming potentially victimized sheeple.
And one more lesson from WWII, how much better would the world have been had Hitler been strongly opposed and even fought in 1935 instead of 1939?
(and another thing to consider, what kind of insurgency would the Nazis have mounted had they been crushed before they really got started? Without knowing what the alternative would have been, early intervention might have seemed like a costly mistake that lead to a low-grade insurgency. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
UPDATE: I've been carnivalized. (Yipee). All those clicking through and reading this, stick around, look around and drop words of encouragement, or tell me where to stick it, just let me know what you think.
Glenn Reynolds wrote, "Immodest Proposals draws a Neal Stephenson connection, based on Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon. (I loved that book, but I find this comparison troubling.)"(He's being his usual inscrutable self, was he troubled by what I wrote, or by the difficulties of intelligence collection in Stalinist states? and, Hey, nobody else managed to trouble him, that's a victory in itself in my book)
I've been re-reading Cryptonomicon recently (It resonates differently after reading The Baroque Cycle).
Its plotlines about cryptanalysis got me thinking about the current debate over intelligence. That book makes a pretty convincing case that intelligence was a deciding factor in the Allies swift victory in WWII (less than 7 years from the invasion of Poland to the VJ day)
In WWII the good guys had an amazing and comprehensive amount of intelligence. Yet huge errors that killed thousands more fighters on our side than seemed necessary in retrospect were made throughout the conflict. They had most of the important codes of the bad guys, and the bad guys were too arrogant to adjust to the facts as they presented themselves. The scene in Cryptonomicon where Admiral Yamamoto realizes that his communications have been compromised just as he's being shot out of the sky is comical.
The current mess isn't nearly as funny.
Collecting intelligence in Stalinist states (like North Korea, Syria, and formerly Iraq) is virtually impossible. When the state makes paranoia a part of the very structure of all human interactions than foreign 'wet' intelligence doesn't work.
Yet critics of the administration behave as if failures to collect perfect information in this atmosphere was part of some nefarious plot to deceive the U.S. people (ignoring the fact that these failures and false assumptions span Clinton as well as Bush's administrations and were reinforced by foreign intelligence, as well).
To paraphrase Sec. Rumsfeld, you go to war with the intelligence you have, not with the intelligence you wish you had. We still wouldn't know if Saddam had stockpiles of WMD had we not invaded. Inspections would have NEVER been conclusive. Saddam played too many games and the UN inspection regime was too reliant on being guided around the country by Iraqi minders to ever feel confident that the absence of evidence was truly evidence of the absence of WMD (and lest I forget to mention, WMD was one of many justifications for invasion, it wasn't the only case, or the strongest case for toppling a vicious dictator in charge of one of the world's largest militaries).
With the sanctions falling apart, and with European countries eager to sell Saddam whatever he was willing to buy, those WMD that weren't there in 2002 would surely well be on there way to being produced in scary quantities by 2006 had there never been an invasion.
The sanctimonious and wrong-headed bleating of many Democrats who now want to pretend that they were fooled into voting for the war would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
The polls would suggest that their bleating has drowned out the truth for the moment, hopefully that can be corrected before election time, and should the American people continue to listen to the bleating of sheep they will find themselves at the mercy of wolves.
Here's hoping that bloggers and projects like OSM.org will serve a sheepdog function and prevent the American people from becoming potentially victimized sheeple.
And one more lesson from WWII, how much better would the world have been had Hitler been strongly opposed and even fought in 1935 instead of 1939?
(and another thing to consider, what kind of insurgency would the Nazis have mounted had they been crushed before they really got started? Without knowing what the alternative would have been, early intervention might have seemed like a costly mistake that lead to a low-grade insurgency. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
UPDATE: I've been carnivalized. (Yipee). All those clicking through and reading this, stick around, look around and drop words of encouragement, or tell me where to stick it, just let me know what you think.
Glenn Reynolds wrote, "Immodest Proposals draws a Neal Stephenson connection, based on Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon. (I loved that book, but I find this comparison troubling.)"(He's being his usual inscrutable self, was he troubled by what I wrote, or by the difficulties of intelligence collection in Stalinist states? and, Hey, nobody else managed to trouble him, that's a victory in itself in my book)
25 May 2007
Pirates, Boardrooms, Two Capt. Jacks, and Dubious Thighs (A Non-Review of Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End)
Saw the big new Pirates movie last night. It was what it was. The good moments outweigh the sluggishly turgid moments, in my opinion. The ability to create visuals has vastly superseded the capacity to turn out comprehensive and coherent plots it would seem. If you focus on plot and coherence, than this wasn't a film you'd enjoy. If instead you revel in surreal visual treats, truly odd moments and cinematic spectacle, then you might find yourself won over by this mess.
About those dubious thighs, at some point during this film, supposedly the leg of Keira Knightly is displayed. I have strong doubts as to whether or not the leg in question has ever been attached to the rest of Keira's body. Whoever possesses said leg, has truly a stunning set of gams, and seems to have allowed a hamburger or two pass through her palate (and let it stay in her stomach long enough to be processed). The rest of Keira looks too angular and sharp to still have a leg that looks so delicious.
About those two Capt. Jacks. This movie has far more than two Capt. Jacks. In one of the more surreal touches in the film, Jack would conference with himself on a regular basis, but those aren't the multiple Jacks I'm talking about. The two Jacks are Jack Shaftoe and Jack Sparrow. The Pirate films and the Baroque Cycle trod similar ground. Both examine the end of one system and the beginning of another. Both Jacks are insane, but inspired. There's a huge difference in the quality of writing between Stephenson's cycle and the mess of influences and thoughts that comprise the Pirate scripts. Part of the difference is between the visual and the written. If you were to try and film the Baroque Cycle, it would be a mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nevertheless. The only way to do something like that justice would be a limited run Anime style series that goes on for 60-70 half hour episodes. You could probably tell the tale in about 35 hours and keep it interesting, plus animation would suit the settings better than live action, and many adult aimed Anime is as complex, byzantine, contemplative and digressive as what Neal Stephenson writes. But that's a different topic all together.
About the ending of one system and the beginning of another. That's one thing that the Pirate films gets exactly 180 degrees wrong. They suggest throughout the last two films that the East India Trading Company represents an encroaching (and malevolent) modernity while piracy represents a waning (and romantic) past. But the opposite is true. The old style mercantile system is what began to fall apart in the late 18th and early 19th century. Large state sponsored and controlled monopolies on trading routes were being dashed by improving technologies and fiercely darwinistic entrepreneurship. Pirates are the forerunners to today's "captain's of industry", not the petty bureaucrats who ran the state backed monopolies. Pirates were ruthlessly capitalistic, innovative, and would fit in more easily in a modern boardroom than any East Indian Trading Company big wig would. There's a boardroom scene in the latest Pirate film, they don't call it a boardroom, of course, but takeaway the swords and guns, and it's perfectly recognizable as being thoroughly modern.
Why do these effects driven pictures lack coherence lately? I think the answer lies in how they are constructed. Each action set piece is worked on by dozens if not hundreds of techs working for months on their little section of film. They get input from the director as they go, but by and large each big effects laden sequence is a little fiefdom all its own. As these sequences come together I suspect that the original narrative intent for including these sequences or for the particular beats and moments included in these bits gets lost. The lead effects people show off a new trick here, a nice innovation there, and pretty soon the sequence no longer precisely resembles what was intended, and doesn't mesh well with the original narrative. The director is then faced with a quandary. Lose months of work from dozens of techs, or tack on some extra exposition that makes these sequences fit into the overall narrative better. Well multiply that problem and solution over a dozen or so sequences and you end up with a bloated mess that can't be reduced, and can't be trimmed to a runtime of less than 2.5 hours.
People flock to these pictures (myself included, and yes, I'll see Transformers no matter how stupid it is, the eye candy aspect of that film is irresistible) as they are, and visuals transcend language so these films do massive business world wide. But they might do even better if they held the runtimes down and tried to tell simpler tales more effectively.
About those dubious thighs, at some point during this film, supposedly the leg of Keira Knightly is displayed. I have strong doubts as to whether or not the leg in question has ever been attached to the rest of Keira's body. Whoever possesses said leg, has truly a stunning set of gams, and seems to have allowed a hamburger or two pass through her palate (and let it stay in her stomach long enough to be processed). The rest of Keira looks too angular and sharp to still have a leg that looks so delicious.
About those two Capt. Jacks. This movie has far more than two Capt. Jacks. In one of the more surreal touches in the film, Jack would conference with himself on a regular basis, but those aren't the multiple Jacks I'm talking about. The two Jacks are Jack Shaftoe and Jack Sparrow. The Pirate films and the Baroque Cycle trod similar ground. Both examine the end of one system and the beginning of another. Both Jacks are insane, but inspired. There's a huge difference in the quality of writing between Stephenson's cycle and the mess of influences and thoughts that comprise the Pirate scripts. Part of the difference is between the visual and the written. If you were to try and film the Baroque Cycle, it would be a mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nevertheless. The only way to do something like that justice would be a limited run Anime style series that goes on for 60-70 half hour episodes. You could probably tell the tale in about 35 hours and keep it interesting, plus animation would suit the settings better than live action, and many adult aimed Anime is as complex, byzantine, contemplative and digressive as what Neal Stephenson writes. But that's a different topic all together.
About the ending of one system and the beginning of another. That's one thing that the Pirate films gets exactly 180 degrees wrong. They suggest throughout the last two films that the East India Trading Company represents an encroaching (and malevolent) modernity while piracy represents a waning (and romantic) past. But the opposite is true. The old style mercantile system is what began to fall apart in the late 18th and early 19th century. Large state sponsored and controlled monopolies on trading routes were being dashed by improving technologies and fiercely darwinistic entrepreneurship. Pirates are the forerunners to today's "captain's of industry", not the petty bureaucrats who ran the state backed monopolies. Pirates were ruthlessly capitalistic, innovative, and would fit in more easily in a modern boardroom than any East Indian Trading Company big wig would. There's a boardroom scene in the latest Pirate film, they don't call it a boardroom, of course, but takeaway the swords and guns, and it's perfectly recognizable as being thoroughly modern.
Why do these effects driven pictures lack coherence lately? I think the answer lies in how they are constructed. Each action set piece is worked on by dozens if not hundreds of techs working for months on their little section of film. They get input from the director as they go, but by and large each big effects laden sequence is a little fiefdom all its own. As these sequences come together I suspect that the original narrative intent for including these sequences or for the particular beats and moments included in these bits gets lost. The lead effects people show off a new trick here, a nice innovation there, and pretty soon the sequence no longer precisely resembles what was intended, and doesn't mesh well with the original narrative. The director is then faced with a quandary. Lose months of work from dozens of techs, or tack on some extra exposition that makes these sequences fit into the overall narrative better. Well multiply that problem and solution over a dozen or so sequences and you end up with a bloated mess that can't be reduced, and can't be trimmed to a runtime of less than 2.5 hours.
People flock to these pictures (myself included, and yes, I'll see Transformers no matter how stupid it is, the eye candy aspect of that film is irresistible) as they are, and visuals transcend language so these films do massive business world wide. But they might do even better if they held the runtimes down and tried to tell simpler tales more effectively.
19 March 2007
My Man Crush Deepens
Sen. Fred Thompson . . .
XOXOXO
However, I think Neal Stephenson's Op-Ed in the NYT regarding 300 was better (unsurprisingly), as are James Lileks' ruminations mixing in his thoughts on 300 and participating in counter protests against anti-war protesters.
From the Thompson piece
When President Thompson opens up his Office of Propaganda, I'll be first in line to sign up. Teach me Farsi and let me at 'em, the Mullahs won't know what hit 'em.
Also, from MEMRI, here's the video of the (hilarious) "news" clip from Iranians television regarding the film 300.
XOXOXO
However, I think Neal Stephenson's Op-Ed in the NYT regarding 300 was better (unsurprisingly), as are James Lileks' ruminations mixing in his thoughts on 300 and participating in counter protests against anti-war protesters.
From the Thompson piece
I must say that I’m impressed that Hollywood took on a politically incorrect villain. Must have run out of neo-Nazis. So now these sensitive souls in Iran think that Hollywood is part of a U.S. government conspiracy to humiliate them into submission. I can only wish we were that effective.
When President Thompson opens up his Office of Propaganda, I'll be first in line to sign up. Teach me Farsi and let me at 'em, the Mullahs won't know what hit 'em.
Also, from MEMRI, here's the video of the (hilarious) "news" clip from Iranians television regarding the film 300.
17 December 2007
Seven Ordered Lists (Ironically, These Lists are Provided in No Particular Order)
Today seems like a good day for ordered lists of my personal preferences.
First one, Sci-Fi/Fantasy authors (primarily active in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, and yes, my tastes skew British):
1)Neal Stephenson
2)Douglas Adams
3)Neil Gaiman
4)William Gibson
5)Peter Hamilton
6)Richard Morgan
7)John Scalzi
8)Chris Moriarty
Second one, days of the week:
1)Saturday
2)Sunday
3)Friday
4)Wednesday
5)Thursday
6)Monday (Ha! fooled ya)
7)Tuesday (I guess if I start a band I'll do a song, "I Don't Like Tuesdays")
Third one, performances in films released in 2007 I've seen:
1)Ellen Page in Juno
2)Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
3)Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma
4)Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille (vocal performances count, dammit)
5)Johnny Depp in PotC 3 (not a great film, but a crazy performance)
6)Sigourney Weaver in TV Set
7)Kurt Russell in Grindhouse (Deathproof section)
8)Zoe Bell in Grindhouse (Deathproof section)
9)Charles Fleischer in Zodiac (didn't like the film, but loved his performance)
Fourth one, albums I've listened to and were released in the USA this year:
1)Lily Allen, Alright Still (buy this album already)
2)Mark Ronson, Version (he's the top producer at the moment)
3)Prince, Planet Earth (Prince only comes in third this year, D'oh!)
4)Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight (Tasty album, screw the 'cooler than thou' who will claim they've gone too commercial)
5)White Stripes, Icky Thump (not their best, but still solid)
6) Screw it, that's about it, I've been listening to 'catalog' stuff more and more lately, I've liked other stuff (Feist, The Feeling, Gwen Stefani, Bjork), but not enough to keep on my hard drive or MP3 player.
Fifth one, pro sports franchises to root for:
1)LA Lakers
2)San Diego Chargers
3)LA Clippers
4)New Orleans Saints
5)Orlando Magic (I love me some Dwight Howard)
6)There's no sixth choice or beyond, don't care about baseball, hockey or soccer, so no rooting interest in those sports, and in football and basketball, can't spread myself too thin.
Sixth one, pro sports franchises to root against:
1)Phoenix Suns
2)San Antonio Spurs
3)New England Patriots
4)Dallas Cowboys
5)Boston Celtics (now that they're good again)
6)NY Yankees (I don't care about baseball, but I still like watching the Yankees fail)
Seventh, and final one, of the eight (5 GOP, 3 Dems) candidates with a real chance of becoming president, my personal preference as to which should hold the office:
1)Fred Thompson
2)Rudy Giuliani
3)Mitt Romney
4)Hillary Clinton
5)John McCain
6)Barack Obama
7)John Edwards
8)Mike Huckabee (yes, he's that contemptible)
First one, Sci-Fi/Fantasy authors (primarily active in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, and yes, my tastes skew British):
1)Neal Stephenson
2)Douglas Adams
3)Neil Gaiman
4)William Gibson
5)Peter Hamilton
6)Richard Morgan
7)John Scalzi
8)Chris Moriarty
Second one, days of the week:
1)Saturday
2)Sunday
3)Friday
4)Wednesday
5)Thursday
6)Monday (Ha! fooled ya)
7)Tuesday (I guess if I start a band I'll do a song, "I Don't Like Tuesdays")
Third one, performances in films released in 2007 I've seen:
1)Ellen Page in Juno
2)Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
3)Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma
4)Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille (vocal performances count, dammit)
5)Johnny Depp in PotC 3 (not a great film, but a crazy performance)
6)Sigourney Weaver in TV Set
7)Kurt Russell in Grindhouse (Deathproof section)
8)Zoe Bell in Grindhouse (Deathproof section)
9)Charles Fleischer in Zodiac (didn't like the film, but loved his performance)
Fourth one, albums I've listened to and were released in the USA this year:
1)Lily Allen, Alright Still (buy this album already)
2)Mark Ronson, Version (he's the top producer at the moment)
3)Prince, Planet Earth (Prince only comes in third this year, D'oh!)
4)Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight (Tasty album, screw the 'cooler than thou' who will claim they've gone too commercial)
5)White Stripes, Icky Thump (not their best, but still solid)
6) Screw it, that's about it, I've been listening to 'catalog' stuff more and more lately, I've liked other stuff (Feist, The Feeling, Gwen Stefani, Bjork), but not enough to keep on my hard drive or MP3 player.
Fifth one, pro sports franchises to root for:
1)LA Lakers
2)San Diego Chargers
3)LA Clippers
4)New Orleans Saints
5)Orlando Magic (I love me some Dwight Howard)
6)There's no sixth choice or beyond, don't care about baseball, hockey or soccer, so no rooting interest in those sports, and in football and basketball, can't spread myself too thin.
Sixth one, pro sports franchises to root against:
1)Phoenix Suns
2)San Antonio Spurs
3)New England Patriots
4)Dallas Cowboys
5)Boston Celtics (now that they're good again)
6)NY Yankees (I don't care about baseball, but I still like watching the Yankees fail)
Seventh, and final one, of the eight (5 GOP, 3 Dems) candidates with a real chance of becoming president, my personal preference as to which should hold the office:
1)Fred Thompson
2)Rudy Giuliani
3)Mitt Romney
4)Hillary Clinton
5)John McCain
6)Barack Obama
7)John Edwards
8)Mike Huckabee (yes, he's that contemptible)
30 December 2009
Ending the "Decade" Without Decade Ending Lists
I had planned on doing for music, TV, books, and video games what I had done for films, but I can't seem to find a hook or way to parse my impressions of the past ten years in those fields in the same way I could with films.
I think the reason comes down to volume. There are far fewer films than there are other forms of media. I can feel a bit more comfortable being definitive with my impressions of what films had to offer in each year, cause I see a good chunk of what seems interesting.
With those other medias, I know I'm missing vast swathes of entertaining and worthy choices, simply because there's not enough time in the day, and I don't have the resources to sample everything I would hope to sample.
So instead, broad impressions about the 00s in each of those medias.
MUSIC
I think the 00s can be defined as both the decade the industry collapsed, and solidified its position at the same time. It collapsed in the sense that no artist gets broadly listened to, anymore. All artists are niche artists, and the niches are ever narrowing. An album with broad appeal in the USA might appeal at most to 10,000,000 folks, while being purchased by 2,000,000. Great as those numbers are, that means even the most popular musicians are liked by at best 1 in 30 Americans, and except for the rarest of cases, less than 1 in 100 bother to actually spend money on their product, and more often than not, all those buzzworthy artists that get inches of ink (and pixels) at your various cooler than thou magazines and websites, they're liked by less than 1 in 10,000 folks in America.
Yet against that backdrop of less and less commonality of tastes, big label corporate managed pop has made a dramatic comeback in the 00s compared to where it had been in the 90s. Disney leads the way with all the teenyboppers they've foisted on tweens. That's one of the few demographics where you could say that popular acts penetrates a large segment of a given population (I'm just gonna let that sentence hang and marinate a bit, I blame Southpark, profanity, and hilarity at link).
All this is just an excuse for not plowing through the releases from each year of the 00s and figuring out which ones have been stickiest (as in moving from computer to computer and MP3 player to MP3 player, or which songs have managed to keep get putting on playlists). Great music continues to get made, though it all feels a bit iterative rather than innovative, lately. Regina Spektor is great, but she's the latest iteration of pissed off feminine singer songwriter. MGMT is great, but they're the latest iteration of hip underground band with solid musical chops. Neko Case is great, but she's the latest iteration of rootsy with a twist. OutKast were great (I assume they're done), but they were the latest iteration of smartly done hip hop with mass appeal. Nikka Costa is great, but she's the latest iteration of well done blue eyed soul and funk. I think you'd be hard pressed to name an innovative or defining sound that came about in the 00s. MIA might be the closest thing to an innovator that the 00s have seen, but she's just a more exotic mélange of influences than what came before, and in that sense she also was an iteration of pop performer bringing 'world' music sensibilities to a genre that hadn't been infused with that kind of sound before.
My biggest complaint with the 00s musically is that, as good as some of the stuff has been, rarely does it rise to the level that it makes me want to not spin 50s bop, or 60s garage, or 70s prog, or 70s afrobeat, 70s female folksy stuff, or 80s new wave, or 90s grunge, or 90s electronica, or 70s PFunk, or Prince. Could just be me, could just be that the music you listen to from about the ages of 13 to 30 is the music that stays with you your whole life, and music that comes after it pales in comparison in your personal estimation. It's either that, or the 00s have really been derivative musically, I can't step far enough outside myself to determine which is truer.
TV
Plenty of great TV in the 00s. TV has supplanted film as the go to media for complex drama. Listing, ordering, and trying to figure out which season of which show belongs where in relation to the entire output of what was available, that's a task I'm not up for. The good stuff breaks down into a few broad categories, though. You have the premium cable goodness, of the good Sopranos season, all of Deadwood and Rome, for some The Wire (not for me, though). You have the brilliant commercial failures of Freaks and Geeks (ran in 99-00, so just makes it, I guess), Firefly, and Andy Richter Controls the Universe. You have BBC/UK goodness with The Office (original recipe), Extras, Doctor Who relaunch, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures, Being Human, the aforementioned Rome (joint BBC/Rai/HBO production), and Misfits (not yet shown in the USA, but basically what Heroes should have been). The final category is reality shows, which provided some of the best TV moments of the past ten years, even as the glut of these kind of shows has devalued both the experience of watching television, and the meaning of celebrity. Amazing Race deserves the accolades it gets, it's a fine show, though could be better, So You Think You Can Dance gets a lot of things right, and you've got attractive young people doing amazing things in skimpy costumes which never hurts. American Idol is a cultural touchstone, one of the few things that breaks generational barriers in this increasingly atomized culture of ours. Survivor kicked the whole thing off, even though I can't watch as I find the structure of the show unfair and unwatchable. MTV deserves both kudos and a kick in their collective gonads for some of the crap they've unleashed (Jersey Shore, Room Raiders, NEXT, I'm 16 and Pregnant but I'm on TV so Woohoo!, Sweet 16, Cribs, Road Rules/Real World let's all get drunk, use steroids, or large breast implants Challenge).
The good thing about TV now, there's something for everyone, the bad thing about TV, there's something for everyone, and some people have no taste.
BOOKS
Don't read broadly enough to make any recommendations. I read what I read, and I don't read what I don't read. Loved what Peter Hamilton has done this decade, same with Neal Stephenson. Joe Abercrombie's done some interesting things to the fantasy genre, and George RR Martin's big messy, probably never going to see the final few books of The Song of Ice and Fire cycle provided some entertainment. Can't stand the serious books I'm supposed to like, got my fill of that kind of literature in college, and I think authors of 'serious' books are too self consciously writing 'serious' books to actually write books that are entertaining or thought provoking. I could be wrong, there might be some great stuff out there, but everything I've tried sampling has left me unable to care enough about the characters to bother finishing the story.
The other big trend has been the rise of conservative books. Mostly, they're pamphlet lengthed polemics stretched and padded into a length where publishers can feel justified in charging $20. Doesn't mean that it's not a welcome and worthwhile change in reading habits. Don't think it reflects a more conservative nation, I do think these books get bought to be used as totems. Bookshelves aren't about having access to a good book whenever you want, in a lot of homes, what books are in your living room act as a marker as to the tribal affiliations of the people within. I suspect, that for a lot of consumers, hardcover books are bought to be conversation pieces, as they are for something to read. Books to read are bought on a kindle, or in paperback.
VIDEO GAMES
Video games are a mature medium now, with an aging demographic of players. The kinds of games getting released reflect that it's not just 15 year old boys 'wasting' their time on video games. Add on top of that the success of Nintendo's 'blue ocean' strategy, as well as the explosion of 'casual gaming', and you have a broad swath of the population enjoying various kinds of video games, but not thinking of themselves as 'gamers'. Some of my favorite games of the decade have been made by PixelJunk, who have three hits, and one clunker (avoid Racers, if you have a PS3, Monsters, Eden, and Shooter are a must download) amongst the four games they've released for PS3. Rhythm games with their living room clogging proliferation of controllers were a big trend in the 00s, but that seems to waning. First person shooters have matured and improved in the 00s, with the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare2 being one of the best selling bits of media of all time (over $700M in sales its first week out). Rockstar games defined and refined the 'sandbox' genre with its Grand Theft Auto games. EA dominates sports games, mainly through aggressively pursuing exclusive licenses, but they've also improved their games as they release a new version each year. The Wii brought waggle to the masses, and showed that a successful marketing strategy for gaming wasn't in better graphics, or a deeper and more challenging experience, but in providing an easier to understand, and a more intuitive interface for non-gamers to learn, way in which to interact.
DECADE IN REVIEW
The 00s were a time of increased choice, and increased cultural atomization. There have been a few standouts that managed to cross boundaries and appeal broadly (in music Taylor Swift, sort of, actually in music there aren't any really strong candidates for a cross-cultural standout, in TV American Idol, in books, Dan 'Freakin' Brown for god sakes, in videogames Wii Sports), but for the most part, each consumer has been able to pick and choose from a variety of sources and define their cultural experience of the past decade in a hugely individualistic way.
Vive la différence
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