Saturday Morning TV: Ted Williams and his Golden Voice

A reporter from the Columbus Dispatch found this glorious man on the side of the road.  We talk about him on tomorrow’s podcast.  Here’s a point of reference.

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Sunday Reading: The Hipster in the Mirror

The hipster.  Is there a more universally-derided yet barely definable term? It’s easy to say, “Oh you wear oversized glasses and skinny jeans, so you’re a hipster” or “Get your six-pack of PBR and your Sufjan vinyls off my porch, hipster!”  But are these people automatically hipsters?  Or is it a self-fulfilling thing?  Are hipsters only hipsters because we dub them so?

And why do we take the time and effort to label them as such?  Why do we scoff at their style, their music, their beards?  It’s their taste versus yours.  Should it really provoke such ire?

Mark Greif recently posed these questions in a New York Times essay entitled “The Hipster in the Mirror.”  What excited Greif more than the actual responses to a survey conducted about hipster was the trepidation and anxiety with which people participated at all:

“When we announced a public debate on hipsterism, I received e-mail messages both furious and plaintive. Normally inquisitive people protested that there could be no answer and no definition. Maybe hipsters didn’t exist! The responses were more impassioned than those we’d had in our discussions on health care, young conservatives and feminism. And perfectly blameless individuals began flagellating themselves: ‘Am I a hipster?’”

He sees the hipster rage as a sort of territorial battle, flamed by various socioeconomic conditions and perceptions similar to those outlined in Pierre Bourdieu’s 1979 book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.  Greif claims that “Bourdieu’s innovation, applicable here, was to look beyond the traditional trappings of rich or poor to see battles of symbols (like [hipster] boots and hats) traversing all society, reinforcing the class structure just as money did.”

Bourdieu’s deconstruction of twentieth-century French tastes and stereotypes aligns pretty well with the current “What’s the deal with hipsters?” conversation.  But why does the conversation exist at all?  Writes Greif: “The attempt to analyze the hipster provokes such universal anxiety because it calls everyone’s bluff.”

I hate it when people force me to confront flaws in my worldview.  I hate it because they’re usually right.

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The Bears and The Bulls

Remember when your mother or father sat you down and gave you the talk about "the birds and the bees?" It's probably less common now in the days of the Internet and health class in school; and I doubt if anyone has seriously used the phrase "the birds and the bees" since about 1962. But the cliche is well-established and the sentiment is well-recognized - it's an awkward coming-of-age talk about a subject that is both exciting and necessary for our society.

We have reached a point in our society where coming of age requires a talk about a different set of animals - ones that represent a subject just as necessary for survival, but not nearly as exciting or rewarding. I'm not talking about the Donkey and the Elephant; we've covered enough politics in the past month, even given that we just recently emerged from election season. No, like the birds and the bees, this pair of animals also begins with a B. And if you can't tell by now what they are, I'll give you a hint: they're the animals from the title of this post.

You've probably heard the terms "Bearish" and "Bullish" in reference to the economy. But to the non-financially minded, those two terms generally refer to trends in the stock market. Put simply, a bear market is one characterized by cautious investing and downward trending prices, whereas a bullish market includes high returns and upward trends. But I don't mean that parents should educate their kids on the intricacies of trading stocks. I'm using the bear and the bull as metaphorical tropes to represent the institution of money.

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And It Starts All Over Again...

Last year at about this time, I wrote a post previewing the World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies. Those of you who follow such things know that we were dangerously close to having a rematch of those same two teams this year, but as it happens, the San Francisco Giants just defeated the Texas Rangers to win their first world series since abandoning New York for sunny foggy Northern California in the 1950s. After the Giants went up three games to one on Hallowe'en, it was all but inevitable that they would win eventually. But Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum put on a show last night, Edgar Renteria hit a big home run, and we ended 2010 in style.

It's always a bit melancholy as a long season draws to a close, no matter the outcome. I have a belief that sports are as exciting as you want to make them, and for a baseball nut like me, I was able to relish every game, every play, every pitch that my schedule permitted me to witness. But as high as emotions rise in the climax of the season, right up until the crowning of an eventual champion, that's as low as the corresponding letdown takes you after it's all over. It was great fun to analyze and/or agonize over every moment of a grueling season and the dramatic playoff tournament... but now the grim reality of the situation is that there's no more baseball for nearly six months.

Faced with the prospect of a long and dismal off-season ahead, my thoughts naturally wandered back to last off-season, my first as a semi-professional blogger. Last off-season included an overabundance of lists, as will this one, no doubt. But I don't want the '10 - '11 off-season to be a structural repeat of '09 - '10. Nor do I want my off-season activities to become a mind-numbing routine. And these preferences of how I manage my baseball related activities reflects how I feel about my real-life activities as well. I'm well aware that everything is cyclical in nature, but at what point do we all get bored of the same old cycles? And to what degree is our entire cultural machine an effort to keep us from falling into one big collective rut?

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Exit Through The Gift Shop, or The Art of the Hoax

“I’m playing chess.  I don’t know how to play chess, but life is a chess game.”

So says Thierry Guetta, the subject of the new street art documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop.

I say street art documentary, but the film’s director, the British street artist Banksy, considers it “the world’s first street art disaster movie.”

And while Guetta is without a doubt the focus of the film, it wasn’t always supposed to be that way.  Guetta originally set out to cull from thousands of hours of disorganized footage a documentary about the street art movement, specifically its kingpin: Banksy.

As the story goes, Banksy turned the tables on the eccentric Guetta after viewing the spoiled fruits of the man’s labor: the 90-minute nightmare Life Remote Control: The Movie.  For our viewing pleasure, Banksy includes a minute or two of Guetta’s disasterpiece in Gift Shop.  Life Remote Control is Koyaanisqatsi overexposed, sped up, unfocused, and tripped out.  It’s seventeen out-of-sync projectors playing low-budget skate videos on the same screen from different angles.  It’s a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of flaming bag of dog shit.

If it’s real.

You see, Banksy isn’t in the business of creating straightforward work.  When he’s not stenciling rats armed with anti-establishment wit, he’s cutting apart phone booths and welding them back together to look like they’ve been murdered.  He painted a live elephant to match a wallpapered living room, forcing show attendees to deal with “the elephant in the room.”  His infamous art on the Gaza Strip Barrier – a child in balloon-powered flight, a giant pair of scissors cutting out an entryway, people digging toward paradise on the other side – undermine the nature and purpose of the structure.  At his best, he deals in subversion or the simulation thereof.

So forgive me if, in the days after my seeing the movie, I’ve become less convinced that what I saw was an actual documentary.

Plenty of others seem to agree.  The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote in March, “As a documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop is as about as reliable and structurally sound as that house-front with the strategically placed window that falls on top of Buster Keaton.”  Jeanette Catsoulis of The New York Times’ believes that “what [viewers] will find is, like Banksy’s best work, a trompe l’oeil: a film that looks like a documentary but feels like a monumental con.”

Faux documentaries are not new.  And I don’t mean the mockumentary format championed by Christopher Guest and company.  I’m speaking of your Borats, your pre-release Blair Witch Projects, even Orson Welles’ F for Fake – films enhanced by how they blur the line between truth and fiction. 

That line must go right through Thierry Guetta’s house – no, right through his brain.

Gift Shop gives us a lot about Guetta to start.  He’s a French export living with his family in LA.  He used to earn money upselling old clothing as “vintage” (remember this when we get to the part about him selling art).  He has (or had) a compulsive need to film everything, which blossomed into him following around and “documenting” local street artists.  His cousin, Space Invader, turned him onto Shepard Fairey (yeah, that guy), who then hooked up him with the infamous Bansky.

The events leading up to Guetta’s connection with Bansky seem just odd enough to be true – certainly worthy of documenting.  What follows begins to stretch and distort plausibility.

Guetta becomes Banksy’s right-hand man, filming everything under the auspices of a documentary that doesn’t exist.  As I said, Banksy forces his hand and the result is Life Remote Control: The Movie.  Banksy then encourages Guetta to become Mr. Brainwash, a street artist treading ground stupidly similar to Banksy.  In 2008, MBW hires a workshop of prop artists and graphic design elves to churn out an absurd amount of material for an art show he calls “Life Is Beautiful.”  LA Weekly covers the massive show.  These “works of art” sell for preposterous amounts of money.

Fast Company’s Alissa Walker isn’t buying any of it: “Guetta is the biggest give-away here. His klutzy, bumbling character is blissfully over-the-top and clearly in on the ruse.”  His busted English and Palin-esque thought processes may be entirely genuine, but his bio doesn’t jive with itself.  How does a father of four leave his shady t-shirt selling business to gallivant around the world with street artists?  How does he single-handedly finance the mammoth “Life Is Beautiful” show?  And why do we never see him making the art himself?

I don’t believe that Guetta is Banksy.  Dude’s too real and too crazy to be that kind of mastermind.  But I wouldn’t put it past him to gleefully take part in an elaborate ruse constructed by Banksy and co-conspirator Fairey (who happily endorsed the Mr. Brainwash show).  Just look at how much fun he has playing toreador to New York’s futile bull.

But did Life Remote Control ever exist?  Did Banksy really discover Guetta because of the Frenchman’s filmic aspirations?  Is Guetta actually opening a show in New York or designing album covers for Madonna?  Or is he merely a vehicle for more of Banksy’s subversions?

If that’s the case – and MBW’s work is just, as Walker puts it, “Banksy trying not to look like Banksy – then this goes beyond pseudonym.  Banksy’s subverted the concept of the artist.  And how better to do that on a grand scale than to make a “documentary” about the con man through which you’re delivering your newest work?  Work of purposefully “poor” quality, meant to mock and humiliate those foolish enough to pay for it.

Banksy’s mockery permeates what Slate calls “a poisoned valentine to the movement he made famous.”  We’re given an hour and a half to guffaw at and cringe in embarrassment for Guetta.  To slap our foreheads as he stumbles over his explanation of the Mr. Brainwash moniker or his convoluted Elvis-with-toy-gun painting.  To chuckle knowingly as Banksy closes the film by saying, “I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that anymore.”

He’s targeting artists.  He’s targeting overeager collectors.  And if we’re content to see Gift Shop as a mere documentary, Banksy’s targeting us.

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Watching TV Twice – Green Screens and Talking Soup

TVs spend a lot of time talking to us.

Correction: people on TV spend a lot of time talking at us.

Cable news, cable faux-news, broadcast news, sports coverage, DIY television, Oprah: a lot of television routinely crashes through the fourth wall like some kind of drunken punch bowl, clamoring for our attention and urging us to listen listen listen.

Pundits, comedians, and casters of the sports/news/weather variety stare earnestly or condemningly into the camera and chatter. Sometimes it’s useful. Sometimes it’s entertaining. Sometimes it’s neither. Sometimes it’s both.

One particular niche of the talking head genre falls squarely into the entertaining category: the green screen clip show.

You may have heard of The Soup. It stars that guy from Community – better known as Joel McHale. Its roots can be traced back to E!’s long running series Talk Soup, hosted by a number of people including Greg Kinnear, John Henson and Hal Sparks.

The basic formula: cull amusing clips from the week in TV and edit them together for the highest laugh/minute ratio. Why watch a whole episode of a terrible reality show when you can just skip to the part where the bro breaks down?

It’s head-slappingly simple – in concept and execution. For The Soup, McHale and his army of cohorts/interns (probably more of the army now that he’s a primetime actor) watch as much bad television as they possible can. They distill it to 22 minutes of clips and jokes for a small audience of friends, plug McHale’s upcoming stand-up gigs, and sign off. Sounds easy.

McHale would disagree. In a 2008 interview with the A.V. Club, he shares the team’s mantra: “90 percent of all television is bad, and ten percent has never been better. We make fun of that 90 percent.” With new channels being added second it seems like, it can’t be easy to cover that 90 percent. Making time for every heinous telenovela while simultaneously combing kids’ shows for disturbing costumed characters is surely an arduous process.

To alleviate The Soup’s burden, E! parent company Comcast called in reinforcements. Watch weird sports clips on Sports Soup. See Topanga mock people’s outfits on Style’s The Dish. Anyone remember MTV’s Singled Out? Yeah, the guy from that makes fun of web videos on G4’s Web Soup.

Were it not for the consistent quality of The Soup, I’d worry about format saturation. I spent a week or two with Sports Soup before giving up. Not only did it feel a little forced, I’m frankly a bit scared of the Versus Network. It’s too manly for me. And not in a Manswers sort of way. Topanga does a decent job, but – to be blunt – I’m not a woman. So I can only dig how she digs on fashionistas for a clip or two at a time. As for Web Soup, the less of Chris Hardwick I see the better.

In fact, if you want to watch a stupid web clip show, Comedy Central’s got you covered. Tosh.0 may have one of the most grating hosts ever in Daniel Tosh, but his callous, That Guy mentality jives perfectly with the exploit-myself approach of web videos. Onstage, his I’ll-be-ironically-racist-if-I-need-to-for-a-laugh comes across as mere shock-jockery. With a green screen displaying a kid strung up in a basketball hoop by his leg, suddenly the race humor doesn’t seem so bad:

The Soup’s continued success and the rise of Tosh.0 allay any fears of oversaturation. We’re caught in an age of irony and nostalgia, and we’ve shown no signs of breaking out.

Maybe that’s not true; Best Week Ever did finally die. That should come as no surprise, however. VH1 ran their Instant Nostalgia machine into the ground way before Best Year Ever was a sparkle in Paul F. Tompkins eye with their incessant decade-in-review shows. It was cute for the 80s the first time, but I’m sorry, I don’t need to know what Pee-Wee Herman thinks about Rainbow Brite. I just don’t.

So how has The Soup model outlived VH1’s Green Screen Bonanza?

Focus, for one. The best hosts (McHale, Tosh, and Topanga) are watchable enough as individuals and imbue the entire effort with endearing personal touches: McHale wearing skinny ties and towering over his guests, Tosh cracking jokes about his wardrobe, and Topanga poking fun at, well, her having played a character named Topanga.

Writing, for another. These shows function as the eBaum’s world (yes it still exists and no it’s not the same as L. Baum’s world) of television, perfect for our ADD brains. A good zinger or well-edited clip can transform ratings kryptonite into a colossal meme. While I can’t find the actual Soup clip, here’s a historic moment from the Shore I’d never known about if not for The Soup.

One of the biggest keys to their success (aside from cable television providing plentiful material) is the role of the audience. Since Talk Soup, the various Soup studio audiences have always been composed of a small group of friends and the members of the crew. Individual audience members can be heard hooting at in-jokes or enjoying a particularly hilarious line flub. Tosh play to a slightly larger house, but the noise generated is nowhere near the applause tsunami that regularly accompanies a finely-honed Jon Stewart barb. Shows in the Soup mold invite the viewer to watch with the host, rather than simply serve up prepared sample platters. This goes a long way when your show traffics exclusive in items that require watching.

Because when you’re watching The Soup, it’s dual-layered. You’re not just watching Spencer from The Hills. You’re watching him within the context of McHale’s critique of the dude’s “creepy flesh-colored beard.” The ironic presentation (and the literal use of the green screen) creates distance between the original thing and your viewing experience.

And in that distance lies all the fun.

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The Problem with Real-Life Experience Points

Experience points are nothing new.  They’ve been a part of gaming since Dungeons & Dragons.  As games grew to incorporate longer play sessions and replayability, they needed systems to reflect persistent player advancement.  For the uninitiated, here’s an analogy.

Gaining experience points is like crossing the board in a game of Checkers.  You reach a benchmark (the other side) and gain strength (being kinged).  Imagine doing that multiple times, with each benchmark being designated as a “level.”  The term “leveling up” refers to the advancement from one level to another (let’s say you could be triple- or quadruple-kinged in your game).  Systems like this are put in place to statistically reflect, for the player, his or her character’s progress.

Where my Checkers metaphor falls apart, however, is that experience points were essentially invented to simulate a character’s accumulation of real-world skills or knowledge – hence the name.  Characters in role-playing games often obtain experience from killing monsters or completing quests.  And the points system reflects how a person might grow from accomplishing these tasks. 

Ironically, point-based progression like this has moved from simulating life to organizing life.  More and more websites and services are taking cues from the role-playing genre and attaching these systems in an effort to drum up traffic or participation.

Experience points are beginning to lap themselves, and it’s freaking me out.

What Once Was A Game…

Because of the average gamer’s familiarity with such systems (look back to Final Fantasy on the NES or at the current popularity of World of Warcraft), various meta-games have arose using experience points as a model.  The Call of Duty series popularized persistent progression in multiplayer separate from any story-based character.  Headshots, flags captured, teammates saved: they all contribute to a player’s profile.  As the player earns enough points, he unlocks new weapons and abilities.  The need for new unlocks becomes quite addictive, fueling sales and repeated play.  At this point, it almost seems foolish for shooters not to offer persistent multiplayer like this.

Taking a step back from the games themselves, we can see the Xbox Live Achievement system can as an experience-like (meaningless) record of a player’s accomplishments.  Developers assign point values to numerous in-game challenges (or to chapters in the story).  It’s then up to the player to pad his Gamerscore by beating the campaign, testing his mettle online, and collecting every damn flag/skull/audiolog/beacon/yougetthepoint he can. 

Would people explore every nook and cranny of a game without these nutrient-devoid carrots dangling in front of them?  I don’t know.  Maybe if Nintendo Power told them how.  As it stands, we’ve had achievements for so long I can’t imagine games without them.

Here’s another one that’s sort of game-related: the gaming website Giant Bomb.  Started by Jeff Gerstmann following his iffy departure GameSpot, Giant Bomb is devoted to the idea that games are fun.  So why bog ourselves down with news minutiae when we can watch videos of guys slogging through the mess that is Deadly Premonition?

Giant Bomb’s main feature beyond extensive video coverage is its comprehensive, endlessly editable wiki.  And to encourage users to have a good time digging through it, they instituted a quest system.  Users earn experience by blogging, editing posts, and viewing specific sets of related pages (one quest has you looking up noted video game musicians).  It’s a clever way to bump up your Average Time on Site stat and convince users to return often. 

But what does being a Level 8 Giant Bomb user get me?  Nothing, yet I’m compelled to keep grinding away.

…Is Now Your Life

Even the Xbox Live meta-game seems tame compared to some of the ways experience points and their ilk have infiltrated the real world.

The first step toward reality is Chore Wars, an online “game” that draws heavily on the D&D model to foster competition between friends, family, or co-workers.  Users create a profile, party up with real-life friends (or at least people they know outside of Chore Wars), and assign tasks for one another to complete.

Assuming you worked in the silliest office environment ever (okay, maybe not the silliest), you and cubicle-mates could all make characters and set experience-rewarding goals like “Sell Five Toasters” or “Clean the Break Room Fridge.”  Or, god forbid, your boss gets in on the action and – instead of thinking about your quarterly review – decides that he’s going to award Gauntlets of +2 Customer Service to whoever closes that Alabama lead first. 

Chore Wars also bills itself strongly to parents eager to fabricate incentives for kids to clean up their army men.  Hook them with the fantasy-focused character creation, keep them “playing” with the experience gained each time they clean the table.  But they’re not the only game in town marketing this real-life experience system to families. 

In 2007, Viva Chu launched Handipoints.com, a Club Penguin-esque virtual world that runs on currency earned by completing real world tasks.  “We're trying to motivate kids to stay active in the real world,” Chu told CNET in 2008.  Parents construct chore lists for their kids, who then earn points that can be redeemed for in-game goods like costumes or pets.  Work begets gaming until gaming hits a roadblock, then more work. 

My only question: whatever happened to allowance?

A Blurry Line

If you can’t tell, I’m a little worried about the augmented reality we seem so willing to embrace.  Start-ups like Chore Wars and Handipoints are becoming more and more commonplace.  Just look at Foursquare.  Why do I want a badge for becoming the Mayor of my couch?  Because my friend doesn’t have one?  Okay…sure, why not?

We’re attempting to turn the entire world around us into a game.  Sure, you can point to aspects of politics or other systems and highlight the gamey aspects for purposes of critique.  But what’s the point of a game if there’s nothing to break from? 

In an excellent blog post entitled “System Fatigue” on Gamasutra, David Hayward writes, “Games should be exceptional experiences, not an addictive layer of weaponised mundanity.”  He’s discussing larger issues of collectibles and extraneous questing in modern games, but he does touch on these real-world games that purposefully blur the line between our senses of play and responsibility.

If we invented experience points to – in the realm of play – simulate real world progression, forcing our real world responsibilities into systems of derived from play is like some kind of Ouroboros of progression. 

Status symbols in the real world – money, jobs, property – may be farkakte, but we needn’t complicate it with meaningless achievements or complicated leveling systems.  Let your actual experience suffice.  Life needn’t be incentivized.  It’s cool enough.

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Personal Pastimes That Prove I Live in Past Times: Why I Suffer From Culture-Blog Writer’s Block

A recent introspection leading up to this week’s post directed my attention to the frequency with which I bitterly complain about things moving too fast. I never have any interesting news to break or unique reviews to share because I always seem to be behind the times, and so naturally I compensate by musing [whining] about it. Oh, there’s a new Iron Man movie out? I still haven’t seen the first one. New video games my friends are looking forward to? It took me almost four months to beat my latest PS2 title originally released in 2003 (is that really seven years ago?). Did you hear the latest news, Stephanie? No, I was too busy watching the history channel.

I started to reflect on why this was the case, but daunted by deep revelations that I wasn’t comfortable facing, I did the only American thing to do: I embraced it. I decided instead to count and celebrate the ways in which I am failing to keep up with the modern world, justifying and exploring the advantages of my backwards-looking, crotchety-old-woman ways.

Example number one: I always watch TV shows long after they’ve premiered.

Maybe I miss out on some current gossip, but if I’m not living in the present then what does it matter? I just turn a blind ear. In this way, I absorb the judgments of hundreds of critics that come before me, filtering out all the garbage and conserving precious time.  I can stream these shows on Netflix, rent them on DVD (how archaic!), or even better, borrow them for free from my friends. They come commercial free, and I don’t have any wait-time between episodes. Since everyone is already familiar with the show, I have plenty of people to talk about it with. It’s like being the last one in your group of friends to turn 21 – everyone will be there buying drinks for you.

Example number two: I play hand-me-down video games.

I can’t count the number of times a friend has beaten a game and immediately tossed aside after paying upwards of $60.00 for it. So frugal little me looks for opportunities to collect on their dime. In this way I have acquired and played -- without ever purchasing -- titles such as Final Fantasy 10/12, Fable 1/2, a collection of every Legend of Zelda game ever made, Super Smash Bros, a host of DS games, Assassin’s Creed, Kingdom Hearts 1/2 and a couple of Guitar Hero titles. Someday I might even enjoy a small yet free trade-in value on some of these games.

Example number three: I choose to watch Science and Discovery Channel specials such as Life and Planet Earth … frequently … instead of current TV

I justify this preference to myself by defending the value of trivial knowledge. Barring a global disaster that I will likely fail to be informed about, there will always be a pebble toad, and it will always be neat to tell people about.

I suppose I could make a few academic arguments in favor of this behavior as well, such as calling attention to the expanded access that modern human beings have to a large and beautiful natural world through global technology. I’m very likely never going to go deep-sea diving in the arctic, but the wonders high-speed cameras can bring me stunning images and valuable scientific understanding through someone else’s efforts. This exposure to the majesty of the planet is something that a far less globalized, technologically-bereft world would never have, and therefore it is almost my duty as a human being to appreciate these shows properly. Additionally, showing support for educational-entertainment such as historical documentaries and scientific specials feels like an important gesture for me to make in our society of weekly American Idol updates and celebrity sightings that worm their way into current events.

Example number four: I am usually two weeks behind on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on my DVR.

In all fairness, this started because I was out of town every weekend for a month and refused to delete any episodes I hadn’t watched. So what if I was watching Olympic coverage in March? And maybe it was strange to hear about updates on the pending health care bill after it had already cleared congress. If I’m going to be hopelessly out of touch with the pace of the modern world and missing major news stories anyway, I might as well get my information from non-peak hour cable TV like the majority of Americans do. Its still good comedy even if it’s slightly out of date.

Example number five: I refuse to own anything new.

…because I will break it within the first few months of owning it. I bought my laptop refurbished from Dell because I have a tendency to spill stuff. I’ve dropped my cell phone over three feet at least 300 times since owning it, so it’s a good thing it cost me only $20. No matter how hard I’ve tried not too (I even bought a case for it!) I’ve scratched the screen of my off-brand mp3 player. I can’t have nice things. I embrace this. Not only is the money-saving a huge kickback, not only do I protect myself from breaker’s guilt, but I never have to feel bad about how my shiny new model will be updated within six months or less. Once you’re 10 years behind modern technology, those newer models don’t sting as much.

Example number six: I discover new music through my friends.

This is probably out of sheer laziness and a refusal to break out of my comfort zone. One advantage, however, has been the development of relationships through a mutual appreciation of art. Who doesn’t enjoy the opportunity to make a friend a CD or introduce them to a favorite band? It’s an opportunity to share something personal, exposing a part of you that has been touched by some resonance between you and the music. My sister and I have the Dave Matthews Band together (and occasionally we cry a little bit when we hear the song Sister). I have explored new bands based CDs created for me by my college friends, and to this day they serve as a nostalgic reminder of people that I miss dearly. All of this feels much more satisfying that discovering music on my own. Also I’m inept and impatient when it comes to internet radio.

I am comfortable with my slow pace forward through the mires of culture and technology. I am not a trail blazer; I’m an analytic. While this can be a disadvantage when it comes to culture blogging – I don’t really think most people want read my dissection of decade-old movies that almost everyone has seen already – I do believe it has advantages beyond the fun of existentially whining about the iPhone. Today, I took advantage of one of the gifts of having an analytical mind – I wrote a whole post about why I couldn’t think of something to post about. 

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I Just Discovered How I’ll Be Spending My August

I’ll be playing House M.D. on my Nintendo DS portable video gaming system! Biting zingers indeed.

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Big Laughs at the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire

I've recently learned that there is somewhat of a stigma attached to Renaissance Faires. Maybe it's the old-timey speech spewed by ribald old men and lusty wenches with grotesquely pushed-up busts. Maybe it's the balmy heat and the constricting costumes and the unappetizing smell of horse. Or maybe it's because most people have a general dislike for periods of history before the invention of the television and air conditioning and the internet. Whatever it is, the mere mention of one of these events will elicit nasty glances, sneers, and name-calling.

I've never been able to understand this. I've been to four such events (three here in Los Angeles, and one in Cincinnati), and I've had a pretty good time at each one. I got some cool wares (a sword, a journal, and a Robin Hood-esque feathered cap), I saw some cool jousts, and I ate some delicious gigantic turkey legs. I also threw some cool axes, and saw these two guys do a pretty good comedy/precision knife-work routine. Sure I was heckled a little by the "merchants" pretending to sell their rotting fish heads and the rotund Shakespeare impersonators spouting quotations. But if this is how these people want to spend their time, who am I to object?

But people certainly do object, even at the idea of spending part of a day (let alone an entire career) at the faire. I'm not gonna lie, I've been the subject of some of these objections, and I didn't much mind - I'm aware of the stigma, and I attend anyway. But during my most recent visit, I was subjected to the worst kind of Faire-denigrators: those involved with an improv-sketch-comedy documentary. And what makes it worse: they were my friends - The Younger Statesmen!

When I visit the Renaissance Faire, I want to have a good time and get into the spirit of things. As part of this process, I like to dress up a little - because, quite frankly, it's kind of embarrassing to be the only one to show up to the faire wearing a t-shirt and sneakers. Not that I particularly care about impressing the glorified carnies who inhabit the fest, I just don't like to do things half-assed is all. So I girded myself as a Ranger of the wood, completing the look with a cloak on my back and a sword at my side.

I also provided my friends with costumes and weapons. (Having grown up doing theater, and with two parents involved with "the biz," I tend to have a lot of spare period-gear lying around. Plus I'm an ardent sword collector. What? Don't try to convince me that these things are anything but normal.) Although they didn't quite share my level of enthusiasm for the Faire, I knew these guys to be a pretty legitimate and talented comedy group, and I respected that they wanted to look the part.

I also respected their mission of providing fair and balanced (or so I thought) coverage of the proceedings. Come to think of it, I should have seen the shabby treatment coming: we're talking about lowbrow comedians who do anything to get a laugh. They have no qualms about saying crude things and making people feel uncomfortable as long as it might get a rise out of their viewers. It turns out that a great deal of their comedy involves making jokes at others' expense, rather than just sharing in a magical experience together. Looking at some of their previous work should have made this abundantly clear.

Looking back on the process of shooting the documentary-style sketch, it wasn't actually that bad. Renaissance Faires are notorious hotbeds for strange behavior, and our interviewers certainly got as good as they gave. (If you heard some of the lewd comments directed at our female videographer, you would immediately lose all sympathy for all reenactors in general.) And it was all good-natured fun: asking faire-goers about their love life and challenging innocent bystanders to duels doesn't hurt anyone. And if there's the possibility of bringing some mirth into some people's lives, then what's the harm?

Unfortunately, I didn't see it that way while we were at the fest. We'd all had a little too much mead, and I got a bunch of highfalutin ideas in my head about "honor" and "respect," and I apparently thought my friends were crossing too many lines. Plus, this one time, I was trying to demonstrate my mad skillz at a badass RenFaire event (axe-throwing), and my friends just kept heckling me and ruining my concentration. So I lost my cool a little bit.

I'm not proud of what happened between us. We had some words... and some fisticuffs. But who knows, maybe it will make for an entertaining internet video phenomenon.

YOU DECIDE!

...Visit the Renaissance Pleasure Faire from Younger Statesmen on Vimeo.

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Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Sequel

Few oases shimmered in the desert that was the 2008 Writer’s Strike.  TV shows attempted to stretch shortened seasons.  Audiences tried to choke down the increasingly ridiculous reality show offerings.  After the dust settled, a few projects surfaced, penned by striking scribes during the dry spell.  Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was a shining example of what being out of work can do for your creativity.

Dr. Horrible premiered online the summer following the strike, but its digital distribution model and endearingly low production values spoke to the circumstances of its creation.  Neil Patrick Harris plays Dr. Horrible, a wannabe supervillain out to prove his worth and win the heart of the girl next door (soon-to-be geek icon Felicia Day).  The 42 minute short film featured a host of catchy songs, webcam humor, and superhero parodies.  Did I mention Joss Whedon wrote it?  So yeah, geeks ate this shit up.

Now Wired.com’s Matt Bush has caught wind of the official plans for a Dr. Horrible sequel: the silver screen.  He’s worried, concerned that the short format, low budget, and Internet presence were so integral to the show’s success that a wide release would fail, ahem, horribly.  He goes on to warn:

“…they should be aware that there are an awful lot of geeks who won’t go to see it in the theaters because they will feel that if the original was free, so should the sequel be.”

I have to agree with Blum.  The people who made Dr. Horrible a success are the same people who know how to torrent games, rip DVDs, and edit Wikipedia.  Also, the character of Dr. Horrible, in all his bad-at-his-job glory, thrives on the cheapo format of the video blog.  I don’t think anybody wants to sit in the theater and have Doogie Howser sing directly into the camera at them.  That’s a form best suited for the faux intimacy of the Internet.  And if Serenity’s box office return (or lack thereof) is any indication, Whedon should stick to Internet tubes and DVD-friendly TV.

I will watch more Dr. Horrible, but I’d prefer to do it just as I am now: sitting at a computer, dreaming of revenge on my enemies.

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Magic: The Gathering - The Five Colors

I can just barely recall one bleak Monday morning on my way to elementary school. The daily routine of the bus ride was broken by two rowdy Older Kids in the back row feverishly throwing cards onto the floor of the bus, apparently in a great rush to finish some kind of game before the driver forced us to get out and go to class. Although I had no idea what was going on, the players seemed like they were having so much fun that I had to ask them what they were up to.

"Magic: The Gathering" they told me. "It's the hottest new trend. All the kids are doing it."

I was intrigued enough to take a trip to my local card shop and buy myself a starter deck and a couple of booster packs. I believe that was right around the time of the third or fourth edition. Now, 15 years and 13 Magic editions later, I finally learned the rules, sifted through the boxes upon boxes of cards that my friends had compiled over the years, bought some cards of my own, and started playing the game.

With my newly constructed deck and recently-acquired skill set, I was ready to take on all opponents. But through my study of Magic: The Gathering, I not only learned an exceedingly nerdy pastime, I also gleaned a great deal about the human mind...

You take on the Role of a Powerful Wizard...

...with your deck of Magic cards representing the spells in your arsenal. Some of these spells allow you to Summon Creatures, both ordinary and mythical, to fight for your side. Powerful Sorceries can make these creatures stronger, protect them from harm, or destroy ones that your opponents possess. Instants can Interrupt spells cast by your opponents or deal damage directly to them. And Enchantments can alter the very rules of the game itself. All these work towards the simple goal of reducing your opponent's health from 20 to 0 before s/he does the same to you.

I won't bore you with these rules here; I'm more interested in the broader implications about what different types of Magic cards tell us about the people who use them. Most every spell in the game can be classified into one of the following five colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, or Green. These colors represent what type of "mana" you need to use in order to cast that spell. Mana, produced by different types of Lands, acts as the game's currency/energy source necessary for you to use all your weapons. In order to understand the types of people who play Magic, you need to understand the five types of mana.

A Mana Saved is a Mana Burned...

Each of the five colors of mana represent a particular style of play, with specific strategies accompanying the use of each. But more than this, each color also represents values, beliefs, or aspects of a particular personality type. By understanding the guiding principles behind each of these five colors, one can make their Magic deck a pretty accurate representation of themselves.

Here's what the official Magic website has to say about the about each color, followed by some short analysis.










WHITE: Protection, Order, Light

White mana is produced by Plains. Some typical white creatures include knights in shining armor, glittering angels, pretty unicorns, and tiny hobbit-like Kithkin. Many of these creatures have special abilities that make each other stronger, prevent damage, or even cause a player to gain life.

People who play with White decks generally like to have all their ducks in a row, who like to keep themselves and their things very well protected. They don't like to rush into things, but given enough time to build up, they can usually muster a potent force.










BLUE: Knowledge, Manipulation, Illusion

Blue mana comes from Islands. A good Blue deck isn't about the force you can build up, but rather about frustrating your opponents and capitalizing on their mistakes. Among the hallmarks of Blue cards are spells that send creatures back to their owners' hands (either used on your opponents to slow them down or on your own creatures as a defensive measure), creatures whose attacks can't be blocked, and abilities that let you control what cards get put into your hand.

But Blue has one type of spell that sets it apart from all other colors: counterspells. You can play them at any time - on your opponent's turn, right after they cast a spell - and they effectively make it as if that spell never happened: instead of taking effect, the card your opponent tried to play goes immediately into his or her "graveyard" (read: discard pile). Blue also has spells that can take control of any other creature on the battlefield, using your opponent's biggest weapons to supplement your army of wizards, merfolk, and various other aquatic creatures.

People who play Blue decks are generally reactive, opportunistic, and like to have the last word in any argument.










BLACK: Darkness, Ambition, Death

Black mana comes from Swamps, a fitting abode for the vampires, zombies, skeletons, ghoulies, and ghosties that make up the majority of Black creatures. Black spells are mainly about destroying creatures and then taking control of them right from their owners' graveyards (even your own, if necessary)!

Black cards are powerful, relatively cheap (mana wise), and very very scary. But because Black spells are so cost-effective, they often require sacrifices from those who cast them - either in the form of paying life, sacrificing a creature of their own, or discarding a card from their hand. Black decks are for people who are willing to do whatever it takes to avoid losing... and who have a high tolerance for frightening or disturbing images or ideas.










RED: Chaos, Fury, Impulse

Red mana, produced by Mountains, fuels Red's sudden flashes of lightning or scalding balls of fire, which deal damage directly to creatures or to opponents. These spells provide good support for creatures such as hardy dwarves, reckless goblins, lumbering ogres, and fierce fire-breathing dragons.

Red decks are all about a two-pronged offense: throw your creatures against your enemy's defenses while saving up enough mana for a giant, crushing, unavoidable direct damage blow. Playing a Red deck involves neither a lot of planning nor a lot of thinking ahead - Red is all about being aggressive, living in the moment, and striking when your opponent least expects it.










GREEN: Growth, Instinct, Nature

All Green creatures - from nimble and wise Elven Rangers and Druids, to primal and/or graceful wild beasts, to ancient and solid Treefolk - make their homes in the Forests that produce Green mana. Green decks live and die by their creatures, which are by far the largest and most powerful in the game, including a plethora of spells to instantly or gradually make these creatures stronger, faster, or harder to destroy.

People who play Green decks enjoy commanding an arsenal of impressive and personable creatures, supporting them using methods drawn from the natural world, and sending them on an unrelenting assault against your enemies.

Magic in Real Life

Looking at the five types of mana as five distinct aspects of human personalities reveals that Magic: The Gathering is so much more than just an intensely nerdy pastime: it can also be used as a psychological characterization of people we see every day - especially when we get into decks that use a combination of two or more colors...

Or maybe this is just what I tell myself when I begin to have extreme doubts about my life choices or my reputation...

NEXT WEEK: How Race/Class combinations in Dungeons & Dragons reflect the socio-economic differences in our society!
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The Room Is Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!

Christians have their churches, Muslims embark on the Haj, Vikings believe that when they are slain in glorious combat they ascend to Valhalla to forever drink mead from the teats of the she-goat Heiðrún, I myself have midnight movies.

There really is nothing better than a good midnight movie. Whether it be a cult classic or the latest summer tentpole release, one cannot compare a normal pedestrian movie-watching experience with seeing a film in an auditorium full of like-minded cinephiles hooting and hollering along with the action onscreen. My favorite place of worship is Minneapolis' historic, world-famous Uptown Theater, an old-timey Art Deco movie hall that during daylight hours shows something artsy and respectable, but come the witching hours of Friday and Saturday nights unleashes what can only be considered the best late night entertainment in the Upper Midwest. Last Halloween, the Uptown hosted the glorious return of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with shadow cast- a monthly spectacle that I do my best to attend whenever possible. This past weekend though, a new regular fixture of the midnight film circuit finally made its way to the City of Lakes, Tommy Wiseau's 2003 oddity the Room.

The Room is the stuff of trash cinema legend, the sort of story that a Tim Burton-esque auteur of the future will surely make a movie out of someday. It's the brainchild of bizarre wrtier/director/producer/leading man/probably at least four other credits Tommy Wiseau and its so bad it kind of sort of really hurts (but it's a good hurt). Ostensibly a melodrama about a successful yuppie being two-timed by his fiancée (excuse me, "future wife") the Room has taken on a life of its own as the internet generation's Rocky Horror. However, unlike Rocky which was conceived as an over-the-top camp midnight movie spectacular, the Room has all the earnestness of a high school short story contest.

To say the acting is bad is far too vague. The best way to describe the aesthetic of the Room is that it looks, sounds, and feels like something halfway between a Syfy Original Movie and late night Cinemax softcore porn. Here's an example:


All of this is of course complicated by the protagonist Johnny's (Wiseau himself) indiscernible accent. Much like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his family comedy prime, Wiseau plays an average American character with a full-on foreign accent that is never explained. Many attempts have been made to figure out Wiseau's land of origin, all to no avail. I myself have shifted my opinion over the years from German, to French (but like one of the weird parts of France), to Estonian, only now to settle on Flemish. Honestly, he doesn't seem to be of this world. It's almost as if he is some sort of alien who landed on Earth saw human behavior and simply said "So shall I" and began imitating us in an effort to blend in.

Characters and subplots are introduced and dropped with nary a thought. At one point, Johnny's "future wife" Lisa's mother drops by to give her daughter some womanly advice.

This cancer is never addressed ever again, and the mother shows up in at least five more scenes!

What really makes these monthly showings of the Room so special is not that it's a packed (and the Uptown was packed Saturday, the line to get in stretched around the block) theater full of people watching a bad movie, but rather the culture that has sprung up around it. Like Rocky Horror before it, the Room has become a game to participate in. Whenever a character is greeted by Wiseau's Johnny with his trademark "Oh, hi" the audience says it along with him. During any one of the four or five disgusting, protracted softcore love scenes, the audience claps along to the sub-Seal slow jam on the soundtrack and sings along with the lyrics ("You are my rose, you are my rose, you are my rose, you are my rose"). And when characters play a friendly game of short-range Catch (which happens a lot), viewers are encouraged to stand up and toss the pigskin around the aisles.

My personal favorite gimmick has to do with Wiseau's apartment decor. For some reason the apartment is entirely decked out with framed pictures of spoons, so whenever one creeps into the frame, audience members shout a Tick-like "Spoooooooon!" and throw plastic cutlery at the screen.

And of course, you have to say the film's most famous line along with Johnny.


The Room (at least its Twin Cities chapter) is still in its birthing stages as a midnight phenomenon. In its native Los Angeles, its been playing on midnight screens for years. But it was beautiful to witness the beginning of something beautiful. Last year I attended a midnight showing of Repo! The Genetic Opera, another campy musical pretender to the throne of Rocky Horror. This film too was full of fans trying to create an event out of it, but it just wasn't happening. Repo was far too intentionally bad a movie to warrant this kind of sick adoration. The Room however, is an experience to be held inside and treasured forever. If you have a showing in your area, go to it. It's a lot of fun. Continue...

Apple Sues God, Says Fruit of Knowledge Looks Too Much Like Beloved Logo

Apple never fails to amuse me.

Apple Inc. is “mounting a legal challenge” against Australian supermarket chain Woolworths over a logo dispute, saying their stylized W resembling a piece of fresh produce (it is a grocery store after all) looks too much like…well…an apple. As we all know, Apple Inc. owns the original idea of the fruit, and it therefore makes sense that it must leap to protect it.

The title of this brief comes from an MSNBC article found here, where you can see that this is not the first time Apple has been entrenched in a legal battle over its identifying icon. In fact, it’s at least the sixth time, though only five of those six conflicts had Apple on the offensive. Their logo-legal history began when they were ruthlessly attacked by Beatles’ company, Apple Corps, and the resulting settlement involved Apple promising never to enter the music business. In a second settlement with Apple Corps, Apple defended itself by arguing that that the public was smart enough to be able to distinguish between their logo and a more realistic-looking apple of a different color.

It would seem that Apple is making its current opinion on the intelligence of the public quite clear.

I highly recommend you take a look at the article – the history of Apple’s legal battles is pretty comical. The dispute against Australian pornographic channel Adults Only is my favorite.

To be fair, Woolworths’ did file a blanket trademark application, which would leave open the possibility of pasting its logo onto any imaginable product including retail, electrical goods and technology. This could, in theory, someday pit Woolworths in a direct and bitter competition with Apple, but you’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical. Even if it were true, I simply can’t envision many people buying a Woolworths brand laptop and complaining, “I can’t tell the difference between this green W and a grey graphic apple with a bite out of it!” But then again, sometimes I get Acer and Asus mixed up because they sound similar.

The designer of the Woolworths logo argues: “Based on this logic, [Apple] would have to take action against every fruit-seller.” I await the inevitable day when Apple decides that this is a brilliant idea.

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Why the F!@k am I still (only) playing Avatar Drop?

When I saw Avatar Drop…drop on Marketplace a few weeks ago, I downloaded the trial, played a few rounds, let out a “meh” and went back to Red Faction for a little while. I remembered playing something similar to Avatar Drop in flash form several years ago, wherein the player sent a choice of scantily-clad ladies to grunt and crack as they fell down a pit of balloons and rings. Well, someone from the XNA team cleaned up the idea, allotting point values for falling through different-sized rings, and threw in the depraved vanity of subjecting your own likeness to similar torture, complete with gender-appropriate screams and local multiplayer. I suppose if you’re going to drop someone down a pit of balloons and rings it ought to be a babe or yourself, although it’s hard not to wonder if the concept was drawn from some internet fetish merger. Anyway, there’s only one randomly generated stage, only three types of objects to interact with, and Oompah band music.

And then I came back to it for some reason and it’s the only game I’ve played for the last two weeks. I think I know why.

1. The game has ragdoll physics. In fact, the game is ragdoll physics incarnate. I have not yet tired of ragdoll physics and I don’t think I ever will. You could slap the Havok engine onto a World Series of Poker game and I would probably play it. It’s become such a commonplace element in action games that it’s weird to see death animations anymore. Call it a gimmick or a cop-out; there is just something so visceral and grimly satisfying about watching a body surrendered to the fun world of physics.
I don’t even hate my avatar either. I don’t wish him pain. I would imagine Avatar Drop exists as a tongue-in-cheek way for Microsoft to allow Live members to vent their complaints with the rather comprehensive implementation of avatars in the NXE. Somehow, I have found a more sentimental connection with my digital likeness through his bouncing around in the pit of balloons and rings. I know he’s doing it for me.

2. The illusion of control is a bastard. The developer added one big feature to the Avatar Drop formula that really sucks you in: the spaz-out-with-the-right-stick control. You can rotate your avatar really quickly by flicking the stick, which acts as an air brake of sorts and lets you finesse your way up to new rings. Still, much like your imperfect ring-seeking meat vehicle, the maneuver is ham-fisted and disturbing to watch. And because there are only round surfaces in the pit of balloons and rings, the effect of your control on the trajectory of the avatar is murky. But you can do enough to convince yourself that your nervous adjustments amount to a net positive for your score. Not only that, but you can zoom in and out to get an idea of where to “aim” your avatar next. The truth is probably that you would do just as well just letting your avatar fall. But given the fact that we have the ability to act, can we really resist? There’s some beautiful existential metaphor in there, made only the more material by the Oompah band music.

3. None of my friends are playing it. I paid a dollar to log my high scores and no one else even cares to see how good I am at it. Then I check my scores against the whole Live community and get sad that someone actually managed to get 7000 points worth of rings in one session and I cry a little. And even though no one else I know is playing it, Avatar Drop logs every time I play as a victory. Sad yes, but at least someone knows I am a winner.
To top it all off, this is the only game my girlfriend seems to want to play. I wanted so bad for her to get into Ico or Braid or Bioshock but she is satisfied with maybe the dumbest game this side of Cassie’s Corner. Oh well, she’s still worse than me at it. Continue...

Technology and Post-Modernism: My identity crisis as spawned by the iPhone

What started out as an ambitious, well-researched hate-rant against certain elements of modern technology has since been forced to my backburner for a number of reasons. The first is that I’ve been overwhelmed this week and haven’t really had the ability to put the time or effort into backing up such a challenging piece. The second reason is that, as mentioned, it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which means I spent last night and most of today at Services.

The effect that the High Holiday has had on me has been two-fold. Obviously, it took away precious time that I needed to hone my piece into a finely-tuned argument, but it also forced to step back and see things a little bit more philosophically and a little less aggressively. What started as an unfounded crusade against the Apple  iPhone will now change tune a little bit and become an unfounded inner monologue about my personal crisis. 

My Synagogue is Reconstructionist, though unique because our Rabbi was originally trained as a Conservative and our community sprang up in the very progressive city of Portland. Much of the congregation's community service work focuses on bringing environmentally-friendly projects to impoverished countries and started eco-friendly co-op groups in the inner city in a tradition called Tikkun Olam.

This year , however, the Rabbi changed his theme a little. While not particularly groundbreaking in its innovation, I noticed that his ideas fit rather well with my recent sense of discomfort with the rapid pace of today’s post-modern technological world. In his speech, the Rabbi offered a very academic (and at times vague and evasive) discussion about the speed of the gadget-saturated environment of the 21st century. He offered the High Holidays as a way to step back, slow down, and catch up to yourself with some personal reflection.

So in my reflection, I chose to think about what it might really mean to live in a world where The Next Best Thing emerges almost every month. I thought about the implications of one tiny device being entrusted with every major personal detail and functionality that you might ask for. I thought about the multiple conversions and compressions that we put our data through, and how mathematics has shown me that every conversion causes a small amount of information loss. I contemplated what it was that we might be losing. I wondered if my hatred of the iPhone was more about what it represented and less about its functional details.

Now I’m absolutely not technologically retarded. I can navigate software and hardware with relative ease, I know how to hook one device to another, I can independently troubleshoot when something isn’t working right without rushing to call tech oversea tech support, I’m up-to-date with terminology, and I was a physics major for God’s sake.  And yet I am disturbed that at 23, I still feel like the technological world is already screaming past me. I often remind myself of those 60 year olds who refused to learn how to use computers when they first came on the market for home use.

New Technology becomes outdated so quickly. When I can put a cell phone (commercialized in 1984), a mobile internet access device (the hard-line internet started gaining momentum in 1994), a digital camera (1999 saw the arrival of the 2.7 mexapixel Kodak model for just under $6,000), a music player (the first mp3 playing iPod was released in 2001), a mobile gaming platform (the black-and-green, two-dimensional Game Boy took America by storm in 1989), a digital video recorder (I bought my own dedicated DV recorder with DV “tapes” for $250 in 2005), a Personal Schedule book (the first mobile phone with full PDA technology was manufactured by Nokia in 1994), and a High Definition video player (can anyone remember when we actually started making the transition to widescreen HDTVs or have they just always been around?) into one, 3.5-inch device, that can process multiple avenues of information simultaneously at stunning speeds which all can be input through a touch-screen interface, I’m floored. Did I mention it has a rechargeable battery lifetime of 24 hours and weighs less than five ounces?

I would estimate that over 98% of all operators of such devices don’t even have the slightest idea how the simplest of these technologies works all by itself, let alone how it operates when combined into such a delicate, portable wonder. How can we possibly keep up with the pace of technology when we are merely individuals, trying to stay afloat in an sea of collective intelligence and high-speed communication. The water is getting deeper every day, and the volume flow is accelerating.

I feel like I used to say “That’s so 80’s.” but now it’s just as sensible to say “That’s so 2008.” Last year’s devices fade away like old fashions. Us nerds and geeks and technophiles used to be so confused by the manufactured tastes and whims of the fashion industry, and now it seems we are swamped in just the same quagmire.

I wonder, on this New Year of mine, how we can possibly maintain an identity when our present becomes our past, our past becomes old news, and our future is hurtling toward us like a steam train on ice tracks (excuse me, steam trains are an out-of-date symbol). How do we keep our grip on this technological rollercoaster without slipping off and falling behind? Should we even worry about slowing down, when innovation has brought us such fortune in the past? Should we bother stifling our collective intelligence or should we  just suck it up and dig in. Does anyone else ever feel this old at such a young age?

I should just suck it up and go buy an iPhone, especially now that it’s marketing to space-cadets like me.

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