Scrawled in Wax

Ever wonder how all this newfangled technology is going to do anything to inspire hope or change? This talk on Alterative Reality Gaming by Jane McGonigal is nothing short of breathtaking. ARG works through the blending of “play” and fiction to, as Wikipedia states, create an interactive narrative that uses the real world as its arena. There’s so much to talk about here, but for now, focus on the way in which the game becomes a virtual space from which to re-imagine the present and also the need for the ‘text’ of the internet to bind the narrative together. [via] (And here’s a CNET piece on the new game itself)

So imagine that someone like Billy Holiday was reincarnated as a scruffy white guy, who then spent years living solo in the Arctic, the cold and loneliness pressing in from all sides… That sorta’ gives you a sense of the haunting, melancholy and soulful nature of Bon Iver. (Thanks to @rhh and my pal Kat for this…)

While I am often sceptical of many internet naysayers, when Toronto “poet with a PhD” Lynn Crosbie speaks, I listen. Here, she wonders if the unfiltered nature of the internet is, after centuries of censorship, providing a playground for the prurience of things like 2 Girls 1 Cup. The point is not that the internet is evil but, rather, that the uneasy relationship between UGC and ‘the id’ is going to force us to re-engage questions of art and censhorship from an entirely new perspective. It’s smart stuff, which is unsurprising as her work on pop culture in general tends to be so.

Kottke has already rounded up the analysis of prostitution that came as a result of the Spitzer fallout, but in case you haven’t seen it, here’s an intriguing Slate piece on the ‘tiers’ of high-class sex workers.

Even though I am, in some sense, ‘Indian’, I too find Bollywood a bit baffling and this Current video on smash hit Om Shanti Om (which I’ve actually seen) is actually quite funny. Still, the presenter just doesn’t seem to understand the idea that different cultures have different approaches to aesthetics and narrative, which are themselves rooted in history and differing world views. You just can’t help but think of Homer Simpson saying “it’s funny because their clothes are different from my clothes”. [also via Snarkmarket]

Some amazing photography. Why? ‘Cause it’s simple and beautiful.