Archive for August, 2009
Bombs Over District 9
For more reasons than I can count, I’m tired of hating things. I’m tired of saying to myself “you shouldn’t enjoy this film – it’s racist”. I can feel myself becoming an anachronism – out of time, in more ways than one.
As I sat there, reading about “Bombs over Baghdad”, something tweaked inside my brain.
I had seen District 9 a couple of nights before, and the film had stymied me. I could see how interesting the premise was, how well it was done. But I was troubled. The representation of both the black and alien characters as savages irked me, as if the film were setting up stereotypes only to not knock them down. It reminded me of the Star Trek model of tolerance: when we find that rare alien who expresses the same liberal values, then we finally see our common ground. Maybe there’s hope for them yet. If I were feeling even more cynical than usual, Christopher would be Barack Obama.
The cop-out, liberal-humanist ending – look, deep down, those who are different are actually just like us – was played out; it’s been repeated thousands of times in seemingly every film ever made and the fact that this film also went there didn’t just bore me – it made me angry.
These were the things that went through my mind.
It was art that made me who I am. When art expresses beliefs that aren’t mine, become potential fodder for ideologies I oppose, I cringe. I switch the screen off. I move away. I decry, I spit and foam at the mouth. “These things are not me!”, I exclaim. These things are not me.
The overwhelmingly positive web-geek reaction left me puzzled, as if suddenly I were the only one in a room full of sophisticates chewing with his mouth open.
There was one fascinating line in District 9. It was when Wikus says something about ‘the prawns having no sense of property or ownership’. That was difference. That was the insurmountable barrier. That was interesting.
Having spent years steeped in contemporary cultural theory, this was the moment I was expecting big things. Something new. Not the same old story.
But was it?
“OutKast’s B.O.B. is the best because it says YES to everything we are and compresses it to pure energy.” -Tim
“B.O.B” works because it just fucking goes. It’s like someone put a brick on the accelerator at the beginning of the song, and you just can’t help but be carried along with it, in its energy, in its relentless, restless drive. Like the decade it heralded, the song is insatiable in its push to move on to the next moment.
Dance. Drink. Fuck. Lick. Smoke. Abandon yourself. Enjoy.
It was impossible not to be inundated with a thousand opinions of District 9 that were the opposite of mine. They weren’t just babble. They were smart, well-argued perspectives, ones that I could see myself agreeing with someday. Something was different here. Something about art had changed.
Art is not diminished. But it is now something else.
The threat and the danger of art was always its capacity to create subjects in its image. Sexist art begat sexist people. Racist art encouraged racism. This is why we had to force criticism into a box. We had to make it fit to make the world a better a place.
Art made people who they were. This is now a lie.
I’m trying to express something I don’t have words for. This reassures me. I’m trying to express something that exists in the future. Let’s create a picture.
You stand at the edge of the ocean. The tide washes over you. It never goes in. It just comes against you, over and over and over again. It is endless.
You used to get breaks. Breathers. Where you could collect yourself and thoughts and sink your feet a little into the sand. “There,” you thought. Some respite. Ah. This is who I am.
No longer.
The rushing torrent never ends.
“B.O.B” says yes to everything because it can.
Because the tide is always coming in and you are a rock, stable and worn, fixed and malleable.
“District 9 is a racist film!” you say. But it doesn’t matter. Because minds have been made up before. They are also rocks in the tide. And the stream rushes past them too.
Art is not diminished. But it is something else.
The virtual is the canvas for your soul. While your insides were always outside, now the metaphor means something else.
The screen is blank and you are the projector.
And art is not diminished. But it is something else.
Wax Interlude: Mike Birbiglia
Posted by Nav in Wax Interlude on August 24, 2009
I like stand-up. I like watching how a joke that in one person’s hands could be a throwaway, can become a gem in another’s. It’s that sense of craft, of care, of endless refinement, honed to look like it’s simply second nature that somehow appeals to me. Trouble is, I don’t like many stand-ups. Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Mitch Hedberg, Dimitri Martin… these are the ones I like, and that’s about it. But this Mike Birbiglia character seems good. Not exactly revelatory – but good enough for me to want to share it with others. So, here ya’ go.
Because Who Doesn’t Love a Summer Storm?
Posted by Nav in Uncategorized on August 21, 2009
Random bit of local fun: a really great video of a huge summer storm rolling into Toronto’s city centre yesterday evening.
While violent summer storms are pretty normal during our usually hot, muggy summers, this was exceptionally intense. Also, the people shooting the video are sorta’ hilarious – the way it ends abruptly and almost ominously is great.
Waxy on Kind of Bloop, Kickstarter and Crowdfunding
Posted by Nav in Culture of Technology, Video Games on August 21, 2009
Perennial geek fave, Andy “Waxy” Baio, is interviewed by Nora Young, host of Spark on CBC Radio. First, the most important thing you need to know is that having these two together might be the most sexy collection of voices you’ve ever heard. Seriously – who knew Andy had such a great radio voice? (I already knew that Nora had one of those crisp, sultry voices perfect for what she does.)
Anyway, the interview starts by discussing the chiptunes project, Kind of Bloop, that Baio’s crowdfunding site Kickstarter financed. Chiptunes, if you are unfamiliar, are usually covers of existing songs that are generated in real-time by old sound processors – like say from an original Nintendo console. Kind of Bloop, if you hadn’t guessed, is a reimagining of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue using the beeps and blips of 8-bit videogames.
To many this sounds like blasphemy – and I have to admit that, despite being a raging technophile, my reaction to the album was ambivalent at best. I remember that when I worked in the misery of computer retail, I would put on Kind of Blue in the morning to inject a little hope and beauty into my day. There was something about the expansiveness of the intro to “So What” that felt full of openness to me. It’s hard now to approach this chiptunes album when the things I loved about Kind of Blue – like the way the shimmer of the ride cymbal hovered in the background – are now lessened somehow.
Still, it’s a bias that I acknowledge and I hope to return to the album with less baggage. After all, I have a strong attachment to the aural textures of chiptunes – so much so that I can actually say that last sentence with a straight face. In the meantime, it’s a good interview for more than just Kind of Bloop, as Andy goes on to discuss Kickstarter and crowdfunding with his usual clarity and insight.
Project Tuva: Sometimes, Elegance is the Key
Posted by Nav in Culture of Technology, Electronic Reading on August 13, 2009
[Via if:book]
Recently, in a series of videos on Big Think, the indescribably awesome Anil Dash suggested that on the web how you present information is key. It’s something that Tim very usefully describes as the difference between content and the experience of content – between, say, an abstract idea of language and the difference when experiencing it on certain types of pages, materials, screens etc.
Because electronic screens are adaptable, ever-shifting chimeras that can do multiple things, what is key is how information is put together, not simply aesthetically, but also in terms of usability. If the screen can be anything – a television, a page, a photo frame, a mirror – then how we construct content to be both accessible and usable becomes vital, both for the ‘attention economy’ and for realising the potential of a form that combines many aspects of those that came before it.
That’s what caught my eye about Project Tuva, a Microsoft Research project that combines video, Powerpoint and annotation. In their example, they use Richard Feynman’s famous series of lectures on physics. After a slick selection screen, you can watch any of seven videos. As they play, underneath is a timeline that allows you jump to marked sections of the video or, if you wish, bring up a little text window with an explanatory note, which will also pause the video. It’s close-captioned, too.
It’s simple, but only inasmuch as it hides its technical complexity. And really, isn’t that sort of easy, accessible elegance precisely what we want?
Slaughterhouse 90210: The Promise of Tumblr
Posted by Nav in Culture of Technology, Pop Culture, web culture on August 12, 2009
As a cultural phenomenon, Tumblr fascinates me. Perhaps more than anything, it’s the way that the platform seems to have developed its own culture that intrigues me most. Due to the incredibly slow nature of print, however, my thoughts on it still won’t be out for a few weeks. In the meantime though, I wanted to share my favourite Tumblr ever: Slaughterhouse 90210.
The premise of Slaughterhouse 90210 is simple: each post is a screenshot of a popular TV show or film paired with a quote from classic literature or philosophy. The results are sublime.
At times, they are delightfully unexpected and profound, reframing both halves of the pairing in novel and provocative ways:
At others they are more subtle, but no less evocative:
The End of Indie
Posted by Nav in Culture of Technology, Pop Culture, Rambles, Theorizing the Web on August 11, 2009
Via the always great The Rumpus, Richard Nash writes on the ‘End of Indie’ – which I keep typing as the end of India. Anyway, I suppose this is a re-figuring of the death of the niche idea, but it’s more interesting in that, rather than only talking about the effects of ‘the death of indie’, he discusses the structures involved in producing culture:
All is changed, changed utterly. Indie doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s dead. Which is OK, because it won. Open source, Twitter. Indie won. Etsy. The irresistible decline of major labels and network TV and corporate publishing. Indie won. We won, but at the cost to many folks personally of suddenly becoming unnecessary. This was most visible in the last few years in the magazines like Punk Planet, Kitchen Sink, Clamor. But it’ll come for us all. You see, to the extent that indie meant anything, it was as its root word, independent. It was about seizing the means of production.
That last point is, I think, up for debate. Because you’ve seized the means of production, it doesn’t mean you’ve seized the networks of distribution or the means necessary to entice people to your work. That still (often) requires centralised pots of money or cultural capital. It’s hyperbolic to say the age of indie is over when we all know who Katy Perry is. But it ends on a more interesting note:
All things we tried to do with the means of production we seized in the 90’s, we have to continue do with the means of production that technology has handed to us in the 21st century. Moore’s Law is value-neutral, apolitical, amoral, just like Gutenberg’s press. Its how we use it.
So now the phase of indie is over, now that the monopoly on the production and distribution of knowledge, culture and opinion has been broken, what next, a new phase, a drive to, perhaps, create, maintain, defend a New Authenticity arises?—Ah, am I opening myself up for derision with that…? Never mind, I toss it up there, a wounded duck. Power will try to hide behind the people, let’s use a new authenticity to stop them.
It’s an odd, ambiguous ending, right? It seems to simultaneously suggest two monopolies: a centralised one of culture and opinion that has been broken; but another one called ‘power’ that lurks behind people, one that must be stopped with that (naive) rallying cry of indie, Authenticity. Fascinating. It exhibits that same push and pull between mainstream and indie even as it says that such binaries no longer hold.
To me, this means that the rumours of indie’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Not indie as ‘a movement’ or ‘an aesthetic’, mind you, but simply as a mindset that exists as a product of there being a mainstream. The question isn’t whether or not indie is dead; rather, it’s to ask what the balance will be between aesthetic culture produced by large corporations and individuals and small groups. And, just as interestingly to me, how will we speak about these things without simply replicating a discourse of centre and margin?
Song Lyrics That Describe the Blogosphere
Posted by Nav in Music, Pop Culture, Rambles on August 11, 2009
I’ve had this idea kicking around for some time now. After all, trying to actually describe various aspects of web culture I come across in dry academic language is, besides being difficult, not really all that much fun. In song lyrics though? Much easier. I’m also just interested in how we are going to create stories and art about this time in history without, ya’ know, starting short stories with lines like “It was dark out. He was on Twitter again.”
So, given that the term ‘blogosphere’ doesn’t describe much of anything these days, what I propose we do is collect song lyrics that describe various aspects of our online culture (so, very roughly, the North American, English-speaking web). Why? Because it’s fun and commentary at the same time. We could even have a hashtag if you like. Say… #bloglyrics or something (maybe you can think of a better one). We could put them on twitter.
I’ll get started with some simple, rather obvious ones I’ve thought of so far:
- “Everyone’s right and no-one is sorry / That’s the start and the end of the story”. -Nada Surf, “See These Bones“
- “A sense of purpose and a sense of skill, a sense of function but a disregard
We will not be the first, we won’t
You said you were going to conquer new frontiers,
Go stick your bloody head in the jaws of the beast,
We promised the world, we’d tame it, what were we hoping for??” -Bloc Party, “Pioneers“ - “I’m too busy acting like I’m not naive / I’ve seen it all / I was here first” – Nirvana, “Very Ape“.
That’s all I’ve got. To be honest, though, I’m more interested in what others come up with.
So… have at it.
From the Comments:
Tim: “I’ve got style / for miles and miles / so much style that it’s wasted.” -Pavement “Frontwards”.
xtian: “the cruelty’s so predictable /makes you sad on the stage/ though our love project has so much potential” -Of Montreal, “The Past is a Grotesque Animal:
“these walls are paper thin and everyone hears every little sound/
everyone’s a voyeur as they’re watching me watch them watch me right now/…
laugh hard, it’s a long way to the bank/
i can’t be blamed for nothing anymore” -Modest Mouse, “Paper Thin Walls”.
Why neocons should (and should not) love Jon Stewart
Posted by Nav in Pop Culture on August 10, 2009
You’ve probably seen this article on NYMag today claiming that Jon Stewart is good for conservatives. It essentially argues this:
Conservatives like Stewart because he’s providing them a platform to reach an audience that usually tunes them out. And they often find that Stewart takes them more seriously than right-wing political hosts, who are often just using them to validate their broad positions, do. Stewart will poke fun, but he offers a good-faith debate on powder kegs — torture, abortion, nuclear weapons, health care — that explode on other networks.
I think this is the great thing about Stewart: in his interviews, he promotes rational debate so that whackjobs on both the right and the left seem like… well, whackjobs. Often, watching the final segment on The Daily Show feels akin to reading a balanced magazine article on a controversial topic: you come away from it feeling almost weirdly cleansed, as if you’ve gained both a new, clearer perspective, as well more respect for dissenting opinions.
At the same time, part of me wanted to yell “NO NO NO NO NO!” to this. After all, claiming that Stewart stays away from the cheap, ad hominem attacks so popular elsewhere seems to ignore, you know, the first two-thirds of the show.
Now, I’m a fan as much as anyone; I’ve been watching the show for as long as I’ve called myself an adult and I am still flabbergasted that the quality has stayed so high. And clearly, you cannot say an interview is the same thing as a comedic take on the news. But it seems Stewart gets to eat his cake and have it too. After all, before engaging in calm, rational conversation, he gets to dismiss and mock what are predominantly right-wing opinions through clever, selective editing. Ostensibly, everyone is fair game – except for the fact that Republicans ‘coincidentally’ get the brunt of the attacks.
Now that’s not to say I’m not sympathetic. As an unabashed academic Marxist*, I’m obviously left of centre in my politics. It’s just that I’m tired of painting right-wingers – and, yes, even bigots – in this broad brush that claims they are stupid, wrong and have no valid concerns about anything. While it’s clear that Jon Stewart has elevated discourse for a slice of the population, he’s also gained as large a platform to do so by vilifying most of the American right. Even given the Bush presidency, that seems underhanded to me. While he’s still my favourite comic on TV, if Stewart actually means to raise the level of the conversation, it seems he should start by bringing balance to his comedy as well as his interviews.
*It may be silly, but I define an ‘academic Marxist’ as someone who is invested in critiquing aspects of capitalism but isn’t so keen on the whole ‘violent revolution’ part.
So, erm, I started a food blog…
I apologise to those of you who follow on me on Twitter for the repetition, but I wanted to let as many people as possible know that I’ve started a Toronto-centric food blog (sorry, Yank/Montreal/miscellaneous pals). Yes, yes, I know – go on, get your eye rolling over with. Another blog? Original! Well, I like food. A little too much, in fact. And as my little profile description over there says, I had to put my obsession with food somewhere. So I’m gonna’ write about it, because, for better or worse, that’s what I do.
It’s not just that though. I’m also increasingly concerned with the idea of ‘producing a vision of the local’ or whatever. I like my hometown and I like the stuff in it, so this new food blog is all part of that. It’s time for me to accept that this place is my home and not some transitionary phase on an incredibly prolonged, 20-year trip from London to New York.
The blog is called “What’s Next for Snacks?“. It’ll focus on reviews of restaurants, takeout joints, bars, etc., and will also include links to other Toronto sites’/blogs’ stories on the same topics. Essentially, if you’re in Toronto and you like food/beer/wine, I’ll be doing my best to cater to you, both with my own content and others’. If you’re looking for an explanation of the name, you’ll find that in the obligatory ‘welcome post‘.
So, perhaps even more so than with this site, I’m gonna’ lay down the typical “read it! subscribe! tell your friends!” shtick. It”ll be far more accessible and relevant than the clusterfuck that is Scrawled in Wax and, though the thought is actually a little depressing, I think it will end up with a larger readership than this 2 or 3 year old site.
Also, blogger, techie people – we need to talk about Posterous. It makes Tumblr look complicated and highbrow. Seriously, it’s almost ridiculous how foolproof they made the thing.
Anyway… enjoy!
