Previous: Inbox dreck and other rude internet acts. Why I'm not feeling very patriotic these days. |
Chapter Three: Entertain Me The latest in a series of cathartic ramblings designed to sweep out my brain, calibrate my soul, and triangulate my position on the map. Saturday, May 4th is Free Comic Book Day. Gather all yer kin and head to a participating comic shop. Drag as many novitiates as you can and shamelessly introduce them to the lush madness of contemporary graphic storytelling. You will have done a good deed without equal. You shall become a small deity in the eyes of your friends. I am an avid comic reader, but by no means a collector or completist. I have no "brand loyalty," following instead the work of artists and writers I enjoy (see my Links page). I avoid most super-hero comics, and do not hang a lot of importance on continuity. I read comics (graphic novels, sequential art, whatever it's called now) because I crave good storytelling and good drawing, nothing more. Yes, I do know a few folk who have honed their passion for the art into sociopathic obsession on the level of Scientology or HerbalLife. No, I do not invite them over often. I am turning 40 this year, and although I pin no particular importance or sense-of-gloom to that fact, I have been reminded how little I've changed in some respects. A lot of things that I once enjoyed are now scattered on the road behind me (I no longer watch wrestling, rum & coke has lost its charm, and Ben Bova novels have become unreadable), but many of my primary passions hold a straight, unbroken course from my younger days to now. I have spent the last few years trying to simplify my life and exhume some of these core goals and desires. In doing so I have gotten "in touch" (I shudder to type that) with the more permanent facets of my nature. This search was brought into sharp relief when, a few months back, I was made aware of the fact that there would be a new Star Wars movie and a new Rush album released in the same week this Spring. A very incandescent sense of excitement whistled up my spine like a roman candle. Two decades ago I was known to bounce off walls at the impending arrival of either one of those two events. Whereas most aspects of our childhood or young adulthood tend to be so oblique and impenetrable that revisiting them requires more energy and mental flexibility than we dare attempt, these two avatars were being delivered to me quite conveniently through via modern media. It's downright creepy. It got me thinking about how so many people tend to define themselves and others by their relationship to the media. Classifications such as "Punk," "Homeboy," and "Geek" carry with them an assumed set of preferences, whether they be music, movies, or new media. "Goths" are broadly equated with horror literature and dark music. Even obviously sexual labels such as "gay" and "lesbian" carry some media-related baggage (think "showtunes" and "Xena"). More esoteric brandings are actually derived from such relationships, like "Metalhead" or "Art Snob." These are sweeping generalizations, and certainly not confined to contemporary occidental society, but everyone knows someone who partially fits at least one of the above stereotypes. And this doesn't cover the number of "Movie Buffs," "Fanboys," and "Book Worms" that pepper our lives. I work in TV. I write. I read. I have enmeshed myself in a large quantity of media over the years. And yet I have never really defined myself by that relationship. For that matter, I have never really defined what the relationship is. I need to address this. Too many people allow their personalities to be dictated by outside influences (sports fans leap to mind). One should be aware of the forces toiling away in one's brain. The easy part is to define what the relationship isn't. I do not play video games or watch large amounts of porn. My brain is just not wired for it. I do not frequent chat rooms, or partake in role-plying games, or gamble, or watch sports. I have drank the heart out of many an evening with friends in seedy places, but for the most part I am anti-social, and often frightfully dull. Sturgeon's Law applies to all media. We as sentient beings need to use discretion, as we do with all tools. As for me, I am drawn to big and new ideas. I am addicted to the sense of wonder. I put aside time every week to go web surfing for fun things to do and experience (a list of some such items appears to the right). But we are not the sum of our likes and dislikes. What we are and what we enjoy are two distinct entities. Still, one's use of a medium can be as abused as one's use of alcohol. So excuse me while I take a detailed inventory of my vices. Television. I am cutting back on TV, but it is still the most immediate and kinetic medium. I watch repeats of Babylon 5 on Sci-Fi, as well as Lexx and Farscape. I watch South Park, Insomniac and Jiminy Glick on Comedy Central. Cartoon Network gives me Justice League and Samurai Jack (my current favorite show), and occasional doses of Adult Swim. I usually watch the Sunday Night Fox lineup, as well as Six Feet Under. Fortunately for me, most of these tend to be in repeats most of the time, with small clumps of new episodes coming out at once. I seldom have more than three hours of "mandatory" viewing in a given week. I do a once-around the cable box every day or so just to see what's on. Sometimes HBO has a Tracey Takes On or Larry Sanders repeat, or Law & Order is on one of the two dozen channels now carrying it. All of the above provide just enough mad energy and off center fetish-memes to make me smile and hold out hope for pop culture. Non-dramatic TV is a different story. Food Network and Discovery stay on for hours at a time some afternoons, just a background noise that I glance up at once in a while. I do not watch the news anymore because whatever dignity it had vanished after last year's attacks. I am known for watching local newscasts because they are always a demeaning train wreck. Movies. I have given up on movies.. Where once the theaters of the cineplex were my darkened cathedral, and my VCR whirred away an endless parade of classics, I can no longer dedicate that quotient of time to an activity that I have no patience for. It's involuntary aversion therapy. I used to eat peanut butter sandwiches with a glass of cola every day. Then one spring I was quite painfully ill with the flu and vomited Skippy and Pepsi every hour or so. It has taken me over twenty years to be able to enjoy that taste again. The same has happened to film. I have been disappointed in everything, without exception, that I have seen in the last two years. The mind numbing stamp of formula pollutes everything, subplots lie butchered on the edit room leaving holes of logic and flow. The industry has given me no incentive to care anymore. Nor do I desire to go out and buy or rent the DVD just to see the stuff that didn't make it. Personally I think that building an entire sub-industry to assuage the disappointments of strident filmgoers is the height of arrogance, not to mention poor penance for shitting down their throats. And the swell of independents isn't any better. I thought the parody of the Sundance Channel they ran on Jiminy Glick a few weeks back was dead on. I can only see so many self-absorbed scorched-earth parables of the human condition before I want to chisel the retinas out of my head. Oh, I'll go see Attack of the Clones and The Two Towers, because I am a fan of eye candy and a creature of sentiment, but probably not much else. I intend to get around to watching Ghost World and From Hell solely because they are based on comics, but expect it will take me several days to get through either of them. I liked Shrek, but it fell into formula. I liked AI, and revel at the fact that it was a science fiction film devoid of battles or monsters, but it didn't strike me as anything special. I can think of several dozen activities I'd rather partake in for the 90 minutes it takes to watch a film. When they start taking good stories and filming them in a manner akin to human perception, I may come back. Hey, I having a peanut butter sandwich and a cola as I write this. Music As much as I listen to music, I ignore the "Industry" that purports to control it. It is an obsolete institution solely responsible for its own problems. It abandoned capitalism for feudal infighting long ago. It claims sovereign dominance over vast stockpiles of music that it has kept out of print for decades, but claimed that file transferring damaged their hold on those rights. The "Industry" cannot die fast enough. In fact its demise will last far longer than many of the acts it generates. Radio has been a guilty participant as well, turning into a parody of its own mediocrity while volitionally ignoring the tens of thousands of internet streams that are listened to daily. Broadcast stations simply do not care what people like. Example: In the past six years I have asked hundreds of people if they enjoy Lenny Kravitz' version of American Woman and every one of them has said "no." This is a song that is universally accepted as bad, yet you cannot go to a wedding reception, strip club, or plain old tavern without hearing it. It gets played every day on the radio regardless of the utter lack of demand. The aural landscape belongs to the dozens of small labels pumping out an insane variety of material from hundreds of hungry, driven, and unnaturally talented artists. The fact that places like Other Music and The Artist Shop make a good living selling "the fringe" stuff shows that it is no longer the fringe. I support (both philosophically, and with my wallet) the music industry that consists of the artists and the listeners, and the labels that insure that those two interact. Those are the only elements that matter. The true yardstick of the vitality of music today is the relative ease by which one can discover new and fascinating stuff. I actually have a backlog of stuff I haven't listened to yet! Oh, what a burden. I have never enjoyed music more than I do now, both in quality and quantity, and I credit the wealth of independent labels and specialty shops for that. And I haven't even gotten to reading yet. Next time. JP |
Eager Anticipations: There is a new Rush CD coming out soon called Vapor Trails. There is also a release due anytime by Garden Wall. New episodes of Farscape! The new Grant Morrison/Chris Weston comic The Filth. The 3D IMAX film shot aboard the International Space Station. The Moebius online series Arzak Rhapsody. New postage stamps featuring Harry Houdini and Andy Warhol. And even farther ahead: The 2004 World Science Fiction Convention returns to Boston. |
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Observations at a Distance |
Eager Anticipations: There is a new Rush CD coming out soon called Vapor Trails. There is also a release due anytime by Garden Wall. New episodes of Farscape! The new Grant Morrison/Chris Weston comic The Filth. The 3D IMAX film shot aboard the International Space Station. The Moebius online series Arzak Rhapsody. New postage stamps featuring Harry Houdini and Andy Warhol. And even farther ahead: The 2004 World Science Fiction Convention returns to Boston. |
Chapter Three: Entertain Me The latest in a series of cathartic ramblings designed to sweep out my brain, calibrate my soul, and triangulate my position on the map. Saturday, May 4th is Free Comic Book Day. Gather all yer kin and head to a participating comic shop. Drag as many novitiates as you can and shamelessly introduce them to the lush madness of contemporary graphic storytelling. You will have done a good deed without equal. You shall become a small deity in the eyes of your friends. I am an avid comic reader, but by no means a collector or completist. I have no "brand loyalty," following instead the work of artists and writers I enjoy (see my Links page). I avoid most super-hero comics, and do not hang a lot of importance on continuity. I read comics (graphic novels, sequential art, whatever it's called now) because I crave good storytelling and good drawing, nothing more. Yes, I do know a few folk who have honed their passion for the art into sociopathic obsession on the level of Scientology or HerbalLife. No, I do not invite them over often. I am turning 40 this year, and although I pin no particular importance or sense-of-gloom to that fact, I have been reminded how little I've changed in some respects. A lot of things that I once enjoyed are now scattered on the road behind me (I no longer watch wrestling, rum & coke has lost its charm, and Ben Bova novels have become unreadable), but many of my primary passions hold a straight, unbroken course from my younger days to now. I have spent the last few years trying to simplify my life and exhume some of these core goals and desires. In doing so I have gotten "in touch" (I shudder to type that) with the more permanent facets of my nature. This search was brought into sharp relief when, a few months back, I was made aware of the fact that there would be a new Star Wars movie and a new Rush album released in the same week this Spring. A very incandescent sense of excitement whistled up my spine like a roman candle. Two decades ago I was known to bounce off walls at the impending arrival of either one of those two events. Whereas most aspects of our childhood or young adulthood tend to be so oblique and impenetrable that revisiting them requires more energy and mental flexibility than we dare attempt, these two avatars were being delivered to me quite conveniently through via modern media. It's downright creepy. It got me thinking about how so many people tend to define themselves and others by their relationship to the media. Classifications such as "Punk," "Homeboy," and "Geek" carry with them an assumed set of preferences, whether they be music, movies, or new media. "Goths" are broadly equated with horror literature and dark music. Even obviously sexual labels such as "gay" and "lesbian" carry some media-related baggage (think "showtunes" and "Xena"). More esoteric brandings are actually derived from such relationships, like "Metalhead" or "Art Snob." These are sweeping generalizations, and certainly not confined to contemporary occidental society, but everyone knows someone who partially fits at least one of the above stereotypes. And this doesn't cover the number of "Movie Buffs," "Fanboys," and "Book Worms" that pepper our lives. I work in TV. I write. I read. I have enmeshed myself in a large quantity of media over the years. And yet I have never really defined myself by that relationship. For that matter, I have never really defined what the relationship is. I need to address this. Too many people allow their personalities to be dictated by outside influences (sports fans leap to mind). One should be aware of the forces toiling away in one's brain. The easy part is to define what the relationship isn't. I do not play video games or watch large amounts of porn. My brain is just not wired for it. I do not frequent chat rooms, or partake in role-plying games, or gamble, or watch sports. I have drank the heart out of many an evening with friends in seedy places, but for the most part I am anti-social, and often frightfully dull. Sturgeon's Law applies to all media. We as sentient beings need to use discretion, as we do with all tools. As for me, I am drawn to big and new ideas. I am addicted to the sense of wonder. I put aside time every week to go web surfing for fun things to do and experience (a list of some such items appears to the right). But we are not the sum of our likes and dislikes. What we are and what we enjoy are two distinct entities. Still, one's use of a medium can be as abused as one's use of alcohol. So excuse me while I take a detailed inventory of my vices. Television. I am cutting back on TV, but it is still the most immediate and kinetic medium. I watch repeats of Babylon 5 on Sci-Fi, as well as Lexx and Farscape. I watch South Park, Insomniac and Jiminy Glick on Comedy Central. Cartoon Network gives me Justice League and Samurai Jack (my current favorite show), and occasional doses of Adult Swim. I usually watch the Sunday Night Fox lineup, as well as Six Feet Under. Fortunately for me, most of these tend to be in repeats most of the time, with small clumps of new episodes coming out at once. I seldom have more than three hours of "mandatory" viewing in a given week. I do a once-around the cable box every day or so just to see what's on. Sometimes HBO has a Tracey Takes On or Larry Sanders repeat, or Law & Order is on one of the two dozen channels now carrying it. All of the above provide just enough mad energy and off center fetish-memes to make me smile and hold out hope for pop culture. Non-dramatic TV is a different story. Food Network and Discovery stay on for hours at a time some afternoons, just a background noise that I glance up at once in a while. I do not watch the news anymore because whatever dignity it had vanished after last year's attacks. I am known for watching local newscasts because they are always a demeaning train wreck. Movies. I have given up on movies.. Where once the theaters of the cineplex were my darkened cathedral, and my VCR whirred away an endless parade of classics, I can no longer dedicate that quotient of time to an activity that I have no patience for. It's involuntary aversion therapy. I used to eat peanut butter sandwiches with a glass of cola every day. Then one spring I was quite painfully ill with the flu and vomited Skippy and Pepsi every hour or so. It has taken me over twenty years to be able to enjoy that taste again. The same has happened to film. I have been disappointed in everything, without exception, that I have seen in the last two years. The mind numbing stamp of formula pollutes everything, subplots lie butchered on the edit room leaving holes of logic and flow. The industry has given me no incentive to care anymore. Nor do I desire to go out and buy or rent the DVD just to see the stuff that didn't make it. Personally I think that building an entire sub-industry to assuage the disappointments of strident filmgoers is the height of arrogance, not to mention poor penance for shitting down their throats. And the swell of independents isn't any better. I thought the parody of the Sundance Channel they ran on Jiminy Glick a few weeks back was dead on. I can only see so many self-absorbed scorched-earth parables of the human condition before I want to chisel the retinas out of my head. Oh, I'll go see Attack of the Clones and The Two Towers, because I am a fan of eye candy and a creature of sentiment, but probably not much else. I intend to get around to watching Ghost World and From Hell solely because they are based on comics, but expect it will take me several days to get through either of them. I liked Shrek, but it fell into formula. I liked AI, and revel at the fact that it was a science fiction film devoid of battles or monsters, but it didn't strike me as anything special. I can think of several dozen activities I'd rather partake in for the 90 minutes it takes to watch a film. When they start taking good stories and filming them in a manner akin to human perception, I may come back. Hey, I having a peanut butter sandwich and a cola as I write this. Music As much as I listen to music, I ignore the "Industry" that purports to control it. It is an obsolete institution solely responsible for its own problems. It abandoned capitalism for feudal infighting long ago. It claims sovereign dominance over vast stockpiles of music that it has kept out of print for decades, but claimed that file transferring damaged their hold on those rights. The "Industry" cannot die fast enough. In fact its demise will last far longer than many of the acts it generates. Radio has been a guilty participant as well, turning into a parody of its own mediocrity while volitionally ignoring the tens of thousands of internet streams that are listened to daily. Broadcast stations simply do not care what people like. Example: In the past six years I have asked hundreds of people if they enjoy Lenny Kravitz' version of American Woman and every one of them has said "no." This is a song that is universally accepted as bad, yet you cannot go to a wedding reception, strip club, or plain old tavern without hearing it. It gets played every day on the radio regardless of the utter lack of demand. The aural landscape belongs to the dozens of small labels pumping out an insane variety of material from hundreds of hungry, driven, and unnaturally talented artists. The fact that places like Other Music and The Artist Shop make a good living selling "the fringe" stuff shows that it is no longer the fringe. I support (both philosophically, and with my wallet) the music industry that consists of the artists and the listeners, and the labels that insure that those two interact. Those are the only elements that matter. The true yardstick of the vitality of music today is the relative ease by which one can discover new and fascinating stuff. I actually have a backlog of stuff I haven't listened to yet! Oh, what a burden. I have never enjoyed music more than I do now, both in quality and quantity, and I credit the wealth of independent labels and specialty shops for that. And I haven't even gotten to reading yet. Next time. JP |
Previous: Inbox dreck and other rude internet acts. Why I'm not feeling very patriotic these days. |
