On me being a slacker.

I have not forgotten you, more posts coming soon (promise!).

On Storytelling

Drama queen.

Its just been one of those weeks. Not much has seemingly gone right quite recently, which has left yours truly straddling a fine line between frustration and apathy, and then I read the headlines, repeatedly, on my Google Reader, about Christian Bale being a jackass, Michael Phelps being a pothead, and Obama being a complete failure within two weeks of taking office. Well, I rather like all three of the individuals for various reasons, and the wave of ridiculousness just sorta threw me for a loop.  The question that hits me every time I see yet another subject line snarkily (sp?) going over those three topics I just can’t help but think why are we so fascinated by the idea of people falling down? The thread that connects all three events is that these three well-regarded people have been perceived as failing in one way or another, and because of it, the public runs to it like sharks to a chum bucket. But the question remains, why? Why are we so hung up on watching others fail? It’s mind numbing to try and think about at times, because all that I can come up with is that there are really two possible reasons for why we are so completely engaged as a culture in these stories.

The first is the more simple of the two answers, which is that we watch these people fall down because we have put them on a pedestal due to their fame, status and accomplishments, which makes them seem removed from us common folk. So removed, that when they have a meltdown, a bong hit, or a bad week, it just hits us on our collective head that oh yeah, they’re human too. In this context it helps to poke holes behind the veneer and see the flaws behind what we have made them out to be, allowing us to feel a little less insignificant because they can screw up like everyone else. The motivations behind those who cover and make the news may have varying reasons for showing this to the public, and to the degree it may or may not be distorted by their own worldview (looking directly at you Victor Hanson), but the thought remains the same, trying to level the playing field between us and them.

And while that may be true, I don’t think it covers the matter quite so much. Cue segue into my second idea on the matter, which is not that it humanizes these people we have idolized, but that it in fact further pushes them away from us in terms of relatability. Instead of seeing them as human, we see them as almost fictionalized characters, their failings all points in the story that is created by the news media. By and large the majority of us will never actually know Obama, Phelps or Bale.  And by “know”, I mean the kind of knowledge that one gains from constant interaction, and the banality that comes with it. Everything else is a form of mythologizing them and their exploits from others. A news story is exactly that, a story. Without anything to ground these stories, gleaning some sort of narrative from the myriad stories and opinions that we hear, ultimately creating our own telling of those events to suit our needs. As such, since all three are prevaricated on various triumphs in their lives, what adds more drama to their stories than adversity? We can’t have a simple success story, there needs to be more to it than that, the we the people want to know the drama that goes on behind the scenes. In the information age, it is much easier to spread these stories to the masses, with our bloggers acting as the storytellers, and the audience as a Greek chorus. We no longer have “people” involved in these stories, just characters we believe are people, but its not them, not really. We weave tales about them for our own enjoyment, creating fiction from snippets, videos and stories from real life, we just boil everything down to its narrative essence. We don’t really care about the people, but the narrative that surrounds them, reducing their lives to so many little greek tragedies.

On History in HD

Ah, the brisk air was exhilarating. Walking up the block in Parkview at 7am in the biting cold. Everyone was covered in multiple layers, though it was probably hard to tell as most of those layers were underarmour. Nicely stuck in that weirdly lucid state that you hit when you have had about three hours of sleep the night before. This state came about from a cocktail of three different nuisances the night before, one being kicked in the legs while sleeping on an L-sofa, the second being the clamor of all of my friends as they made their way out to get to the mall before the ticketed sections filled up not being very mindful of the five people sleeping (or in my case trying to sleep) in the living room. The final and most crucial part of getting to that sleep deprived state in the morning was the $4 Long Island Ice Teas the night before at 18th and Red, which while great for getting your moneys worth, are not so much for sleeping soon afterwards. But who needs sleep? History was happening today! As we stood waiting for the bus to get us to the Mall, I was hopping up and down, pretty damn excited for the day… until the stomach virus hit. In my excitement, I ignored that little warning pang in my gut when I was getting all my layers on, so distracted by trying to figure out weather or not the underarmour leggings would be worth it (answer: oh yes), it was just swept under the rug. I am not joking when I say I had been looking forward to this event all weekend, it would take no small amount of discomfort to deter me from my date with history, and the subsequent afterparty with millions of other inauguration goers immediately following. But it being me and my luck, this was no small amount of discomfort. Suddenly the thought of standing in a crowd of millions, cold, and unable to move became the least desirable thing on the planet. So on the corner, in the cold of the early morning sun with the bus pulling up, I turned to my friend host savior Chelsea and begged her for the house key. She gave me an incredibly confused look, which was understandable considering that i was doubled over, begging to go back to her house when everyone was waiting to get on the bus.  She gave me a set to try to figure out which went to the back door, and I said a weak and muted goodbye to everyone, which of course was actually a slight whimper as I hoveled away toward the house. A half hour later,  I was back at the house, feeling slightly better for the time being. I was aware that I was going to be feeling rather gross for the rest of the day, but while I may not have been able to watch it live, by god I was going to see it happen. I managed to get my things packed and on the metro out of the city fairly quickly. Lo and behold, one metro car breakdown and a short car ride later, I am downstairs, perched in front of the television watching as CNN went into exhaustive detail about every little bit of soon-to-be President Obama’s day, all while sipping Swiss Miss. So long story short (too late), I got sick, watched history in 1080p and learned to appreciate irony a little more in lieu of my last post.

On Thermostats and Inaugurations

It is cold outside. As it is winter, the temperature is in the teens, single digits and even non-real numbers in several places in the Midwest. Needless to say, you can hear the collective click all over America as everyone starts turning on their collective heaters. All over except for two. The houses of my friends and family. They both refuse to turn their thermostats on for the same basic reason, it is damn expensive to pay for heating. But interesting part about it is, the way they acknowledge it. My friends, as they are all poor post grads in the nation’s capital, looked at their heating bill for the past couple of months, and in an effort to ease the pain in their wallets, have turned the heat off in a futile show of anger and desperation. They acknowledge that it is because they don’t want to pay for it, which is fine considering they are not the most affluent of people. The more intriguing case is my parents, who claim that the thermostat is set to sixty eight  degrees, Fahrenheit. This is not true a bold faced lie. Sixty eight degrees outside is a day I could, not uncomfortably, walk around in a tee shirt and jeans. It is not, however, an entire family walking around a house unable to recognize one another, because they are so bundled up that the only part of ourselves that is our are eyes. That is cold. That is “I am typing while wearing three layers, gloves and wool slippers” cold. That is not sixty eight degrees. Yet my parents refuse to acknowledge this, when they remove their face warmers long enough to converse with me, that is. I don’t know why the refuse to acnowledge that they just don’t want to pay for heat. No one would hold it against them, it is their house and their perogative to keep it at temperatures akin to the planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. Just some transparency about the process would be nice, ’tis all.

On the same subject of the cold. this weekend is the historic inauguration (or “coronation”, if you are talking with my parents) of Barack Obama, for which millions of people are starting to pour into DC to watch on Tuesday. The thing is, only a handful of those visitors have actual tickets to the inauguration. Fun fact: the temperature is supposed to be below freezing on Tuesday. Millions of people will be on the National Mall, all them quite cold, to watch this historic event on a Jumbo-tron. A glorified television set. They will wake up at the crack of dawn, make their way through the throngs of people, sit or stand on the cold, frozen ground, and watch it all happen on TV. To all who are watching from the comfort of their warmed homes, under blankets, with a coffee, flask, or hot chocolate, enjoy this moment, for you have more common sense than 2 million people. And as you take the smug sip of cocoa, know that we are going to be having a much bigger party, in the freezing cold, while  watching history happen on a jumbo-tron.

On Mad Science

Despite my best attempts, I am a slovenly person who spends an inordinately large amount of time in front of the computer. Also, as a complete nerd who is too lazy to read a book most of the time, I have read lots and lots of comics from high school, through college, and into the present. Basically I have spent enough time doing this to realize that I have a pattern with them. I can either find it immediately entertaining and then just sort of forget about ot after a week or two, leaving it alone in my bookmarks to wait until I finally get around to reorganizing them and duly delete the comic from the “read pile”, or it is worth it for the long haul. This longevity test  can actually whittle down what i read to a handful of comics that are worth checking because they are examples of what I find to be interesting writing, art, or both. This brings me to one (well two) of the ones that have managed to outlast Megatokyo, Something Positive, and  virtually any and all manga-style comics (interestingly, just about all of them went away right after I got out of high school. Actually its not all that interesting, come to think of it).  These comics were Narbonic and Girl Genius.

Interestingly, both of these comics revolve around the same basic idea while covering two very different types of comic format. Narbonic, is a quintessential example of how a daily comic strip is done, while Girl Genius done in the style of a comic book. But I am getting ahead of myself. They both share the same basic premise, that of the overlooked goodness of Mad Science. While I could compare and contrast the two and how each takes the maximum advantage of its format and how it informs the focus of the narrative and how it is handled (or vice versa), I really just wanted to talk about why I like Girl Genius today, and it has already taken me 300+ words to get to that.

Girl Genius, written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio, follows its protagonist, Agatha Clay, and her adventures through a steampunk-ish fantasy Europe where mad scientists, or “sparks” are fairly commonplace, as she discovers and lays claim to her place in the world as the lost heir of the revered Heterodyne clan of scientific geniuses/heroes/despots. Despite my best efforts to make it sound mundane and clinical, the comic is anything but. Basically it has everything you could want from a story about mad science and more. It is the successor to the world that Winsor McKay made with Little Nemo in Slumberland in the Foglios put everything they have got down on the page. From flying castle-zeppelins, to artificial human contructs, to the clanks, to chicken-legged organs, to the Jägers (think amoral Frankenstein, sans angst, with a heavy german accent and a sense of humor and you are on track), a schizophrenic, sentient, deathtrap castle, and the machine that makes the world’s best coffee. The amazing thing that really makes the comic so special for me is the way that it is handled. The comic updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a single comic page which is self contained, but also works perfectly in a collected form. In an age of decompressed storytelling where you have to get a plot point from one issue, the Foglios, have at least one bit of plot, and usually a gag, every single page. Think about that for a sec. Yeah, it rocks.

While the writing is genius, it would be nothing without the art to realize all of the madness going on each page. Fortunately, the Foglios have a great, European cartoonishness in their art that allows for the tone that they have set so that the characters can seen in both a dramatic and humorous context. The addition of color to the comic in volume 2 only increases the beauty that is on the page. But beyond the writing and the art, one just gets the feeling that these folks get it. The Foglios see the absolute whimsy and fantasy inherent in the idea of mad science, and take it to places very few people actually go with it. While most people just think mad scientists only involve death-rays and taking over the world, a la Dr. Horrible, Girl Genius gleefully takes the idea and runs amok with it, creating an entire world around it (although there are plenty of death-rays to go around here as well). And we, the public, are much richer for it.

Girl Genius can be found  at http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

… Um… Hello…

Hello all, welcome to my humble abode on the internet.  I kinda started this on a lark so I am not really sure what to tell you to expect.  So for now it is a catch all on my rambling opinions and whatever I think to put up. With any luck, i will be able to post once a week, hopefully increasing the regularity once i got a flow or idea, or decreasing when I get a job and have less free time. For now, lets go with more regularly I think. Yes, I think that will work. New content to follow soon.